作者：Andreas Ahlborn

在听Sandels的《Sandels ?What money can`t buy》（http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvDpYHyBlgc）时，我注意到他称从市场经济转向市场社会以及为你的单人牢房购买升级道具，或者为你的国会听证会聘请Linestanders，或者为鼓励未成年人阅读书籍提供现金优惠等都被当成是社会中的潜在价值，以及现在发生于我们行业中的情况。

公正在社会中所扮演的角色也就是公平在游戏中所扮演的角色。

这是一个较温和的理念，能够更开放地进行讨论，但其多个方面在我们社区的热门讨论中总是无处不在：

FawkesJustitia(from gamasutra)

在电子游戏中女性被忽视是否是公平？

游戏公司篡改游戏预览是否公平？

一款只比演示版本多出少量游戏时间的游戏要价30美元是否公平？

在多人游戏中被自动瞄准装置伏击是否公平？

一个超级成功的Kickstarter项目出售给一家大公司是否公平？

大多数电子游戏并不能供残疾人士游戏是否公平？

我花了500个小时去挑战90级别的角色，而现在所有人只要花30美元便能够做到是否公平？

游戏广告本身作为免费模式，并未透露可能对我的银行存款带来的影响是否公平？

大多数游戏的乐趣是源自游戏核心的公平性。含义：提供给所有参与方同等获胜的机会。这也是平衡游戏如此微妙的原因，如果你每次都能够滥用游戏机制去获取胜利，那么游戏也就不具有多大的挑战性。

日本游戏《Go》便很大程度地定义了公平这一词，它通过提供给没有多少技能的玩家一些优势而适当地阻碍具有技能的玩家，因为这么做能够让双方都感受到挑战的乐趣。据我所知，电子游戏大大缺失了这种关于公平的元定义。通常情况下，最棒的玩家不只拥有更棒的装置和优势，了解所有的技巧，同时他们还能够羞辱那些新手们，即在消灭他们后对其大喊大叫。

《The Troll/Cheater》便打破了这种公平，虽然它拥有乐趣，但实际上在自动瞄准装置中却不包含任何技能。游戏只对被欺骗的玩家会做出什么的反应感兴趣，如“敲了就跑”的机制也只是为了看人们会多厌烦。

从整体看来，娱乐产业是从产品过度到服务，其原型抛弃了单一事件模式意味着电影或书籍或传统AAA级游戏的发行将转向交叉推广，基于每年的IP，每月的DLC和固定的微交易机制。

在此我并不关心像这样的模式，特别是微交易模式是否会对你的游戏设计产生消极影响，或者这些内容是否会减少游戏带给消费者的乐趣（即感知娱乐价值）等问题。我甚至不会去辩论它是否会比传统的盈利模式更有利/更成功，但与Sandel一样，我认为成功并不能证明某些在特定时刻有效的内容不会在长期发展中出现消极性。

在之前的博客中我专注于透明度问题，即发现在测试的某些免费模式中缺少这些的透明度。我知道并非设计师未察觉到这种模糊性，而是因为他们的主要策略目标是用户的钱包，特别是那些大客户。

如果开发者允许有钱或者上瘾的人可以绕开一些必要条件去玩游戏，并且花钱换取地位和成功，那么游戏社区会有怎样的回应？从表面上看来，1%至5%的鲸鱼用户能够资助大多数免费游戏的成功，所以开发者可能会受诱惑将其当成是目标群体而专门为他们设计游戏。但是他们却忘了鲸鱼用户是依赖于浮游生物，并且这些内容是无数免费用户所承担不起的，因为他们大多都太年轻或者没有足够的财政来源。不管你是将游戏当成是一个生态系统还是一个动物园，你都很难两者兼得。

我想要讨论下我所想的一些要点/问题，同时问自己，免费模式是否值得我或任何人付出时间。

问题是：你是否被公平对待了？

这是源自潜在用户的视角，但这对于任何想要了解它或想要明确如何做到足够公平的开发者来说是有用的。

果然，我发现没有一个经验法则能够用于当前的大多数免费模式。我所提供的数值较为直观，并且仅仅只是猜测，希望能够获得更多相关联的证据。以下是三个相关问题：

1.动机

1）为了花钱继续前进是否需要先进行早期的游戏尝试（大概1个小时）？

2）你是否能够获得某种感受（不是满足你的需求）让第一次消费推动着下一次的消费？

3）花较多的钱（>50%）是否会加速你的进程？

2.模糊

1）关于游戏中不同货币的换算率是否存在明显的不成比例的情况，或者这在一开始并不明显？

2）游戏中的掉落率/机会是否伴随着模糊的随机性？

3）你是否很难去估算自己需要花多长时间才能获得大多数（>80%）的内容，不管是基于时间还是钱的投资，可能是100至1000个小时，或者100至1000美元？

3.优势

1）你是否能够说出游戏中至少三种能够增强你的表现/乐趣的道具，即很贵/很难去获得？

2）如果你输给拥有这些道具的敌人，你是否会觉得自己受骗了？

3.如果你使用其中的一种道具获取胜利，你是否会觉得自己是个骗子？

也许这归结起来就是某种重复的经验法则，即如果我们能够轻松地判断盈利模式是否公平，它就能够被当成是公平的。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Are there moral limits of Monetization models?

by Andreas Ahlborn

While reading Sandels ?What money can`t buy“ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvDpYHyBlgc ),

I noticed that there are certain paralells between what he calls ?the movement from a market economy to a market society“ and how things like ?buying upgrades“ for your jail cell or hiring ?Linestanders“ for a congressional hearing, or cash incentives for reading books for minors can be seen as undermining certain values in a society and the things that are happening in our industry right now.

The Role that Justice plays in a society, Fairness plays in a Game.

It`s a much ?softer“ concept, more open for debate but its multiple facettes are omnipresent in the most heated discussions in our community:

Is it fair that women are underrepresented in Videogames?

Is it fair that gaming companys doctor their previews of games?

Is it fair to charge 30$ for games that have only little more playtime than a demo?

Is it fair that I get sniped by aimbots in Multiplayer?

Is it fair that a super-successful kickstarter sells out to a giant company?

Is it fair, that most videogames are not playable by handicapped Persons?

Is it fair that I worked 500 hours for my  Level 90 charcter and now everybody can buy one for 30$ ?

Is it fair, that a game advertises itself as Free-to-Play without disclosing the impact it could have on my bank account?

The Fun in most games comes from this trust that the game is fair at its core. Meaning: equal chances to win for all participating Parties. That`s the reason why balancing a game is so delicate, if you can abuse gamemechanics to win every time, the game is ultimately no challenge.

The definition of fairness can go as far as in the japanese game Go where it is considered fairer to handicap a more skilled player by granting the unskilled player a stone advantage, because it makes the challenge more interesting for both parties. This Meta-definition of fairness is as far as I know largely absent from videogames. Usually the better Player not only has the better gear and perks, knows all the tricks and exploits but he/she seems even entitled to shame ?Noobs“ by calling them out after he annihilated them.

The Troll/Cheater that is breaking the Fairness and having fun despite the fact that there is no skill involved in aimbotting is playing a differnt game than the ?honest“ player. He is only interested in getting a reaction out of the cheated player, like playing knock-and-run only to see how annoyed the people can get.

The Entertaiment Industry as a whole has taken the road ?from Product-to-Service“, its prototype is moving away from the Singular Event model that meant the publication of a movie or a book or a conventional AAA-Game to cross-promotion, yearly IPs, monthly DLC and permanent Microstransactions.

I′m here not concerned with the question if a model like this, especially the Microtransaction model will be guaranteed to have a negative impact on your gamedesign, or if such things diminish the fun a consumer can have with a game, the perceived ?entertainment value“. I′m not even debating the fact, that it can be more profitable/successful than any traditional Monetization model, but similar to Sandel I think that success is no proof that some things that might be useful at the moment can not be harmful in the long run.

In a previous blog I concentrated on the ?Transparency“-Deficit, I found in some F2P-models I tested. I am well aware that this obfuscation is not because of unawareness but mostly a strategy to sneak your way into a users wallet, mostly the Big Spenders.

What happens to a gaming community if the developers enable the ?wealthy“ or ?addicted“ people to bypass the requirement to play the game, and ?buy“ themsleves status/success? On the surface it looks like the 1-5% whales would finance the success of most F2P-games, so a developer might be tempted to design for these people as his/her main target group. What he/she it would be missing is, that the whales depend on the plankton and these are the countless F2P users that cant afford to pay, because they are too young or  do not have the financal resources. Either you treat your game as an ecosystem or a zoo. You can`t have both.

I want to close with the draft of some points/Questions I came up with, while asking myself if a F2P-model could be worth my or anybodys time.

The Question is: Are you being treated fair?

It is written from the perspective of a potential customer, but it might be useful for any developer to look into it and see how he/she can be a better Fairy.

Not surprisingly I found no simple rule-of-thumb that could be applied to most of the F2P models currently out there. The Numbers I give are purely illustrative and are mereley guesses, hopefully educated enough to have some relevance. I grouped the Questions under 3 Headers, with no specific order.

I.INCENTIVE

1.  Is there an early (<1 hrs in game) spike in demand for spending money to progress?

2.  Do you have the feeling that instead of satisfying your needs the first purchase you make leads to an immediate (<24h) urge to make another one?

3. Has spending money a significant (>50%)  impact on speeding up your progress?

II.OBFUSCATION

1.  Is there an obvious misproportion in the conversionrates between the different currencies in a game and is this at first not obvious?

2. Are drop rates/chances in games with randomization obfuscated?

3. Is it difficult for you to estimate how long it would take you to get to most (>80%) of the content, be it either in time or money investement, say it could be anywhere between 100 and 1000 hours, or 100 and 1000$ ?

III.SUPERIORITY

1. Can you name at least three items in the game, that are hard/expensive to get, that would improve your performance/fun significantly ?

2. If you lose to adversaries which have these items, do you feel cheated?

3. If you use one of these items yourself to win a game, do you feel like a cheater?

Maybe it boils down to the somewhat tautological rule-of thumb,

that a Monetization Model can be considered fair, if it is easy to judge whether it`s fair.(source:gamasutra)