作者：Ulyana Chernyak

F2P已经成为许多开发者追求盈利的下一个前沿阵地。他们的主要途径就是将手机游戏移植到PC，或者在PC市场发布F2P游戏。但问题在于，F2P市场已经充斥大量盈利优先，玩法其次的游戏，导致高层次或硬核游戏玩家对这一市场丧失信心。

要开发一款并不依赖鲸鱼用户的成功F2P游戏，你必须理解这些玩家的游戏动机，以及你游戏的核心体验。

核心市场

“核心玩家”是F2P游戏最难以虏获的群体。他们玩不玩社交游戏都有可能。如果他们喜欢一款游戏，就会尝试让好友也加入，并帮你传播游戏。但如果你的游戏令其反感，他们也会确保让自己的好友也远离你的游戏。

难以说服核心玩家体验你的游戏有两个因素，第一个与微交易等此类重复购买行为有关，并且它还与所有权有关。

购买某物并拥有该物是一件重要的事情，这也正是伴随数字发行模式兴起而衰落的一种模式。今天多数游戏不会让玩家真正拥有，你只是享有体验该游戏的权利，而游戏却随时可能收回这项权利。

F2P游戏正是这一概念的缩影，其中的一切事物都只是开发者一时兴起的幻想，并且可能被收回。F2P游戏围绕着加速、付费货币或付费获胜等理念的重复盈利行为，提升了玩家体验F2P游戏的成本，这正是令核心玩家感到不舒服的消费方式。

一款AAA游戏花费约60美元，独立游戏的售价还会更低一些。但是，F2P游戏中的交易却很容易超过100美元。这种感觉并不会给予玩家掌握了游戏体验的控制权，它相当于拥有成百上千枚街机游戏代币，但却只能在同一个地方投币的那种感觉。

第二个问题在于市场本身，正如之前所言，你并不只是在与其他F2P游戏竞争，而是与市场上的一切较量。核心玩家很了解市场，他们听说过像FTL这种独立游戏，也认识《暗黑之魂》这种成功之作。

这意味着市场上有无数游戏在争取他们的注意力，只要一个糟糕的盈利元素或设计问题，就可能让他们转向另一款游戏的怀抱，永远不再回头。

许多核心玩家可能并不喜欢F2P设计，但这并不意味着他们就不会去玩F2P游戏。例如《军团要塞2》和《英雄联盟》就常被誉为最受核心玩家欢迎的游戏，并令许多设计师发问：他们有何秘诀？

确定核心体验

其秘诀听起来很疯狂，对于F2P游戏开发者来说尤其如此——针对核心玩家的成功F2P游戏并非围绕盈利而设计。这听起来一定会让许多人感到不可思议，让你们觉得创造一款并不指望赚钱的F2P游戏根本就说不通。毕竟《军团要塞2》和《英雄联盟》当中的确存在盈利元素。但这正是植入核心体验概念以及令核心玩家尝试游戏的技巧所在。

本文所称的核心体验定义如下：

独立于任何盈利的主要玩法系统或机制。

这是你的玩法中心，体验基础，令玩家尝试游戏的魅力所在。更重要的是，核心体验不应该给予玩家在游戏中花钱的压力，它没有广告，没有弹出窗口，只有玩法。

本质上说，核心体验正是玩家决定你的游戏价值所在，它是否值得继续体验的标准，以及许多人划分好坏F2P设计的界线。

《Card Hunter》这款发布于去年的F2P网页游戏拥有一个完整长度的RPG核心体验。《军团要塞2》和《英雄联盟》都可以令玩家在无需花钱的情况下轻松体验上数百小时的竞争或公开游戏。而像《Farmville》、《Candy Crush Saga》等此类F2P游戏，则分分钟就能让玩家遇到盈利元素。

card-hunter(from forbes.com)

（《Card Hunter》的盈利机制主要与定制选项有关，并避开任何付费获胜元素）

要确定你的核心体验很简单：如果移除所有的盈利元素，你的游戏还剩下什么？区分优秀与普通F2O游戏的一个方法就是看没有盈利机制后，其玩法是否仍然可行和富有趣味。《英雄联盟》在玩家不购买付费皮肤的情况下，仍然是一款极具竞争性的游戏，而《FarmVille》这种游戏若失去重复的付费墙就会分崩离析。

确定核心体验并移除盈利元素还有利于开发者更轻松地扩展游戏内容。如果你已经为玩家提供了足够的免费内容，人们就会更愿意付费得到更多内容。

围绕鲸鱼用户而设计的F2P游戏有悖于吸引核心玩家的目标。理解和开发一个核心体验，可以让你创造一款对核心群体来说更有吸引力的游戏，并创建一个更有粘性和支持游戏的粉丝基础。（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）

Breaking The F2P Stigma or Understanding the Core Experience

by Ulyana Chernyak

F2P has become the “next frontier” for a lot of developers looking to cash in with a monetized idea. This is either by porting mobile games to the PC or just releasing a F2P game on the PC market. The problem is that the F2P market has become saturated with games designed for profit first/gameplay second, causing the confidence among educated or hardcore gamers to disappear.

MarvelPuzzleQuest

To develop a successful F2P game that doesn’t rely on whales, you must understand what has driven these gamers away and what is the core experience of your game.

The Core Market:

“Core gamers” is the hardest group to get behind a F2P game. These are the men and women who may or may not play social games, but everything out there. If they like a game, they will try to get their friends to play and help spread awareness for you. But if your game drives them away, they will make sure that their friends keep away as well.

There are two factors that make it hard to convince a core gamer to even play your game, much less spend any money. First has to do with any kind of repeated purchases such as micro transactions and it has to do with ownership.

Being able to buy something and have it considered yours is a big deal and something that has been declining with the rise of digital distribution. Most games these days you don’t actually own, you own a license to play that game which can be taken back at any time.

And F2P games are the epitome of this concept as everything there exists at the whim of the developer and can be taken away. F2P games designed around repeated monetization such as speed ups, premium currency or pay to win raise the cost of playing a F2P to areas where core gamers are not comfortable with spending.

An AAA retail game costs around $60 with AA and Indie below that. However, a F2P game can have enough purchases to easily go over $100 dollars and then some. None of that by the way, gives the player any ownership over the experience and is akin to the arcade era of having hundreds of arcade tokens that can only be used in one place.

The second problem is the market itself, as mentioned earlier you are not just competing with other F2P games but everything on the market. And core gamers are educated on what’s out there: From Indie hits like FTL to the success of Dark Souls.

This means there are always numerous games vying for their attention and all it takes is one poor monetized element or problem with the design to send them off to another game, never to come back to yours again.

While many core gamers don’t like F2P design, that doesn’t mean they don’t play F2P games, with Team Fortress 2 and League of Legends often cited as the two most played games and well received among core gamers. And leads many designers to ask: What’s their secret?

Defining the Core Experience:

The secret sounds insane, especially for people making a F2P game — A successful F2P game for core gamers is not built around monetization. That must sound crazy and a lot of you are thinking right now that to build a F2P game that isn’t about making money doesn’t make sense. Especially since both TF2 and LOL have monetized elements to them. However, this is where the concept of a core experience comes in and the trick to get core gamers to try your game.

The core experience for this piece will be defined as the following:

The main gameplay systems or mechanics that are divorced from any monetization

This is the center of your gameplay, the baseline of the experience, the hook that pulls gamers in to trying it out. More importantly, the core experience is where there should be no pressure to spend any money on your game: No ads, no pop-ups, just the gameplay.

In essence, the core experience is where gamers will decide what value your game has and whether or not it is worth it to keep playing and it’s where many people draw the line between good and bad F2P design.

Card Hunter — The F2P browser game released last year had a core experience of a full length RPG. Both TF2 and LOL have easily hundreds of hours of play through competitive or public games without the need to spend money. On the other hand, F2P games like Farmville, Candy Crush Saga and so on, hit the player with monetized elements within minutes of play.

CardHunter 5

Card Hunter’s monetization deals mainly with cosmetic options and avoids any claims of Pay to Win.

Defining your core experience is simple: What’s left of your game if all the monetized elements were removed? What separates a good F2P game from the rest is that without monetization, the gameplay still works and can be enjoyed. League of Legends is still a highly competitive game with or without having to buy premium skins, but a game like Farmville would fall apart due to the repetitive nature and pay walls.

Having that core experience defined and removed from the monetization also makes it easier to expand the game with more content. If you’ve already given so much of the game for free, people will be more willing to pay for more content on top of that.

A F2P game designed around the whales is the opposite of what pulls core gamers in. By understanding and developing a core experience, it will allow you to create a more appealing game in the eyes of core gamers and develop a fan base that will be more likely to stick around and support your game.（source：gamasutra）