本文原作者：Scott Jon Siegel

我们经常忽视了F2P游戏中玩家直观了解交易时刻的能力。对于一个玩家来说，交易时刻是他们对自己在游戏中所花时间、实体货币和对游戏内容的接触程度进行数据转换的评估过程。

游戏的小型交易和广告收益对盈利机制的架构以及调整有着一样重要的作用。

Diagram(from gamasutra)

实体货币vs.时间和游戏内容

如果游戏让玩家为那些本可以通过游戏体验获取的物品花钱，他们会对这件物品的价位进行评估，看看价位是否合适，考虑要获取这个付费内容需要花的时间是多少。他们还会衡量这个付费内容是否值得花这么多钱。

如果游戏让玩家为那些无法通过游戏过程获取的内容花钱，他们会对这个内容，以及游戏本身的价值进行权衡（“这个游戏值得我花XX钱吗？”）。

但是交易时刻不仅限于实体货币的交易。无论什么时候，只要有交换行为（可以是时间换游戏内容、实体货币换时间、或者实体货币换内容），无论有没有涉及到钱都被认为是一种交易。

鼓励性广告vs.玩家时间

正如我之前所说的，这些价值主张不止对理解小型交易有重要作用，对广告收益也是如此。如果一名玩家需要看一个视频广告来获取某个游戏内容或玩法的权限，他们就会对奖励和看视频广告所花的时间进行衡量，看看这个奖励是否值得他们花15或30秒来看广告而获得。

玩家还会思考，将从看广告得来的内容价值（时间换游戏内容）和从小型交易购买得来的类似内容价值（金钱换游戏内容）进行对比衡量。但如果看广告的奖励过于丰厚的话会对游戏的货币机制有不利影响，而如果奖励过于吝啬，跟玩家付出的时间无法成正比的话，这会减少玩家观看广告的次数，这对广告收益方面会造成不利影响。

再来，如果游戏有强制性广告（在进行游戏的过程中弹出的无法跳过的视频广告），玩家也会衡量这个游戏是否值得自己继续为它流失时间在看广告上。举个例子，假如一个玩家每次一定要看个30秒的广告才能进行2分钟的游戏（是的，我真的见过这样做的开发者），那玩家就会为自己权衡这样的游戏时间比例是否公平，以及对有没有必要继续玩这款游戏进行评判。

这个故事是要告诉我们：你在广告收益方面的决定可以对用户留存率和游戏货币机制两方面都有不利影响，所以理智地行事。

公允价值和MTX游戏设计

就像每个玩家对“有趣”都有自己特殊的评定标准，“公允价值”也根据每个玩家对游戏不同的价值认定而有所不同。用户对游戏可玩性和交易时刻的测试评估可以让游戏做出适当调整，这是使游戏成功最大化的重大影响因素；要知道没谁能单靠着电子数据表就能赢的。
甚至在游戏制作准备阶段，在构建系统的时候就把玩家的交易时刻考虑在内会是十分有价值的一件事。《天天过马路（Crossy Road）》（它在MTX和广告收益方面的盈利相当可观），它为广告做出了慷慨贡献，但同时又能做到不影响游戏的MTX内容——通过观看视频广告奖励金币，这些金币只能通过游戏而不是MTX获得。

想要了解更多的《Crossy Road》历史和有关价值主张的成功经验，可以看看游戏开发者2015年的GDC演讲。

社会价值vs.个人价值

最后关于公允价值还有一点要注意的：我相信只有利于个人玩家的游戏内容和可利于多玩家的游戏内容——这两者是大不相同的，这点尤其体现在社会背景下。

思考一下这个例子：一个玩家花了2.99美元在一个单人游戏上，那天以后这个玩家有朋友要来玩集体游戏，现在这个游戏说只要要再花2.99美元就可以解锁多角色玩法。

这两种价值主张一样吗？一种是只对一名玩家解锁额外游戏内容；而另外一个将增加内容让一群朋友都可以玩乐，这样就提供了更多的娱乐和社交体验。

想象你是那名玩家。你觉得哪一个2.99美元更好赚？

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

We often take for granted the player’s ability to intuitively understand transactional moments in free-to-play games. For a player, these transactional moments occur whenever they are evaluating the exchange between their time, real money, and access to gameplay or content.

This is important for building and tuning monetization through microtransactions, as well as through ad revenue.

Real Money vs. Time & Content

If the player is asked to spend money for something they can earn in the game, they will evaluate whether the amount asked for is fair, given the amount of time it would take to otherwise acquire that content. They will also evaluate whether the content is worth it to them for the amount being asked.

If the player is asked to spend money on content that can’t otherwise be earned in the game, they will determine the value of the content, and the value of the game itself (“is this game worth spending x amount on?”).

But transactional moments are not limited to real money transactions. Anytime an exchange is proposed (be it time for content, real money for time, or real money for content), it is a transaction, even when money is not directly involved.

Incentivized Ads vs. the Player’s Time

As I said, these value propositions are important to understand not just for microtransactions, but for ad revenue as well. If a player is asked to watch a video ad for access to content or gameplay, they will evaluate whether the reward for watching the video is worth the 15 or 30 seconds the content will take to “earn” by viewing.

The player will also consider the value of content earned through watching video ads (time for content), versus the same or similar content purchased through microtransactions (money for content). Being overly generous with video rewards can negatively impact monetization, while not giving fair value for the player’s time will reduce their engagement with video ads, negatively impacting ad revenue.

Alternately, if the game has forced video ads (unskippable videos embedded within the game flow), the player will also evaluate whether continued engagement with the game is worth the amount of time lost to advertisements. If, for example, a player has to watch a 30-second ad every time before engaging in gameplay that lasts roughly two minutes (and yes, I’ve seen a developer do that), that player will determine for themselves whether the ratio of time-to-gameplay constitutes fair value, and justifies further engagement with the game itself.

Moral of the story: your decisions around ad revenue can negatively impact both retention and monetization, so step wisely.

Fair Value & Designing for MTX

Just as “fun” is a subjective assessment specific to every player, “fair value” will also vary depending on the degree of value a player places on the game itself. User testing both gameplay and transactional moments can play a big role in determining the proper tuning for the greatest success; you can’t win by spreadsheets alone.

Even in pre-production, it’s worth considering transactional moments when building the game’s systems. Crossy Road (which monetizes incredibly well across both MTX and ad revenue), provides generous value for ad impressions, but can afford to do so by having no overlap with the game’s MTX content — video ads reward the player with coins, which they can only otherwise earn through gameplay and not MTX.

For more on Crossy Road’s history and successful experiments in value propositions, check out the developers’ 2015 GDC talk.

Social Value vs. Solo Value

One final note on fair value: I believe there is a significant difference in the value proposition for content that will only benefit the player, and content that will benefit multiple players, particularly in a social context.

Consider this example: A player is asked to spend $2.99 on content in a single-player game. Later that day, the player has friends over playing a party game, and is presented with an opportunity to unlock more multiplayer content for $2.99.

Are these two value propositions the same? The one grants additional content exclusively to the player, while the other will add content to a game being enjoyed by a group of friends, providing further entertainment and social experience.（source：gamasutra.com ）