原文作者：Kenneth Tran  译者：Megan Shieh

经济学原理已经不再适用于真实世界的完全竞争市场了——这种现象与物理学中的‘黑洞’相似。

独立游戏行业目前正处于一个完全竞争市场经济，从理论上说这是一个近乎理想的状态。

虽然AAA行业长期以来一直是寡头垄断，公司相对较少，门槛较高，但它却受到了数字分销以及独立发行的干扰。大家都知道这个故事：Google Play、App Store、个人版Unity和Free2Play的兴起。

与几年前相比，现在的独立开发者们可以以前所未有的平等条件制作游戏，并且与游戏世界的巨头竞争。这种现象促成了无数小型独立游戏开发商的兴起。

但仔细想想你会发现，独立游戏产业目前正处于一片看似宁静的混乱。独立游戏的平均售价连买个汉堡包都不够；事实上，它们的平均售价估计只够买一包番茄酱，就是那种买汉堡会免费赠送的番茄酱。

Indie(from gameacademy.com)

为什么会这样呢？因为独立游戏行业目前正处于一个与垄断市场截然相反的完全竞争市场。完全竞争市场上有不计其数的供应商和买家。供应商的数量多到什么程度呢？如果不是因为大部分玩家会同时玩几个游戏的话，供应商的数量可能就多过玩家了。

当然，这么说有点夸张，因为大多数供应商都不止有一款游戏。

那么问题是什么呢？我认为一个完全竞争市场应该可以为整个大市场带来最好的结果。实际上完全竞争市场其实是非常罕见的，它只是西方经济学家在研究市场经济理论过程中的一种理论假设，是他们进行经济分析的一种手段和方法，因此完全竞争市场所遇到的障碍我们也几乎从未见过。

第一，市场价格的活跃竞争者越多，对消费者就越有利。

你可能会发现在寡头垄断的情况下，游戏的零售价较高——以40美元为例，完全竞争市场的情况与之截然相反。你可能会想说，与40美元截然相反的价格难道是20美元？10美元？

NO，与40美元相反的价格是0美元！不不不，与40美元相反的价格其实是 -40美元。所以供应商亏钱卖游戏给你并不是因为他们心肠好，而是因为独立游戏的平均价值已经被市场评估为零；不算上平台，因为平台属于进入壁垒。

第二，处于完全竞争状态的独立游戏市场实际上正在与寡头垄断市场的AAA级游戏正面交锋。

给你们脑补一下画面：街道的左边，本田、丰田和福特正以经销商的身份在卖车；而街道的另一边，两三个人正在用纸箱或者塑胶材料制造汽车，然后放在他们家的车库里面卖——你可能会买一两辆来当玩具玩儿。

但是如果那些汽车大厂牌决定着手制造他们自己的纸箱/塑胶车呢？你估计就不会从那些名不见经传的人手中购买了。而这些‘汽车大厂牌’还真就这么做了。在这种情况下，完全竞争市场就变得不那么完全竞争了。经济学又没有明文规定说单个寡头企业或者几个大公司不能随心所欲地跳入一个完全竞争市场。一个市场可能可以在完全竞争的情况下运行，但是由于这类市场根本不存在门槛，因此如果某个大公司决定要进入这个市场也没人能挡得住。

第三，完全竞争市场的所有经济基础和法律都可能以疯狂且无法预测的方式大幅改变。

我的意思是，经济学原理已经不再适用于现实世界中的完全竞争市场了，这种现象就类似于物理学上的‘黑洞’。

举个例子，一旦你开始接近完全竞争的时候，消费者的期望就会发生360度大转变（在这里我用了‘接近’这个词，因为我认为现实生活中不可能会出现绝对的完全竞争状态）。

你不会期望自己能够得到免费的汉堡，但是你会期望能够得到免费的番茄酱。即使没有打算买汉堡包，你也会觉得得到免费番茄酱是理所当然的。如果商家突然决定要给番茄酱收费了，这种影响是显而易见的，面对无法实现的期望，消费者肯定得闹翻天。
另一个例子是，劳动经济原则对于供应商来说几乎是不成立的。随便拉个独立开发者来问问，他们的工作环境，动机和期望是什么？得到的答案可能是最资深的房产检定员、人力资源专家、和市场研究人员想都不敢想的事情。

类似的例子太多了，说都说不完。

其实我们连‘理想状态’是什么都不清楚，因为它就像是‘黑洞’。管理经济、工业和自由市场的基本法律要么几乎不适用，要么不再适用，要么就已经演变成一种不存在的状态。

有趣的是当你开始接近完全竞争时，一切都会很顺利。直到价格临界点降到零，甚至是低于零，然后一切就会开始失去控制。

也许我们应该考虑构建‘理想状态’的范围——不理想状态、接近理想状态、近乎理想状态、绝对理想状态，将它们作为出发点来进行分析和推断。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

The principles of economics themselves no longer apply in blanket terms in a real world perfectly-competitive market — this is similar to a black hole in physics

The independent games industry is currently in a state of near perfection.

It’s perfect. It’s a perfectly competitive market economy.

While the AAA industry has long been an oligopoly with relatively few firms and high barriers to entry, it has been disrupted by digital distribution and self-publishing. Everyone knows this story: the rise of Google Play, the App Store, Unity Personal Edition, and Free2Play.

Compared to several years back, the mighty independent game developer could now create and compete with the behemoths of the gaming world on much more equal terms than ever before. This in turn spawned the rise of thousands of self sustaining small time game developers.

Wait.

Lets stop there and be serious for a moment. The independent games industry is currently in a state of quiet chaos. Indie games cost less than a hamburger on average, at their real world selling price. So much less in fact, that it’s more like they cost about as much as a packet of ketchup. You know the ones you get for free when you buy a hamburger? That’s about right.

Why is this so? Because the independent gaming industry is perfect. Perfectly competitive. It is the exact opposite of a monopoly. It is an industry that has many suppliers competing for many buyers. So many suppliers in fact, that if it weren’t for the fact that most gamers play more than one video game, we would likely have more suppliers than buyers if it came down to ratio.

Of course, this is a bit of an exaggeration because most suppliers pump out more than one video game.

So what’s the problem, then? I thought a perfectly competitive market is one that achieves the best possible outcome for the market as a whole. The problem is that it’s so close to perfect, its encountering hurdles to real perfection, that we rarely have ever seen because a perfectly competitive market is so rare a specimen that we truly (most of the time) have only studied it in theory.

First, so we know that consumers are better off when there are many competitors actively fighting over market pricing

Well usually this means that in an oligopoly you see high prices such as US$40 or US$60 retail games and such. A perfectly competitive market would see the exact opposite. Well who said the opposite of US$40 is, say, US$20 or US$10?

The opposite of US$40 is US$0 — zero. No, actually, the opposite of US$40 is negative US$40. So the supplier actually gives you the product at a loss not out of the goodness of their own heart, but because the market has appraised the average value of an independently produced video game as zero, not accounting for platform because platforms are a barrier to entry.

Second, the perfectly competitive market of indie games is actually in direct competition with AAA produced games, which is an oligopoly

You can think of this as though Honda, Toyota, and Ford are out on your street selling cars at car dealerships on one side. And on the other side, you have two- or three-man teams building boxcar racers or cars made from plastic and cardboard being sold out of their garages. You might buy one or two for fun.

Unless the AAA produced cars decided to make their own boxcar racers. Which they did. And now the perfectly competitive market is not so perfectly competitive. There is no law of economics that states that in a perfectly competitive market, a single large oligarch or handful of large firms cannot just hop on in at any given point in time. A market may be functioning at perfect competition, but because there is no barrier to entry at perfection, nothing stops a large firm from coming into the market.

Third, at the point of perfection a few, some, most, or maybe almost all economic fundamentals and laws change drastically in wild and unpredictable ways

What do I mean by that? I’m saying that the principles of economics themselves no longer apply in blanket terms in a real world perfectly-competitive market. This is similar to a black hole in physics.

For example, once you start approaching perfect competition, consumer expectations change in ridiculous ways (I say ‘approach’ because can one actually even achieve absolute perfect competition in reality? It is like infinity!)

You don’t expect to get a hamburger for free, but you do expect to get the packet of ketchup for free. Even if you don’t buy a hamburger, you expect to be able to ask for a free packet of ketchup. If a supplier started charging for their ketchup, the effects are instantly noticeable and there is little leniency from consumers in terms of outrage in the face of realisation of expectations upon actualisation (that’s a mouthful, like a hamburger with no ketchup).

Another example would be that labor economic principles barely hold true, arguably on both ends, for suppliers. Ask your average independent video game developer what their working conditions, motivations, and expectations, are. And you will get answers not even the most veteran of surveyors, HR professionals, and market researchers have ever imagined in their wildest dreams. That was not an exaggeration, but it was a hyperbole.

And the examples just go on and on

In the end, we don’t really know what perfection is. Because perfection is like a black hole. The fundamental laws that govern economies, industries, and free markets either barely apply, no longer apply, or have morphed themselves out of existence.

It is also interesting that, as you start to approach perfect competition, everything goes smoothly until you hit a certain point where prices bottom out down to zero and then even past zero. At this point, everything starts to go haywire like a spaceship screaming “ERROR: fluctuations in hyperspace”.

What is at the other end of the hyperspace tunnel to perfection? A perfectly competitive market?

Nobody truly knows, this author argues.

So maybe we should just create a spectrum of perfection. With nowhere near perfect, close to perfect, almost perfect, absolute perfection being a handful of good starting points to analyse and extrapolate upon.

Ah, the problems with perfection.（Source: gamasutra.com ）