原作者：Mark Robinson 译者：Willow Wu

中国互联网巨头腾讯近期做了一个史无前例的大胆举动：限制未成年人玩他们的大热门游戏《王者荣耀》，未成年人每天玩这个游戏的时间不能超过1或者2个小时。这种做法无疑会让不少玩家失望，而且也会对他们的收益产生巨大影响。

这项举动意在缓解家长们和老师们的日渐增大的压力，他们担心孩子们会对《王者荣耀》上瘾。腾讯的这款MOBA手游拥有2亿多的玩家，同时也是全球范围内最挣钱的的手游之一。

虽然腾讯的这种牺牲精神备受赞誉，但实际上这种禁止或者是限制玩家接触游戏的做法并不是解决沉迷游戏的有效办法。限制问题玩家的游戏时间并不能从根本上解决问题，玩家只要换到另外一个游戏就可以继续了。

Crash lands（from gamesindustry.biz）

但是，腾讯此举也引发了西方游戏公司的思考：他们是不是该多做点什么防止玩家沉迷游戏？如果能的话，具体要做什么？

对于任何公司来说，维持品牌信任都是非常重要的。但是当你拥有了一个非常成功的产品之后，涉及到品牌信任的问题可能就会变得非常棘手。你要不要选择承担直接利益损失从而延长品牌价值的寿命？因为游戏公司的社会责任就是防止玩家过于沉迷，鼓励玩家合理安排游戏时间，当然这样做通常就是意味着你会失去一部分最具商机的玩家。在社会责任感和年复一年的收益增长之间做选择，对任何CEO来说都是非常纠结的。

不管是实体经营者还是网络经营者，他们都越来越频繁地使用数据、预测分析和行为科学，利用这些东西辨别出哪些玩法是有潜在风险的，然后采取保护措施、进行干预，以防玩家走火入魔。

比起腾讯的做法，它依靠更多的是数据主导。根据匿名数据对游戏内部进行改动，而不是收集儿童以及未成年人的人口数据，这是属于《美国儿童网络隐私保护法（COPPA）》和欧盟即将发布的《通用数据保护规范(GDPR)》的监管范围，法规要求运营商收集13-16岁未成年人的数据之前必须取得其父母或者是监护人的授权，具体情况还要视不同州的实际而定。

由此，我们就可以引出增加游戏社会责任感的10个技巧。

1.预测分析

首先，你得知道需要帮助的人是谁。人群当中大概只有2%的人可能会有潜在问题，你得明白这个指标是什么，或者因素是什么，确保你的目标受众是对的。因素通常就是游戏特性，可能包括流程长度、单日流程数量、当日时间、还有风险比较高的玩法或者是不加节制地为IAP花钱，因此，日活跃用户多或者是IAP收益快速增长有时可能就是个征兆。

2.挖掘&收集数据

你必须确保游戏中设定的事件能够有效地帮助你挖到可用的数据，这些数据可以用来确定因素和指标，进行对比。收集指标分析资料，互相对照，识别并排除交叉数据。要仔细研究指标是怎么随着时间变化的，上瘾行为一般都比较持久，但是其它的比如说放弃游戏就比较具有不确定性。

3.打破习惯

一旦你确定了谁是你的目标受众，你就得逐步实施行动，鼓励玩家以积极的方式参与游戏。

4.推送信息

最开始的行动可以是推送警告，可以是在长流程期间，或者是玩家回到游戏中的时候。坚持风险因素评估能够帮助你制定更有效、更长久的对策。

5.在游戏内部加以限制

最终你甚至可以阻止玩家玩游戏或者是大幅度限制玩家接触游戏，亦或是通过减少经验值或者是其他游戏内部资产磨灭玩家想要返回游戏的欲望。

6.A/B测试

就和其他的游戏机制一样，你得确保你的干预行为有效，玩家行为能有所改善，因此你可以进行测试，确保这些干预行为能够把目标受众的指标值降下来。

7.注册选项

有个最简单的方式就是在注册或者是每局开始之前告诉玩家我们推荐你玩一局的时间最好控制在多久多久，或者是问玩家你想要什么时候退出，因为在还没开始玩之前玩家还是比较处于比较谨慎的状态。

8.黑名单

运营商最不愿的做的事情就是干预玩家的游戏，阻止他们继续玩下去。之后让其他俱乐部的玩家继续加入，或者是利用游戏之外的手段，比如说发邮件、发送通知提醒他们回来领取每日奖励。

9.广告盈利

你可以试着用广告让玩家来个中场休息，或者是让他们的节奏慢下来。你也可以有针对性地投放广告，如果玩家多次购买同一种东西，那你就别再放IAP促销广告了。空隙时间也是很有用的，可以用来播放有奖广告视频。

10.不要让玩家自己扛担子

玩家一直都是最后一个才知道自己有麻烦的人，所以如果你的游戏可以让人上瘾，而且可能会有很多玩家会玩过火，那你就得看好他们，这样做是为了玩家好，但也是为了品牌名誉以及整个行业的繁荣发展。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Chinese Internet giant Tencent recently made a bold and unprecedented move, which was certain to frustrate its customers and significantly impact its revenue. It stopped children from playing its most popular mobile games for more that one or two hours per day.

The move was in response to growing pressure from parents and teachers, concerned that children were becoming addicted to ‘Honour of Kings’, Tencent’s multiplayer online battle game which has over 200 million users and is also the top grossing mobile game in the world.

While Tencent has to be commended for taking such significant action, in reality, banning or restricting access isn’t an effective way of tackling addiction gaming behaviour. This is evident in Real Money Gambling (RMG) sector, where restriction access to problem players doesn’t work as they simply move on to the next operator and continue to gamble.

However, Tencent’s move does shine a light on western games companies and whether they should be doing more to protect their players from addiction, and if so, exactly what?

For any organisation, it is essential that brand trust is maintained, but it can be a real internal tussle when you have a highly successful product, where the choice is between the loss of immediate revenue against possibly longer-term brand value, as the type of social responsibility required to mitigate addictive behaviours often means the curtailment of a segment of your most profitable customers. A tough choice for a CEO being targeted and rewarded for year-on-year growth.

Lessons from real money gambling games

For once, this is an area that the games sector can take inspiration from the RMG sector, which is moving towards a new way of doing things, away from self-exclusion which puts the onus on the player to deal with the problem.

Speaking earlier this year at ICE, Sarah Harrison, the chief executive of the Gambling Commission, said the Commission’s approach to protecting vulnerable consumers was to create a framework via its Licensing Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP), which “puts responsibility firmly with the operators to minimise gambling-related harm.”

Harrison spoke about the signs of progress the Commission had seen to date. She told the audience at the World Regulatory Briefing element of the show at ExCel in London in February: “Operators, both online and land-based, are stepping up their use of data and predictive analytics, and behavioural science to identify patterns of play which might present risk, and applying player protections and interventions which can help consumers stay in control.”

This is a more data-led approach than that which Tencent is using. It relies on anonymous data to facilitate an in-game approach, rather than the collection of demographic data for children or minors, which called fall under the COPPA regulations in the US, and the forthcoming EU GDPR legislation, which requires authorisation from Parents or Guardians to collect data on 13-16 year-olds, varying from state to state.

Major gambling operators, such as William Hill, Skybet and Mr Green have all revealed, in recent weeks, plans to implement predictive algorithms to identify players exhibiting in behavioural characteristics that signify they are at risk of becoming addicted.

In gambling there are clear behaviours, such as burning all credit and taking increasing risks to win back losses. In games, it’s not so easy to identify, and tends to be more game specific, which brings us to our top ten tips for taking a socially responsible approach to games.

1 Predictive analytics

Firstly, you need to know who to help. With only around 2% of the population potentially likely to have a problem, you need to know the metrics or factors that ensure you are targeting the right players. The factors are often game specific, but are likely to include the length of session, number of daily sessions, time of day, and may include a riskier style of play or a less planned approach to IAP purchase, and so having high daily numbers or IAPs sometimes a fast progression rate can also be indicative. In gambling it is possible to benchmark behaviours against previous people who have self-excluded, however, it is more difficult in games.

2 Data mining and data collection

You need to ensure that you are setting the right events in your game that can capture the data required to identify the factors and measure and compare them for each player. Cluster analysis of metrics, plotted against each other to identify and eliminate crossover, and looking at how the metrics change over time, as addictive behaviours tend to be more persistent, whereas behaviours such as churn can vary.

3 Break the habits

Once you know who to target, you need to build progressive actions to encourage positive game engagement.

4 Messaging

Starting with messaging of warnings, during long sessions or when a player returns. Keeping a persistent risk factor score that triggers more insistent approaches.

5 Targeted In-game restrictions

You can eventually go so far as to prevent play or provide very limited play, or even disincentivising return through a reduction in XP or other in-game assets.

6 AB testing

Just like any game mechanic, you need to be sure that your interventions are working and making a difference, so you can test them to ensure they are bringing down the metrics values for targeted players

7 Sign-up options

One of the simplest options is to make recommendations for players’ session length as an opt-out of at sign-up or at the start of each session, or maybe to ask them when they would like to stop, as they are more likely to be more circumspect before they start playing,

8 Campaign exclusion lists

The last thing you want to do is to try to prevent extended play with in-game interventions, and then continue to include these players in other campaigns or out of game interactions like emails and push notifications reminding them to return for a daily bonus.

9 Ad monetization

You can try to break-up or slow down their play using ads. You may also want to target ads, rather than IAP promotions, if multiple payments have already been made in a session. Interstitials can be useful, as can rewarded video.

10 Don’t put the onus on the player

Players are always the last to know that they have a problem, so it is important that were you have a game with an addictive nature and a potentially significant number of players who are playing too much, that you look after them, for the sake of the player, your brand reputation and the wider industry.（source:gamasutra.com ）