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长文:以《星球大战:前线2》的氪金门为例谈F2P游戏的未来

发布时间:2018-02-23 13:55:08 Tags:,

长文:以《星球大战:前线2》的氪金门为例谈F2P游戏的未来

原文作者: Ramin Shokrizade 译者:Megan Shieh

作为游戏行业的工作者,我们生活在一个非常令人兴奋的时代。正在发生的市场震荡将会极大地改变我们做生意的方式、生产的产品以及与消费者之间的关系。作为一名已经从业16年的游戏新闻媒体人,我的爱好之一是记录和预测F2P商业模式的发展,自2001年起,我就一直在记录F2P模式的发展史。

为了简化讨论,并与《星球大战》的主题保持一致,首先我要指出本文将会出现的一些词汇,以及它们所代表的意义。使用先进的量化方法来增加收入,同时降低产品对消费者的价值,这就是我所说的“黑暗面”(Darksiding),涉及到“黑暗面”的实际技术,我将称之为“黑暗技术”(Darkside Technologies)。应用先进的量化方法来增加收入,同时增加产品对消费者的价值,这就是我所说的“光明面”(Lightsiding),涉及到这方面的技术,我将称之为“光明技术”(Light Side Technologies)。

Star Wars: Battle Front II(from wikipedia)

Star Wars: Battle Front II(from wikipedia)

在工业化的历史中,运用先进技术来提高收入的做法适用于所有产业,但是游戏产业拥有其独特的特性,游戏领域的新手甚至可能是行家都不了解这些特性。因此,当人们把这些技术(通常成功地应用于非游戏产品)应用到游戏中时,产生的结果也可能与非游戏产品截然不同。

一般来说,娱乐产品的目的是为消费者提供刺激。通过刺激大脑,我们可以改变消费者的生理机能。如果消费者认为这些变化是好的,他们就很乐意购买我们的产品。如果他们认为我们的产品并没有改善他们的生活,那么他们就会停止购买,除非你的产品会让人上瘾。当这种情况发生时(不喜欢,但是上瘾了),他们将会继续购买我们的产品,但是也会有诸多抱怨,而这种情况通常会触发监管部门的介入。

我在2012年的早些时候开始注意到了“黑暗技术”的激增,然后我将这一现象追溯到了2010年或更早的时候。2010年,金融业与互动媒体产业的联手,使得游戏产业文化发生了渐进式的变化,让“黑暗文化”的崛起成为可能。“黑暗文化”试图通过降低消费者的健康状态,并最终破坏与消费者的关系来创造短期利润。“黑暗文化”并不是游戏产业中独有的,但是如果它在一个产业中扩展成为主流文化,那么监管部门就不可能会坐视不理。

我目前估计,75%的西方游戏市场已经在管理层面上采用了“黑暗文化”,而且由于时间滞后,目前正在开发中的大多数游戏也可能含有“黑暗技术”。本文的主要目的是解释这一趋势,以便我们能够更好地理解它,并预测它将如何影响未来几年的行业和市场。游戏产业的投资者和股东尤其需要这些信息,以便作出明智的决策。

下面我将以Electronic Arts(下面简称EA)的“氪金开箱事件”作为例子来进行解析。在这之前我必须要强调,EA并不是特别的个案,也说不上是这一趋势的罪魁祸首,因为这种趋势现在已经在互动媒体中普遍存在了。我之所以在这里使用EA作为例子,不仅仅是因为它的做法受到了消费者和监管部门的强烈反对,而且也是因为这一事件是近期刚刚发生的,目前风头正劲。

“氪金”这一游戏中的消费行为近期成为了众矢之的,而该事件的导火索是EA推出的《星球大战:前线2》。因为该游戏严重的氪金开箱揽财机制,一下子把玩家对“氪金”和“开箱”的不满引出来了。在该作的设计中,EA毫不掩饰自己的贪婪,为玩家给出了一道选择题:想要游玩全部内容,你是选择玩4528个小时,还是充2100美金?

因为这一事件,EA目前正面临着一场障碍风暴,下面我将详细解释这些障碍:

1.消费者对“黑暗技术(包括商业模式)”的强烈反对;
2.积极响应消费者需求的监管方案;
3.《星球大战》的版权属于迪士尼公司,该公司将会设法从这一危机中脱离出来,以免影响到迪士尼的股票和品牌价值。

消费者积极反对“黑暗技术”

其他产业中的消费者往往彼此脱节。这意味着消费者趋势的变化是缓慢并且可预测的。比如2015年的“大众排放门”事件:大众公司所售部分柴油车安装了专门应对尾气排放检测的软件,可以识别汽车是否处于被检测状态,继而在车检时秘密启动,从而使汽车能够在车检时以“高环保标准”过关,而在平时行驶时,这些汽车却大量排放污染物,最大可达美国法定标准的40倍。

大众品牌在他们的汽车产品上使用了“黑暗技术”排放系统,问题明明很严重,但是消费者的反应却相对温和。这是因为虽然大众车主看不到真实的尾气排放量,但是这并不会产生立即的后果。大众车主之间不会大量交谈,也没有对此事作出太大的反应。因此大众可以支付罚款,做出一些改变,并照常运营。

游戏玩家是一种完全不同的消费者。因为游戏玩家们注定会产生频繁的互动,从而形成一种集体意识。我将这一游戏中活动称为“持续性游戏集体”(Persistent Gaming Collectives,以下简称PGC)。PGC可以在游戏发布之前就自然地形成。如果PGC发现了对集体足够严重的威胁,那么它就会变得激进。一旦变得激进,这个集体就会发起一场“反对方式”。为了符合《星球大战》的主题,我会把这个反对方式称为“抗议”( The Rebellion)。

这次事件对EA和整个游戏行业来说都不只是一次性事件。作为一场反对方式,参与者将持续不断地散播、组织和动员,直到他们认为威胁得到了解决为止。起义运动的领头人能够识别新游戏中涵盖的“黑暗技术”,而且会在这方面变得相当老练,此外,他们还会在社交媒体上发布相关消息——时常都是在游戏正式发布之前。对于那些依赖于“黑暗机制”的产品而言,这些起义小队可能会对它们的商业前景造成毁灭性的打击。

虽然人们预计《星球大战:前线2(Star Wars Battlefront 2)》的表现将会比原作出色,但是该作目前的销量却比原作低了61%。当EA被迫撤走《星球大战:前线2》中的微交易时,他们告诉股东,“预计这一变化将不会产生实质性的影响”。但它的确产生了虚拟和财政上的影响。除了零售销售的巨大损失之外,EA的股价在两周内缩水了约30亿美元。此外,起义军很有可能会持续扩大到《星球大战:前线》受众之外的用户。它会持续组织活动,并且变得越来越成熟。

那么,怎么做才能遣散这些起反对的人?EA必须取出他们产品(不限于《星球大战:前线2》)中的所有“黑暗技术”,然后用一个内容完整的零售系统(一次性付费模式),或基于F2P系统的“光明技术”来取代“黑暗技术”。相比之下,传统零售系统的表现要差得多,这也是人们往往不再采用它的原因。然而“黑暗文化”的存在使得F2P模式下的“光明技术”成为不可能。这些游戏公司里,有相当多的开发人员想要带领他们的公司走向光明,可是他们害怕丢掉工作。要想让公司里的其他人认为:他们“适应”当前的公司文化,他们就必须保持缄默。
我是怎么知道的?他们告诉我的。

自2001年以来,作为F2P手游道德底线的捍卫者,我在这些公司里实际上有很多追随者。他们会和我分享他们的经历,鼓励我继续写作。没有他们的支持,我很难继续下去。因此我就变成了游戏行业中的照妖镜。

一旦“黑暗势力”进入了一家公司,他们就会迅速采取行动来获取并巩固权力。那些抵抗的人会被迅速地从组织中清除出去,而保持缄默的人则得以保住工作。评估新聘人员的两个主要标准是:(1)技术水平(2)文化适应。如果你已经有了一个“黑暗面”的员工,那么任何潜在的“光明面”员工都将无法达到文化契合标准。如果你同时雇佣了黑暗面和光明面的员工(这事儿在我身上发生了两次),那么就会挑起一场公司内部的原力之战。

“原力之战”

当光明面和黑暗面的员工在公司或项目的文化和发展方向上产生分歧时,就会引发一场“原力之战”。两方的观点是互不相容的,甚至是典型的——光明与黑暗之间的永恒竞争在《星球大战》IP中是如此地成功和持久,这并非偶然。一方没有了另一方就不能生存,而且自人类文明诞生以来,黑白两方的势力就一直都在为了统治而战。

从生物学的角度上讲,光明面的个体由于荷尔蒙的影响而活得更久、更健康、更快乐。而黑暗面的个体则更具攻击性,他们喜欢迅速采取行动来压制竞争对手。他们是天生的存活者。在Adam Smit的《国富论》一书中,他假设:“利己是人的本性,人们从事的一切经济活动,都是为了追求自己的利益最大化。”William Nash博士和其他人,包括我自己在内,都认为这是经济体系中的一个关键缺陷,而且科学也越来越多地支持这种另类观点。然而,当代的商业和经济模式都是基于这种陈旧的观念而构建的,因此,它们往往更青睐原力之战中的黑暗一方。

游戏领域的发展史也是另外一个影响因素。2000和2001年间,我还在Nexon工作的时候,他们开始在《冒险岛(Maplestory)》的项目中试验第一个F2P商业模式,公司很快就发现自己可以通过在游戏中销售优势来赚更多的钱(这是一种早期的“黑暗技术”,现在仍然很流行)。当时Nexon的另一款主要产品是《破碎银河系(Shattered Galaxy)》,这是第一款大型多人在线即时战略游戏(MMORTS)。尽管《破碎银河系》可能具有更大的长期潜力,但是这很难在短期内看出来,而《冒险岛》则通过“付费赢”模式在短期内生成了更高的收入,因此,Nexon会偏爱这种模式也是合情合理。该公司在那个时期是一个极具天赋和创新性的工作室,并且有能力决定世界各地的工作室在未来几十年里的命运。因为当时没有能够与此抗衡的技术,所以他们采用的“黑暗技术”稳固地占据了全球的主导地位。

因为上述原因,所以当我两次卷入原力之战时,都以失败告终。尽管我的想法可能更好,但是黑暗势力始终占了上风,奠定了公司文化的基调。但这并不意味着结果会对公司更好。

在如今的大多数工作室里,原力之战甚至不可能会发生,因为公司文化已经早就决定好了。就算消费者、监管部门和股东给的压力足够大,能够推动企业文化的重组(这似乎是可能的),却也仍然不会产生预期的效果。“黑暗势力”是天生的生存者。除非你把每个人都开了,否则你将无法摆脱“黑暗势力”的影响。

绝大多数员工都是不结盟的,还有很多工作室从未经历过“原力之战”,因此也有中立的不结盟文化。目前的消费者起义不会对他们产生任何负面影响,因为他们不会被消费者或监管部门认定为威胁。实际上在这段时间里,这些工作室反而可以渔翁得利,因为许多“黑暗工作室”都被迫关门或面临大规模裁员,所以这些中立工作室的竞争者会大幅度减少。

监管方案

2013年,随着西方监管方案的初步形成,英国公平贸易办公室(以下简称OFT)成为了先锋。欧盟其他国家和全球机构都愿意让OFT为针对在线游戏产业的第一批监管措施创建和展示初步框架。这些都是在2013年的巴拿马ICPEN峰会上提出的,当时我也以“行业内部顾问”的身份参加了那次峰会。

那次的ICPEN峰会上一共有两位业界演讲者:我本人和迪士尼公司的一位副总裁。这位迪士尼副总裁用幻灯片介绍了他们最为顾客友好型的产品,并呼吁行业自律。而我则展示了一款最糟糕的产品,游戏中充斥着比我在任何其他产品中看到的更多的“黑暗技术”,这些产品是直接面向儿童销售的。它碰巧是迪士尼的产品,但是没有人提前通知我迪士尼的副总裁会来,直到我俩坐一桌一起吃饭…我才知道…

看过我提供的种种证据之后,监管部门对这位迪士尼副总裁进行了极具攻击性的质疑,结果她决定立即逃离会场。当时,监管部门在消费者情绪暴动之前采取了行动,在火种变成大火之前扑灭了火种。涉及的产品是由Gazillion Entertainment制作的,该工作室在两周前被迪士尼集团全面关闭。我怀疑这与比利时针对《星球大战:前线2》发布的监管消息有关。

而几周前发生的事情,则完全是另一回事——上个月美国夏威夷州围绕着EA的《星球大战:前线2》发起了一个抵制电子游戏“掠夺式收费”行为的活动。各国官员和分析师似乎都有一个共识:希望游戏行业自律并由审核机构加大把控力度。

这时大火已经生成了,监管部门本可以通过更早(早在2013年)采取行动来阻止这场火灾,但是他们却没有这么做。这让他们看起来很糟糕。现在,为了应对激烈的消费者需求,他们采取了异常大胆的行动。政治家们将会加入这一行列,利用人们对此事的热情来笼络人心,就像夏威夷那样。在这种情况下,监管部门将会面临快速行动的压力,由此一来政权部门就有理由采取过度反应手段,而不是像以前那样不采取行动而招致谴责。

对于已经采用了大量“黑暗科技”,并仅仅依赖于“黑暗科技”来赚钱的游戏/公司来说,这是一个危险时期。我认为这就是迪士尼的Gazillion工作室一夜之间关门大吉的原因。迪士尼可以宣称,Gazillion只是漫威收购案附带的独立工作室,并不能反映迪士尼的整体公司文化。是的,2013年的时候迪士尼可能有这个机会,但是它却没有这么做。不过,这或许并不代表“黑暗文化”就必定存在于迪士尼的公司文化里,他们可能只是做了最基本的算术题,认为该工作室可以帮他们赚钱,可是却没有调查清楚它是怎么赚钱的。虽然这个理由听起来有些牵强,但是考虑到迪士尼的经济影响力,这个理由就足够让迪士尼脱险了。

然而…迪士尼的麻烦却不只这一个…

迪士尼和EA的关系

监管部门在调查案件时会追溯到非常遥远的过去,而且在推行新政策之前,他们也会事先查阅之前的监管记录。所以他们会知道在2013年ICPEN峰会上发生了什么事。这类峰会每隔几年才举办一次,在会议上发生的所有事情都被视频记录了下来。所以当初迪士尼呼吁行业自律的事情肯定会反弹到它自己身上。现在迪士尼正在进行自我监管。尽管它不能像当初关闭Gazillion那样关掉EA,但是只要打个电话就能下架《星球大战:前线2》中的所有微交易,而且他们也真的这样做了。

不过,《星球大战》系列的游戏本来是应该提升IP价值的,没想到反而把《星球大战》这一品牌坑惨了,具体损失的数字没有公布,但是用脚趾头想都知道很贵。而且在《星球大战》最新电影发布的前几周,大量关于“EA氪金门”的文章都附上了《星球大战》的视频,这无疑是雪上加霜。部分美国企业在欧盟领土上拥有近乎垄断的势力,欧盟公民本就对这一情形感到不安,因此一旦这些美国企业做出了不符合消费者利益的行为,欧盟监管部门必定会严格追查到底。

目前EA还有一些其他的《星球大战》游戏正在开发中。这些项目,以及已经发行的《星球大战》系列游戏将会受到额外的审查。如果情况继续恶化(看上去可能会恶化),那么迪士尼可能会与它“和平分手”。全面终止这项工作,将所有涉及《星球大战:前线》的游戏下架,就像它几周前关闭《漫威英雄》那样。既然可以下架《漫威英雄》,没理由不能下架《星球大战:前线》。显然,迪士尼的会计和律师团队正在考虑:如果真把《星球大战:前线2》下架了,会不会将问题恶化,同时增加迪士尼的法律风险。将这样一款规模庞大的游戏下架,似乎是一个激进的举动,但是迪士尼不久之前刚刚将《漫威英雄》下架了,所以也不是不可能。迪士尼决定关闭Gazillion工作室是因为在2013 ICPEN峰会上发生的事情,《漫威英雄》在消费者之间也广受欢迎,但是《星球大战:前线2》的情况就不同了,毕竟它的氪金系统引发了大量消费者的不满。

EA不能只是简单地清理门户,然后拍拍屁股回到消费者中立的文化中去。到了这个节点,它已经是旗帜鲜明的“黑暗工作室”了,消费者和监管部门都公开认定了这一点。到了这个时候,再好的公关工作都挽救不了这个局面。EA公司里的某些人实际上有过反对氪金的想法,这点让我很吃惊,但是该公司的“黑暗文化”把这个想法扼杀在了萌芽状态,现在,这个选择现在已经不存在了。

尽管面临着这么多问题——销售额下降了61%、股票价值损失数十亿美元、消费者组织了反EA的起义、国际监管部门把EA作为杀鸡儆猴的案例,但是对于EA来说,与迪士尼的关系是当前最紧迫的问题。迪士尼在保护品牌价值方面通常采取积极态度,但是却不主动。他们不擅长防火,但在灭火方面却很厉害。EA这次引起的火灾超出了它的灭火能力,也超出了迪士尼的灭火能力。因此迪士尼肯定会想办法将自己与EA划分开来,但是考虑到两家公司的规模,它不可能像对Gazillion一样,单方面地立即掐断与EA的关系。

我猜:两家公司会进行婚姻调解,如果婚姻调解没用的话,迪士尼就会申请离婚。这将会成为一场混乱的离婚。迪士尼会把离婚视为一个可能的结果,甚至会在调解阶段就开始准备离婚协议。和EA离婚,不会像与Gazillion那样容易,因为EA是一家大公司,拥有多元化的产品组合,而且并不是每一个都和迪士尼有关联。尽管如此,这种规模的离婚或“和平分手”必定会导致至少10%的大面积裁员,这还不包括监管部门将会对EA采取的行动,考虑到EA的股价已经下跌了近10%,股东们估计不会坐以待毙。

目前,整个行业都在走向一次大规模的修正。修正往往是渐进的,直到出现市场震荡,然后才能迅速发生。市场震荡已经发生了,整顿正在进行中。即使市场震荡的源头就在这里,市场整顿也不会止于EA。EA是游戏行业中的领导者,这么多双眼睛都看着它呢,所以选择最先修正他们的行为也是合情合理的。

总而言之,如果你的游戏中尚未采用“黑暗技术”,那么我建议你以后也不要采用。暂时先谨慎行事,避免任何可能让你成为消费者和监管部门攻击目标的活动,直到这一切平息下来。让你的竞争对手去承受这颗子弹,对手倒了,你就会有更多的市场份额和更少的竞争对手。这也意味着,在不久的将来,用户获取的成本将会降低。这对于移动领域中的那些中立工作室而言是个天大的好消息,他们中的大多数还在受制于过时的零售商业模式,但是使用这种模式的工作室也没剩几家了。此外,如果任天堂和Niantic能够继续远离“黑暗文化”的话,那么他们将有可能成为大赢家。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao
We live in a very exciting time here in the gaming industry. Big changes are happening that will very much change how we do business, what products we produce, and our relationship with our consumers. I have been chronicling the history of F2P since 2001 when I was the senior writer forwww.unknownplayer.com (killed by hackers in 2005). Back then I was writing under an alias after receiving numerous detailed (with my address) death threats following the 9/11 disaster due to the ethnicity of my name. Still I managed to be the fourth most read independent gaming journalist during that time. A passion of mine was recording and predicting the development of F2P business models.

Of course it still is, and this is what this article is all about. I am going to explain how we got here, and where we are going. I believe I can do this because of my high altitude view of our industry over the last 16 years and because of my expertise in the area of F2P business models. That expertise accelerated during the period from 2005 to 2009 when I set out to develop consumer-friendly F2P business models, seeking out the top academic mentors available during those years and creating new language for a field I described as “virtual economics”.

In order to simplify the discussion, and in keeping with the timeliness of a Star Wars theme, I am going to go ahead and create some new language right now. The use of advanced quantitative methods to increase revenues while reducing the value of products for consumers is what I would callDarksiding. The actual technologies involved, when used in this fashion, I will call Dark Side Technologies. The application of advanced quantitative methods to increase revenues while increasing the value of products for consumers is what I call Lightsiding. The involved technologies I will call Light Side Technologies.

The application of advanced technologies to improve revenue generation applies to all industries through the history of industrialization, but the gaming industry has unique properties that are often not understood by new participants, or even perhaps veterans. Thus when these technologies (which are often deployed very successfully with non-gaming products) are applied to games, they can have very different results than they do elsewhere.

The purpose of entertainment products in general is to provide stimulation to consumers. This stimulation has physiological foundations. By stimulating the mind, we can change the physiology of our consumers. When consumers perceive these changes as positive in nature, they buy our products quite readily. When they don’t think our products are making their lives better, they stop buying our products unless there is an addictive element involved, which there can be. When both conditions (not liking, but addictive elements are present) they continue to buy our products (in smaller quantities) and complain a lot which typically triggers the involvement of regulators.

This makes the nearest commercial equivalent to the gaming industry the tobacco industry. I went into detail about how the gaming industry was following the tobacco industry play book back in 2014. But a spike in the deployment of Dark Side Tech was something I began to notice in early 2012, and at the time I traced its beginnings to 2010 or earlier. This merging of the financials industry and the interactive media industry in ~2010 created a progressive change in game industry culture that made possible the ascension of Darksider Culture. Darksider culture seeks to generate short term profits by means that include degrading the well being of consumers, and ultimately the relationship with consumers. Darksider culture is not unique to the gaming industry, and if it spreads to become the dominant culture in an industry then the result is almost always a regulatory response.

I currently estimate that 75% of the Western game market has adopted a Darksider culture at the management level, and because of lag time a smaller majority of products are currently being deployed containing Dark Side technologies. As a top game industry economist, I’m not here to make moralistic evaluations about this trend. The purpose of this paper is to explain the trend so that we can better understand it, and predict how it will affect the industry and market in the next few years. Shareholders especially need this information in order to make informed decisions as to where they put their money since the information they are receiving from involved publicly traded companies is becoming increasingly optimistic.

I am going to use Electronic Arts as my case study in this review. I do not want for a moment to suggest that EA is unique or particularly responsible for the trend or effects, because the trend is now pervasive in interactive media. I use EA here because not only has it been the target of unusually vigorous consumer and regulatory backlash, but also because EA is facing a perfect storm of obstacles at the moment with even less options available to them than you might anticipate. Those obstacles, which I will explain in detail, are:

Consumer backlash against Dark Side Technologies (including business models),

Regulatory response, which is in direct proportion to consumer activism,

IP oversight from Disney, which will want to compartmentalize the crisis to avoid it affecting Disney stock and brand values.

Consumer Anti-Dark Side Technology Activism

In other industries, consumers tend to be disconnected from each other. This means that consumer trends change gradually and predictably, generally reflected by their purchase and spending habits. When Volkswagon was caught using Dark Side Technologies in regards to their emission systems on their cars, the problem was serious but consumer reaction was relatively muted. VW owners can’t see emissions, they don’t have an immediate daily consequence. VW owners don’t talk to each other in significant numbers and are not likely to get political about their car ownership. Thus VW could pay a fine, make some changes, and go about business as usual.

Gamers are a very different kind of consumer. Because gamers interact intensely by nature, they form a sort of collective consciousness. In 2013 I described this activity intra-game as Persistent Gaming Collectives (PGC’s), and explained how this can work for and against us as game developers. The same dynamics extend well beyond the game space. PGC’s can organically form for games before a game even launches. If a PGC detects a threat to the collective that is deemed serious enough, it canradicalize. Once radicalized, it becomes a political movement. Using the Star Wars themed analogies I am building in this article, I would call this political movement The Rebellion.

What this means for EA and the industry as a whole is that this is not a one time event. As a political movement, the participants will continue to cross-educate, mobilize, and organize over time until the threat is considered resolved. A more technical discussion of the effects can be found in my previousData Implosion paper predicting this consumer reaction and it’s affects on the interactive media industry.

Leaders in the Rebellion will become quite sophisticated at identifying the existence of Dark Side Technologies deployed in new games and will put the word out on social media channels, often well before a game even officially launches. These hit squads can be devastating for the prospects of commercial success for those products dependent on these mechanisms. While EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 was anticipated to out perform the original, its sales so far have been 61% below the numbers sold for SW BF1.

When EA was forced to turn off microtransactions in SW BF2, they told shareholders that “This change is not expected to have a material impact”. It certainly had a virtual and financial impact. In addition to the massive loss in retail sales, EA stock has bled off over $3B in value in two weeks. If there was any chance of a clean recovery from the situation, there might be some chance of a rebound, but that’s just not the reality on the ground.

The Rebellion is likely to expand well beyond those users most expected to play a SW BF product. It will continue to organize and improve in sophistication. What will cause it to demobilize? EA would have to rip out the Dark Side Technologies from their products (not limited to SW BF2) and replace them either with a content-complete retail system, or a Light Side Technology based F2P system. The traditional retail system is much lower performing, and that is why it has become obsolete.

The presence of a Darksider Culture makes the second (superior) option impossible. There are quite a lot of developers in these companies that would like to take their companies in different directions, but they currently live in fear in the work place. To “pass” as being a good fit to the current company culture, they have to keep their mouths shut. How do I know this?

Because they tell me.

As the top consumer advocate in the gaming industry since 2001 I actually have a lot of followers in these companies. They share their experiences with me and encourage me to keep writing. Without their support it would be difficult for me to do so. Thus I have become a sort of Glassdoor with legs. Once Darksiders are in position in a company, they move quickly to secure power. They are remarkably efficient at this. Those that resist are purged rapidly from the organization and the rest fall in line nicely. I recently had a director at one of these companies (not EA) tell me that he would love to have me come give a presentation to his company on the Light Side Technologies available to them, and how they might improve company performance. But, he added, “that would be my last day working here”.

The primary two criteria used to evaluate new hires is (1) technical proficiency and (2) cultural fit. I’ve already discussed how the cultural fit criteria is scientifically shown to reduce diversity and increase workplace conflict. If you have Darksiders in place then any potential Light Side hire will fail the cultural fit criteria. If you hire both at the same time (this has happened to me twice) then a Force War will be initiated.

Force Wars

A Force War is initiated when Light Side and Dark Side employees come into direct competition over company/project culture and direction. The two outlooks are incompatible and, dare I say, archetypical. It is no accident that the ageless competition between the Light and Dark is so successful and enduring in the Star Wars IP. One cannot exist without the other, and both have fought for dominion since the dawn of civilization.

Biologically, Light Side individuals live longer, healthier, and happier due to the effects of oxytocin. Dark Side individuals tend to be more aggressive and move rapidly to neutralize competition. They are natural survivors. Company culture, going back to the writings of Adam Smith in the 1775 Wealth of Nations, operates on the assumption that all people act out of self interest. Dr. William Nash and others, including myself, believe this is a critical flaw in that work, and science is increasingly supporting this alternative view. Still, contemporary business and economic models are based on these archaic notions and thus they favor the Dark Side in a Force War.

The history of game development is also a factor. When I was working with Nexon in 2000 and 2001, and they started experimenting with the first F2P business models, they soon discovered that they could make a lot more money by selling advantage in games (an early Dark Side Technology that is still popular), in that case in their Maplestory product. Their other major product (at least in the West) at the time was Shattered Galaxy, the first MMORTS and a design which many companies have attempted to replicate over the years with poor results due to the complexity of these eSports positive games.

While SG may have had greater long term potential, this is difficult to measure in a short period of time. Maplestory was making much higher revenue with the first pay to win microtransactions and thus it was only rational that Nexon went with that model based on the information they had available to them. Nexon, being an extremely talented and innovative studio during that period, had the ability to determine the fate of studios world-wide for decades to come. Their choice of Dark Side Technologies at a time when there were no competing technologies available put the Dark Side firmly into a dominant position globally.

Thus in both of the situations where I have engaged in a Force War in a company, despite perhaps being better positioned, the Dark Side has prevailed and set the tone of company culture. This doesn’t mean the results were better for the company. In one case they were unable to produce any new successful products after I was ejected, relying on just my designs without any way of optimizing those designs. In the other case, the studio was forced to close resulting in 100% layoffs after the sponsor decided that loot boxes in a children’s game probably wasn’t going to work.

In most studios today, a Force War is not even possible because the company culture has already been decided. If consumer, regulatory, and shareholder pressure gets great enough to push for a realignment of company culture, which seems likely, this will still not have the desired effect. Darksiders are survivors. Any attempt to remove them will result in a large number of false positives, meaning you won’t be able to get rid of them unless you pretty much get rid of everyone. The technologies that could be used to sort them out are still new enough that they would be considered pseudoscience in a corporate environment.

The vast majority of employees are non-aligned, and there are still many studios out there that have never had a Force War and thus have neutral non-aligned cultures. The current consumer Rebellion is not going to have any negative affect on them because they will not have been identified by consumers or regulators as threatening. These same studios will actually be favored during this period since they will enjoy reduced competition as Darksider studios are forced to execute large layoffs. Those layoffs will generally begin with creatives as described in my Data Implosion paper, further reducing their ability to generate revenue and triggering a Death Spiral as I describe there.

Regulatory Response

In 2013 as Western regulatory response was first starting to take shape, the UK Office of Fair Trade (OFT) was on the vanguard. The rest of the EU and global body was willing to let the OFT create and present the initial framework for the first regulatory steps aimed at the online gaming industry. These were presented at the 2013 ICPEN summit in Panama where I was also summoned in order to act as an industry insider adviser.

At the ICPEN summit there were two industry speakers, myself and a VP from Disney. The Disney VP presented slides of their most consumer friendly product and called for industry self-regulation. I presented slides of a worst case product, riddled with more Dark Side Technologies than I had seen in any other product, which was marketed directly at children. It happened to be a Disney product, but I was not told the Disney VP was going to be there until I arrived and had dinner with her.

Seeing the evidence I provided, regulators questioned the Disney VP aggressively and she decided to immediately flee the conference. The product involved was made by Gazillion Entertainment, which was abandoned by Disney just two weeks ago and forced to close with total layoffs. I suspect there was a connection to the regulatory noises that came out of Belgium in response to the EA SW BF2 release. In 2013 regulators were acting in advance of consumer sentiment, to put out small fires before they became big fires. This is what good regulators do. They are not social justice warriors. These are very conservative and pragmatic bureaucrats that take a long time in determining a best course of action when crafting regulation.

What happened a couple weeks ago starting in Belgium and winding its way to France, the UK, and even Hawaii, was a different thing entirely. Here there was already a big fire, that regulators could have prevented by acting earlier (as early as 2013) but did not. This made them look bad. Now they were acting in uncharacteristically bold fashion in reaction to intense consumer demand. Politicians will join the band wagon to court voter passions as you are seeing in Hawaii. Under these conditions the regulators will be under pressure to act faster, and in doing so they will be granted the political power to over react rather than under react as they did previously.

This is a perilous time for companies that have invested heavily in Dark Side Technologies and do not possess the infrastructure to operate effectively in another manner. I believe this is why Gazillion was cut off so abruptly. Now Disney can claim that was just an isolated studio that they acquired during the Marvel acquisition and not reflective of company culture. Yes they may have had the opportunity to do this in 2013, but did not. This does not necessarily prove the existence of a Darksider culture in the wider company, they may have just been operating purely mathematically and seeing the studio as profitable without regard to how. This is still a poor defense but given the economic clout of Disney, it may be enough.

Except that now they have another very large loose end…

Disney’s Relationship With EA

Regulators have long memories, and will access all previous regulatory work before moving forward with new rules. So they know how the 2013 ICPEN summit went down. These sorts of summits happen only once every few years, and everything was recorded on video. So Disney calling for self regulation at that conference is going to ricochet back to them. Now Disney is engaging in self-regulation after the fact. They can’t just shut off EA like they did with Gazillion, but they can shut off all the microtransactions in SW BF2 with just one phone call, and they did.

Still, the gaming arm of the Star Wars franchise was supposed to be something that would boost the SW IP. Instead, they are taking huge brand damage which we can’t be certain of in numerical terms but it certainly will be expensive. It doesn’t help that articles about EU regulators calling for loot boxes to be illegal have Star Wars videos attached to them, just weeks before the launch of their new movie. EU citizens are already nervous about the power of large USA corporations that hold near monopoly power in their territories. They have a history of going after these companies aggressively when they engage in behavior that is perceived as not in the interest of consumers, and regulators will also be considering the recently announced proposed Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox assets in Europe.

There are still additional Star Wars games under development at EA. These projects will come under additional scrutiny as well as existing games under the SW IP. If the situation continues to deteriorate, and it looks like it could, then Disney may move towards a “soft dump”. Pulling the plug completely would involve shutting down all existing SW BF games just like Disney did with Marvel Heroes a couple weeks ago. They did it there, they could do it here. Clearly the Disney bean counters and lawyers are already at work trying to decide if that would make the problem worse and increase their legal exposure. Shutting down a big game like that seems a radical move, but they did it with their Marvel game so it’s possible. The relationship with Gazillion was problematic because of how the 2013 ICPEN summit went down, but Marvel Heroes was popular with consumers, it was not taking the heat that SW BF2 is now.

EA can’t just clean house and go back to a consumer neutral culture. It is solidly Dark Side at this point, and more importantly it has been publicly identified as such by both consumers and regulators. No amount of PR is going to remedy that situation at this point. Calling in a Cleaner was actually attempted, much to my surprise, but the culture nipped that idea in the bud and this option is now off the table.

So while the 61% drop in sales, the multi-billion dollar loss in stock value, the anti-EA Rebellion, and international regulators making EA their new regulatory poster child are all serious problems for EA, the relationship with Disney is their most immediately pressing problem. How it will play out is difficult for me to predict. Disney protects their brand value aggressively, but not proactively. They are poor at preventing fires but good at putting them out. As I’ve pointed out, the fires at EA are beyond the ability of EA to quench. They are also beyond the ability of Disney to quench. Thus some sort of partition is almost certainly going to be executed, but given the size of the Disney-EA relationship, it can’t be done unilaterally and instantly like it was done with Gazillion.

My best guess as to how it’s going to go down is the two will enter into relationship counseling, and once that goes nowhere Disney will file for divorce. A messy divorce. Disney will see that as a likely result and be working on the divorce papers even during the counseling phase. Said divorce won’t result in total and immediate closure as with Gazillion, as EA is a big company with a diversified portfolio that is not all connected to Disney. Still, any such divorce or “soft dump” is going to result in a labor pool reduction well in excess of 10%, and that’s even before regulators get a piece of EA. Given the almost 10% drop in EA stock value already, it seems likely that shareholders will not be waiting for any of these options to actually materialize.

As I pointed out in my recent Data Implosion paper, the entire industry is heading for a large correction. Corrections tend to be incremental until there is a market shock and then they can happen quickly. Well the market shock just happened and the correction is under way. The correction will not be isolated to just EA, even if the market shock was sourced there. EA is an industry leader so it seems appropriate that they are leading the move towards an industry best practices and market correction.

My advice to studios world-wide would be that if you haven’t already had (and lost) a Force War, then don’t. Play this conservatively and stay clear of any activities that might get you targeted by Rebellion forces and regulators until this dies down. Let your competitors take this bullet, that means more market share and less competition for you. It also means lower user acquisition costs are coming up in the near future. That’s especially good news for Force-neutral studios in the mobile space who are mostly struggling under obsolete retail business models, even if there aren’t many of you left. Big winners could be Nintendo and Niantic if they play this right and continue to keep it clean.(Source: gamasutra.com  )


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