从用户体验的角度聊《南方公园：手机破坏者》是如何盈利的

原文作者：Matt Suckley & DeltaDNA 译者：Megan Shieh

欢迎回到In-App Purchase Inspector，在这里我们会以消费者的视角，定期测评一些F2P游戏。

每期文章，我们都会考虑游戏中IAP的诱因、压力、它们的感知价值、IAP带来的扩展内容还有整个游戏体验的评估。

最终目的就是看看这游戏究竟值不值得我们砸钱，不花钱的游戏体验是否也能让玩家感到满足。

本期文章，我们与数据分析公司DeltaDNA合作，对改编自动画情景喜剧《南方公园》的策略型CCG《South Park: Phone Destroyer（暂译：南方公园：手机破坏者）》进行了盈利模式分析。

这款游戏的发行商育碧(Ubisoft)曾被PocketGamer.biz评选为2017年最佳手游开发商前50名中的第41名。

“自打脸”

《南方公园》与F2P游戏可以说是颇有渊源。

2014年，《南方公园》动画系列在第十八季的某一集中调侃了带有微交易系统的F2P手游，认为这些游戏表面上说是免费，实际上就是在坑钱。

这事儿当时在业内引起了很大的争议，没想到三年后，育碧推出了一款由《南方公园》官方授权的F2P游戏…这难免有些搬起石头砸自己脚的感觉…

South Park Phone Destroyer（from pocketgamer.biz）

可能是为了缓解尴尬，《南方公园：手机破坏者》在游戏开头“警告”玩家：“此游戏包含应用程序内购买与观看广告来获得奖励的选项。要关闭应用程序内购买，请调整你的设备设置。应用程序内购买将花费现实中的金钱，并会从你的账户中扣款。基于前述原因，此游戏并不适合任何玩家游玩。”

游戏内商店

这是一款卡牌类游戏（CCG），玩法也很简单，与《皇室战争》相似：将角色卡牌拖曳到战场上，使相应的角色加入战斗。

元游戏主要围绕的是收集新卡牌，然后将套牌升级，而这就是游戏中鼓励玩家花钱的部分。

我个人认为F2P游戏的盈利模式还可以更好地融入到游戏世界中，尽管《南方公园：手机破坏者》在这方面本可以做得更有创意，但是不难看出，它还是不想沦为自己曾经调侃过的那种“坑钱游戏”。

内购商店是位于主菜单上的一栋绿色小房子，Butters是这家店的老板。因为商店每隔几个小时就会送出免费卡包，所以Cartman会以一种夸张的方式告诉你这家商店有多么慷慨。

此外，游戏中的硬货币“现钞”是可以用真钱买到的，价格从4.99美元（500现钞）到49.99美元（6000现钞）不等。你可以利用这些现钞去购买付费卡包，付费卡包的售价为150-2500现钞。

升级

“金币”是游戏中的软货币，主要功能为升级卡牌。与《皇室战争》一样，要想升级某张卡牌，玩家必须先集齐一定数量的同款卡牌。但《南方公园：手机破坏者》带有一个更细节化的升级过程，玩家不仅需要金币，还得集齐某种升级物品才能最终实现升级。这类升级物品可以在卡包中找到，当它们在商店中出现的时候也可以使用金币购买。

金币不难获得，但是对“升级物品”的这种依赖会放缓玩家升级的速度，这么做或许是为了鼓励他们购买付费卡包。

不过每当玩家完成一个剧情任务时，可以在10个奖励储物柜中选择3个打开，这些储物柜中可能包含“升级物品”、金币或新的角色卡牌。如果开了这3个储物柜以后还是没有获得你想要的东西，可以用现钞去打开额外的储物柜，也可以回去重玩这个任务，从而获得更多奖励。

保持简单

PVP部分使用的也是刚刚提到的储物柜奖励系统，但是在PVP模式中储物柜送出的是“PVP票券”，而不是金币。这些PVP票券可以用来购买服饰、角色卡牌或升级物品。

游戏中不包含多数手游普遍采用的能源系统、没有像《皇室战争》一样的计时解锁机制、也没有花钱复活的选项。从大体上看，《南方公园：手机破坏者》在盈利模式方面保持得非常柔和。而且虽然那句警示语说游戏中含有奖励式广告，但我至今都没看到过任何广告。

本作采用的是软性营销手段，做法也非常直接：如果你想要额外的卡牌，那就得付钱。但是游戏中不存在只有通过充值才能解锁的东西，充值与否你都能在游戏过程中解锁它们，而且你还可以在iOS选项里自行关闭内购。

数据分析公司DeltaDNA指出：

本作继承了剧场版《南方公园》的趣味性，也许是由于此前对F2P游戏的批评，在制作自家免费游戏时他们显得更小心翼翼。

游戏中包含了现代CCG普遍带有的一些机制和一个与《皇室战争》相似的开放战斗系统。不过难度曲线上升得相当快，在玩了几天的PVE任务和PVP模式之后，感觉要再获胜很难。同样，卡牌搜集和升级的过程看似简单，但要升级到2级以上需要很长很长的时间。

虽然从未明确指出，但是玩家可以重玩之前玩过的PVE关卡来获取更多升级物品和货币，不过将卡牌升级到3级的过程感觉就是无止境的刷刷刷。

除此之外，开发者对盈利模式的推动力度极小。在游玩的前期，只出现了少数几个特惠包弹窗，这些特惠包里包含了大量卡牌和一些升级物品，感觉还是蛮慷慨的。

玩家需要花10美元购买“现钞”，然后再用现钞去购买这些卡包，没花完的现钞还可以用来花在各种任务上，也可以储存起来以备将来之用。开包的这个过程是挺有趣的，但最终你会发现并不是所有特惠包都含有金币，然而金币却是升级卡牌时的必要材料。

除了购买优惠包以外，现钞还可以用来做其他事情，比如立即更新“PVP卡包”或开启额外的储物柜，但购买卡包似乎是性价比最高的选择，不过我更建议你去购买那些含有金币的卡包，而不是那些不含金币的特惠包。

问题是：游戏不会特地引导玩家去卡包商店，所以玩家可能会将现钞花在性价比较低的地方。在这种情况下，对盈利模式的轻度推动不仅隐藏了游戏的完整趣味性，而且还让玩家失望了——游戏没有告诉玩家如果他们卡在某个地方，其实是可以走另一条路的，不一定非得刷PVE。

总而言之，游戏不错，但是难度上升得太快，需要刷任务这件事可能会在第一周内失去某些玩家的兴趣，而对盈利模式的假装不在意，反而会对那些不主动探索卡包商店的玩家产生负面影响，从而使留存面临风险。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Welcome back to the In-App Purchase Inspector - our regular look at free-to-play games from the consumer’s perspective.

In each instalment, we consider the incentives or pressure applied to make in-app purchases, their perceived value, the expansion offered by IAPs and the overall value of the experience.

The end goal is to see whether the game makes a good enough case for us to part with our cash, or whether players are content – or engaged enough – to ‘freeload’.

This time, in collaboration with analytics company DeltaDNA, we’re bringing you even more monetisation analysis.

For this special IAPI Extra, we’re taking a look at Ubisoft’s South Park: Phone Destroyer, the CCG strategy game based on the animated sitcom.

Publisher Ubisoft was named 41st in PocketGamer.biz’s list of Top 50 Mobile Game Developers for 2017.

Full circle

South Park has an interesting history with free-to-play games.

In 2014, the animated TV series took on the business model in typically uncompromising fashion, with an episode that featured the line “Freemium: The ‘mium’ is Latin for not really.”

It was a source of much debate within the industry and it was always unlikely that this would be forgotten when, three years later, Ubisoft launched an officially licensed South Park mobile game with a free-to-play model.

South Park: Phone Destroyer addresses this elephant in the room immediately, with a warning message that reads: “This game contains both in-app purchases and the option to watch ads for rewards… in-app purchases cost real money and are charged to your account and for those reasons this game should not be played by anyone.”

It’s a bold move and one that sets the tone for a game that is self-referential and tongue-in-cheek in regards to its own business model.

Go shopping

The game itself is pretty simple, effectively a CCG in which cards are dragged onto the battlefield to bring new characters into the fight – rather like a pared-back Clash Royale.

This means that the metagame focus is on gathering new cards and upgrading your deck, which is where spending is encouraged.

I generally feel that free-to-play monetisation can be better embedded and contextualised within game worlds, but while South Park: Phone Destroyer could probably have been more creative in this regard, its efforts remain above and beyond what most free-to-play games are doing.

The in-game shop is represented on the game’s main menu as an actual building, with Butters as the shopkeeper. Cartman makes exaggerated reference to the shop’s generosity, in reference to the free card packs it gives away every few hours.

But if you’re popping by to spend actual money, hard currency Cash is available in bundles ranging from $4.99 for 500 to $49.99 for 6,000. In turn, this Cash can be used to buy Premium Card Packs ranging from 150 to 2,500 Cash.

Levelling up

South Park: Phone Destroyer’s soft currency is Coins, the primary use of which is to upgrade cards. In much the same way as Clash Royale, cards here can only be levelled up when a certain number of duplicates have been collected.

But here there’s a more granular upgrading process alongside this, requiring a combination of Coins and specific materials – found in card packs, or bought using Coins when they appear among the shop’s rotating stock – to upgrade individual attributes.

Coins are available readily enough, but this reliance on upgrade items can slow down the upgrading process, presumably to incentivise the purchase of premium card packs.

However, upgrade items can also be earned – along with Coins, or new character cards – when the player is given the chance to choose to open three reward lockers out of a selection of 10 after completing each story mission.

If you don’t get what you’re after in this lucky dip, additional lockers can be opened using Cash. Going back to replay these stages after completing them – each has 15 tiers of difficulty – will also yield improved rewards.

Keeping it simple

The same locker-based reward system exists for the game’s PvP component, but it’s a different currency that gets dished out: PvP Tickets.

These can be used in their own section of the store to buy outfits, character cards and upgrade items.

But mostly, whether it be through genuine vision or being boxed in by South Park’s strident takes on F2P in the past, Phone Destroyer keeps things very light monetisation-wise.

This is best summed up in the absence of some industry-standard techniques: no energy system, nor even a Clash Royale-esque timed unlock process and no option to pay currency to revive in failed battles.

Indeed, despite the warnings, I’ve yet to even see a rewarded ad.

The sell is a soft one and remarkably straightforward: if you want extra cards, you pay money. If not, there’s more than enough opportunity to progress without doing so.

Extra Extra
For this special In-App Purchase Inspector Extra, analytics company DeltaDNA has provided more deep analysis on South Park: Phone Destroyer.

South Park: Phone Destroyer is a fun game that takes the spirit of the franchise in its stride and perhaps due to the show’s past criticisms of free-to-play it is clear they have been mindful in how it’s implemented here.

The introduction to gameplay eases players into the usual modern CCG mechanics and a fairly open battle system akin to games like Clash Royale. However the difficulty curve ramps up fairly quickly and within a couple of days’ play some PVE missions and particularly PVP feel insurmountable.

Similarly, the card upgrading and levelling process seems simple at first but upgrading beyond level 2 takes a long, long time.

Though it’s never specifically pointed out, players can replay previous PVE levels to farm the many upgrade materials and currency needed, but getting cards to level 3 quickly becomes extremely grindy even though there’s no annoying energy mechanism to limit play.

Packed in

That said, monetisation is only very lightly pushed. There were only a handful of pop-ups during the first few days indicating a special offer pack is available and it sounds pretty generous giving a large number of cards and some upgrade materials.

The cost requires buying $10 of in-game currency but the leftovers can be spent on a variety of tasks or hoarded for the future.

Opening the pack and seeing all the cool cards was a fun experience, but you suddenly realise afterwards that not all of these packs include coins which are needed to upgrade and level up your new toys to make them actually competitively usable.

In-game currency can be used in areas other than packs, for example to refresh PVP pack availability or open extra lockers for level completion rewards, but it seems like packs are the best value option – though it may be wiser to go for the packs that include coins rather than some of the special offer card packs.

‘The catch here is that players aren’t specifically directed to the pack shop, so may end up spending their currency on the less productive areas.

This is where the light approach to monetisation not only undersells the game but also lets the players down – by shying away from pushing monetisation, the game is missing an opportunity to let players know there is a route they can take if they get stuck, the alternative being that they are at greater risk of churning.

Overall, there appears to be a solid game here but the difficulty spikes and grindiness are likely to turn off less determined players within the first week and the lighter touch monetisation actually works against the players who don’t explore the Pack Shop off their own initiative and puts retention at risk as a result.’ （Source: pocketgamer.biz  ）