从游戏设计的角度聊《Coin Master》是如何盈利的？

原文作者：Matt Suckley 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款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。

Coin Master（from pocketgamer.biz）

本期我们要讨论的是由Moon Active工作室开发制作的一款资源管理类游戏《Coin Master（暂译：金币大师）》

《金币大师》中的所有机制和盈利模式都是围绕着一台老虎机建立的。

本作包含了建造和升级建筑的功能，同时还带有一个作战系统，玩家可以攻击其它玩家的基地，防御来袭并赚取金币——但这一切都是围绕着游戏中的老虎机进行的。

游戏中的软货币为“金币”，如果玩家同时转到“三袋金币”可以获得大量金币；转到“三把锤子”可以攻击随机对手的村庄；转到“三个盾牌”可以自动防御来自其它玩家的一次攻击；而转到“三只猪”则有机会攻击一位“金币大师”——拥有超多金币的玩家。

第一次玩的时候，游戏会给你许多免费“旋转”；不过一旦用完这些旋转，整个游戏速度就会明显放缓。

每过一个小时，玩家会收到5次免费旋转。这就意味着如果玩家想要集齐金币来为自己的村庄购买下一栋建筑，可能需要花上好几个小时。

因为老虎机的主要特点就是“随机性”，所以玩家的进阶速度非常多变。

如果能够成功突袭其他玩家并取得数十万金币，那进阶肯定是比较快的；不过也有可能连续转了很多次，结果啥都没转到。

毫无疑问，“手游产业从博彩产业借鉴盈利模式”这种做法是带有争议的。

在《部落冲突》中花真钱时，玩家清楚地知道自己会得到宝石，也知道这些宝石的作用。然而在《金币大师》中（例如：花真钱购买50次旋转），尽管有可能赢得数不胜数的金币，但也有可能空手而归。

不过说句良心话，《金币大师》清清楚楚地表明这是一款靠运气的游戏，也没打算藏着掖着。

游戏界面表达得再清楚不过了，游戏中甚至有个“双倍下注”机制，玩家可以将两次旋转结合为一次以获得双倍的奖励。

“旋转”的价格从1.99美元（20次）到99.99美元（1350次）不等。对于大多数游戏而言，玩家掏钱购买其中一个套餐就意味着短时间内TA不会再次购买了。

但在《金币大师》中，首次购买就只是为了说服玩家加大赌注而已。在首次购买时，如果玩家原意多花一倍的钱，他们就有机会通过一次旋转来赢得至少两倍的奖励（也有可能获得十倍的奖励）。

然而“赌博模式”并不是《金币大师》的最大问题，问题是它用“赌博模式”作为一种借口来掩盖其核心机制（也可以说是唯一机制）的缺陷——如果不花钱的话，很难长期玩下去。

但还不止这些。

例如，观看一个广告可以获得一次免费旋转，还可以获得15000枚金币。这些金币也可以用真钱单独购买。

玩家还可以通过开箱来收集卡片，宝箱价格从2百万到1200百万枚金币不等，这些卡片的主要功能是社交，玩家可以相互赠送卡片来完成彼此的收藏。

集齐一套卡牌以后，玩家可以获得相对的金币奖励。

不过老实说，这一切似乎都是为了转移人们的注意力，试图掩藏掉一个赤裸裸的事实——《金币大师》是一款伪装成游戏的老虎机。

虽说它的设计非常吸引人，玩起来甚至令人心情愉悦，但它仍是一台老虎机。

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 we’re taking a look at Coin Master, the slots-based build and battler from Tel Aviv studio Moon Active.

Spin when you’re winning

With our previous entry examining the Blackjack-based RPG Battlejack, and now this on the heavily casino-inspired Coin Master, it could be suggested that mobile game developers are increasingly eyeing the work of social casino firms.

And if this is indeed the case, it’s easy to see why: social casino titles are some of the highest grossing apps out there.

But while Battlejack merely used the mechanics of Blackjack for its combat, Coin Master builds everything – including its monetisation – around a slot machine.

Coin Master is a build and battler that allows all the actions associated with that genre – constructing and upgrading buildings, attacking other players’ bases, defending against incoming attacks and earning currency – but only on the whim of the slots.

Three hammers allow you to attack the village of a random opponent. Three sacks of gold grant you a large haul of coins, the game’s soft currency. Three shields allow you to automatically defend one attack, while three pigs give you the chance to raid the Coin Master – a player with a vast number of coins stored away.

Out of luck

Once you’ve burned through the free spins that you’re given upon starting the game for the first time, the distribution slows to a crawl.

Five free spins are given every hour, which means that it can take several hours to generate enough coins to buy the next building for your village.

Random by its nature, the pace of progression is wildly variable.

Successfully raiding a player for several hundred thousand coins obviously accelerates the process, but a series of barren spins is just as likely.

Clearly, whether or not it’s healthy or ethical for the mobile games industry to be borrowing from the world of gambling is debatable.

Coin Master never tries to obfuscate that this is a game of chance.

Indeed, spend money on some gems in Clash of Clans and you know precisely what you’re getting and what you can spend it on. Spending money on 50 spins in Coin Master could yield an unprecedented fortune, or a bitter taste.

The luck of the draw

Though to be fair to Coin Master, it never tries to obfuscate that this is a game of chance.

The visual language of the one-armed bandit could hardly be clearer,and there’s even a mechanic in which you can double down and ‘bet’ two spins to double the reward from a single spin.
It’s even clearer when you spend money, too. Spins are available in bundles ranging from $1.99 for 20 to $99.99 for 1,350, and for most games, purchase of one of these bundles would be where the sales patter ends – at least for a while.

But in Coin Master, it’s merely a chance to persuade the player to up their stake. By doubling their initial spend, the player is given the chance to at least double their reward – but potentially winning 10 times the amount – by taking a chance on a spinner.

In reality, though, Coin Master’s biggest problem is not that it uses the language and patterns of gambling. It’s that it uses them to excuse the fact that its main – arguably its only – mechanic is barely accessible without spending money.

Better luck next time

But there is slightly more to Coin Master than this.

Coin Master is a slot machine masquerading as a game.

Rewarded video ads allow the player to earn a single free spin, for instance. Watching an ad can also yield 15,000 coins, which can also be bought on their own for real money.

There are also cards to collect, which come in chests – ranging from two million to 12 million coins – but their function is primarily a social one whereby players can gift each other cards to complete one another’s collections.

Players are then granted currency rewards for completing card sets.

But really, it all feels like layering to distract from the stark truth: that Coin Master is a slot machine masquerading as a game.

It’s not a badly designed slot machine – it’s extremely compelling, enjoyable even – but it’s a slot machine nonetheless. （Source：pocketgamer.biz ）