以数据调查分析谈男性与女性玩家对“硬核”有着不同的理解

原作者：Nick Yee 译者：Vivian Xue

在我们2018年GDC大会的演讲中，我们探讨了如果根据玩家的自我认定、玩游戏的频率、所玩的特定游戏等不同标准，将玩家定义为休闲/核心/硬核玩家，不同类型玩家的游戏动机会是什么。在这篇文章中，我们将把重点放在玩家的自我认定上，不过我们希望未来能对其它两块进行讨论。

1. 来自我们的游戏动机调查的数据

在Quantic Foundry，我们让玩家参与了一场关于游戏动机的五分钟的调查，调查结束后每位玩家可得到一份私人定制报告，并与其它受访者进行比较。来自全世界范围内的35万名玩家参与了这个调查。我们通过聚类算法将调查中出现的12种玩家动机进行归类。

casual core hardcore（from gamasutra.com）

2. 我们是如何询问玩家他们属于哪种类型的

在本次调查中，我们的提问方式如下：

你认为自己是……

A. 休闲玩家（比如你对游戏有所涉猎，但不经常玩或者每次游戏时长较短）
B. 核心/中核玩家（比如你经常玩游戏，但没那么认真，或者没有特别大的胜负欲）
C. 硬核玩家（比如你为游戏专门购置了高端设备，认真地打游戏，希望和他人一决高下）

我们注意到在游戏圈内，人们对玩家类型没有标准的定义，因此直接让玩家进行选择可能会使调查结果难以解读。因此我们在每个类型后面提供了一个宽松的定义。我们并不认为定义是唯一的，或者我们提供的这些定义特别好，我们只是想设立一个调查基础，以使结果更易于理解。

完整的调查结果显示，将自己定义为核心、硬核和休闲玩家的人数比例分别为69%、21%和10%。参与调查的人中79%为男性，19%为女性，剩下的人将自己定义为跨性别/其它。

3. 硬核玩家渴望快节奏、技巧性的游戏

在下面的这张图表中，纵坐标代表了每种动机的百分比排名。50%的水平线代表了35万名参与调查的玩家的平均情况。举个例子，图中硬核玩家的竞争（Competition）动机的百分比排名为74%，这表明硬核玩家的平均竞争动机百分比排名高于74%的玩家。

硬核玩家与休闲玩家游戏动机的最大区别在于竞争（对决、比赛、排行榜排名）、挑战（练习、技能升级、高难度）和刺激（快节奏、激动、惊喜）——与其它玩家相比，他们渴望的是快节奏、具有技巧性的比赛。相比之下，休闲玩家更喜欢平静、非对抗性、容易上手的游戏。

4. 所有类型的玩家都对完整和想象有着一致的诉求

不同的玩家类型中，完整（奖项物品的收集、关卡的完成度）和想象（扮演他人、到别的地方）两个动机的差异性最小。照这样看，这两个动机与划分休闲和硬核没什么关联。换句话说，这两个动机是两种类型玩家都认同的，但我们通常不这么认为，因为我们倾向于认为休闲和硬核玩家一定有着天壤之别。

理解这一点能够帮助我们实现两种类型玩家的共存。你可以创造一个基于完成任务的沉浸的世界，然后在其中为玩家提供不同的道路选择——一条是是快节奏的、竞争性的，另一条是平静的、单人探索的。你会发现大多数MMO游戏都应用了这种模型。

4. 男性和女性对于“认真打游戏”有着不同的看法

当我们重点关注硬核玩家（在我们的样本中，10%是女性玩家，24%是男性玩家）并且根据性别对他们进行分析时，我们发现完整/挑战/刺激这三个动机的数据是由男性玩家拉动的——它们是男性硬核玩家玩游戏的主要动机。而女性硬核玩家，尽管在这三个动机上的百分比排名高于平均水平，她们受设计（自我表达、自定义）和完整动机的影响更强烈。

因此，“认真打游戏”对于男性玩家来说意味着能够击败对手。而对女性玩家认为更多的是完成游戏中的所有任务、并且在这个过程中展现你的个人风格。对于女性硬核玩家，“认真打游戏”更类似于耐心地创作和布置一样艺术品。这为我们提供了一个对“硬核玩家”的崭新认识。

5. “硬核”指的是广度还是深度？

在对硬核和休闲玩家进行的性别比较中，不同动机覆盖范围的差异凸显了出来：男性硬核玩家的想象（游戏邦注扮演他人，去别的地方）和故事（精致的剧情和有趣的人物）两个动机百分比排名低于平均水平，而女性硬核玩家的所有动机百分比排名都高于平均水平。

因此，男性认为硬核是在游戏中保持专业和竞争力，而女性认为硬核是对游戏的各个方面都具有广泛的兴趣。

6. 男性认为休闲意味着搞破坏

让我们转过头来关注休闲玩家（在我们的样本中，女性玩家占21%，男性玩家占9%）。那些将自己定义为休闲玩家的人没有展现出特别明显的动机。因此这也是为什么他们的数据几乎都处于平均线以下。

男性休闲玩家的破坏（枪、爆炸、混乱）动机的百分比排名最高。对于他们来说，休闲打法意味着破坏一切和制造混乱。我们注意到那些对男性硬核玩家来说重要的——竞争、挑战和兴奋——对于男性休闲玩家来说不重要。

女性休闲玩家在游戏中看重的事物与女性硬核玩家十分相似——设计、完整与幻想。女性休闲玩家喜欢可以完成任务和可以自定义的游戏。

7. 发现潜在的透视镜

我们写这篇文章的目的不是去定义休闲/核心/硬核玩家——这是个很大的话题，需要围绕玩家的偏好和游戏机制/复杂度进行讨论。我们在本文中更关注的是不同类型的玩家对“硬核”和“认真打游戏”的理解。

我们可以简要总结为两点：

1）女性硬核玩家与男性硬核玩家的游戏动机不同。
2）硬核对女性玩家来说更多的意味着广度，对男性玩家来说更多意味着专业性。

游戏圈在定义硬核玩家时倾向于使用男性玩家的标准，因此不可避免地推导出了“男性玩家更可能是硬核玩家”这种武断的结论。但这扭曲了我们对真实的玩家行为的而理解。比如，在我和我的同事们开展的一次针对7000名《无尽的任务 2》玩家的调查中，我们发现女性MMO玩家每周的游戏时间更长，并且不容易产生放弃的念头。但讽刺的是，这些玩游戏最频繁、对游戏最忠诚的玩家却被贴上了“休闲玩家”的标签。

很明显我们需要不断寻找理解玩家区别不同的透视镜，并发现我们的观点与数据中可能存在的缺陷。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

In our talk at GDC 2018, we explored what gamer motivations would look like if we defined “casual/core/hardcore” gamers using different assumptions—e.g., by self-identification with labels vs. by gaming frequency vs. by specific game titles they play. In this blog post, we’ll focus on the slice by self-identification with labels, but we’re hoping to cover at least one additional slice in a future post.

Data From the Gamer Motivation Profile

At Quantic Foundry, our Gamer Motivation Profile allows gamers to take a 5-minute survey to get a personalized report of their gaming motivations, and see how they compare with other gamers. Over 350,000 gamers worldwide have taken this survey. The 12 motivations that are measured in our model were identified via statistical analysis of how gaming motivations cluster together. You can get a more detailed description of our gamer sample here.

How We Asked Gamers About Their Gamer Type

In the survey, here’s how we asked gamers about their self-identification with gamer type labels:

Note that there isn’t a standardized definition of these terms in the gaming community, and without some guidelines around what these terms mean, the results would have been difficult to interpret. This was the rationale behind providing a loose definition that blended frequency with dedication for each label. We’re definitely not claiming these are the only possible definitions, or that our definitions are great, but it provides a working foundation from which to make sense of the findings.

In our full dataset, 68% identify as core, 21% as hardcore, and the remaining 10% as casual. 79% identify as male, 19% identify as female, and the remaining ~1.5% identify as non-binary/other.

Hardcore Gamers are looking for Fast-Paced, Skill-Based Challenges

In this chart below, the y-axis is showing the percentile rank of each motivation. That 50th-%tile line represents the average among the 350,000+ gamers who have completed the Gamer Motivation Profile. So for example, the 74th-%tile in Competition among Hardcore gamers means that the average Hardcore gamer scores higher on Competition than 74% of the gamers in the full data set.

Hardcore gamers are most different from Casual gamers in terms of Competition (duels, matches, leaderboard rankings), Challenge (practice, skill improvement, high difficulty), and Excitement (fast-paced, thrills, surprises)—they are looking for fast-paced, skill-based matches against other players. Casual gamers, on the other hand, are looking for calm, non-adversarial games that are easy to learn and play.

Appeal of Completion and Fantasy are Most Consistent Across Gamer Types

Completion (collecting collectibles, completing all the missions) and Fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else) vary the least among the gamer types. In this sense, these two motivations are orthogonal to what is considered Casual vs. Hardcore. Or put another way, these are the things that both Casual and Hardcore gamers can often agree upon, which is something we don’t usually consider because we tend to focus on how different Casual gamers must be from Hardcore gamers.

And it also provides a basic recipe for how to enable coexistence. You create a common area based on task-completion in a moderately-immersive world, and then you provide separate optional lanes for fast-paced, competitive content and calm, solo content. Note how this model is very much the route that most MMOs have taken.

Playing a Game Seriously Means Different Things to Men and Women

When we focus on just the Hardcore gamers (10% of female gamers and 24% of male gamers in our sample) and break down the data by gender, we see that the overall emphasis on Competition/Challenge/Excitement is driven by the male gamers—these 3 motivations are the primary drivers among male Hardcore gamers. Female Hardcore gamers, while scoring above average in these 3 motivations are more strongly driven by Design (expressing individuality, customization) and Completion.

So for men, playing a game seriously means being able to beat other players at it. For women, playing a game seriously is more likely to mean having completed and done everything there is to do in a game, and to leave traces of your personal flair in the game while doing it. For Hardcore female gamers, playing a game seriously is more akin to patiently creating and curating a work of art. And it’s a powerfully evocative alternative to how we typically conceptualize what a “hardcore gamer” is.

Is Hardcore Breadth or Depth?

This gender comparison between Hardcore and Casual gamers also highlights the difference in coverage of different motivations: Male Hardcore gamers are below average in Fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else) and Story (elaborate plot and interesting characters), whereas female Hardcore gamers are consistently above average across all gaming motivations.

Thus, for men, being Hardcore is more about specializing into competitive gaming, whereas for women, being Hardcore is more about developing a broad interest in all aspects of gaming.

For Men, Casual Means Blowing Things Up

Let’s flip this around and look only at Casual gamers (21% of female gamers and 9% of male gamers in our sample). Gamers who identify as Casual are less enthusiastic about every gaming motivation across the board. So this is why almost all the bars are below the median line.

Casual male gamers score highest on Destruction (guns, explosives, chaos). For them, casual gaming means blowing things up and leaving behind a trail of chaos and mayhem. Note how the things important to Hardcore male gamers—Competition, Challenge, and Excitement—are now deemphasized among Casual male gamers.

For women on the other hand, casual gaming looks a lot like the markers for Hardcore female gamers. We see Design and Completion along with Fantasy. Casual female gamers like being teleported to another world with task completion and customization opportunities.

Many Potential Lenses

Our goal in this post was not to define what “Casual/Core/Hardcore” mean—that’s a much bigger discussion around the intersection of gamer preferences and game mechanics/complexity. We were more interested in exploring what “hardcore” and “playing seriously” means for gamers who ascribe to different gamer type labels (as one of many possible ways of slicing the data).

The two main takeaways are that 1) Hardcore female gamers have different motivational drivers than Hardcore male gamers, and 2) Hardcore is more about breadth for female gamers and more about specialization for male gamers.

The gaming community tends to define Hardcore using the male gamer lens, so there’s inevitably a tautologous conclusion that male gamers are more likely to be Hardcore. But this leads to distortions in making sense of actual gaming behavior. For example, in a study of 7,000+ EverQuest 2 players that my colleagues and I conducted, we found that female MMO gamers spent more hours playing per week and were less likely to consider quitting. But ironically, it was precisely the most frequent and loyal gamers who got stereotyped as being “casuals”.

What’s clear is that we need to be constantly exploring different lenses for understanding player categories and identifying potential fault-lines between our assumptions and gamer data.（source：Gamasutra）