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比较免费游戏&街机游戏的心理和游戏机制

发布时间:2011-12-26 20:09:33 Tags:,,,,

作者:Xavi Fradera

我在投币式电子游戏领域工作13年,主要负责平面美工和游戏设计。我制作多款电子游戏,有些非常成功。

coin-op games from games.yahoo.com

coin-op games( from games.yahoo.com)

随着我开发事业的发展,我开始逐步转投手机和掌机游戏领域,目前正在制作一款PC免费射击游戏。我负责这款游戏的多块内容,现在刚刚步入初步测试阶段。

游戏是款典型的免费射击游戏,玩家可以随时免费体验游戏,或者购买道具定制角色,购买强大武器更顺利地打败敌人,同好友建立自己的部落,对部落进行定制等。

在此制作和初步测试阶段,我发现投币游戏和免费游戏在玩家如何应对游戏及游戏如何对待玩家上存在相似性。文章旨在解释其中包含的心理和游戏机制。

初次体验

当玩家购买游戏,首次进行体验时,会出现如下两种情况:

* 玩家享受游戏,这样他就会持续体验,直到最终结束。这最完美的结局,在玩家看来这就是很好的投资。

* 玩家不喜欢游戏。他的初次体验与心中所想存在出入。他会反复进行尝试(游戏邦注:相信玩家会这么做,因为它们在其中很多资金),直到觉悟自己完全是白费资金。

在两种情况中,发行商都顺利卖掉游戏,完成交易,算是很不错的运作。

Console game player reaction flow chart from gamasutra.com

Console game player reaction flow chart (from gamasutra.com)

关于投币式和免费游戏,玩家在首次游戏体验中的反应大不相同。若玩家享受游戏,会出现什么情况?

* 在投币式游戏中,玩家会连续几天、几周或者甚至几个月都保持体验,持续投入硬币。相信会有很多人看到玩家享受其中,在玩家结束体验后,新玩家会进行尝试。最后,机子的盒子会装满硬币。

* 在免费游戏中,玩家会继续进行免费体验。在某些情况下,他们(付费玩家比例大约是3%-5%)会购买道具或虚拟商品,更好享受游戏。月底,这些资金就会转移到发行商或开发者的帐户。

这是玩家初次体验令人满意、充分享受其中所出现的情况。在两种情况下,发行商都能最终获得收益。表现很好。

但若玩家不喜欢游戏或感到困惑、沮丧,经历糟糕初次体验会出现什么情况?

* 在投币式游戏中,玩家会在退到旁边,观看他人体验前再尝试2-3次。若新玩家经历相同糟糕体验,游乐场的玩家就会离开机子,因为相关言论会火速传开。最后,机子盒中的硬币寥寥无几。

* 在免费游戏中,初次糟糕体验会令玩家立即退出,转投其他游戏,因为市场上还有众多选择。若玩家有在游戏中掏钱,他会再试一次,但因为在这类游戏中,玩家没有投入半毛钱,因为它们会选择直接退出。

在这两种情况下,发行商或开发商最终并未获得丰厚收入。这是非常糟糕的运作。

Arcade game player reaction flow chart from gamasutra.com

Arcade game player reaction flow chart (from gamasutra.com)

F2P game player reaction flow chart from gamasutra.com

F2P game player reaction flow chart (from gamasutra.com)

显然,若游戏需要花钱,玩家会多给一次机会,这样游戏就有更多时间让玩家进行适应,说服玩家其中所包含的乐趣。但若游戏无需花钱,游戏在玩家的首次体验中就要富有趣味,能够凭直觉进行操作,否则就会消亡。

这就是为什么,尤其是投币式和免费游戏,玩家的首次体验要非常精彩,不能出现困惑、恼人和沮丧感觉。游戏需在任何情况下都表现突出,因为若无法做到这点,玩家就会退出游戏——这是最糟糕的结果。

重玩价值

商店出售的游戏很多都没有将重玩价值放在首位。投币式游戏则刚好相反;每个关卡都会被同个玩家反复体验好几百次。这主要是初始关卡,因为这些是玩家想在游戏中继续,必须掌握的内容。这些关卡因此需要精心设计,各个细节都需要非常完美,具有玩法性。许多制作精力都要瞄准这些关卡。

Percentage of players playing each level, compared with its production effort

游戏开发投入的精力与玩家闯关数量成正比(from gamasutra)

因此,关卡不能存在空白领域、糟糕冲突、无趣内容或缺失情况等。若存在需完善、毫无趣味、错误或缺失的内容,玩家很快就会感到厌倦,或者更糟的是,就会感到生气,从而停止玩游戏。

有一个很好建议是,给游戏后期关卡创造游戏模型,这样当随后创建首个关卡后,所有游戏功能就会定义清晰、制作精良,便于造就更优质的设计。

相同情况也出现在游戏机制中。若游戏机制不够完善,内容就会迅速变得惹人厌,也是促使玩家离开游戏的一大原因。记住在投币式游戏中,收入不会在玩家购买游戏时就产生,而是要等到玩家已体验游戏一小段时候。

在免费游戏中,情况非常相似(游戏邦注:尤其是在射击游戏中)。玩家会在不同游戏模式中反复体验各关卡数千次,所以所有内容都要尽善尽美:关卡各细节、各游戏机制、没有缺失情况,因为众所周知,这意味着玩家会离开游戏,转投其他内容。

动态难度

我们在投币式游戏中添加的一个功能是游戏难度会自动根据玩家的体验水平进行调节。这样,每个玩家都享有个性化的挑战,游戏既不会太简单,也不会太复杂,让玩家充分享受其中。

我们的方法很简单。我们持续衡量玩家的表现,将玩家数据同我们自己在最佳回合的数据进行比较。这让我们能够在头5-10秒后就清楚玩家的技能水平。这里我们只需要调整若干游戏参数,让游戏配合玩家水平。在余下游戏内容中,我们继续进行相同操作:持续衡量玩家技能,根据玩家表现略微调整游戏难度。

Game progression and its corresponding dynamic difficulty in an arcade

游戏进程及其动态难度(from gamasutra)

在线竞争游戏,尤其是射击游戏,通过配对完成相同操作。配对程序瞄准具有类似经验水平的玩家,自动将他们组合起来。这样,游戏就不会太简单或太复杂,玩家能够从中获得最佳游戏体验。

Matchmaking joins similar experience level player into the same match

配对系统为玩家找到同等水平的玩伴(from gamasura)

创收

“投币继续”和免费游戏的“购买强大新武器”(游戏邦注:前者意味着继续投币游戏,后者只是想要报复一直打败自己的玩家)也存在某些相似性。

cents from gamasutra.com

cents from gamasutra.com

二者都很平价。在投币游戏中,1个回合只需1美元左右,在免费游戏中,玩家能够找到价格在50美分-6美元间的虚拟商品。

当我制作投币式游戏时,我总是这么想:“若价格更便宜些,玩家就会投入更多资金。”2000年时,我曾设计一款简短的投币式游戏,其中每个回合只要20欧分。游戏是款设定于美国西部的战斗游戏。

通过投资20欧分,两位玩家能够同时进行互相射击,直到其中某个死去。存活玩家将能够免费体验下个回合的内容,新加入游戏的玩家就需要支付接下来的20欧分(每回合能够容纳两位玩家)。

这是个疯狂的想法,因为游戏需要通过运动传感器检测玩家的操作,但当时没有这样的东西。同样,简单、平价游戏的构思也非常新颖,此外机子的成本很高,所以项目最终取消。如今,这就能够通过Kinect实现。

虽然游戏未能最终制作完成,但这说明正确玩法诱惑和平价体验价格能够促使人们投入比当前掌机游戏价格更高的资金——这就是目前所有免费游戏所呈现的状况。

二者都靠情感驱使。想象你在体验某款竞赛投币游戏,你即将实现目标,获得额外时间,但你没有很多时间逐一经历3-2-1-0!但游戏高潮即将到来,“时间到”的信息赫然出现在屏幕上,你觉得:“哦,天啊。我只剩1分钟!”下个出现的信息是个邀请:“是否继续体验?”,然后是倒计时——9、8、7……你迅速将手伸入口袋,拿出硬币,在倒计时结束前将其插入投币口。非常冲动。

相同情况也出现在免费射击游戏中。假设你厌倦于持续被同个玩家杀害,那么你就会想要不计代价地进行复仇。可以确定,战斗结束时,你会非常气愤,进入商店购买更强大的武器,只是想要杀死你的对手。

两种情况都会让玩家非常有满足感。在投币(这意味着继续),或在购买强大武器后(这意味着复仇),玩家都会获得满足感,因为他能够立即获得自己的所想和所需。这非常好,因为体验我们的游戏会让玩家感觉更好。这帮助我们实现希望玩家继续体验,然后继续花钱的愿望。

初步测试

投币和免费游戏都有类似的测试阶段。

All main features in the game lead to a good game experience, so the player keeps playing

主要功能带来出色游戏体验,能够持续吸引玩家(from gamasutra)

游戏中的所有主要功能都会带来优质游戏体验,这样玩家就会继续体验。

在测试游戏时,你首先需记住的是,所有游戏功能都要包括在内。若你测试的是缺失重要功能的游戏,所得结果会和测试完整版本不同。

有个例子能够更好说明:

玩家表示,“这款射击游戏非常乏味。头10分钟还行,但经过几小时的体验后,内容就变得重复。”

游戏当然会重复和乏味!你无法添加基于经验的武器解锁机制,这样向前迈进就没有回馈。但武器完善和武器附加功能尚未出现于游戏中,所以游戏此刻就不太有吸引力。

奖励功能依然缺失,所以玩家无法在比赛结束获得表现反馈。同时还存在某些粗糙功能,让玩家感到困惑和沮丧。HUD依然未呈现玩家获得优质游戏体验所需的所有信息。

当你知道内容缺失某些重要元素时,你很难期望它富有趣味。你所测试的游戏需要具有完整内容,必要时候要能够进行相应调整。

Missing or unpolished features lead to frustration and the player leaving the game

游戏功能缺乏或不完善会让玩家受挫并离开游戏(from gamaustra)

就电子游戏来说,开发商通常会在游戏发行前进行游戏测试。确保所有游戏功能能够清楚呈现,玩家知晓玩法非常重要。完成初步测试后,只要你获得玩家的反馈,就能够进行最终调整。游戏就可以算是已经完成。若你觉得这有必要,你可以另外组织讨论小组,确保游戏提供优质玩法。

在投币游戏中,我们通过在选定的游乐场连续放置一台机子几周进行游戏测试。就像我之前说过的,你无法就功能不完善或略显粗糙的游戏进行测试——否则这就会带来困惑或沮丧感。那样的话,玩家就会直接停止体验游戏,盒子就不会得到很多钱币。若出现这种情况,解决方案很简单:调整游戏,在其他游乐场中进行新一轮的测试。

免费游戏的测试条件和投币游戏非常相似,但你需要考虑的是现在游乐场就是整个市场——所以若你搞砸测试,你就无法追求其他市场。你可以限制测试人员的数量,但在将作品呈现给整片市场前,你只有一次机会进行测试。

若用户不喜欢这款游戏,他们就会选择离开。关于那些没有离开的玩家,进行重大调整就非常危险,因为他们很容易会就这些调整做出不好的回应(游戏邦注:只是因为游戏和以往不同,即便你所进行的调整其实很好)。

玩家对游戏的第一印象是测试阶段最有价值的信息。第一周体验后,玩家会习惯体验你的游戏,它们甚至会在不知不觉中跳过或忽略令人不舒服或不愉快的情境。我们会说玩家深受游戏“蛊惑”,因此一周后你获得的结果也“有所迷失”。记住,最有价值的信息是第一印象。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Classic Design Lessons: What Free-To-Play Can Learn From Arcades

by Xavi Fradera

I worked in the coin-op video game industry for 13 years, as a graphic artist and game designer. I worked on and created several video games, some of them quite successful. (You can find more about these games at my personal website www.xavifradera.com.)

As my game development career moved forward, I shifted to mobile games, console games and, currently, am in production on a PC free-to-play shooter. I’m in charge of different tasks on this game (game design, production…) and we have just reached the beta testing phase.

The game is a classic F2P shooter, where you can play for free as long as you like, or play and buy some assets to customize your character, buy powerful weapons to better defeat your enemies, create a clan with your friends, customize it, and much more.

During the production and beta testing phase, I found some similarities between coin-op and F2P games regarding how the player approaches the game and how the game approaches the player. This article tries to explain these psychological and game dynamics.

The First Experience

When the player buys a game and plays it for first time, two things can happen:

* The player enjoys the game, so he will keep playing for a long time, maybe until completing it. That’s perfect, as it’s been a good investment for the player.

* The player doesn’t enjoy the game. His first experience is not what he thought it would be. He will give it another try — sure he will, as he spent a lot of money on the game — and another, and possibly another… until he realizes he has thrown away his money.

In both cases, the publisher has sold the game and gotten business — good job, to the publisher!

With coin-op and F2P games, the player’s reaction during his first game experience is different. What happens if the player enjoys the game?

* With coin-op games, he will keep playing and inserting coins for days, weeks or possibly months. Also, be certain that many people will be watching the way he enjoys the game, so when the player finishes playing, new players will give it a try. At the end of the day, the cabinet’s coin box will surely be completely full.

* With F2P, the player will keep playing for free. In some cases — it’s said to be 3 to 5 percent — he will buy some assets or virtual goods to better enjoy the game. At the end of the month, money is in the publisher or developer’s bank account.

This is what happens if player’s first experience is positive and enjoys the game. In both cases cash is the result. Good job.

But, what happens if the player does not enjoy the game, or maybe gets confused, or frustrated, and has a bad first game experience?

* With coin-op games, the player will try the game two or three times before moving aside and waiting for another player to play. If other new players have the same bad experience, people in the arcade will move away from the cabinet, because news spreads like wildfire. At the end of the day, there won’t be much money in the cabinet’s coin box.

* With F2P, a bad first experience makes the player immediately quit and search for another game, because there are so many choices out there. If the game cost the player money, he would have given it another try, but because he hasn’t spent even a cent, he just quits.

In these two cases, cash is not the result for the publisher or developer. A really bad job.

As you can easily understand, if the game costs money, the player will give it more of a chance, so the game has more time available to let the player get used to it and to convince him it’s fun. If it doesn’t cost any money, the game has to be fun and intuitive at the first try… or die.

That’s why, especially with coin-op and F2P games, player’s first experience needs to be absolutely great. It can’t be confusing, annoying or frustrating. It has to be perfect at all costs, because if not, the player will quit the game — the most catastrophic result.

Replayability

With most games you buy at a shop, replayability is not prioritized. The completely opposite happens with coin-op games; each level will be played hundreds of times by the same player. This is mainly the starting levels, since they are the ones the player has to master if he wants to progress in the game. These levels have then to be thoroughly designed, each centimeter has to be perfect, gameplay-wise. The bulk of the production effort has to be focused on these levels.

Therefore, levels can’t have bland areas, bad collision, a section which is not fun at all, or a lost opportunity (a good idea that has not been applied correctly), etc. If there’s something that can be improved, something that’s not fun at all, something wrong or missing… in the end, the player will get bored quickly, or even worse, annoyed, and that will be enough reason to stop playing the game.

A good tip for honing these levels is creating the game prototype for a level much later in the game, so when the first level is created later, all game features are already defined and well-polished, and it’s easier to make a better design.

The same happens with game mechanics. If they are not perfect, they will quickly become annoying, and a strong reason for the player to leave the game, too. And remember, with coin-op games, cash does not come at the moment the player buys the game, but only after the player has been playing the game for a while.

With F2P games, the situation is very similar (specially for shooters). The player plays each level thousands and thousands of times in different game modes, so everything has to be perfect: each centimeter of the levels, each game mechanic, no lost opportunities… because, as we know, that means the player will leave the game and look for another one on which to spend his money.

Dynamic Difficulty

One of the features we added to coin-op games is that game difficulty automatically adjusts to the player’s play level. That way, each player has a personalized challenge that makes the game neither too easy nor too difficult, and let the player fully enjoy the game.

Our method was quite simple. We constantly measured player’s performance and compared the player’s data with the data we got ourselves playing on a perfect match. This let us know the player’s skill level after the first five to ten seconds of play. From there, we only had to adjust a few game parameters to match the game to the player’s level. During the rest of the game, we kept doing the same: constantly measuring the player’s skill and varying the game difficulty slightly up or down depending on his performance.

Online competitive games, especially shooters, do the same via matchmaking. Matchmaking software looks for players with a similar level of experience and automatically matches them together. This way, the game is neither too easy nor too difficult, and, as result, players get the best possible game experience.

Monetization

There is also some similarity between “insert another coin to continue”, which means progress on coin-op games, and “buy a powerful new weapon” on F2P games, just to take vengeance on a player who is beating you all time.

Both are cheap. With coin-op games, a credit costs around 1 dollar, and with F2P games you can find virtual goods between 50 cents to 6 dollars.

When I was working on coin-op games, I always had the idea that “if the credits were cheaper, the player would spend more money”. It was around the year 2000 when I designed a short coin-op game where each credit would only cost 20 euro cents. The game was an Old West duel game (with two screens and two guns, for two simultaneous players.)

For 20 euro cents, both players would shoot the gun at the same time, one against the other, until one of them died. The surviving player would play the next round for free, and the new player that joined the game would pay the next 20 cent credit (two players per credit).

It was a crazy idea, because movement sensors to detect the player’s movement were needed and didn’t exist yet. Also, the idea of a short, cheap game was new, too — plus there was the high cost of the cabinet, so the project was abandoned. These days, it could be possible with the Kinect.

While the game was never made, it illustrates the idea that the right gameplay hook and a cheap entry price could lead people to spend more than the cost of a current generation console game — and that’s what is currently happening in all kinds of F2P games.

Both are impulsive. Imagine you are playing a racing coin-op game. You are about to cross the goal and get time extended, but you don’t have much time to go through, 3… 2… 1… 0! When the game climax is at the max, a “Time Up” message appears on screen… You think, “Oh no, If I only had one more second!” The next message that appears is an invitation: “Continue Playing?” and a countdown, 9…8… 7… As fast as you can, you put your hand into your pocket to grab a coin and insert it before the countdown finishes. That’s impulse.

The same happens with F2P shooters. Imagine you are fed up that you keep getting killed by the same player… so you want vengeance at any cost. We can be assured that, at the end of the battle, you will be enraged and will enter the shop to buy a more powerful weapon just to kill your rivals.

Both are satisfying to the player. After the coin insertion, which means progress, or after buying a powerful new weapon, which means revenge, the player gets a feeling of satisfaction, as he instantly gets what he wants and needs. And that’s good, because playing our game makes the player feel better. That helps us fulfill our desire of keeping the player playing and, therefore, spending money.

Beta Testing

Coin-op and F2P games also have similar beta testing phases.

All main features in the game lead to a good game experience, so the player keeps playing.

You have to keep in mind above all that, when beta testing a game, almost all game features must be in. If you test a game that’s missing important features, the result you get will be completely different than if you test the same game when it’s feature complete.

An example can better explain what I mean:

“This shooter game is boring,” says the player. “The first 10 minutes are fine, but after a couple of hours playing it becomes repetitive.”

Of course it’s repetitive and boring! You haven’t added the experience-based weapon unlocking system, so progression has no reward. The weapons improvements and weapon add-ons features are not in the game yet, so weapons are not too impressive at the moment.

The awards feature is still missing, so the player doesn’t get performance feedback at the end of the match. There are still some unpolished features which can confuse or frustrate the player. The HUD still doesn’t give all the information the player needs to have a good game experience. Spawn immunity doesn’t have any feedback yet, so the player doesn’t know about its existence… And so on.

You can’t expect something to be fun when you know there are important missing elements. The game you want to test has to be almost complete, and ready to be tweaked if necessary.

Normally, with video games, playtests are performed before the game is released. It’s important to ensure that all in-game features are clear and players understand the gameplay. After beta testing is done, and once you have players’ feedback, the final tweaks can be done. Then, the game can be considered finished. If you think it’s necessary, you can organize another focus group just to ensure the game will provide perfect gameplay.

With coin-op games, we beta tested our games by placing a cabinet in a selected arcade for a few weeks. As I said before, you cannot beta test a game which is not almost feature complete, or not polished enough — otherwise it can create confusion or frustration. In that case, players will simply stop playing the game and the cabinet won’t get much traffic. If this happens, the solution is not too difficult: just tweak the game, and look for another arcade to attempt a new beta test.

With F2P games, beta testing conditions are similar to coin-op games, but you have to take into account that now the arcade is the entire world — so you can’t go looking for another world if you mess up your test. Well, you can limit the number of beta testers, but you only have one real opportunity to beta test the game before opening it to the entire world.

If the audience does not like the game (keeping in mind what I said about the quality of the first play experience), players will leave the game. And for the players who don’t leave, making big changes can be dangerous, because people can easily react in a bad way to these changes — just because the game is different than what they are used to, even if the changes you’ve applied have been good.

The most valuable information from the beta test phase is the player’s first impression of the game. After the first week of play, people get used to playing your game, and, even without realizing it, they skip or avoid those uncomfortable or unfavorable situations. We said that the player gets “intoxicated” by the game, and, therefore, the results you get after a week get also “intoxicated”. Remember, the most valuable info is always the first impression.

Conclusion

This article is just some thoughts based on my past experiences in the games industry. They were real sensations I had during the production of Freak Wars: Torrente Online 2, as I was constantly having deja vu moments of my splendid days working at Gaelco.

This article probably misses some similarities between these two types of games, and even similarities with other game types I didn’t refer to, but maybe you can think of some and add them to the comments!

Special thanks to Abel Bascuñana for his guidance and help.(Source:gamasutra


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