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从《万智牌》看数字游戏可借鉴的增值模式

发布时间:2012-01-18 09:59:53 Tags:,,,

作者:Krystian Majewski

我很欣赏《坦克世界》所采用的免费模式。在某些方面看来,这是一次大胆的尝试。它明确区分了付费玩家和非付费玩家的福利,额外给予了付费玩家一些重要功能。而与之相比,绝大多数免费游戏的执行力却远远不足。可以说,大多数玩家只是在为一些肤浅的游戏形象做投资,或者只是花钱跳过游戏设计者最初设下的麻烦事罢了。

所以谨慎地使用这种方法也是合理的。在竞争环境下使用付费模式去影响游戏玩法是一个需要慎重考虑的内容。因为如果玩家花钱便能够为自己赢得优势,这似乎并不公平。这么做就等于抹去了我们所认可的公平竞争模式基础。

如此看来免费游戏并不符合道德标准。但也许这也只是一种关于架构和执行的问题。我想,也许以非电子游戏领域为例,更有助于我们理解付费模式的运行机制。我立刻想到了集换式卡片游戏《万智牌:旅法师对决》。在这款游戏中你需要花钱购买卡片,并使用卡片构造桥牌,然后使用桥牌与其他玩家进行对决。但是越多卡片也不一定能够帮你构造出更厉害的桥牌。但是如果你想要用合适的卡片创建合适的桥牌,那么更多的卡片选择便能够为你带来优势。

我之所以提到这点是因为在我短暂沉迷于《万智牌》期间,我曾经花费许多钱去购买卡片,但也从未觉得自己被欺骗了。我也频繁参加了“booster draft”比赛(游戏邦注:针对于《万智牌》游戏中如何创造桥牌的技巧性比赛)。在这里,你只有购买3个补充卡包才能参加比赛,每周都有一场比赛。我们都认为这是一种很棒的“交易”活动。

所以,为了更好地了解数字免费游戏的增值模式,你应该先了解《万智牌》的游戏玩法。我归纳了3个要点以分析这些内容。

magic the gathering cards(from gamingcorner.nl)

magic the gathering cards(from gamingcorner.nl)

1.奖励是有形且持久的——《万智牌》的卡片是有形的。你可以将其握在手上或者在厌烦时卖掉它们。这一点是所有数字游戏的巨大优势。因为这些卡片是有形的,所以它们在一开始就具有明显的价值。《万智牌》卡片不只是有形的,而且还是持久存在的,并不是用过一次就会被淘汰了。你可以反复地使用同一张卡片。随着时间的推移,强大的卡片也不会变弱。你可以不用为了激发玩家的购买欲而专门为自己的数字产品贴上有效期。事实上,保持卡片的持久性能够更好地满足收集者,并增强他们对收集更多卡片的兴趣。

2.奖励具有随机性——你不能购买任何一张特定的《万智牌》卡片,除非是非官方发行的卡片。虽然《万智牌》卡片交易圈存在灰色市场,但购买卡片的正规方法便是购买补充包。补充包中包含了一些关于当前组的随机卡片。并且为了让玩家认为卡片物有所值,每一个补充包中通常还会带有一些“稀有”或者“非寻常”卡片。这种设置可避免玩家为获得特定优势而购买新卡片,让他们越发难以找到特定的卡片,也不能过于轻松地吃透这种系统。这样,对玩家来说,每一个补充包都有一种有待挖掘的神秘感。

3.奖励新内容——这可能是最重要的一方面。玩家在《万智牌》中的每次消费都能够看到一些新内容。事实上,通过购买一张张卡片也能够帮助你更好地探索这个游戏世界。购到一整个补充包的兴奋之处不仅仅在于它可让玩家获得更多卡片,而是在于玩家可以发现自己之前未见过的新卡片。这些卡片的外观都很精致,并且经常包含了一些复杂的机制。让玩家有机会享用更多内容,这本身就已足够体现补充包的价值。当然,也有一些精明玩家可以通过在其他地方看到的“卡牌泄密”等信息,记下多数卡片内容来获得优势。但是对于大多数玩家来说,他们会选择购买全套的补充包。

想想《坦克世界》与《万智牌》的区别。在《坦克世界》中,很多内容都具有有效期,包括优质会员,消费品,经验值等。甚至连坦克在长时间使用后也会过时,而被替换成更强大的新型坦克。玩家可以用现金购买道具和坦克,但是因为他们在购买时能够看到“实物”,并清楚自己购买的内容,所以他们根本不会接触到让人惊喜的新内容。

想象如果在集换式卡片游戏中,卡片是用墨水打印出来的,随着时间的流逝也会磨损。玩家也不需要购买一整个卡包,而是可以到实体店购买单独的卡片,并且可以在购买之前详细观看并阅读任何卡片。这又是怎样一种情况?

当然了,并非集换式卡片游戏中的所有机制都适用于数字游戏领域。我上述提到的有形特点便很难出现在数字游戏中,但我还是很惊讶上述提到的内容甚少出现于免费游戏中。我认为很多游戏开发者和设计者都可以试试这种方法,这些内容有助于他们建立更有效而更具道德感的系统,建立起开发者与玩家之间更健康的信任体系。

游戏邦注:原文发表于2011年5月12日,所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。

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

The Magic of Free to Play

By Krystian Majewski

I was thinking about Free to Play models recently. I have been carrying an idea with me for some time. It’s about how to implement a Free to Play model more naturally into a game.

I have been praising the Free to Play model of World of Tanks. In some ways, it’s a bold implementation. It gives paying players a clear advantage over non-paying players. It associates payments with important functions. Compared to this, most Free to Play implementations are tame. The players pay for superficial styling (customize your avatar) or to reduce nuisances which are artificially introduced by the game designers in the first place.

The reason for this careful approach is understandable. There are serious concerns with using payment to affect gameplay in a competitive context. It seems unfair if players can buy themselves an advantage. It eliminates the level playground that we seem to take for granted in a fair competition. But even in single-player games, using payments as an integral part of gameplay can be even more questionable in some regard. The Visa Crucible seems even more like a scam if instead of being used against real players, it can only slay hollow, disposable computer enemies.

It seems like a the Free to Play model is a moral dead-end. But perhaps this is only a question of framing and implementation. I was thinking that perhaps it may be a good idea to look at models outside of video games to see how they work. Trading card games like Magic: The Gathering come to mind. In this game, you need to pay for cards. You use the cards to build decks. You use the decks to battle other players. More cards don’t necessary lead to a better deck. But in order to have the right cards for your deck, having a wider selection of cards to start out with will be an indirect advantage.

I’m mentioning this because I noticed that during my short career as a Magic enthusiast, I have spent a lot of money on cards and never felt like I was cheated. I participated in frequent booster draft tournaments–events that sound like the wet dream of a Free to Play game developer. They were tournaments where you would need to buy 3 booster packs of cards in order to participate. There was a tournament every week. And we all considered it a very good deal.

So it’s worth to see how Magic worked in order to gain some lessons for digital Free to Play games. This isn’t a proper analysis so I can’t really go into details at this point. But superficially I can see 3 major points.

1.Rewards are Tangible and Permanent–Magic cards are tangible. You can hold them in your hand and sell them if you get bored of them. This is a huge advantage over all digital games indeed. Because they are tangible, they seem so much more valuable from the get go. But there is at least some aspects that may be important for digital games as well. Magic cards are not only tangible but also permanent. They don’t get used up. You can keep using the same card over and over again. Powerful cards don’t get weaker with time either. The lesson is that you don’t need to put artificial expiration dates on digital goods in order to keep players interested in buying more of them. In fact, making them permanent may very well satisfy a collector’s reflex and lead to increased interest in more.

2.Rewards are Random–You can’t buy a specific Magic card. At least not officially. There is a gray market of Magic card traders but the official way to get cards is to buy booster packs. The packs contain a random selection of cards from a current set. To ensure that players can expect to get their money’s worth, there is always a specific amount of “Rare” and “Uncommon” cards in every booster. If I was a cynic, I would call this a variable ratio reward schedule Operant Conditioning. There is certainly some of that here. But it’s also a good way to disengage the purchase of new cards from specific advantages. Players have a much harder time getting a specific card, so they can’t exploit the system quite as easily. Finally, there is always a sense of mystery with each booster pack. Which brings me to the next point….

3.Rewards are New Content–This is probably the most important aspect. Each purchase in Magic exposes the players to NEW CONTENT. In fact, that’s how you explore the world of Magic–you buy it piece by piece. Buying a new booster isn’t thrilling just because you get more cards. It’s thrilling because there is a good chance you will find new cards you have never encountered before. In Magic, the quality of that the content is substantial. The cards are beautiful and often contain some intricate mechanics. Having an opportunity to enjoy more of that content seems valuable in itself. Of course, a few experienced players would read things like “card spoilers” and know most cards by heart. But the same players would buy entire boxes of boosters anyway.

Consider how different a game like World of Tanks works compared to this. A lot of the things you get in World of Tanks expires–premium memberships, consumable goods, experience points. Even the tanks themselves get obsolete over time. They get replaced with stronger tanks. Players can buy items and tanks for money but they are buying it in a store and know exactly what they are going to get. Finally, players aren’t exposed to any new content at any point. They just gain access to content they already saw previously.

Or imagine a Trading Card game where the cards are printed with an ink that fades away over time. You don’t get the cards in boosters but you buy individual cards in a store, were you can see and read any card before you even buy anything.

Of course not all mechanics from trading cards have to necessarily work in the digital realm. I already mentioned that the tangible aspect is something that can hardly be reproduced in games. However, it’s striking how the above aspects are hardly ever utilized in digital Free to Play games. I sense that there is a lot more developers and designers can experiment with. Doing so, they might arrive at much more effective and morally less ambiguous systems. This would help establishing a healthier, more robust trust relationship between the game developers and the players.

Finally, if you are interested in more info about World of Tanks, we recently made a small podcast about it. Here is the first episode. Enjoy!(source:gamedesignreviews


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