作者：Patrick Miler

John Smedley在GDC Online大会上发表题为《Free-to-play: Driving the Future of MMOs》的演讲时提到：

“游戏世界正发生变化。人们正以惊人的速度消化游戏内容。我并不认为当前游戏的内容生态系统是可持续发展的。随着免费游戏的兴起，我们看到游戏正趋于‘自发性玩法’。”

MMO game(from gamasutra)

Smedley利用Google Trends搜索大量图表作为度量标准，以《魔兽世界》（游戏邦注：以下简称《魔兽》）在2005年的鼎盛时期为起点，追踪记录在线游戏市场的发展历程。《魔兽》至今仍是一款巨作，而《英雄联盟》、《DOTA 2》、《DC漫画英雄OL》和《军团要塞2》这些免费游戏在此时期依然是经典。

Smedley表示：“我认为，没有哪款游戏可以超越《魔兽》在2005年创下的佳绩。从那时起，我们看到《魔兽》部分用户基础开始分化，其中有些玩家转向免费游戏。为什么会这样？显然其一是由于游戏免费，但我想，我们需要深入看待这一现象。”

他继续提到：“当你开发一款同《魔兽》一样的大型游戏时，你需要不时地添加新内容，《魔兽》在这方面做得不错。但当该游戏已有7年历史，用户开始寻求和尝试其它事物时，《Mists of Pandaria》这一扩展内容就诞生了，它吸引玩家重新投入游戏，消化这些内容。这同2004年的形态大相径庭。”

SOE转向免费游戏导致基于订阅的MMO游戏大幅增长。《DC漫画英雄OL》、《无尽的任务2》和《无尽任务》均转为免费模式；《DC漫画英雄OL》增加了1000%的同时在线玩家，700%的日收益，《无尽的任务2》提升150%的日登陆量，并增加300%的新玩家，而原版《无尽的任务》提升150%的日登陆量，125%的道具销售量和250%的注册量。

MMO及其内容问题

Smedley指出，MMO游戏开发者同时面临的问题是，他们既要吸引玩家，又需快速构造游戏内容来留存他们。他表示：“我们不断受到内容困扰，许多内容耗费了我们过去体验订阅游戏所需的时间。现在我会在Reddit上投入一些时间……如果你留心《魔兽》，在《Mists of Pandaria》发布前，网站上有游戏每个任务的剧透贴。我们要投入这么多时间和费用制作内容，而用户却可以通过游戏网站和Reddit，更快地消耗掉这些内容。”

为了继续开发MMO游戏，开发者们必须适应这种全新的游戏生态系统，即不再完全依赖开发者构造新内容。Smedley指出：“我们认为关键因素是可持续的生态系统。游戏的生态系统瞬息万变；而一些新型生态系统包括eSports、livecasting、用户自制道具并兜售（游戏邦注：同时可以从中赚钱）——这些均为基于用户的营销手段，而它的根基则是自发性玩法。”

Smedley提出了有关自发性玩法的三个例子：分别为SOE的《FreeRealms》和《无尽的任务2》，以及Mojang的《Minecraft》。他表示：“我并不知道你们怎么想，但我肯定破解高手们从未预料到《Minecraft》的来临。它如同一道闪电冲击着整个市场。它体现人们对沙盒游戏和物品构造的渴望。在《FreeRealms》中，玩家可以自己建造房屋，我们还将这种方法延用到《无尽的任务2》中，即玩家可以评价对方的房屋。这种评价方式就如同建筑楼房一样属于一种自发性玩法——类似Amazon.com上的评价模式。”

minecraft_compound（from xboxzero.com)

让玩家自己制作（和兜售）MMO游戏

与其试图领先玩家的通关速度，快速制作出MMO游戏内容，SOE尝试开放自己的游戏，这样玩家可以帮助制作和推广游戏内容，同时也能获取一些利益。

Smedley指向Steam Workshop中玩家制作的道具表示：“用户在此制作的道具十分出色——那也属于游戏玩法。他们不再纯粹地体验游戏，他们也成为游戏与社区的一部分，为其制作物品。玩家会开始体会到自己对游戏的贡献，他们还能从中获利！这是未来游戏的发展趋势——玩家可以制作游戏，引导未来游戏的发展方向。”

同时，Smedley解释了玩家让游戏获得更多曝光率的多种不同网络渠道——Twitch.TV会呈现 ivecasting和eSports的比赛。Wikia和Crave则涉及用户制作的维客，而Reddit提供非官方的社区空间——玩家可以在游戏之外接触游戏，从而有助于游戏营销。

Smedley指出：“我们需要注意到这种趋势，因为一年后，这种趋势将更加庞大。我们意识到这种趋势，所以我们建立了《行星边际2》的Twitch.TV客户端……游戏并不需要eSport，但它必须充满乐趣。”

Smedley以《行星边际2》如何针对全新游戏生态系统而发展总结道：“在我们看来，《行星边际2》在自发性玩法这一点上已达到巅峰时期。我们有上千位玩家通过语音聊天工具互相配合作战。战略很重要，因为他们需要知道最佳玩法，所以我们允许用户在游戏中上传武器，然后获得优势——我们想让玩家感觉到自己能够掌管他人，控制领地，并借此向好友炫耀。”（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）

Emergent gameplay, F2P key for MMO user retention problems

by Patrick Miller

“The world is changing. People are eating through content at an alarming rate. I don’t believe that the content ecosystem that’s in games today — including our own — is sustainable. With free-to-play, we’re seeing this trend towards what we’re calling ‘emergent gameplay’.”

That’s how John Smedley opened his talk at GDC Online, titled “Free-to-play: Driving the Future of MMOs.”

Using Google Trends search volume graphs as a metric, Smedley traced the progress of the online games market from World of Warcraft’s peak in 2005, to the current era, where World of Warcraft is still the big dog but free-to-play games League of Legends, DOTA 2, DC Universe Online, and Team Fortress 2 are within striking range.

“I don’t think you’ll see games hit the heights that World of Warcraft hit [in 2005],” Smedley said, “Look at that peak. I think we’re starting to see a fractioning of the userbase that WoW built, where some of those players are moving over to free-to-play games. Why? Obviously one answer is that it’s free, but I think we need to look deeper than that.”

He continued, “When you work on something as large as WoW, it’s important to release content over time, and they’ve done a great job with that. But when you’ve got a game that’s seven-years old, people look for something else to do. Free-to-play means that people can try your game, and then go try something else, and try something else, and then Mists of Pandaria comes out, and pulls people back into your game and they eat that content up. This is very different from 2004.”

SOE’s own free-to-play transition caused significant growth in its subscription-based MMOs. DC Universe Online, EverQuest II, and EverQuest all went free-to-play; DCUO saw a 1000 percent increase in concurrent players and a 700 percent increase in daily revenue, EverQuest II saw a 40 percent increase in daily logins and a 300 percent increase in new players, and the original EverQuest saw a 150 percent increase in daily logins, a 125 percent boost in item sales, and a 250 percent increase in registrations.

MMOs and their content problems

MMO developers are simultaneously having problems competing for player eyeballs and building game content fast enough to keep players around, said Smedley. “We’re bombarded by content, and a lot of that content is eating the time we used to spend playing subscription games. Now I spend some of that time on Reddit … if you look at WoW, by the time Mists of Pandaria was released, there were spoiler posts on each quest. We spend all this money and time to produce this content, and people consume it faster because they’ve got game sites and Reddit to help each other.”

In order to continue developing MMOs, developers are going to have to adapt to a new games ecosystem that doesn’t rely solely on developers to build new content for players to consume “For us, the key to this is sustainable ecosystems,” Smedley said, “The ecosystem of games has changed rapidly; the new ecosystem has eSports, livecasting, users that make items to sell (and make money from it) — all of this is user-based marketing, and the foundation of it is emergent gameplay.”

Smedley offered three examples of emergent gameplay: SOE’s own FreeRealms and EverQuest II, as well as Mojang’s Minecraft. “I don’t know about you guys, but I sure as heck didn’t see Minecraft coming. It hit like a bolt of lightning. It showed how hungry people are for sandboxes — for building stuff. In FreeRealms, we offered the ability to make their own houses, and we’ve done the same thing in EverQuest II that lets users rate each others’ houses. The rating stuff aspect can be just as much of the emergent gameplay as the building — think about rating things on Amazon.com.”

Getting players to make (and sell) your MMO

Instead of trying to build MMO content faster than your players can play through it, SOE is trying to open its games up so the users can help build game content and promote it — and maybe make a few bucks along the way.

Smedley pointed to the player-created items in Valve’s Steam Workshop: “The user-created items in this are amazing — and that’s gameplay too. It’s not just playing the game, it’s being part of the game and the community, and making stuff for it. Players get to feel like they’re contributing to the game, and they’re profiting from it! This is the future — letting your players make the game, and be part of the direction and future of the game.”

Smedley also noted several different online channels for players to give your games more exposure — livecasting and eSports competitions on Twitch.TV, user-created wikis on Wikia and Crave, and unofficial community spaces on Reddit — as examples of how players could engage with your games outside the game itself, and thereby market your games for you.

“This is a trend to take notice of, because a year from now it’s going to look a lot bigger,” he said. “For us, we recognized this trend, so we built a Twitch.TV client into PlanetSide 2. … Your game doesn’t have to be an eSport, but it has to be entertaining to watch.”

Smedley concluded his talk by pointing out how PlanetSide 2′s development has been targeted towards this new games ecosystem: “PlanetSide 2 has been the culmination, for us, of focusing on emergent gameplay. We have thousands of players coordinating through voice and chat channels. Strategy matters because they want to know the best way to play, so we let users upload loadouts in PlanetSide 2. Then, dominance — we wanted to make players feel like they could own other people, dominate continents, and brag to their friends.”(source:gamasutra)