作者：Oscar Clark

如果你曾在过去两年参加过游戏大会，你可能听到一个戴着帽子的家伙在房间后面喊道“你应该实行免费模式！”那可能是我的声音。虽然长久以来我一直是该模式的倡导者，但现在我开始有些幻灭之感。

在此，我并不是针对基于良好经济及心理学原理的免费增值模式。我是对开发者至今所采用的有限方法感到失望。

freemium(from tribeswell.com)

免费游戏机制

诸如《FarmVile》和《CityVile》这些最初的Facebook免费游戏均从基础、证明可行的游戏理念中吸取灵感，但却能以随后添加的社交病毒机制而取胜。这些游戏的优势在于，玩家可以购买虚拟物品来加速或定制装置。而能量机制与生产延迟是吸引玩家再次体验游戏的关键因素。再加上无需付费门槛，他们便能吸引大量玩家，这是免费游戏的一大突破点。

还有一点很重要，这些用户正是原先从来不玩游戏，从未花40-60美元购买游戏，拥有199-399美元主机设备的群体。

我们乐于将这类用户定义为‘休闲’玩家，部分原因是我们看到他们玩一些较简单的游戏（游戏邦注：比如益智和农场等类型），而不是我们着迷的射击或赛车游戏。他们并未历经过去几十年游戏语言的变迁。同时，我发现许多开发者未能意识到这些所谓的‘休闲’玩家在游戏中的投入程度和消费水平上甚至也并不逊于硬核玩家。

疯狂的免费增值模式

距首款免费社交游戏的发行已有一些时日。我们已经见识到玩家向错误的对象发送Facebook垃圾信息时发生的状况，也看到游戏越来越难以留存原有用户、吸引新玩家。

但我们看到许多开发者并没有因此采用创新手段，而是运用了某些弄巧成拙的策略。比如，有些通过砸入更多费用购买更多用户，希望可以收回投入成本。有些则试图从铁杆粉丝那榨取更多利润，期望借此提升ARPU。或者剽窃（至少接近抄袭）其它成功的游戏模式。不幸的是，所有这些方法不仅无法避免收益递减的情况；同时还加剧了有些群体对“免费模式的抵触心理”，疏远了他们所吸引的用户。

休闲游戏的未来趋势

我想是时候重新考虑我们的目标用户类型以及“休闲”一词的定义了。我认为，我们错误地将“休闲”定义为某种游戏类型以及享受益智游戏这种简单叙事模式的玩家类型。同时，我相信我们用其广泛地描述了那些不属于硬核MMO、FPS或运动游戏范畴的玩家。

但我认为，我们要谈论的是具有不同需求以及不同题材兴趣的用户群。我们不再瞄准小众市场用户。我们打算着眼大众市场，因此我们必须更改相关定义。

与其使用这些术语定义玩家，为何我们不利用它们去理解玩家行为，琢磨他们对游戏题材的偏好。而这也解放了我们的创造思维。我们不再将免费游戏局限在益智或农场等类型。现在我们可以设想休闲射击游戏或硬核农场游戏的可能性。

我们一般认为‘休闲’属于短暂与分散粘性的游戏题材。这样我们就可以专注于找到促使玩家选择某种游戏模式的因素，如何吸引他们回归游戏、加深他们的粘性，从而将他们培养成我们游戏中的“硬核群体”。同样，如果我们将这种玩法风格定义为‘硬核’，我们必须考虑保持用户粘性长久性的方式，以便最大化用户的终身价值。

创新型的免费游戏

目前，休闲与硬核这两个术语已成为宝贵工具，它们便于我们发现用户需求，以及控制用户粘性生命周期的方法。这种方式也表明玩家的游戏模式会随着时间发展而改变。

有些公司深谙用户演变的情况。比如，King.Com成功地将常见的冒泡泡机制融入全新的故事情节，创作出《Bubble Witch Saga》，他们不仅扩展了免费游戏类型，而且展示出如何将新用户引入更有深度的玩法中。

但我们不必拘泥于相同的变革渠道。《CSR Racing》则突破了我们对免费游戏的期待。其简单核心机制具有快速奖励的特点，而且不存在游戏玩法障碍。但该游戏主要面向喜爱汽车的用户。当然，《CSR Racing》存在某些弊端，比如缺乏真实的社交功能，但对大多数玩家而言，它极具吸引力，而且是盈利方面的先驱。

我认为我们正朝着免费模式初始阶段的结局发展。我们可以选择复制单调旧式的游戏结构，试图从玩家那获取最大利润，从而疏远大众市场上的新用户。或者我们可以重新构想免费游戏创意，并通过玩法和题材的全新融合而赢得用户。

总之，对我而言，免费增值模式并不是一个“休闲”与否的问题。（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 future of freemium is no casual matter

by Oscar Clark

If you’ve been to a games industry conference over the last couple of years, you have probably heard some guy in a hat at the back of the room shout “You should have gone Freemium!” That was probably me. I’ve been an advocate for the model for a long time, but now I’m starting to become disillusioned.

Not with the model, that’s based on sound economic and psychological principles. No, what I’m disappointed with is the limited methods that we have seen developers implement till now.

Mechanics of freemium games

Perhaps it’s to be expected, after all the original facebook freemium games like FarmVille and CityVille drew inspiration from basic, proven game concepts, but then brilliantly added in social viral mechanisms. These games made a virtue of buying virtual goods to speedup or customise your creations. The energy mechanic and production delays critically created a reason to return to play that game time and again. Combined with the scale of users they could attract without having a payment barrier and this was obviously groundbreaking.

Its also important that this was an audience which had previously rejected gaming would never have been willing to spend the $40-60 per game plus $199-399 for the console itself.

We tend to call this audience ‘Casual’, partly because we started seeing them play simpler games, puzzles, farming games, etc. rather than the shooting or driving that we obsess over. They had not experienced the evolving language of play we had enjoyed in the changing nature of games developed over the last few decades. I also suggest many developers failed to realise that these so called ‘Casual’ players would be playing with as much commitment and for the same durations as any Hardcore player – often longer and spending considerably more.

Frantic freemium

Time has passed since the first social freemium games. We have seen what happens when you spam facebook with demands to play to the wrong people; and that its becoming increasingly difficult to maintain these audiences and to attract new players.

Rather than use this to trigger further innovation I believe that we have seen to many developers and publishers follow self-defeating strategies. Some spend ever more money to buy more customers – hoping that they will spend more than it costs to buy them. Others try to squeeze ever more money out of their most dedicated fans hoping to increase the average ARPU. Alternatively they arguably plagiarise (or at least closely copy) other successful games. The trouble is that all these methods not only suffer from a law of diminishing returns; but they also add fuel to the ‘Freemium Haters’ and alienate as many players as they attract.

The future of casual gaming

I think its time to reconsider who our audience are and what we mean by the term Casual. I think we have wrongly used it to define both a type of game and a type of player who enjoy simple narrative puzzle games. I also believe we have use it to widely to describe players who are not Hardcore MMO, FPS or Sports game players.

Instead I think we are talking about a large group of users who have many different needs and have an interest in many different genres. We are no longer just targeting a niche audience. We are selling to the mass market so we have to change our definitions.

Rather than using these terms to define players, why don’t we use them to help us understand their playing behaviour and consider their taste in game genres as a separate issue. Suddenly this frees our creative juices. We no longer assume that a Freemium game has to be about a puzzle, or farming, etc. Now we can imagine new possibilities of casual shooting games to hardcore farm games.

‘Casual’ could be considered a tentative and sporadic engagement style within the game. With this in mind we can focus on what drives their patterns of play and how we both get them to return and how we deepen their engagement so we can empower them to become ‘Hardcore’ in terms of behaviour for our game. Similarly, if we consider this ‘Hardcore’ playing style it means we have to consider how we can persist their engagement as long as possible to encourage the maximum possible lifetime value.

Innovative freemium games

These two terms now become precious tools to allow us to focus on players desires and, if we are careful, how we can manage their engagement lifecycle. This approach recognises that players change in their playing patterns change over time.

There are good examples of companies who understand that the audience is evolving. When King.Com successfully combined the ever familiar bubble-pop mechanic within a progressive story to create Bubble Witch Saga they not only extended the freemium genre, but also showed how we could help introduce our new audience to the language of deeper gameplay without becoming frightening to those new users.

But we need not be limited to following the same evolutionary paths we remember from our youth. I get very excitable when I talk about CSR Racing because it smashed through the expectations of what Freemium games can do. The core mechanic is simple and immediately rewarding, and there is almost no barrier in terms of the language of play. But this game sets out to delight people who simply love cars. It’s has its flaws of course, and lacks true socialisation, but for most players it’s fabulously attractive and is a masterclass in terms of monetization.

I think we are heading towards the end of the beginning of Freemium and we have a choice. We could try to copy old and tired games structures which try to squeeze the most money out of players – alienating this fledgling mass market audience. Or we can reimagine the possibilities for creativity that Freemium can offer and instead delight audiences providing new combinations of play and genre.

For me this is no casual matter.(source:gamesbrief)