作者：Zoya Street

问题：

能量机制是否合理？Zynga将能量机制当成一种盈利手段，从而导致越来越多玩家认为能量机制只是免费游戏中一种赚钱工具。而《CSR赛车》的开发团队Boss Alien则认为能量机制是吸引玩家注意力的主要元素，就像是电视节目中扣人心弦的内容设定。

所以能量到底是不是一种过时的机制？我们是否应该舍弃它？如果舍弃了这一机制我们又该采用哪些替代方法？

答案：

Will Luton——手机游戏顾问

几乎任何一款游戏中都存在着某种形式的能量机制。这是关于如何描绘一些不断改变的内容。

受到任意资源的约束是一种糟糕的情况。而有时候深入的环境设置却能带来更好的效果。

在《FarmVille》中玩家的移动将会受到瓷砖的限制，而种种限制将会让玩家进入循环等待中。这将迫使玩家更长时间待在游戏中：他们在离开时总会带着希望获得更多奖励的想法，如此便能够推动着他们再次回到游戏中而争取更多奖励。

继《FarmVille》之后许多游戏都引进了任意的能量机制去创造出行动受限机制。我只能说这是一种懒惰的做法。

创造循环过程是吸引玩家兴趣关键，而能量机制则是帮助你实现这一目标的最廉价的方法。但却绝非最佳方法。

Oscar Clark——Applifier的倡导者

能量机制是一种非常微妙的理念。就像在《CSR赛车》中，货币便是引导玩家在游戏后期投入更多资本并反复游戏的燃点。

我们必须反复思考如何使用这种机制。

Teut Weidemann——育碧在线专家

在我们的《Settlers Online》中，玩家可以创建自己的公司去生产产品或者建造更多建筑物。如果玩家用光了所有资本便需要等待自己创造更多产品进行弥补。当然了这也算是一种“能量”机制，但却比一般能量机制更复杂，也就是我们在一款游戏中同时设置了多个“能量”。

“能量机制”这一术语很容易让人误解，其实它只是关于共享相同属性的时间机制。

Tadhg Kelly——What Games Are顾问

我不知道能量机制是否“过时”了，但是我始终认为这是一种庸俗的做法。这是开发者很容易误解的一种机制（因为使用这一机制的游戏将要求玩家反复回到游戏中进行检查，而开发者总是会将其当成是“挽留玩家兴趣”的好方法），让开发者以为可以因此避免直接营销所带给玩家的消极影响。因为没有人会喜欢别人直接伸手向自己收取过路费。

如果你想要创造忠实的用户基础，那就先克服对这种廉价且庸俗方法的依赖吧。

Stuart Dredge——《卫报》记者

如果我正在玩泡泡爆破类社交游戏或像《水果忍者》等大受欢迎的游戏，我便会遇到一种情况，即因为用光了所有能量所以不能继续游戏，除非我愿意花钱去获得更多能量。

随后我可能会转向其它游戏，或者完全停止游戏。而如果其它游戏更加有趣，我便不会愿意再回到游戏中。几个月后当我看到游戏图标时便会想起之前自己被打断的经历，并决定彻底删除游戏。

也许这么说过于激进，但是说实话，如果一个游戏机制将导致玩家“不能继续游戏”，我只能说设计师疯了！

Patrick O’Luanaigh——nDreams首席执行官

我认为优秀的游戏设计应该能让玩家按照自己的想法进行游戏。对于那些希望一天只花10分钟去检查游戏世界中的任何改变与进展的玩家来说，能量机制便非常有效。而对于喜欢每次投入更长时间于游戏中而不是频繁游戏的玩家来说，能量机制只会带来挫折，导致他们终止游戏，或为了得到自己想要的去投入更多金钱。

而在某些平台上这种差异也会变得更加重要——你肯定不希望主机上的免费玩家每天不断启动自己的设备而只是经历短暂的游戏过程吧！

所以我希望免费游戏设计能够避免能量机制。如此才能让所有玩家按照自己的节奏进行游戏，并获得最棒的个人体验。

Andy Payne——Mastertronic总经理

我不希望“购买更多能量”的机制将继续出现在游戏中。就像“强制执行”机制一样，我们有时候也会终止一些无聊的内容。我认为免费游戏应该解决那些会让玩家感到厌烦的问题。电视节目便经常犯这个错误，如推出各种续集，或者一部电视剧有好几季。就像现在我已经厌倦了《国土第二季》，但是之前我却非常迷第一季，我想制作人应该是希望延续这种热潮才不断推出后续内容吧。游戏当然比这种线性媒体有远见，但是我认为最简单的原则应该是在保持最初乐趣的基础上推动玩家进一步游戏。切忌强迫玩家“为了进一步游戏而付钱”。你必须提供给他们付钱的理由，让他们真心愿意为游戏掏腰包。

Harry Holmwood——Heldhand顾问

作为玩家，我本身就非常不喜欢能量机制，所以我并不待见资源管理游戏，因为在我们转向免费游戏之前，能量机制早已渗透于这类型游戏的游戏玩法中。

而那些对游戏业务深感兴趣的人便不会这么认为。许多畅销游戏都在使用这一方法，因为对于那些愿意接受这一机制的用户来说，能量机制可以说是非常有效。

我希望游戏产业能够继续开发各种受利益驱动的新机制去取代能量机制，从而帮助我们能够迎合更多愿意为游戏付钱的玩家（或者至少是提供给这些付费用户更多有价值的内容）。但是我也害怕会出现适得其反的结果，而出现更多可替代的游戏也就意味着我们的转化率将逐渐下降。现在我也变成了那种会在进入游戏几秒钟后判断自己是否喜欢游戏，如果喜欢的话便会多投入几分钟的人。而最近只有少量游戏能够吸引我的注意力长达半个小时，其中的免费游戏更是少数。

Martin Darby——Remode首席运营官

让我们假设“能量”是指基于时间或游戏使用率而逐渐下滑的条框（游戏邦注：不同于电力，汽油或肥料等）？

对于我来说这并不是关于“能量”问题的争论，更像是绝对主义vs.相对主义的问题。我认为人们主要是反对终止玩家乐趣体验的付费墙，而如果能量机制能够增强剩下的游戏体验，让玩家继续感受到游戏乐趣，它便算发挥了功效。玩家希望自己在游戏中所获得的能量不会是肤浅的，或者让人感到沮丧的。

但是问题就在于有关“能量”的文化已经根深蒂固了，我们已经很难改变人们心中对于该机制的定义（廉价或庸俗）。最大问题在于：免费玩家是否真的感到开心？如果他们不开心的话便会迅速离开这些免费游戏。而如果他们真的感到开心，市场中便需要隔出一块范围去容纳免费游戏以及这些玩家们。我们需要记住，在这一个问题上我们大多都是带着中产阶级的思想。我知道如今Zynga的市场份额正在逐渐下降，但是我们需要注意的是，不能因为用户喜欢这种不切实际的内容而抱着尝试的心态或盲目遵循别人的做法。

Mark Sorrell——Hide & Seek开发总监

关于所有问题，我认为最根本的不是你该做些什么，而是你所采取的方法。

许多游戏都突出了有限的资源，但却不是所有游戏都适合这种方法。有时候将行动时限当成一种盈利手段也能够取得不错的效果，但是前提是你必须经过适当的衡量，否则只会带给玩家更多沮丧——我更赞同可持续的盈利是源自玩家的表达和乐趣体验而不是因为删除了沮丧感。我们应该注重如何完善内容而不是彻底改变它。

Teut Weidemann——育碧在线专家

“我当然不会在我所创造的游戏中使用能量机制，但我也敢说我不可能制作出带有无限资源的游戏。”

关于能量机制的问题就在于你用付费去阻碍玩家的行动。这是一种非常糟糕的设定。我们在设计免费游戏时所遵循的原则便是：让玩家始终可以做自己想做的事。

也就是即使他们用光了能量，也能够在游戏中继续执行其它任务。能量并不能完全支配他们在游戏中的行动。

Oscar Clark—–Applifier倡导者

从原则上看来我们并不能忽视能量机制。

我们可以将其当成是一种积极的机制，即提供有限但却可以填充的资源，让玩家在游戏中面对进退两难的抉择——而不管这是一种能量条框还是间歇时期等等。

当然了，阻碍玩家游戏是一种糟糕的设定，但是当玩家选择等待时，他便有可能在之后做出非常重要的选择。所以终究还是取决于玩家的决定。

总之不管怎样，开发者都应该避免过度使用能量机制！

（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）

Is the energy mechanic over?

By Zoya Street

Question:

Is energy over? Zynga uses energy as a monetisation method, and as a result, many players now see energy as a cynical money-grabbing ploy that typifies the cynical exploitation endemic in free-to-play games. Yet Boss Alien, the team behind CSR Racing, argue that energy is important to maintain player interest in the game, a bit like the enforced cliffhanger of a TV show.

Is energy an archaic mechanic? Have we moved on? And if so, where to?

Answers:

Will Luton Consultant in mobile games

Energy (or move limiting to be more precise) exists in some form in almost all games. It’s how it’s portrayed that is changing.

Straight limiting by an arbitrary resource sucks. But something deeper or more contextual is great.

FarmVille move-limited by the number of tiles, each of which tied to core loop with a wait. This created awesome sessioning, keeping players compelled over long periods: They left wanting more, had an appointment to return and receive rewards.

Lots of post-FarmVille games introduced arbitrary energies to recreate the move-limiting mechanic. It always felt tacked on and lazy to me.

Sessioning is key to maintaining player interest. Energy is the cheapest way of achieving it. Not necessarily the best.

Oscar Clark Evangelist at Applifier

Energy is a much more subtle concept that “you can’t play any more”In CSR it’s a currency which ignites the later stages of play as a stake we invest and permission to replay (although it also I would argue caps spend in that game)

We just have to constantly reimagine how to use it.

Teut Weidemann Online specialist at Ubisoft

In our on Settlers Online you build up an economy to produce goods, some of them used to build even more buildings. If you used them all up you need to wait until you produced more. Of course that is an “energy” mechanic as well but more complex, as we got several “energies” in the game.

The term ‘energy mechanic’ might be misleading; it’s more or less timed mechanics which share the same attributes.

Tadhg Kelly Consultant at What Games Are

I don’t know about “over” but I’ve always been of the opinion that Energy is just sleazy. It’s also a mechanic that developers happily misread (for example, because games that use it require repeat visitation, this is somehow interpreted as “maintaining player interest”), yet guaranteed to deaden any impact you may try to have with players in terms of a marketing story. Because nobody likes the guy who always has his hand out to demand you pay the toll to cross the bridge.

If you do want to build genuine loyalty to your game, and so be well suited for G2 social, getting over the instinct to be sleazy and cheap is paramount.

Stuart Dredge Journalist at The Guardian

If I’m playing [Insert Famous Bubble Popping Social Game or Infamous Just Like Fruit NInja But With Zombies Game Here] and enjoying myself, and then it says I can’t play any more because I’ve run out of energy, unless I pay for more energy…

Then I will go and play something else, or look at Twitter, or… I’ll stop playing, anyway. And whatever else I do might be more fun, and I’ll forget to come back, and then a few months later I’ll see the icon, and grimace at the memory of a game that stopped me playing when I was having fun, and I’ll delete it.

Maybe this is harsh, but a mechanic that ever results in ‘You can’t play’ is just bonkers.

Patrick O’Luanaigh CEO at nDreams

In my view, a great game design allows players to play the game how they want to play it. For players who like to spend 10 minutes a day revisiting their world, seeing what has changed and progressing forwards, energy works well. But there are also players who like to play games in longer sessions but less frequently. For them, I think energy is a frustration, forcing them to either stop playing (just when the game is getting good), or spend lots of money in order to play the way they want.

The difference is more important on some platforms than others (you simply can’t expect free-to-play gamers on console to boot up their machine every day and have short play sessions).

So, no – I think the ultimate free-to-play game design (which no-one has made yet) won’t feature energy. It’ll cope with all players playing in a way that suits them, each player individually getting the perfect experience.

Andy Payne MD of Mastertronic

‘Anger is an energy’

I don’t like the ‘buy more energy’ loop to carry on playing very much. As for the ‘enforced cliff hanger’ mechanic, well sometimes we actually need closure as we do just get bored. I would argue that F2P (ideal or otherwise) has to deal with boredom on the part of the player. The TV guys get this wrong so many times, with series, sorry, season after season where perhaps one or two would do. I am currently being bored by Homeland S2, S1 was brilliant, probably sold well and they decided to build another series. Games can/do transcend the linear medium of course, but my simple [simplistic?] principle is that keep it interesting to reward and drive playing and engagement. Not force people to ‘pay to play more’. They should want to pay, have a reason to pay and love to pay.

‘Burn Hollywood burn’.

Harry Holmwood Consultant at Heldhand

As a player, I have a pretty strong dislike of energy mechanics – but then I’m not a fan of resource management games, where the energy mechanic has been used for years (albeit in a slightly less extreme way) as an integral part of the gameplay, long before we started moving into F2P.

As someone interested in the business of games, it’s harder to argue against it.  So many of the best grossing games use it, it clearly works extremely well, for that section of the audience that’s willing to go with it.

What I hope is that we, as an industry, continue to develop new, repeatable, revenue-driving mechanics alongside the handful that have already been proven to work – for some people – so that we can continue to entertain more and more people who decide to become paying customers (or who, at least, add value to our paying customers)  My fear is we allow the opposite to happen, and the multitude of alternative games means our conversion rates erode slowly over time.  Certainly I have become someone who plays a game for seconds to see if I like it, and minutes if I do.  Only a handful of games in recent times have grabbed my attention for more than half an hour, few of them F2P.

Martin Darby COO at Remode

By “energy” I assume that you essentially mean a bar that gradually dwindles based on time or game usage (as opposed to specific paradigms for electricity, petrol, fertiliser etc)?

To me this isn’t a debate about “energy” so much as it is a question about absolutism vs relativism.  Seems to me that people here are mainly against absolutist paywalls that stop people having fun, but if the energy just enhances a part of the experience relatively to the rest of the game and a player can carry on having fun then it might work.  If you can earn more energy in the game then maybe it won’t be quite as punishing or shallow.  Devil could be in the details.

The problem is that a cultural precedent has now been set, and as many have pointed out it is superficially quite hard to alter perception that it is cheap or sleezy.  The big sticking point though remains as:  are these customers happy?  If they aren’t then we may see all of F2P move away from this in the short term.  If they are then maybe it will be more a case of different types of market segments opening up that deal with F2P in a slightly different way for a slightly different type of customer.  Remember that we are mostly middle class westerners here.  I know Zynga’s shares have dropped recently but my point is that you wouldn’t stick wine tasting and croquet on Brighton pier if you knew most customers were happy with candy floss and helter skelters.

Mark Sorrell Development director at Hide & Seek

As with all these questions, and as has been pointed out, it’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

Having limited resources is a feature of many, many games. Some good, some bad. Using time-limiting of moves as a monetisation technique isn’t specifically awful, but unless it’s very well considered, it is likely to be more frustrating than liberating – I think we’re agreed that good, sustainable monetisation comes from player-expression and joy rather than removing frustration. Spend to make things better, not fix them.

I certainly wouldn’t use an energy mechanic in a game I was making, but I dare say I’d never make one with unlimited resources.

Teut Weidemann Online specialist at Ubisoft

“I certainly wouldn’t use an energy mechanic in a game I was making, but I dare say I’d never make one with unlimited resources.”

Yep, problem with energy is that you block the user from paying. Thats evil. One of our rules in f2p game design was: the player should always have something to do.

So if energy ran out he should be able to do something else in the game. Energy should not be the #1 blocker which rules them all.

Oscar Clark Evangelist at Applifier

I dont think it’s sensible to ignore an energy mechanism on principle.

Well used it is a positive mechanic as it provides a limited but replenishing resources to add dilemma to decision making in any games. Whether that’s an energy bar or cooldown period or something else.

Blocking players from playing is bad of course, but in later lifestages there can be choices made by the player that become important only when they choose to wait. But it’s got to be done intelligently and as a player choice.

It’s weird arguing this position as I’ve been recommending against over-use of energy a lot lately!(source:gamesbrief)