作者：Christian Nutt

我们能用iOS版本的射击游戏冲击核心玩家市场吗？DeNA位居斯德哥尔摩的工作室Scattered Entertainment创始人Ben Cousins对此深信不疑。

他表示：“像DeNA这种公司是有机会冲击核心游戏，甚至是大型核心游戏公司主导的市场。”

Cousins认为，他们可以利用发行高品质的免费游戏，掌控游戏行业——到时，免费模式将具有竞争优势。Cousins曾在3年多前推出EA首款西方免费游戏《战地：英雄》。

目前，他着眼于全新FPS游戏《The Drowning》，这是一款将于2013初发行的iOS版本免费游戏。作为当前主机游戏的新型竞争对手，Cousins认为，其基于移动平台的快速循环玩法有望打破主机游戏市场。

The_Drowning(from gamasutra)

他透露了具体方案：“在理想状态下，用户每天会在这类游戏中投入几分钟时间，同时，他们也会体验核心游戏，但当用户延迟购买新型主机设备计划，或根本不会制定这种决定时，他们在移动设备上投入的时间与费用会相应增加——同样地，我再也不会购买笔记本电脑，因为我喜爱平板电脑。”

如你所见，除工作之外，Cousins在其它事情上已停止使用电脑。现在他在家里的所有活动全在iPad上进行，他预计，主机玩家会向此方向发展。

控制器问题

Cousins对此十分兴奋，因为他相信团队成员（游戏邦注：由Bungie、DICE、Crytek这些FPS工作室的资深开发者组成）已经解决控制器方面问题，这样，射击题材在平板电脑上同主机设备一样有趣。

Cousins指出：“我们力图保持一种良好平衡，简化那些无关紧要方面，比如微处理围绕板条箱的时刻，同时突出某些重要方面，比如完美像素化射击模式。”

在项目初始阶段，Scattered投入两个半月的时间确定控制器。当团队意识到：“从高水平看，我们可以通过移动运作系统，在移动设备上体验应用”时，他们才在此方面取得突破性进展。

在《The Drowning》中，只需点击，你便可以移向某个方向，而后在两个手指的距离内瞄准目标并射击，接着利用狙击步枪缩放场景，就如同你在Safari上调整网页大小。

Cousins表示，虽然起初核心玩家会对此表示怀疑，但他们仍会在下载后进行访问。他指出：“如果你向他们推荐这款作品，他们会说道：‘这听起来很奇特。’他们无法在大脑中想象该游戏的玩法。但如果他们有机会尝试，他们就会爱上它。”

去年，Gamasutra在Cousins临时工作室采访他时，他表示，这种控制方案其实是受到Bungie的《光晕》在主机设备上做法的启发。

现在，同比主机游戏，移动游戏的发展速度十分迅猛。在这个领域，首次迭代不一定需要尽善尽美，因为下一款游戏或内容包很快就会推出。

限制性玩法

该开发团队还需面临的另一挑战是，在短回合的移动游戏中融入主机FPS游戏的深度。

《The Drowning》发生在小型竞技场内。玩家应在120秒的时间内，利用各种技能消灭一群丧尸——而且，采用多种消灭方式、爆头、以及巧妙的操作方式还能获得相应的分数奖励。

Cousins表示：“我们并未在该游戏中采用3D模式，它只是动作的‘快速循环’模式。它可以是弹球、《太空侵略者》、《宝石迷阵》、《Doom》或《Quake》模式。”

这种小型竞技场不仅强调快速玩法；而且其附加优势还能赋予这种在iOS平台上的单一功能游戏如主机游戏般出色。

《The Drowning》的深度则来自奖励机制中的武器定制系统。不巧的是，这也是该游戏的盈利渠道。玩家铸造并升级到更棒的武器的做法，会形成该游戏中的亚策略。

因此，该游戏是《Rage of Bahamut》与《Borderlands》的结合体？Cousins答道：“是的，你可以这样定义。在玩法方面，我们主要受到《生化危机4》与《宝石迷阵：闪电战》的影响。”

Cousins表示：“我们研究了大量拥有移动设备的核心玩家。即使他们每周会投入8小时体验《死命召唤》，但他们期望在移动设备上获得短时的循环模式，他们认为其回合时长将比主机游戏上升到另一个层次。”

长久性

如上所示，《The Drowning》是一款免费游戏。但Cousins并不担心会因此赔钱，因为他的制作初衷是保持游戏长久运行。

他指出：“我们发现，卡牌战斗游戏中的终生价值能够推动高端开发。诸如《Rage of Bahamut》这类游戏虽然只吸引小规模用户，但却获得不菲收益。”

Cousins希望玩家能回到游戏进程，但不会感受到类似其它免费游戏那般“粗糙的游戏机制”。“我们更感兴趣的是，是否有个理智层次再次吸引玩家？我十分好奇玩家身上发生了什么情况。”

他表示：“每款成功的免费游戏都放弃推出新内容，它们并未修改并调整其中存在的漏洞。你会回到游戏进程是基于两个原因：你想要获得更多乐趣。你十分好奇游戏场景中发生的事情，更惊讶于商店中陈列的商品。你想要看到游戏世界的更多方面。”该团队计划根据游戏的发展状况，在1-2年间推出新内容。

解决主机问题

Cousins认为，从长远看来，他会将大量主机玩家引入到移动平台。掌上电脑已“解决不少问题”，PlayStation Vita便是答案。

Cousins指出：“与此同时，现在我已不会在家使用笔记本电脑，我会选择这些设备中的一种。”Cousins利用iPad演示了《The Drowning》的样本。“但在5年前，我从来没有幻想到这种场面，当我与核心玩家交谈时……我想，我们确实有机会着手进行这种工作。”

作为DeNA美国分公司Ngmoco新上任的首席执行官，Clive Downie赞同这一观点：“是的，我相信人们会渐渐离开主机平台。我想，我们将会有效地吸引周边用户。”（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）

Will The Drowning pull console gamers to mobile?

by  Christian Nutt

Is it possible to crack the core gamer market with a shooter on iOS? Ben Cousins, founder of Scattered Entertainment, DeNA’s Stockholm studio, certainly thinks so.

“There’s an opportunity for a company like DeNA to disrupt core gaming, and disrupt the big core gaming companies,” says Cousins.

He thinks he can force the hand of the industry by coming out with a high-quality free-to-play game — and at that point, his expertise with the model will be a competitive advantage. He launched Battlefield Heroes, EA’s first Western free-to-play game, over three years ago.

His shot at this is new FPS The Drowning, which will be free-to-play on iOS devices early next year. With a level of polish that rivals current-gen console games but a quick, mobile-focused gameplay loop, he thinks he has the right recipe for disruption.

He presents a scenario: “In an ideal world, people play a game like this for a few minutes a day whilst they’re playing their core games, but the amount of time and the amount of money they spend on mobile devices increases to the point where, when a next gen console purchasing decision is being made, maybe they put it off, or they maybe don’t make that decision at all — in the same way that I’m not interested in buying laptops anymore because I love tablets.”

Cousins, you see, has stopped using a computer for anything but work. He’s all iPad at home, and he can see console gamers going that direction.

The Control Issue

Cousins is particularly elated because he believes he and his team — formed of veterans from FPS studios like Bungie, DICE, and Crytek — have cracked the control scheme problems that will allow the genre to be just as fun on tablets as it is on consoles.

“We’ve struck a good balance between simplifying the things that don’t matter, like micromanaging your moment around crates, while trying emphasize the things that do matter, like pixel-perfect shooting,” he says.

Scattered spent two and a half months at the beginning of project nailing down the controls. The breakthrough came when the team realized that, “from a high level, let’s do everything you do to move around the operating system, and to move around apps,” Cousins says.

In The Drowning, you tap to move to a destination, aim and shoot by centering a target between two fingers, and pinch to zoom with a sniper rifle, just like you do to resize a webpage in Safari.

While initially suspicious, core gamers, Cousins says, have come around to the game when it’s in their hands. “If you propose this to them, they say, ‘That sounds bizarre.’ They can’t get their head round it. But if you give them an opportunity to try it, they really like it,” he says.

Last year, when Gamasutra visited Cousins’ new studio in its temporary space near Stockholm, he spoke of being inspired to solve this control scheme problem on mobile the way Bungie’s Halo did for consoles.

While it may not be that landmark, the team looks to be close. And just as tiny bacteria evolve faster than humans, mobile games evolve faster than console games. The first iteration doesn’t have to be perfect, because the next patch — and the next game — is right around the corner.

Constrained Gameplay

Another challenge the team is running headlong at is blending short-session mobile games with console FPS depth.

The Drowning takes place in small arenas. Players have 120 seconds to kill hordes of undead monsters as skillfully as possible — with score bonuses for multi-kills, headshots, and other tricky maneuvers.

“We don’t have any 3D exploration in this game,” says Cousins, just a “fast loop” of action. “It’s pinball, it’s Space Invaders, it’s Bejeweled, it’s Doom, it’s Quake.”

The small arenas don’t just reinforce quick gameplay; they have the added advantage of letting the Unity-powered game look almost as good as current-gen console games on iOS devices.

The game’s depth comes in via a loot-based weapon customization system. Not coincidentally, that’s also where the monetization comes in too, though there are few details on that as yet. Players can craft and upgrade to better weapons, which forms the meta-game to compliment the short loop of the moment-to-moment play.

So the game is Rage of Bahamut meets Borderlands? “Yeah, I think you could say that,” Cousins says. “In the gameplay, our two biggest influences have been Resident Evil 4 and Bejeweled Blitz.”

“We did a lot of research with core gamers that have mobile devices,” says Cousins. “Even though they play Call of Duty for eight hours at the weekend, with mobile devices they expect a shorter gameplay loop, and they expect to meter their game session length to a greater degree than they do for a console game.”

Building for Longevity

The game, as stated, is free. But Cousins isn’t worried about losing money on the title, because he’s building for longevity.

“We’re starting to see lifetime value on the card battler games that will enable high-end development as well,” he says. “Games like Rage of Bahamut [are] engaging a smaller audience but monetizing really well.”

He hopes to keep players coming back, but not with “crude gamey mechanics” like other free-to-play games. “We’re more interested in, is there a cerebral layer to getting the people back? I’m curious about what happens to the player.”

“Every successful free-to-play game is dropping content, they’re dropping bug fixes and tuning,” he says. “You’re coming back for a couple of reasons: You want more fun. You’re curious about what’s going to happen, more surprises in store. You want to see more of the world.” The team has plans to release new content for at a year or two, depending on how things go.

Solving the Console Problem

Cousins thinks he’ll win gamers away from their consoles in the long run. Handhelds are already a “solved problem,” he says — just look at the flagging PlayStation Vita.

“In the same way that I’ve stopped using laptops at home now that I’ve got one of these” — Cousins says, holding the iPad he’s using to demo The Drowning — “but I never would have dreamt of that if you had postulated it to me five years ago, when I talk to core gamers… I think there’s an opportunity for us to do that.”

Clive Downie, the newly minted CEO of DeNA’s US division, Ngmoco, agrees. “Yes, I do believe people will migrate away from consoles, and their time away from consoles, if the content is consequential,” Downie tells Gamasutra. “I think we’re going to effectively pull away at the layers of the onion, if you like, and probably pull away the consumers at the periphery.” (source:gamasutra)