作者：Ramin Shokrizade

我真的不愿意对外公开现有产品的任何详细分析，因为我会担心别人对这些产品的兴趣会受到影响。尽管有这样的担忧，我仍在过去发表过一些这样的报道（如关于Zynga，《暗黑破坏神3》的真钱拍卖行以及《激战2》的经济等分析），因为我觉得公众需要对这些内容有更深入的了解。读者们需要这些报告去帮助他们更好地了解当前的免费游戏环境以及在这样的环境中产品是如何运行的。

为了让分析看起来更加简单，本文的分析将专注于免费塔防手机游戏。我在此讨论的所有问题都适用于其它类型的游戏和产品—-即使它们之间的联系并不明显。

以下我将详细列出我所尝试的产品名称（开发者的名字，我在游戏中到达的关卡数，我在游戏中所花费的钱）：

《部落战争》（Supercell，第66个关卡，0美元）

《海岛奇兵》（Supercell，第42个关卡，0美元）

《DomiNations》（Nexon，第109个关卡，10美元）

《星球大战：指挥官》（Lucas，第6层，10美元）

《竞逐之国》（Space Ape，第13层，120美元，但只使用了大概40美元）

从这些游戏发行以来每款游戏我大概花了一年时间进行测试。我将以专业用户，同时也是“鲸鱼”用户（因为我每年在游戏中的消费超过了1000美元）的身份进行分析。

注：Nexon是上述四家公司中唯一一家我曾工作过的公司，但是那也是2001年的事了，所以我认为自己与任何这些团队都不具有真正的联系。其实我还测试了第六款游戏，但却并未在本文中提到它，因为其中存在着一些潜在的利益冲突。而我在本文提到的其它一些产品也是我在某个时候所尝试的内容。

什么是游戏？

为了更好地理解这些作品的运行，我们必须重新回去理解什么是游戏，从而去判断这些产品是否能够满足消费者的需求。这是我所使用的定义：

游戏：两个或两个以上的参与者之间关于技能或运气的竞赛。

之所以需要强调这点是因为我们必须考虑参与者是否喜欢游戏，是否觉得受到了挑战以及游戏结果是否存在不确定性。在现代游戏中，AI能够扮演1个以上的参与者的角色。尽管“公平”是游戏对于所有参与者来说是否有趣的一个重要组件，但是我却并未将其置于最基本的定义中。从整体上看，手机领域中99%以上的免费产品都不是游戏。因为玩家都能通过花钱而获得胜利。这并不是免费游戏的默认业务模式，但这却是因为不能正确理解游戏中奖励系统的角色而引起的。

尽管这些产品可能不是真正的游戏，但是它们却通过添加各种游戏元素而想要以游戏身份蒙混过关。在没有人类组件的产品中，它们通常会在挑战中创造一些随机性的错觉，尽管这些挑战通常都是精心设计且并不是随机的。因为本文将专注于多人竞争游戏，所以我将尝试着分析竞争游戏系统。

PvV，PvP以及游戏社交规模（GSS）

尽管从2002年开始我便开始使用PvV这个词，但其实这并不是一个通用词，所以我打算先向你们解释下这一词：

PvV（玩家对抗牺牲者）：两个对手之间非双方自愿的比赛。因为任何冲突总是源于一方发起人，所以发起人总是会想办法找到能够让自己获得胜利的有利比赛。发起人通常被称为“griefer”。griefer没有办法避免不公平的比赛，并且他们也不允许对方拒绝比赛，所以这才被称为非双方自愿的比赛。

PvP（玩家对抗玩家）：两个对手间自愿参加的比赛，通常结果都是不确定的。而特殊情况包括两个拥有悬殊技能的友好对手为了帮助其中较弱的对手而进行例行训练。在后面这种情况中，结果通常是确定的，但这也算是一种PvP模式。

PvV是一种强大的反社交机制。基于合作的PvP（两支团队相互抗衡）则是一种强大的社交机制。个人PvP（即1对1）是一种较弱的社交机制。而我所测试的这5款产品全部将PvV作为主要游戏机制。

游戏中的社交和同伴间的互动质量是一款产品能否取得商业成功的重要指标。我认为这就像催产素一样，即比多巴胺更具强大的奖励性化学元素。虽然我与许多对这一内容感兴趣的神经科学家进行过讨论，但是有关这一领域的研究仍然未能有效进行，所以我们只能将有关催产素的陈述当成一种看法，而非事实。

为了推动游戏社交机制的讨论，我创造了游戏社交规模（GSS）：

类别1：依赖于持久PvV的游戏玩法元素。

类别2：依赖于匿名PvV的游戏玩法元素。

类别3：允许匿名个人PvP的游戏玩法元素。

类别4：允许匿名合作PvP的游戏玩法元素。

类别5：允许持久合作PvP的游戏玩法元素。

所有商业参数都会随着你朝类别5移动而得到完善。

类别1的游戏社交规模等级可以缩写为“GSS1”。一款GSS1游戏将允许griefer不断攻击同一个牺牲者。虽然我看过一些使用GSS1的手机游戏，但是我却不能描述出任何取得商业成功的这些游戏。

就像之前提到的那样，这5款游戏都使用了GSS2机制，的确，这一游戏类型也是围绕着GSS类别进行创造。因为塔防游戏意味着你需要不断抵抗着某些事物。

像《炉石传说》等游戏便属于GSS3，因为除非玩家同意，否则这里不会出现任何战斗。

像《英雄联盟》和《坦克世界》等轰动一时的游戏便属于GSS4，即让玩家能够与朋友一起游戏，并最终将游戏变成GSS5。如果你不了解自己的团队成员，那游戏便是GSS4。如果你了解他们并经常与他们一起游戏，游戏则是GSS5。在Wargaming，我的工作主要是将现有以及未来的产品从GSS4带向GSS5。像《魔兽世界》便将被列入GSS5名单中。

有些拥有混合游戏玩法的游戏便可以被分别置于不同类别中。就像《星战前夜》同时拥有GSS5和GSS1元素。GSS1元素会为新玩家呈现出巨大的挑战，我认为这也是《星战前夜》一直未能取得更大突破的原因。

《竞逐之王》是另一款带有多个游戏玩法元素的游戏。而就像之前提到的，其主要游戏玩法是基于GSS2。游戏中有一个非常强大且面向玩家群组的“王国战斗”模式，每次允许多达40名玩家加入“王国”中。玩家需要与各种各样的对手战斗并最终打败他们的领导者。如果你的团队表现得更好，那么每个团队成员便能获得更厉害的奖励。

因此从机制上来看这种额外的游戏玩法层面属于GSS3（因为你是独自面对敌人基地），但在元游戏中，你的团队成员也可以遵循着你的前进脚步并为你欢呼呐喊。这又有点像GSS5中的互动。也是因为这样《竞逐之王》成为了这5款游戏中最具社交性的游戏，所以它在商业利益上也拥有更大的竞争优势。

创造比赛

游戏中的互动类型不一定与游戏中的互动质量相一致。当玩家觉得自己的技能正经受一个有价值的挑战的测试时，他们的用户粘性便会到达一个“有效点”，而用户粘性的结果则是不确定的。GSS的等级非常重要，因为如果一个活动没有任何用户参加，那么不管是对于个人还是社区而言该活动便没有了价值。没有人想要观看一场不公平的比赛，这是非常悲哀的。

所以就有了比赛创造引擎。有效的比赛创造引擎将能够维持公平性，从而让所有参与者都觉得自己经受着挑战，并且自己的技能也会影响着比赛结果。

《部落战争》，《海岛奇兵》，《DomiNations》和《星球大战：指挥官》都允许攻击者能够选择攻击对象。这并不是一种比赛创造机制。此外，它们也允许攻击者能够看到任何潜在牺牲者可能做出的防御，甚至他们还能看到一些防御被其他攻击者所制服。而这一工具通过让一群griefers能够在离线的时候组合起来去对抗防卫者而将游戏推向了GSS1类别。

如果防卫者遭到了一定程度的创伤，这些游戏便会为他们提供一张“盾牌”。玩家可以无需经受这些限制而从防卫者身上偷到许多资源，从而让防卫者在15分钟内多次遭到重创。《海岛奇兵》便未提供给受创的防卫者盾牌而导致他们不断遭遇威胁。

所有的这些游戏会给予那些找到并攻击更多的对手的玩家奖励。它们同样也允许你故意使用较少的单位去输掉战斗而降低自己的等级，并因此去完善你关于牺牲者的选择。这不仅对牺牲者来说很残酷，同时这也会将通过消除挑战而将griefer带离舒适区。这里有极少（大概1%）的玩家属于反社交型，他们并不在乎挑战，反而更愿意接受不幸。这些玩家愿意为乐趣付出代价。这会让他们在反社交游戏中以“鲸鱼”玩家的形式呈现出来，并因此导致人们错误地认为所有这类型游戏中的鲸鱼玩家都是反社交玩家，因为那些具有社交性的消费者们拒绝消费，所以他们并不会出现在这些数据中。

而《竞逐之王》的做法则不同。它拥有一个真正的创造比赛机制能够为每个玩家分配对手。它并未试图让每场比赛都足够公平。相反地，它是从一些较轻松的对手开始每一次比赛，并不断提升他们的难度直至玩家输掉比赛。一场比赛的持续时间越长，玩家能获得的奖励便越厉害。这便是我所谓的非对称比赛创造机制，如果做得好的话，它甚至会比对称比赛创造机制更强大。《坦克世界》便是一款带有对称比赛创造机制的游戏，在这里比赛创造机制会竭尽全力保证对战双方的平等。

非对称比赛创造机制之所以会超越对称比赛创造机制是因为从本质上看来比赛创造机制总是会对每个玩家的技能水平做出反应，并给予打败更高级别对手的玩家奖励。这让玩家在《竞逐之王》的前40或80个小时的游戏拥有较高的质量。在此期间Space Ape一直努力让玩家能够更多地进行消费。这时候每个玩家的“荣誉”分会随着自己的获胜而增加。在这前40至80个小时内，玩家的荣誉分最多可能达到5000，并因此导致比赛创造机制失去功效。

如果没有上限，玩家便会继续累计分数，直至到达自己的稳定状态。有可能是6000，10000甚至是20000分。而当荣誉得失相平衡时，玩家便有可能达到这种稳定状态。而通过添加分数上限，比赛创造机制便可能失去功效并让获得5000荣誉分的玩家能够与拥有20000荣誉分的玩家相抗衡。如果没有这种荣誉上限，最高级别的玩家将只能彼此对战。这真的具有非常大的挑战。也许会让他们受挫。我猜Space Ape之所以自愿消除比赛创造机制的作用便是受到这些数据的影响。

这里的问题在于，将自己的刻板偏见带到较大的消费人群中，他们将迎合少部分表现出自己参与其中的人，并因此而疏远更大一部分消费者。结果便是导致大量收益的流失，这种情况最早会出现在玩家获得5000荣誉分之后便相继离开游戏。在这些玩家离开后，Space Ape继续运行着“防卫者”的账号，以此确保玩家不会缺少攻击对象。

我之所以会提到《竞逐之王》的之一细节并不是因为我认为这是一种糟糕的设计。我之所以会专注于这点是因为我认为这是一种极具创造性的表现，但似乎有人并不能理解消费者行为有可能彻底摧毁一个出色的系统。

当然了，如果没有这一设计选择，至少50名以上到达第16个关卡的玩家会厌倦与彼此间的竞赛。但任何花了许多钱去购买第16个关卡的要塞的玩家将会因为缺少挑战而感到厌倦。荣誉分上限也将不再能够阻止这些玩家花钱后离开。

《星战前夜》是一款没有创造比赛机制的更早的游戏。这一设计选择的结果是游戏中的战斗总是以GSS1的形式呈现出来，即使非战斗行动具有较强的合作性。玩家将不能追求“公平”战斗，因为这会导致较高的经济损失风险。所以人们经常说这款游戏拥有最佳虚拟经济设计，但是其经济也抑制了游戏体验。

当然了《星战前夜》不会成为一款带有创造比赛机制的游戏，但这也暗示着创造“更棒的《星战前夜》”的空间。这也只能通过理解在这款游戏中什么是可行的什么又是不可行的而做到。不真正理解像《星战前夜》或《魔兽世界》等具有较强社交性的游戏为何能够获得成功就盲目地复制它们只会让你不断赔钱。

退缩

从某种程度看来，我所选择的这5款游戏都重新塑造了早前的Facebook游戏《Backyard Monsters》。重新塑造会抑制你的创造性。如果没有了创造性，你便不能责怪任何问题的产生。“我会复制它是因为你跟我说了这个想法！”在Facebook游戏大发展的时代，《Backyard Monsters》也和其它游戏一样使用了中心建筑作为支付/时间门。

建造这样的中心建筑需要消耗大量时间，但这也能让那些“缺乏耐心”的玩家为了避免等待而花钱。通常情况下鲸鱼玩家都是那些较没耐心的人。

这一机制具有的一个问题是对手总是会伴随着你的前进不断变强，因为开发者想要通过代理去维持游戏中的威胁。如果玩家能够通过消费去避免代理所呈现的威胁，游戏将没有办法不断向这些玩家要钱。所以任何通过玩家消费去减少威胁的方法只能是暂时的。

当玩家的所有建造都在第6层时他们可能会觉得艰难，这时候他们便会将自己的中心建筑提升到L7（第7层）并发现自己在这里是最弱的玩家。如此会阻碍他们在游戏中的前进。

因此玩家总是会选择呆在一个层面而停止前进。特别是当他们知道“新”内容只是对于早前内容的重塑。如此前进还有什么意义呢？而一旦玩家意识到自己将停止前行时，他们便会停止花钱。

退缩是为了惩罚使用早前Facebook游戏中的“有趣的痛苦”方法而出现的一种系统设计缺陷的症状。这种简单的时间/付费门是非常糟糕的执行者。不幸的是在重塑过程中，许多像这样的设计元素蔓延到了一些现代游戏中。因为缺少核心建筑的时间/付费门，玩家便没有理由再退缩了。而时间门的整体理念是基于较大消费者的行为模式的错误数据诞生的。

你会注意到像《魔兽世界》，《星战前夜》，《英雄联盟》和《坦克世界》等产业先锋都未曾使用时间门。当你更深入游戏，游戏进程便会放慢速度，但是你始终有继续前进的动机。虽然在《坦克世界》中会出现某种程度的退缩，但这却是因为在第7层以前游戏都是免费的，而在这之后玩家就需要开始花钱进行各种维修了。那些不想花钱的玩家会在第9层前开始退缩，或者他们需要一辆付费坦克为那些非付费坦克赚取维修费。而《坦克世界：闪电战》和《战舰世界》都完善了该模式。因为Wargaming的创始人希望高质量的游戏体验在非付费玩家身上保持不变，所以真正程度的退缩便没有什么消极影响，创造比赛机制也能够进一步保护这些玩家。

结论

我并未在本文真正提到《星球大战》，因为对于我来说这款游戏与《部落战争》非常相似，只是前者拥有更高的图像和声音质量。同时它也未使用漫画字体去吸引一些年轻用户，这是我非常欣赏的一点。当然了，我们也可以认为《星球大战》这款游戏根本不需要漫画字体的帮忙。我是这款游戏的忠实粉丝，因为它让我觉得就像真的在经历星球大战一样，即使其游戏玩法并不具有创新性。

我认为Supercell正是因为了解性别中立的重要性才拥有现在在产业中的地位。在他们的游戏中，女性玩家占据了52%，并且在核心家庭中她们也具有更强的“购买力”。我认为《Hay Day》更多地瞄准了没有胜负心的玩家（游戏邦注：游戏里不存在直接的战斗），而《海岛奇兵》则瞄准了更有胜负心的玩家（基于军事主题且没有防卫功能）。基于漫画风格和简单的游戏玩法的《部落战争》则瞄准那些更年轻的用户群体。

我非常认同“浮生瞬息”的想法，所以你最好能够尽早去吸引用户的注意。虽然我对免费游戏业务模式是否适合儿童还是充满疑惑，但是我还是很高兴看到其平台保护（和态度）得到了显著的完善。

这5款游戏中有2款游戏创造了一些非常不公平的情况。而在其它3款游戏中我总觉得自己能够影响到其他玩家。在《海岛奇兵》，一旦玩家获得掷弹兵（游戏邦注：如果没花钱的话是很难得到的），他们便可以更轻松地攻击其他玩家的基地。

在《DomiNations》，缺少有效的创造比赛机制让工业时代的玩家（拥有飞机）能够攻击那些不能创造任何防御工具的前工业时代的玩家。这对于防卫者来说是一种损失，因为他们只能无辜地看着自己的基地被摧毁。

这是我在《部落战争》中从未感受到的，因为我们在游戏一开始便进入的箭塔会对飞行单位产生影响。

在免费手机游戏领域，我看到了许多发展与盈利机遇。我认为手机是未来（也是现在）我们发展的主要平台。但是缺少创造性和游戏设计却会阻碍它的发展。现在我甚至很难将免费手机游戏领域中的产品称为“游戏”了。

它们不再是关于两个以上的参与者的技能或运气的对决。这并不是一个复杂的比赛标准，在我们进入免费业务模式之前做到这点根本毫不费劲。我希望能够鼓励产业中的决策制定者再次专注于游戏本身，并怀着将消费者应得的价值带给他们的想法继续努力。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

F2P Tower Defense Games: A Detailed Analysis

by Ramin Shokrizade

I am generally reluctant to put into the public space any detailed analysis of existing products, for fear that someone’s interests might be harmed. Despite this concern I have published some such reports in the past (Zynga Analysis, Diablo 3 real money auction house analysis, and a Guild Wars 2 economy analysis) when I felt the public need was great enough. There has been a lot of demand from readership for just such a report that would be helpful in understanding the current F2P environment and how products perform inside that environment.

This analysis only focuses on F2P mobile tower defense games, in order to make the analysis simpler. All of the issues I discuss here can be applied to other genres and products, even if the connection may not be immediately obvious.

Here I detail the product names along with (developer name, level reached in game, dollars spent in game):

Clash of Clans (Supercell, L66, $0)

Boom Beach (Supercell, L42, $0)

DomiNations (Nexon, L109, $10)

Star Wars Commander (Lucas, Tier 6, $10)

Rival Kingdoms (Space Ape, Tier 13, $120 but only used about $40 of that)

I have been testing each game for about a year or since essentially the first day they were released (in the case of newer products). I would describe myself as both an expert user, and also a “whale” since I have no problem spending over $1000 per year on a game I enjoy.

The contents of this paper are presented with the assumption that the reader has read the previous two papers in the series, Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert and Secrets of F2P: Threat Generation. Both were published immediately prior to this paper.

Disclosure: Nexon is the only company of the four listed above that I have worked for, but that was back in 2001 and I do not believe I have a professional relationship with any of the teams involved. A sixth title was tested and not included because of a potential conflict of interest. Any other product I mention in this report is probably a product I had some involvement with at some point, since I get around.

What is a Game?

To properly understand how these products work (or don’t work), it is important to go all the way back to an understanding of what a game is in order to determine if these products are meeting the needs of consumers. This is the definition I use:

Game: A contest of skill or chance between two or more participants.

This is important to note because a major condition of whether a participant is enjoying a game or not is whether they are feeling challenged, and whether there is uncertainty as to the outcome of the game. AI can take the role of one or more participants in modern times. While “fairness” is generally an important component of how enjoyable a game is for all participants, I don’t put it into the most basic definition. Viewed as a whole, 99+% of F2P products in the mobile space are not games. The ability to assure a win by spending removes both the skill and chance conditions. This is not a fault of the F2P business model, but is caused by a failure to understand the role of reward systems in games and thus a casual willingness to compromise these reward systems.

While these products may not be true games, they can attempt to “pass” as games by including various game elements. In products without human opponents, this is often done by creating the illusion of randomness in the challenges even though these challenges are typically carefully engineered and not random. The focus of this paper is on multiplayer competitive games, so a careful analysis of competitive game systems is going to be attempted.

PvV, PvP, and the Gaming Social Scale (GSS)

While I have been using the term “PvV” in my writings since at least 2002, the term is not in common use so I must start by defining this term:

PvV (Player vs. Victim): Non-consensual contests between two opponents. Since the conflict is elective on the part of the initiator, the initiator will generally attempt to find a favorable contest that they will almost surely win. The initiator is generally referred to as a “griefer”. The target of the griefer generally has no way to avoid the unfair contest (without spending real money) and is not allowed to decline the contest, thus making the contest non-consensual.

PvP (Player vs. Player): Consensual contests between two opponents where the outcome is typically uncertain. Exceptions include training exercises between two friendly opponents with unequal skill/power for the purpose of training the weaker opponent. In this latter case the outcome is generally certain but it is still considered PvP.

PvV is a strong anti-social mechanic. Cooperative PvP (where two teams square off against each other) is a strong social mechanic. Individual (1 on 1) PvP is a weak social mechanic.
All five products I tested utilized PvV as their primary gameplay mechanic.

The quality of social and peer interactions in a gaming product is the primary indicator of commercial success of the product. I am of the belief that a big part of this is the hormone oxytocin, which I believe is an even more powerful reward chemical than dopamine. While I am talking with various neuroscientists interested in this subject, the research in this area still has not been done so it is reasonable to treat this statement about oxytocin as opinion, not fact.

To facilitate discussion of gaming social mechanics, I have created the Gaming Social Scale (GSS), which follows:

Gaming Social Scale

Class 1: Gameplay elements that rely on persistent PvV engagements.

Class 2: Gameplay elements that rely on anonymous PvV engagements.

Class 3: Gameplay elements that permit anonymous individual PvP engagements.

Class 4: Gameplay elements that permit anonymous cooperative PvP engagements.

Class 5: Gameplay elements that permit persistent cooperative PvP engagements.

All commercial metrics improve as you move towards Class 5.

Gaming social scale ratings of “class 1” can be abbreviated as “GSS1”. A GSS1 game would permit a griefer to repeatedly attack the same victim. While I have seen some mobile games use GSS1, I can’t describe any of them as commercially successful.

As mentioned previously, all 5 TD products used GSS2 mechanics, and in truth the genre is built around this GSS class. Tower defense implies that you have to defend against something.

A game like Hearthstone would be in GSS3 because no combats occur unless you consent to them. The combats may still be of low quality if the matchmaker is poor, but that will be discussed in the next section of this paper.

Blockbuster games like League of Legends and World of Tanks are mostly in the GSS4 category, with some ability to play with friends and make it GSS5. If you don’t know your teammates, it is GSS4. If you do know them, and play with them regularly, it is GSS5. Much of my work at Wargaming was to push our current and future products over the line from GSS4 to GSS5. World of Warcraft would be a game that is squarely in the GSS5 category.

Some games have a mix of play that puts them in more than one category. EVE Online has both GSS5 and GSS1 elements. The GSS1 elements are what make the game so challenging for new players, and I would credit those elements as being the primary reason that EVE has not been an even bigger success.

Rival Kingdoms is another game with multiple gameplay elements in more than one category. The primary play is GSS2 as mentioned prior. There is also a fairly robust “kingdom battles” mode available to groups of players that join “kingdoms” of up to 40 players. An assortment of your opponents (10 of their total) must be battled through to defeat their leader. The better your team does as a whole, the greater the rewards to each team member.

Thus this additional gameplay layer is mechanically a GSS3 gameplay type (since you battle enemy bases alone) but in the metagame your teammates can follow your progress and cheer you on. This smacks of GSS5 interaction. This makes RK by far the most social of the 5 games in this group, and thus the most competitive commercially. Kudos to Space Ape!

Matchmaking

The type of interactions in a game are not necessarily the same as the quality of interactions in a game. Players are in the “sweet spot” of engagement when they feel their skills are tested by a worthy challenge, and that the results of the engagement are uncertain. GSS ratings are very important because if there is no audience for an event, that event has much less value to the individual and the community. But, no one wants to watch an unfair match, that is just sad.

Here is where a matchmaking engine comes in. An effective matchmaking engine does a good job of maintaining fairness so that all participants feel like they are being challenged and that their skills make a difference in the bout.

Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, DomiNations, and Star Wars: Commander all allow the attacker to choose who they will attack. This is not a matchmaker. Further, they allow the attacker to view the defenses of any potential victim, even seeing if some of the defenses (“traps”) have been neutralized by other attackers. This feature pushes these games into GSS1 territory by allowing a parade of griefers (“Airplane” style) to line up and beat on a defender while they are offline and not even playing.

These games do put up a “shield” on the defender if the defender takes a certain amount of damage. A substantial amount of resources can be stolen from the defender without tripping this threshold, allowing the defender to be hit hard several times in 15 minutes. Boom Beach does not even give a shield to a defender just hit, maintaining constant threat.

All of these games reward players for finding and attacking weaker opponents. They also allow you to intentionally lose battles with just a few units to lower your ranking, and thus improving your selection of victims. This is not only cruel to the victims, but it also pulls the griefers out of the ideal pleasure zone for them by removing challenge. There is a very small percent (~1%) of players that are anti-social enough that they don’t care about challenge and actually prefer to grief. These players will pay for this pleasure. This can make them show up as “whales” in anti-social games, and lead to the false conclusion that all whales are anti-social in these sorts of games because social big spenders decline to spend and thus don’t show up in the statistics.

Rival Kingdoms does things differently. It has an actual matchmaker that assigns opponents to each player. It does not try to make each match fair. Instead it starts a “run” with easy opponents and makes them progressively harder until the player loses and ends the run. The longer a run lasts, the greater the rewards. This is an example of what I call an asymmetrical matchmaker which, if done properly, is even more powerful than a symmetrical matchmaker. World of Tanks is a good example of a game with a symmetrical matchmaker, where the matchmaker tries very hard to make both sides equal in a battle.

The reason asymmetrical matchmakers outperform symmetrical matchmakers is that the matchmaker essentially can react to the skill level of each player, and reward them for defeating higher ranked players. This makes the first 40 or 80 hours of play in RK really high quality. Space Ape works hard to get players to spend heavily during this period. During this time each player’s “honor” score goes up as they get wins. Within that 40 to 80 hour period the player hits an honor cap of 5000 and this disables the matchmaker.

If there was no cap, players would continue to float in the ratings until they hit their steady state. That might be at 6000, 10000, or even 20000. The steady state is attained when honor gains match honor losses. By putting an honor cap in, this disables the matchmaker and forces 5000 honor players to fight 20,000 honor players. Without this honor cap, the highest rated (and presumably the highest spending) players would be forced to fight each other. Which would be really challenging. Perhaps even frustrating. My best guess as to why Space Ape would voluntarily disable their own very well designed matchmaker is that they were led by the tainted statistics I mention here and in Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert into thinking that “whales” are not the sort of people that want fair play.

The problem here is that by projecting their stereotype bias onto the big spending population, they cater to the small fraction that exhibit the behavior they are anticipating, and alienate the vast majority of big spenders. The result is a huge loss in revenue, which will show up first as a large amount of churn right after players hit 5000 honor. Space Ape continues to run accounts as “defenders” long after they quit, so there is never a shortage of bases to attack.

I go into this level of detail on Rival Kingdoms not because I think it is a bad design. I focus on it because I think it is innovative for many of the right reasons, but it would seem that someone who did not understand consumer behavior intentionally broke a well designed system.

Sure, without this design choice the 50 or so players with L16 strongholds would probably get really bored fighting each other over and over. But anyone that has spent that much money to buy a L16 stronghold is going to get bored anyways with the lack of challenge. The honor cap is not going to save these players from spending and churning.

EVE Online is an older game that has no matchmaker. The result of this design choice is that combat usually takes the form of griefing (GSS1) even while the non-combat action is highly cooperative. Players are discouraged from seeking “fair” combats, even if they would be the most entertaining, because they would also result in a high risk of economic loss. So this game that is often cited as having the best virtual economy ever designed, has a game design that causes the economy to suppress the gameplay experience.

Sure EVE Online would not be the same game with a matchmaker, but this also indicates that there is room to make a “better EVE”. It can only be done with a knowledge of what worked and what did not work in EVE. Trying to copy highly social games like EVE Online or World of Warcraft without understanding why those games perform well year after year is a sure fire way to lose money.

Turtling

All of the five games I reviewed for this paper are in many ways reskins of the older Facebook game Backyard Monsters. Reskinning has a suppressive effect on innovation. If you don’t innovate, you can’t be blamed for making a mistake. “I copied it just as you told me!” Backyard Monsters, like many games during the brief but sensational Facebook games era, used a central building as a pay/time gate.

Raising this central building was generally extremely time consuming but allowed those “without patience” to spend to bypass the wait. Supposedly whales were these impatient people. Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert is my attempt to debunk this myth. But the myth is what all these games are based on.

One of the problems with this mechanic is that opponents typically get harder as you “tier up”, in an effort on the part of developers to maintain threat by proxy. If a player could avoid threat by proxy permanently by spending, there would be no way to keep charging this player. So any reduction in threat through spending is temporary, and ultimately illusory.

So while a player may have been feeling tough at Tier 6 when all of their buildings were also L6, the moment they raise their central building to L7 (Tier 7) they will find themselves the weakest player at Tier 7. This becomes a strong disincentive to advance through the game content.

Thus players will tend to “turtle” at a tier and stop advancing. Especially since they know the “new” content will just be a reskinned version of the older content. What is the point in advancing? It will not bring relief from griefing. Once a player realizes this they will stop advancing, and stop spending.

Turtling is a symptom of a systemic design flaw carried over from the punishing F2P “fun pain” methods using in earlier Facebook games. These sorts of primitive time/pay gates are very poor performers. It is unfortunate that in the process of reskinning, many design elements like these were carried over to modern games without much thought. In the absence of a central building time/pay gate, there is no logical point where a player will be encouraged to turtle. The whole idea of a time gate is based on false data about the behavior patterns of big spending players.

You will note that industry leading games such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, League of Legends, and World of Tanks do not use time gates. Progress may slow as you get further into the game, but there is always incentive to advance. Some turtling is seen in World of Tanks, but this is because the game is designed to be economically F2P up to about Tier 7, and then to start to cost some maintenance for repairs beyond that. Players that do not want to spend will tend to turtle some time prior to Tier 9 or will be required to play a premium tank to generate funds for repairs of non-premium tanks. This model was improved in both World of Tanks Blitz and World of Warships, but I am not at liberty to say how. It has always been the intent of Wargaming founders to maintain a top quality play experience even for non-payers, so this sort of turtling was not seen as a negative characteristic, and the matchmaker protected these players from abuse.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really mention the Star Wars game in this article because to me the game is very similar to Clash of Clans, but with much higher graphics and sound quality. It also does not use Comic Sans to pull in very young users, which I appreciate. Of course it could be argued that the Star Wars franchise (now owned by Disney) does not need Comic Sans for this purpose. I am a big Star Wars fan, so I kind of enjoy the game because it feels like Star Wars even if the gameplay is not innovative.

It is my opinion that Supercell has really earned their position in the industry by understanding the importance of gender neutrality. Women make up 52% of gamers and generally have the “power of the purse” in nuclear families. That said, I think Hay Day is aimed more at a less aggressive audience (with no direct combat), and Boom Beach is aimed at a more aggressive audience (with a military theme and no shielding feature). Clash of Clans, with it’s intense Comic Sans art style (I have pink and gold walls in my base) and simplistic gameplay, is aimed at a younger demographic.

I am a firm believer in “cradle to grave” branding, where you get your audience interested in your products as early as possible. I have my doubts as to the suitability of the F2P business model for children, but I am glad that platform protections (and attitudes) have improved a lot since I wrote Children’s Monetization in 2013.

Two of the five games here produced situations that were grossly unfair. In the other three games I always felt like I could at least affect another player. In Boom Beach, once a player gets the grenadier unit (difficult to reach without spending), they can attack other player’s bases without the defending base getting off a single shot due to their range being greater than tower range.

In DomiNations, the lack of effective matchmaking allows Industrial Era players (with aircraft) to attack pre-Industrial Era players that are not allowed to build any sort of defenses that affect aircraft. This is an auto-loss for the defender, who can only watch helplessly as their base is razed.

I never had this feeling in Clash of Clans since the arrow towers, which you get in the very beginning of the game, can at least affect flying units.

I see a tremendous amount of opportunity for growth and profit in the mobile F2P space. From what I can tell, mobile is the platform of the future (and present). What is holding it back is a general lack of innovation and game design. I have a difficult time even describing the products currently in the mobile F2P space as “games”.

They are not contests of skill or chance between two or more participants. This is not a complicated or difficult standard to match, we had no difficulties with it before we went to a F2P business model. I would encourage decision makers in our industry to refocus on the making of games, with the intent of bringing value to the consumers they serve.（source：Gamasutra）