原作者：Rob Fahey 译者:Willow Wu

神谷英树说《尼尔：机械纪元》拯救了Platinum公司，但是和Platinum旗下游戏类似的作品仍旧面临着价格下跌，达不到3A的风险。

早些时候，神谷英树在推特上赞扬并感谢《尼尔：机械纪元》的总监横尾太郎对这个游戏的积极贡献，让这个游戏获得成功。有一个Platinum粉丝们一直担心的问题，他也含蓄地给出了肯定的答案：尽管Platinum有铁杆粉丝追捧，有用广受好评的作品，但是他们其实一直出于岌岌可危的状态，而且还有可能会遭遇大挫折。

“虽然说起来挺可悲，但是横尾先生真的是拯救了Platinum，我没有夸张。”神谷的推文就是这么说的。

PlatinumGames是一家十分出色的游戏开发工作室。它的定位非常明确，就是一家致力于创造另类、小众、经典的顶级游戏工作室，热门作品有《猎天使魔女》、《合金装备崛起》、《征服》，《神奇101》也是一部不走寻常路的优秀作品，而且它还因为跟行业内的某些发行商巨头合作而备受瞩目。游戏质量并不是总能达到我们想要的高度，像《极度混乱》和《星际火狐：零》，它们没有达到我们对Platinum的期望。但从工作室发行第一个游戏以来已经有八年了，这八年间成功的作品远远多于失误的作品，而且成功的作品都取得了非常傲人的成绩。

然而，创始人之一神谷现在却说他们需要被《尼尔：机械纪元》“拯救”，尽管这游戏做的很棒，但是在盈利方面只是表现平平。尽管比起一代游戏好很多，这部备受推崇的续作已经售出了150万份——这很好，但是也没有好到可以给工作室的每个人买一辆跑车那么厉害。

为什么PlatinumGames会在那时陷入困境，其实也不难推测：由工作室出品的《龙鳞化身》（一款Xbox One独占多人RPG游戏）本该在业内引起不小的轰动，却被发行商微软砍掉了。这个年代可以众筹、可以推出early access，还有很多其他的商业模式和手段筹集资金，我们有时候会忘记游戏行业中存在着一个残酷的现实：巨头发行商或者是平台商是可以轻易碾压小型开发团队，不管这个团队多受人追捧，作品有多好，下场都是一样。游戏的开发历史就是由那些工作室的“尸体”垒起来的，并不是因为他们自身竞争力不够或者是缺乏创意，而是因为发行商转移了焦点，或者是对这个项目没兴趣了，或者是管理层做了什么其他决定，导致第三方开发者在半途遭受灭顶之灾。

当然，我们可能永远都无法得知《龙鳞化身》的具体问题是什么，到底是Platinum的制作过程太坎坷，还是只是微软认为这游戏不再适合Xbox One平台了。很有可能的是两个原因都有。但是核心问题并没有消失，要不是有一个备受好评和算是比较成功的项目把Platinum拖出困境，《龙鳞化身》被微软砍掉这件事很有可能会让他们从此一蹶不振。

从短期角度来看，这就是Platinum需要被救的原因。长期来看的话，原因会更加复杂，而且会跟问题的要害更加贴近，这个问题正是游戏行业内众多创作者当下所面临的，不仅仅是Platinum，任何公司都是。但是令人伤心的是尽管Platinum的作品颇具口碑，尽管有很多铁杆玩家会着魔般的一次又一次玩他们的游戏，能把游戏中的亮点倒背如流，说得头头是道，尽管Platinum一发售新游戏，粉丝们就会投入其中，但是这种种都没能让Platinum的游戏大卖。

他们完全陷入了另类经典游戏的典型状态——受好评、受追捧、有口碑，但是卖的不好。不管游戏的评论有多好，有多少Twitch视频，也没办法增加它的销量，世界上还有其它类似Platinum制作的这种游戏——质量精良，非常专业，但是在风格和玩法上有点不合主流，它们也是不善于推销自己。

GDC上的独立游戏节(from gamecareerguide)

这不单单只是影响Platinum，而是整个群体的问题，创作者、工作室、乃至整个行业中，有人耗费多年制作出了一款优秀的小众游戏，收获了一批数量不多但是活跃的粉丝。如果说这些人不是一个工作室的动力所在，那么简直是太无耻了，而且也会造成整个行业创造力的重大损失。这类游戏通常可以推动整个行业的发展，促进革新，在各个不同的方面产生新突破。它们或许没能每次都实现人们的期望，收益也很少能达到百万级别，但是当人们把这些游戏理顺了之后，你就能百分之百的肯定它会以某种形式应用到某些游戏中，而这些游戏是会卖到上百万的。而且，这类游戏吸引的玩家本身就具有很重要的作用，粉丝就是创意的源泉，小众游戏的玩家是行业中最有贡献精神的超级粉丝，正是有了他们的对游戏的高度赞赏，这个行业又可以多吸引一批人才，媒体也会增加关注度。

行业中的其他领域都在蓬勃发展，PlatinumGames和其他同类工作室到底是哪里出了问题？一个这么受欢迎的工作室，这么受赞誉，手头上的项目一个接着一个，砍掉一个项目怎么就会威胁到它的生存了？这里，我想把大家的目光引到这周发生的另一件事上：Steam Spy的Sergey Galyonkin利用Steam的定价分析数据为独立开发者发声，希望给他们的游戏定更高的价位，不要再给自己的作品贴上低价的标签。

Galyonkin指出尽管独立游戏的平均销量只有21000份左右，但是平均定价却降到了8.72美元，在Steam的定期促销期间甚至还降到了4.63美元，几乎是半折。这个时期很常见的现象就是玩家们买了一大堆便宜的游戏，然而这些游戏他们也许会去找时间玩，也许不会。

独立游戏的定价是个挺棘手的问题，因为它跟消费者的期望值密切相关，这就变得更加复杂，更具争议性了。受各种各样事件的影响，从移动平台的F2P游戏到玩家抱怨DLC内容，从Steam定价竞次到3A游戏逐步提高季票的价格。玩家们花钱所期望的游戏内容和开发者们所能承受的成本内容肯定是多少有些不同的，开发者们也不能为了达到玩家的期望就把自己或者是工作室逼到濒临破产的状态。这种类似于拔河比赛的局面，目前开发者们还是处于不利的那一端，大部分的独立游戏价格还是比较低。

这就让人想到利基市场（niche），尤其是那些比较大型工作室的热门游戏，因为和这些游戏竞争关注度的往往就是独立游戏。创意独立游戏的核心用户和Platinum游戏的核心用户很大程度是重叠的。而这些用户一般会花5美元去买一个游戏，而不是50美元。在大多数情况下，Platinum的游戏是比那些勇敢的独立开发者的作品更加精致、更加完整、具有更专业的水准，但是从游戏体验上来说，它们是一样的。在市场的一端，3A级别的游戏变得越来越贵，而在另一端，独立游戏却变得原来越便宜，而且越来越难看到有类似Platinum这样的工作室可以融入其中了。

Galyonkin说的是对的：对于独立游戏来说，有一个办法就是在价格上制定更严格的规则。价格是不能通用的，肯定是有很多小游戏适合标价5美元，但是同样来说，也有很多游戏标价15美元或者是20美元，或者是再高一点也是非常合理。

这样做的话，他们肯定会遭到消费者的强烈谴责，但是最终这一定会改变消费者的行为和期待。在这样一个好独立游戏扎堆，而且价格还不到你的1/6的市场中，PlatinumGames需要极力说服消费者们其实他们的游戏本来就该值60美元，这或许会对PlatinumGames的热门游戏雪上加霜。（这也有利于说服发行商。他们已经知道这类游戏的前景不太乐观，这也是为什么PlatinumGames在过去几年花了那么多时间卡在一个职务作品的地狱中，做一个预算有限、不能自由发挥创意的项目。）

关于独立游戏定价的争议，还有一个大家心里都明白的问题，我们在以前都见过价格竞次，而且我们都知道结果会如何。底线就是免费，这可以说是一种硬性经济法则（hard economic law），就是物品的价格中不存在制造成本和分销成本，例如电子游戏，最终就会趋向于免费。移动平台就是如此，差不多每个游戏都有一个为零的价格点，再以F2P的模式辅助收益。

由于独立游戏缺乏对市场的抵抗力，也不难想象F2P模式在一定时间内会成为Steam平台上唯一有效的商业模式，虽然这个时间也会是比较短的几年。几乎没有人可以靠卖5美元的游戏挣钱，而且如果你打算以5美元为上限，你也许还会把价格降到免费，去试试别的东西。独立游戏价格过低，是否值得去反击，这取决于你的看法：未来F2P模式是不是就是独立游戏的普遍商业模式，如果Platinum这样的公司消失，对于电子游戏行业来说是不是有好处？如果F2P模式和游戏搭配得当的话，我是没有什么意见的。但是从整个行业来看的话，这并不是我所期望的未来。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Hideki Kamiya says Platinum has been “rescued” by NieR: Automata; but games like Platinum’s remain at risk from collapsing prices outside AAA

When Hideki Kamiya took to Twitter earlier this week to praise and thank NieR: Automata director Taro Yoko for the positive effect the game’s success has had on PlatinumGames as a company, he implicitly confirmed something many fans of the company had feared – that despite its string of much-loved, critically acclaimed titles, Platinum had been on the ropes and potentially facing disaster.

“It’s a pathetic thing to say, but it’s no exaggeration to say that Platinum has been saved by Yoko-san,” Kamiya tweeted.

PlatinumGames is a pretty impressive development studio. Firmly establishing itself as a creator of beautifully polished cult classic games with the likes of Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Vanquish, it’s also done great, offbeat work with the likes of The Wonderful 101 and has done high-profile work for hire for some of the industry’s biggest publishers. The quality bar hasn’t always been held up – games like Anarchy Reigns and Star Fox Zero failed to hit the mark we’d come to expect from Platinum – but in the eight years since the company launched its first games, there have been far more hits than misses, and the hits have been spectacular.

Yet here’s Kamiya, one of the founders, talking about the studio needing to be “saved” by the success of NieR: Automata – which, although a brilliant and beautiful game, has really only been a moderate commercial success. Though far outperforming the original NieR, the well-regarded sequel has sold about 1.5 million units – great, but not “sports cars for the whole studio” great, by any stretch of the imagination.

Why PlatinumGames was in trouble, right at that moment in time, isn’t hard to fathom; the studio had just seen Scalebound, an ambitious multiplayer RPG being developed as an Xbox One exclusive, being cancelled by publisher Microsoft. In this era of crowdfunding and early access and many other business models and ways of funding development, we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that this is still a living reality of the games business; that a big publisher or platform holder can roll over and crush a small developer, no matter how acclaimed or beloved that studio may be. The history of game development is littered with those dead studios; destroyed not by their own incompetence or lack of creativity, but by a publisher that changes focus, or loses interest, or makes some other decision at an executive level that ends up destroying a third-party developer halfway across the world.

Of course, we’ll likely never know what the actual problem with Scalebound was; whether it was Platinum that was struggling to make its ambitious vision work, or that Microsoft simply decided the game didn’t fit its focus and vision for Xbox One anymore. Most likely, some combination of both was in play. Yet the core point remains; were it not for an acclaimed and moderately successful project pulling it out of the hole, the cancellation of Scalebound would likely have seen PlatinumGames shut its doors for good.

That’s the short-term reason why Platinum needed rescuing. The long-term reasons are more complex, and cut closer to the core of a problem that’s being faced by a lot of creators in the games business right now – not just Platinum, by any means. The sad truth is that despite the acclaim for Platinum’s titles, despite the many core fans who have played them obsessively and will recite their merits chapter and verse, despite the rapt reaction whenever the studio announces a new title, Platinum’s games haven’t sold very well.

They fall firmly into the status of “cult classics” – acclaimed, beloved, celebrated, and not very successful. Glowing reviews and countless hours of Twitch footage don’t pay the bills, and it looks for all the world like the kind of games Platinum makes – polished and professional, but a little off the beaten track in terms of both style and gameplay – aren’t great at keeping the lights on either.

That doesn’t just impact Platinum; it’s a problem for a whole sector of the industry, studios and creators who have done a great job over the years of building games that build cult status with a small but thriving audience of fans. If that’s not something that a studio can build a business around any more, that’s an enormous shame – and a huge creative loss to the industry as a whole. These are the kind of games that often drive the industry forward, innovating and pushing boundaries on a whole range of different fronts; they may not always hit their mark and they rarely sell millions, but when they get something right, you can be certain it’ll start to appear in some form in the sorts of games that do sell millions. Moreover, the audience these games appeal to are important in their own right; it’s the fans of creative, cult games who are the industry’s most devoted “superfans”, and its from their ranks that many of those motivated to work in the industry or in the media surrounding it are drawn.

Given how many other sectors of the industry are booming, what’s gone wrong for PlatinumGames and studios of its ilk? Why is a studio so popular and so acclaimed left in a situation where it lives from project to project, and a single cancellation can threaten its existence? Here, I’d like to draw attention to something else that happened this week; the comments from Steam Spy’s Sergey Galyonkin, who used in-depth data about Steam pricing to argue for indie developers to value their games more highly and stop undercutting their own businesses.

Galyonkin pointed out that even though average sales for indie titles are only at around 21,000 titles, the average selling price has fallen to $8.72 – which drops by almost half, to $4.63, during Steam’s periodic sales, which have become famous for consumers stuffing their catalogues with cheap games that they may or may not ever get around to playing.

The pricing of indie games is a tricky subject, because it plays around the whole issue of consumer expectations – which have become complex and controversy-laden, thanks to a whole host of influences, from F2P games on mobile to angry responses to DLC content, from the race to the bottom in Steam pricing to the steadily rising costs of season passes for AAA titles. There’s definitely a disconnect between what consumers expect to pay for content, and what developers can afford to charge for content without pushing themselves or their studios close to bankruptcy – and in this tug-of-war, it’s currently developers who are losing out, with the pricing of most indie titles cratering.

This relates back to the experience of niche, celebrated games from bigger studios precisely because very often, what those games are competing with for attention is exactly indie titles. The core audience for creative indie games overlaps significantly with the core audience for games like those Platinum makes… And that, it seems, is a core audience that’s started to get used to paying five bucks, rather than fifty, for a game. Of course, what Platinum offers is more polished, more complete and more professional, in most cases, than what you’ll get from a plucky indie creator; but it’s on the same spectrum in terms of experience. At one end of the market, you have AAA games getting more and more expensive; at the other, indie games getting cheaper and cheaper; and it’s increasingly hard to see how a studio like Platinum fits into that world.

Galyonkin is right that one way out of this is for indies to start taking a tougher line on pricing; there’s no one-size-fits-all, and there are undoubtedly lots of small, short experiences that suit a $5 price tag, but equally there are lots of games that would be far more reasonably priced (and far more likely to break even) at $15 or $20, or perhaps even a little higher than that.

In doing so, they’d face a backlash, of course; but ultimately this can and would change consumer behaviours and expectations, and probably serve as a glass of ice water in hell for the likes of PlatinumGames, struggling manfully to convince consumers that its original titles are worth $60 in a world teeming with good-looking indie titles for less than a sixth of that price. (It would help to persuade publishers, too; they’ve seen the writing on the wall for this kind of game for some time, which is why PlatinumGames has spent much of the past few years stuck in a work-for-hire limbo on tightly budgeted projects over which it had limited creative control.)

The unspoken aspect of the indie game pricing argument, of course, is that we’ve all seen a race to the bottom in pricing before, and we know where it leads. The bottom is zero; it’s arguably a hard economic law that the price of items with no manufacture and distribution cost, like digital games, will tend towards zero eventually. That’s what happened on mobile, where pretty much every game now has a price point of zero, supplemented by F2P systems.

Failing a push-back in indie, it’s not hard to imagine F2P becoming the only workable business model on Steam within a relatively short span of years; pretty much nobody can make a living from selling games for $5 in a highly competitive environment, and if you’re going to go bust at $5, you might as well drop the price to $0 and try something else instead. Whether you think a fightback against low indie pricing is worthwhile is really down to how much you think a future where F2P is the default business model for indie games, and studios like Platinum are gone forever, is good for videogames; I have no problem with F2P in the right game, but this isn’t the future I’d prefer for the medium as a whole.（source：gamesindustry.biz ）