开发者谈单人体验模式游戏的营收和竞争状态

原作者：Rob Fahey 译者：Willow Wu

（前言：现在有很多顶级游戏公司将重点放在多人/以服务为主的游戏上，那么，由剧情主导的单人游戏还能在行业中顺利发展下去吗？）

有谣言说单人游戏要灭亡了，这实在是过分夸张了。虽说如此，游戏创作者们对单人游戏目前的健康状况并不是完全放心的，还是有些令人担忧的问题。

从Rockstar的坚持（他们仍然致力于创作单人游戏DLC）到前Visceral开发者的Zach Wilson的有力辩护再到MachineGames开发者Tommy Tordsson Björk，他们传递出来的关键信息就是单人游戏作为一个概念和类别是需要去维护的。这句话本身并没什么错，但是情况已经发展到了需要人们发声的地步，这就有点不太乐观了。

Grand Theft Auto V(from indiewire)

为什么人们会觉得需要为单人游戏说话，这其中的原因应该是很明了了。谈到Visceral工作室的关闭，在有些人看来是因为他们没有把《星球大战》这个游戏做好，这本该是一个以单人玩法为主的游戏。EA的同路人Bioware曾经也是单人游戏的捍卫者，然而他们最近在专心开发一款类似《命运》的多人游戏。《命运》本身也是一个例子——Bungie在一开始的时候是做单人游戏的，但随着《命运》以及《光环》系列逐步向多人游戏过渡，再加上后续的剧情设计越来越薄弱，最终Bungie还是彻底投入了多人游戏的怀抱。

现在有小部分的游戏工作室放弃单人游戏，就其本身而言，这并不是导致人们担忧的主要原因。事实上，这种担忧其实是过虑了。单人游戏体验是个具有巨大潜力的盈利点，只要游戏市场还在，就会有公司和创作者去追求这种游戏体验。

我要特别说明一下：我从未暗示接下来的年头里不会有任何单人游戏发行，请大家在阅读剩下的篇章时也不要忘了这点。我们更应该担心的是这些游戏的可支配预算到底有多少，发行商有没有办法做到像对多人游戏那样对单人游戏也给予同样的营销支持以及推广支持。

单人游戏并不是卖不出去，热门的单人游戏销量仍然可以达到几百万份。开发、销售单人游戏变得越来越难是因为游戏的内容创作成本在不断提高。制作游戏内容还是非常耗钱的——建模、做动画、设计敌人以及其他角色、设计关卡、游戏环境、录制对话、写脚本、调整光源、置入游戏事件等等。想一想玩家在体验游戏时每一分钟的成本或者是玩家付每一美元背后的创作成本，单人游戏的内容成本无疑是非常昂贵的，而且它还在过去的几十年中持续大幅度增长。

DLC可以帮助游戏团队减轻成本负担，玩家付一定的费用获得相对制作成本没那么高的东西，比如说角色的新皮肤或者是一堆新武器模型，这样能够让游戏的开发成本/收入回到一个比较健康的比率。但总体来说，DLC通常都会出现跟游戏主体一样的问题——制作成本高，但是大部分玩家不用花多长的时间就通关了，这就让游戏的合理定价问题变得更加复杂。

玩家们期待单人游戏的灵活度能越来越高，如果一个游戏没有剧情分支可选择，那么这个游戏会因为过于线性而遭受到玩家的连连差评，而且这种情况出现得越来越多了。现在的开发者们要花费更多时间、金钱、精力去创造更多游戏内容，而这些内容并不是所有玩家都会选择的。除此之外，虽说DLC能把玩家短暂地召回来，增加收入，但通常在不久之后就会出现收益递减。只有特定的玩家群体会买第一个DLC，然后这群玩家中的某些特定玩家会去购买第二个DLC，以此类推，越往后的DLC购买人数越少。

在另一方面，以服务为主的游戏执行的是另一套不同的策略。现代多人游戏的发行后交易模型有一套基本的逻辑，就跟F2P手游一模一样。这些开发者卖的不是游戏内容，卖的是消耗品——比如说游戏中的货币，开发成本低，玩家还能回到游戏中反复购买。就算他们在游戏内容上下了很多功夫、设计了很多游戏特色，当然也是花了很多钱来丰富多人游戏体验（就比如《命运》的扩展包），这种做法也只能算是例外而不是规则。增加新的武器、汽车或者是模型才是比较平常的做法，制作、销售道具的经济效益比单人游戏的DLC高多了。

单人游戏的开发者和发行商要怎么设计内容就成了一个非常纠结的问题。一方面，多人/以服务为主的游戏盈利能力更强、回报率更高。但另一方面，还有很多人渴望优质的单人游戏体验。值得注意的是，即使一些知名开发人员转向了偏多人风格的游戏，但有些游戏却把目光转回了单人游戏——例如，《星球大战：前线2》将会包含单人战斗机制，这大概是考虑到前作因为缺乏了这类机制而错过了一部分潜在玩家。

一边是投资回报率，另一边是玩家（实际上还有创者们）对优质剧情以及单人游戏体验的需求，在如今的行业中要实现这二者之间的平衡简直是不能更难了。在上世纪90年代末期至2000年代早期，为了增加收入，几乎所有的单人游戏都要无一例外地加上多人死亡竞技模式（multiplayer deathmatch mode），而不是根据游戏本身有选择性地加入。现在的单人游戏成本过高收入过低，有些开发者就害怕历史会重演，到最后他们不得不给单人游戏附上额外的东西。

即使很多公司不能单靠单人游戏体验获得好成绩，但这并不意味着所有人都做不到。那些花费好几年时间积累玩家、以优秀的剧情主导游戏获得名声的公司，他们没有必要因为现在的单人游戏难做、难卖而直接放弃它。剧情主导游戏的玩家们也许要试着接受这种情况：相比眼花缭乱、不考虑节省预算的多人游戏（毕竟它们的预算是跟长期的微交易挂钩），顶级单人游戏也许会变得廉价一点点，画面不会那么华丽，动画可能会反复使用。

虽说使单人游戏需要做出调整才能生存下去，但也不用担心它会因此迎来终结时代。单人游戏的当下经济状况是有点不太乐观，但只要有玩家需求存在就不怕它会消失。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

As many top studios focus on multiplayer, service-based games, does the business case for narrative-driven single-player titles still add up?

Rumours of the death of single-player games have been greatly exaggerated; but nonetheless, there’s something a little concerning about the way creators and studios presently feel compelled to make statements about just how healthy single-player is right now.

From Rockstar’s insistence that it’s still committed to single-player DLC in its games to the robust defences of single-player from ex-Visceral developer Zach Wilson and MachineGames developer Tommy Tordsson Björk, the message that comes across most strongly is that single-player as a concept and a category is something that needs defending. There’s nothing wrong with the things being said; it’s the need to say them at all that’s of some concern.

The reasons why people might feel the need to come to the defence of single-player are fairly clear, after all. Visceral’s closure has been interpreted in some quarters as a vote of no confidence in what was thought to be a single-player focused Star Wars title it was working on; EA fellow traveller Bioware, once a bastion of single-player, has focused its efforts on a Destiny-style multiplayer game. Destiny itself is another example of the same trend; Bungie’s roots are in single-player, but after transitioning more and more towards multiplayer experiences over the course of its work on the Halo franchise, Destiny and its anaemic afterthought of a narrative sealed the transition.

That a handful of studios are moving away from self-contained single-player experiences is not, in and of itself, cause for major concern for this whole area of the industry’s output. In fact, that concern is unquestionably overblown; the reality is that there is an enormous market for single-player experiences, and as long as that market exists there will be companies and creators who seek to provide for it.

That’s the caveat that hangs over everything else written in this article; nothing I’m saying implies for a single second that there won’t be single-player games released next year, or the next, or the next. What is more questionable, however, is the kind of budgets those games can command, and whether publishers will be able to justify putting the same sort of development and marketing push behind them that multiplayer – or “service-based” – games now routinely receive.

After all, it’s not like single-player games don’t sell; major single-player titles still routinely sell several million copies. However, the economics of making and selling single-player games has been getting tougher and tougher as the costs of creating content have increased. Making content, after all, is expensive; building and animating models for players, enemies and other characters, constructing levels and environments, recording dialogue, scripting and lighting and rigging events in the game. Considered in terms of cost per minute of player experience, or cost per dollar paid by a player, single-player content is unquestionably expensive, and that cost has grown hugely in the past couple of decades.

DLC can help to alleviate that cost; when players pay a chunk of cash for something that’s relatively inexpensive to create, like a re-skin of a character or a bunch of new weapon models, it can help to push the game’s ratio of development cost to revenue back towards a healthy figure. In general, though, single-player DLC is often subject to the same problem that the original game had – it’s expensive to build and most players will run through it relatively quickly, which puts strict limits on what can reasonably be charged for it.

As players’ expectations of more flexibility in their single-player experiences have grown – a game that doesn’t have branching narratives with choices to be made will now be roundly bashed for being too linear – this problem has only become more severe; now developers are spending time, effort and money creating content that many players won’t see at all. Moreover, while single-player DLC can bring players back for a short while and provide a fresh injection of revenue, diminishing returns often kick in after a game launches. Only a certain slice of the player base will buy the first DLC pack, and only a certain slice of those players will buy the second, and so on.

Service-based games, on the other hand, operate on a rather different set of economic equations. The post-launch transaction model for modern multiplayer games owes its fundamental logic to exactly the same notion that underpins free-to-play gaming on mobile. The developers often don’t sell content, they sell consumables; items such as in-game currency that can be created cheaply and which players can keep coming back to buy over and over again. Even when developers do sell content, fully-featured and no doubt expensively developed multiplayer content like Destiny’s expansions are the exception rather than the rule; new weapons, vehicles or models are much more common, and the economics of building and selling something like that stacks up far more positively than the economics of a single-player DLC expansion.

This problem has caused a certain tension in how publishers and developers approach single-player content. On one hand, building multiplayer and service-based games is much more profitable; the return on investment on your content creation budget is simply better. On the other hand, much of the market still craves good single-player experiences. It’s noteworthy that even as some major developers switch gears towards more multiplayer-type games, others are reversing course a little; Star Wars Battlefront 2, for example, is going to ship with a single-player campaign, presumably based on a calculation that the original Star Wars Battlefront missed out on a chunk of its potential market due to the lack of such.

Striking a balance between those two sides – the cold logic of return on investment on one hand, and the demand of players (and indeed of many creators) for compelling narratives and engrossing single-player experiences on the other hand – is a tougher task than it’s ever been. There was a period in the late nineties and early 2000s where almost every game felt like it was getting a bolted-on multiplayer deathmatch mode for little reason other than ticking off a feature on the back of the box; as studios struggle to make the economics of AAA development add up in the current era, there’s a fear that many of them will end up tacking on single-player or narrative components for broadly the same reason.

Yet even if many companies can’t make the numbers add up on purely single-player experiences, there will be some who will; companies that have spent years building up fan bases and strong reputations for great narrative-driven games, which will have the sense not to slay that goose even if the eggs it lays have changed from gold to silver. The audience for narrative-driven games may need to accept that all but the cream of the crop will, perhaps, be developed a bit more cheaply, will look a little less graphically lush and repeat a few more canned animations, than the dazzling, no-expense-spared service games that justify their budgets on a long tail of microtransactions.

But even if this part of the market needs to adapt to survive, concerns over its passing are misplaced. The economics of single-player looks a little tarnished right now, but the kind of experiences it provides are here to stay, as long as there’s an audience that demands them.（source：gamesindustry.biz ）