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从产品体验的角度聊《迷失之地:乱斗》是如何盈利的

发布时间:2018-11-09 09:01:12 Tags:,

从产品体验的角度聊《迷失之地:乱斗》是如何盈利的

原作者:Jon Jordan 译者:Willow Wu

欢迎回到In-App Purchase Inspector,在这里我们会以消费者的视角,定期测评一些F2P游戏。

对于每一款游戏,我们都要考虑IAP设计与游戏的整体玩法以及meta体验的契合程度。

这次我们要测评的是Frogmind的新游戏《迷失之地:乱斗》(Badland Brawl)。

竞争潜力

移动游戏市场发展到这一阶段,玩法创新已经成为了一个难以攻克的挑战。

但是Frogmind公司新发行的《迷失之地:乱斗》——一款包含了《愤怒的小鸟》物理弹射玩法、借鉴了MOBA游戏胜利判定条件的PvP塔防游戏似乎可以成为一个优秀挑战者。

而且,Frogmin的前作《迷失之地》因为独特的大气效果获得了众多玩家的好评,Supercell也成为了他们的大股东。因此,你们可以期待《迷失之地:乱斗》的整体制作水平以及用户体验一定是顶级的。

但是,In-App Purchase Inspector会深入到游戏的留存策略以及盈利技巧。

Badland Brawl(from pocketgamer.biz)

Badland Brawl(from pocketgamer.biz)

游戏的基本流程还是以角色,或者说是克隆人为核心。目前游戏中有37个克隆人,每个人都有自己的属性技能(质量、速度、轨迹),比如对不同目标所造成的伤害。因此,解锁更多克隆人、不断升级就是《迷失之地:乱斗》的核心meta循环。

玩家需要通过收集克隆人对应的升级材料来实现进阶,这就跟集换式卡牌游戏或者是RPG游戏很相似。每升一级都需要一定数量的材料。

不出所料,获得材料的途径主要就是开箱,也就是游戏中的蛋——分为不同类型和稀有程度。

最普通的是两个定时奖励蛋Ground Eggs,每四个小时玩家就能从中得到两个不同克隆人的材料,外加随机数量的软、硬货币(金币和宝石)。

对战胜利后获得的奖励会更加丰厚。和现今的其它F2P游戏一样,玩家最多可以储存四个蛋,但是只有一个会倒计时。

在游戏过程中玩家可以收集齿轮。对战胜利可获得3个齿轮,就算输了你也能获得至多2个齿轮。10个齿轮可以打开Gear Egg,就游戏前期来说,它是包含最多奖励的蛋了。

当你加入部落(Tribe,也就是游戏的公会系统)后,你就能解锁Tribe Egg,它跟Gear Egg类似,但是它跟群体玩家的利益挂钩。更棒的是,你可以将克隆人素材赠予同部落的成员,或者你也可以发出请求。

好戏上演

看到现在,你们或许会觉得这游戏听起来并没有什么特别之处啊,都是标准配置。《迷失之地:乱斗》的设计巧妙之处在于提供给玩家升级蛋的机会。

就比如说Ground Eggs,玩家可以通过观看有奖广告将蛋内的奖品增加一倍。而其它蛋则需要通过增加等待时间来升级。

事实上,你可以等计时器倒数完毕,然后再次叠加升级,比如从2x到4x,从4x到8x,或者从8x到12x。

玩家一次只能升级一个可打开的蛋,但是你随时都能使用硬货币立即升级或者是打开某个蛋。然而,随着级别的增加,所需的宝石数量也会增加。这是一种很有意思的做法,让玩家自己决定他们想通过什么样的方式来获得更多奖品。

除此之外,你可以进入游戏商店,直接用宝石购买高价值的蛋,售价从3美元到30美元不等。商店中也会出现单次贩售的礼包,一般是在玩家升级或者是进入到更高级的竞技场时出现。

细节观察

《迷失之地:乱斗》中的另一处细节亮点在于对软货币数量的严格把控。在很多F2P手游中,系统会奖励给玩家非常非常多的软货币,这样一来它们就变得没有价值了。除非你打算把宝石转换成金币,不然大多数情况下玩家会发现手头的金币不足够升级所有的克隆人。

但这并没有真正影响游戏玩法,因为你只能在一场战斗中使用8个克隆人,而且大多数玩家会选择一个互补的角色组合,并专注于将它们升到最高级。

尽管如此,这也表明了Frogmind对游戏平衡的关注:确保玩家只要玩游戏就能得到某种方式的回报;同时也提供了一种能够加速游戏进程的巧妙方式:选择等待或者是选择花钱,多长/多少由玩家自己决定。

侧重动作的游戏玩法结合流畅的游戏体验,从各方面来看《迷失之地:乱斗》不失为一款具有吸引力的优秀游戏。

当然,游戏是否能够获得商业方面的成功还很难说。发行后收获了两百万的下载量,《迷失之地:乱斗》已经开了个好头。但是即使是这个水准的游戏也不一定能在当下竞争如此激烈的市场中脱颖而出。

随着Frogmind对游戏进行持续优化、更新,接下来的几周和几个月将是至关重要的。

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Welcome to The In-App Purchase Inspector – our regular look at free-to-play mobile game monetisation from the consumer’s perspective.

In each instalment, we consider how well a developer has designed its in-app purchase retailing to work alongside the overall gameplay and metagame experience.

This time we’re looking at Frogmind’s Badland Brawl.

Could it be a contender?

At this stage of the mobile game sector, gameplay innovation is a difficult challenge to successfully overcome.

But Frogmind’s mash-up of Angry Birds-style trajectory physics with MOBA-inspired victory conditions as seen in its PVP-focused title Badland Brawl is as good an attempt as we’ve seen in recent years.

And, as you’d expect from a studio which made its reputation with the atmospheric Badland games and is now majority owned by Supercell, the overall level of polish and user experience is of the highest order.

Yet, the point of the In-App Purchase Inspector is to look deeper into the game’s retention and monetisation techniques.

In that context, the basic flow is focused on the game’s characters, or clones. Currently there are 37 clones, each of which has their own specific attributes in terms of physics (notably mass, speed and trajectory type) and stats such as the damage they inflict to different targets.

Hence unlocking more clones and upgrading the ones you already have is the game’s core metagame loop.

The mechanism for doing this is collecting each clone’s upgrade material, which works in a similar way to a trading card game or RPG character. A certain amount of material is required for each level upgrade.

As expected, this material is primarily gained by opening chests – called Eggs – of which there are various different types and rarities.

The most common are the two timed Ground Eggs, which gift material for two clones every four hours, plus random amounts of soft and hard currency, gold and gems respectively.

Much better, in terms of their rewards however, are the eggs you gain by winning brawls. As with most F2P games these days, you can have up to four of these stored at any time, although only one can be actively counting down.

Playing the game also sees you accumulating Gears. Each victory gets you three Gears, but even when losing you can earn up to two Gears. Get 10 Gears and you can open a Gear Egg, which at the start of the game provides the most rewards.

Finally when you join a Tribe (the game’s guild system), you gain access to the Tribe Egg, which works in a similar way to the Gear Egg, albeit on a communal basis. Neatly, you can also donate clone material to members of your Tribe and request them too.

It’s about time

This sort of setup is now standard, of course. Where Badland Brawl does somethin clever is providing the ability for you to enhance eggs (hence gaining better rewards).

In the case of the timed Ground Eggs, you can enhance them 2x by watching a rewarded video, but for the other eggs, enhancement is just a question of increasing the wait time.

In fact, you can stack the level of enhancement, say from 2x to 4x, to 4x to 8x, or 8x to 12x, by waiting for the timer to countdown to zero and then enhancing it again.

You can only enhance the one active egg at a time, but at any point you can spend hard currency to enhance and open any egg immediately. However, as the level of enhancement increases so does the number of gems required.

It’s an interesting way to give players more control in terms of how aggressively they want to spend to get better rewards.

Aside from such loops, you can at any point head into the store and spend gems directly to buy high value eggs, priced from $3 to $30. There are also the usual one-off retail bundles, typically triggered when your player account levels up or you upgrade to a higher arena.

Attention to detail

Another subtle refinement Badland Brawl implements is by tightly controlling the supply of soft currency. In many F2P mobile games, soft currency is often gifted in large amounts and quickly becomes worthless. In Badland Brawl, unless you’re converting gems to gold, you always have more clones to upgrade than gold to do so.

Significantly, this doesn’t really impact gameplay as you can only take eight clones into a brawl and quickly most players will choose a set which works together in a complementary fashion and focus on upgrading them to the max.

Nevertheless, this demonstrates the attention Frogmind has paid to Badland Brawl’s balance in terms of ensuring all play is rewarded in some manner, as well as providing a sophisticated way of either waiting a little or a lot, or spending a little or a lot to speed up progress.

Combined with action-heavy gameplay and a smooth overall user experience, the entire package is compelling on many levels.

Of course, whether this will translate to commercial success is less clear. With two million downloads at launch, Badland Brawl is off to a good start, but even games this polished can struggle to make an impact in such a competitive market.

In that context, as Frogmind continues to update and hone its game, the coming weeks and months will be crucial.(source:pocketgamer.biz

 


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