关于5款免费塔防游戏的深度分析
发布时间： 15:08:53
Tags：,,,,
作者：Ramin Shokrizade
我并不喜欢公开分享任何现有产品的细节分析，因为我害怕会因此损害了一些人的利益。尽管有这样的顾虑，我还是在过去发布了一些分析内容，因为我会觉得公众的需求更重要。读者们都希望能够看到这样的报告内容以帮助自己更好地了解当前的免费游戏环境以及在这种环境下产品的发展。
而本文的分析将只专注于免费手机塔防游戏，如此也能让这一分析内容更加简单明朗。我在此讨论的所有问题也适用于其它类型的游戏和产品中，即使它们之间的联系可能并不是特别明显。
以下是我将提到的一些产品名称（以及开发者名字，我所到达的游戏等级，以及在游戏中消费的美元）：
《部落战争》（Supercell：第66级，0美元）
《海岛奇兵》（Supercell，第42级，0美元）
《DomiNations》（Nexon，第109级，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，花了120美元但只使用了其中的40美元）
对于每一款游戏我都测试了一年多时间，或者是从游戏发行的第一天起便开始进行测试（如一些较新的游戏）。我认为自己既是一名专家用户，同时也是一名鲸鱼用户，因为每一年我都会在我喜欢的游戏上花费超过1000美元的费用。
注：Nexon是上述列出的公司中唯一一家我曾工作过的公司，但那已经是2001年的事了，所以我认为我与所有的这些团队都不存在工作关系。我还测试了第六款游戏，之所以未将其列出来是因为存在潜在的利益冲突。而我在本文中提到的其它游戏可能是我曾参与创造过的游戏。
Boom Beach(from 72g)
什么是游戏？
为了更好地理解这些游戏的运行，我们必须回头去理解游戏是什么，如此才能更好地判断这些游戏是否能够满足消费者的需求。以下便是我所使用的定义：
游戏：两个或以上参与者之间的技能与运气间的较量。
我们必须清楚这点是因为参与者是否享受游戏的一个主要条件便是他们是否感受到了挑战以及游戏结果是否存在不确定性。如今，AI能够在游戏中扮演一个或多个参与者的角色。尽管对于所有参与者来说，“公平”是游戏乐趣的重要元素，但是我却并未将其置于最基本的定义中。从整体看来，手机领域中的99%免费产品都不是游戏。而保证消费的能力将会不利于技能和运气条件。这并不是一种默认的免费业务模式，但却是因为设计师未能有效理解游戏中的奖励系统角色所导致，所以我们必须对这些奖励系统做出让步。
尽管这些产品不一定是真正的游戏，它们也可以通过添加各种游戏元素而“变成”游戏。在没有人类对手的产品中，开发者总是通过在挑战中添加一些随机的幻觉去创造这种感觉—-尽管这些挑战通常都是经过精心设计的，而非随机的。本文将专注于多人竞争游戏，所以我将投入分析竞争游戏系统。
PvV，PvP和游戏社交规模（GSS）
尽管我之前曾提到“PvV”，但是这并不是一个常用词，所以我必须再次定义它：
PvV（玩家对抗受害者）：这是两个对手间非自愿的比赛。对于发起者而言对抗是可选择的，发起者通常都会想办法找到对自己有利的比赛。在这里发起者便是我们所谓的“griefer”。就griefer目标来看他们很难避免不公平的比赛，并且他们不允许对方拒绝比赛，所以这便造就了这种非自愿的比赛。
PvP（玩家对抗玩家）：这是两个对手间的资源比赛，结果通常是不确定的。不过也存在例外，如两个带有不平等技能的友好对手为了提高较弱一方的技能而展开的训练型比赛。在这种情况下结果通常是确定的，但这也仍属于PvP模式。
PvV是一种强大的反社交型机制。而合作性的PvP则属于强大的社交机制。独立的PvP（即1对1）是较弱的社交机制。我所测试的这5件产品主要都使用了PvV游戏机制。
游戏中的社交和同伴间的互动都是该产品能否取得商业成功的主要标志。我相信这是一种催产素，即比多巴胺更强大的一种奖励机制。尽管我与许多对该题材具有兴趣的神经系统科学家交谈过，但我们还是很难找到有关该领域的研究，所以我们只能将有关催产素的陈述当成是一种观点，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），如下：
游戏社交规模
类别1：依赖于永久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：允许匿名个体PvP的游戏玩法元素。
类别4：允许匿名合作型PvP的游戏玩法元素。
类别5：允许永久合作型PvP的游戏玩法元素。
当你朝着类别5发展时，所有商业参数都会随之完善。
类别1的游戏社交规模评级可以缩写为“GSS1”。一款GSS1游戏将允许一个griefer反复攻击同一个受害者。尽管我看到不少手机游戏使用了GSS1，但我还是很难说这些游戏取得了商业上的成功。
就像之前提到的，我所列出的5个产品都使用了GSS2机制，实际上，这类型游戏都是围绕着GSS类别进行创造。塔防游戏便意味着你需要防御某些东西。
像《炉石传说》这样的游戏便属于GSS3，因为这里不会出现任何战斗，除非你同意这些战斗的出现。如果比赛制造者教糟糕的话战斗的质量便会很低，我也将在本文的下个部分中讨论到这点。
像《英雄联盟》和《坦克世界》这种一鸣惊人型游戏主要属于GSS4类别，即带有与朋友一起游戏的能力并且有可能成为GSS5类别。如果你不认识你的队友，它便是GSS4类别。如果你认识对手并有规律地与他们一起游戏，这便是GSS5。我在Wargaming的大部分工作便是推动我们现在以及未来的产品从GSS4发展到GSS5。《魔兽世界》便是一款直接来到GSS5类别的游戏。
有些游戏带有不同游戏元素所以也身处不同类别。就像《星战前夜》便同时拥有GSS5和GSS1元素。GSS1元素能够让游戏呈献给全新玩家挑战性，我也认为正是因为这些元素导致《星战前夜》一直未能取得更大的成功。
《竞逐之国》是另一款基于多个类别且带有多种游戏元素的游戏。就像之前提到的，它最侧重的还是GSS2。这里存在一个强大的“王国之战”模式能让40名以内的玩家加入“王国”中。在游戏中，各式各样的对手（总共是10个）也需要在战斗中守护自己的领导者。你的团队表现得越好，每个团队成员获得的奖励也就越好。
因此这种额外的游戏层面从机制上看来便属于GSS3游戏类型（游戏邦注：因为你是独自对抗敌人基地），但在元游戏中，你的队友能够紧跟你的步伐并为你欢呼鼓舞。这有点像GSS5的互动。《竞逐之国》也因此成为这5款游戏中最具社交性的游戏，所以从商业上来看它也最具竞争力。
比赛创造引擎
游戏中的互动类型不一定要和游戏的互动质量相匹配。当玩家觉得自己的技能受到有价值的挑战的测试时，他们便会来到用户粘性的“有效点”，而在这里用户粘性的结果是不确定的。GSS评级之所以很重要是因为这里不存在观众，并且这一活动对于个体和社区来说并没有太大的价值。肯定没人愿意观看一场不公平的比赛。
所以这里便引出了比赛创造引擎。一个有效的比赛创造引擎能够始终维持比赛的公平，从而确保所有参与者都能感受到挑战性并且他们的技能在不同较量中也会有所不同。
《部落战争》，《海岛骑兵》，《DomiNations》和《星球大战：指挥官》都允许攻击者能够选择他们的攻击对象。这并不是一种比赛创造引擎。此外，它们还允许攻击者能够看到任何潜在受害者的防卫，甚至能够了解这些防卫是否被其他攻击者所破解了。因为允许一群griefer能在离线状态下继续攻击防卫者而导致这些游戏更倾向于GSS1类别。
如果防卫者受到了一定程度的伤害，这些游戏便会为防卫者竖起一道“盾牌”。而玩家可以无需越过任何门槛便从防卫者那偷走大量资源，从而导致防卫者将在150分钟内遭受多次重创。《海岛奇兵》甚至未给予防卫者任何盾牌，从而导致防卫者不断遭受威胁。
所有的这些游戏都会给予找到并攻击更弱的对手的玩家奖励。它们同时也让玩家可以故意输掉一些战斗去降低等级，从而完善自己的对手选择。这不仅对于受害者来说很残酷，同时也会因为缺少挑战性而将griefer带离最理想的快感区。这里只有极少部分玩家（1%左右）属于反社交型，因为他们根本不在乎挑战。这些玩家愿意为了乐趣而花钱。所以他们便成为了反社交型游戏中的鲸鱼用户，并因此引出这样的错误结论，即在所有这些游戏中鲸鱼用户都是反社交型的，因为具有社交性的大型消费者拒绝消费，所以他们并未出现在统计中。
《竞逐之国》的做法不同。它拥有真正的比赛创造引擎，能够为每个玩家分配对手。它并未努力想要确保每次比赛足够公平。相反地，它是从较简单的对手开始，并让他们不断变得更加难对付，直至玩家输掉比赛。比赛运行的时间越长，玩家能获得的奖励便越厉害。这便是我所谓的非对称型比赛创造引擎的典例，如果设置合理的话它将会比对称型比赛创造引擎更强大。《坦克世界》便是一款带有对称型比赛创造引擎的游戏，在这里比赛创造引擎将想办法确保比赛中双方的平等。
非对称型比赛创造引擎之所以优于对称型比赛创造引擎是因为它能对每个玩家的技能水平做出反应，并给予战胜更高级别玩家的玩家奖励。正是这样的设定让《竞逐之国》前40或80个小时的游戏具有较高的质量。Space Ape想尽办法让玩家能够在这段时间内尽可能多地花钱。在这期间每个玩家的“荣誉”分会随着他们的获胜而增加。在40至80个小时内，玩家的荣誉分上限为5000，这也将导致比赛创造引擎的无效。
如果这里不存在上限的话，玩家将继续累计分数直至到达自己的稳定状态。即有可能是，甚至是20000。当玩家的荣誉分所得能够匹配荣誉分损失时，他们便会到达稳定状态。而通过设置荣誉分上限，比赛创造引擎便会失去功效并让获得5000荣誉分的玩家能够对抗获得20000荣誉分的玩家。而如果没有这一上限，拥有最高分数的玩家便只能彼此对抗。这便具有极高的挑战性。也许会让玩家更加受挫。我猜Space Ape之所以会取消比赛创造引擎的功效便是受到这一统计资料的影响，即在《Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert》中，“鲸鱼”并不是那些想要公平游戏的人。
这里存在的问题在于将偏见映射在较大的消费群体中，如此他们将只能迎合小部分表现出自己的期待感的用户，并因此疏远大部分大型消费者。结果便是导致巨大的收益损失，并且这种情况最早会出现在玩家获得5000荣誉分后相继离开游戏。Space Ape在玩家离开后继续坚持着“防卫者”的角色，所以在游戏中永远不会缺少可攻击的对象。
我之所以如此详细分析《竞逐之国》并非因为我认为这是一个糟糕的设计。而是因为我认为虽然它在很多方面都具有创造性，但似乎设计师却未能真正了解消费者行为而破坏了这一出色的系统。
当然了，如果没有了这一设计选择，那么50多名到达第16级据点的玩家可能会因为反复的彼此抗衡而感到无聊。但是任何花钱去购买16级据点的玩家也会因为缺少挑战性而无聊。荣誉分上限并不能避免玩家消费与流失。
《星战前夜》是一款没有比赛创造引擎的早前游戏。这一设计选择的结果便是游戏战斗总是以grief的形式呈现出来（即GSS1类别），同时非战斗行动又具有强大的互动性。玩家不能追求“公平的”战斗，即使这是最有趣的内容，因为这会导致较高的经济损失风险。所以这款游戏经常被称为拥有最出色的虚拟经济的游戏，但是这一经济却大大压制了游戏体验。
当然了，《星战前夜》与那些拥有比赛创造引擎的游戏不同，但这同样也告诉了我们存在足够空间去创造更棒的《星战前夜》。前提是我们必须清楚什么内容在《星战前夜》中是可行的，什么又是不可行的。如果你不能真正理解为什么这些游戏拥有好的表现而只是盲目地复制《星战前夜》或《魔兽世界》的话，你注定只会赔钱。
我在本文中提到的所有这五款游戏其实都在某种程度上重塑了早前的Facebook游戏《后院怪兽》。而这种重塑会大大抑制创造性的表现。如果你未发挥创造性，你便不能因为犯错而遭受指责。就像你会说：“我是按照你说的做的！”与短暂但却轰动的Facebook游戏时代的许多游戏一样，《后院怪兽》也将中心建筑作为一扇付费/时间大门。
创建这座中心大厦总是需要消耗大量时间，但游戏也允许那些没有耐心的人可以通过花钱而无需等待。而鲸鱼用户便是这些没有耐心的人。我想通过《Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert》去揭穿这一神话。但是这一神话却是所有这些游戏的基础。
关于这一机制的一个问题便是，随着玩家的升级，其对手也会变得更难，即开发者想要通过代理去维持带给玩家的威胁。如果玩家能够通过不断花钱而避开代理的威胁，游戏便没办法继续向这些玩家要钱了。所以任何通过消费减少威胁的方法都只是临时的。
当玩家在第6层时他们会因为所有建筑也处于第6级而觉得艰难，但当他们将自己的中心大厦建到第7层时，他们便会发现自己是第7层中最弱的玩家。这将会成为推动玩家继续前进的强大阻因。
因此玩家总是会“龟缩”在一个层面上并停止前进。特别是当他们知道“全新”内容只是对于之前内容的改头换面时。如此前进的意义又是什么？它并不能缓解任何grief。一旦玩家意识到这点，他们便会停止前进与花钱。
龟缩是源自早前Facebook游戏使用的惩罚免费游戏“有趣的痛苦”方法的一种系统设计缺陷。这种早前的时间/付费大门是非常糟糕的执行方法。不幸的是在重塑过程中，许多设计师未经过更多思考便将许多这样的设计元素带到了现代游戏中。如果没有了中心建筑时间/付费大门，游戏便没有了鼓励玩家“龟缩”的逻辑点。时间大门的理念其实是基于有关大型消费玩家行为模式的错误数据。
你会注意到像《魔兽世界》，《星战前夜》，《英雄联盟》和《坦克世界》等引领着整个产业的游戏都未使用时间大门。当你越深入游戏，游戏进程可能会逐渐放缓，但这里始终存在激励玩家前进的内容。虽然我们会在《坦克世界》中看到一些龟缩内容，但这是因为这款游戏在第7层以前是基于免费游戏经济进行设计，但之后玩家便需要花费一些维修成本。在第9层之前，不想花钱的玩家可能会出现“龟缩”，否则他们便需要使用付费坦克去创造修补非付费坦克的资金。而之后的《坦克世界闪电战》和《战舰世界》都更好地完善了这一模式。因为Wargaming创始人始终都想为非付费玩家维持一种高质量的游戏体验，所以在他们的游戏中这种龟缩并非一种消极特征，而比赛创造引擎能够避免玩家滥用这些内容。
我并未在本文中真正提到《星球大战》这款游戏，因为对于我来说它与《部落战争》非常相似，只是拥有更高质量的图像和音效。它也并未使用卡通字体去吸引年轻用户，这点是我非常欣赏的。当然了，我们也可以认为是《星球大战》的授权（游戏邦注：现在由迪士尼所有）并不需要卡通字体的帮助。我是《星球大战》的忠实粉丝，所以我很喜欢这款游戏，即使它的游戏玩法并不具有太多创造性。
我认为Supercell是因为真正理解性别的重要性才获得了现在在产业中的地位。在他们的玩家中，女性的比例是52%，并且在一些小家庭中女性往往把控着“消费大权”。也就是说，我认为《卡通农场》更多地面向不那么好斗的用户（游戏中没有直接的战斗），《海岛奇兵》则更多地面向那些好胜心较强的用户（基于军事主题且没有防护功能）。而基于卡通风格和简单游戏玩法的《部落战争》则主要面向更年轻的用户。
我非常相信“浮生瞬息”的品牌理念，即你应该尽早让用户对你的产品感兴趣。就像我虽然怀疑免费业务模式对于孩子们的可行性，但是我还是很高兴看到平台保护措施（和态度）的完善。
在这五款游戏中有两款游戏创造出了非常不公平的情况。而在其它三款游戏中我感觉自己至少影响到了其他玩家。在《海岛奇兵》中，一旦玩家获得掷弹兵单位（如果不花钱的话是很难做到的），他们便可以无需防护基地的帮助去攻击其他玩家，因为这时候他们的范围远大于塔防的范围。
在《DomiNations》中，缺少有效的比赛创造引擎让工业时代玩家（带有飞行器）能够攻击前工业时代玩家（他们不能创建任何会影响飞行器的防护物）。这对于防卫者来说就等同于自动投降，因为他们只能无奈地看着自己的基地被摧毁而什么都做不了。
我在《部落战争》中便从未有过这种感受，因为这里有箭塔，即玩家在游戏一开始便能够得到的工具，并且它能够影响飞行单位。
我发现在免费手机游戏领域中存在着巨大的发展和赚钱机遇。在我看来手机便是未来（与现在）的大势平台。但是缺少创造性和游戏设计却会阻碍它的发展。现在的我很难将免费手机游戏领域中的产品称为“游戏”了。
它们不再是关于两名或以上的参与者之间的技能与运气间的较量。这并不是一个很难触及的难度标准，在我们选择免费业务模式以前我们并不会遇到什么困难。我希望我们产业中的决策制定者能够再次专注于游戏创造本身，并努力为消费者创造他们应得的价值。
（本文为游戏邦/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 , 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.
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.()
CopyRight Since 2010 GamerBoom All rights reserved &&闽ICP备&号-1