Will Luton談Battle Royale影響行業的10個事情
Will Luton談Battle Royale影響行業的10個事情
原作者：Will Luton 譯者：Willow Wu
Battle royale快速崛起是2018年電子遊戲行業的重頭戲，而兩大主演就是《絕地求生》和《堡壘之夜》。
儘管很多人認為它的成功依靠的是廣大玩家的支援，但很明顯這類遊戲的成功在一定程度上要歸功於核心創作人員對行業傳統智慧的藐視。這種正當的“放肆行為”也意味著我們能從battle royale中學到不少“課本上不會有的知識”，幫助我們設計出更好的遊戲。
1.可以懲罰玩家
如果有人在早些年時跟你說2018的大熱門遊戲是這樣的：絕大多數情況下你會在拼命搜刮道具之後一命嗚呼、失去一切，你會信嗎？Battle royale的神奇之處主要就在於玩家們要面對徹底的失敗而且還願意從頭再來。
過去十年的手遊設計主張的是不給玩家呈現糟糕的反饋，想方設法地給玩家一點安慰。《守望先鋒》也許就是最典型的例子：在遊戲中，直觀的擊殺/死亡比率被獎章所取代。獲得獎章的條件還涉及到目標攻防時間和治療量——這跟k/d比率基本沒有什麼關係。
而battle royale則是反其道而行之，對玩家非常苛刻，不斷提醒著玩家“你把事情搞砸了”。但是輸了也輸得很公平，畢竟是另一個玩家把你殺了而不是遊戲本身。Battle royale就是通過負面反饋激勵玩家提升技能。這種殘酷的失敗讓人回想起了街機遊戲的黃金年代，同時也提醒了我們讓玩家直面失敗不是不可行的，但是隻有在玩家可以從失敗中汲取教訓的情況下他們才願意繼續玩下去。
2.F2P總是會成為贏家
Battle royale崛起過程中最有趣的故事之一就是兩款遊戲之間的競爭，它們採用了截然不同的方式: 中等價位的付費遊戲《絕地求生》發行半年之後，F2P遊戲《堡壘之夜》發起了挑戰。儘管後者較晚發行，但從玩家數量和收益來看，《堡壘之夜》的領先跡象還是比較明顯的。
fortnite（from gamesindustry.biz）
雖說行業中的任何人都明白免費遊戲所具有的優勢，但是core類PC、主機市場似乎還是選擇堅守陣線。《堡壘之夜》的成功因素有很多，比如上手容易、執行力好，但其中最主要的還是它沒有付費門檻——無論是誰都可以輕鬆召喚小夥伴加入遊戲，他們要做的就只是按下“下載”二字。《英雄聯盟》和《爐石傳說》就是典型的例子，付費模式的core PvP遊戲明顯還是爭不過F2P。
3.速度與質量非常重要
《堡壘之夜》勝過《絕地求生》的另一個方面就是發行後的執行力。對於一個在有限時間內組建的新團隊來說，《絕地求生》已經是一個奇蹟了，尤其是考慮到這是創意總監Brendan Greene的第一款商業遊戲。
而《堡壘之夜》有更加穩固的基礎，Epic有辦法加快更新速度，把注意力更多地放在玩家所重視的玩法多樣性以及炫目的裝扮物品上。與此同時，《絕地求生》還面臨著不同玩家機型的需求、各種瑣碎的bug、設計債以及焦點不明這些問題，玩家自己都有怨言更別說要推薦給朋友了。相比流暢靈活的《堡壘之夜》，《絕地求生》的口碑增長確實比較緩慢。
隨著遊戲逐漸向服務產品傾斜，關注遊戲體驗質量、有針對性的優化和舉辦線上活動變得和其它營銷手段一樣重要。服務好的遊戲自然就能獲得更多玩家，而且還能把他們留得更久。
4.裝飾道具能助你登頂
F2P模式發展初期，盈利討論大部分都圍繞著帽子或者是其它瑣碎的裝飾道具上，但隨著市場的發展，大家總結出了更有效的做法是為玩家提供便利和競爭優勢。而《堡壘之夜》則成為了App Store中第一個依靠裝飾道具拉動盈利增長的第一暢銷遊戲。
但是，你必須注意到battle royale遊戲的獨特之處：每場比賽都有100名玩家，大家都想要讓自己變得與眾不同。於是，面板就成為了一種顯示玩家財富和奉獻精神的工具，在提高玩家沉浸度的同時也促使了虛榮心的產生，讓遊戲的收益達到一個新的高度。《堡壘之夜》中，戰場通行證的巧妙引入更進一步強化了盈利效果，就像是《皇室戰爭》中的寶箱，讓玩家感覺不像是在買東西，而是為自己之前的努力獲取額外的獎勵。
雖然《堡壘之夜》的人均消費可能遠低於許多較為傳統、盈利設計更具侵略性的手遊，但它成功吸引了一批數量非常可觀的使用者。
5.Mod社群是創意發源地
在邁入2010之前，獨立遊戲看似將成為整個行業煥發創造力的源泉，吸引更多人加入這個圈子，為玩家帶的全新體驗。雖然事實並非如此，但業餘mod社群卻意外地挑起了這個擔子：先是MOBA，現在是battle royale。
懷有黑客情懷的他們不被商業期望所束縛，mod社群就成為了遊戲行業的原始湯。無論是平庸的想法還是絕妙的靈感都可以在這裡進行試驗：如果一個mod引來了關注，那麼它就會收穫更多貢獻資源或者衍生內容，讓這個想法發生演變並不斷髮展。第一個battle royale mod出現在2012年，遊戲主體是《我的世界》，這些主創人員花了五年時間才把它塑造成如今的battle royale遊戲。
Mod社群聚集了一大群來自世界各地的有才之人，他們既高產又創意十足，而剩下的我們這群人只能在一個相對小很多的圈子裡進行創作。毫無疑問，未來能夠帶來新遊戲型別的肯定就是那些總想著“要是______不是很酷嗎”的人。
6.遊戲型別的快速變革
每當有新的大熱門遊戲出現，就會不可避免地會出現一群FOMO(Fear of Missing Out，害怕錯過)開發者，然後各種山寨遊戲就扎堆發行，這時就有業內專家公開譴責說這個行業缺乏創意。在這些喋喋不休的言論包圍下，人們很容易就錯過正在發生的事：遊戲型別的快速變革。
雖然battle royale從最初算起花了6年的時間來進行改進，但是僅僅是過去幾個月我們就看到了不少有趣的現象：Realm Royale引入了製造機制，Totally Accurate Battlegrounds在遊戲中試驗了超現實主義幽默以及各種武器。更有意思的是有些開發者把PvE帶進了遊戲中，甚至把對戰人數提升到1000人。雖然這些嘗試很有可能都會以失敗告終，但創作者們一定能夠找到新的閃光點，並幫助推動battle royale達到新的、尚未被視為創新的新高度。
之前就有發生過不少類似的情況：90年代中期，現在我們所熟悉的第一人稱射擊遊戲（FPS）在出現了百家爭鳴的盛景，這是遊戲史上值得紀念的時期，但是這些開發者們的遊戲曾經也被稱為“類《毀滅戰士》遊戲”。
7.現在跨平臺跨的是PC、主機和移動平臺
跨平臺在傳統意義上指的是不同的主機平臺，可能後期會移植到PC。但《絕地求生》《堡壘之夜》發行不到一年就從PC、主機移植到移動平臺，而且大獲成功。
自從觸屏手機問世以來，人們普遍認為虛擬控制對精準度要求高，容易誤觸。但是中國手遊的虛擬控制技術確實發展的很快，就比如《王者榮耀》，《堡壘之夜》《絕地求生》借鑑了他們的技術成功做出了非常適合移動使用者操控的遊戲版本，也為他們帶來了可觀的利益。
除此之外，《堡壘之夜》的跨平臺功能現在能夠讓任何平臺的玩家一起組隊對抗另一個平臺的玩家。傳統的跨平臺屏障被打破了，同時也意味著各個平臺之間的界線正變得越來越模糊。Epic正致力於消除平臺因素對玩家遊戲體驗的影響，這也是我們應該跟隨的正確方向。
8.系統性玩法+玩家=劇情
Battle royale最獨特、最吸引人的遊戲特性之一就是能夠自主創造劇情：比如在某局比賽中你的團隊會把摩托車後空翻扔下懸崖以躲避對方的攻擊，而在另一局中你們可能會花上20分鐘在小屋中安靜地窺視外面的情況。
開發者們將一群真實的玩家聚集在一個內嵌系統既相互重疊又靈活的遊戲世界中來激發遊戲設計者所稱的應急行為——指的是玩家有意行動但不可預見結果的互動行為。已經有很多包含深層次系統的遊戲運用了應急行為——《矮人要塞》（遊戲邦注Dwarf Fortress）就是一個典型的例子。然而，battle royale作為系統性玩法遊戲對大型多人環境的高效運用是其它遊戲都未曾做到的。
MMORPG遊戲雖然很倚重系統，但是玩家們必須按照預定的任務線走，也就是說無論是誰遇上誰，玩家獲得的遊戲體驗都是差不多的。Battle royale給玩家自由空間，還提供了一堆可以用來合作或者是對抗其他的玩家的工具，遊戲中完全不存在什麼預定路線。於是玩家在遊戲中就成為了劇情創造者，製造出各種伏筆，除此之外也讓battle royale遊戲變得非常具有觀賞性。
9.電競的力量
出於玩家人數原因，要舉行線下battle royale電競活動不是那麼容易的一件事。但是不可預料的劇情發展讓遊戲的直播趣味十足，《堡壘之夜》和《絕地求生》都是Twitch平臺上最熱門的遊戲。
擁有1500萬的日均觀看人數，Twitch已經成為玩家尋找同好社群和新遊戲的主要平臺。這種免費的曝光途徑也讓battle royale獲得快速增長，而且幾乎不需要額外的宣傳開銷。Epic明白這一點，給這些直播玩家提供了價值1億美元的獎金池，以示他們的感激之情。這筆投資的主要目的就是吸引優秀的電競團隊來擴大覆蓋率、促使更多人直播、更多人觀看以及更多人去買戰場通行證。
1億美元的投資究竟是不是明智之舉還不好說，但是這個行為表明了電競選手和播主對遊戲的覆蓋率以及留存率是相當重要的。
10.遊戲是當下的流行文化
從知名說唱歌手Drake在Twitch直播《堡壘之夜》到英國足球明星用遊戲角色動作慶祝勝利，這一切都體現了遊戲已經成為了流行文化的一員。從80年代的“吃豆人熱”到90年代《古墓麗影》女主Lara Croft成為風靡一時的標誌性人物，人們總是覺得遊戲只是一種短暫的新鮮事物。
然而《堡壘之夜》感覺就像是有史以來第一次讓廣大媒體們用看待音樂、電影、電視劇的眼光看待遊戲。隨著時間的推移，越來越多遊戲行業出身人士在媒體中擔任重要角色，用他們自己的方式傳播遊戲、讓更多人理解遊戲。雖然抨擊言論依然存在，但人們確實對《堡壘之夜》產生了更多關注，有了不同的解讀。比如BBC報道了Twitch當紅遊戲男播主Ninja不與任何女性玩家互動的決定，Ninja在他們看來就和其他娛樂明星一樣，有很多玩家認識。截至6月，《堡壘之夜》的使用者基數已經達到了1.25億，相當於Netflix的全球訂閱人數，所以Ninja並不是什麼不值得報道的小圈子名人。
Battle royale的崛起事實上是一個轉折點——遊戲行業不僅是在收益上超過了其它主流媒體，而且還獲得了同樣的文化效應。
如今，遊戲不再是少數群體的活動，它就像是看電影、聽音樂，成為大眾生活中娛樂選擇。遊戲是當下的主流文化。
本文由遊戲邦編譯，轉載請註明來源，或諮詢微信zhengjintiao
Battle royale’s exponential rise has been the A plot for video games in 2018, with the gritty and complex PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and the slick, chiselled Fortnite in the leading roles.
While there’s as many takes on the success of the genre as there are players, it is clear that the ascent is thanks in part to the irreverence the genre’s key creators have show toward conventional industry wisdom. This justified impudence means there are a wealth of surprising lessons from the genre that will help us all make better games.
1.You Can Be Punishing
If someone would have told you that the breakout game of 2018 would see see you grind loot only to instantly die and lose everything in 99 out of 100 games, would you have believed them? Much of the beauty of the battle royale genre is in players facing punishing failings and being willing to jump back in.
The trend in design in the past decade has been in protecting the player from negative feedback. Perhaps the pinnacle of this thinking can be seen in Overwatch, where kill-death ratios are replaced with medals for a tangential actions such as time on the objective or healing done.
Meanwhile battle royale games slap you around the face and scream “you fucked up” over and over. Yet as these failures are so fair – after all, it’s another player and not the game that killed you – they put the player on a skill progression path they’re happy to follow through negative feedback alone. This harsh failure is reminiscent of the golden era of arcades and reminds us that it is okay to give a player an uncushioned fail condition. But only if the player can take a learning from their loss that will bring them back to play.
2. F2P Wins, Even In Core
One of the most interesting tales from battle royale’s rise is in the fight for prominence between two games that took wildly different approaches: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was a mid-priced title that was followed six months later by the free-to-play Fortnite. Despite being later to the market, Epic’s game has emphatically won in terms of players and revenue.
While the power of free should now be obvious to anyone in the industry, it had seemed like the core PC and console market was a staunch holdout. While there are many factors that led to Fortnite’s success, such as better accessibility and quality of execution (see ‘Speed and Quality Matters’), the biggest contributor to Fortnite’s growth was its lack of entry price: anyone could drag in any of their buddies to play with only the friction of a download. Having seen this dynamic at play in both League of Legends and Hearthstone, it’s now clear that following a paid model in core PvP will at best leave you in second place.
3. Speed and Quality Matters
Secondary to price, Fortnite also trumped PUBG in another area: post-launch execution. PUBG is a marvel for a new team on a limited timescale, especially considering this was creative director Brendan Greene’s first commercial game. Yet Fortnite was built upon more stable foundations, starting life as an existing game with a natural fit for a battle royale mode.
Epic were able to update more quickly and with greater focus on the things that mattered to players: gameplay variety and kickass cosmetics. Meanwhile, PUBG struggled with hefty machine requirements, niggling bugs, design debt, and muddy focus, leaving an annoyed and less evangelical fanbase. As such, PUBG suffered a comparatively weaker word of mouth growth than the slick and nimble Fortnite.
As games become more and more a service, a focus on quality of life, well directed improvement and live events is as important as any other marketing efforts. A well serviced game simply gets more players, but it also keeps them longer.
4. Cosmetics Can Take You to Top Grossing
In the early days of free-to-play, much talk around monetisation focused on hats and other trivial cosmetics, but as the market evolved we collectively concluded that convenience and competitive advantage were much stronger drivers. It was a great surprise when Fortnite became the first cosmetic-driven economy to maintain a top grossing position in the App Store.
However, there is something unique about battle royale games: each and every match, there is a ready-made audience of 100 players, each eager to differentiate themselves. Skins, then, become a way to signal a player’s wealth and dedication, driving higher engagement and unprecedented levels of spend on vanity. In Fortnite, this monetisation desire is amplified by the clever Battle Pass system that, much like Clash Royale’s chests, makes spending less like buying and more like releasing rewards for your own past efforts.
While Fortnite’s spend per player is probably much lower than that of many of the more traditionally and aggressively monetised mobile games it has managed to open up a considerably larger audience.
5. The Mod Scene Is A Primordial Soup
At the turn of the decade, it seemed like the indie scene would be the source of a renewed creativity through the industry, bringing incredible new experiences and demographics to gaming. While that failed to pass, the amateur modding community has inadvertently stepped up: most notably with MOBA and now battle royale.
Freed from commercial expectations and emboldened by a hacker mentality, the mod scene has become the primordial soup of game genres. Many ideas, from sloppy to inspired, are experimented with: if a mod draws an audience then it gains more contributors or spin-offs, with the idea mutating and building. The first battle royale mod appeared in 2012 on top of Minecraft, taking five years to shape up to be what we know today through a handful of key contributors.
With such a diverse worldwide pool of creators that works so quickly and creatively within the mod scene today, and while the rest of us work in much smaller creative bounds, the future undoubtedly holds more genres sparked into existence by those thinking no further than “wouldn’t it be cool if…”
6. Genre Evolution Is Rapid
Once a game hits, there’s the inevitable rush of developer FOMO, triggering gamers to call copycat and pundits to decry a dearth of industry creativity. However, amongst this clammer and jibber jabber, it’s easy to miss what is actually happening: the rapid evolution of a genre.
While battle royale has already seen six years of refinement from the mod scene, in the past few months alone we’ve seen interesting takes on the genre: Realm Royale introduced crafting and Totally Accurate Battlegrounds explores surrealist humour and experimental weapons. And there’s more interesting takes coming that bring PvE and thousand-player matches or attempt to fit inside existing franchises. While most of these takes are likely to fail, they will do so finding the edges and helping to propel the genre to new, yet to be considered creative heights.
It’s at times like these that it is worth remembering that as developers of the mid-nineties began to pioneer defining mechanics for what we now know as the first person shooter genre that their works were dubbed “Doom clones”.
7. Cross Platform Is Now PC, Console and Mobile
Cross platform has traditionally referred to multiple console SKUs, perhaps with a later PC port. But in less than a year since launch, both PUBG and Fortnite have moved from PC and console to mobile with impressive success.
The consensus since the advent of touchscreen phones is that virtual controls are fiddly and inaccurate. But utilising the rapidly improving virtual controls from Chinese titles such as Arena of Valor, both Fortnite and PUBG have managed to make very playable mobile versions that have resulted in impressive financials.
Additionally, Fortnite’s crossplay features now allows for players from any platform to group with and play against players on any other platform. This crumbles the traditional walled gardens of console generations past and means the lines between platforms are increasingly blurred. Epic are leading a charge to make platforms an irrelevant part of a players experience and it’s a direction we should all follow.
8. Systemic Gameplay + Players = Stories
One of the most unique and exciting characteristics of battle royale is the ability for the games to create stories: Maybe in one match your team avoids enemy fire by backflipping a motorbike off a cliff and the next game you spend 20 minutes silently peeking out of a hut.
This story creation is achieved by putting lots of real players inside a game world packed with overlapping and intentionally flexible systems, resulting in what game designers call emergent behavior. Emergent behavior describes intended but unforeseen interactions between players and multiple game mechanics. There have been lots of deeply systemic games that give rise to emergent behavior – Dwarf Fortress being a classic example. However, battle royale games are the first time a systemic game has used a massively multiplayer environment effectively.
MMORPGs, while system-heavy, have players follow the questlines designers planned for them: the experience of any two players beating a raid is comparatively similar. Battle royale games break free of prescriptive paths by giving players space and an array of tools that can be used in conjunction with or against other players. The result is players having a sense of authorship and intrigue as the game plays out around them, but as a byproduct it also makes battle royale games very watchable.
9. The Power of Esports
While battle royale is something of an awkward esport due to the sheer number of players, the emergent stories makes for inherently interesting streaming, pushing both Fortnite and PUBG to the top of Twitch’s most-streamed list.
With a daily audience of 15 million, Twitch has become a major resource for players to uncover a community as well as new games. And it’s this free exposure that has allowed battle royale to grow so rapidly with little investment. Epic, knowing this, has written a huge love letter to streamers with a willy-waving $100 million prize pot. This investment is aimed at attracting the best esports teams, meaning more coverage, more hours streamed, more viewers and more Battle Pass purchases.
While it’s hard to be sure if that $100 million is a wise investment, it indicates just how much is at stake in getting esports players and streamers to put a game in front of their audience and keep it there.
10. Gaming Is Now Pop Culture
From Drake on Twitch to the England’s footballers flossing, the success of Fortnite has shown us that gaming is no longer a pop culture outsider. During the ‘Pac-Mania’ of the ’80s to Lara Croft’s brief stint of as an icon in the ’90s, it always felt as if games were coming to mainstream culture as a passing novelty.
Fortnite, however, feels like the first time the wider media is addressing gaming on the same terms it would music, film, TV or the press. With each passing year, more game-natives reach leadership roles within media, bringing an understanding of gaming that is is reflected in the way their outlets discuss games. While there is still some scaremongering, there’s also a great diversity in how Fortnite is reported. For example, the BBC covered Ninja’s decision not to play with female streamers with an assumption of reader knowledge akin to any other celebrity news.
And there’s good reason for the BBC to assume an audience’s understanding: as of June, Fortnite had a player base of 125 million, a number equal to Netflix’s worldwide subscriber count. Battle royale is a turning point where gaming did more than beat mainstream media in revenue but gained the same cultural validity.
Today, gaming isn’t the reserve of a small niche demographic; it’s an entertainment choice for as many people as watch movies or listen to music. Gaming is now pop culture.（source： gamesindustry.biz ）