遊戲盈利模型設計師Ramin Shokrizade談如何吸引鯨魚使用者
遊戲盈利模型設計師Ramin Shokrizade談如何吸引鯨魚使用者
原作者：Ramin Shokrizade 譯者：Vivian Xue
過去的兩年，我一直在為Wargaming.net公司製作遊戲盈利模型，比如《坦克世界：閃擊戰》和《戰艦世界》。我參與的專案都有一個共同的目標：最大化產品的終身價值（LTV）。為此我們致力於提升產品的吸引力，產品至少能吸引使用者一天，一年以上更好。公司的成功之處正在於其產品使使用者產生了忠誠感，並且能夠滿足使用者對遊戲耐玩性的要求。
當我離開公司後，我發現自己彷彿從一塊綠洲跳入了沙漠，行業內的絕大多數公司都轉向了一種“規模更小、速度更快、內容更浮誇、方式更激進”的開發戰略。是什麼使他們認為這是一種必勝策略呢？
1.這些不是他們在找的鯨魚使用者
迄今為止，絕大部分“綠洲之外”的公司公認的一點是，使用者的拒絕付費率大約是99%。（我無法透露綠洲之內的資料，它們“很”不一樣就是了）在我看來，這是近乎徹底的失敗，不是什麼值得驕傲的事。
人們似乎認為鯨魚玩家是那些好騙又衝動的人，氪起金來壕無理智。還有一種觀點是如果你能讓玩家進行第一筆消費，他們將更有可能繼續消費。如果說這兩點曾經是正確的，它們現在也過時了。讓我用一下資料來說明為什麼按如今的行業標準做遊戲，失敗率將是99%。
whales(from businessweek.com)
52%的消費者只會為產品付費一次。這意味著一旦玩家花了錢，他們就不太可能繼續消費。
鯨魚玩家進行第一筆消費平均耗時18天，海豚玩家為12天，而小魚玩家為8天。這表明高消費玩家根本不像我們所想的一樣衝動。他們十分謹慎，經過深思熟慮後才會付款。孩子們的確經常衝動消費，所以很多遊戲把他們當作目標玩家。但在如今諸多的力量（家長、平臺商、監管者等等）的共同反對下，這一策略越來越難實施。因此，如果你的策略是哄騙孩子們消費，那麼你不會取得更大的成功。
52%的玩家是女性。
儘管沒有資料支撐，但我還是要補充一句，中年玩家是遊戲預算最高的群體，大概也是最沒時間玩遊戲的群體。
因此，就你的上一個或正在進行的專案，問自己幾個問題：它是性別中立，還是面向某一性別玩家？它的目標玩家的年齡範圍是什麼？你是否在遊戲的前幾個小時內嘗試從玩家身上盈利？玩家能否在16天內（假設一共玩了30小時）體驗所有的遊戲內容？
無論你的商業智慧化團隊規模多大、耗資多高，或是你讀過多少份EEDAR報告，你都有可能在這些問題上犯錯。
為什麼會這樣呢？我想是時候就這個問題進行一場公開對話了。
2.鯨魚無法在沙漠中游泳
在過去的三個月裡，我拜訪了二十多家公司。下面是一些通常讓訪問終止的對話。
公司：“為了使我們目前的產品取得商業上的成功，你會改進哪些資料？”
我：“你的產品設計無法滿足消費者的需求，特別是鯨魚使用者的需求。這與你的產品資料無關。“
公司：“好吧……但是你會改進我們產品中的哪一點？”
我：“把它做成一個性別中立的遊戲。”
公司：“非常感謝您的時間。”
下面這家公司，我們進行了兩個月的談判：
我：“這是一個模型樣本，我認為它非常適用於您的產品。”
公司：“等等，前50個小時內幾乎沒有可以讓玩家花錢的地方？！？！”
我：“是的。”
公司：“這永遠不可能成功。”
最常見的問題大概是：
公司：“你能提供綠洲中的資料來證明我們應該改用你們的模型嗎？”
我：“不能。”
公司：“@#￥%……&”
你不需要到沙漠之外尋找你所需的資料，它們就在那裡。這個資訊時代最大的問題之一就是資訊過載。你需要的所有信息都在公共空間裡，並且是免費的。你聘請專家是讓他們確定哪些資料對你有意義，以及為什麼。這就是為什麼聘請一位專家比聘請一個外行便宜得多。
試圖把方釘插入圓孔是一個不明智的策略，嘗試用英語和貓溝通99%會失敗，而試圖把一隻鯨魚拖到沙漠中讓它們消費也是一種99%會失敗的方法。
既然如此，為什麼不為你的鯨魚造一個綠洲呢？這個想法有什麼奇怪或可怕的嗎？
3.內容：只要你造出了綠洲，他們就會向你游來
過去，遊戲開發者製作內容是為了給消費者帶來樂趣。各大公司競相製作內容巨集大的遊戲。像《無盡的任務》、《星戰前夜》和《魔獸世界》這樣的遊戲證明了消費者對線上、內容巨集大的遊戲的巨大需求。
問題在於，當鯨魚使用者準備消費時，這些遊戲並沒有為他們提供任何可消費的內容。於是第三方代理(“打金者”)出現了併為這些為鯨魚玩家提供服務。這些服務往往破壞了遊戲環境，降低了所有玩家的體驗質量。在這種環境下，許多內容巨集大的遊戲失敗了，甚至我前面特別提到的三個遊戲在收入上也表現極差。它們在設計上就不夠吸金。
一些開發者經歷過這樣一個痛苦的過程，他們試圖通過降低現有內容的質量，將他們的訂閱遊戲轉成F2P遊戲，從而迫使非付費玩家消費。
如今F2P遊戲中使用的“付費獲勝”或者“Fun pain”機制依靠營造危機感刺激玩家付費。但這種危機感也帶來了一個問題，它破壞了玩家對遊戲建立的依賴感。而這種依賴感是令剩下99%的玩家開啟荷包的關鍵。在綠洲內的遊戲中，你不會產生任何的危機感。而在沙漠中，它已不是偶然現象，而是一種常態。
那麼如何解決這個問題呢？製作迎合消費者需求的內容，並結合一個不存在危機感的F2P模式。就這麼簡單。
建立社交功能是另一個關鍵。因為如果玩家們知道有人在在期待他們，他們更有可能回到遊戲。PVP模式，除非你小心地平衡它(不容易，且通常耗時)，否則它對於社交更經常是有害無利。
你的遊戲有300個小時以上的流程嗎？我說的流程指玩家在這段遊戲過程中能夠實現等級或者排名的提升。當《魔獸世界》問世時，我花了160小時就刷完了遊戲內容。目前沙漠中的頂尖F2P遊戲長度大大超過300個小時。內容的質量可能要低於《魔獸世界》，但至少玩家不覺得他們已經到達了遊戲的“結局”。
綠洲內的遊戲都有300個小時以上的進階內容（progression content）。我希望我的3A F2P遊戲能達到將近1500個小時。為什麼?如果你是一名鯨魚使用者，在100小時遊戲之後，你決定投入100美元，或者1000美元。如果你知道你還有1400個小時的遊戲內容，那麼你就會好好地利用你投入的資金。如果遊戲在第150小時變得無聊，你為什麼要在100小時時消費呢？
請注意，遊戲流程和和內容不是一回事。聰明的遊戲設計可以將100小時甚至50小時的內容轉化為數百小時的遊戲流程，通過尋創造性的方法來迴圈內容，不讓消費者感到重複。我參與制作的那些非常成功的遊戲都沒有特別大的預算。
4.離開沙漠
根據目前的估計，每年有50萬新移動產品到達消費者手中，這片沙漠正在不斷擴大，你的產品很可能從大眾的視野中消失，除非你肯花大價錢營銷，這有時要花掉你幾倍於開發成本的資金。想使用傳統營銷，錢不是問題？可以像Machine Zone那樣請Mariah Carey做遊戲代言人。
或者，你可以聽從我的建議離開沙漠。當然你將面臨多方的挑戰，試圖阻止你英勇的團隊向綠洲進發。這些挑戰大多來源於你的公司內部。現在，綠洲裡也許有兩家公司，就是我在2012年的論文《優勢產品》中提到的那兩家。如預料的那樣，他們還在這裡。競爭的空間很大。
造綠洲的過程是漫長的，同時將耗費很多資金。但是鯨魚使用者們會互相交流。一旦你造出了綠洲，他們就會向你游來。鯨魚使用者還會帶來其他的鯨魚使用者，不需要請Mariah Carey代言。你只需要滿足鯨魚玩家的需求，大大超過16天。制定一個300至1500個時之間的內容製作計劃。顯然只有兩個小時時長的遊戲不可能滿足鯨魚們的需求。不要像上週一家大公司那樣解僱你的遊戲設計師，除非你已經聽天由命了。
本文由遊戲邦編譯，轉載請註明來源，或諮詢微信zhengjintiao
For the last two years I have lived in the gaming oasis that is Wargaming.net, building monetization models for games such as World of Tanks: Blitz and World of Warships. The focus on all the products I worked on was to aim at maximizing life time value (LTV) by focusing on creating and charging for products that will keep the interest of consumers for at least a month and preferably a year or more. The success of this company comes from building products that generate customer loyalty and continue to meet their needs for long durations.
When I stepped out of the oasis I found myself in a desert where the vast majority of the industry had moved to a “smaller, faster, flashier, more aggressive” strategy of game development. What makes them think this is a winning strategy?
These Are Not the Whales You Are Looking For
By now it is common knowledge that for games outside the oasis (I can’t talk about the numbers inside the oasis, other than to say they are VERY different) the consumer conversion rejection rate (100% – conversion rate = consumer conversion rejection rate) is about 99%. In my world, that is a 99% failure rate, and not something I would feel proud about on my resume.
There seems to be this idea that whales are gullible and impulsive people who can’t help themselves when it comes to spending. There is also this idea that if you can get a player to spend that first dollar, they are much more likely to keep spending. If either of these two concepts were ever true, they are not true now. Let me drop a few statistics that will explain why the industry standard is a 99% failure rate.
[Disclaimer: These numbers are different than they were two years ago, and will be different next year. If things continue in the desert the way they have been, the trend will stay true]
52% of spenders spend once in a product and then don’t spend again. This means that once a player spends, they are unlikely to spend again.
Whales take, on average, 18 days to make their first spend. “Dolphins” take 12 days. Minnows take 8 days. This suggests that big budget players are not impulsive at all. They are very careful and deliberate about where they park their brains and their budgets. Children do often spend impulsively, and a lot of games have been aiming at getting children to impulse spend. All the forces (parents, platform holders, regulators, etc) that could check that strategy are currently mobilizing in force to make this harder for you, so if tricking children into spending is your strategy, it’s not one that is going to have much more success.
52% of gamers are women.
While not a “statistic”, I should add that middle aged players have the largest gaming budgets, and probably the least amount of time available for play.
So ask yourself a few questions about your last or current project. Is it gender neutral, or is it likely to appeal to only one gender? What age range is it aimed at? Do you try to monetize your players within the first couple hours of play? Is most of your game content experienced before day 16 (let’s assume 30 hours) of play?
Chances are, no matter how large and expensive your business intelligence unit is, or how many EEDAR reports you have read, you are probably on the wrong end of some or all of these questions.
Why is that? I think it is time for a public dialogue on this.
Whales Do Not Swim in the Desert
I’ve interviewed some two dozen companies in the last three months. Here are some examples of dialogue that generally ended the interviews:
Company: “What numbers would you change in our current product to make it commercially successful?”
Ramin: “Your product is not designed to meet the needs of consumers, and especially whales. It has nothing to do with the numbers in your product.”
Company: “Okay…but what one thing would you do to improve our current product?”
Ramin: “Make it gender neutral.”
Company: “Thank you very much for your time.” [TYVMFYT]
Next example, two months into negotiations:
Ramin: “Okay here is a sample model that I think would work well with your product.”
Company: “Wait, there is almost nothing to spend on in the first 50 hours?!?!”
Ramin: “Yes.”
Company: “That will never fly. TYVMFYT”
And probably the most common question:
Company: “Can you give us numbers from the oasis to prove we should switch to using your models?”
Ramin: “No.”
Company: “TYVMFYT”
You don’t have to leave the desert to get the numbers you should be looking at. They are out there. One of the biggest problems in this age of information is information overload. All the information you could possibly need is out there in the public space, and it is free. The reason you hire an expert is to let them determine which numbers have meaning to you, and why. This is why hiring an expert is a lot cheaper than hiring an amateur.
Trying to force a square peg into a circular hole is not smart strategy. Trying to talk to a cat in English is a process with a 99% failure rate. Trying to drag a whale into the desert to make them spend is an approach with a 99% failure rate.
So why not build an oasis for your whales? What is so alien or terrifying about this concept?
Content: Build it and They Will Come
It used to be that game developers made content for the enjoyment of consumers. Companies competed to produce the most grand content. Games like Everquest, EVE Online, and World of Warcraft proved that there was tremendous demand for online gaming, and games with huge amounts of content that consumers could swim in.
The problem was that right about the time the whales were primed to spend, these games provided nothing for them to spend on. So third party agents (“gold farmers”) came in and offered services to the whales. These services often degraded the game environment for everyone, and poisoned the waters. Many large content games failed catastrophically in this environment, and even the three titles I mention specifically here did a very poor job of capturing revenue. They just were not designed to do so.
Some developers went through the painful process of attempting to convert their subscription games to F2P games by reducing the quality of existing content to force non-payers to spend.
Pay to win or “fun pain” mechanisms commonly used in today’s F2P games rely on threat generation to force spending. The problem with threat generation is that it interferes with the consumer’s ability to build attachment to a game. This sort of attachment is necessary before that 99% is going to open up their purses. You won’t find any of this sort of threat generation in the oasis. This not accidental. The desert is threatening, it has earned that reputation.
So what is the solution? Build content that meets the needs of your consumers. Link it with a F2P monetization model that does not rely on threat generation. It’s that simple.
Permitting social interaction is also key, because a player is much more likely to log back in if they know people are expecting them. PvP, unless very carefully balanced (not easy, and generally time consuming), is more often anti-social, not social.
Does your game have 300+ hours of progression content? By progression content I mean the player is advancing through levels or tiers or such during this time. When World of Warcraft came out I ran out of progression content in 160 hours. Current F2P leaders in the desert have way more than 300 hours of progression content. It may be lower quality content than that offered in WoW, but at least the player does not feel like they have hit “an end”.
Games in the oasis have 300+ hours of progression content. All of them. I prefer to aim for closer to 1500 on my AAA F2P titles. Why? If you are a whale, and after a 100 hours in you decide to throw down $100. Or $1000. If you know that you are going to be advancing for another 1400 hours, then you will get good use out of your investment. If the game gets boring at the 150 hour marker, why would you throw down money at hour 100?
Note that progression content and content are not the same thing. Clever game design can turn 100 or even 50 hours of content into hundreds of hours of progression content by finding creative ways to loop that content that do not feel repetitious to the consumer. None of the highly successful games I have worked on had particularly large budgets.
Leave the Desert
With current estimates indicating 500,000 new mobile products reaching consumers yearly, the desert is really becoming an apocalypse where your product is most likely to die unnoticed by the general public, unless you spend massively on marketing. Often, several times what you spent on development. Conventional marketing not cutting it? Break out Mariah Carey (as Machine Zone did recently).
Or, you could follow my advice and leave the desert. Sure there will be all sorts of challengers, trying to stop your heroic caravan from ever reaching the oasis. Most of them will be in your own company. Right now there are perhaps two companies in the oasis. The same ones I discussed in my 2012 Supremacy Goods paper. They are still here, as predicted. There is plenty of room for competition.
It won’t be cheap. It won’t be fast. But whales talk to each other. Once you build it they will come. Whales will bring in other whales, without the need for Mariah Carey. You just have to meet the needs of whales, for a lot more than 16 days. Plan for between 300 and 1500 hours. Obviously you can’t do that by approaching games like you would movies that only provide 2 hours of content. And don’t fire your game designers, as one major company did last week, unless you are resigned to the apocalypse. (source： ofollow,noindex" target="_blank">Gamasutra ）