illustrations/Lu Junjie
Whether as a medium or a business, we lack a healthy gaming industry. Classic excellent content creation and business logic are a complete failure in the face of the krypton gold card drawing routine that is good at using human nature. So, in this environment, people are playing games, and games are playing people. Whether players or game practitioners, everyone is losing their initiative.
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
article / Southern People Weekly reporter Nie Yangxin Posted from Beijing
editor / Li Zimiao [email protected]
938, historian John Heyzinha proposed the concept of "Homo Ludens" to illustrate the distinction between humans and animals. In an optimistic era, human beings were once called "the rational man" (Homo Sapiens). In the 20th century when Heyzinha lived, people gradually discovered that they did not advocate reason as much as they did during the Enlightenment , and the concept of "Homo Faber" was born. But Heyzinha felt that "the people of the game" might be more appropriate, otherwise, how do we explain that we can have fun in the game? Psychologist Mihari Hiszant Mihay came to a similar conclusion in 1975, and found that "creative achievement and improvement of ability" can make people immerse themselves in both nervous and happy, which he called "flow". When can we experience flow best? In a game with "goals, obstacles, continuous feedback".
Today's electronic games can explore various mechanisms and themes to the greatest extent, providing players with a richer flow experience, and more and more people are "migrating" to the game space.
The "2021 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Audio and Digital Association, etc., shows that the actual sales revenue of the Chinese game market in 2021 was 296.513 billion yuan, and the scale of domestic game users reached 666 million - this is the world's largest game market, and there is the largest player group here.
, but this market is hard to be mature. The mainstream Chinese game market has three characteristics. In terms of game carriers, mobile terminals occupy the mainstream. In 2021, the sales revenue of China's mobile game market accounts for 76.06% of the total revenue; in terms of the paid model, free games are the main ones, players can enter the game without paying, but there are a large number of in-pay projects in the game; this leads to the third feature - "pay win", the improvement of capabilities and the leap of obstacles can be solved with money, and capital turns the game world that could have been "winned" fairly into another reality.
In the world of "paid win", all the growth, ability and achievements of players can be quantified into numbers, and the "player" becomes the person who is driven to chase "numerical values". After losing the subjectivity of playing the game, no player can become a winner.
Four sheep ran around the grass. This loading interface makes "Sheep a Sheep" look like a ranch management game. After entering the game interface, clusters of sheep divided by region and the words "Challenge XX Sheep today, pass XX Sheep" scrolling on the screen make people immediately react that "Sheep" refers to the player. What every player has to do in this game is to eliminate the blocks stacked on the grass like a sheep eating grass. More than a month after
was launched, the statistics of more than 10 million daily active users still highlight the popularity of this game. Game research scholar Liu Mengfei remembers that the last time the phenomenon-level game in social networks was the 2014 "Flappy bird". The two mini games have many similarities, the same rough style, the same nightmare difficulty, which is both angry and addictive. However, in 2014, players could still get high scores through diligent technology, but now they are just betting on a tiny probability.
"The Sheep" officially released the second level of 0.01%. Because the blocks are randomly stacked, success or failure is more like a bet of fate. After failure, the system will give a choice. Watching an advertisement of about 30 seconds can give the game a little vitality. Although it is difficult to change its destiny, the repeated challenges of more than 100 million "sheep" have brought huge advertising revenue to the game producers. As Liu Mengfei said: "In order to pass the level, players become a 'broken chicken' who watches advertisements.”
sounds absurd, but the Big Grasshopper written by Bernard Schooz has long revealed the true meaning of the game: “The goal of the game is to win. "Players are just paying for the desire to "win", Even if "winning" is the result of fate. When you cannot change the status quo with your own power, people will pursue the favor of fate.
illustration/Lu Junjie
is full of "winning" transactions in a game where there is no fair competition. All the enhancement of power can be achieved through consumption, and buying and selling is the illusion of "winning". There was a joke in the early game circle: programmer designed a point system for Sisyphus who always pushes stones up the mountain. Every time you take one more step up, the "+1" logo will appear on Sisyphus' head, and Sisyphus seems to be no longer It won't be boring.
However, for the infinite, addition is meaningless.
Who can become a planner?
Before becoming a game planner, George felt that designing a game that he likes and can also bring fun to others is an exciting thing. It is difficult for other industries to get such a feeling. After entering the industry, George's idea became: "If you just love games, please don't engage in the game industry, because it is an industry that ponders human nature. Once you ponder on human nature, you are easily disappointed with human nature. "
George entered the industry in 2013, and at that time he became a game planning conditional simple and direct, "It depends on whether you have any experience in making games. "George's experience originated from using the map editor provided by Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne in high school. From version 1.0 to version 4.5, George's map downloads totaled over one million, and at most two or three thousand people were online at the same time. He also went to sponsorship, negotiate platforms, and organized many games for the map. Although he didn't make much money, he felt a sense of accomplishment in a complete experience of a game from production to online and community operation.
But after working, he felt more and more likely to use human nature to do evil. "If you do evil, you may not necessarily have any problems, but if you don't do evil, you will mostly be poor. "Doing evil" means to stir up all kinds of emotions of the player, satisfy him, and unwilling to give him pleasure and frustration, and the purpose is to make him pay.
George takes the example of flipping medals. If he wants to create a sense of surprise for the player, no matter which medal he chooses, he will get the best item, and the system will display other garbage items. If he wants to consume, he will display the most valuable items in the selected adjacent position, and also give a prompt: "Just recharge the VIP, you can open two rewards at a time", "Do you buy it? "The work of planning in
has become a "design trap", or find a "good way to achieve high monetization efficiency". George said this is a "thinking model after being alienated by capital". Nowadays, most game manufacturers are essentially looking for people who have accepted "alienation".
On March 8, 2022, in Xi'an, Mr. Li's 11-year-old son played games with his grandmother's mobile phone, and spent more than 30,000 yuan on game recharge. Mr. Li showed some game recharge screens Photo/People's Vision
Master's degree student in Department of Sociology of Renmin University of China in his 2018 graduation thesis, and concluded that manufacturers prefer "high consumption and high achievement players". High achievement means having certain gaming skills and being familiar with the overall mechanism of the game, and their preference for high consumption is because "players who have had game consumption are undoubtedly more reasonable". Explain the fun of paying in the game."
Shu Hui mentioned an interview he participated in in the paper. First, he was asked what he thought about "people who have not recharged money in the game cannot become a planner." Finally, the interviewer gave the answer: "If you have not recharged money, you will definitely not be a planner. If you do not recharge money, you will not understand why players need to recharge money, and you will not be able to figure out the payment mechanism of the game... and we are also worried that we will not agree with the planning of popular payment strategies."
Because of work needs, George spent a lot of money in the game. As a planner, sometimes he cannot fully understand the ingenuity and traps in commercial games. Only by recharging money can he experience it. "The game is actually a bit like magic. What it presents to you and what is behind it is two sets of things. You can understand that I paid to watch this magic. ”
The illusion of "growth" buying and selling
Compared to the "buyout system" that can fully own a game by paying money, the Chinese game market has nurtured the most efficient, rich and exquisite payment model on this planet in the past twenty years.
The first thing that broke the "buyout system" model was the Shanda Network, which introduced the game " Legend " in 2001, and the Shanda selection In cooperation with Internet cafes that increased sharply at that time, players can download the "Legend" client for free, but they need to purchase a point card from the Internet cafe to obtain the game duration.
The one who led Chinese games to the "internal consumption" model was Shi Yuzhu, who developed " Zhengtu ". He discovered a problem from his experience of playing "Legend". Rich white-collar players have no time to level up, and young players have no money, so the former will spend money to find the latter to practice. "Why don't the operator change the charging model? "
In 2005, "Zhengtu" announced that it is free to play games, buy equipment, props and hosting fees, opening up the era of "paid victory". Players' consumption in it can be zero or unlimited, but if the money is not spent in place, it will inevitably be difficult to move forward.
's "internal consumption" model has developed to the present, and has formed a mature paid design. Compared with the "Yi Dao 999" type of web games with clear price tags, this model is now subtle and complex. The core lies in establishing a variety of numerical systems, including combat values and economic values. The curve of numerical changes is the "growth" of players from weak to strong. Here, payment is to "grow" faster and better.
July 6, 2022, Singapore, 2022 League of Legends Mobile Game Global Championship, audiences play mobile games between competitions Photo/ Visual China
Yu Le has been in the industry for 10 years and is a numerical planner of a certain card collection domestic mobile game. The monthly turnover of the game he participated in is about 30 million yuan, but he thinks that in this mode, he can do better.
"First of all, we need to create an atmosphere for players," Yu Le is like an experienced shopping mall salesman. "When you don't pay, we are already very friendly and you have a lot of fun, but if you want to experience better service, we have prepared a cost-effective choice for you. "The first payment for
Yuleguan is called "Icebreaking", which means to guide players from the free mode to the paid mode. It is the consumption with the least amount of money and the most cost-effectiveness in the whole game, "almost 100 times the profit." "The players need to feel the pleasure of paying immediately. In theory, Yu Le needs to make players "break the ice" on the first day of contacting the game, "Even if you pay the least amount of money, your desire to continue playing the next day will be stronger. "
When the player makes the first payment, he will find that a path of achievement marked with different payment amounts is unfolding in front of him, and the achievement points of each stage are shining with golden light. "For example, the first stage is 6 yuan, and next we will guide the player to different levels such as 30, 100, 300 yuan. "
has gone from "6 yuan" to "30 yuan". Yu Le will pack up the things that novices need most. You can buy a monthly card, get a month's membership status, and go online to receive a gift package every day; or purchase a "pass" to unlock additional rewards after achieving different goals set by the game. As the goals are achieved one by one, the accumulated additional rewards will increase. "You won't give you a lot of choices, which will make you feel confused. You must be clear and clear. "
" You will find that the second payment has a characteristic. It cannot be said that the cost-effectiveness is particularly high, but when it provides instantaneous cost-effectiveness, it will definitely provide a long-term cost-effectiveness. "Yu Le explained," that is to say, the second payment must cultivate your stickiness to the game."Behind the paid guidance of
is the precise control of numerical values. How long the player can get and how many levels they reach after the game time are all calculated and planned in advance. Yu Le said: "The data in the early stage of the game is even in seconds, and then slowly transitions to minutes and hours. ”
is always one step away from success
In order to enrich the numerical system, in addition to the growth level of the player character, many games will nest card collection systems, and players need to continuously collect cards and improve card strength. Cards are usually obtained by random drawing. Before turning on the card, players never know what they will get.
Yu Le said, "draw." Cards are "gambling payments". The game planning team he works in has done behavior statistics on players. They found that what players like most is actually drawing cards. Compared with certainty purchases, randomness can make players more likely to have speculative happiness. In the early stage of the game, Yu Le will also deliberately guide players to draw cards, "First give you a low-quality card, be sure to low, and then gradually give you high-quality cards for free. At this time, your pursuit has gone from low-quality to high-quality. But some of the high-quality ones are very garbage, and some are very good. I will make the cards I particularly want to sell to you as you advance the game and make them into a repeated level point. Without this card, it will be difficult for you to pass the level. Then, through various activities, I will give you a lot of card draw coupons to develop your habit of drawing cards. "
players always look forward to getting better cards with fewer card draws, but the probability is strictly controlled by the planners. They prioritize the feelings of paid players. "For example, if you draw an SSR (Superior Super Rare card) for 50 yuan, you must have a low probability event. We cannot make a free player better than paid players because of luck. "
planners will try their best to make the new character look strong. "When we conceive character skills and styles, what cards he can form a lineup with, what position he can occupy in the lineup, and which character he can replace in the previous role, all require precise design. Once he appears, he can instantly replace a certain character in the previous lineup. With him, your lineup will be improved to a higher level. "Having a card is only the first step, and there is a long stage of cultivation in the future. To exert the strength of the card, you must consume the same card or precious materials to improve the quality of the card. In Yu Le's words, "We allow some players to get rare cards for free, but if you want to develop, you must pay. "A default value is: it costs 6,000 yuan to cultivate a full-star SSR, and UR (Ultra rare extremely rare card) costs 20,000 yuan. Once the players of
step on the pursuit of power, they will find that there is no eternal strong man, nor eternal victory, because the rules are always changing, "A character and enable a new mechanism, you think it's too awesome, and then next time we launch a restraining mechanism around it... We always create a feeling that the player is only one small step away from success. What's important is not whether he can succeed, but inspire a sense of urgency. You are just that small step away. Aren't you taking it today? ”
August 1, 2021, Shanghai, China International Digital Interactive Entertainment Exhibition (ChinaJoy), the mobile game booth is very popular. In addition to its strength, the appearance and stunts of the character are also elements that stimulate players' consumption. Xizhe, who once worked with Yu Le in a game company, is the character's battle planning and has also served as art coordination. He is now involved in the production of a male-oriented card collection game. Because the character's clothes are relatively exposed, it is only online overseas. According to Xizhe's experience, the appearance design of the character depends largely on the subjective idea of the plan, and the most important thing is "not repetitive, good-looking and reasonable". Xizhe's hobby is orchestral . When he designed a conductor character, he asked the art planner to add a piece of the symphony score to the character picture.When the subjective ideas of
are inaccurate, Xi Che will refer to market data: "There are several lolita characters (the abbreviation of Lolita, referring to petite and cute girls) that we don't perform well in terms of income. Later, we will consider more about the Royal Girl (mature young women) when designing." All designs are designed to better make the market pay.
financial derivatives
Whether ten years ago or now, Wang Yahui, the author of "China Game Storm", feels that the core logic of the domestic game market has not changed, "It is to use the mentality that players do not want to be worse than others to induce money."
Because in this industry, it is not the game producers who have the right to speak, and people with capital may not play games at all. "They don't care whether the game content is fun or not. What they care about is whether the content can enrich the existing payment system. All the goals are ultimately on payment."
In 2012, Wang Yahui entered the industry with the dream of building a domestic independent game platform. The biggest bottleneck encountered at that time was lack of money. Wang Yahui tried to attract investment, but he mainly contacted two types of people in the capital market. One is coal bosses wearing suits and carrying leather bags, and the other is early Internet entrepreneurs who made their fortune in the era of Mobile Dream Network. These two types of people do not understand games.
"World of Warcraft"
"The coal boss's idea is, 'I heard that there is a game called "World of Warcraft" that is very profitable. Do we want to copy a version on the web?' Internet entrepreneurs want to keep the cost as low as possible. These two groups of people don't understand games, let alone how to make games, and you have to choose one of them." Wang Yahui could only give up.
because he had no money, he even developed a web game to make money by selling equipment and props. "To be honest, it's just using other people's programs, but they just changed their style and art, and there was nothing new."
Wang Yahui's web game revenue performance was very poor, and he stopped serving a few months later. At that time, another small company that does web games at the entrepreneurial incubation base where he was located was lucky. They had a "whale user" (super RMB player) who recharged 300,000 yuan a month. In order to win over the heart of the "whale", the company's planners fulfilled his wish in the game as much as possible. "It was a World War II-themed game. Everyone's equipment was tanks and planes from the 1940s. One day, the "whale" asked me if I could give me an exclusive equipment. Later, the planners made him a death star in "Star Wars". "
In 2016, Wang Yahui participated in three or four consecutive game industry meetings in a month, and felt increasingly disappointed. "The speakers included investors, copyright holders, film and television companies, and listed companies executives, but they had never seen anyone participate in the tournament. People in the play production process. The topic is getting bigger and bigger, from industry development to China's national conditions, from VR, AR to industry mergers and acquisitions, the topics are all kinds of strange, but no one discusses how to make good games and why games are fun. "
Among many game projects that Wang Yahui has seen, the game development cost only accounts for a small part, and one of the card games was particularly impressive: "I spent 4 million yuan to buy a Japanese IP, and then spent 1.2 million yuan to recruit a commercial director, spending at least 50 to 60 million yuan to promote, but the cost of game development is only 2 million yuan."
Wang Yahui thinks this is not a game, it is more like making "financial derivatives". Different payment models often lead to the status of "gameability". "The 'buyout system' game makes money by selling portions. The art is good enough and the game is fun enough to attract people. 3A games (games with high development costs, long development cycles, and high resource consumption) all follow this model. In the domestic mobile game market, buying volume (promoting channels such as game platforms or application stores) is an important concept."
For domestic game manufacturers such as Tencent , NetEase, and Sanqi Interactive Entertainment , buying volume issuance is always an unavoidable topic.Cao Wei, president of 37 Online Games (a distribution platform under Sanqi Interactive Entertainment), told Southern People Weekly that the cost of buying and acquiring customers for different types of games varies greatly. Currently, simulated and operated games are 30-70 yuan, and strategy games are 60-200 yuan. "Legend" games are 80-150 yuan.
’s years of experience in game distribution has allowed Sanqi Interactive Entertainment to form a very mature advertising strategy. Cao Wei introduced, “Before the product is available, we will push the core selling points of the product to users on various channels through various clever packaging forms, so as to achieve the effect of users paying attention and making appointments; then when the product is launched on the public beta, it is time to officially promote and publish the product. We will formulate different product promotion plans based on the product’s gameplay type and theme worldview, and gradually release it in the public beta.”
“The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”
Piglet
Why is promotion and operation more important than the game itself? Wang Yahui said: "Because most domestic players do not have the ability to distinguish games."
George's view is similar to Wang Yahui. He used a more radical word to describe a player without discernment - "the piglet in the hands of the channel."
George explained: "In the early years, players knew about a game. They bought advertisements through app stores or social platforms. They would not think about whether I like this game or not, but they would download it to see what it looks like. The reason why he played the game was because he saw it. He could not tell whether this game was different from another game. The world view may be different, but the excitement points provided were the same."
In this case, "Whoever can master more 'piglets' and let them see more of their own advertisements will be awesome." George understood why these players lack imagination about the game: "Domestic players actually have little contact with the game. In our cultural context, playing games is a shameful thing, and at least they will not be encouraged."
Wang Yahui recorded the era when games were called "electronic opium" and "electronic heroin" in "China Game Storm", and criticism of games is often seen in the media.
Wang Yahui also interviewed an Internet cafe owner who has been open near Wang Yahui's home for nearly twenty years. The boss's experience sounds ordinary, "He originally worked in someone else's Internet cafe. Later, a coal boss from Shanxi invested money to open an Internet cafe for him. His family savings were all earned by Internet cafes. He used this money to marry a wife, gave birth to a child, and lived a middle-class life. Internet cafe business has been in trouble in the past two years, and he changed careers and did other things based on his savings in the past few years." When Wang Yahui was about to leave, the boss said something, which made him feel that the whole story was covered with a strong absurdity. "He said that his son still doesn't know that he runs an Internet cafe." The game industry and even related practitioners were ashamed to admit this industry. Liu Mengfei noticed that in recent years, game companies have been trying to benchmark themselves against technology companies.
Wang Yahui, who is in the gaming industry, still feels the pressure of control. The most direct point is that it is difficult to get the game version number . A game has no version number, which means it cannot be put on the shelves in the country. Game companies face two choices: one is to "go overseas" and the other is to make channel mini-games, not to enable charging functions, but to implant advertisements to earn advertising revenue. Products like "The Sheep" are undoubtedly the ideal track for small game companies to make quick money.
Last year, Wang Yahui found that he still wanted to make games and returned to the game industry, but his current mentality is almost conservative and pessimistic. He did not hire employees, did not rent an office, nor did he look for investment, so he started making games in his study. He posted a small game made last year directly on the overseas game platform Steam. Only 4 players gave the reviews for
, a game that costs 6 yuan. In the art and sound effects that seem to be in the 1980s arcade style, what players have to do is to manipulate a pixel-style villain and find a way out in a maze full of grids.
" Genshin Impact "
"In order to make him believe that this world is real."
In a podcast program, a numerical planner who just joined the company shared his experience in making games. He believes that the biggest challenge in his work is "how to better PUA players".
" From the perspective of interests, our position has a certain confrontation with players. It is impossible to make players feel comfortable playing, and it is impossible to let him spend money once and not spend it. The key is how to sell our new characters and new equipment in a convincing way, while not making players feel that we are just without bottom line and will only eliminate old characters. It is very difficult and interesting to do this well. "
George feels that in today's environment, it is inevitable that newcomers in the industry will fall into this idea. "The big reason is that the project expresses the willingness of players to pay too directly. "But he asked another question: "Why is it not on the same position to let players pay?" Players get a favorite character because of paying, and get a touching experience, which makes people feel precious. Would he be willing to pay? "
George sometimes feels that "wanting to make the game quality higher" is a selfish idea of planning, but he is just using his professional qualities to demand others. What should be proposed is that "only by doing the game quality well, players will believe that the world really exists. "
George remembers his surprise when he played the game " Animal Crossing Club ". The main gameplay of this game is that players create a new life on an uninhabited island. There will be some animal neighbors on the island. As an auxiliary gameplay, the personalities and lines of these animals are designed very complex. "Different times, different positions, facing different people, the animals will dress differently, and the words they say are different, expressing different personalities. "
In George's experience, such a concept cannot pass the proposal at all. "Suppose we propose to build such a complex NPC (non-player character non-player character ) system in the planning stage, many people will think it is too expensive. Why not make it simpler and then add some extra card characters to pay for it? Because this is not the main body of the game, it just creates an atmosphere. What is the meaning of doing it so complicated? "
" in order to make him believe that the world is real. "George repeated again, "He believed that he was willing to listen to the stories of the characters, establish emotional connections with them, and be willing to live in this world. If the player does not believe in this world at all, and thinks that behind it is the planner who wants to cheat me of money, even if he spends a lot of energy on payment points, the commercial value will become very small. "
is optimistic that George feels that players can increasingly distinguish the quality of the game content. A role-playing mobile game under Mihayou, although the level of "implicit forced payment" in the game is very low, set a record of an average daily turnover of over one million, and has also achieved good results in the overseas market. "The success of both domestic and overseas markets shows that the taste of domestic players can no longer be an excuse for domestic players to make good games. "
This is a good thing for George, which means that it is becoming increasingly difficult for games to use human nature to do evil, because "human weaknesses cannot support us to make games."
(References: Shu Hui "Game as a business - Game planning and the reproduction of the powerhouse", Yan Yihang "Looking at the underlying logic and social context of MMORPG mobile games from Diablo·Immortality", Wang Yahui "Chinese Game Storm", Bernard Schutz "Grasshopper: Game, Life and Utopia", Sylvester "Experience Engine: Panoramic Exploration of Game Design", Ono Kenji "Interview with Game Developers". Thanks to Song Chenghan for his help in this article. To protect the privacy of the interviewees, George, Yu Le and Xizhe are all pseudonyms in the article.)
