我觉得马桶是一个失败的发明
Very few people can identify with a South Park episode on a real personal level. But I can. My family still occasionally joke that I’m the Canadian Devil for my part in developing microtransactions in the gaming industry.
V ERY几个人能有一个真正的个人层面上南公园情节识别。 但是我可以。 我的家人偶尔仍会开玩笑说我是加拿大魔鬼，在游戏行业开发微交易方面，我发挥了自己的作用。
We took “the first hit is free” to a new level.
我们将“第一击免费”提高到了新的水平。
我参与的一些历史 (Some history of my involvement)
In a former life, I worked in the gaming industry for one of the first companies to use microtransactions successfully in an online massively multiplayer game.
从前，我在游戏行业工作，是最早在在线大型多人游戏中成功使用微交易的公司之一。
We offered services, had people pay with points, and had an in-game item store. We launched the first item store in 2007 (perhaps earlier), in Anarchy Online selling simple pets and visual items. As far as I’m aware, we were the first MMO to launch an item store like that (having already introduced virtual currencies to pay for other services).
我们提供服务，让人们用积分付款，并拥有游戏中的物品商店。 我们于2007年(也许更早)在Anarchy Online中开设了第一家商品商店 销售简单的宠物和视觉物品。 据我所知，我们是第一个推出这样的商品商店的MMO(已经引入了虚拟货币来支付其他服务的费用)。
It was clear early on that microtransactions would be a massive money-spinner for the company. When we launched the first store, we doubled our revenue in that month and saw incremental increases to the company’s income over the next few years.
早期很明显，微交易将为该公司筹集大量资金。 当我们开设第一家商店时，我们当月的收入翻了一番，并在接下来的几年中看到公司收入的增量增长。
使微交易更上一层楼 (Taking microtransactions to the next level)
Many games generally focus on visual items when it comes to microtransactions. If you are running a successful product, you can do this knowing you’re leaving money on the table. In this context, the proliferation of eSports games has actually limited potential for microtransactions. I can say from experience that “power items” in a virtual store will account for more than 80% of revenue if implemented correctly.
当涉及微交易时，许多游戏通常专注于视觉项目。 如果您运行的是成功的产品，则可以在知道要花钱的情况下执行此操作。 在这种情况下，电子竞技游戏的普及实际上限制了微交易的潜力。 我可以说，根据经验，如果正确实施，虚拟商店中的“电源”将占收入的80％以上。
It’s a straightforward value proposition. People are willing to pay to gain an advantage over other players. It’s the reason that companies like IGE made a fortune from power-leveling services and in-game currency back in the day. The value proposition only increases as gamers get older; this is because they become cash-rich but time-poor. So the only way to keep up with others is to pay.
这是一个简单的价值主张。 人们愿意为获得优势而付出代价。 这就是为什么像IGE这样的公司在一天之内就通过功率均衡服务和游戏中货币发大财的原因。 价值主张只会随着玩家年龄的增长而增加； 这是因为它们变得现金很多，但时间却很匮乏。 因此，跟上别人的唯一方法就是付款。
Let’s peel into the power item question a little more. These items are conceptually divided into two different classes. There’s outright power (I pay and now I have a mighty sword) and time accelerators (I pay and now I level up twice as fast). The second class is more palatable to most gamers.
让我们再探讨一下电源问题。 这些项目在概念上分为两个不同的类别。 有绝对的力量(我付钱，现在我拥有一把强大的剑)和时间加速器(我付钱，现在我以两倍的速度升级)。 第二类对大多数游戏者来说更可口。
In order to encourage players to use the microtransactions system, we offered different ways for them to gain “free” points to spend. The points disassociated the transactions from actual money, and players would gain a small number of them by completing a particular part of the game as a new player, or via their monthly subscription.
为了鼓励玩家使用微交易系统，我们提供了不同的方式让他们获得“免费”积分。 这些积分使交易与实际金钱脱钩，玩家可以通过以新玩家身份完成游戏的特定部分或通过每月订阅来获得少量交易。
These free points gave them the first “hit” of using the item store. We knew that if players used the store once, there was a 90% chance they’d use it again.
这些免费积分为他们提供了使用物品存储的第一个“热门”。 我们知道，如果玩家曾经使用过这家商店，那么他们有90％的机会会再次使用它。
现实是滑坡 (The reality is a slippery slope)
Starting off by selling power items is a slippery slope. When you first introduce paid power items, most gamers will react negatively. It will become the usual holy war on social media and forums. But like all outrage, it does eventually fade and people move on. It’s at this point when companies can look to introduce more power items, and generally, players will accept them.
通过出售电力项目开始是一个滑坡。 当您首次引入有偿电力项目时，大多数游戏玩家都会做出负面React。 这将成为社交媒体和论坛上的常规圣战。 但是，就像所有的愤怒一样，它最终会消失，人们继续前进。 在这一点上，公司可以考虑引入更多的动力项目，并且一般来说，玩家会接受它们。
Interestingly, we often found that the most vocal opponents of power items on various forums were also the ones who spent the most on these items.
有趣的是，我们经常发现，在各种论坛上对力量项目的最直言不讳的对手也是在这些物品上花费最多的人。
Do as I say, not as I do.
照我说的做，不要照我做。
微交易的定价 (Pricing of microtransactions)
Pricing is undoubtedly a dark art when it comes to microtransactions. When we developed the next iteration of the item store in 2010, we included the ability to target specific groups — or even specific individuals — with different pricing and highly-targeted advertising.
当涉及微交易时，定价无疑是一门黑手艺。 当我们在2010年开发商品商店的下一个版本时，我们就具备了以不同的定价和针对性强的广告定位特定群体(甚至特定个体)的能力。
Virtual items are a pretty unique commodity. Any limitations on supply are purely theoretical. We can sell as many as we want at any price we want. There’s no physical barrier stopping this.
虚拟物品是一种非常独特的商品。 供应上的任何限制纯粹是理论上的。 我们可以以任意价格出售任意数量的商品。 没有任何物理障碍可以阻止这种情况。
One example of this was the pricing of items in The Secret World. The development team thought I was crazy when I pushed to price all the black colored clothing 30% to 50% higher than other items. I reasoned that these items were “cooler” and more people would want to buy them.
一个例子就是《秘密世界》中的物品定价。 开发团队以为我将所有黑色衣服的价格都推高了30％至50％，就让我发疯了。 我认为这些商品“更酷”，更多的人想购买它们。
It just so happens that they outsold the regular items by four-to-one. Guess who was right?
碰巧的是，他们以四比一的价格超过了常规商品。 猜猜谁是对的？
We also had some truly ridiculous items, like “The Hideously Overpriced Shirt of Uber +2”. It was $50, and merely a plain black shirt. We had players who would buy them and then delete them. They had money to burn, apparently.
我们还有一些真正荒谬的项目，例如“ Uber +2的价格过高的衬衫”。 那是50美元，而只是一件纯黑色衬衫。 我们有玩家会购买它们，然后将其删除 。 他们显然有钱要烧。
关于战利品盒子 (On the subject of loot boxes)
Loot boxes have been around for more than ten years at this point, and governments around the world still haven’t developed a satisfying approach. There are now many different implementations by companies, with varying levels of ethical concern surrounding them.
此时，战利品箱已经存在了十多年了，全世界的政府仍然没有开发出令人满意的方法。 公司现在有许多不同的实现方式，围绕它们的道德关注水平也各不相同。
We took a conscious decision to limit what we did. I have heard horror stories of companies that would deliberately code their loot boxes to be addictive. In this scenario they’d offer an early “hit” to encourage people to buy more, but they’d offer diminishing returns after that.
我们有意识地决定限制我们所做的事情。 我听说过一些公司会故意将其战利品箱编码成令人上瘾的恐怖故事。 在这种情况下，他们会提早提供“打击”以鼓励人们购买更多商品，但此后他们会提供递减的回报。
I think most large companies will try to show some leadership on this issue, but it’s just too lucrative for them to ignore. The really unscrupulous ones are the match-3 games in the app store; they are essentially using the same tactics employed by slot machines to get people hooked.
我认为大多数大公司都将尝试在这个问题上发挥领导作用，但这对他们来说太有利可图了。 真正不道德的是App Store中的Match-3游戏； 他们本质上是使用老虎机使用的相同策略来吸引人们。
是什么让我离开了游戏行业 (What led me to leave the gaming industry)
I didn’t get into the gaming industry to sell digital items to kids; I got into it because I loved playing games and wanted to entertain people. I fell into the world of microtransactions because I was running the billing systems for my employer at the time.
我没有进入游戏行业向孩子们出售数字产品。 我之所以加入它，是因为我喜欢玩游戏并想娱乐人们。 我之所以进入微交易世界，是因为当时我正在为我的雇主运行计费系统。
For my part, I saw that the industry was becoming more focused on extracting money from players and essentially creating addictive software rather than entertaining the players. That wasn’t why I got into the industry.
就我而言，我看到这个行业越来越关注于从玩家身上赚钱并从本质上开发令人上瘾的软件，而不是娱乐玩家。 那不是我进入这个行业的原因。
My former employer has mostly moved away from what we were doing in online games, and microtransactions are not their focus anymore. They still have them in the older games, but I don’t think they have the same edge that they did previously.
我的前雇主大都放弃了我们在网络游戏中所做的工作，微交易不再是他们的关注重点。 他们仍然在较老的游戏中拥有它们，但是我认为它们没有以前拥有的优势。
I wouldn’t give up my time in the gaming industry for anything; we pioneered so many models including free to play, freemium, 7-day trials, software as a service, virtual item stores, virtual currencies, and social media before they existed outside of massively multiplayer games. We ran one of the first social networks back in 2001 before we shut it down because we didn’t know how to monetize it, but that is a story for another day!
我不会因为任何事情而放弃在游戏行业中的时间。 我们率先推出了许多模型，包括免费游戏，免费增值服务，7天试用版，软件即服务，虚拟物品商店，虚拟货币和社交媒体，然后这些模型才出现在大型多人游戏之外。 我们早在2001年就经营了最早的社交网络之一，后来因为不知道如何将其货币化而将其关闭，但这又是另一回事了！
That leaves me with just one thing to say: I’m sorry for my contribution to microtransactions, but I did enjoy my time in the industry for the most part.
这让我只想说一件事：对微交易的贡献感到抱歉，但是我确实很享受这个行业的时光。
我觉得马桶是一个失败的发明
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