电子娱乐展（Electronic Entertainment Expo，简称E3）即将来临，游戏世界将很快把目光对准索尼PlayStation 4和微软Xbox One的次时代游戏。今年秋季，这两款在假日期间发布的游戏主机于今年秋季上市时肯定将供不应求。但相比次时代游戏，硬核游戏同样激动人心。游戏行业的一个重要推动力是免费游戏，简称F2P。遍及移动设备、PC、家用游戏机甚至次时代游戏的免费游戏已经帮助这个行业扩大了受众。最近的一波游戏展示了免费游戏的一次演变。现在，免费游戏提供了AAA级游戏机品质的游戏体验，玩家不必花费60美元购买游戏盘。

    由于盗版猖獗，免费游戏模式在中国应运而生。Nexon、NCsoft和腾讯（Tencent）等游戏发行商有意无意地尝试了这种模式，结果发现它极为成功。他们意识到，虽然无法在中国获得昂贵的月费，但可以出售虚拟物品。少数的铁杆玩家就可以支撑起很多免费玩家。事实证明，非传统玩家乐于接受这种模式。虽然只有10%的玩家往这些游戏里投入真金白银，但他们每年的花费轻易就能超过60美元。考虑到某些最热门游戏吸引了3,500万玩家，庞大的受众为游戏开发商带来了可观的收入，同时绕过了零售模式的费用和麻烦。

    这种商业模式已经进入西方国家，成功的例子包括：Riot Games公司的多人在线竞技游戏《英雄联盟》（League of Legends），Wargaming公司的大型多人在线二战游戏《坦克世界》（World of Tanks），Meteor Entertainment公司的射击游戏《机甲世界》（HAWKEN Mech）和Crytek公司的第一人称射击游戏《战争前线》（Warface）。这类游戏的玩家数量不断增长，而传统的大型多人在线付费游戏的日子已经屈指可数。暴雪娱乐公司（Blizzard Entertainment）就目睹旗下《魔兽世界》（World of Warcraft）的付费玩家数量从今年2月份的960万减少到3月份的810万。发布之初采取付费模式的很多游戏现在已经开始转投免费模式的怀抱，例如索尼在线娱乐公司（Sony Online Entertainment）的《DC Universe Online》，艺电（Electronic Arts）的《星球大战：旧共和国》（Star Wars: The Old Republic）和Trion Worlds公司的《时空裂痕》（Rift）。其他游戏则在发布时直接采用免费模式，例如索尼在线娱乐公司的《行星边际2》（Planetside 2）和Cryptic Studios公司的《无冬之夜》（Neverwinter）。

    2006年，Riot Games公司创始人马克•美林和布兰登•贝克进行了一次豪赌，让他们的主打新游戏《英雄联盟》采取免费+增值模式。五位玩家组成一支队伍，在在线竞技地图上决一胜负。他们使用的英雄可通过微支付进行购买。“之所以下这个赌注，是因为我们觉得，取消大笔的预付费会使更多的玩家愿意、而且能够尝试这款游戏，”贝克说。“这种模式的效果非常好。更多的玩家能够尝试《英雄联盟》。他们中很多人都喜欢这款游戏。结果，许多玩家一玩就是好几年。”

    如今，这款游戏的活跃玩家超过3,500万，当然，全球游戏受众喜爱的电子竞技比赛也功不可没。据报道，Riot Games公司在2011年被中国科技公司腾讯以4亿美元收购。韦德布什证券公司（Wedbush Securities）分析师迈克尔•帕切特说，《英雄联盟》每年为该发行商带来2.5亿美元的全球收入。

    With the Electronic Entertainment Expo just around the corner, the gaming world will soon be focusing on the next generation of gaming from Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One consoles. Both of those holiday releases are guaranteed to be in short supply this fall. But as exciting as the promise of next-gen gaming is to the hardcore, one of the key growth drivers for the game industry are free-to-play games, or F2P for short. Available across mobile devices, PCs, consoles, and even coming to next-gen, F2P has helped broaden the demographics of the industry. A recent wave of games shows an evolution of F2P, which is now offering "AAA" console-quality gaming experiences minus the $60 price points of disc-based games.

    F2P is a model that was born out of necessity in China because of piracy. Somewhat unintentionally, the game publishers who tried it -- Nexon, NCsoft and Tencent -- found it was overwhelmingly successful. They realized they couldn't get expensive monthly subscriptions in China, but they could sell virtual items. The few devoted gamers could support the many. It proved out that non-traditional gamers embraced this model. Although only 10% of players actually invest money in these games, they can easily spend over $60 a year. Given that some of the most popular games attract over 35 million players, the huge audience opens up a nice revenue stream for developers while bypassing the expenses and hassles of the retail model.

    This business model has migrated west with successes like Riot Games' League of Legendsmultiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game, Wargaming's World of Tanks massively multiplayer online (MMO) WWII game, Meteor Entertainment's HAWKEN Mech shooter game and Crytek'sWarface first-person shooter. While these games are growing their audiences, the days of the traditional paid MMO games could be numbered. Blizzard Entertainment (ATVI) has seen itsWorld of Warcraft game subscribers shrink from 9.6 million to 8.1 million from February to March of this year. Many games that launched as subscription-based titles like Sony Online Entertainment's (SNE) DC Universe Online, Electronic Arts' (EA) Star Wars: The Old Republicand Trion Worlds' Rift have switched to the F2P model. Others simply launched their games as F2P like Sony Online Entertainment's Planetside 2 and Cryptic Studios' Neverwinter.

    Back in 2006, Riot Games founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck made a bet that their new hardcore MOBA experience, League of Legends, would work as a free title with optional upgrades. Five gamers join a team and battle it out in online arenas with heroes that can be purchased through micro-transactions. "This bet was based on the hunch that removing the big, up-front pay wall would result in more gamers willing and able to try the game," said Beck. "It worked pretty well. More players were able to try League of Legends. Lots of them liked it, and as a result, many players have been playing the game for years now."

    Over 35 million players are active today with this game, which has also ridden the success of competitive eSports (electronic sports) with a global gaming audience. Riot was purchased in 2011 for a reported $400 million by Chinese technology company Tencent. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said the publisher makes as much as $250 million a year with League of Legends globally.

    曾资助Riot Games公司的投资机构头标资本（FirstMark Capital）和标杆资本（Benchmark Capital）现在押注于Meteor Entertainment公司。这个新兴的游戏发行商战胜艺电等传统游戏公司，收购了Adhesive Games公司及其免费科幻游戏《机甲世界》。Meteor Entertainment公司CEO马克•朗曾以僵尸工作室（Zombie Studios）联合创始人的身份打拼多年，为多家发行商开发传统的游戏机游戏。他说，传统的发行模式要求游戏公司投资数千万到数亿美元用于游戏开发，风险巨大。

    “我们决定使《机甲世界》拥有AAA级游戏的产品质量，但把它作为免费游戏投放到多个平台，”马克说。“我们从一开始就绕过了零售商，直接面对全球消费者。对于游戏开发商和发行商来说，这个模式向前迈进了一大步。”

    Meteor公司等发行商不是依赖于传统的营销方式，而是使用了免费测试版，让早期玩家试玩这款游戏的同时，开发商对游戏体验进行精细调整。《英雄联盟》等游戏的成功来自于良好的口碑，电视广告或横幅广告无法带来这种效果。实际上，马克对《机甲世界》采取了跨媒体的营销方式。这家公司正在制作漫画书、实景网络视频系列和一部故事片，它们将进一步扩大《机甲世界》的覆盖领域，最终使玩家可以从多个互不冲突的途径进入这个世界。

    采用英伟达（NVIDIA）Tegra处理器的平板电脑和智能手机拥有非常强大的性能，它们成了运行《机甲世界》的新设备。新款智能电视和索尼Gaikai等云游戏服务也将在免费游戏模式不断演进并获得更多主流受众的过程中发挥作用。

    俄罗斯游戏发行商Wargaming公司曾在12年时间里制作各种零售PC游戏，但后来决定采用免费游戏模式，推出了大型多人在线二战游戏《坦克世界》。帕切特认为，这款游戏拥有5,500万注册玩家，每年收入超过1.5亿美元。在E3游戏展上，Wargaming公司将展示两款新的大型多人在线二战免费游戏，分别是《战机世界》（World of Warplanes）和《战舰世界》（World of Warships）。游戏上线后，玩家可以通过Wargaming公司网站上的统一账户系统登录。

    “玩家们可以通过论坛、排行榜、统计数据、比赛和其他各种社会活动来了解这三款游戏，”Wargaming公司CEO维克托•基斯利说。“我能够想象人们不时地跳出坦克，进入战舰和战机，以获得不同的体验。战机速度更快，3D空间操作更加令人血脉喷张，而战舰更注重战略运用，因为它们速度更慢，拥有重型武器。就战略而言，坦克是传统的核心。”

    The same investors who bankrolled Riot Games, FirstMark Capital and Benchmark Capital, are now hedging their bets on Meteor Entertainment. The startup publisher was able to outmaneuver traditional game publishers like Electronic Arts to secure Adhesive Games and its F2P sci-fi universe, HAWKEN. Mark Long, CEO of Meteor Entertainment, spent years working on traditional console games for a variety of publishers as the co-founder of Zombie Studios. He said the traditional publishing model, which requires game companies to invest tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of a game, is risky.

    "We decided to give HAWKEN the same production value you'd get from a 'AAA' game but offer it across multiple platforms as a F2P title," said Long. "We're bypassing retailers and going direct to consumers globally on day one. This model is a very ambitious leap forward for developers and publishers."

    Rather than relying on traditional marketing, publishers like Meteor used a free beta to let early gamers play the game while the developer fine-tunes the experience. The success of games like League of Legends has come from positive word of mouth, which is something that a TV commercial or banner ad isn't going to match. In fact, Long is taking his marketing for HAWKENinto a new transmedia realm. The company is developing a comic book, a live action Web series, and a feature film that will further expand the HAWKEN universe, and ultimately allow gamers to enter this world from multiple paths with zero friction.

    The advent of powerful tablets and smartphones powered by NVIDIA (NVDA) Tegra technologyhas opened new devices for HAKWEN to be played on. New smart TVs and streaming cloud services like Sony's Gaikai will also play a role in how F2P games evolve and reach an even larger mainstream audience over time.

    Russian game publisher Wargaming spent 12 years making retail PC games before deciding to go F2P with the WWII MMO World of Tanks. Pachter believes that game, which has over 55 million subscribers, pulls in over $150 million a year. At E3, Wargaming will be showcasing two new F2P WWII MMOs, World of Warplanes and World of Warships. The company will allow players to access all of these games, once launched, through a unified account system on Wargaming.net.

    "There will be forums, leaderboards, and statistics for players to check out, as well as tournaments and other types of social events across all three games," said Victor Kisly, CEO of Wargaming. "I can see people jumping from tanks, to battleships, to warplanes, from time to time, just to get a different experience. Warplanes are faster and more adrenaline-fueled with 3-D space maneuvering, while Warships is more of a strategic kind of battling because they're slower and have big guns. Tanks is the classical middle in terms of strategy."

    打造了《孤岛惊魂》（Far Cry）和《孤岛危机》（Crysis）系列的德国游戏开发商Crytek公司推出了采用免费游戏模式、具有游戏机品质的游戏，比如现代军事射击游戏《战争前线》。公司CEO赛瓦特•耶里认为，免费游戏的质量将在3年内媲美游戏机游戏。Crytek公司将G-Face平台上发布《战争前线》。这个新平台将支持很多新游戏，包括来自其他开发商的游戏。

    “今后5年，硬核游戏将走向社交化，其中大多数将是免费游戏，”耶里说。“以后我们所有的网络游戏都将作为社交硬核游戏来开发。我们将向其他想要发布免费游戏的开发商开放G-Face平台。”

    索尼PS3已经支持了免费游戏，比如CCP Games公司的太空射击游戏《DUST 514》以及索尼在线娱乐公司的《DC Universe Online》和《Free Realms》。索尼还向独立开放商提供了支持，比如僵尸工作室的PS4次时代免费射击游戏《黑光：惩罚》（Blacklight: Retribution）。预计索尼和微软（Microsoft）将在E3游戏展上发布其他的次时代游戏。

    帕切特说，传统的游戏机游戏不会消失，但向免费游戏模式的转变毋庸置疑，越来越多的游戏开发商更加卖力地为这个新兴领域开发高品质的游戏。一旦玩家可以选择免费玩他们喜欢的游戏还是花费60美元获得类似的体验，这种转变的影响将改变所有人的游戏体验。（财富中文网）

    译者：千牛絮

    Crytek, the German developer that originated game franchises like Far Cry and Crysis, is embracing F2P with console-quality games like the modern military shooter, Warface. CevatYerli, CEO and president of Crytek, believes within three years F2P will rival the console games space from a quality level. Crytek will launch Warface on G-Face, a new platform that will support many new games, including from other developers.

    "Over the next five years the core games are going to be social, and most of them will be F2P," said Yerli. "All of our IPs moving forward are being developed as social core games, and we're going to open the G-Face platform to other developers who want to launch F2P games."

    Sony has already supported F2P games like CCP Games' space shooter DUST 514 and SOE'sDC Universe Online and Free Realms on PS3. The game maker is supporting independent developers like Zombie Studios on PlayStation 4 with Blacklight: Retribution, a next-gen F2P shooter. At E3, additional next-gen games are expected to be announced by both Sony and Microsoft (MSFT).

    While Pachter said traditional console games aren't going away, there's definitely a pendulum shift towards F2P as more game makers develop deeper, quality titles for this emerging space. Once gamers are given a choice of playing for free or paying $60 for a similar experience in their favorite genres, the impact of this shift could change the game for everyone.