免费模式成游戏业大势所趋

    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."