Almighty Game Designer - Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Are domestic card games fun?

This is a matter of opinion, different players have different tastes.

Many people criticize card games for being crudely made, monotonous gameplay and repetitive content, which is true.

But it can make a profit.

Being able to make a profit represents the recognition of the players.

Why does players approve it? Because the players think it’s fun.

This is a very strange phenomenon with how the players curse it and also pay  for it at the same time.

Why can card games make a profit? Where is the fun of it?

This is a relatively vague topic. If Chen Mo is asked to write a thesis that focuses on the core of the card games, then it is estimated that he would be able to write tens of thousands of words.

But in short, the fun of domestic card games mainly comes from 3 aspects.

The first is the fun in collecting and developing the cards

This is based on the recognition of the players on the characters of the cards.

There was once a mobile game company that made a early generation card brand with 《One Piece》 as a theme, when a local tyrant joined the game and charged several thousand yuan directly just to draw Hawkeye Mihawk.

There is also an unkown three kingdom game, which is still in the testing stage, when a local tyrant joined the game and got angry after spending 5,000 yuan in order to draw Zhuge Liang, but ends up not getting Zhuge Liang.

In the end, the game company worked overtime to make Zhuge Liang appear.

Just like 《I am MT》, many players rush the dungeons everyday, saving purple card fragments, or throwing thousands of yuan and do 10 consecutive draw, just to draw the cards they want.

The game designer will also adjust the card skills and combat power to the extent consistent with the plot (or adjust it according to the popularity of the character), which is to develop the recognition of the players on the card characters.

Only by establishing this sense of identity can this card become valuable and let the players pay for it.

Once the value system of this kind of card is established, it would mean that there would be differences between different cards, and will make the player’s collection and develop desire be satisfied, and will make them feel that the money is worth the spend.

Therefore, the key to the profitability of card games is to establish a set of card value system that can be recognized by the players, just like stamp collecting, in order to continuously sell new cards to players.

After the players get the card they want and in order to make the card stronger, they will continuously charge money to upgrade, upgrade the stars, upgrade the skills and so on. And every time the card is upgraded, the players will be able to feel its growth and feel that their money has not been spent in vain.

This is a manifestation of the “numerical stimulus” that was mentioned before.

This is the core fun of all card brands. It is a very mature and reusable model, so the card games in his previous world were so rampant.

The second is to fumble around the battle formation pairing, and the fun in making your own strategy.

The battle system of card games seems monotonous, but in fact, it is relatively rich. In 《I am MT》, each card have 3 abilities, normal attack, skill attack, and passive. In designing the characters, there are battle systems of World of Warcraft as the blueprint, and the skills of each characters are different.

The same range damage skills, have Blizzard(AoE), Whirlwind(3 units in the front), Chain Lightning(Random 3 units), Piercing Shot Type(Vertical, 2 units), and so on.

Skill damage can be divided into spells, physical, and differences betweem single target and aoe.

Healing skills are the same, there are single heal and group heal.

Besides, there are many combat abilities such as damage reduction, regeneration, and DoT(damage over time). Basically, all kinds of skills that can be thought of can be implemented into the battle system of card games.

Plus the complicated factors such as card position, turn sequence, attribute restraint, leader’s skill, and so on. Which greatly improve the playability of the battle system of card games.

Of course, this battle system can’t be compared with proper games at all, but it is enough for mobile gamers.

This battle system can perfectly cover genres, such as animes like One Piece, Naruto, or Martial Arts novels, and so on. just by changing the skin.

There is a circular restraint relationships between various combat abilities, such as single heal on single target, single target on group heal, group heal on aoe, and so on. Players will then really want to find the 5 cards which are the most powerful within the dozens of cards, which requires a very long trial and error, and repeatedly sharing experiences.

Because the acquisition of rare cards is strictly controlled, and so it will require a lot of investment by spending money or time to test the actual combat power of each cards.

This process is also fun and fulfilling for players. Therefore, the card game’s battle system and card training system perfectly match. As a long-established classic battle system, it is enough for the players to repeatedly play it for 3~5 years without getting tired of it.

The third is marketing strategy and numerical stimulus.

It has very broad content, such as operational activities(7 days login, sign in, task reward, etc.) daily benefits (sending diamonds, vitality(energy/stamina), online reward, etc.), and early stage numerical framework…

Of course, these contents are not only exclusive to card games, but have basically become the standard of all domestic mobile games, and is also widely used in SLG(strategy games) and FPS(shooter game) and other game tyoes.

However, the earliest origin should have started in browser games, then flourished in card games, and eventually spread to all domestic mobile games.

This “Pavlov”-style of numerical stimulus has been certainly criticized by numerous players and game reviewers, but almost no mobile game company dare not do these things.

Why? Because it is simple and effective, once it get remove, the game data and revenue will decline significantly.

This “numerical stimulus” system works like this.

First of all, the game must be free-to-play and attract as many player as possible to play the game. It doesn’t matter if these people doesn’t plan to spend money at all, let’s put this matter aside for now.

After they started playing, there will be a very detailed novice tutorial, so that players can experience the core fun and gameplay of the game as soon as possible, and at the same time, no difficulty will be made in numerical value, so that players can reach farther.

This is the same reason as the first 300,000 words of web novels being free of charge, so that they can experience it first and pay later. Experience it first, then pay, and if you are not satisfied, then don’t pay.

However, this kind of situation can not be maintained for too long. Players will inevitably encounter some setbacks.

In this kind of game, top-up players and non-top up players are naturally not equal. In order for players to pay, you have to set a checkpoint.

The so-called checkpoint is to make the players get stuck, and let them encounter setbacks, then let the players charge money to buy combat power and continue challenging higher checkpoints.

But this brings about a problem. If a player is unwilling to spend money, then what should he do if he encounters a checkpoint? There is a good chance that he will quit the game and stop playing.

How to make these players stay? It’s simple, and that is to give them money.