在本周三于拉斯维加斯举行的DICE峰会上，游戏产业界的精英们齐聚一堂，就免费商业模式、新操控界面以及社会上的“游戏化”现象等产业热点话题展开了探讨。

不过这次大会并非人们预想中的激烈论战，演讲者们多数时候都很愉快地认同彼此的观点，并在新游戏理念可与传统运营思维共存这一点上达成了共识。

DICE 2011

PopCap公司参与《宝石迷阵》开发的资深制作人马特·约翰斯顿（Matt Johnston），与Nexon美国公司市场副总裁Min Kim就各自的付费与免费商业模式进行了讨论。虽然这两个模式看起来不尽相同，但两人均赞同免费和更为传统的一次性付费方案都是可行的。Kim表示，过去人们曾认为免费游戏是“疯狂的亚洲个例”，在西方没有人会接受。但他的公司Nexon（游戏邦注：该公司总部设于韩国）开发的免费游戏如《洛奇英雄传》（Vindictus ）和《枫之谷》（MapleStory），已经能够做获取高额利润与吸引大量用户两不误，其所提供的附加内容的开支也很小。他补充道，西方玩家在免费游戏中的购买行为与在韩国并无本质区别。

约翰斯顿的公司提供免费的游戏样本，但也通过一次性付费出售完整版游戏。他表示：“我认为在某些背景下，免费模式是行之有效的运营策略。”然而，PopCap公司的设计师却不会运用微交易的商业思维来指导游戏开发工作。据他所言，游戏设计师几乎不考虑游戏销售问题。约翰斯顿承认这个问题或许会对负责公司业务的同事造成困扰，但他表示自己更希望设计团队排除商业因素的干扰，在闭门造车的环境中设计他们的游戏。

在PopCap的“买前试玩”模式下，一旦某位顾客买下一款游戏，公司便不会再对这款游戏向他收取任何费用。约翰斯顿在提及微交易时说：“如果朋友一而再再而三地向我要钱，我就不会再与他们做朋友。我不喜欢游戏中的交易点，我认为它会破坏你的游戏体验。”

而Kim则认为，尽管一次性购买模式在PopCap公司行之有效，但对于Nexon这样专注于在线社交游戏的公司却未必适合。他辩驳道：“如果你进入的是网络连接领域，我坚信免费才是最优秀的模式。”

对此约翰斯顿补充道：“我认为游戏开发者只需要专注于研发好的游戏。”

游戏操作界面发展趋势

索尼电脑娱乐美国公司的研发经理理查德·马克斯（Dr. Richard Marks）就游戏界面演变发表了自己的观点，据游戏邦了解，他曾参与PlayStation Move体感控制器的设计。

尽管有些人会期待PlayStation Move和微软Xbox 360 Kinect等新的控制器取代传统游戏手柄和操控模式，但马克斯表示，新的控制方法仅仅是为了弥补传统方法的不足而已，至少索尼公司的情况是这样的。他认为，已经成为一种时尚的体感游戏并不会取代现有的控制模式，它只会拓展目前市场的发展空间。

英特尔公司的高级研究员贝弗利·哈里森（Beverly Harrison）补充道：“我不认为未来所有的界面都将仅仅建立在动作感应基础上。”只要鼠标和键盘仍然存在，它们就只能作为已有界面的附加服务出现。她认为，在玩家们以各种不同的方式对体感技术加以利用之时，基于此项技术的应用软件也将不断创新，这或将成为新技术流行的契机。

游戏化现象

杰西·谢尔（Jesse Schell）是Schell Games公司负责人，他是去年将“游戏化”这一术语发扬光大的人物之一。他曾与资深业界人士及Zynga的首席设计师布莱恩·雷诺兹（Brian Reynolds）联手破译为何游戏化不是人们所期盼的全能解决方案。

谢尔称，其他人创造了“游戏化”这一术语，其定义为“将不是游戏的事物转变为一种游戏。”他将此形容为把游戏元素融入某些事物，并以此来“让人们做他们本来不想做的事。”

游戏化在理论上适用于从销售到个人卫生的任何事物，谢尔表示，让人们做违背本意的事是一种十分强大的能力。但他同时提出，人们对游戏化的理解存在偏差，仅仅将少量游戏元素生硬地加进事物中并不能有效实现游戏化。

谢尔以在不同的食物中加入巧克力来与游戏化进行比对。巧克力十分美味，它与冰激凌或许是绝配，但出现在白干酪中则可能比较可怕。谢尔说：“它们并不搭配，你必须找到它们的共鸣之处，从本质上解决问题。”

雷诺兹并不认为《FrontierVille》、《FarmVille》等Zynga社交游戏是游戏化的产物。虽然它们的确让人们做了违背意愿的事——舍弃他们的时间和金钱。他认为，Zynga的理念与游戏化的区别在于，游戏化是试图让你做一件不想做的事，但Zynga是一个以提供娱乐和社交内容为核心的娱乐公司，玩Zynga的游戏是人们十分乐意做的事情。

雷诺兹还补充道：“社交游戏的玩家不计其数，这显然是十分积极的原因。我想这是因为人是一种社会性动物，我们与社交密不可分。”他还表示，社交游戏引导了一种五年前不可能出现的游戏模式，玩家可以在“每个该死的工作日”和朋友互动，“游戏与人们生活的联系正变得越来越紧密。”（本文为游戏邦 /gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

DICE 2011: How Tradition Is Coexisting With New Gaming Trends

Game industry figures gathered at the opening of the 2011 DICE Summit in Las Vegas on Wednesday to debate some hot topic issues in the games industry such as free-to-play business models, new control interfaces and “gamification” of society.

But instead of heated knock-down drag-out arguments over the evolution of the gaming industry, speakers were fairly agreeable with one another and for the most part acknowledged that new ways of thinking can coexist with tradition.

Matt Johnston, senior producer at Bejeweled house PopCap Games joined Nexon America director Min Kim to weigh in on their respective pay-to-play and free-to-play business models.

And while the models may seem to be at odds, both Kim and Johnston agreed that free-to-play and more traditional single-pay schemes are both viable, depending on the game.

Kim said people used to think that free-to-play was a “crazy Asian thing that no one would ever adopt” in the West.

But his company, headquartered in South Korea, has been able to turn big profits and attract mass amounts of users worldwide who play Nexon games like Vindictus and MapleStory for free, and spend small amounts of money for additional content. He added that purchasing behavior in the West within free-to-play games isn’t really that much different from Korea.

Johnston, whose company offers free demos of games and sells the full titles for a one-time fee, said, “Free makes sense in certain context, I think.”

In PopCap’s case, however, the designers don’t create games with a microtransaction-based business model in mind. According to Johnston, game designers don’t really think about how the games are going to generate sales at all.

“At the end of the day we need to get paid for something because we’re a business,” he acknowledged. “ … There are other people [at PopCap] who get paid to focus on the business, and they might get frustrated with our [designers’] lack of concern in that area.”

He continued, “I just prefer and favor a design-in-a-vacuum thing where a group of designers can make their game and not consider [business models].”

With PopCap’s try-before-you-buy model, once a customer buys a game, that’s it – the company won’t come knocking for any more money for that game. “…The friends that ask me for money over and over again, I’m not friends with them anymore,” Johnston said in a reference to microtransactions.

“I don’t like having those transaction points in the game,” he said. “I think it breaks you out of the experience.”

And while the one-time-buy model works fine for PopCap, it wouldn’t be beneficial for such an online and community-focused company like Nexon, said Kim. “If you’re going into the connected space … I do believe free is the superior model,” he argued.

“I think game developers just need to make good games,” Johnston added.

The Future Of Interfaces

On hand to talk about evolving gaming interfaces was Sony Computer Entertainment America R&D manager Dr. Richard Marks, who helped design the PlayStation Move controller.

While some might expect new controllers like the Move and Microsoft’s gesture-based Xbox 360 Kinect to eventually usurp traditional game pads and control schemes, Marks said at least in Sony’s case, new control methods are only meant to supplement existing ones.

“I’ve heard [motion gaming] called a fad. The thing is it doesn’t replace existing control schemes,” he said, rather it “augments” current control offerings. “I think [motion control has] just grown the space of what the market is right now.”

Intel senior scientist Beverly Harrison added, “I don’t think [all future interfaces] will just be gesture-based,” she said. As the mouse and keyboard still exists, there will just be additional interfaces that will be used alongside established interfaces.

Just as hobbyists are tinkering with different ways to use the Kinect, innovation in gesture-based applications will come from the fringe, she said. “There are lots of different things people are experimenting with out there. … I think that’s where new uses will pop up.”

Gamification

Jesse Schell, head of Schell Games and one of the reasons the term “gamification” has become more prevalent over the past year, joined industry veteran and Zynga chief designer Brian Reynolds to decode fun, pleasure and why gamification isn’t the all-encompassing solution that people have made it out to be.

Schell, who said someone aside from him made up the term “gamification,” defined it as “taking something that’s not a game, and making it into a game.” Reynolds described it as taking game elements and applying them to something to “make people do something they don’t want to do.”

Gamifcation could theoretically be applied to anything from marketing to personal hygiene, Schell said. Making someone do what they don’t feel like doing is a powerful ability.

But Schell said that people have gamification all wrong – you can’t just shoehorn a few game-like elements into anything to “gamify” it effectively, he argued. He compared gamification to adding chocolate to different foods.

Chocolate is a good thing and might be great on ice cream, but it’s probably horrible on cottage cheese. “It’s like no, no!” said Schell. “That doesn’t work. You have to find something that resonates, and brings out its essence.”

Reynolds headed off any implication that Zynga’s games like FrontierVille or FarmVille are just “gamified” social frameworks that are engineered to make people do something they don’t want to do – part with their time and money.

“The difference between Zynga’s philosophy and gamification is that gamification … tries to make you do something that you don’t want to do,” he said. But he said Zynga is an entertainment company that tries to provide content that at its core is fun and social, then charge for that experience. Playing Zynga games is something people want to do, he said.

“There’s obviously some very positive reason that millions of people play social games,” added Reynolds. “I think what it is is that human beings are social animals. We’re wired to socialize.”

Schell said, “Social games facilitate a type of gameplay that was impossible five years ago” in that they are games that you can play “every damn day” at work and interact with friends.

“Games are becoming more and more woven into people’s lives,” he said.（source:gamasutra）