在今年的DICE峰会上，电子游戏领域最为睿智的精英们探讨了该行业与社交媒介之间的发展关系。曾在上个世纪80年代设计了不少街机游戏的Mark Cerny在大会上发表了演讲，就反学习习惯以及与时俱进所面临的挑战表达了自己的观点。

Mark Cerny

他举例说，即使是在今天，设计师们仍然在挣扎着摆脱从街机游戏时代中延续下来的传统，而为了使玩家给下一个关卡付费，让玩家死去活来就是街机游戏设计的基本要求。Cerny预测，在这种情况下，设计师们至少要花费10年甚至20年方能重新适应并让电子游戏社交化。

当Cerny还没有为这种变革制定出一个准确的时间表时，关于“游戏性与游戏化”的讨论已经在前一天进行，不少业内人士已开始将现在视为这种变革发展的第一阶段。据游戏邦了解，《游戏设计的艺术》（The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses）一书的作者、Schell Games的CEO兼创意总监杰西·谢尔（Jesse Schell），以及Zynga的首席游戏设计师布莱恩·雷诺兹（游戏邦注：Brian Reynolds，他在设计社交游戏之前，曾经参与开发了《Civilization II》和《Alpha Centauri》），对成熟的游戏以及现在俗称“游戏化”现象之间的界限表达了自己的看法。

谢尔认为，“我们像是试图把铅变成金子但尚未发现元素周期表的炼金术士”，他基本同意Cerny认为我们还有很多东西有待学习的论断。问题的核心在于，游戏的构成是什么。针对这个话题，雷诺兹引用了亚里士多德的观点：“幸福是与你的目标保持一致的行动，这个目标指的是你的固定目标。因此我们需要发现事物的模式，并试着完善它，让自己的行动目标更加准确——事实上，社交行为正是与创造幸福和快乐这一目的保持一致的行动，这也正是游戏设计的目的所在。”

游戏邦获悉，雷诺兹认为Zynga创建的游戏十分契合这个理念，“我们尝试创造真正富有趣味性和社交性的游戏体验，并以此吸引玩家……”对于那些他所创造的或者其他社交游戏，他的看法是，“通常你都会喜欢这些游戏，它们以创造真正的快乐为设计目的，它们的游戏设置目的就是为了创造快乐体验。”

至于是否可以使用一些游戏机制来创建一款成功的游戏，谢尔则表示，这个领域中有不少人天天盼着通过加入一些游戏创意而一夜发迹，他打了一个比方来形容这种想法，因为巧克力可以让冰激凌变得十分美味，于是有人便得出了巧克力也让奶酪更加美味这样的结论，但事实并非如此，“你必须找到它们之间的共通之处，让游戏亮出自己的个性。”

即使找到最佳契合点，事情仍然不仅仅是一款游戏那么简单。以航空常客们为例，他们的目标是升到头等舱或者享受更好的座位特权。雷诺兹认为，“地位当然也是社交的一部分，但我并不认为它是游戏和社交游戏中的主导因素。”无论游戏设计优先考虑的是什么情况，社交网络对游戏的影响力仍将持续扩大，反之亦然。（本文为游戏邦 /gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Video Games Intersect Social Networks at D.I.C.E.

Some of the brightest minds in the video game world discussed the industry’s rapidly growing relationship with social media at this year’s D.I.C.E. Summit. Mark Cerny, whose career stretches back to designing arcade games in the 80′s, broached the subject in broad terms during his talk titled “The End of Death, the Crash of 1982 and Other Topics.”

In it, he discussed the challenge of unlearning habits and moving forward in changing times. As an example he cited how even today designers struggle to break free from the artificial requirement that a player die many, many times which is a holdover from arcade games needing to keep players paying the next quarter. He surmised that in similar fashion it will take at least 10, and as many as 20, years for designers to readapt and get socialization right in video games.

While Cerney painted a very broad timeline for change, the discussion on the “Gameplay vs. Gamification” panel the prior day addressed the very first stages of that process currently starting to take place. Jesse Schell, CEO and creative director of Schell Games and author of The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, and Brian Reynolds, chief game designer at Zynga who prior to Facebook games designed major titles including Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, looked at the rapidly blurring line between full-fledged games and the encroachment of game mechanics in everything we do, now popularly referred to as gamification.

“It’s like we’re alchemists trying to turn lead into gold and haven’t figured out the periodic table yet,” said Schell, seemingly in agreement with Cerney’s assertion that we have much to learn. At the heart of the matter lies the question of what constitutes a game. The two waxed philosophic on the subject, with Reynolds evoking Aristotle. “He said that happiness is activity in accordance with your purpose, and by purpose I mean the purpose that is wired-in to you by wherever wiring-in comes from. So the fact that we’re wired to find patterns in things and try to get better at stuff–to try to throw things and shoot more accurately–and, in fact, to socialize means that activity in accordance with that purpose creates happiness, creates fun; and that’s certainly what games are trying to do,” Reynolds noted.

Reynolds sees the games Zynga creates as fitting well into that definition. “We try to create an experience that’s really fun and really social and then get them [players] to play for it…I design a game and other people figure out what’s the right price to charge for the items,” he says. And of social games like those he creates he says, “Mostly, you’re enjoying the game. Gameplay is designed to create actual pleasure in and of itself. It’s gameplay for gameplay’s sake that creates our particular entertainment form of hapiness.”

The waters get much murkier when it comes to whether using game mechanics constitutes making a game. Schell relates how he fields calls day in and day out from those hoping the addition of a few game ideas will bring them overnight success. He likens the problem with this thinking to that of coming to the conclusion that because chocolate makes ice cream taste great, chocolate could be similarly added to cottage cheese and it would taste better. “You have to find something that resonates with what you’re doing and brings out its essence,” he says.

Even when the right fit is found, the result remains something other than a game. Airline frequent flier programs came up as an example. Their goal is status; the privilege to move to the front of the line or get a better seat. But for games, Reynolds said, “sure, status is out there as part of socializing but I don’t think it’s the leading driver of the compulsion in games and in social games.” Whatever the priorities of each situation may be, it seems that the influence of social networking on games is destined to continue its growth, and vice versa. （source:shacknews）