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Tale of Tales公司设计师称视频游戏是一种新媒介

发布时间:2011-02-22 00:14:14 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文作者是Tale of Tales公司游戏设计师和开发者Michaël Samyn,他在文中讨论了游戏的媒介属性,并奉劝开发商要全面了解自己的游戏开发平台所具有的媒介元素。

弗兰克·兰茨(Frank Lantz)曾经表示,游戏并非一种媒介——因为游戏“并没有把一种观点从某地传递到另一个地方。”我同意他的观点,但想补充一句,“视频游戏并不只是游戏。”

Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed

不同类型的游戏

如果兰茨所指的游戏概念是桌面游戏、纸牌游戏、儿童游戏,甚至是运动和跳舞等传统游戏,那么他的观点就是正确的。

游戏设定玩家参与其中的一些条件,任何游戏传递出来的信息都是来自玩家本身,而非蕴含在游戏的设计之中。

一直以来,视频游戏都和某些传统游戏很相似,但也与有一些极为不同的地方。就像许多传统的游戏一样,不少视频游戏从一开始就可以由玩家独立操作,不需要对手或者伙伴共同完成。

视频游戏通常是个人或者团队围绕某一特定目标而设计的。虽然有很多传统游戏的原始想法都很模糊和复杂——它们的发明者基本上无据可考.但十多年来,电脑上的视频游戏一直都比我们所见过的任何游戏都要精致和丰富,而其他游戏基本上是以随意性的符号形式示人。

有不少开发商认为视频游戏的视觉形象是“花瓶”,是“表面功夫”,是吸引市场关注的一张脸面,因此不屑于去挖掘其中深意。但如果换一种眼光,以严肃的态度来观察这些图像呢?如果我们把视频游戏当作仿真的虚拟现实,当作人类及其行为的再现,当作图象、音效、文本和动作的美学画面呢?难道他们不是更像一种媒介了吗?

与众不同的媒介

的确,视频游戏是一种与众不同的媒介。玩家的主导地位,以及他们互动和改变画面的能力,已经使视频游戏成为一种与过去充满表现力或者信息性的媒介不同了。但如果我们把这种改变的能力当作一种机会而不是限制呢?

为什么视频游戏必须和其他媒体一样讲述明确具体的故事呢?最近有没有看好莱坞电影?所有的故事情节显然都大同小异。为什么我们要复述同样的故事呢?我们该如何看待越来越多的艺术

总监和编剧不顾一切地切断原来的故事,为了跳过恐怖情节,加入一些荒诞联想的现象?可悲啊!但至少他们知道故事情节存在问题,只是不知道我们其实有解决方法。

很显然,我们自己也不知道已经有了解决方法。

新的媒介体验

兰茨的“媒介”指的是“把信息从源地传递到目的地的东西。”但我们认为这种看法多少过于偏向唯物主义以及功能化论。媒介并不仅仅是信息的传播通道。

艺术家们自己对音乐、绘画或者电影所要传递的信息究竟有无清晰的概念,这一点我深表怀疑,同时我也认为用户的媒介体验与信息传递并没多大关系。

谁关心大屏幕上高清动作电影所传递的信息?或者听音乐的时候,谁会在乎作曲家的创作目的?媒介体验对我来说更多是一种内心的感受,这与信息源、信息内容或者媒介渠道关系不大。

既然媒介像兰茨说的那样古板和直接,那么为什么不对媒介做一些调整呢?不难想象,在计算机技术的影响下,媒介将发生巨变。

新兴技术很可能会衍生出一种全新的媒介,它的来源与电影产生于绘画,印刷文本源于大理石雕刻完全不同。可以想象,在如今这种多功能技术的影响下,这个世界必然会诞生一种新媒介。

新媒介有新属性和新参数,用户需要以全新的眼光来看待这种新事物,并以新的互动方式和“消费”手段体验这种媒介提供的内容。

Minotaur Rescue

Minotaur Rescue

承认视频游戏是媒介

我同意兰茨的观点,游戏并非媒介。开发商关注的是游戏本身,他们总希望避免游戏与媒介产生交集,因为这可能会削弱游戏体验。但关注视频游戏质量,仿真效果和故事情节的开发商,也同样需牢记兰茨的观点。

因为即使游戏不是媒介,人们还是关注视频游戏的媒介质量,这一点或许有助于人们摆脱视频游戏是一种传统游戏这种观点的束缚。

不像媒介的视频游戏是一种质量更高的游戏;

不像游戏的视频游戏是一种优秀的媒介。

我认为增加视频游戏用户的关键在于,开发商承认和接受视频游戏是媒介这个事实。视频游戏成功的关键在于震撼的画面,它鼓励人们参与虚拟世界的诱惑实在难以抗拒。但只有坚持探索的人,才有可能发现游戏华丽表面之下的严密设置机制。

我们坚信,每个玩家都有足够的毅力来完成我们创建的游戏使命、任务和苦差事——毕竟这是我们所希望的,所以每个玩家都应该要做到。可能还有人会认为,只要有点常识的玩家都能做得到。或者我们也可以成为贴心的开发者,充分考虑每个玩家对游戏的期望。如果连他们都能看到游戏这种媒介美好的一面,为什么我们不可以?

不要为游戏体验设限

用户玩新一代的掌机游戏或者PC游戏的时候,并不是因为他们想和抽像的系统打交道,而是因为他们想沉浸在情感体验中,他们想更好地感觉游戏中非凡的画面和声效。

所以我们就只需满足他们的需求,不要强制他们完成某一特定任务,完成这样或者那样的使命,达到某一目标等等,让他们好好享受这种美妙的体验。撇开那些隐晦的话题吧!好好揣摩这些人物和他们的冒险精神!不要为了让游戏机制变得比较酷而刻意虚构故事,而应该开创一些新的互动形式,支持和强化这种虚拟体验。

当我们对视频游戏成为一种媒介的可能性持开放态度的时候,自然就会发现了更丰富的游戏主题和创意风格。所以我们的用户也会随之增加,就像电影和纸质媒体刚开始出现时的那种情况。

每个人都可以体验视频游戏,因为视频游戏将成为一种媒介。

总结

据游戏邦了解,Tale of Tales公司的开发者总希望视频游戏能够担任媒介的功能,以谦虚、独立、艺术性的方式传达信息。他们为视频游戏技术的沉浸性和富于表达性所折服,但尽量不强求自己的作品一定非体现游戏形式不可。相反,他们开发这些游戏、创造这种互动机制,都是为了与用户分享观点、情景以及一系列感受等。他们希望通过精心设计,让自己的游戏也能为不熟悉视频游戏的用户所接受。

这些创作者虽然持有截然不同观点,但都有一个共同的愿望:摆脱传统游戏的束缚,挖掘互动技术的潜力。

作为媒介的视频游戏,并不会取代作为游戏的视频游戏的地位。只要有电脑在,游戏就不会灭亡。他们所主张的是开创全新的事物:新世纪的新媒介,一个能够通过富有深意和愉快的方式诠释当代生活复杂性的媒介。他们相信视频游戏具有成为这种媒介的潜力。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Video Games as Media

[Tale of Tales' (The Path) Micha?l Samyn explores the interplay between games and existing media, urging developers to have a full understanding of precisely what the elements of the medium they're working in add up to.]

Frank Lantz once argued that games are not media — because they “do not carry an idea from one place to another.” I tend to agree with him. But I like to add that “video games are not games.”

A Different Kind of Games

When it comes to traditional games — board games and card games, as well as children’s games and even sports and dancing — Lantz is clearly right.

Games establish a set of conditions within which humans play. Any meaning or message that comes out of the game is generated by the players, and was not enclosed in the game’s design.

Video games have been similar to some of those traditional games for a long time. But there have always been remarkable differences. From the very beginning, many video games could be played by a person on their own. Many did not require opponents or partners, as most traditional games do.

Video games have also been almost exclusively designed on purpose by individuals or teams. While the origins of many of the best traditional games are vague and complex — they are essentially authorless. And finally, at least for over a decade already, the presentation of video games on computers is often immeasurably more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we’ve seen in any of the other games, many of which can be presented through arbitrary tokens.

There’s a tendency among developers to dismiss the visual presentation of a video game as “eye candy” or “skinning” or the evil necessary to appeal to a larger market.

But what if we would take this presentation seriously instead? What if we look at video games as simulations of fictional realities, as representations of humans and their behavior, as aesthetic spectacles of images and sound and text and motion? Don’t they start looking very similar to a medium then?

A Medium Unlike the Others

To be sure, video games are a medium unlike any before. The central role of the player and their ability to interact and change the presentation, makes video games rather unsuitable for the kind of expressive or informative art that we are used to associating with media. But what if we look at this capacity for change as an opportunity rather than a restriction?

Why would we want to tell a straightforward story like other media do? Have you seen a Hollywood film lately? All stories are the same, apparently. Why would we want to tell this same story again? And what about the desperate attempts of the more artistic directors and writers to cut their stories apart and make absurd associations for the sake of escaping the terror of plot? Pathetic! But at least they understand that there is a problem. They just don’t know that we have the solution.

And neither do we, apparently.

A New Media Experience

According to Lantz the term “medium” implies “something that carries information from a source to a destination.” But I think this too materialistic and too functional a way of looking at media. Media are not just conduits for messages.

Not only do I doubt very much if artists really have some kind of clear message they’re trying to convey in their music or their painting or their film. But media as experienced by a member of the audience have very little to do with information.

Who cares about the message of a high definition action movie projected on a gigantic screen? Or about the goal of the composer when we are enjoying listening to his mass? Experiencing media is about what happens inside of me, and has very little to do with the source or the message or the medium.

But even if media are as rigid and straightforward as Lantz suggests, why would they need to remain that way? It’s not hard to imagine a medium radically changing under impact of computer technology.

And it’s equally quite likely that an entirely new medium emerges from this new technology, a medium that is as different from all the others as cinema was from painting and printed text from marble sculptures. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a new medium not evolving out of such a versatile technology!

A new medium, with new properties and new parameters. A new medium that demands a new attitude from the audience, a new way of interacting with it and “consuming” its “content” — to use Lantz’s terminology.

Resolving the Gridlock

I agree with Mr Lantz that games are not media. And developers, whose interests lie in games, would do well to avoid association with media because it dilutes the play activity. But developers with an interest in the representational qualities of video games, in simulation and stories, should also heed his advice!

Because if games are not media, and one is nevertheless interested in the media-qualities of video games, then it’s probably a good idea to stay away from the traditional conventions of games.

I believe the key to expanding the audience for video games lies in the acceptance and embrace by developers that video games — unlike traditional games — are media.

The impressive graphical presentation of video games has lead to their enormous success. The promise of participating in a virtual world holds irresistible appeal. But the discovery of rigid systems of game rules underneath the seductive spectacle turns all but the most persistent away.

Now, we could be stubborn and insist that everyone just become tough enough to deal with the missions and tasks and grind we so carefully construct — after all, we enjoy it, so everyone must be able to! It’s a matter of literacy, some would say. Or we could be nice designers and try to cater to people’s expectations. If they can see such a wonderful thing in our medium, why can’t we?

Onwards and Upwards

It’s not that people don’t like playing games. But when they turn to their next generation console or their souped-up PC for playing, it’s not out of a desire to interact with abstract systems. It’s because they want to be immersed in an emotional spectacle, they want to take a ride through a fantastic landscape of sights and sounds.

So give them that! Don’t order them around to perform a certain task, do this or that mission, attain some goal, etc. Allow them to live the fantasy. Set your metaphors free! Make the experience about the characters and their adventures! Don’t craft some kind of story to justify cool game mechanics, but invent new forms of interaction that support and enhance the experience of the fiction.

When we open up to the potential of video games as a medium, we will automatically discover a much wider range of subjects and styles. As a result our audience will expand over the entire population, much like has happened with film and print, when they grew out of their geeky period. There will be video games for everyone.

Because video games will be a medium.

Post Scriptum

At Tale of Tales, we attempt to respond to this desire of video games to become a medium — in our own modest, independent, artistic way. We’re attracted to the immersive and expressive potential of video game technology but we try not to start from the assumption that our work needs to be formatted like a game. Instead, all assets and interactions are created for the purpose of sharing an idea, a situation, a set of feelings, etc. We hope that through careful design, our work can become accessible to an audience not familiar with video games.

Thanks to the Notgames initiative, we have found many soul mates: creators with wildly different views and one common passion: to explore the potential of interactive technology beyond the conventions of traditional games.

Video-games-as-media do not replace video-games-as-games. Games have always existed. And they will continue to exist on computers too. What we are advocating here is the birth of something entirely new: a new medium for a new century, a medium capable of addressing the complexity of contemporary life in a form that is enriching as well as enjoyable. And we believe that video games have the potential to become this medium.(Source:Gamasutra)


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