GDC的“发泄座谈会”经常是该大会最令人难忘的亮点，今年也不例外，大小社交游戏开发商都在这个会谈中直抒己见，畅所欲言。

该座谈会的联合主持人艾瑞克·齐默尔曼（Eric Zimmerman）首先在开场白中表示，人们在谈到行业最抢手的工作时，总会把矛头指向社交游戏开发者，“社交游戏开发者已经招来大量的非议，无论是业内还是业外，都有人对他们很是嫉妒。”

GDC 2011

《Wizardry》的设计师、社交游戏工作室Loot Drop的联合创始人布伦达·布瑞斯韦特（Brenda Brathwaite）激动地表示，就像当初《真人快打》（Mortal Kombat）这部电影遭到了政府及其他组织的打压这种情况，游戏行业一直是在争议声中走到今天的，她号召与会人员联合起来，捍卫自己所热爱的游戏事业。

据游戏邦了解，布瑞斯韦特还特别强调，必须抵制社交游戏会分化整个游戏行业的看法。她认为那种通过令人上瘾的设置，拼命掘金的社交游戏，与一心为用户提供出色体验的社交游戏是有区别的。

Zynga首席游戏设计师布莱恩·雷诺兹（Brian Reynolds）的演讲相对温和，仅表示社交游戏是有价值的，因为它为用户创造了互动和社交的条件，社交游戏比传统游戏更容易获得大量用户，“我觉得这一点很有趣，我现在有机会与更多用户沟通……之前还没有人可以通过游戏与用户接触或者交流。”

Playdom公司的史蒂夫·马瑞查克（Steve Meretzky）则较为辛辣地嘲讽了游戏设计师以外的其他人员，认为某些公司高管只是“玩过许多游戏，读过Gamasutra上的一些文章，就误以为自己也可以参加游戏设计大会，并对游戏设计指手划脚。”

除此之外，他还引用了马尔科姆•格拉德威尔（Malcolm Gladwell）的《Outliers》这书本中的观点：想成为做任何一事的能手，则必须在该事物上至少投入1万个小时的心血。马瑞查克的观点是，他从事游戏开发工作至少超过6万小时了，但因为游戏行业变化很快，所以他仍在不断学习中。游戏邦获悉，他认为这个行业应该尊重这种学习态度，而不是像一些企业高管那样直接砍掉了整个游戏开发过程。

该会议的特殊嘉宾及《Spy Party》的设计师克里斯·赫克（Chris Hecker）提出建议，认为应该扩大游戏行业的视野，在游戏中融入更多人类活动元素， 而不是在生活中采取游戏化行动。他提出了“提升游戏内涵”的观点（他也承认这个观点并不是很适合）。他强调可以在游戏中加入一些更具人性化、简单的互动机制，并列举了《Ico》中的手把手教导机制，《荒野大镖客》玩家对马儿的依恋情感等例子来说明这一点。

Playdom设计师斯科特·乔·西格尔（Scott Jon Seigel）针对所有的社交游戏设计师直言，他认为自从《Farm Town》问世以来，整个社交游戏行业就走上了一条复制成功作品的模仿之路，极大削弱了游戏的创新和创意。他呼吁社交游戏设计师们充分发挥原创性，开发更有意义的社交游戏。

EA和Digital Chocolate创始人Trip Hawkins则表示担忧，认为各种新平台的出现，可能会让游戏大量贬值，以致手机及社交游戏开发商“成为待宰的羔羊”。他强调苹果App Store创造的10亿美元收益，平摊到25万款应用后，平均每款应用就只有4000美元，这个价钱“甚至不够买一张好一点的桌面足球桌”。（游戏邦注：有数据显示App Store的营收已接近20亿美元）

Hawkins表示掌机类型的游戏授权协议总是限制重重，这让很多开发商难以进军该领域，“至少任天堂就够证明你会吃亏。”

他将那些企图通过一个游戏创意一夜暴富的开发者，比喻为幻想自己可以在《美国偶像》中大获全胜的参赛者，“尽管这种想法的确很励志，但要想想你开发一款游戏打败《愤怒的小鸟》的难度究竟有多大……你不知道至少有1000个做这种尝试的人后来都失败了。”

Ian Bogost是最后一个演讲的开发者，他以自己的那款讽刺型游戏《Cow Clicker》为例，说明并无深度的社交游戏也有可能表达不同的创意。他将这种情况比作尼日利亚诗人Wole Soyinka在牢狱中用粪便在厕纸上写诗的情况，并指出“粪便让我们害怕和退缩，但如果不得不从中立足，我们也能找到存活的间缝，无论我们扔下什么东西，大家还是会从中获得养分并因此而成长。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

GDC 2011: Social Game Developers Direct Their Rage Outward, Inward

The GDC rant panel is regularly one of the most memorable events of the conference, and this year’s was no exception, with social game developers of all shapes and sizes unleashing their rage about their perception and also social games themselves.

Rant co-host Eric Zimmerman started things off by reminding the audience that social game developers are often seen near the “bottom of the barrel” when it comes to the industry’s coolest jobs.

“The social game developers arguably have drawn a tremendous amount of ire and controversy, some would say jealousy, form inside and outside the industry,” he said

Wizardry designer and co-founder of social game studio Loot Drop Brenda Brathwaite was up first, letting loose with a breathless, rapid-fire rant. She recalled how the game industry stood together through controversies ranging from the move to graphical games and the inclusion of console game developers in the old Computer Game Developers Conference to congressional hearings over Mortal Kombat and sex scandals in Grand Theft Auto. “We stood together, you and me, because we love games,” she said.

Now, she said, the industry should resist being divided by the supposed threat to the industry being created by social games. She differentiated between the social gaming “strip miners” trying to maximize profits at the expense of good gameplay and the thoughtful game designers up on the stage, who think that the new, non-traditional audience of social gamers deserve good games, too.

Zynga chief game designer Brian Reynolds was significantly more mellow in his rant, suggesting that social games have value because they provide an excuse for people to socialize, and that he’s now reaching more people than he ever did in traditional game development.

“I think it’s interesting and I [now] have a chance to talk to audiences larger than those that I or anybody else have been able to talk to before … People I’ve never been able to reach or talk to through games,” he said.

Playdom’s Steve Meretzky directed his rant at all the non-designers, from the CEO down to the mailroom, that think they have what it takes to design a good game. He let loose a barrage of derision for those who “think you can just waltz into into a design meeting and contribute because you play a lot of games and read a couple of articles on Gamasutra.”

Even though Malcolm Gladwell’s book outliers says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, Meretzky said he’s still learning after over 60,000 hours, largely because the game industry is such a constantly changing place. The industry should respect this kind of learning, rather than trying to cut it out of the game development process entirely, as some executives are trying to do.

Special guest ranter and Spy Party designer Chris Hecker provided an interlude focused on the wider world of games, and how they need more human moments to really achieve their potential. Rather than the gamification of life, he’s interested in “the lifification of games,” an admittedly awkward phrase, he said.

Hecker said he could do with never seeing another game with aliens and orcs in it, especially when they’re not needed to make a real personal or controversial statement, as they often were in classic science fiction. He also stressed that adding a human touch to games can be as simple as reaching out for a hand-hold in Ico or letting people form a connection to their very mortal horse in Red Dead Redemption

Zynga and Playdom designer Scott Jon Seigel directed his anger at the vast majority of social games, which he said have been led down a distressingly myopic path in the last two years by the success of Farm Town and similar games that generate a slow drip of reliable, time-based rewards. These games have been wildly successful, but have squashed the potential shown in great social games like Parking Wars, Bejeweled Blitz, and Mouse Hunt, he said.

“We started mimicking success patterns and everything became more and more recursive,” he argued. “We took a hard right turn and never looked back.”

Seigel urged the social game makers to take advantage of an “etch-a-sketch moment” to start over with a blank slate, building more meaningful social games.

EA and Digital Chocolate founder Trip Hawkins worried that social and mobile game developers may be “lambs to the slaughter” as new platforms erode the idea that games are worth money. He highlighted the fact that the $1 billion generated by Apple’s App Store has been divided up among 250,000 apps, leaving a $4,000 per app average that “doesn’t even pay for a good foosball table.” (the actual revenue figure may now be closer to $2 billion)

Hawkins said that while the walled garden of console-style license agreements could be equally restrictive, and meant fewer people got access to platforms, “at least Nintendo had the decency to tell you up front how you were going to get screwed.”

He also compared many of those trying to strike it rich with their game idea to the deluded American Idol contestants who all think they are going to be the big winner. “There’s something very inspiring about that, but just thinking you’re going to make the superior game that’s better than Angry Birds… what you don’t know is about the 1000s that tried and failed,” he said.

Ian Bogost was the rant session’s last presenter, using his satirical game Cow Clicker to highlight how even inherently pointless social games could be made into platforms for creative expression.

That alone doesn’t mean they’re worthwhile, though. He drew the analogy to Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka, who was forced to write poetry with feces on toilet paper when in jail as a political prisoner.

“Shit stinks,” he pointed out. “When forced to root in it we retch and cower, and yet despite it, we rise above. We find crevices… and rise up out of the filth… No matter what shit we throw, people grow and thrive.” （source:gamasutra）