对于Zynga社交游戏的批评声之一就是他们游戏设计主要是基于用户反馈参数。公司首席设计师布莱恩·雷诺兹（Brian Reynolds）日前否认了这一说法，他认为Zynga用户反馈参数的最大受益者是游戏玩家。

雷诺兹表示，“游戏设计师并不需要依靠用户反馈参数。但Zynga很重视该参数。这是一门学问，是我们的优势之一，公司有人专门负责关注用户反馈参数，随时修改数据。有些设计师自己也很感兴趣，他们也希望参与其中的工作，几乎所有团队成员都有参与其中。看到团队成员希望自己多一技之长，学习更多知识，我觉得很高兴，但这并不是游戏设计师的主要职责。”

游戏邦发现，参考用户反馈参数是该公司文化的一部分，“公司文化来源于网络世界。”虽然有批评的声音，但雷诺兹依旧认为，“数据让游戏设计更有创意。”

FrontierVille

玩家从用户反馈参数中收益的例子之一是《FrontierVille》。游戏最初阶段的目标是建造一座小屋。游戏邦发现，成功完成第一项任务的玩家会继续玩游戏，并且玩的时间更长（这对像Zynga之类的免费游戏开发公司来说是至关重要的），因此建造小屋任务的难度被降低了。在这个看似无关紧要的调整之后，雷诺兹表示，“游戏初期阶段的用户留存率有了直线上升，玩家完成小屋建造之后，就开始成为游戏的忠实玩家。这样一来，从根本上来说，游戏就变得更有趣。避免玩家过早被一些无趣的障碍阻挠，更容易使他们对游戏产生兴趣，玩家因此可以体验到游戏的精华部分，‘噢，这太棒了，我有自己的小屋，接下来还会有新鲜事发生。’这不过是团队设计游戏的一个简单例子。”

此外，雷诺兹还清楚表示，Zynga的游戏设计师不会单单依靠用户反馈参数设计游戏，但这一参数确实有所帮助。他接着表示，“数据可以为功能开发的选择提供大致的想法，因为有些功能能够推动用户体验游戏，留住用户，提高回访频率，或者邀请朋友参与体验等诸如此类的。所以开发商可以在众多游戏功能中有所侧重，但其仍旧需要创造性的员工将功能优化、有趣化，配合长期的游戏剧情发展，并能为用户所理解。所以我认为用户反馈参数能够帮助我们制作更好的游戏。”

用户反馈参数显然在公司的开发过程是个弥足重要的方面。Zynga成绩斐然，所以让人难以认同这是个错误之举，至少从商业角度来说。游戏邦获悉，Zynga的估值高过EA，其众多游戏长期盘踞Facebook的热门游戏榜单。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

In Defense of Zynga’s Metrics-Driven Game Design

One of the criticisms of Zynga’s line of social networking games is that they are designed primarily using metrics. The company’s chief games designer, Brian Reynolds, denies that this is the case and believes the influence of metrics on Zynga’s games is actually a good thing for those who play them. “Game designers don’t necessarily do a lot with metrics,” Reynolds told IndustryGamers. “Zynga does a lot with metrics. But that’s a discipline, that’s a craft for us and there are people that do that and they bring that in and add that. And some game designers get interested in that and they want to do some of that themselves, and anybody on my team, I love it when they want to have two specialties and learn more but it’s not actually the thing we’re looking for in a game designer.”

That usage of metrics is part of the company’s culture, “having come out of the web industry.” Despite claims to the contrary, Reynolds believes that “it adds on to the creative field of game design.”

One example of metrics benefitting gamers comes in FrontierVille. An early objective is to build a cabin. Realizing that those who succeeded in finishing this task were more likely to stick around and play for longer (the most critical thing to free-to-play games like Zynga’s), the hurdles in completing the cabin were eased. After making a seemingly insignificant change — increasing the number of horseshoes players begin with from 10 to 15 — Reynolds says, “[S]ure enough we had a substantial uptick in early retention — in people getting to the cabin and therefore sticking as players. In that way, essentially, it made the game more fun. It made it easier to get into the game without being blocked too early by stuff that wasn’t fun. It lets you get to the point where it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. I have a cabin and now there’s new stuff happening.’ That’s just a very simple example of how we can do stuff but on our teams.”

Reynolds also made it very clear that game designers who come to Zynga won’t be saddled working exclusively with metrics — but they clearly serve a purpose. He continued, “[T]he numbers give us an idea of roughly what kind of feature to do because there are some kinds of features that are more likely to drive people to pay or to drive people to stick and come back a lot or to invite their friends or things like that. So you can kind of aim a feature at different things or different combinations of things, but then you still have to have someone to be creative to make it cool and to make it fun and to make it fit into a long term story that makes sense to people. So I think that the metrics are something that help us make the games better.”

Metics are clearly an important aspect of the design process for the company. Given its success, it’s hard to say that it’s the wrong decision — at least from a business perspective. The company has been deemed more valuable than Electronic Arts and its games are consistently among the most popular on Facebook. （Source：1up.com）