作者：Leigh Alexander

第47届美国副总统阿尔戈尔一直积极呼吁大众关注全球气候变化问题。但他日前在纽约大学的演讲议题却是游戏能够带来现实影响。

al gore from treehugger.com

福特基金会的Maya Harris介绍戈尔是“2011 游戏创造变化”大会的主题发言人，他的出现“凸显这场全球盛会的重要性，大会有望为公众谋取更多福利。该盛会促使活动主义者、变革推动者、技术人员和内容开发者汇集一堂，目的是创造和了解游戏影响力（游戏邦注：这是21世纪最大的媒介平台）。”

戈尔在纽约大学史克博尔中心登台时博得雷鸣般掌声。他表示，“我十分高兴能够参加此次盛会。我一直关注这个群体的发展。我在TED大会认识的几位好友告知我今年大会情况，所以当我获悉有机会和你们相聚时，我毫不犹豫决定参加。”

戈尔认为这是游戏发展的有趣时期，特别是公益来说，尽管按戈尔的话来说，全球经济当前处境“危险”。但他仍旧持乐观态度：“显然这是全球经济中发展势头良好的领域。”戈尔表示，同Will Wright共事，他颇为高兴（游戏邦注：Will Wright在Current TV开设一档互动节目《Bar Karma》，而戈尔是网络电视频道Current TV的联合创始人）。

戈尔表示，“游戏粉丝希望能够围绕游戏创造故事，Wright迎合这一需求推出系列供玩家自行创造‘故事基因组’的软件，然后让用户就故事情节发展进行投票。每周，用户投票结果都会送至制作组，供他们制作现场节目。这个方案十分有趣，很受追捧，能够认识Will实在是太棒了。”

戈尔表示，“游戏显然已成为大众媒介。这是个极其重要的大市场，其在各个平台的玩家群体各不相同，发展迅速。我们已经知道热门媒介在说明棘手、复杂问题方面影响力巨大，但游戏却能够以邀请玩家解决社会问题的方式向玩家说明和呈现这些问题。”

前副总统表示，“置身社交媒介和娱乐行业交叉领域的创造者能够更好发挥合作优势，创造能够改变社会的作品。”

活动主义者当前面临的最大问题是如何将复杂内容以新形式呈现。“从个人经验来看，秘诀就是寻找知道自己在做什么的合作伙伴，我认为这是个有趣的挑战，但不是一个特别棘手的难题。”

戈尔表示自己对游戏并不是十分精通，但很喜欢玩，很喜欢从中学习。他表示自己很喜欢以投资者身份同各个团队碰面，投资游戏领域的新技术。“看到如此多融入公益元素的创意旨在创造更好游戏空间，我感到很兴奋。”

他表示，过去几年来，“游戏热度猛增，”部分归功于iOS、Android以及Facebook平台（游戏邦注：这些平台都是延续电子游戏发展之路）。戈尔表示，“如今我们能够肯定地说游戏已是成千上万用户每月的新日常活动。”

“游戏界面和得分规则已经标准化。游戏化趋势影响力巨大，游戏如今主导Facebook和iOS应用榜单重要席位。游戏变得越来越有策略性；其如今已经成为大学和职业学校教授的技艺之一，我们都知道实践学习是最佳学习方式。”

他表示，“游戏如今是世界级艺术设计，是其他领域所无法比拟的。”

他开玩笑表示，现在我们或许能够“制作反映政治问题的《FarmVille》”。他表示自己很赞同大家汇集一堂，了解出于公益目的游戏的发展态势。

如今似乎所有来自企业和民间组织的人士都希望走游戏化道路，但不是所有人都知道该怎么走。各种软件开发商力图通过随意添加积分系统和排行榜，采取混合策略，参与至游戏化领域中。这当然没这么简单：“按照玩家思维设计内容至关重要。”

戈尔引用必应戈登总结的游戏制胜要素：首先，第一印象是关键：“需在头5秒让玩家觉得‘啊，我棒极了！我办得到。’”第一印象应符合或超越期望，创造可衡量的用户期望值。

其次：“玩家需要成功，需要迅速获胜，开发商应创造回访理由，玩家应能够轻松邀请他人参与。第三，登陆页面很重要：很多视觉媒体的头条原则是提高画面质量效果。画面效果需符合该类型内容（游戏邦注：不论是应用、网站，还是游戏）标准。”

能够强化故事情节，通过关卡、角色和经历创造意义的游戏功能是最具潜力的应用之一。戈尔表示，“出乎意料的是，合作模式以3比1比例超越竞争模式。玩家希望能够按照特定规则进行合作，他们希望能够自我监督。”

玩家偏好合作体验和创建社区，这对游戏领域来说是个振奋人心的现象。戈尔表示：“这些社交社区给出积极评价，告知游戏化的适应范围。我们有时是根据某些最低标准游戏定义行业。但合作模式超越竞争模式，社交规则领域如今发展步伐加快。”

他明白游戏在人类生活当中的影响力和重要价值，他对游戏化和社交媒介的交叉领域尤为感兴趣，他谈到Zynga如何让《FarmVille》玩家通过购买游戏种子支持各种公益活动。

Trash Tycoon from marinehandheldgps.info

戈尔希望能有游戏帮助宣传其杰作《难以忽视的真相》。“我深受最近作品《Trash Tycoon》和《Oceanopolis》的鼓舞，这两款游戏转变我对这个行业的看法。最后，我表示我愿意同任何团队协作开发旨在解决气候问题的游戏。我希望自己能够更深入了解这个社区。”

Oceanopolis from pcgamersworld.com

在问答环节，当被问及游戏是种逃避观点（游戏邦注：将游戏视作逃避现实而非改变现实的途径）时，戈尔表示，“书本亦是如此。我们需要学会充分适应我们当前的生活，但没有人能够做到。”

他补充表示，“我觉得这个观点无可非议。游戏沉浸性使其用户超过媒介平台，这些用户如此投入其中，俨然是在逃避。但至少内容很有趣，从中获得的经验和教训在改善现实生活方面都颇有用处。”

“我相信人类，相信人类本性。若在游戏过程中，他们能够获得富有建设性、有价值的经验，那么这就是好的。”

他总结表示，“你们让我充满希望。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

G4C: Al Gore Says ‘Games Have Clearly Arrived As A Mass Medium’

by Leigh Alexander

Forty-seventh U.S. Vice President Al Gore has become a passionate advocate for awareness of global climate issues. But in a Gamasutra-attended speech on Monday at New York University, his focus was on how games can spark real-life change.

In the words of the Ford Foundation’s Maya Harris, who introduced Gore as the 2011 Games for Change event’s keynote speaker, his presence at the event “underscores the importance of this unique global gathering, and the immense potential for the greater public good by bringing together activists, change agents, technologists and content creators under one roof for the purpose of creating and realizing the impact of the 21st century’s largest media platform: Games.”

Gore took the stage at NYU’s Skirball Center to thunderous applause. “I’m very, very happy to be here and to see this gathering,” he says. “I have followed the progress of this group. I’ve been advised by some friends that I saw at the TED conference this year, so when I had the opportunity to come and join you this year, I seized it,” he told the packed theater.

Gore sees this as an interesting era for games, and particularly the arena of games for social good — despite a time when the global economy is, as he says, “dicey.” But he’s optimistic: “Certainly this is a sector of the economy that justifies that optimism,” he says. Gore cited the pleasure of having worked with Will Wright, who has created interactive program Bar Karma for Current TV, a web TV channel Gore co-founded.

“The aficionados of the games were drawn to create storylines around the games, and [Wright] took that and created a unique piece of software that allows people to create ‘story genomes’ and then vote on the path the plot takes. Each week, the results of the user votes are given to a production team to develop live programs. “It’s been very interesting and award-winning, and it’s been great to get to know Will,” says Gore.

“Games have clearly arrived as a mass medium,” says Gore. “This is a very large, extremely significant industry with a wildly diverse and rapidly-growing audience of players on all kinds of platforms. We already know the immense power of popular media to illuminate issues that can seem intractable and overly-complex, but [through games] can be illuminated and presented to general audiences in a way that invites people to become involved in trying to solve the problems that our society has to solve.”

Creators working at the intersection of social media and entertainment are “in the best place to leverage collaborations that can create games for change,” the Vice President says.

The biggest issue with which activists are now working is how to translate complex content into new formats. “I could tell you that from my own experience, the secret seems to me to be to get some really good partners who know what they’re doing… I found [finding partners with technical ability] a fun challenge — and not a particularly difficult one.”

Gore claims no particular facility with games himself, but says he’s enjoyed playing and learning about them. He also says he enjoys meeting with teams as an investor to fund new technologies in this space. “It has been very exciting to me to see so many ideas that integrate social good and efforts to make the world a better place into games.”

Over the last few years, “there has been an explosion of interest in games,” he says, part of which can be credited to the popularity of the iOS and Android platform, along with Facebook — all of which have built on the roads paved by video games all along. “Now we’ve arrived at a point where it’s safe to say that games are the new norm for hundreds of millions of users every month,” Gore says.

“Game interfaces and scoring rules have become standard… the gamification trend is really, extremely powerful, and you see games dominating the top lists of apps on Facebook and iOS,” he adds. “And games are becoming increasingly artful; it’s now a craft taught in universities and trade schools, and we all know that learning by doing is one of the best ways to learn.”

“What we’re seeing in games is art at a world-class stage design that is almost unmatched anywhere else,” he says.

Now, we have an opportunity to create “FarmVilles for policy,” he joked, expressing his support and enthusiasm for the crowd gathered at the event to learn about the “growing movement” for games for social good.

It seems that everyone from entrepreneurs and NGO want to “gamify” these days, but not everyone knows how to go about it. All kinds of software makers are trying to jump in by arbitrarily adding point systems and leaderboards and taking a “mix-and-stir” aproach, the Vice President observes. But it isn’t that easy, of course: “It seems obvious, but crucial to design to the gamer’s mind,” he notes.

Gore cited Bing Gordon’s list of features that make games successful: First, first impressions count: “In the first five seconds, a gamer needs to feel, ‘ah, I’m smart! I can do this’,” he says. First impressions should also meet or beat expectations, and create measurable expectations on the part of the user.

Second: “They need to win, and win fast, and have a reason to come back, and they need an easy way to invite others to participate. Third, the landing screen is crucial: One of the first rules of any visual media is the quality of the visual… the visual needs to match the type of app or site or game that you are about to play.”

The ability of game features to enhance storylines and create meaning through quests, characters and experiences is one of its most promising applications. “And it’s amazing that by a three to one ratio, cooperation beats out competition,” says Gore. “People want the ability to cooperate with clear rules, and the ability to self-police.”

This preference for cooperation and community building is heartening for the games space, says Gore: “These social communities say something positive about us and what gamification can do. This industry is sometimes defined by some of the lowest common denominator games… but the cooperation over competition, and the social rules aspect is gaining momentum.”

He notes the impact and crucial value of play among all living things, and is especially drawn to the junction of gamification and social media, noting how Zynga allows FarmVille players to support various causes through the purchase of seeds in the game.

For Gore’s part, he personally hopes for a game that can support the momentum of his acclaimed work, An Inconvenient Truth. “I’ve been encouraged by recent developments like Trash Tycoon and Oceanopolis, and both have spurred my thinking in this area. In closing, I want to say that I’d love to work with any teams that are interested in making games that are focused on solutions to the climate crisis. I look forward to getting to know this community better.”

During the Q&A session, when asked about the theory of games-as-escapism — as ways to flee reality rather than change it — Gore suggested, “you can say the same thing about books, really. You should try to live completely in the present moment all the time, but none of us do.”

He adds, “I do think the concern is well-taken. The immersive quality of games can produce more than the medium’s share of people who get so caught up that it really does become an escape. But at it’s best it is interesting, fun play… lessons and knowledge that are useful in changing reality for the better.”

“I have faith in people and in human nature. During the time they are spending in the game, if there are constructive, valuable lessons, I think that’s a good thing.”

“You give me cause for tremendous hope,” he concluded.（Source：gamasutra）