作者：Ethan Mollick

决定电子游戏成败的是开发公司或团队成员吗？假如作品的成败确实取决于人为因素，那么设计师和制作人哪个的影响更大呢？我想用最近得出的研究报告来回答这些问题。我调查了1994年至2006年间854款电脑游戏、537位个体制作人、739名个体设计师和395个公司，这些游戏的总盈利达到40亿美元，而且我还使用了“交叉分类的多级会员制模式”这个复杂的计量经济学技术。在考虑诸多因素之后，我发现游戏经济上的成功22%取决于个体制作人，7%取决于设计师，21%取决于其他的游戏开发人员和组织。尽管这些结果看起来令人惊奇，但确实是分析多种类型游戏后得出的健全结果。决定游戏盈利多寡的关键在于制作人，设计师的影响反倒很小。而且，游戏的成功最决于制作人的变化。

games developers(from allianceforyoungartistsandwriters.blogspot.com)

我利用MobyGames的数据库来进行此项分析，结合RA团队的作品来获取游戏荣誉和成功公司的数据。所调查的游戏包括畅销游戏（游戏邦注：如《模拟人生》、《过山车大亨》和《星际争霸》）和小型却更专业化的项目（游戏邦注：如《不朽之都》、《波斯王子：王者无双》和《Battlecruiser 3000AD》）。我使用NPD Funworld中的盈利数据来辨别游戏的成功度。我也尝试过使用GameRankings和MetaCritic的排名，行业内的人士应该不会对此有异意，尽管它们的数据并不适合用来衡量游戏的成功与否，但显示出的结果与上文相同——制作人的作用至少是设计师的两倍。统计中，我还考虑到制作团队的大小、游戏的题材、发布年份、游戏是否申请专利、是否是续作以及游戏的发行商等诸多要素。将这些不同之处纳入统计中，我探究游戏盈利差异与设计师、项目制作人和公司的关联。

与个体设计师和制作人产生的影响相比，游戏开发者整体重要性出奇得低，对游戏盈利影响力只有21%。因为我在分析中未考虑其他重要的团队成员（游戏邦注：如程序员和美工），因而游戏开发者管理人员的重要性依然不得而知，但他们的影响力最多与制作团队中的每个个体相当。这些制作人不但不能随意更换，而且与游戏的成败息息相关。

而且，在解释游戏的成败时，制作人与设计师的相对重要性数据令人感到惊奇。即便是在创意性产品当道的行业里，顶级、普通设计师对游戏盈利的影响差异远不如顶级、普通制作人对游戏盈利的影响。制作人并非游戏机器中无足轻重的零件，与那些顶级管理人员相比，他们的重要性也并非相形见绌。制作人对游戏表现的影响力事实上超过组织因素，也就是说制作人扮演着重要的角色。尽管这个结果似乎会令人大感惊奇，但研究得出的数据确实如此。

近期又研究了其他行业中个人和团队的职能，包括咨询和漫画行业，结果表明成功的创新行为中有着复杂的个人和团队互动因素。制作人对公司表现的影响力大大超过独立设计师。结果显示，单个高效设计师不足以让公司的表现发生改变，但独立制作人却可以整合和协调其他人的创新工作。

值得注意的是，即便制作人对游戏的成败至关重要，但他们从未受到过重视。我对2008年游戏开发者大会的出席人员进行了调查，发现制作人的作用与游戏行业中对其的奖赏并不相符。比如，据报道制作人的奖金数不足总平均工资的9%，只有10%的制作人能拿到部分游戏盈利。似乎正是因为如此，许多制作人才没有真正意识到自己的重要性，至少无从证实我在分析中提供的数据是真实的。

现在我们要回到前面提到的数据，那些数据表明制作人个人能力的差异会对游戏盈利产生重大影响，设计师也会产生些许影响。根据制作人的差异，原本可能能够产生3000万美元盈利的游戏，最后或许会有700万美元的变化幅度。然而，选择顶级或普通设计师产生的盈利差异或许只有200万美元。如果制作人和设计师保持不变，单纯更换开发者，盈利差异在650万美元左右。

并不是说设计师不重要，只是设计人才质量的差异对游戏盈利的影响不如制作人大。

附：根据我所得到的评论，补充以下几个观点。首先，此结论完全来源于统计和经济分析，所得出的结果也同样令我感到惊奇，我确实也希望看到设计师对游戏盈利能产生更大的影响。结果并非想贬低游戏设计师，我会尽量说清楚自己的观点，以避免产生误会。以上仅仅是我得出的结果而已，我只不过是把它们公布出来。分析显示设计师的好与坏对项目表现的影响不大，而团队中制作人的好与坏会对游戏的表现产生巨大的影响。对此等事实，我只能根据其他学术作品提供些许理论依据。或许好坏制作人间的差异比设计师更为明显，多数设计师位于好坏之间，差异不大。或许是因为在开发过程中制作人的沟通作用弥足珍贵。

关于游戏的荣誉，我使用的是Moby Games网站的资料，而且用其他数据校准以确保准确性。尽管荣誉不能反映贡献程度，但这12年共计850款游戏的数据综合分析结果应该相差不大。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Why Producers Matter (Statistically) More than Designers

Ethan Mollick

Is it the company or the people on the team that determine the success of video games? And, to the extent that it is the people that determine success, is it the designer or producer role that has the largest impact? A recent research paper of mine attempts to answer these questions, by studying 854 computer games, 537 individual producers, 739 individual designers, and 395 companies between 1994 and 2006 (representing $4 billion in revenue), using a sophisticated econometric technique called Multiple Membership Cross-Classified Multilevel Modeling. Controlling for a wide variety of factors, I found that the difference among individual producers accounted for over 22% of the financial success of the game, the differences among designers around 7%, and the rest of the game developer’s people and organization, about 21%. These results, while surprising, turned out to be extremely robust over many types of analysis – the choice of producer is key to determining a game’s revenue, while the choice of designer matters very little. Further, these skills are portable, even when producers move from one developer to another

For this analysis, I used the MobyGames database, combined with the work of a team of RAs, to get data on game credits and company success. The list of games included everything from the top selling games (The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Starcraft) to smaller and more specialized projects (Immortal Cities, Two Thrones, Battlecruiser 3000AD). I used NPD Funworld’s revenue figures to track success. (It may be unsurprising to people in the industry that I tried to use GameRankings and MetaCritic ratings as well, but they turned out to be bad statistical measures of game success, though they showed similar results – that the role of producers were at least twice that of designers). I statistically controlled for the size of the team, the genre of the game, year of release, whether titles were based on licensed property, whether they were sequels, and the publisher of the game. After accounting for these many differences, I looked at how much of the revenue differences between games could be explained by the designers and producers on the project, and how much by the company.

Compared to the impact of individual designers and producers, the importance of the game developer as a whole was surprisingly small, accounting for 21% of the difference between games. Especially given that I do not include other important team members in my analysis (such as programmers and artists), it is unclear how significant top managers at game developers actually are in explaining performance, but they are, at most, on the same scale as the role played by just one individual within the product team. Far from being interchangeable, the individuals involved uniquely contribute to the success or failure of a game.

Additionally, the relative importance of producers over designers in explaining a game’s success is surprising. Even in an industry that rewards creative and innovative products, the difference between top and bottom designers seems to have much less impact than the difference between top and bottom producers. Rather than acting as cogs in the machine, dwarfed by the importance of top managers, the effect of producers on performance was actually larger than that of organizational factors, implying that differences between producers play an outsized role, even over the $4 billion in revenue generated by games in the sample. Though this finding might seem surprising, it is supported by research on the role of project middle managers in the innovation process.

Recent research on the role of individuals and groups in industries as diverse as consulting and comic books supports a longer literature on project management that has demonstrated the complex interaction between individuals and teams in successful innovation. The finding that producers have significantly more impact on firm performance than individual designers aligns with this tradition. It suggests that high-performing designers alone are not enough to generate performance variation; rather, it is the role of individual producers to integrate and coordinate the innovative work of others.

It is worth noting that even though producers seem vitally important to the success of a game, they are not compensated in a way that acknowledges the vast difference between the best and worst producers. Based on a survey conducted with the attendees of the Game Developers Conference in 2008, I found that individuals reported relatively weak connections between performance and reward in the game industry. Producers, for example, reported bonuses that accounted for less than 9% of their total salary on average, with only 10% of producers reporting either a share of royalties or profits. It may be the case that many producers are not truly aware their own significance, or at least cannot prove it, without the kind of detailed longitudinal data I used in my analysis. Successes are claimed by many, while the blame for failures is often blurred, or, in the words of the old proverb, “victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan.”

It is worth returning to the data one last time and noting that the difference in individual ability among producers, and, to a much lesser extent, designers, is one of the most important drivers of a game’s revenue. A game that would normally generate $30M in revenue could see their sales change by as much as $7M, depending on the quality of the producers involved. The difference between selecting either the top and bottom designers, however, accounts for a less significant $2M. And, keeping the same producer and designers, but changing the developer, could result in a difference in revenue of about $6.5M. You can read more detail in the full paper, People and Process, Suits and Innovators: Individuals and Firm Performance.

This does not mean that designers are not important, or that they do not play a vital role, but it suggests that getting the “best” versus the “worst” design talent has far less impact on the game than getting the best possible producer.

Some additional information (updated, again): Based on the comments I have received, a few additional points. First off, this is basically the result of a statistical, economic analysis – the results surprised me as well, I was certainly expecting to find a bigger impact on revenue from designers than I did. The results are not intended to show a lack of respect to designers, nor was the title of the post, and I have attempted to clarify the language in hopes that I do not cause offense. It is merely the results that I found, and that I am reporting here. The analysis shows that having the best versus worst designers on a team only changes project performance slightly, while having the best versus worst producers on a team has a tremendous impact on the performance of a game. I can only offer theories about why this is the case, based on other academic work. It might be the case that producers have a wider range of talent than designers (the best producers are really good, and the worst producers are really bad, while most designers fall somewhere in the middle), for example. Or, as is the case with many project managers in creative industries, the producer’s role in bridging the gap between all of the stakeholders during development might be far more important than is realized. Any ideas you have to explain the gap would also be appreciated.

As to the source of credits, I used Moby Games, with some spot-checking of the data to ensure accuracy (which seemed high). I realize credits do not always reflect contributions, but unless there is a reason to suspect that there is severe bias that would cause either designer or producer credits to be particularly inaccurate over 12 years and over 850 games, this shouldn’t have a large effect. There is much more discussion of Moby Games and data collection in the comments below. (Source: Gamasutra)