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提高玩家参与性能够强化游戏意义

发布时间:2011-07-20 17:32:37 Tags:,,

作者:Ruud Koorevaar

你肯定听说过Zynga,也许知道Zynga的人不下数百万。这家社交游戏公司凭借其Ville系列游戏一举成名。

然而,我一方面对其钦佩至极,不禁感概,“怎么做到?”一方面又陷入沉思,“有趣,很有趣,是什么元素促使这些游戏大获成功?”我陷入两难抉择,一方面饶有兴趣,一方面又不敢深入其中。

Dungeon Overlord from curse.com

Dungeon Overlord from curse.com

这类游戏对我来说吸引不大。我合理安排游戏时间,如《FrontierVille》或《Dungeon Overlord》(游戏邦注:这款游戏源自PC经典游戏《Dungeon Keeper》)之类的作品,但这些游戏玩法都具有重复性,都很肤浅,无非就是瞎忙活。

这些琐碎任务存在一个问题。它们通常都被视作浪费时间。相比杀死1000只小生物,换取成就而言,你可以选择其他更有意义的事情,是吧?我相信有人不同意,但多数人都会持肯定态度。当前的主要问题在于意义。

日常生活的每个活动都有意义,包括钟情游戏里的虚拟飞机。你希望体验有意义的内容。你希望在体验中有所收获:乐趣、装置、晋级或打败对手。琐碎任务的问题是这些活动徘徊在有意义和无意义的边缘。

让游戏变得有意义的一个方式是给予某种奖励。奖励可分成内在奖励和外部奖励。瞄准闪闪发亮的战利品?外部奖励。想要放松和享受乐趣?内在奖励。

琐碎任务主要瞄准外部奖励。借助游戏框架(规则组合)下的特定方式(游戏机制),你希望以最有效方式达到个人或游戏目标(晋升至游戏终极状态)。例如,重复两种咒语会形成最高破坏/秒,那么你很可能会凭此实现最终游戏目标。因此,重复性的琐碎任务会自动出现,而你多半会选择投入其中,因为难挡闪闪发亮战利品的诱惑。

但为什么?为什么要在游戏中融入此机制?理由很简单。就游戏开发商角度看来,提供外部奖励要容易得多。添加额外战利品,设定规则规定其需花费1周方能获得,然后就万事大吉。玩家将投入时间争取战利品。相比而言,提供放松和满足感之类的内在奖励则困难得多,因为这基于动人故事,比融入故事情节要难得多。

这些奖励同意义创造过程相关。简单维持游戏无异于迅速失去游戏意义,因为获得重复外部奖励会使未来奖励变得毫无意义。势必出现“我已经历过”感觉。至于内在奖励,其意义完全基于玩家对于游戏乐趣的看法。例如,有趣故事、有效控制装置或舒缓音乐。

《Frontierville》之类游戏存在的问题是它们完全基于外部奖励。这意味着要获得此奖励需进行重复性活动(游戏邦注:因为游戏所要求的任务具有重复性)。收集钱币、种植庄稼、收割庄稼、清除杂草、獾和其他入侵者。这些都是采用循环模式。游戏希望你1小时后能够回访,完成相同任务。“怎么做到?”的声音仍旧不绝于耳。沉思还在继续。

若我们把沉浸概念引入游戏意义创造过程,将其应用至琐碎任务和社交游戏当中?

首先,沉浸性概念很复杂,是个极具争议的理论,其衍生概念和诠释方式多种多样。这里我们假设沉浸性是指参与至游戏中的感觉,这是个虚拟世界。通过参与游戏,你就能够创造游戏意义。然后我们把此“参与性”细化成6个方面。参与性体现在决策(策略参与)、控制(行为参与)、情感依附(情感参与)、同其他玩家交流和互动(分享参与)、故事描绘(叙述参与)以及融入游戏环境(空间参与)(游戏邦注:这个理论框架归功于游戏研究员Gordon Calleja)。

若我们将这些内容应用至社交游戏?就拿《FarmVille》来说。策略参与:选择实现目标的最有效方式。情感参与:你非常喜欢游戏角色。分享参与:通过Facebook发送垃圾邮件,因为你还需1块砖才能完成建筑。叙述参与:进行等待,还有故事?空间参与:打扮自己的小空间。

farmville from farmvillerapidgrowth.com

farmville from farmvillerapidgrowth.com

我觉得《FarmVille》之类的社交游戏似乎主要着眼于空间、分享和策略参与。有关空间参与方面,Zynga表现非常突出,因为其装扮个人田地内容是通过富有吸引力的方式实现。而分享参与则是另一回事。虽然这些游戏被称作“社交游戏”,但我觉得通过轻轻一点,发布事先写好的评论,索要物品不算具有社交性。同时也令我疑惑的是,游戏通过社交网络(超出玩家范围)促进社交互动的模式到底能够维持多久。策略参与关乎如何获得期望物品。这需要有效使用游戏机制。遗憾的是,游戏只提供几个基本模式供玩家实现目标:定期回访点击物品,在Facebook发布垃圾信息告知他人所需某物,进行建造,不断重复。到处都是“琐碎任务”。

随后,若我们把这些意义、奖励和参与元素片凑到一起,只能得出这样的结论:社交游戏还有广阔发展空间。或许是个叙述故事?供你同好友分享的故事?基于技术的战斗?在某比赛中挑战好友?通过赢得比赛比好友略胜一筹?引入更多定制工具?

提高玩家参与性能够强化意义创造过程。这将促使社交游戏步入新阶段。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Grinding Social Games into Involvement

by Ruud Koorevaar

Zynga, sure you’ve heard about them. Actually, a few hundred million of you out there probably have. This social network game developer enjoys great successes with every sort of –Ville game you could think of.

However, one side of me would drop to his knees and yell to the skies and cry “WHYYYY?!”, while another side of me would say, in a pose of deep contemplation, “hmm, interesting, very interesting, what makes these games tick?”. I am torn between a willing interest and an instinct of not daring to touch social games even with a 10 feet long pole.

This genre of games does not have a whole lot of appeal to me. I have had my fair share of playtime with for example FrontierVille or Dungeon Overlord, inspired by the PC-classic Dungeon Keeper, but these games usually do not offer much more than repetitive, superficial gameplay, commonly known as a grind.

There is a problem with grinds. Oftentimes they are regarded as a waste of time. You got better things to do than kill 1000 critters for an achievement, right? I’m sure some of you would say no, but probably a whole lot more would say yes. The issue at stake here is meaning.

You give a certain meaning to whatever you do on a daily basis, also in the virtual planes of your favorite games. You desire meaningful play. You want to gain something from playing: enjoyment, gear, beating a level or an opponent. The problem with grinds is that this phenomenon dangerously dabbles on the border between meaningful and meaningless play.

A method to achieve meaning in play is for example through offering certain rewards for playing the game. These rewards can be divided into extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Aiming for that shiny piece of loot? Extrinsic reward. Want to relax and enjoy yourself? Intrinsic reward.

Grinding predominantly plays into the extrinsic kind of reward. Through the use of certain methods (game mechanics) within a framework (the ruleset) you wish to achieve your personal or from the game out imposed goal (achieving the end-game state) in a fashion that is most efficient. For example, the rotation of two spells yields the highest damage per second possible, so you will most likely use that rotation to achieve your end-game state. Hence, the repetitiveness of the grind starts knocking on your door, wishing to be let in. And open the door you will, since shinies are attractive.

But why? Why implement such a dynamic in your game? Simple. That is because it is easy to sustain extrinsic rewards from the point of view from the game developer. Toss in a few more extra pretty pieces of loot, implement a ruleset which makes it so that it takes a week to get it, job’s done. Players will be investing time to gain the rewards. In comparison, intrinsic rewards as relaxation and satisfaction are ever harder to sustain, since it, among other things, relies on an appealing story. It’s a tad harder to just toss in another storyline.

These rewards relate to the process of giving meaning. Easy sustainability equals to a quick loss of meaning, since the attaining of repeated extrinsic rewards makes future rewards less meaningful. A sense of ‘been there, done that’ seems inevitable. Regarding intrinsic rewards, meaning giving processes are mostly inferred from the interpretation from the player’s point of view concerning sources of enjoyment. For example, elements as an appealing story, tight controls or soothing music.

The problem with games as Frontierville is that they rely heavily on extrinsic rewards. And the means to achieve them is through repetitiveness as the tasks that are asked of you are repetitive in nature. Collect coins, build crops, gather crops, clean out the weed, badgers and other trespassers. And it is all based on a cycle. The game wants you to come back an hour later and do all the same stuff once again. The cry “WHYYYY?!” is still echoing around. Contemplation continues.

What if we take the concept of immersion, which, as we will see, relates to meaning giving practices, and apply it to this grind and social games?

Now, first off, immersion is a tough concept. It’s a contested concept with hundreds of variations and interpretations of what it actually entails. Let’s just say for now that immersion implies a certain feeling of involvement with the game, its virtual world. It also relates back to what we have seen with meaning. Through involvement with the game you are able to give your play meaning. We can then slice this ‘involvement’ apart and divide it into six spheres. These are involvement through decision making (tactical involvement), control (performative involvement), emotional engagement (affective involvement), communicating and interacting with other agents in the game (shared involvement), the story (narrative involvement) and involving oneself within the environment that makes up the digital world of the game (spatial involvement). Deserved credits go to Gordon Calleja, game researcher, for developing this framework.

What if we apply this to social games? Let’s take FarmVille. Tactical involvement: choosing the most efficient method for reaching your goal. Affective involvement: you really like your generated avatar. Shared involvement: spamming through Facebook because you need that single brick to finish that building. Narrative involvement: wait, there is a story? Spatial involvement: dressing up the little area you own.

To me it seems as if social games as FarmVille predominantly focus on spatial, shared and tactical involvement. Regarding spatial involvement it appears that Zynga did fairly well, as dressing up your own plot of land is accomplished in an appealing fashion. However, shared involvement is another story. Even though these games are called ‘social’, I wouldn’t call posting pre-written comments through the single press of a button asking for goods very social. It also makes me wonder in how far these games facilitate sociability through the social network between players outside of actually playing the game. Tactical involvement then plays into the means of getting what you want. This requires using the mechanics of the game efficiently. Unfortunately, the game offers only a few base mechanics to achieve your goal: return on a cyclical basis to click stuff, spam on Facebook that you need stuff, build stuff, repeat. It has ‘grind’ written all over it.

Finally, if we fit all these puzzle pieces of meaning, rewards and involvement together I can only conclude that social games still have a wide horizon to explore. A narrative perhaps? Stories to share with your friends? Skill-based battles? Challenge your friends to a certain contest? Able to gain a one-up on your friends trough winning this contest? Introduce more customizing tools?

It would seem that involving the players to a greater extent will enhance meaning-giving processes. This could lift social games to a new level. Maybe the part of me asking “WHYYY?!” would even toss the 10 feet long pole aside.(Source:gamasutra


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