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互相指责毫无意义 探索游戏灵魂才是出路

发布时间:2011-08-09 22:59:10 Tags:,,,

作者:Leigh Alexander

在多年共同奋斗追逐大众创造性和精神认可后,游戏设计师似乎开始互相指责。

已有手机游戏公司估值超4亿美元,业内最大社交游戏开发商IPO成为舆论焦点,新平台俨然已开始成为主流媒介。

许多公司,不论是媒介还是信息领域,都受到传统AAA领域元老的鼎力支持,其中包括Brian Reynolds、Raph Koster、Steve Meretzky和Brenda Brathwaite。

这些设计师都在视频游戏领域服务几年或几十年,曾为促使视频游戏成为主流用户眼中的正统游戏而奋斗。如今他们开始转移至不同领域,同那些他们之前质疑其设计师身份正当性的同伴共事。

虽然社交领域吸金能力非凡,但其开发商依然处在防御状态。Raph Koster之前以Playdom高管身份发表首个GDC Online演讲时,得到的仍旧是批评声音(游戏邦注:或许这并非巧合,他的演讲与AAA领域“转战”社交游戏有关)。

Twitter弥漫的是蔑视气氛;他们拒绝同伴推出的Facebook游戏。硬核博客圈极不情愿地以嘲讽腔调叙述这个日益壮大并且难以被忽略的新兴市场,甚至连午夜鸡尾酒宴的谈论话题都追逐众多大会焦点,认为社交游戏开发商将逐步崭露头角。

Ian Bogost凭借其讽刺作品《Cow Clicker》晋升为社交游戏评论家,并常把社交游戏领域形容成“痛苦”世界。这或许不是巧合,他在GDC Online讲话主题似乎有意与Koster的陈述唱反调,虽然二者的演讲时间非常相近。

cow clicker from blogcdn.com

cow clicker from blogcdn.com

社交游戏开发商的防御立场中最奇怪的是,他们仿佛觉得自己有必要向同伴或之前的同事证明,双方都在服务于主流玩家,大家都在超越自我。

选择方案

设计基于反馈参数的游戏,以强制循环吸引用户在未来几个月持续登陆并花钱消费,会比需要数百人投入制作,展开大量市场调研、锁定大众市场的畅销掌机FPS内容更有意义吗?

若Brathwaite和Reynolds之类的人物“留下来”带领开发永远局限于掌机平台的第7、8个游戏续作,他们是否就会赢得其他同僚的敬重?

当然瞄准《文明》这样的畅销力作显然不会错。就像制作《FrontierVille》这样的炙手可热作品不会有什么不妥一样。但为何反对阵营双方总会觉得必须声明自己比对方更具存在价值?

但当我们观察Bogost形容的“痛苦”后,就发现更有趣的问题。假设元老设计师觉得自己在创造力受限、经济依赖性极强的AAA领域不能发挥一技之长,那他们是因“逃避”而受到排挤吗?他们是否应该留下来,在徒劳的目标中丧失信心,强迫自己在某段时间和某个领域内进行再创造,而实现这些多半依靠运气,而非技能或努力?

更进一步来说,传统游戏开发商是否对那些逃离者“期望太高”?看到AAA开发所提供的最可行选择方案,从精神和创造性角度看不过是个平级移动,这是否有些令人沮丧?

社交批评声缘由

目前我们最常使用的答案是传统开发商因社交游戏开发而受到“威胁”或侮辱:当风投资本家在峰会讲话完全围绕50美分Flash游戏的商业模式,认为掌机并不重要,自然会引起那些在传统领域艰苦奋斗人士的不满。当Koster这些原本倡导传统原则的设计师发表诸如“不理解金钱含义就算不上设计师”之类的言论时,定会令有些人感到不快。

但Koster是否有错?虽然承认这点或许会令人觉得些许“庸俗”或厌恶,但是否存在同金钱无关的游戏开发活动,特别是在如今更多靠力作推动的传统游戏领域?即便是独立开发者也关注资金,纷纷在公共基金活动奋力争取露脸的机会。

有人或许会称这不是资金问题,而是关乎社交游戏制作方式。人们对社交游戏的普遍谴责是,这个领域完全依靠点击、留存率和用户数量,开发商采用空洞的技巧刺激玩家回馈神经系统,这种机制无异于吞金的老虎机,甚至有人在GDC Online上提到这类游戏就像”可卡因“。

所以?社交领域是否胜过AAA领域?经营虚拟农场和点击玉米棒子是否不如粉碎南瓜或《魔兽世界》玩家替村民杀死12只狼有道德?至少Facebook用户彼此认识,不存在礼貌问题。或许Facebook游戏要求你将在线“好友”视为一种可利用的服务和积分获取渠道有些糟糕,但追求Achievement和Trophy追又有何不同?若你令Facebook“好友”失望,他们至少不会以粗鲁语言回敬你。

这两种娱乐方式都没有特定道德或精神质量标准。它们各自的用户群体都非常享受其中,那么为何要继续进行徒劳争辩呢?而且传统领域存在颇有深度的故事叙述内容,我们无需不断重温《Ico》和《传送门》也能获取这些内容。

自我反省

看看《生化奇兵 2》精心制作的”女神的巢穴“DLC,《荒野大镖客》中的叙事方式,或者是Thatgamecompany等工作室采用的个人和哲学开发方案。

比较之后就会发现Facebook领域存在真正社交性,就我个人来说,我和好友因其中某些简单、愚昧的“算命”应用而自创了不少我们圈子的真实笑话,所以不难想象,真正的玩家也已经从《FrontierVille》获得大量乐趣。

若这些两个快速发展领域各有优点,辩论意义何在?若两种思想学派都充满商业性,那么或许设计师应该为更深层次的内容而互相指责——拯救电子游戏的灵魂。

因为这是所有人奋斗的目标,是吧?大家应该听听Richard Bartle有关MUD游戏历史的讲话。他自嘲批评现代设计的唯一方式就是以历史课作为幌子,他也确实是这么做的。MUD类型游戏是因人们的自我表达需求而生,如今的多数游戏却并非如此。

他称“你要有表达欲望”,他的声音非常高亢,似乎想要传递某种紧迫感,这曾促使青少年开发者白手创造多人游戏世界。

这就是设计的灵魂,完全不受商业或参数元素影响。这是游戏的目标,旨在突破作品本身,也许设计领域的所有“痛苦”正是源于辩论双方之间的冲突。这或许是由于互相指责对方的失败,要比直视缺陷简单得多。

游戏邦注:原文发布于2010年10月13日,文章叙述以当时为背景。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Analysis: In An Era Of ‘Anguish’, Game Design Searches For Its Soul

by Leigh Alexander

[As new markets emerge, social game designers are finding themselves oddly divided from their AAA peers -- is this really a battle of ethics in design, or is it a quest for the "soul" of interactive entertainment? Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander investigates.]

After years of struggling together for creative and spiritual recognition from the wider world, game designers seem to be turning on each other.

When a mobile game company is worth $400 million, and when whispers of a possible IPO for the industry’s largest social game developer build to a dull roar, it’s clear that new platforms have “broken in” to the mainstream.

Many of them, in medium or message or both, have been aided significantly by the input of storied veterans of the traditional AAA space: folks like Brian Reynolds, Raph Koster, Steve Meretzky and Brenda Brathwaite.

Designers like these have spent years, even decades, paying their dues in service of video games’ battle for legitimacy in the eyes of a mainstream audience. And now that they’re transitioning to a different space, those with whom they used to work are questioning their legitimacy as designers.

Few devs have put themselves on the line to call out their peers with constructed specificity, but it’s clear that despite the millions of dollars their sector stands to rake in, social game developers are on the defensive. It’s in the critical comments on our coverage of Raph Koster’s first GDC Online lecture, where he stepped in for a Playdom exec to talk, perhaps not coincidentally, about “making the leap” from AAA to social games.

It’s in the environment of disdain that permeates Twitter; it’s in the silent rejection of peers’ titles on Facebook. It’s in the snarky tone the hardcore blogosphere takes in its reluctant coverage of the emerging markets that are getting harder and harder to ignore, it’s even in the late-night cocktail chatter that follows the numerous conference talks that social game developers are increasingly traveling to present.

Ian Bogost, who with his satirical Cow Clicker title quickly landed himself on the side of the social game critics, frequently describes it as an environment of “anguish”. In what was perhaps also not a coincidence, his GDC Online talk on the subject seemed to serve as an accidental counterpoint to Koster’s although they took place in proximal time slots.

What’s strangest of all about the defensive stance social game developers are taking, as if they felt the need to justify themselves to their peers or former colleagues, is that both camps are making games for the mainstream. Everyone, get over yourselves already.

What Are The Alternatives?

Is designing a metrics-driven title designed to engage users in a compulsion loop so that they’ll keep logging in and spending money any more ethical or soulful than being one of 200 pairs of hands on one of however many market-researched, risk-averse mass-market console FPS releasing in the next few months?

Would colleagues respect the likes of Brathwaite and Reynolds more if they’d “stayed behind” to oversee the next painfully-subtle iterations in the sixth, seventh and eighth incarnation of a franchise that will never expand beyond its hardest-core niche?

It’s hardly wrong to work on a product as beloved and successful as Civ, of course. Just as there’s nothing wrong with making a product as beloved and successful as FrontierVille. Why do the opposing camps appear to feel the need to even make the argument that one has the same or more right to exist than the other?

But when we examine the “anguish” that Bogost describes, more interesting questions arise. If, as a reasonable hypothesis suggests, our veteran designers felt they had little more to do in a creatively-constrained and economically-dependent AAA space, are they resented for “escaping?” Should they have stayed behind, nobly frustrating themselves in fruitless aims to force drastic reinvention in a time and a space when to achieve it seems more down to luck than skill or effort?

Further, do traditional game developers expect “more”, somehow, from those that flee the mill? Is it disheartening to witness that the most viable alternative to the wringer that most AAA development tends to be is spiritually and creatively a lateral move?

The Secret Sting

The answer we’ve used thus far is that traditional developers feel “threatened” or insulted by social game development: When some venture capitalist gets up and speaks at a summit entirely devoted to the economic models surrounding 50 cent Flash game hats and says consoles are irrelevant, it’s fair that it raises the hackles of those who’ve been pouring their sweat and tears into devkits. When someone like Koster, who’s helped parent long-held principles, says things like “you can no longer be a designer that doesn’t understand money”, it’s probably actually painful to some.

But is Koster wrong? While there may be some “impurity” or distaste associated with admitting it, is there any segment of game development — or any creative endeavor — that realistically isn’t concerned with money, least of all the traditional space in today’s ever more hit-driven era? Even the indies care, battling one another valiantly for festival prizes and a drink at the communal funding hole.

Others argue that it’s not the money issue — it’s the way social games are made. The common accusation is that so dependent are they on clicks and retention and user-numbers that they employ empty tactics to play on users’ neurochemical reward centers. They’re no better than slot machines, people say — one could have even heard the word “cocaine” tossed into a few heated GDC Online debates.

So? Is that really better than the AAA space? Raising a virtual farm and clicking on corncobs is really so much less moral than smashing pumpkins or killing 12 wolves for a World of Warcraft villager the player just met? At least Facebook users all know each other’s real names and don’t seem to have a problem being civil to each other. Maybe it sucks that Facebook games ask you to view your online “friends” as services to be employed and points to be got, but how is Achievement and Trophy-whoring all that different? Your Facebook “friends” won’t call you homophobic epithets if you let ‘em down.

The point is, both are forms of entertainment without specific moral or spiritual quality. Their respective userbases enjoy them, so why keep clicking a dead cow? And even still, there is storytelling of real depth taking place in the traditional space, and one doesn’t even need to continually resurrect Ico and Portal to find them.

Soul-Searching

Look at BioShock 2′s carefully-authored Minerva’s Den DLC, the emergent storytelling players have found in Red Dead Redemption, or the personal and philosophical approach to development employed by studios like Thatgamecompany.

Conversely, there is surely real socialization happening in the Facebook space — personally, my friend and I have developed a series of lively real-world in-jokes thanks to some simple, frankly stupid “fortune-telling” wall spam apps, so imagine how much fun real people are having with FrontierVille. Give the audience some credit — they can’t all be cattle, ripe for the suckering!

So if there’s actually merit on either side of this rapidly-emerging aisle, what’s the debate really about? If both schools of thought are as equally-likely to be lifelessly commercial, then perhaps designers are pointing fingers at one another in a much bigger fight: The battle to recapture the soul in video games.

Because that’s what everyone’s struggling for, isn’t it? For proof, one just needed to be in the room for Richard Bartle’s show-closing talk on the history of MUD. He quipped that the only way he could present a critique of modern design was in the guise of a history lesson, and that’s exactly what he did. MUD was motivated by the need to say something; most games today just aren’t.

“You must want to say something,” he told the packed audience, his voice taut as if he could inspire them with the kind of urgency that had once driven a pair of teenagers to create a multi-user world from scratch.

It’s that ideal of soul in design — a concept that doesn’t depend on whether something’s commercial or not, or metrics-driven or not. It’s the goal of a game that is about something bigger than oneself, and perhaps all the “anguish” in the conflicted design landscape is that those on both sides of the argument are struggling to achieve it. Maybe it’s just easier for each to accuse the other of failing than confront its absence.(Source:gamasutra


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