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阐述独立游戏开发者的普遍存在问题

发布时间:2011-09-01 11:43:18 Tags:,,,,

作者:Daniel Cook

在上周PAX 2011展会上有个安静的角落聚集着大量独立游戏和桌游。每个展台后站立的都是将时间和精力投放到某个梦想之作中的游戏人。

我坐下来和这些独立开发者们交流。我玩他们的游戏。他们告诉我他们的关系、遇到的麻烦以及前途光明的希望。

坦诚地说,听到这些内容着实令人感到痛心。这么多的优秀游戏,这么多有开拓性的商业模式、产品技术和方法。参展的80%的游戏无法收回它们的开发成本。

或许,30%的团队在未来两年内就会消亡。有些人可能会完全放弃游戏开发。这种人力资源的损失危害的是整个游戏行业。少数人可能会有较好的运气获得些许成功,让他们获得足够制成一两年游戏开发的资金,但是如果运气欠佳的话,他们无疑也会离开这个行业。

2011 Pax 10 indie game showcase(from flickr)

2011 Pax 10 indie game showcase(from flickr)

许多开发者的想法是,在这个市场中已经无法单凭独立游戏的销售来维持整个家庭的开支。

我观察到了某些令我感到特别痛苦的事情,并非所有我看到的游戏都存在这些问题,但是它们的确是普遍问题。

·不理解如何将游戏投放到多个平台上:你的游戏很有趣,而且也很有潜力。应该将游戏投放到多个平台上,让你这些年的工作发挥其应有的影响力。如果你没有足够的资源自行完成这些事情,那么就与其他人合作。

·不理解如何运营多人游戏:你很容易就会犯下制作出他人无法畅玩的多人游戏。如果只制作适用于本地多人游戏,那么这些游戏可能只带有程序接入功能,玩家无法同陌生人一起玩游戏。你只是确保了自己在多人游戏中投放的大量精力能够被少部分玩家体验少数时间。使用20年前的设计哲学使得多人游戏受到削弱,这将损害到你的游戏的长期社交价值。

·没有测试或免费增值版本:人们看到游戏截图后就会想要购买游戏,这完全是个奢望。这是任天堂在上世纪80年代采取的做法。现在的游戏世界并非如此。应首先向玩家展示游戏的价值所在,对游戏进行促销。

·过分依赖PR渠道:媒体传播播并不能直接转变成销售量。首先,你需要传播游戏信息。Steam、手机平台和Flash门户网站都是不错的选择。如果你可以接触到Summer of Arcade等,便有可能在XBLA或PSN上获得盈利,但是针对独立游戏的窗口已经几乎被关闭了。

·缺乏盈利解决方案:许多游戏有着丰富的内容,但是它们无法通过这些内容获得盈利。“花毕生精力设计的所有内容只定下个较低的固定售价”听起来确实能够受到玩家的欢迎,但是这会让开发者沦为贫民。

·花数年时间构建成本高昂的消耗性内容:为了产品价值,独立开发者牺牲自己的财富以及游戏可玩性的长度。这样必然无法得到令人满意的结果。最后,每个人都觉得所做的东西没有价值。但是,他们日复一日地采用这种做法。从失败中吸取教训,接下来制作出的游戏比此前的游戏进步5%。但是,他们需要提高80%至90%的效率。

·对游戏缺乏长期规划:许多团队都觉得他们制作完成游戏后就会开始下一个游戏的制作。你应该考虑的是,如何将你的游戏转变成长期的系列作品。你已经创造出的巨大的价值,不要轻易将其抛弃。

·有限的反馈参数或测试:只有少数团队已在玩家面前展示的试用版本。而许多人是在PAX大会上才首次向大量玩家展示他们的游戏。

·过度重视引擎技术:有些独立开发者对引擎技术极有激情。这完全是在浪费时间。我所见到的设计中几乎都不需要自定义引擎,如果用Unity或Flash来制作可以节省一半的时间。而且,游戏的可玩性也不会受到影响,玩家玩游戏的时间也会大大增多。

·完全忽视在线游戏运营模式:对某些独立开发者而言,将他们的游戏投放到网络上以产生稳定的盈利是个完全陌生的想法。事实上,历史证明开发者应当这么做。

即便你的作品非常棒,上述这些问题都有可能让你的游戏和公司夭折。而且,修正这些问题并不麻烦。

如果有更加简单的方式学到这些经验而不用经过多年或者多款游戏的开发,情况又会如何呢?或许离婚、好友反目和浪费积蓄这类事情就不会发生。谈论起因为经济带来的这些问题,开发者们可能会觉得情绪跌宕起伏。

然而,当我提到这些问题时,他们并没有将其考虑在内,或者将其视为不重要的东西。独立开发者们将希望和时间完全投入到他们的游戏中。质疑这些问题就如同质疑他们充满激情这个根基一般。

所以我能做的最恰当的事情便是给他们些许鼓励的话语。我深爱而且尊重那些选择通过自己充满激情的道路上的失败来获得成长的人们。独立开发者加油!(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Opinion: Lessons Learned From The Indie ‘Meatgrinder’

Daniel Cook

Up on the sixth floor at last weeks’ PAX 2011 — above all the cacophonous, hateful marketing that replaced all human interaction — there was a much quieter space, where the indies and board games gathered. Every station was manned by someone who had poured their souls and life savings into make a dream reality.

I sat down with devs. We talked. I played their games. They told me about their relationships, their trials and their bright hopes.

Honestly, it was heartbreaking. So many great games. And yet so many broken business models, broken production techniques and broken philosophies of what matters. Eighty percent of the games being shown will not make back their development budgets.

Maybe 30 percent of the teams won’t survive the next two years. Some will be burnt out on games forever. This human loss is a loss for all of us. A handful will get lucky and stumble towards success that gives them another year or two of financial runway before they crash and burn when luck runs out.

Many of the devs are 95 percent of the way there to supporting themselves financially, yet they cling to views of the market that prevent them from ever feeding their families with indie games alone.

Here are some particularly painful observations — not all games I saw have all of these issues, but they were very common.

No understanding how to put their game on multiple platforms: Your game is fun and is pure gold. Leverage those years of work by putting it everywhere. Partner if you don’t have the resources to do it yourself.

No understanding of the logistics of multiplayer: You can easily make a multiplayer game that is impossible for others to play. Just do local multiplayer, only with no join-in-progress feature and no friendly way to play with strangers. You’ve just guaranteed that the massive effort you put into multiplayer will be enjoyed by a tiny percent of your players only a handful of times. By hamstringing multiplayer with design philosophies from 20 years past, you’ve essentially crippled all long-term social value for your game.

No trial or freemium version: There’s this weird hope that people will see a screenshot of your game and buy it. That is how the world worked for Nintendo in the 1980s. That isn’t how the world works now. Give the player value and then upsell them.

Over-reliance on PR: Press doesn’t translate directly into sales. You need distribution first and foremost. Steam is a start. Mobile is good. Flash portals are great. If you can get into Summer of Arcade or other gatekeeper-controlled promotions, there is an incredibly slight chance you can make money on XBLA or PSN, but that indie-friendly window has mostly closed.

No monetization strategy: Many of the games have reams of content, but they aren’t charging for any of it. The “one low fixed price model for everything I build for the rest of my life” sounds lovely for a gamer, but damns developers to the poorhouse.

Years spent building expensive consumable content: This kills me. Indies sacrifice richness and length of gameplay for production values and throwaway levels. Painful tales of crunch and burnout result. Afterwards, each one says it wasn’t worth it. Yet they do it again and again and again. Future games are 5 percent more efficiently made because “they learned their lesson.” They need to be 80-90 percent more efficient.

No long term vision for a game: So many teams think they’ll make a game and then move onto the next. Instead, ask how you turn your game into long term franchise. You’ve created immense value. Don’t throw it under the bus.

Limited metrics or playtesting: Few teams have a version up and running in front of players on a regular basis. Many are showing the game to players in large numbers for the first time at PAX.

Focus on engines: Wow…so much passion for cool engine tech. Such an incredible waste of life. Almost every single design I saw did not require a custom engine and could have been done in half the time with Unity or Flash. And the gameplay would not suffer in the least. And 100-1000 times as many people would play it.

Complete ignorance of running an online game: Turning their great gameplay into an online service that brings in a steady stream of revenue is a completely alien idea. History has good lessons for indies here. When you create disposable games you get a highly bursty revenue stream with a high likelihood of zero cash flow times. No cash flow = death.

Every single one of these will kill your game and your company even if everything else about your work is great. And it really doesn’t take much to fix them. A shift here, a tweak there.

What if there was a slightly easier way of learning these lessons without having to go through a multi-year, multi-game meatgrinder? To cut out just some of the divorces, the resentful kids, the broken friendships, burned up years and the wasted savings? Perhaps by talking about how financial issues create an emotional rollercoaster, a handful of indies might skip ahead a few steps on their personal journey and have one or two fewer scars at the end.

Yet, when I mention any of these issues, they simply do not compute or are seen as minor unimportant side items. Indie devs have deeply held assumptions and huge time investments in their games. (Talking about engines alone is a nigh holy war.) To question some of these topics is to question the foundations of their passion.

So the best I can do often is give them hugs and words of encouragement. I have deep love and respect for those that choose to learn through failure in their own passionate ways. There is something quite heroic and deeply tragic about the blind journey. I’ve been down it myself many times. Go indies. (Source: Gamasutra)


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