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解析如何让游戏设计更富社会责任感

发布时间:2011-10-21 17:23:50 Tags:,,

作者:Clint Hocking

游戏开发中有个趋势在过去数年间逐渐成长,我对此有所关注。这个趋势支持了如下观点:游戏开发者需要通过制作含有道德信息(游戏邦注:至少包含社会责任感)的游戏,用某种方法来展现媒介和自己创造性能力的成熟。这种趋势通常采取的形式是使用诸如在游戏叙事的关键分支点处添加道德尺度和不相关的道德选项之类的功能。现在,我已经丝毫不怀疑开发者展现媒介和自身创造性成熟度的抱负。

就设计师在尝试将此类道德决定整合到游戏玩法中会面临的多种执行挑战,我之前已经讨论过多次,本篇文章不再深入探究我们要如何执行此类做法的问题,我想要在下文中为执行这种做法的思想奠定更坚实的基础,确保在我们试图在游戏中设计和构建这些新“社会责任感”功能时不失去非常重要的先决条件,那就是对这种做法缘由的理解。更为重要的是,我希望能够确保我们在将注意力集中在“如何执行社会责任信息”时,不会从一开始就直接对我们考虑此类设计的理由造成伤害。就我个人看法而言,这些理由能够让媒介的成熟度提升到更高层次。

开始进行深入阐述之前,我想要先区分下三种意识形态观点:

第一个观点是我认为最普遍为游戏行业所接受的观点,那就是:

“如果要获得成功,游戏只需要令人难以抗拒的激励因素和执行恰当的游戏玩法即可。”

很显然,我们正在更职业化的环境中工作,多数人并不会考虑“提升媒介”、“制作更具社会责任的游戏”或者在游戏玩法或叙事中整合道德决定以向我们的受众提供更深层次的信息。这种想法并没有什么过错。如果这就是你目前的想法的话,我鼓励你继续保持这种想法。你的想法是对的,如果游戏只提供可玩性等内容,这完全没有过错。事实上,许多游戏甚至连那些内容都无法提供给玩家,对这些游戏而言,讨论更深层次的内容或许还为时过早。但是,事实上此类讨论已经发生了,发布的每款整合此类功能的新游戏都是讨论的焦点。有些人或许认为我们只要做好游戏开发的事情即可,少管社会道德的问题。

但从根本上来说,我觉得“如果要获得成功,游戏只需要令人难以抗拒的激励因素和执行恰当的游戏玩法即可。”这个观点是错误的看法。如果要使用更为准确的措词,可以表达成“如果要获得成功,某些类型的游戏只需要令人难以抗拒的激励因素和执行恰当的游戏玩法即可。”,但是如此一来,这种观点就肯定不能运用到广义的“游戏”层面上。

我想要澄清的另外两种观点有些类似,第一个是由上至下的观点,专注于目标而且没有固定的做法。另一个是由下至上的观点,有固定的规则而且关注的是方法。

首个没有固定规则的观点是:

“我们应当尽量将游戏媒介提升到一个新高度。”

第二个有固定规则的观点是:

“我们应当通过制作有社会责任感的游戏来提升这种媒介。”

(游戏邦注:作者认为“我们应当尽量将游戏媒介提升到一个新高度。”也是有固定目标的,但是感觉更为广义,因为对所采用的方法没有做具体的描述。因而,当作者将第二种观点视为有固定规则的时候,他的意思是这个观点不仅描述了应当实现的目标,而且还描述了应当采取怎样的做法。)

我不认同第二个有固定做法的观点,接下来将以电影为例阐述反对的原因:

想象下,如果数十年之前,在United Artists、Chaplin、Pickford、Fairbanks和Griffith等进入电影领域的时候,如果他们坚持的原则是成为制作含有“社会责任感”作品的电影公司。那么,我认为他们或许无法取得今天的成就,因为百年之后我们得到就只会是具有高度政治正确性、富有说教意义的电影公司。

事实上,在电影行业中,很少有人将目标明确地定在制作含有社会责任感的电影上,就像社会责任感是电影本就应当拥有的特征一样。相反,电影行业允许富有创造性的人群(游戏邦注:包括导演、编剧、演员和整个制作团队)制作探索有着深层次内涵的电影。由此带来的结果是,几乎每部电影都传达着某种类型的社会责任感信息。即便对那些明确指出要制作表达社会责任感的电影的人(游戏邦注:如Michael Moore)而言,驱动力量也是他们自己的创造性目标,而不是他们对社会责任感信息这个特征拥有提升媒介的内在价值这种想法的认同。Michael Moore或许从未对自己说过:“如果那些该死的电影更有社会责任感的话,那么电影行业会变得更好。”相反,我猜测他曾经说过“社会责任感因素可能会成就一部好电影。”这样的话,随后他继续前行制作出了《罗杰和我》。

终结者(from gtob.sdnews.com.cn)

终结者(from gtob.sdnews.com.cn)

《终结者》的制作团队并没有传达社会责任感信息的意图。但是,最终《终结者》给人的根本启示是,爱拥有拯救人类的不可抗拒之力。这是因为“爱拥有拯救人类的不可抗拒之力”这个信息是所有观众深切关注的焦点。而“无法阻止的杀戮机器人”这个信息只受到10%观众的深切关注。或许在某些文化中,你需要这10%来影响其他人群,但是如果电影中只含有无法阻止的杀戮机器人,你的影片就只能获得这10%人群的青睐。在电影行业中,这可以算作是失败。也就是说,卡梅隆显然并没有设定明确的目标,要制作传达“爱拥有拯救人类的不可抗拒之力”信息的电影。反而,他设定的目标是制作令人惊叹的有关无法阻止的杀戮机器人的电影。而为了以某种对他来说含有创造性意义并能够引起大量用户共鸣的方法来创作影片,他选择了更为大众化、更为人性化以及更具社会相关性的主题来表现这个无法阻止的杀戮机器人作品。

传达社会责任感不是游戏的职责,也不应当成为游戏的职责,引导人们如何生活、如何思考或如何行动也不应当成为游戏开发者的职责。不幸的是,这正是近期游戏社会责任感讨论所关注的焦点,这场流于表面的讨论关注的是如何在游戏中添加传达道德信息的功能,这样玩家就可以在游戏过程中培养道德感。

试图通过传达有关人类认知的深层次信息的功能来定位游戏,这使近期许多游戏很经常而且很快地陷入这种“道德窘境”。对我来说,这种方法不仅会威胁到游戏的教育性,而且更糟糕的情况是,有可能倒退到更早时代的游戏那种更为系统化的信息。

如果移除存在于《Ultima IV》等游戏中的系统化呈现的道德观念,我们就有可能因将人类的复杂道德观削减成营销卖点而处在危险之中。确保游戏过程中每小时或者每个关卡都包含某个道德谜题并且每三次用更大更重要的谜题将游戏推向高潮,我们简直是在虐待人类生活中最美妙的方面。我们剥去所有道德的重要层面(游戏邦注:包括其复杂性、微妙性和不可分解性),将其替换成支持某种信息的愚蠢做法。

正如McLuhan所说的那样,媒介就是信息。当不相关联的道德选项以简单且缺乏人性的方式被纳入游戏中,我们传达出的信息并非所谈论内容独有的信息(游戏邦注:这些打包内容的信息或许看上去很漂亮,但是并非合适的信息),而是潜藏于我们呈现形式中的信息:实际上是在说“要变得道德很简单,只需要花些许时间即可”。对我来说,这几乎完全对立于我们希望用户产生的对人性的深层次认同。

我们不能将目标定在通过制作更具社会责任感的游戏来提升媒介之上,根据我的估计这会迅速对功能驱动方法造成影响,最终提供的至多是廉价的道德说教,我们的目标应该是通过创造性方法来开拓人自身的条件。我认为这种创造性驱动的方法能够引导那些制作游戏的人被迫考虑是什么触动了内心的情感,考虑什么才是人们生活中真正关心的内容,而不是一味地追求游戏的社会责任感。

无论你是否相信,只要有足够的时间、预算和支持,我们之中的许多人都可以制作出堪比《终结者》的游戏。如果我们希望能够制作出真正具有社会责任感的游戏,让玩家产生能够深层次感应人类社会信息的满足感,我们现在需要开始做的不是关注功能设置,而是关注创造游戏的人。我们必须授予他们(游戏邦注:比如给予他们权利和职责)探索自身的感觉,制作出能够让自身深入感动的游戏,回避其他有着道德量度的一般动作游戏,因为这种做法完全是种闹剧。我们应当为这种现象的存在感到羞耻。

我坚定地认为我们无需安排时间来讨论给游戏增添社会责任感的问题。我甚至不相信这种做法有助于扩大游戏开发领域,以便我们制作出某种低风险、可控制且能够展现社会责任感的游戏。

我们要做的是相信游戏创造者,并且让他们相信自己的能力,帮助他们制作出成熟类型的游戏。这些游戏可以同那些不只关注杀戮机器人的90%用户交流。

简单地说,要制作出更具社会责任感的游戏,我们所需要做的就是成长起来,开始向成熟艺术创造者那样展开行动。当我们实现这个目标时,我们就可以创造出更具社会责任感主题和信息的游戏。如此这般,我们才能够将整个游戏媒介推向一个新高度。

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2010年2月10日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Didacticism in Game Design

Clint Hocking

There is a trend in game development that has been growing a head of steam over the last couple years, and I have some concerns about it. The trend is in support of the notion that game developers need to somehow demonstrate the maturity of their medium and of their own creative capabilities by making games that have a moral – or at least a socially responsible – message. The form this trend often takes is toward features such as morality meters and discrete moral choices at key branching points in game narratives. Now, I certainly have no problem with the ambition of developers to step up to the plate and demonstrate the maturity of the medium and their own creativity. I do, however, worry about some of the approaches.

I have talked and written in the past about a few of the numerous implementation challenges designers confront when trying to integrate these kinds of ethical decisions into gameplay – this post is not about that.

Rather than delving deeper into the questions of how we implement this sort of material – I want to back up a bit and make sure that in our attempts to design and build these new ‘socially responsible’ features into our games we are not missing the rather important prerequisite understanding of why. More importantly, I want to be sure that in our focus on ‘how to implement socially responsible messages’ we are not, in fact, directly undercutting the reason we have considered these sorts of designs in the first place – which in my view is to elevate the medium to a higher level of maturity and sophistication.

To begin with, I want to differentiate between three ideological stances:

The first – and I believe the most generally held throughout the game industry is:

“Games do not need anything more than compellingly motivated, well implemented gameplay in order to be successful.”

Obviously we work in a professional climate where most people simply do not give a shit about ‘elevating the medium’ or about ‘making games that are more socially responsible’ or more specifically about integrating moral or ethical decisions into gameplay or game narrative in order to offer deeper messages to our audiences. That’s fine. If that is what you think, I encourage you to continue thinking that way. I too appreciate the thermobaric annihilation of my enemies-of-the-moment, the resultant unlocking of new perks, and the accompanying wry one-liner. You’re right – there is nothing at all wrong with games that offer only that. In fact, so many games fail to deliver on even that, that perhaps discussions about anything deeper are premature. The fact remains though that this discussion is already happening in the sense that each new game released that incorporates these sorts of features is an argument within that discussion. Some may think we should let sleeping dogs lie – but the reality is the dogs are very much awake. They are already fighting in the pit, and the ones that survive will become the breeding stock of the future. It’s fine to place your bets and enjoy the spectacle without concern for the repercussions on the future – but others of us do care which dog has his day and what the resultant new breed of man’s best friend will be like.

Essentially, I argue that the stance: ‘Games do not need anything more than compellingly motivated, well implemented gameplay in order to be successful,’ is a fallacy. Properly phrased we could say that ‘a specific game does not need anything more than compellingly motivated, well implemented gameplay in order to be successful,’ but the jury is definitely out on the applicability of that stance to ‘games’ in the general sense.

The other two stances I would like to identify are similar to one another in that I believe they are both concerned with the aforementioned breeding stock. The first is a top-down stance; it is goal-focused and non-prescriptive. The other is a bottom-up stance that is prescriptive and is focused on an approach.

The first, non-prescriptive stance is:

“We should endeavour to elevate the medium of games.”

The second, prescriptive stance is:

“We should elevate the medium by making games that are socially responsible.”

(okay, disclaimer time – ‘We should endeavour to elevate the medium of games’ is also prescriptive, but it is more general in the sense that it does not prescribe the means, so when I say the second stance is prescriptive, I mean that not only does it offer a prescription for what we should do (like the first), it also offers a prescription for how we should do so.)

I reject the second, prescriptive stance, and – with apologies for using film as an example – this is why:

Imagine if decades ago during the formation of United Artists, Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith had as their stated agenda that it should be the role of filmmakers to make movies that were ‘socially responsible’. Had they been as successful (which, BTW, I suspect they would not have been), a hundred years later I believe we would have ended up with an entire medium of politically correct, didactic, sentimentalist-pandering drivel.

In fact – in the film industry, hardly anyone sets out with the explicit goal to make movies that are socially responsible – as though social responsibility is some feature that a movie needs to have. The film industry instead empowers the creatives – the directors, writers, actors, and the entire production crew – to make movies that explore things that they care deeply about… and as a result almost every movie (at least in some ways, and almost always indirectly) has some kind of socially responsible message. Even those who do explicitly set out to make films that are socially responsible (say Michael Moore) are driven by their own creative goals – not by their belief in the inherent value of socially responsible messages as a feature of film-making that would elevate the medium. Michael Moore probably never said to himself ‘film would be better if those darn movies were more socially responsible’. On the contrary – I suspect he said ‘a film about how darn socially irresponsible those bastards at GM are would make a great movie’, and then he went out and made Roger and Me.

No one set out to make Terminator with a socially responsible message. In the end, though, the fundamental underlying takeaway of Terminator is that love is an unstoppable force for human salvation. This is because ‘love as unstoppable force for human salvation’ is a message all people care deeply about. ‘Unstoppable killing robot’ is a message that ten percent of people care deeply about. Perhaps, in certain cultures (like ours), you need those ten percent to leverage the rest of the population, but if you only have unstoppable killing robots, you only get the ten percent. In the film industry, this is potentially a failure. That said, clearly Cameron did not set out with the explicit goal to make a movie whose message was ‘love as unstoppable force for human salvation’ – rather, he set out to make an awesome movie about unstoppable killing robots, and in order to do so in a way that was creatively meaningful to him and resonant with a significant audience, he chose more general, more human, more socially relevant themes for the indestructible titanium skeleton of his unstoppable killing robot opus.

It is not the role of games nor should it be the role of games to be socially responsible, nor should it be the role of game creators to attempt to be didactic by instructing people how to live, how to think or how to behave. Unfortunately, this is what the discussion on the social responsibility of games tends to boil down to these days: a surface level discussion on how to add features that have moral messages so players can learn morality. We’re too often attempting to add the indestructible titanium skeleton of social responsibility as a feature-focused afterthought to a package of vat-grown meat that too frequently resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Many recent games too quickly and too often reach for moments of ‘morality dilemma’ as a feature to position or differentiate themselves as titles that have some deeper message about the human condition. To me, this approach not only risks didacticism but – worse – is potentially a risky step back from the more systemic messaging of earlier generations of games.

By removing the (weakly) systematized representation of morality such as exists in a game like Ultima IV (for example), and exchanging it for discrete moments of realization intensive story branching based on single (or few) decisions we risk reducing the breathtaking complexity of human morality down to a marketing bullet point. By ensuring there is one neatly contained morality puzzle per hour or per level of real gameplay, and preferably having one big important one at the third act climax we do a terrible disservice to the beautiful nuance of the human condition. We strip away everything that is important about morality (its complexity, nuance and irresolvability) and replace it with a conveniently contrived idiocy that espouses a message.

As McLuhan says: the medium is the message. When canned, discrete moral choices are rendered in games with such simplicity and lack of humanity, the message we are sending is not the message specific to the content in question (the message in the canned content might be quite beautiful – but it’s not a ludic message) – it is the message inherent in the form in which we’ve presented it: it effectively says that ‘being moral is easy and only takes a moment out of each hour’. To me, this is almost the opposite of the deeper appreciation of humanity we might aim to engender in our audience.

Instead of aiming to elevate the medium by making games that are more socially responsible  – which by my estimation reduces quickly down to a feature driven approach that ultimately offers little more than cheap didactic moralizing, our aim should be instead to empower our creative visionaries to explore the human condition through their work. This is a creatively driven approach which I believe will lead to people who create games being forced to think about what moves them deeply and about what they care about in life, instead of thinking about how to make their next action blockbuster sequel more socially responsible than that of a competitors action blockbuster sequel.

Believe it or not – given the time and the budget and the support – many of us would much rather be making games where we feel the unstoppable power of love as a force for human salvation, than games where yet another endless horde of terminator robots falls beneath our plasma cannons. If we hope to make games that are truly socially responsible and offer players the satisfaction of more deeply resonant messages about the human condition we must start not by looking at the feature set, but by looking to our creators. We must empower them (ie: give them the authority and the responsibility) to explore their own feelings and make games that move them deeply and reject another generic action game with a morality meter tacked on the side – because all that is, is a farce. We should be ashamed of that.

I firmly do not believe that we need to put in place some agenda to add social responsibility to games. I don’t even believe it is about having a broader domain of game development where we can make a class of low-risk, controlled margin games that are socially responsible to demonstrate our goodwill to a world increasingly doubtful of the notion that games can speak meaningfully and generally to the human condition.

It is about believing in our creators – and about empowering them to believe in themselves – and about helping them make the mature sorts of games that can speak to the other ninety percent of the population who can’t be fucking bothered with another horde of terminator bots and who are laughing at us when we tell them that between hordes of terminator bots they will have a neatly packaged ‘love is an unstoppable force for human salvation’ moral dilemma that will branch them into either fighting the red-eyed terminator robots to save the Earth or the green-eyed terminator robots to destroy the Earth for their own glory.

In short: all we need to do to start making more socially responsible games is grow up and start acting like the mature creators we hold ourselves up to be. When we have done that, we will almost by definition have made games that have embedded within them more socially responsible themes and messages which are there because they are beautiful – not because we have a didactic agenda. And in so doing, we will have elevated the entire medium. (Source: Click Nothing)


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