作者：Kris Graft

David Jaffe（《战神》之父）常以直言不讳以及在电子游戏社区开放作风而得名，他说出一些让人反感的话语已经不再是什么新鲜事了。但是除了粗俗的言辞，让一些游戏开发者以及忠实玩家更加不满的还是他对于电子游戏故事的看法。

david-jaffe(from digitaltrends.com)

Jaffe称专为故事和叙述而开发游戏是“一种错误的想法，不仅会浪费时间和金钱，更糟糕的是这些故事会阻碍电子游戏的发展进程，而让游戏面临风险。”

他解释自己这番话并不是指向一些以玩家为故事主角的游戏（游戏邦注：即玩家是为故事元素而参与其中的游戏），他举例称Bethesda Game Studios的《上古卷轴5：天际》等游戏，就属于不会为故事情节而牺牲游戏玩法的典型。

他同样表示自己并非要求整个游戏产业回到雅达利2600那个时代（即充满各种抽象视觉效果的年代）。他还认为应该游戏应该拥有强大的IP，如此才能够让玩家与游戏建立起更紧密的情感联系。

而他所反对的游戏是那些“以传达故事为主要目的，或者只是向玩家阐述设计师所想故事的游戏。”Jaffe认为这类游戏的玩法极具局限性。他以Rocksteady工作室（游戏邦注：知名游戏公司，后被时代华纳所收购）最近推出的《蝙蝠侠：阿甘之城》为例进行说明。

他阐述道，在《阿甘之城》的开始，蝙蝠侠的另一个自我Bruce Wayne的双手被镣铐锁住了，并被带往阿甘之城的监狱。在穿过设施的入口时，Wayne只能到处走走看看。在这个阶段并没有任何战斗，角色能做的便只是走走看看，而直到他最终打破了镣铐，才能展开真正的战斗。

Jaffe解释，Wayne在几分钟时间内只能行走和环绕的设置就等于“为游戏故事做铺垫”，并因此牺牲了大量的游戏玩法。“它们忽略了玩家对自己能够带给游戏，以及他们希望游戏回报给自己何种内容的想法，却让故事完全覆盖了这些内容。”

他还补充道：“游戏的设计论点本应是Wayne打破镣铐，并开始战斗。”但是实际上，故事却完全掩盖了游戏玩法。不过，Jaffe也说道，除了不看好游戏中的某些设计选择，他认为Rocksteady的这款游戏总体上还是非常“了不起的”。

Jaffe表示，有些设计师总是在努力创造一些“超越”游戏本质的游戏，而忽略那些游戏本应该看重的内容。他说道游戏已经诞生了一千多年，而在这个漫长的过程中却甚少出现在游戏中整合故事和情感并获得成功的范例。

CD-ROM出现后，游戏开发者便能够制作出像电影般的游戏。他说道：“我们开始在游戏中融入更多电影元素。”

“我发现我们总是会被电影般的语言所吸引，慢慢地，我们便开始期待游戏能够向电影看齐，而这样却会让电子游戏失去其自身的独特元素。”

他向那些想要表达自己强大的理念，故事或哲学观点的游戏开发者提出一个问题：“如果你真的拥有一些强大的观点，为何要选择（游戏）这种从历史上来看是最糟糕的哲学和故事传播媒介来表达看法？”

他也承认自己容易受到媒体的影响，也喜欢受到媒体的影响，并曾因一则圣诞节饼干广告而感动落泪。但是他却不知道为何游戏这种新型、强大的交互性媒体却不能给玩家带来犹如圣诞节饼干广告般的心灵触动效果。

也许电子游戏只是不适用于唤起这种情感，而开发者对于故事和情感的不断追求，可能会导致游戏逐渐丧失某些特别内容，他认为“我想我们应该改变自己的想法，改变我们对游戏这种媒体的认知。不应该让游戏玩法的功能继续萎缩下去了。”

（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）

DICE 2012: Putting story before gameplay ‘a waste of time’ says Jaffe

by Kris Graft

“I don’t have any slides,” Jaffe apologized at the start of his DICE 2012 speech in Las Vegas on Thursday. “I’ve been spending the last few days offending women,” he joked.

Known for his outspoken, open approach to interacting with the video game community, Jaffe was in hot water recently for saying in an interview, that if you buy his upcoming game Twisted Metal, your girlfriend would “suck your dick.”

In other words, Jaffe is no stranger to saying things that people would object to.

But it’s Jaffe’s view on story in video games that some game makers and fans would object to, even more than a vulgar remark.

Jaffe said that building a game that is primarily driven by story and narrative “is a bad idea, waste of resources, of time and money, and worst, I think that it has stuffed the progress of video games, to our own peril.”

He explained that he isn’t talking about video games that implement player-authored stories, where the in-game interactivity “is so compelling and engaging that the player by the very nature of playing the game … is the story.” He put games like Bethesda Game Studios’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in this category. Those games, he said, don’t sacrifice gameplay for narrative.

And he said he’s not ordering the industry to return to the Atari 2600 days, with abstracted visuals. In fact, Jaffe said, he believes that it’s important to attach a game to strong IP, because that’s a way that the player can connect to and relate to a product.

What he objects to are games “With the intent purpose of expressing a story… or giving the player the designer’s narrative.”

Such games, according to Jaffe, are limiting to gameplay. He used the opening of Rocksteady’s recent Batman: Arkham City as an example.

He said at beginning of Arkham City, Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne’s hands are chained up, and taken to the city prison of Arkham City. Walking through the entrance of the facility, Wayne can only walk around, and look around. There’s no combat, just walking and looking, until eventually he breaks his chains and is able to fight.

That part where Wayne could only walk, and look around for a few minutes, was done “in service of the story,” argued Jaffe, and it sacrificed gameplay. “They lost sight of the gamer mentality of what [the gamer] brings to a game, and what they want out of a game, and let the story take over.”

He added, “A design argument is that he can break out of the chains, and now he can fight.” But he said that the story took over the gameplay in that instance. Nevertheless, he said Rocksteady’s game was “amazing” despite some of the design choices he disagreed with.

Jaffe said some designers are on a path to try to make games “more” than games, and in effect, lose sight of focusing on the things games are really good at. He said games have been enjoyed by people for millennia, and that there’s no real history of injecting story and emotion into games with really successful results.

Eventually the CD-ROM came around, which afforded game makers the ability to make games that were more like movies. “We were starting to see more cinematic trappings in our games,” he said.

“I think we kind of found ourselves seduced by the language of film,” Jaffe said, “…and we started to put the expectations of films on games … we lost a lot of the fundamentals of what makes video games special.”

He questioned game makers that say they have a powerful idea, story or philosophy to express. “If you’ve got something inside of you that’s so powerful … why the fuck … would you choose the medium that has historically been the worst medium to express philosophy and story?” he asked.

Though known for being crass and vulgar, Jaffe described himself as a softie who cries at nearly everything. Talking about a yearly Christmas cookie commercial that says “Childhood quickly slips away” nearly had the designer’s eyes swell with tears, as he and the audience laughed.

He’s aware that he might come off as harsh and cynical, but he confessed, “I’m susceptible to media” and said he “loves being affected by media.” When at Sony Santa Monica, where he worked on God of War, he said he personally was seeing firsthand titles that try to push games as a storytelling medium.

But he just couldn’t figure out why games, this new, powerful interactive medium, could not evoke the same emotions as a cheesy Christmas cookie commercial.

Perhaps video games just aren’t cut out to evoke such emotions, and in that pursuit of story and emotion, developers have “let go” of what makes games special. “I think we need to adjust our thoughts, we need to change what we think this medium is. … We’ve let the gameplay muscle atrophy.”  (source:GAMASUTRA)