作者：Leigh Alexander

我无法放弃玩Facebook游戏《Empires & Allies》，尽管行业投以嘲笑的目光。大家都取笑PopCap通过复制广泛的3回合谜题游戏吸引足球妈妈玩家，而我们则窃笑任天堂荒谬的《Wii》游戏，疑惑谁会购买这样的游戏。谈到社交游戏，鄙视情绪也同样随处可见——虽然和PopCap及《Wii》一样，它们在数字游戏方面表现突出。但和PopCap及任天堂不同，Zynga没有因改变行业而获得丝毫尊重。

drug from edge-online.com

传统玩家和设计师已习惯于遭到误解，所以他们轻视或拒绝任何可能会简化其娱乐活动或需同普通用户共享的内容。但说到Zynga游戏（游戏邦注：或者更广泛的，由Zynga主导的Facebook“社交游戏设计”），我觉得他们遭受批评理所当然。

若说电子游戏是神秘、可爱及令人心情愉快的花朵，那么Zynga就是深知如何从罂粟花中提取海洛因的开发者。这个类比也许有点极端，但社交游戏关键用户的正确获取和维护方法和垃圾推车的操作模式相似。下面就以我的《Empires & Allies》体验经历为例。

我已尽量避开-Ville家族的游戏作品。但我的几位朋友经常向我发送《Empires & Allies》体验邀请——我很相信他们的判断力。最终，终因抵挡不住能让行业财务分析师Michael Pachter加入我的虚构政府大楼，担任财务部长的诱惑，我选择加入其中。

很快，我就被淹没在目标和反馈信息的海洋之中。图形和亮片随处涌现，进度指示器会奖励玩家取得的任何小成就，更扣人心弦的是点击硬币、星星和心形物件。点击更多物件，你将挣得更多东西。很快，游戏会让你通过将更多的点击操作串成更大的目标而获得满足感。这也是贩毒集团采取的运作模式——雇佣年长孩子给年轻群体“树立榜样”或利用流行场所进行推广。若你的好友也在体验这一内容，你多半更愿意进行尝试。

访问内容令人愉快，属于瞬间操作。这令你无需花钱收获乐趣。也许那些曾告诉你这类游戏非常愚蠢和邪恶的人士是错误的。游戏刚开始时你拥有丰富的资源，很多都能够轻而易举地获得；任何你想要但得不到的道具，你都可以通过Empire Point获得。

任务会逐步堆积。完成这些任务让你感觉良好。你一方面知道自己是在进行盲目的点击；一方面清楚自己得多建一间房子，这意味着你需要收集100多个硬币，因此你需要多耕作两块土地。

然后突然间，你的丰富资源开始耗竭。你发现自己已耗尽所有“能量”——可以简单视作时间。若想要完成所有目标，你需要购买更多内容，购买更多捷径。在《Empire Points》中，玩家经常在未获悉道具是否物有所值前就需要花钱进行购买。这是颇为卑劣的设置。普通玩家通常无法判断屏幕顶部两种不同货币的差异所在，而且能够购买到优质道具的货币通常无法通过体验获得。待到货币耗尽后，玩家就得掏钱购买。

起初丰富资源的周期循环也是贩毒者采取的策略之一。让用户觉得道具很棒，然后将其收回。促使他们投入略高于预期的资金。他们多半会选择继续体验，即使是在他们依然觉得自己处在控制地位的时候。

然后合理化模式开始出现。只需投入零花钱，你就能够享受乐趣，所以这似乎非常值得。你在其他不常体验的游戏中投入的资金更多。对于几小时的趣味性体验来说，5美元似乎不算什么（游戏邦注：比喝杯酒，看场电影还便宜）。不知不觉中，你已在《Empires & Allies》中投入15美元。

我在游戏中投入15美元，进行3笔虚拟交易，我为此埋怨自己。我发现自己最初的好奇心已被如今的强迫性所取代，自己的智慧受到侮辱，而我依然继续体验。

最糟糕的是，这些“社交”游戏效仿毒品的社交生态系统。为避免打扰朋友，你选择同其他的游戏玩家共同游戏。突然间，那些你从未在现实生活中进行联络的人士变成了你的同盟者，同你每天保持联系。在某些极端的情况下，你的联系优先选择对象转变成同你一起玩游戏的伙伴。你们一起说服他人加入游戏，因为你们需要伙伴。你们变成共生关系，做着原本发誓不会做的事情。

当游戏要求你邀请更多好友，以便完成某些任务时，你就会浏览自己的好友列表，查看谁最容易被说服，谁最可能视而不见。现在你也是个用户，你们在机器平台中串通一气。这并不具备社交性；这不是游戏，只是个粗糙的内容。（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）

Opinion: Gaming opiate

The social gaming sector shares some worrying parallels with drug dealing, says Leigh Alexander.

I can’t stop playing Zynga’s Empires & Allies on Facebook, despite the industry’s derision. Everyone made fun of PopCap for hooking soccer moms with widely copied match-three puzzlers, and we snickered at Nintendo’s absurdly titled Wii, wondering who in the world was going to buy such a thing. And when it comes to social games, the disdain is similarly virulent – even though, just like PopCap and Wii, it’s having the last laugh in the numbers game. But unlike PopCap and Nintendo, Zynga hasn’t earned a shred of respect for changing the game industry.

Often, traditional gamers and creators are used to feeling misunderstood, so they diminish or reject anything that threatens to simplify their pastime or to share it with general audiences. But when it comes to Zynga games – or wider ‘social game design’ on Facebook, led by Zynga – I’m pretty sure they deserve every last share of criticism they get.

If videogames are like flowers, mysterious, lovely and pleasurable things, Zynga has discovered the precise thing you need to do to poppies to derive heroin. That analogy may be extreme, but the critical user acquisition and maintenance arc for social games to be successful is quite a lot like the methodology of junk pushers. Let’s take my experience with Empires & Allies, shall we?

I’ve largely avoided games in the -Ville family. But then, a few friends sent me Empires & Allies invites – people whose judgement I trust, even. In the end, the opportunity to have industry financial analyst Michael Pachter installed in my fictional government building as Secretary of the Treasury was too much of a lark to ignore, and I joined up.

Immediately, I was inundated with a sea of objectives, a feedback flood. Shapes and spangles pop up everywhere, and a progress bar praises you for every little thing, more breathless and hyperbolic with every coin and star and heart you click (AMAZING! EXCELLENT!). Click enough things, and you earn yourself more things. Very quickly, the game trains you to feel rewarded when you string together clicks into larger goals. That’s how drug gangs work, too – recruiting older kids to ‘set the example’ for younger ones, or using trendy places for distribution. You’re more likely to try something if your cool friends do it.

Access is friendly and instantaneous. It promises you don’t need to spend money to have fun. Maybe all those people who told you how stupid and evil these games are were wrong. You start off with a plenitude of resources, and more seems to come easily; anything you want that you can’t get, you can acquire by spending Empire Points.

The tasks pile up. Completing them feels good. Part of you knows you’re just mindlessly clicking; part of you figures you’ll just build one more house, which means you have to raise just a hundred more coins, which means you should sow two more plots.

Then, suddenly, your plenitude runs dry. You learn that you’ve spent all your ‘energy’ – loosely translatable as time. If you want to finish all of your objectives, you buy more, or you buy shortcuts. With Empire Points, which you spent before you even realised they were worth money. It’s sneaky like that. The average player has no idea what the difference is between the different kinds of currency at the top of the screen, and that the one that buys the really good stuff can’t be earned by play. Until it’s gone, and it’s time to pony up.

The cycle of initial plenitude is also part of the drug dealer’s strategy. Make the user feel great, then yank it away. Ask them for just a little bit more than they’d planned to invest, and chances are they’ll pay, even while they still think they’re in control.

The rationalisation – part of any addiction cycle – starts. It’s just pocket change, and you’re having fun, so it seems worth it. You’ve spent a lot more money on other games you don’t spend as much time playing with. Five dollars seems a minor price for a few hours of fun – it’s cheaper than one drink at the bar, cheaper than a movie ticket! Before you know it, you’ve put $15 into Empires & Allies.

Erm. I put $15 into it, across three transactions, and every second I resented myself. I could feel how my initial curiosity had long given way to compulsion, my intelligence was being insulted, and still I was paying.

The worst part is that these ‘social’ games mimic the social ecosystem around drugs. To avoid bugging friends, you stick to playing with those you know are also users. Suddenly people you’ve never really networked with become necessary allies, to be contacted daily. In extreme situations, your engagement priorities shift toward those who are part of the game with you. You band together to coax others in, because you need company, any company, for your ecosystem. You are a codependent, doing what you swore you wouldn’t.

When the game asks you to invite more friends in order to finish this or that, you scan your friends list wondering who’s most vulnerable, who’s least likely to mind. You’re a user now, too. You’re complicit in the machine. It’s not social; it’s not a game. It’s just gross. It really is.

I mean, add me on Facebook! Let’s play it!（Source：edge-online）