作者：Aaron SanFilippo

在Raven Software接触大型项目7年多之后（游戏邦注：包括《奇异之旅》、《Marvel:Ultimate Alliance》和《使命召唤：现代战争3》），我决定今年4月开始做出改变，我和我的兄弟共同创建了Flippfly LLC，我持有公司50%的股份。

Marvel Ultimate Alliance from dignews.com

这里我谈论的是我在开发AAA游戏过程中积累的经验，及我希望能够运用至新全职独立开发者生活的收获。

下面是我在AAA游戏开发中积累的5点经验和技能，我们希望将此转移至自己的新独立开发事业中。

1. 选择合适人员

在高风险工作室环境中，当你需要突出游戏核心内容，以创造杰出作品，或者当你需要完成游戏至关重要的首个关卡时，我们倾向转投团队明星成员。总是存在值得你托付任务的核心团队；你知道他们能够更出色地完成工作。团队是最基本的成功构建模块。

在独立开发领域中，这更加至关重要。各伙伴都是谜题的关键要素。你多半知道他们会创造一定内容，否则你将无法承担和他们共事所需付出的代价。在工作室背景中，招聘至关重要，但这里通常存在修正空间。在小型合作关系中，有时你当前创建的内容下个月就会推出，因此你多半没有犯错的余地——如果你依靠的是无法充分发挥自身作用的人员，那么你的项目多半会以失败告终。务必确保首先做好这点。

游戏工作室的人员聘用方面存在若干值得借鉴的宝贵经验。严格面试，不要忽略危险信号，确保选定人员是个完美搭档。

2. 承认自己的构思并没有那么特别

成为独立开发者的一个优点是，你可以自由做决策，采用自己的杰出构思，将其落实到位。在AAA工作室背景中，你会发现，你的很多构思在宏伟计划中显得微不足道。

这是件好事。

这意味着你周围的人员都有杰出构思，游戏通常会因此而变得更加杰出。在我看来，独立开发者需清楚的是，当你能够自由制作你想制作的内容时，你的多数构思都被落实到项目中。你需要充当自己的构思过滤器，需学会如何在此保持客观态度。

另一方面是，你多半不应该将自己的整个事业都锁定在单一游戏上。令我惊讶的是，很多开发者都着眼于单一游戏，在此孤注一掷。就我的工作室经历来看，你应该放手失败构思或者甚至是作品，将此看作是一个学习经历，然后继续前进。

3. 技能的多元化至关重要，视角亦是如此

在工作室背景中，你会不断接触到杰出人才。你会因其他部门人员制作的内容而感到惊讶，你多半会想要逐步学习其他部门的技能。杰出开发者通常具备跨越各部门的众多技能——-但在制作他们专业领域外的内容时，他们依然会听从专业人士的意见。当团队成员各施所长，那么你的人才分布管道就非常成熟。

在独立开发中，你通常需要扮演众多角色。但有时开发者会承担过多责任——想要节约成本，通过扮演美工、程序员、音效设计师、网页设计师、会计师及商务人员角色，保持控制地位。有时，这效果非常不错。

但我觉得，需注意的是，一人掌握如此多技能的情况非常少见。扩充团队成员能够促使独立游戏的创收显著提高有其道理在。

概述——如果你计划靠此谋生，你精通各个方面，那么若你和能够同与你互补的个人或团队合作，你的胜算将更大。

4. “是否可行？”——易用性和集中测试

优秀AAA工作室会通过各种方式频繁、尽早地测试他们的游戏。除QA外，他们清楚将作品放到潜在用户代表面前的重要性，会在他们体验游戏的过程中进行仔细、系统的观察。有些工作室将此当作一项技巧——有时他们会专门安排人员负责易用性和集中测试。在用户集中测试过程中，羁绊用户或用户享受其中的内容总是出乎我意料之外。每次测试都清楚说明，测试值得我们花时间，这项工作非常重要。

Temple Run from itunes.apple.com

我觉得优秀独立开发者都非常擅长测试工作。很多人都觉得iPhone应用的成败具有随机性，但《愤怒的小鸟》和《神庙逃亡》之类作品着实存在许多值得借鉴的经验。在考虑可行和不可行内容方面，这些开发者会借鉴过往经验，投入许多精力。当5岁、30岁和60岁玩家都理解和喜欢你的作品时，你就算取得成功。这部分在于杰出设计，部分在于合理的测试/更新循环过程。

相反，我们不难发现有些来自个人或小型工作室的作品没有进行彻底的易用性和集中测试。这多半不是因为开发者懒惰，而是因为他们没有意识到测试的重要性。最近我看到某人在一篇文章中抱怨自己的免费增值模式游戏只有0.1%的转换率。他们分析商业决策及虚拟交易中的各种选择，谈及要如何完善这些参数——但快速下载游戏后发现，作品存在破碎的混乱UI。查看他们的iTunes页面——有3/5的玩家都在抱怨自己不知道如何体验游戏。

概要——安排自己及团队成员之外的人员进行测试工作。

5. 完成作品

工作室经历让我清楚如何制作出高质量的作品。我花费时间查看QA主管或制作人认为颇为重要的问题，持续同存在不同看法的人员进行互动。现在我没有专职的QA部门，我很庆幸自己能够有机会在许多已发行的作品中落实这一过程。在Flippfly，我们自己完成QA工作，但我脑中如今已形成一个具体的操作过程——我不确定自己能否顺利完成这个过程，因为我才刚开始进行尝试。

此外，这里涉及人为因素。发行若干游戏后，我开始意识到，自己的某些模型反复出现在各项目中。通常，在项目中间，当所有内容开始凝聚一体时，我总是会迫不及待地想要添加功能元素。因此就带来所谓的功能完善阶段，但着手同款游戏如此久之后，厌倦情绪会开始出现，我会开始怀疑，大家是否会喜欢这款游戏。在游戏项目的最后几个月、几周里，你的情绪会由兴奋转变成痛苦，因为你急于想要完成游戏，转移到其他内容。逐步清楚这些是正常阶段对独立开发者来说是个很棒的锻炼过程，在此项目的进展及完成主要由我们两个人负责。

除质量QA和坚持不懈的态度外，工作室经历会让你养成去除功能和快速做出艰难决策的习惯。初次和Raven发行作品时，我有点惊讶于我们在开发过程中所删除的内容（游戏邦注：旨在确保在发行日期前完工）。各款已发行的作品让我不再为此感到震惊，最终我意识到，删减的功能旨在帮助开发者创造出有所侧重的优质产品。在独立领域中，成功开发者和失败开发者的区别之处在于，前者能够客观看待项目，着眼于真正的关键内容，最终将此呈现给用户。就此而言，成立工作室是很棒的锻炼机会。（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）

Going Indie: 5 lessons I learned from AAA

by Aaron SanFilippo

After more than 7 years working at Raven Software on big-budget games (Singularity, Marvel:Ultimate Alliance, Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 3 etc,) I decided this April that it was time for a change. I’m now a 50% partner in Flippfly LLC along with my brother, Forest San Filippo.

The ‘why’ and ‘how’ of this are probably good topics for another article – what I’d like to talk about here is what I gained from my experience in AAA game development, and what I hope to bring to my new life as a full-time indie. Perhaps if I write these lessons down, I won’t forget them!

So with that in mind, I’d like to reflect on 5 major lessons and skills that I’m hoping to bring from my experience in AAA to this new indie life.

1. Pick the right people

In a high-risk studio situation, when there’s a central piece of the game that you’ve got to make shine for a greenlight build, or when you’re finalizing that all-important first level of the game, the tendency is to go to your superstars in your team. There’s always that core group of guys who you know you can trust to deliver; who you know can get the job done better than anyone else. Your team is the most fundamental building block of success.

In indie development, this is even more critical. Every partner is a crucial piece of the puzzle. You simply can’t afford to work with someone unless you know they’ll deliver. In a studio setting, hiring is critically important, but there’s always room for correction. In a small partnership where you’re sometimes creating content now that’ll keep the lights on next month, you usually don’t have this margin of error – if you count on someone who doesn’t pull their weight, your project will likely fail. Make sure you get this right before you do anything else!

I think there are some valuable lessons in the hiring practices of game studios. Interview rigorously, don’t overlook red flags, and make sure the person you’re considering working with is a good fit for your business!

2. My idea is still not all that special

One of the cool things about being independent developer (and one of the reasons I decided to become one) is that you have the freedom to make your own decisions, to take your great idea and drive it to completion. In a AAA studio setting, you’ll often find that many of your ideas simply don’t go anywhere in the grand scheme of things.

This is a good thing.

It means that you’re surrounded by people who have great ideas (that are often better than yours,) and the game is usually better for it. I think what indies have to come to grips with is that while you’re free to do what you want, most of your ideas shouldn’t go into production. You need to be your own idea filter (along with your fellow teammates, if you have a team) and you’ve got to figure out how to be objective about it. I’d love to hear other people’s techniques for filtering these ideas – discuss it in the comments!
(Also, here’s a pretty cool technique from Mark Johnson from Focused Apps LLC for gauging your ideas.)

I think the other side of this coin is that you probably shouldn’t base your whole career on a single game. It kind of scares me to see how many people are out there who’ve been working on a single game  – for years sometimes – and seem to be putting all their bets on it. If there’s anything I picked up from my studio experience, it’s that you can let go of an idea or even a game that fails, take it as a learning experience, and move on.

3. Diversity of skills really matters, and so does perspective

In a studio setting, you’ll be constantly exposed to nothing but talent all around you. You’ll be amazed at the things your peers from other departments create, and hopefully you’ll be inspired to learn about these other development skills along the way. The best studio developers are the ones who have a wide array of skills that stretch across departments – but who still defer to the absolute expert in any given field when it’s time to actually create shipping content outside of their own expert area. When everyone’s focused on what they’re best at, then you know your people pipeline is mature.

In indie development, generally the expectation is that you’ll wear lots of hats. But I think sometimes there’s a temptation to take on too much – to try and save costs and maintain control by being the artist, the programmer, the sound designer, web designer, the accountant, and the business guy. And sometimes, this works out great.

But – I think it’s important to realize that this diversity of skills in one person is rare. There’s a good reason the revenue for indie games go up so dramatically when you start adding people to the team (see this awesome developer survey where Owen Goss compares revenue to the number of developers in a team:http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results-ios-game-revenue-survey/ )

The bottom line is – if you’re planning to make a living at this, and you’re not awesome at everything – your odds are going to increase dramatically if you pair up with an individual or team who complements your skills.

4. “Is it working?” – usability and focus testing

The good AAA studios do frequent and early testing on their games with a variety of methods. In addition to QA, they recognize the importance of putting products in front of people who represent your potential customers, and making really careful, methodical observations as they play through the game. There are studios who have this down to a science – sometimes they dedicate a person just to usability and focus testing. I’m almost always surprised during consumer focus tests at the things people get tripped up on, or the things they enjoy. Every test is just another affirmation that testing is worthwhile and vital.

I think that the successful indies are good at testing as well. Many people seem to believe the success or failure of iPhone apps seems random – but there’s really a lot to learn from games like Angry Birds and Temple Run.  These developers obviously learned their lessons and did their homework when it comes to what works and what doesn’t. When a 5-year old, a 30-year old, and a 60-year old can all understand and enjoy your game, you’ve done something right. Some of this is great design, and some of it is a great testing/iteration cycle.

Conversely, it’s not hard to find examples of games from individuals or even small studios where thorough usability and focus testing didn’t occur. And it’s (usually) not because the developer is lazy, but rather because they seem to lack appreciation of the importance of testing. In one recent article, I read someone lamenting a conversion rate of just 0.1% in their freemium game. They were analyzing their business decisions and the various options they had for in-app-purchase and talking about what they needed to improve these metrics – but a quick download of the game revealed a product with a broken, confusing UI. Looking at their iTunes page – 3 out of the 5 user reviews complained of not being able to figure out how to actually play.

Bottom line – make a plan for testing that includes more than yourself and your team!

5. Get ‘er done!

Being in a studio setting taught me a lot about how quality products are finished. I put in my time looking at mundane issues that some QA lead or producer thought was important, and constantly interacted with people who looked at the same product through a totally different lens. Now that I’m working without the benefit of a full-time QA department,  I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to go through this process with lots of shipped titles. At Flippfly, we are doing our own QA, but there is a process in my head for how this works – and I’m not sure I would’ve had a good process for this had I just started out on my own.

In addition, there is a human factor at work here. After I’d shipped a few games, I started to recognize some patterns in my myself that seem to repeat with every project I work on. Usually in the middle of the project, when everything starts to come together, I feel energetic and excited to finish features. Then there’s usually a point where the features are complete, but after staring at the same game for so long, boredom tends to set in, and I start to wonder if people will really like the game. The last months and weeks of the game can range from exciting to excruciating, as you’re eager to finish the game and move on to something else. Being aware that these phases are normal and expected, is great training for the indie life where it’s really up to just the two of us to power through it and get products finished.

In addition to quality QA work and a stick-to-it attitude, a studio setting will get you in the habit of cutting features and making tough decisions quickly. The first time I shipped a game with Raven, I was a little amazed at the sheer amount of content that we cut during  development  just to make the ship date. Each shipped product this became a little less shocking to my system, until I finally came to embrace cutting features as a means of making a focused, quality product. I believe that in the indie world, one of the things that separates the successful developers from the failures, is the ability to look objectively at the project as a whole, hone in on what really matters, and get the darn thing out the door. Spending some time in a studio setting is great training for this.

So there you have it – 5 things I gained from my time in the studio. At some point, write an article about what I think AAA could learn from indies – but that journey’s just begun!（Source：gamasutra）