作者：Matt Lynley

在Zynga还有许多人才未像其首席执行官Mark Pincus及其他高管那样频繁出现在各种新闻报道中。

主设计师Chris Trottier便是其中一个，她总是作为Zynga中的重要成员之一出现在各种谈话中。

据其身边人士所言，Trottier与Pincus常就一些关于新知识产权问题进行讨论，希望能够找到一种全新的游戏“类型”而帮助Zynga挖掘一些从未涉猎的市场。

虽然她不像首席设计师Mark Skaggs那样拥有属于自己的Zynga游戏（如《The Ville》），但是与其他主设计师一样，她在Zynga许多游戏中都发挥了举足轻重的作用，就像她对《The Ville》所做出的贡献一样。

Trottier最初来自Maxis（《模拟人生》开发公司），虽然一开始也是默默无闻，但是经过自己的努力后来成了《孢子》的首席设计师。

在偶然与Zynga大股东Bing Gordon碰面后，她的职业生涯发生了巨大的变化。可以说Zynga的未来（至少从局部来看）是屹立在她的肩膀之上。

chris-trottier(from businessinsider)

所以到底Trottier是怎样的人呢？让我们先听听她周围人士的描述：

Zynga的主要设计师也要依靠她提供一些富有经验的设计观点和“基本常识”。她的存在也意味着Zynga能够站在女性角度去制作面向女性群体的游戏。该公司的一位高管说道：“她是隐藏在Zynga中的一颗瑰宝。”

她是游戏设计专家Will Wright的亲密好友。Wright和Trottier身边人士形容道，他们是“永远的好朋友”。Wright之所以离不开她是因为Trottier总是能够洞察玩家的想法并创造出能够占领非传统硬核市场的游戏。

为了找到新游戏“类型”她正同Pincus商谈关于新IP的问题。她身边一位业内人士描述道，Trottier有点害羞，所以我们很难看到她走到台前与我们分享游戏。但是她却在许多款游戏中做出了巨大的贡献。

以下是BUSINESS INSIDER在最近采访中与Trottier的对话：

你已经进入游戏产业有一段时间了。你是如何开始游戏开发生涯的？

我在Maxis待了八九年。我是Will Wright的设计搭档，可以说我是我们合作关系中较有组织的一部分。我是那种每天都会到办公室并说道让我们开始谈论这个问题的人。我们总是会彼此交换意见，而我也认为自己总是与Will拥有不同的看法。在他的最新几款游戏中我们都展开了合作。

当我加入《模拟人生》团队时，它还只是一款关于厕所的游戏。好吧，听起来的确很酷。而在这个团队中也已经有许多比我资历更深的女性设计师了。虽然我认为让一大群人在一间房子中蹦来蹦去的游戏设置有点奇怪，但是那时的我刚刚接触这个产业，而我的工作只是协调《模拟人生》的整体框架。Will总是会与我分享他的想法——如需要花费多长时间才能让两个玩家发展到结婚的关系等，而我将与整个团队一起努力创造这些构想。

那时候的我还是个默默无闻的新人，我只是认为我们在创造一款游戏已经是非常酷的事情了。我就像是《广告狂人》（游戏邦注：American Movie Classics公司出品的美剧）中的Peggy Olsen，从最基础的事情开始做起，并拥有一些非常优秀的导师，不断挖掘自己内心的想法并慢慢将其带到各个项目中。当遇到《孢子》这个项目时我已经成为了首席游戏设计师，我带领整个设计团队并继续与Will保持合作关系。我想那时候的我们正在经历像Don Draper/Peggy所经历的过程。

为何来到Zynga？

这是偶然通过私下接触而促成的关系。某天当我在基层小组接见某人时，Bing Gordon刚好前来拜访《孢子》团队。他为我和Mark Pincus安排了共与午餐的机会。而那时候我却还不了解Mark Pincus到底是做什么的。

现在你在Zynga扮演着何种角色？

就像我与Will Wright的合作那样，我只是在此将这种方式进一步扩大化。当有人出现疑惑并需要交谈时我将与之分享自己的观点。可以说我是陪衬一样的存在，我会充分了解玩家的需求，并获得所有组织成员的信任。

Zynga哪一方面真正吸引了你的注意？

一开始你只是看到一些业内人士在玩彼此所制作的游戏。后来又突然出现一大群人——因为大家都很喜欢玩游戏。每个人都到感恩节晚会上玩巴棋戏（游戏邦注：以贝壳为骰子的四人游戏）。

而Zynga正是发现了这种游戏的魅力，即让人们能够围着餐桌玩游戏。同时玩家之间也可以远距离进行游戏——因为有强大的手机功能。电影拥有各种类型，包括喜剧和恐怖剧等，而大众市场游戏也一直在迎合各种类型。我发现让人们在游戏中做装饰并反复感受光亮是一种非常有趣的游戏体验。一两年前我们还未拥有《Words With Friends》这类型的游戏，但随后Newtoy创造了这款游戏。我想这也是社交游戏能够激励人心的内在潜力吧。

现在你想创造什么样的游戏“类型”？

硬核游戏玩家已经习惯于创造与现实世界不同的幻想世界。但是让人（特别是让更多女性）吃惊的是很多玩家其实对那些接近于现实生活的幻想世界更感兴趣，并且这些世界也不存在太多限制性规则。玩家不会面临各种财务限制或空间限制，这也是为何像《The Ville》等游戏能够吸引更多玩家注意的重要原因。这里并不像充满半兽人或地下城那样的世界。

而最让我兴奋的还是找到任何人都想尝试的游戏理念。当然了每个人的喜好不尽相同，但是我们却能够创造出让每个人都能在日常中体验的游戏。我发现这是一个非常激励人心且让人兴奋的过程，并且我们也还未能完全开发整个社交游戏领域。（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）

This Woman Is The Invisible Design Hand At Zynga

Matt Lynley

At Zynga, there are a number of talented people that don’t get the same sort of press coverage as CEO Mark Pincus and the rest of his executive crew.

One of them is principal game designer Chris Trottier, who repeatedly comes up in conversations as one of the most important people at Zynga.

Trottier consults Pincus on new intellectual property — trying to find new “genres” of games that Zynga can use to tap into unoccupied game markets, according to sources close to her.

She’s never “owned” a game, like lead designer Mark Skaggs owning Zynga’s new game The Ville. But like the rest of Zynga’s lead designers, she weighs in heavily on games, like she did with The Ville.

Trottier is originally from Maxis, the company behind The Sims, which is considered the most popular computer franchise of all time. Starting as a gumshoe there, she worked her way up to lead designer of Spore, another computer game.

Then a chance meeting with Bing Gordon, a big Zynga investor, led to a new career. Now the future of Zynga is sitting (at least partially) on her shoulders.

So, who is Trottier?

We caught up with her in an interview this week, but before we get to that, here’s what we’ve heard from a few people close to her:

Zynga’s top designers count on her to provide an experienced design perspective and “grounded common sense.” She’s also there to make sure Zynga has a woman’s perspective on games targeted for women. “She’s a hidden gem within Zynga,” one executive at the company said.

She was close friends with game design guru Will Wright. They were “BFFs,” one industry source close to both Wright and Trottier said. Wright accompanied her because she had an “inclusive vision” of gamers and could create games that capture those outside the traditional core market.

She’s doing new IP consulting with Pincus to decipher new “genres” of games. She’s a little shy, so you will never see her coming out an “owning” a game, one industry source close to her said. But she’s had a heavy design hand in many, many games.

And now, here’s our Q&A with her:

BUSINESS INSIDER: You’ve been in the game industry for a while. How did you get your start?

CHRIS TROTTIER: I was at Maxis for 8 or 9 years. I was Will Wright’s design partner — I was the more structured part of our partnership. I was the one who would come in every day and say, let’s talk about this. We’d just bounce ideas off each other, I think I had a very different point of view than his. We collaborated on his most recent titles.

When I joined The Sims I was like, it was going to be a game about toilets, okay, cool. But there were some more senior female design talent on that than me. It’s a little odd that there are a bunch of people that were bouncing around the house. At that point, I was just learning the industry. I worked on the tuning of The Sims. Will and I would talk about what he wanted it to feel like — how much time it would take to increase a relationship to get married, for example, and I’d work with the team to make that happen.

I was still kind of like a young gumshoe. I was like, okay, we’re making a game, that’s cool. I was a little bit of a Peggy Olsen from Mad Men. I’m the person who started junior, had some really good mentorship, developed her own voice and continues to bring perspective to projects.  When I got to Spore, I was the lead game designer, so I was running the design team and collaborating with Will. I think at that point, we had the Don Draper/Peggy thing going.

BI: How did you end up at Zynga?

CT: It was a personal connection. I was visiting people on the floor team, Bing Gordon was visiting Spore. He set up a lunch with Mark Pincus. I didn’t really know what Mark Pincus was doing. I was consulting in the early, early days.

BI: What’s your current role at Zynga?

CT: It’s similar to what I did with Will Wright, I do it more across the organization at Zynga. I’m the alternative point of view when someone needs someone to talk to. I’m a foil, a sounding board, a voice of a player that a lot of people in the org kind of trust.

BI: What about Zynga got you really interested?

CT: At first, you had an industry of people who were playing games that they had made for each other. Then, all of the sudden there were vastly more people — it’s not a surprise that more people are interested in playing games. Everyone’s been to the thanksgiving dinner where everyone plays Parcheesi.

Zynga hit a real nerve with the kinds of games people would play around the dining room table. But you can play it from afar — that’s where mobile becomes an amazing opportunity. Movies have all these genres like comedy and horror and mass market gaming is still discovering genres. I find that very exciting — the people really into decorating, the people into the light back-and-forth experiences. A year or two ago we didn’t have Words With Friends games, then the people in McKinney stumbled upon that. That’s the exciting potential of social games.

BI: What kinds of “genres” are you looking at right now?

CT: I think one of the things that’s been perhaps counter intuitive to core gamers in the past is that they’re used to creating these fantasy worlds that are very much other than this world. What’s been surprising to people, maybe more women, is that a lot of people are much more interested in a fantasy that takes place in a world that’s similar to our own, but where the rules are a little pushed. You don’t have tons of financial constraints, space constraints, that’s why something like The Ville caps into an interest with a lot more people. Not like orcs and dungeons.

Certainly the thing that has me most excited is this notion of finding the games that everyone wants to play. It may not be that everyone is the same, but finding games that everyone can bring play into their daily lives. I find that very motivating and very excited, and I don’t think we’ve fully explored this social games thing.(source:Business Insider)