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Jim Veevaert分享转投社交游戏开发领域的收获

发布时间:2012-08-09 17:23:50 Tags:,,

作者:Dean Takahashi

Zynga有很多元老级人物,如Jim Veevaert,他是公司西雅图工作室的总经理。在过去的18年里,Veevaert曾是Jerry Bruckheimer Games的联合创始人及制作总裁,同时还是微软构思的执行制作人。他负责高预算游戏,如《光晕3》、《宝贝万岁》和《战争机器》。2011年,他放弃硬核游戏,加入休闲游戏公司Zynga(游戏邦注:Zynga常被指责模仿他人作品)。目前他领导制作出《Ruby Blast》之类社交游戏的开发团队。Veevaert表示,目前他想要尝试将游戏设计成服务,融入日更新内容和分析反馈信息,不会再走回头路。他告别主机开发领域。日前在西雅图的Casual Connect大会上,我们有幸采访了他。如下是部分访谈内容。

jim veevaert from venturebeat.com

jim veevaert from venturebeat.com

能否和我们分享下你的初期开发岁月。

就职于Vivendi时,我是《半条命》项目的执行制作人。我们着手制作所谓的Mod Pack,这是我想做的事情。关于这点,我是个忠实拥护者。公司表示,“我们不需要制作Mod Pack。它们都是免费的。”我回答称,“不,我觉得这是个很棒的构思。我们可以充分利用《反恐精英》,这将会非常棒。”他们表示,“没有人会购买这一内容。”我最终不得不说服Vivendi。他们表示,“没有销售人员对《反恐精英》之类的内容感兴趣。”而我觉得这会变得很受欢迎,我积极进行推广。我需要将其推行至零售渠道。他们最终装载约10万份。这太神奇了。

pic 01 from venturebeat.com

pic 01 from venturebeat.com

我们甚至还协助创建了Gearbox。我们制作了《半条命》的首个扩展包Opposing Force,这是Gearbox的开端。这是我们最初的开始方式。这棒极了,堪称是段美好时光。目前我喜欢这一行业的地方在于,这令人回想起90年代的行业:小团队,快速完成游戏制作。和产品保持亲密关系。每日、每周有所进步。这太棒了。我们可以坐下来,集体讨论一个设计,2-3天里制作出设计模型。在《光晕》项目中,我们需要开会,我们需要进行沟通,讨论设计和环境艺术。我们开会讨论如何将各机制结合起来。这需要花费更长时间。结果很棒,但推进《光晕3》是项庞大工作。

Mark Pincus曾谈到,他们共有100多位开发人员负责《CityVille》的制作。我的看法是,“这听起来像是主机游戏的团队规模。”

我知道。我们的运作规模小很多,但我们说的是《Ruby Blast》。我们目前已推出游戏的手机版本,游戏搭载iPhone平台。我们将能够在iPad和iPhone平台接触到这款游戏。我们算是交叉开发。我们基于相同方式开发新IP。我们同时创造平台和连接关系。这是有趣之处所在。和众多开发者合作,找出制作游戏的最佳方式。我们可以将其设计得多有趣?PC如何同移动平台连接?我们可以将什么特定体验或玩法机制运用至连网移动平台,以防有人无法连接至网络?我们还发现,这并非什么巨大进程。游戏玩家不一定会转投移动平台。我们需要确保移动和PC的游戏体验具有独立性。

社交和移动平台的开发人员是否相同?

是的。这就是有趣之处。需要针对更小屏幕进行设计,将内容变得更丰富。就如在《Ruby Blast》中,我们需要分解内容,将其缩小,然后进行试验。我们可以将iOS平台的视觉效果提升至什么程度?若不是iOS平台,如果我们着手借助Adobe Air会是什么情况?我们会基于这一技术开展工作。这就是有趣之处所在:发挥技术的作用。

pic 02 from venturebeat.com

pic 02 from venturebeat.com

Kixeye的Will Harbin非常着迷于Flash 11.4,这通过更多硬件加速器制作出快速的3D游戏。

这有些难以置信。如今你其实完全能够做到这点。你可以引进3D游戏,然后着手推进它。但Flash 11的利用率还不是很高。多数用户依然采用Flash 10。我们非常关注这点。我们在《Ruby Blast》中着眼于这一元素。关于《Ruby Blast》,我们需要制作两个版本,Flash 11版本和Flash 10版本。Flash 11逐步迎头赶上,但Flash 10显然占据主导位置。

制作两个版本听起来有些困难。

有趣之处是,有些用户只有软件渲染器,他们的电脑没有硬件加速器。所以我们需要确保电脑年龄超过4岁的玩家能够从中收获乐趣,会依然想要继续游戏。他们没有任何硬件加速效果,但对于拥有高性能便携电脑和计算机的用户来说,为什么不发挥所有这些技术?这就是有趣之处所在。在主机领域,你拥有统一平台。你清楚自己的开发目标。这里我们需要调节高低水平。这就是像是回到PC时代,你需要支持所有用户。Windows 95和98,是否记得?

那么技术的选择也很重要吗?就像Mark就《泡泡射击》游戏制作出4位玩家的演示内容。若你开始转移到类似的同步多人模式,那么技术是否依然重要?

我觉得它非常重要。拥有优质的链条非常重要。我觉得这在软件模式依然具有可行性,但若你充分利用硬件加速器,那么是的,这将变得更杰出。加载时间依然很合理,所以这不成问题。这只是个可玩帧速率。这是我们能够发现的东西,取决于用户的连接速度或处理器。这主要围绕具体的缩放方式。

pic 03 from venturebeat.com

pic 03 from venturebeat.com

你是否希望自己的《光晕》多人游戏开发者转投这一模式?

我应该如此。我应该和Bungie沟通,看看他们是否想要这么做。对我来说,有趣的地方是,我更多围绕休闲玩家思考问题。什么是休闲玩家?是否指每天花几分钟玩手机的用户?你谈到的是《CityVille》,玩家可以在《CityVille》中投入比“硬核”游戏更多的时间。高达每年300小时——这比玩家在《湮没》或《光晕3》中投入的时间更多,这取决于他们想要投入多少资金。所以我非常好奇你的想法。什么是休闲玩家?是否是指体验较短时间的用户?或者是指游戏风格?什么代表休闲游戏?

如今大家是否都具有某种程度上的“人格分裂”。

我的意思是,难道你没有在自己的手机上玩游戏?我猜你多半有这么做过。

是的,如果我没有足够的时间玩硬核游戏,那么我就只有玩这些小规模的游戏。那么我还是不是硬核玩家?

是的!如果你一周没有玩14个小时,那么你就算不上硬核玩家。这非常有趣,因为我好友列表上的所有硬核玩家,我的所有工作伙伴都在玩相同的休闲游戏。娱乐的坚持不懈精神已扩展至移动平台,全面扩大覆盖范围。

你是否将这看作是一个问题:“如果你有很多时间,你会玩什么游戏?”这样你可以更好地将用户进行分类。如果我有60小时的时间进行厮杀活动,我会返回主机游戏,但有很多用户即便有如此多的时间也不会转投这些内容。他们只玩休闲游戏。

所以我将再次向你发出挑战,因为我喜欢反反复复。我没法像5年前那样坐在电视前,在主机中插入游戏,然后专注于此。因为我知道,即便是就诸如《死亡空间2》这类的作品而言,我也需要完成游戏。我需要投入23小时的时间,完成这款游戏。我不想要以递增趋势体验这款游戏:今天半个关卡,下个礼拜再回来。你需要没每晚都进入游戏,以保持跟进。我发现,就我自己的生活方式来说,这不再适合。我很好奇你的情况。这是否依然适合你?

是的,我觉得确实如此。所有这些都一次性发生:智能手机的出现及带来丰富功能,它们如何占据你的时间。因为现在你可以随时进行操作。现在我可以1天操作24小时。我可以通过我的智能手机取得累累硕果。我经常和孩子们参加足球比赛。也许中场休息时,我还还可以进行些许操作。

很有意思吧?我有个9岁的女儿和12岁的儿子。他会拿走我的控制器,成为家里默认的硬核玩家。他玩各种游戏内容。但就连他也逐步脱离主机游戏。他越来越感兴趣于iPad,转投更快速、通俗的游戏。这是个有趣的过渡。我如何从中找到我曾在每周投入15-20小时的主机游戏中得到的那种满足感?如今情况已发生改变。

他们已逐步长大,完全超乎我的意料。当有休闲时间时,他们会停留在iPod Touch或iPad设备。或者如果他们启动控制台,他们会打开Wii,玩《新超级马里奥兄弟》,他们已经玩这款游戏2年了。

是的,我儿子一直对《马里奥赛车》之类的旧游戏念念不忘——这是我们所喜欢体验的有趣内容。作品非常有趣。就我的游戏机经历来看,我在图像和720p分辨率中投入许多时间,确保我们获得适当的图层。帧速率需处于最佳状态。其中不应存在任何延迟问题——要尽量无缝隙。我们获得诸如有多少玩家完成《光晕3》之类的有趣数据。我们以为数据会处于更高水平,但其实只有约20%。若进行转换,这就像是去看电影的观众中,有80%中途离场。用户没有持续前进的欲望。这是款售出1200万份的游戏,但只有20%的用户完整完成游戏。我心想,“天啊,这是不是很有意思?”

关于移动和PC平台间的差异性呢?更新工作在PC平台非常简单。我也许会在我的手机上更新软件,但我不会经常更新我的游戏。我有太多的应用。我并未经常进行更新。

这是我们在自身创建的内容中所遇到的一个挑战。在网页平台,每次重新加载《Ruby Blast》之类的游戏时,你就会得到一个更新内容,无论你喜欢与否。这是游戏更新内容本身。你获得新内容、新体验以及新功能——这是我们希望向你呈现的新元素。手机平台也许不是如此,因为你1-2个月内不会更新《Ruby Blast》手机应用。一直都是这些内容。这是我们面临的一个有趣挑战,体现在我们如何将这些游戏联系起来,若用户从未更新他们的手机,我们可以确保他们依然有很棒的体验。

Zynga是Zynga,你是否曾经基于某个你无法进行更新的控制台制作游戏?若你没有每天进行更新,这是否还是Zynga游戏?

手机更新内容以周为基础。查看此步调是否可行非常有意思。我很好奇PlayStation 3的退出比例,在此用户会说,“啊,这耗费过久时间。”

不久前我曾看到Christian Svensson关于此话题的专栏。我从未从游戏机公司那里听到任何有关答案。

索尼希望你成为付费高级会员,所以它会自动在夜里进行更新,是吧?他们希望你成为付费高级会员,你的盒子会自动开启,接收更新内容,然后关闭,所以你不需要开启后坐在那里等20分钟。在Xbox平台,他们积极将用户的不满情绪降到最低。开启控制台后,你不希望自己还要接收更新内容。关于控制台,其中规则是,它无法呈现电脑游戏的外观和操作方式。若是Facebook游戏,你需要顾及所有这些因素。它需要耗费更长加载时间;你不清楚具体加载时间。Xbox有具体的加载指示,开发者需要遵守。数据的流通方式不应利用硬盘驱动器。它需要源自磁盘——所有这些内容都需要这样。Facebook没有具体指示。

pic 04 from venturebeat.com

pic 04 from venturebeat.com

作为游戏设计师,你是否想要回到这一领域?

不会。

现在你着迷于日常更新?

我喜欢这类东西。下面是其有趣之处所在。当我们制作游戏时,我们能够访问到许多很棒的数据。但如今数据包含众多信息,它们不仅告知我们应该采取什么举措,还告知我们如何做出创造性决策。我们从中掌握的东西是,完成主机游戏的制作,然后投入市场进行销售。发行日期和黄金时期之间会有一段时间,约是25或28天。在线游戏的速度会更快,但你会看到的是,你的游戏会快速被下载。我没有得到的信息是,用户的接受情况,他们欣赏什么功能,以及其中原因。现在我们可以获取这些信息。在我们调整某功能后,我们接受率提高,还是降低——或者用户如何相互赠送礼物,以及他们如何基于社交视角做出回应。同样,这非常有趣。我们鼓励玩家发布更多信息。通过获得实时信息,我们能够稳固自身和用户之间的关系。我们可以携手并进。用户协助激发开发者,开发者激发用户的积极性。我们之间存在真实距离,这是主机领域的情况。我们会推出更新内容,然后通过Bungie.net查看信息,然后发现,“哦,这非常有趣。”但发布于Bungie.net,告知你进展情况的是核心要素。在购买游戏的1200万名用户中,我不知道多数玩家的具体情况。现在我喜欢这一过程。这很棒,而且很迅速。我们能够快速得到原型。我们能够快速进行基准测试。

相比过去几十年,平台的若干功能如今更适合设计游戏。

确是如此。如今我们着眼于纯粹的机制。我们可以快速运行一个原型,测试机制,然后查看结果。得到满意的优秀机制后,我们要如何着手创建体验内容,添加叙述元素,利用渲染器呢?这不存在任何限制。我们在Facebook平台的发挥空间不存在任何限制,现在这出现在移动平台。技术改善如此迅速,我们同其进行角逐。你刚读到Flash 11.4的相关内容,是吧?忽然之间,你可以在Facebook窗口体验主机游戏。这有些难以置信。

所以若Mark Pincus给你安排100名人员,长时间制作一款游戏,你会怎么做?

我不知道。100名人员。我也许会将他们分成不同团队,负责若干个小项目,查看哪个团队更具发展势头,然后重新进行分配。这就是主机领域过去的操作方式。《Fable》共涉及数百名人员,他们随后需要转移到《Fable II》,然后全力投身至《Fable III》。现在,我想我们更多着眼于“击中目标”。你可以着眼于具有可行性的内容,能够测试新构思及进行新试验。这是行业如今令人满意的地方:能够富有创造性及反应性,快速前进——真正的快速前进,从我们当前制作的内容及在1-3周里将完成的内容中找到满足感。这让团队得到冲劲,觉得自己同此密切相关。我很喜欢这点。就如我说的,如今若我制作游戏,我多半不愿意进行思考。

也许这还要耗费我另一个2.5年或3年时间?我不知道3年后情况将会是如何。或者,就和过去一样,你着手制作游戏,然后他们说,“是的,这在Xbox 1将会非常不错,但我们需要你瞄准360平台。这里有很多庞大的嘈杂麦金塔电脑。你能否模仿360,着手进行制作?”你速度不快。你只是拥有类似于开发环境的东西。我从不会忘记自己在Rare制作《凯蜜欧传说》的岁月。当时四周是各种框架,英国没有任何空调。下午3点,天气非常炎热,所有人都大汗淋漓,想要快点完成这款游戏,因为这原本锁定Xbox 1,但现在要转移至360平台。所以我不知道自己是否还愿意再次回过头经历这些。我不确定自己是否会想要过渡至新平台。毋庸置疑,如果你开发的游戏需要耗时2-3年,你就可能会遭遇这种情况。

pic 05 from venturebeat.com

pic 05 from venturebeat.com

所以如果你需要和这些3D游戏共同分享Facebook平台,那会出现什么情况?如果这些主机游戏开发商转移方向,或是制作优先锁定平板电脑的3D Facebook游戏,Zynga游戏是否还有市场?

我不认为Kixeye和Zynga目前存在较大交集。Zynga非常清楚自己的业务,这些是公司所瞄准的目标群体。

在我看来,他们目前存在一个缺点。他们似乎过度延伸平台。他们的脚步要快很多。他们几乎已达到目标。但我很好奇,待到他们达到目标后,是否会有更多人喜欢这些游戏。

我觉得,关于在Facebook平台开发游戏,我们公司知道很多东西。在这些基础知识中,有若干关于如何创建游戏的社交联系及如何促使玩家进行社交体验的最佳举措和经验教训。人类就是人类,他们是真正的社会人。Xbox Live充分证明这点。硬核玩家喜欢相互沟通;他们享受于建立联系。在如何联系用户和如何制作促使用户同他人进行分享的内容方面,我们具备许多技能。我不担心Kixeye之类的公司制作硬核内容,因为最终,这都主要围绕扩展这一市场。

EA谈到我们的游戏玩家如何由3亿发展至20亿。

是的,我想他们谈论的是移动平台。谈到移动平台,这就意义深远:新iPhone和新iPad会带来什么,平板电脑如何腾空起飞。这非常有趣。很多时候,硬核市场的竞争促使所有人都瞄准相同用户。同样是25-34岁的群体。所有人都瞄准相同用户。这是下一款第一人称设计游戏。这是下一款即时策略游戏。

这里的市场完全开放,棒极了。我们看到游戏如何在Zynga网络快速发展。这难以置信。即便是像《Slingo》这样的游戏也迅速发展至400万用户的规模。用户尝试游戏,进行体验,从中收获乐趣。现在着眼点就是如何促使这些用户持续体验这些游戏。我们如何创造出有节奏的内容,在很长一段时间内吸引他们的眼球?这就是关键所在。对于众多进军这一领域的主机游戏公司来说,这里有很多值得学习的经验。这不是单纯制作出内容,让用户进行体验。Facebook和网络文化向用户表明,内容将非常新鲜和有趣。每次返回你得到的都不是相同的游戏。每次回去体验游戏,你是否寻找不同东西?

pic 06 from venturebeat.com

pic 06 from venturebeat.com

你如何协调自己的目标和公司目标?你个人也许想要在Facebook上制作《光晕》。我相信有天你可以在这类平台实现这一目标,然后促使数亿用户进行体验。但同时,你也许需要制作克隆作品,或者你也许需要制作另一款赌场游戏。就我个人来看,这些也许是设计师并不感兴趣的游戏。你如何做到这点,你如何促使大家投身这类内容:规模小于主机游戏的作品?

我想有很多人有和我相同的经历。我假设游戏开发和设计将非常简单和基础。同样,这能有多复杂?即便是像《Ruby Blast》或《Slingo》这样的游戏,我们对于其设计水平感到非常震惊:关卡到关卡,瞬间到瞬间,点击到点击。想到这我们就有很多满足感:“我们从头2-4分钟玩法中得到什么?”我们从未在主机领域进行这样的思考。我们会说,通过关卡3,这是玩家将达到的地方。我们假设你们你们会到达关卡3。我们假设你们会到达这里,向前移动,进行射击,持续前进,你们会晋升至关卡3。

现在我们需要确保你们会加载游戏。我们沿途配合你。所以设计需要从初次用户体验着手。我们投入很多时间思考如何向你引入玩法机制。查看接受率和减少比例能够带来巨大满足感。在初次体验中,用户多快减少?我们将此称作首次用户体(游戏邦注:即FTUE)。用户多快退出,他们的持续体验频率?当他们邀请好友进入体验时,会出现什么情况?这完全基于设计。游戏设计师喜欢设计游戏机制。当他们获得杰出反馈信息,但他们得到确认,决策具有可行性时,这就非常有趣。

我会告诉你,优秀的高级硬核设计师会在用户对他们的设计感到满意时收获同样的满足感。他们获得这一过程的认可。所以我在《Ruby Blast》之类的游戏中找到和制作《光晕3》相同程度的趣味性和满意度。这就像是小步舞曲和交响乐。二者都非常复杂。二者都提供很多内容。二者都有很多丰富内容和深度,二者都有针对不同用户的内容。

我曾在LA看到名为《33变奏曲》的音乐剧。Jane Fonda也参与其中。这非常棒,因为这主要围绕19世纪的华尔兹舞曲作曲家,他作出这一华尔兹舞曲,他支付酬劳给愿意在其中编撰变奏曲的作曲家。所以若干作曲家在此简单主题上制作变奏曲。贝多芬发现这令他痴狂。他无法停下脚步,直到他在此基础主题上制作出33种变奏曲。他从中找到深度,他可以进入不同层次。这些基于简单主题的变化造就他的杰作,这类似于这些游戏的表层。底部具有复杂结构,它们通过促使用户同好友建立联系,完善关系,创造更丰富的体验(游戏邦注:机制不再围绕单纯的点击),带来某种程度的满足感和肯定。这围绕好友之间的交流:发生于过程中的收集、分享和创建活动。这就是为什么这非常精彩。我从未在主机平台进行过这样的操作。在我看来,这带来额外的满足感和趣味性。

pic 07 from  venturebeat.com

pic 07 from venturebeat.com

很多游戏似乎是从1小时延伸至10小时。有时非常痛苦,是吧?但你如何延伸包含故事的游戏,以让自己体验数个月?

我不知道你脑中是否有相关例子。

更多是关于主机游戏领域——《神秘海域3》之类的作品包含若干你想要进行照顾的角色。但在游戏结尾,他们嵌入数千个需要你进行射击的角色。

是的。你是否看过游戏末尾的计时器?我在《神秘海域2》的末尾看到过。是什么,1800个角色?你完全没有意识到,但计数相当高。非常特别。有很多穿黑色套装的家伙。

他们融入这一故事,他们将此故事进行延伸。

是的,他们将此进行延伸,持续添加需要你进行消灭的角色。具体操作和想象之间所存在的差别体现在前进感。不妨查看《Bubble Safari》,在此你拥有前进地图。当你通过某关卡,尝试新内容时,你会看到,你在地图中获得前进。这里的巧妙之处是,你可以持续添加叙述内容。随着玩家在地图中前进,到达新领域,我们就可以在地图中添加更多领土,让玩家进一步深入故事。然后你就能够在故事中引入新元素,这会变得非常有趣。你也可以在地图中添加玩法元素。这就是它发生改变的地方。你不再只是在面板上来回走动。地图能够带来好友之间的玩法时刻。你点击和添加生命和能量。你会发现好友有段时间被限制前行,除非你给予帮助。所以你可以通过各种方式给予支持。总是有新领域供你进行设计。你可以查看什么促进基础的社交互动。这是有趣之处所在。你也许通过手机体验游戏,而我通过网页平台,而她则通过iPad,我们都可以加入彼此的体验中,无论置身何处。在我看来,这棒极了。你无需晚上8点置身电视机前。如今我可以协助你的玩法体验,无论我置身何处,你置身何处。我喜欢这样的构思:我们制作出包含叙述性的内容,能够共同分享和探索故事。(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

Game designer crosses over from making Halo games to Zynga’s social games — he’s never going back (interview)

By Dean Takahashi

Zynga has lots of veterans like Jim Veevaert, a general manager of the social game company’s studio in Seattle. An 18-year pro, Veevaert was previously cofounder and president of production at Jerry Bruckheimer Games and an executive producer at Microsoft. He led the production of of big budget games, such as Halo 3, Viva Pinata, and Gears of War. In 2011, he gave up hardcore games and joined casual game maker Zynga, which is often accused of being a copycat. Now he’s leading teams that create social games like Ruby Blast. Veevaert says now that he’s had a taste for designing games as a service, with daily updates and analytic feedback, there’s no going back. He has kissed the console development world goodbye. We caught up with him for a cup of coffee at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Tell us about your early days.

Jim Veevaert: At Vivendi, I was the executive producer on the Half-Life franchise. We were starting this thing called the Mod Pack, which I wanted to do. I was a big proponent of it. [The company] said, “We don’t need to do a Mod Pack. They’re all free.” I said, “No, I think this is a really good idea. We could use Counter-Strike, and it would be really cool.” They said, “Nobody’s going to buy that.” I ended up having to convince Vivendi. They said, “Nobody in sales is interested in something like Counter-Strike.” I thought it was really going to catch on. I pushed it and pushed it. I had to shove it into the retail channel. They loaded in maybe 100,000 units, and it was just like, whoosh! Like that. Never looked back. It was amazing.

We even helped start Gearbox. When we did the first add-on pack for Half-Life, Opposing Force, that was the beginning of Gearbox. That’s how we got them started. It was pretty cool. Good days. What I like about this industry now — what’s so great — is that it’s so reminiscent of the way the industry felt back in the early ’90s: small teams and getting games done quickly. Being really close to the product. Making progress on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. It’s amazing. We can sit down, brainstorm out a design, and have a prototype of that design in two to three days. On Halo, it would be like…. We had to have a meeting. We had to have a conversation, talking about design and environmental art. We’d have meetings about how we would execute pulling the systems together. It would take a lot longer. The results were great, but it was a huge operation pushing Halo 3 forward.

GamesBeat: Mark Pincus mentioned that they had more than 100 developers working on CityVille. I thought, “That sounds like the team for a console game to me.”

Veevaert: I know. We’re operating on a much smaller scale, but we’re looking at…. Ruby Blast — what we just did. We’ve already got a mobile version of it running right now. It’s working on iPhone. We’re going to be doing it on iPad and iPhone. We’re looking at how we’re sort of cross-developing. We’re doing a new IP, as well, the same way. We’re developing platforms and connectivity at the same time. That’s what’s really fun. Working with a handful of developers and just figuring out what’s the best way to make the game work. How fun can we make it? How will the PC connect with mobile? What is a unique experience or gameplay mechanic that we can apply in mobile that’s linked, in case somebody never connects to the web? We’re also finding that there’s not necessarily a great process for that. People who play one game don’t always go and play on mobile, as well. We need to make sure the experiences are stand-alone enough on mobile and the PC.

GamesBeat: Do you have the same developers on social and mobile?

Veevaert: Absolutely, absolutely. That’s what’s fun. Having to design for the smaller screen and make it more…. Like in Ruby Blast’s case, we had to collapse it, shrink it down, and experiment. How far can we push the visual effects on the iOS? If it’s not iOS, what if we start working with Adobe Air? So we work within the technology some way or another and see. That’s what’s been fun: leveraging technology.

GamesBeat: The Kixeye guy, Will Harbin, was getting really excited about Flash 11.4. It’s using more hardware acceleration to make really fast 3D games.

Veevaert: Oh, it’s incredible. It’s actually getting to the point where you can do that. You can bring in 3D games and start pushing it. But Flash 11 adoption isn’t as high just yet. Most of the audience is still on Flash 10. We’re being very mindful of that. We’re looking at it with Ruby. It was the case with Ruby Blast that we had to do two versions. We did a Flash 11 version and a Flash 10. Flash 11 is catching up, but Flash 10 is clearly the dominant one.

GamesBeat: Making two versions sounds difficult to do.

Veevaert: Well, what’s interesting is you have a certain amount of people who just have software renderers. No hardware acceleration in their computers. So we have to make the game fun for people who’ve got a 4-year-old computer and still want to play. They won’t have any hardware-accelerated effects, but for people who have great laptops and great computers, why not leverage all that technology? That’s the thing that’s interesting. In console, you had a unified platform. You knew exactly what you were developing to. Here we have to scale high and low. It’s like back in the PC days, when you had to support everybody. Windows 95 and 98, remember that?

GamesBeat: So does choice of technology also matter? Like when Mark did that demo of four players on the Bubble Safari game. If you start moving to synchronous multiplayer like that, then technology matters again?

Veevaert: Well, I think it does matter. It matters that you have a good chain. I think it will still work in software mode, but if you take advantage of hardware acceleration, then yeah, it’s absolutely going to be better. Loading times are still great, so that’s not the issue. It’s just a playable framerate. That’s what we can find out, depending on what people’s connection speeds or processors are like. It’s a matter of how it scales.

GamesBeat: Do you wish you had your Halo multiplayer developers to go to work on that?

Veevaert: I should! I should talk to Bungie and see if they want to do it. The thing that’s interesting to me is I’ve been thinking a lot about the casual gamer. What is a casual gamer anymore? Is this somebody who plays on their phone for a few minutes a day? You were talking about CityVille, where somebody can spend way more time playing a game like CityVille than they could a “hardcore” game. Up to 300 hours a year playing it — that’s far more than somebody might put into a game like even Oblivion or Halo 3, depending on how much they want to spend. So I’m curious as to your thoughts. What is a casual gamer? Is it someone who just plays for a short period of time? Or is it the style of game? And then what denotes a casual game?

GamesBeat: It seems like everybody has some kind of split personality these days.

Veevaert: I mean, aren’t you playing some games on your phone? I’m sure you are.

GamesBeat: Yeah. And if I don’t have enough time to play hardcore games, then I’m only playing these smaller games. So am I still a hardcore gamer?

Veevaert: Yeah! If you haven’t done your routine 14 hours a week, then you have to give up your status as a hardcore gamer. It’s funny because all the guys on my friends list who are core gamers, and all the guys I work and develop with — we’re all playing the same casual games together. I just think that now, the persistence of entertainment has spread so far with mobile that it’s sort of leveled the waters across the board.

GamesBeat: Do you see it as a question like, “If you had infinite time, what games would you play?” And you could sort people out better that way. I would go back to a lot of these console games if I had 60 hours to kill, but then there’s a lot of people who would never get there even if they had all that time. They’re only going to play casual titles.

Veevaert: So I’ll challenge you again because I like going back and forth. I don’t have the time I used to have five years ago to sit down in front of the TV, throw a game in a console, and get invested in it. Because I know, even in something like Dead Space 2, I had to finish that game. I had to go from start to finish. Or Red Dead Redemption. I had to put my 23 hours in and finish the game. I didn’t feel like playing it incrementally: half a level today and come back to it next week. You have to be on it every night to stay in the experience of it. I found that, as far as my own lifestyle, that just doesn’t fit anymore. I’m curious about you. Does that still work for you?

GamesBeat: Yeah, I think that’s true. All these things have happened at once: the arrival and the usefulness of smartphones, and how they can take your time away. Because now you can do work at any time. I can work 24 hours a day now. I can be productive on my smartphone. I’ve got kids going to soccer games a lot. Maybe at halftime I’ve got some time to do something.

Veevaert: Isn’t that funny? I have a 9-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old boy. He took the controller away from me, literally, and became the default core gamer in the house. He’s the guy who plays everything. But even he’s pulling away from console games. He got more interested in the iPad and in playing more quick, accessible games. It’s been this interesting transition. How do I find the level of fulfillment I used to think was great in a console game, where I put in 15 or 20 hours a week? Now it’s just not the same thing anymore.

GamesBeat: They’ve grown up in a way that I didn’t expect. When they have their free time, they will stay on the iPod Touch or the iPad. Or if they turn on a console, they’ll turn on the Wii to play New Super Mario Bros., which they’ve been playing for two years.

Veevaert: Yeah. My son’s been dredging up old stuff like Mario Kart — just fun stuff we like to play. It’s interesting. In my console history, we spent so much time working on graphics and on the 720p resolution, making sure we had proper tiling. The framerate had to be perfect. There couldn’t be any latency loss between anything — just as seamless as possible. There are these interesting stats we came across about how many people finished Halo 3. This is what blew us away. We thought the numbers would be a lot higher, but it was actually around 20 percent. If you flipped it around, it would be like if people went to a movie and 80 percent of them walked out of the film before it was over. But people didn’t feel compelled enough to keep going. It’s a game that sold 12 million units, and yet only 20 percent of those people bothered to finish it. I thought, “God, isn’t that interesting?”

GamesBeat: What about some differences between mobile and PC? Updating is easy on the PC. I may update the software on my phone, but I don’t update my games often. I have too many apps. I don’t update a lot of those.

Veevaert: That’s one of the challenges we have with the content we create. On the web, every time you reload a game like Ruby Blast, you’re getting an update whether you like it or not. The game updates itself. You get new content, a new experience, and new features — new things we want to serve to you. That may not be true on the phone because you may not update the Ruby Blast phone app for a month or two. There’s all this content left sitting out there. It’s one of the interesting challenges that we have in terms of how we connect these games together and how, if people never update their phones, we make sure they still have a great experience.

GamesBeat: Zynga being Zynga, would you ever go make a game for a console where you couldn’t update it? Like, I will make a game for the PlayStation Network, if and only if you let me update it every day. If you didn’t get to update every day, would you still have a Zynga game?

Veevaert: Well, mobile updates on a weekly basis. It would be interesting to see if that cadence works. I wonder what the turnoff rate is on the PlayStation 3, where people just say, “Ah, it’s taking too long.”

GamesBeat: I saw a column by, I think, Christian Svensson on that a while back. I never heard of an answer coming back from any of the console companies….

Veevaert: Sony wanted you to buy the premium membership, so it auto-updates in the night, right? They wanted you to buy that premium membership, and your box would automatically turn on, take the update, and turn off, so you didn’t have to switch on, sit there, and wait for 20 minutes. With Xbox, they’re trying to minimize the customer dissatisfaction. If you turn on your console, you don’t want to have to take an update. For console, the rules are that it can’t look and act like a computer game. When you have a game that’s played on Facebook, you make all these allowances. It could take longer to load; you don’t know how long it’s going to take to load. The Xbox had specific loading directions that developers had to follow. The way that data was streamed in had to not take advantage of the hard drive. It had to run from the disc — all this stuff had to. There’s not really directions for, say, Facebook.

GamesBeat: As a game designer, do you ever want to go back to that world?

Veevaert: No.

GamesBeat: You’re addicted to daily updates now?

Veevaert: I love this stuff. See, here’s what’s exciting. As we make the games, and as we build them, we have access to a lot of great data. But the data now has become so informative that it’s not just driving us as far as what to do, but also informing us on how to make decisions that we’re making creatively. What I have found is that getting a console game done, getting it finished, and shipped to retail…. There was a period of time, sometimes 25 or 28 days, between going gold and the game sitting at retail. That could go faster for an online game, but all you could really see was how fast your game was getting downloaded. What I wasn’t getting was the real-time information on how people were adopting, what features they were enjoying, and why. We can look at it now and see that. After we change one feature, we can see the adoption rate go up or go down — or the way people are sending gifts to each other, and how they’re responding from a social perspective. Like, that’s interesting. We’re prompting people to post more. By getting the realtime information, all that’s done is solidified our relationship with the audience. We can work hand in hand. You have the audience helping to motivate the developer and the developer helping to motivate the audience. There was a real distance between us, the way it worked in the console world. We would do updates and look at Bungie.net to get information, and think, “Oh, that’s interesting.” But it’s only the core of the core that are posting on Bungie.net and telling you what’s going on. Of the 12 million people who bought the game, I had no idea what the vast majority were doing. Now, I love this process. It’s great, and it’s fast. We can get to a prototype really quickly. We can get to benchmark tests quickly as well.

GamesBeat: There are some features of the platform that turn out to be a better way to design games than the way they were designed in the last couple of decades.

Veevaert: Oh, yeah. Now we can focus on pure mechanics. We can get a prototype up and running very quickly, test that mechanic, and look at. Okay, now that we have a great mechanic that we like, how do we start building an experience, adding a narrative, and working with renderers? The sky’s the limit. There doesn’t seem to be a limitation to what we can actually do in the space of Facebook, and now it’s happening on mobile. Technology is improving so fast, and we’re racing with it. You just read about Flash 11.4, right? Suddenly now you can have console games being played right in the Facebook window. That’s incredible.

GamesBeat: So if Mark Pincus gives you 100 people to work on one game for a long time, what would you do?

Veevaert: I don’t know. One hundred people…. I might break that into a few different teams and do several smaller projects, look at what’s gaining heat and momentum, and then reproportion it. I think that’s how it used to be in the old days of consoles. Fable had hundreds of people, and then they had to just move over to Fable II, and then take that whole operation to Fable III. I think now, we can get a lot of what he likes to call “shots on goal.” You can look at things that are working and have the ability to test new ideas and experiment. That’s what’s so fulfilling about this industry right now: the sense of being able to be creative, responsive, and move fast — really moving fast and finding satisfaction in what we’re creating today and what we’re going to get done in one, two, or three weeks. It’s having the team feeling a sense of momentum and connectedness. I just love it. Like I said, if I was working on a game today, I would be reluctant to think about.

Maybe that’s going to take me another two-and-a-half or three years to build? I don’t know what the year’s going to be like in three years. Or, as has happened to me in the past, you start developing a game, and then they say, “Yeah, that would look good on Xbox 1, but we really need you to make this for the 360. Here’s a boatload of tall, noisy Macintoshes. Can you please emulate the 360 and start working on it?” And you don’t have the speed. You just have something kind of like the development environment. I’ll never forget being at Rare when they were trying to get Kameo done. There was this wall of those Quadras — like 80 of them — and in the UK there’s never any air conditioning. You walk in there at three in the afternoon, it’s burning hot, and everyone’s sweating and trying to get this game done because it was all destined for Xbox 1, but it had to be moved to the 360. So I don’t know that I look back and want to go through that again. I’m not sure I would want to try to transition to a new platform. And, guaranteed, if you’re going to develop a game that takes two or three years, you run the risk that that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

GamesBeat: So now, if you have to share the market on something like Facebook with all these other 3D games, what’s going to happen? If those console gamemakers move over, or they make some tablet-first games that become 3D games on Facebook, is there still an audience for all the Zynga stuff?

Veevaert: Well, I don’t think there’s a big crossover between Kixeye and Zynga right now. I really don’t. And he’s very clear about his business that these are the guys he’s going after.

GamesBeat: I think there’s one drawback to what they have so far. It seems like they’re trying to stretch the platform too far. They’re doing some of these before you can really do it synchronously the right way. They’re almost there. But I’m wondering, once they get there, will more people start liking those games?

Veevaert: I think there’s a lot our company knows about building games on the Facebook platform. I think in all that knowledge base — about what works from the social perspective — there are some amazing best practices and learned lessons about how connect games socially and how to have people play together socially. People are people, and people are really social beings. Xbox Live proved that in a big way. Core gamers love to talk to each other; they love to have a good time connecting. We have a lot of great skills in terms of how to connect people together and how to create content that motivates people to share their experiences with others. I’m not worried about a company like Kixeye creating core content because at the end of the day, it’s all about expanding this market. I mean, how big is the Facebook ecosphere? Is it 750 million people worldwide?

GamesBeat: Yeah.

Veevaert: Something like that. And how big is the gameplay world, so to speak? The volume of people playing games?

GamesBeat: EA talks about how we’re going from 300 million gamers to 2 billion.

Veevaert: Yeah. I think they’re talking about mobile there. When you talk about mobile, it’s monumental: what happens to the new iPhone, the new iPad, and how tablets take off. See, it’s interesting. A lot of times, the competition for that core market added up to everybody going for the same guy. That same 25-to-34-year-old. Everybody was competing for that same guy. Here’s the next first-person shooter. Here’s the next real-time strategy game.

The market here is so wide open, it’s amazing. And we see how fast games can grow on the Zynga network. It’s incredible. Even a game like Slingo grew to 4 million relatively quickly. People were able to adopt it, play it, and have a great time. Now it’s a matter of how we keep those people engaged in playing those games. How do we create cadenced content that keeps them engaged over a longer period of time? That’s what it’s about. I think that for a lot of console companies getting into the space, there are a lot of lessons to be learned. It’s not a matter of just putting the game up and letting people play it. Facebook and the web culture in general indicate to people that content is going to be fresh and hot. You’re not going to get the same game every time you go back. Do you look for something different every time you go back and play a game?

GamesBeat: How do you match your own goals to the company’s goals? You may want to do Halo on Facebook personally. I see the day where you could do that on this kind of platform and get hundreds of millions of people to play it. But in the meantime, you may have to do a clone game, or you may have to do another casino game or something. These may be games that, personally, designers don’t necessarily get excited about. How do you do that, and how do you inspire people to work on these things: games that are smaller than what you’ve done in the past?

Veevaert: I think a lot of people go through the same process I did. I assumed that game development and design was going to be really simplistic and rudimentary. Like, how complicated could this be? And even with a game like Ruby Blast or Slingo, we were shocked at the level of design: level to level, moment to moment, click to click. There’s a great deal of satisfaction in thinking about, “What do we get from that first two to three to four minutes of gameplay?” We never thought that way in the console world. We’d be saying, by level three, here’s where the player is going to be. We just assumed you were going to get to level three. We assumed you’d get here, move a bit forward, shoot, keep going, and you’d just get to level three.

Now we need to make sure you’re going to load the game. We’re working with you along the way. So design has to start with the first-time user experience. We spend a great deal of time even thinking about how we introduce the gameplay mechanics to you. There’s a great deal of satisfaction in watching the adoption and what we call the falloff rate. How fast do people fall off when they’re playing with the first-time user experience? The FTUE, we call it. How fast do they fall off, and how often do they stay engaged? And what happens when they start inviting their friends into the experience? It’s all based on design. A game designer likes to design game mechanics. When they get great feedback, and when they get validation and their decisions are working, that’s fun.

I’ll tell you, the greatest high-level console core designer will have the same satisfaction when they have an audience satisfied with their design. They get validated by that process. So I’m finding the same level of fun and satisfaction in a game like Ruby Blast as I would in bringing a game like Halo 3 and working on it level by level. It’s like a minuet versus a symphony. Both are complex. Both have a lot to offer. Both have a lot of richness and depth, and both have something for a different audience.

If I could go off on the slightest tangent, I saw this play in LA called 33 Variations. Jane Fonda was in it. It was really awesome because it was about this one waltz composer in the 1800s who did this silly little waltz, and he offered money to anybody who would be willing to compose variations on it. So several composers came up with variations on this very simple theme. What Beethoven found is that it almost possessed him. He couldn’t stop until he had created these 33 variations on this very rudimentary theme. What he found was this depth, where he could go to all these different levels. These simple variations on one basic theme became some of his greatest work, and that’s almost analogous to the surface of these games. There are these very complex structures underneath that are creating some level of satisfaction and validation through connecting people to their friends, improving relationships, and having this fun experience where the mechanic is no longer just about the point and click. It’s about the exchange that happens between friends: the collection, the sharing, and the building that happens in that process. That’s why this is amazing. I never did this on consoles. To me, that’s where that extra layer of satisfaction and fun gets built into it.

GamesBeat: A lot of games seem like they’ve been stretched out from one hour to 10 hours. Painfully sometimes, right? But how do you stretch out a game that has a story so that you play it for months?

Veevaert: I don’t know if you had an example in mind.

GamesBeat: More on the console side — something like Uncharted 3 definitely has a couple of people you want to take care of. By the end of that game, though, they’ve inserted a thousand other people that you had to shoot.

Veevaert: Yeah. You ever look at your counter at the end of the game? I looked at the end of Uncharted 2. What was it, 1,800 people? You never realize it, but the count was that high. Extraordinary. That was a lot of guys in black suits.

GamesBeat: They had this story, and they just stretched it out.

Veevaert: Yeah, they stretched it out and kept adding people that you had to take out. Well, the difference in what we do and what we think about it is a sense of progression. You can look at Bubble Safari, where you have this progression map. As you get through a level and you try something new, you see that you’re advancing through the map. What’s cool about that is you can keep adding to the narrative. As the player progresses through this map and gets to a new area, it’s possible to keep adding more territory to that map and allow people to have a means by which to progress further into the story. Then you can introduce new elements into that story, and it becomes something fun. You can add gameplay elements right onto the map itself, too. That’s where it changes. You’re no longer just moving around the board. You’re actually having gameplay moments take place on the map between your friends. You’re clicking and adding lives and energy. Some days you see that your friends have been blocked from advancing unless you help them advance. So there’s all kinds of ways you can think about adding support. There’s constantly new areas you can design. You can look at what stimulates great social interactions. That’s the part that’s fun. You might be playing on the phone, I’d be playing on the web, she’d be playing on the iPad, and all three of us could be adding to each other’s experiences, no matter where we are. That, to me, is awesome. You don’t have to be in front of the TV at 8 o’clock tonight. I can contribute to your gameplay experience today, wherever I’m traveling and wherever you’re traveling. I like the idea that we’re creating content that has a light narrative, and collectively we’re sharing and exploring the story together.(Source:venturebeat


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