作者：Matt Martin

游戏设计元老Don Daglow日前在欧洲GDC大会上详述欧洲和美国在线游戏玩家之间的主要差异，他表示，开发者若想要在北美市场有所成就，就得转变自身对于用户的理解。

面对科隆座无虚席的观众，Daglow热情、诙谐地评估了自己的同胞，这是他投身电子游戏开发领域40多年所积累的经验。

Don Daglow from gamesindustry.biz

首先，他指出，美国学校注重将学生培养成自由思考者。学生不会在课堂上不及格。他们面临挑战，学校鼓励学生从经验中进行学习，但实际意义上的失败概念得到显著弱化。失败问题直到学生到了17岁才显现出来，此时他们开始申请大学，意识到拒绝和失败的存在，其中影响非常突出。所以美国用户将游戏或应用中的失败看作是游戏自身的问题，而非用户失误导致。这对设计师来说是个问题，因为通常失败被当作是成功的诱因。因此游戏设计师的解决方案是，简单分解体验，将文本最小化，直观向用户呈现内容，而非告诉他们怎么做。持续给予成功相应奖励，即便是在只有一个按键的指南中。

“美国学校注重将学生培养成自由思考者。学生不会在课堂上不及格”

Daglow提出的第2个观点是，用户“螺旋浏览”网络，他们的注意广度很小。他举了一个例子，电视的商业广告过去持续60秒钟，然后减少至30秒钟，现在点击YouTube视频，你看到的是个5秒钟的广告。作品通过此狭小窗口吸引用户注意，因此任何令人沮丧的内容都会促使玩家关掉窗口。Daglow还谈到主机业务，在此只要玩家购买游戏，设计师就会花时间缓慢将其引入机制和故事中。在在线领域中，这是个障碍，头几个小时需要非常流畅。在此游戏设计师需要参考George Lucas或James Bond电影的思维方式——以刺激旅程在头10分钟里吸引玩家的注意。Daglow表示，无论你预期玩家多久会喜欢上你的游戏，都要将此时间减半。若你来自掌机领域，那么将你的预期降低10倍，因为美国用户的耐性很低。

第3点是，用户希望成为独立个体。美国人所受到的教育是，要成为独立个体，能够走自己想走的路。Daglow发现，美国对于2012年奥运会的报道主要着眼于运动员个人，而非他们真正参加的运动项目。关于他们表现的讨论和剪辑内容比实际竞赛更重要。他将此描述成最容易摘到是果实，游戏应始于角色的创造，因为美国用户很愿意首先付费购买内容，令自己变得引人注目，即便是在包含300万用户的游戏中。这是第一步，随后将获得丰厚收益。

“美国人知道谁是Steve-O，但却不认识Stalin”

第4点主要着眼于传统的排队现象。在在线商店出现前，用户会购买游戏，然后等待2-3年后续作的问世或同个开发团队的下款作品，他们乐意在发行当日排队购买作品。但现在，随着应用商店的成功问世（游戏邦注：这些商店提供成千上万款的作品），轮到开发者排队获取享有众多选择的用户。虽然设计师获得如此多的新营销路径，但他们需要抓住机会，获取用户，将玩家看作是名人，锁定在第一印象。

第5点，也是最后一点内容是，欧洲设计师需清楚，美国历史的教授方式截然不同。Daglow表示，美国人知道谁是Steve-O，但却不认识斯大林，他以幻灯片形式展示同胞们的肤浅历史知识，以阐明自己的观点：

* 罗马人&野蛮人

* 黑暗时代，没发生什么事

* 文艺复兴，然后我们接触到汽车和飞机

* 中国和日本随后也发生了同样的变化

* 美国获得独立，展开内战结束奴隶制度

* 上世纪发生许多大规模战争

Daglow表示，虽然幻灯片上的内容有些滑稽，但事实就是如此。若你打算制作基于历史题材的游戏，那么你最好锁定流行文化，所以不妨效仿《Spartacus》或《the Tudors》节目的成功模式。

Daglow的总结非常简单：

* 精心制作开场的头几分钟，吸引玩家眼球

* 运用简单、清晰的界面

* 将文本最小化：直观显示，而不要通过指南进行陈述

* 玩家是名人，给予其自定义权限

* 要意识到，我们处于排队状态，用户是主宰者

* 历史主题不太受欢迎，通常鲜为人知

（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）

What European developers need to know about American online gamers

By Matt Martin

Don Daglow’s five-point plan to designing for a North American audience

Veteran games designer Don Daglow detailed key differences between European and American online games consumers at GDC Europe today, suggesting that developers need to flip their understanding of audiences if they want to see success in North America.

Speaking to a packed audience in Cologne, Daglow delivered a warm and witty assessment of his countrymen, gained during more than 40 years in the business of creating video games.

Firstly, he pointed out that American schools emphasise the student as a free thinker. Students do not fail in class. They are challenged and they are encouraged to learn from the experience, but the actual idea of failure has been dramatically reduced. Failure doesn’t kick in until students reach the age of 17 and begin to apply for colleges and discover that rejection and failure is real and there’s a steep impact from that. So American users see failure in a game or app as a problem with that game, not a user error. This is an issue for designers because traditionally failure is used as an inducement to succeed. So the solution for games designers is to break down the experience simply, minimise text and show the audience things rather then tell them. And reward success constantly, even in tutorials where there is only one button to press.

“American schools emphasise the student as a free thinker. Students do not fail in class”

The second point raised by Daglow is that users are ‘turbo-browsing’ the internet and their attention span is tiny. As an example he pointed out that commercials on TV used to be 60 seconds long, then they were reduced to 30 seconds, and now clicking on a YouTube video you’ll be faced with a five second advert. With such an extremely tiny window to grab eyeball attention, anything frustrating will cause the player to switch off. Daglow also pointed to the console business, where once a player bought a game the designer would spend time slowly introducing them to the mechanics and story. In the online space this is all an obstacle and the first few hours need to be streamlined. This is where the games designer needs to think like George Lucas or a James Bond movie – grab the player’s attention in the first ten minutes with a thrill ride. Whatever your expectations of the time it takes a player to warm to your game, cut it in half, said Daglow. And if you’re coming directly from the console space, slash all you expectations by a factor of ten because the patience of American users is so much less.

The third point is that users crave to be individuals. In America people are taught to be an individual able to blaze their own path through life. Daglow observed that US coverage of the 2012 Olympics focused on individual sportsmen and women over the actual sporting event in which they competed. Discussion and montages of their performance was more valued than the act of competing. He described this as the lowest hanging fruit, and games should begin with avatar creation because American players are happy to begin paying for content to make them stand out, even in a game with 3 million users. Do that first and more revenues will follow.

“Americans know who Steve-O is but not Stalin”

The fourth point focused on the traditional queue. Before online stores, users would buy a game and then wait two or three years for a sequel or the next game from the same development team, happy to line up on release day. But now, with the success of app stores that offer thousands of games, it’s the developer who’s queuing up to reach a customer overwhelmed with content. Although designers have gained so many new routes to market, they need to grab the audience when they get the chance, treat the player as a celebrity and focus on that first impression.

The fifth and final point was that European designers need to understand that American history is not taught the same way. People know who Steve-O is but not Stalin, said Daglow, who illustrated his point with a six-point slide on the shallow history knowledge of his countrymen:

* Romans Vs Barbarians.

* Dark Ages, nothing happened.

* Renaissance, then we got cars and planes.

* Stuff was going on in China and Japan, too.

* US got Independence, had Civil War over slavery.

* Lots of big wars in the last century.

While the slide was humorous, the point was very real, said Daglow. If you’re going to build a game based around history your best bet is to latch on to popular culture, so follow the success of shows based on Spartacus or the Tudors right now, he suggested.

Daglow’s’ summary was simple enough:

* Craft the opening minutes to hold attention.

* Use a simple, clear interface.

* Minimise text: show, don’t tell in tutorials.

* The player is a celebrity, give them unique customisation.

* Recognise that we’re in the queue and the user is the master.

* History rarely sells and is often unknown.（Source：gamesindustry）