游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

论游戏的本质——技术还是艺术?

发布时间:2012-08-17 09:14:19 Tags:,,,

作者:Christian Nutt

游戏是艺术吗?游戏可以不是艺术吗?在Gamescom的索尼新闻发布会后,索尼公司召集了一组开发人员参与会谈,他们在这一问题上陷入两方局势。

panel conversationfrom gamasutra)

panel conversationfrom gamasutra)

索尼全球工作室董事长吉田修平(Shuhei Yoshida)指出,索尼觉得特别有必要推行艺术开发模式,“我很欣赏那些创意过程,我知道这一过程确实很艰难。”

也许,游戏总监Gavin Moore的观点更有趣,他是个已经在索尼日本工作室工作了14个年头的行业元老。

他争辩道:“游戏不是一门艺术,游戏是一项工艺,是你通过学习才可以掌握的技术。”

他接着说道:“尤其是在日本,人们将他们的一生都奉献给专业技能的研究,这是一个好风气。”然而,这并不是消极的看法。

“我在日本生活的过去10年中,我发现他们有一种境界叫做‘kodawari’,就是指人们倾尽全生精力来完善一项技术。”这也是他对自己及其团队的看法。他表示,实际上,团队其他成员甚至会将他们究竟是艺术家还是手艺人视为一种具有冒犯性的问题。

《小行星大冒险》开发商Media Molecule联合创始人Alex Evans也把自己定位为一个手艺人,而不是艺术家,他不认为将此区别开来有何不妥。

然而,Moore承认:“随着我们不断的成长,我们不再过多追求技术上的先进性,而更多地开始考虑用户的情感时,我想我们最终会上升到艺术家的高度。”

Thatgamecompany联合创始人Kellee Santiago最近作品《Journey》就是围绕唤起玩家新情感的角度来设计游戏。

她看到了对艺术的追求已逐渐从设计者看待创作过程的方式中崛起。“特别是作为游戏开发者,我们会讨论自己在游戏中的做法会如何影响玩家,我们要讨论这一点,并为此负责,在制作的过程中逐步完善,在游戏中尝试新元素,查看它们是否适合玩家。”

她指出当今的独立游戏证明了这类情感本可以在20年前就引入游戏中——不是技术构成了阻力,而是当时的游戏媒体还不够成熟。Santiago感叹道:“当时还没有出现这种讨论”。

Moonbot工作室的Adam Volker(游戏邦注:他正为索尼的Wonderbook平台开发《Dggs Nightcrawler》)坚定地支持“游戏即为艺术”的观点。他直言关于游戏是否为艺术这一问题,对他个人来说是很容易回答的。

他解释:“你制作游戏的动机,正是游戏是一种艺术形式的原因,如果你制作游戏只因为你不会做其它的,那你就算是达到境界了。”

实际上,他总结道:“这种媒介值得我用余生去探索。”这也是他坚定地认为游戏就是一种艺术形式的原因。

但Evans表示:“你刚开始的时候常会失去方向感。”——Media Molecule不得不通过内部的game jam活动重新找到灵感。这也是它最新发行的PlayStationVita游戏《Tearaway》的创意来源。

另一方面,他也感受到了这股动力。他说:“《小行星大冒险》起源于一种美好愿景,即让人们了解游戏是怎样炼成的,就像是乐高积木一样,当时我们甚至还不知道《小行星大冒险》究竟是什么。”

“我们向人们揭秘出更多游戏制作过程,人们就越容易与游戏互动……无论我们属于哪个国家,我们都是创作者。我们以此为生;我们已在这领域做了许久,我们爱这个领域。是个人动力在驱使我们前进。”

Santiago表示,无论游戏是否属于艺术,我们为什么要创造它们,原因都很简单,“只是因为我们爱游戏,因为我们觉得自己在做一件正确的事情,我们觉得需要制作这款游戏。”(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

Craftsmanship vs. art — what are games?

by Christian Nutt

Are games art? Is it okay if games aren’t art? Developers including Kellee Santiago and Alex Evans debated what it would take for the medium to get there — if it hasn’t already.

After the Sony press conference at Gamescom, the company assembled a panel of its developers on both sides of the question.

Sony feels a strong need to promote artistic development, said its president of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida, who sat on the panel of creators. “I really admire those types of creative process, and I understand that it’s really hard,” he said.

Perhaps the more interesting observation was brought forward by game director Gavin Moore, a 14-year veteran of the company who works at Sony’s Japan Studio in Tokyo.

Games are not art, he argued. “Games are craft, and it’s a skill that you learn.”

However, that’s not a negative view, he says — particularly in Japan, where people spend their entire lives devoted to very specific forms of craftsmanship, it can be a very good thing.

“Especially after I spent the last 10 years in Japan, and they have a thing called ‘kodawari’, where someone spends the whole of their life perfecting a skill,” he said. That’s how he sees himself and his team — whom he immensely respects. He suggested, in fact, that the rest of is team would consider the question of whether or not they are artists, rather than craftsmen, offensive.

Alex Evans, co-founder of LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule also considers himself a craftsman, not an artist, and doesn’t see anything wrong with that distinction.

However, Moore conceded, “I think we will [become artists] exactly when we start growing up a little bit more, and we stop chasing that technology bubble to some extent — we start thinking more about the emotions of our users.”

One such developer is Thatgamecompany co-founder Kellee Santiago, whose recent Journey was designed specifically to evoke new emotions in players.

She sees the drive to art arising naturally out of the way designers look at the creative process these days. “Especially, as game makers, we’re having conversations about how what we do in our games is affecting our players, and talking about it, and taking responsibility for it, and evolving through that process, and trying new things in games, and seeing if they work with our players.”

She said that today’s indie games prove that these kind of emotions could have been evoked in the games of 20 years ago — it wasn’t technology that held people back, it was the maturation of the medium. “The conversation wasn’t happening,” said Santiago.

Staunchly on the “art” side of the debate was Adam Volker, of animation and game house Moonbot Studios, which is working on a title for Sony’s AR-driven Wonderbook called Diggs Nightcrawler. He said the question of whether games are art is simple for him to answer, personally, as he looks within himself.

“Why you do it is what makes it an art form,” he said. If you create games “because you can’t do anything else”, then you’re there.

In fact, he’s reached the conclusion that “this medium is worth the rest of my life’s exploration,” he said, and that’s what makes him confident it’s an art form.

However, said Evans, “it’s so easy to lose sight why you started at the beginning” — and Media Molecule had to have an internal game jam to find its inspiration again. That’s where the idea for its newly-announced PlayStation Vita game, Tearaway, came from.

On the other hand, he does feel that drive. LittleBigPlanet originally grew out of “a vision of explaining to everyone how games are made, like the Lego of games, before we even know what LittleBigPlanet was,” he said.

“The more we can demystify how games are made, the more people will connect with them,” he said.

“We’re all creators whatever nationality we are. We live this, breathe it; we’ve been doing it for a long time and we love it,” said Moore. “It’s your personal drive that keeps you going.”

Whether or not games are art, why you create them, said Santiago, is clear. “There’s no other reason than ‘just because’ — because you love it, because you feel it’s the right thing to do and this game needs to be made.”(source:gamasutra


上一篇:

下一篇: