作者：Patrick Miller

“自从奥巴马当选美国总统以来，免费游戏便成为了最主要的社交娱乐模式。这就开始出现了少部分付费者为大量免费玩家掏腰包的现象。”

——Scott Dodson，来自Bobber Interactive的首席产品官，与亚马逊的Nik Davidson和Immersyve的Scott Rigby在GDC Online针对现代游戏设计道德标准主持召开了座谈会。

freemium play(from blog.games)

以下是关于这一座谈小组的一些讨论内容：

Nik Davidson揭开了游戏设计道德标准的对话：

“我们的产业具有淘金热的特征，而在任何一股淘金热中都不免会出现诚实的勘探者以及肆意占领别人土地资源的‘强盗’。”

Scott Rigby就“鲸鱼玩家”以及其它相关商业术语发表了自己的看法：

“如今我们是如何称呼最有利可图的用户？我并不确定自己是否希望别人用‘鲸鱼’来形容我。‘粘性’就不是一个很好的形容词。我们拥有各种微妙的语言能够形容我们的用户，但是当这些语言与我们的数据收集能力交织在一起时，便会引起一些有趣的道德标准问题。”

Davidson基于免费游戏的目标市场的分析：

“我们总是习惯将那些愿意在游戏中花大钱的人认为是寡头（游戏邦注：即为数不多的消费者），但是根据调查数据显示，事实并不是如此，这些玩家可能根本就支付不起自己想消费的内容。我们总是会将这个市场比作一张‘捕鱼网’——我们撒下这张渔网并尽所能去捕猎更多此类疯狂的玩家。”

Scott Dodson就行业责任进行了描述：

“我认为我们并不需要永远承担某些照料责任。就像我的两个儿子分别是9岁和12岁，而早在其中一个儿子5岁时我就会抱着他一起玩《魔兽世界》了。我并未遇到孩子未经家长同意而购买游戏内容的情况。”

Davidson阐述了制作任何不道德游戏的危险：

“[在游戏中使用心理操纵设计技巧]慢性危险就等于在井里投毒；我们的玩家基础正在遭遇一种大规模的‘公地悲剧’。似乎用户们已经习惯于我们在吸引玩家时所使用的病毒式方法。例如一款出色的用户体验设计将会强调‘找到用户最有可能按压的那个按钮，并将其放大，置于中间位置或设置为绿色。’而现在的社交游戏设计师则不断缩小玩家想摁压按钮的规格，或使用灰色等低调的颜色进行表达，并要求玩家刚通过下一关时就在动态上与所有好友分享这一消息。”

（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）

When does effective free-to-play design become an ethical matter?

By Patrick Miller

“This whole concept of freemium play, in my opinion, is the most radical form of entertainment socialism since Obama got elected. You’ve got a whole bunch of one-percenters paying for a bunch of freeloaders.”

- Scott Dodson, chief product officer of Bobber Interactive, playing the role of “soulless capitalist” in a panel on the ethics of modern game design at GDC Online with Nik Davidson (Amazon.com) and Scott Rigby (Immersyve).

Other choice quotes from the panel include:

Nik Davidson opening the conversation of ethics in game design:

“Our industry bears the characteristics of a gold rush, and in any gold rush, you have honest prospectors and you have claim jumpers.”

Scott Rigby on “whales” and other business terminology:

“What do we call our best customers these days? I’m not sure I’d want to be called a whale by anybody. ‘Sticky’ is not, generally, a good quality. I think we have this subtle language of control for our customers, and when paired with our ability to collect data, it raises some interesting ethical questions.”

Davidson on the target market for free-to-play games:

“We like to think that the ones spending vast sums on these games are sons of Dubai oligarchs, but we have the data to prove that they’re not, and that they probably can’t afford to spend what they’re spending. We’re saying our market is suckers — we’re going to cast a net that catches as many mentally ill people as we can!”

Scott Dodson on the industry’s responsibilities:

“I don’t think it’s always our responsibility to baby-sit people. My kids are 9 and 12, and they’ve been playing World of Warcraft since my son was 5 and sitting on my lap. I’ve never had an unauthorized purchase.”

Davidson on the dangers of making unethical games:

“The long-term danger [of employing psychologically manipulative design techniques in games] is that we are poisoning the well; we’re watching a large-scale tragedy of the commons play out on our player bases. Our audience is becoming inured to viral trickery we employ to get people what we want to do. For example, good UX design says ‘Find the button the user is most likely to press, and make it as large and central and green as possible.’ So what social games designers do is put the button you want to press and make it small and gray and uninviting, and make the button that shares to your whole friend feed that you just passed level two of the tutorial. We’ve boiled the frog.”

What do you think? Should we as an industry consider game design a matter of ethics? If we should, how should we try to design with ethics in mind? (source:GAMASUTRA)