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Tim Sweeney称AAA免费游戏是行业未来趋势

发布时间:2012-11-15 11:52:18 Tags:,

作者:Mathew Kumar

Epic Games创始人Tim Sweeney在蒙特利尔国际游戏峰会上指出,由高成本打造的高品质游戏与技术拥有美好的未来,但接下来几年,AAA游戏的制作方式必然会发生变化。

Sweendy指出,他在制作Epic最近的两个技术样本时受到启发,其中第一个是从2011年开始制作的基于虚幻引擎3的“Samaritan”。他表示,Samaritan是验证虚幻引擎4(含有大量比UE3更进步的新功能)理念的样本。但他表示,开发这类技术样本“十分伤脑筋”,因为它需要耗费30人的团队精力与4个月的投入时间。

Tim_Sweeney(from pcgameshardware.com)

Tim_Sweeney(from pcgameshardware.com)

Sweendy表示:“结果只是一个3分钟的演示视频。我们能够预见,下一代游戏制作成本将会增加3倍、4倍或是5倍,为此,我们显然有必要提高生产率,从而能够高效地制作内容。”

为此,Epci将参与UE4研发过程的人员规模扩充了3倍,从而开发出另一个技术样本“Elementnal”。

在探讨Elemental的过程中,Sweendy高度赞扬了提高引擎运作效率的DirectX11系统,因为它支持GPU的一般运算处理,支持他们创造如直接实时照明等效果。

Sweendy表示:“DirectX11的运算性能可以大幅提升视觉效果。但该性能十分有限——虽然它需要通过大量调整适应我们的运算方式,但这已经足够了……”

虽然并未具体阐述,但Sweendy仍指出Elemental样本也证明了他们的投入获得了回报,因为该样本可以“高度”运作。

他坦承:“但制作成本仍在大幅上涨。我们希望,下一代的最初制作成本只是上一代的2倍。”

移动领域的变革

然而,在探讨“下一代”的话题时,Sweendy希望人们可以明白,自己并没有局限于主机市场,相反,他正在研究更广阔的未来发展趋势。他表示,游戏在智能手机与平板电脑的可访性提升,将会引发游戏领域的“真正变革”,尤其在发展中国家的市场。

他表示:“智能手机与平板电脑的性能正快速提升,这意味着,我们可以为在这些平台上引进更多高品质的AAA游戏。”

Sweendy解释道,由于设备性能的提升,现在,制作适合这些平台的游戏变得更加简单,而且Epic决定构造出能够提高游戏延展性的技术。

他指出:“我想,我们可以根据10-20倍,从低端到高端进行缩放,从而降低它们在这些不同平台的发行难度。”

实际上,Sweendy表示:“游戏领域存在三类平台。PC在线、移动、网页……哦,我疏忽了主机平台!我并未对此持有任何偏见!”

基于此,Sweendy认为开发基于网页的游戏应该“十分有趣”,他表示,Epic与Adobe合作创造基于网页版并交叉编译植入Flash的Unreal。但他觉得,作为传送AAA游戏体验的机制,“这并不可行”,但再过一两年后,交叉编译技术的提高能够推动让这一技术“十分可行”。

AAA品质的免费游戏

同时,Sweendy也碰到了目前AAA游戏开发的最大问题之一:免费模式的出现。

据其所称:“通过下载或网页向用户提供免费游戏,以及只在商店出售的每款定价60美元的游戏,两者相比,免费游戏略胜一筹。”他指出,“在我们进入下一个主机时代时,这是我们将会面临的主流趋势之一”:无论主机制造商是否受到免费游戏的启发,吸收它们的制作方法,免费游戏“都将会成为决定我们是否取胜的关键因素”。

当然,Sweendy承认,“硬核”玩家无法“容忍这种模式……开发商需要为此着手执行大量游戏开发与迭代”,从而找出主机游戏体验的盈利渠道,同时避免硬核玩家感觉“受到欺骗”。

Sweendy认为,Epic的未来仍会以开发为主,他解释道,虽然在开始制作上一代技术时,他们认定“赢家为主机平台莫属”,当时他们的最大投入是与微软公司合作开发针对Xbox 360平台的《战争机器》。

然而他指出:“接下来,我们不再着眼于某个特定平台。”

Sweendy表示:“Epic将会针对PC、移动与主机平台分别制作一些游戏。当我们制作针对某一平台的某款游戏时,我们将会研究如何让它适用于其它平台持械……我们打算创造大量的跨平台游戏体验。”(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

Future is bright for AAA games, says Epic’s Sweeney

by Mathew Kumar

High-budget, high production games and technologies have a bright future, but the way these “triple-A” games are made in the years ahead must evolve.

That’s according to Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, the mastermind behind the widely-used Unreal Engine, speaking at the Gamasutra-attended opening keynote of the Montreal International Game Summit.

Sweeney described the lessons learned in the production of Epic’s last two tech demos, beginning with 2011′s Unreal Engine 3-based “Samaritan.” He said Samaritan was a good proof-of-concept for the upcoming Unreal Engine 4, that pushed a lot of impressive, new UE3 features. But Sweeney said development of the demo was “greatly worrying,” as it took a 30-person team and four months to produce.

“The result was just a three minute demo,” he said. “We could see costs going up three, four or even five for the next generation, so it became apparent we needed to increase our tools for productivity so we could build our content very efficiently.”

As a result Epic tripled the number of people working on tools in the process of building UE4, and produced another tech demo, “Elemental.”

In discussing Elemental, Sweeney had high praise for DirectX11 as a way to improve engine efficiency, as it passes general computing processes through the GPU, allowing them to create effects such as real-time direct lighting.

“DirectX 11′s compute features enable a huge leap in visual quality,” Sweeney said. “The features are limited — it took a lot of contortion to adapt our algorithms — but sufficient … over 50 percent of the GPU flops are in general computing algorithms rather than the standard pipeline, and we see that percentage only increasing.”

Although not specific, Sweeney also said that Elemental also proved that their tools investment was paying off, with the demo developed at a “very rapid pace.”

“But budgets are always going to continue marching upwards,” he conceded. “We are hoping costs at the start of the next generation to only be double the cost of the start of the previous generation.”

Mobile revolution

On the topic of “generations,” however, Sweeney wished to make it clear he was not limiting that term to the console market, instead discussing the wider future trends and saying the increased accessibility of games via smartphones and tablets will be a “real revolution” in games, especially in developing markets.

“Smartphone and tablet performance is growing at an incredible rate,” he said, arguing that it means “we’ll be able to bring more and more of the value of triple-A gaming to these platforms.”

Because of the increase in performance, Sweeney explained that it was now far easier to scale products to fit the platform, and that Epic is committed to building technologies that only increased that scalability.

“We think we can scale by a factor of 10-20 from low-end to high-end now,” he said, “making it increasingly easy to ship across disparate platforms.”

In fact it was in a discussion of these “disparate platforms” that Sweeney surprised himself, amusingly, with his own omission: reading from his slide, “There are three types of platforms. PC online, mobile, web-based… oh wow, I left out console! I mean no commentary by that!”

Of those, he considered web-based game development to be “really interesting,” describing Epic’s own partnership with Adobe to create a web-based version of Unreal cross-compiled into Flash. He felt it “wasn’t quite practical yet” as a delivery mechanism for triple-A experiences, but over the next year improvements in cross-compiling technologies would make it “very feasible.”

Triple-A free-to-play

Sweeney also touched on one of the biggest issues facing triple-A game developers today: the rise of free-to-play.

He argued, “In offering a consumer a free-to-play game via download or web, versus a $60 game available only in a store, the free-to-play game is going to win.” He said that it was one of the “major interesting trends to watch as we go to the next console generation”: whether the console manufacturers offer a significant uptake of free-to-play lessons and methods will “play a major factor in whether they are going to succeed or not.”

Of course, Sweeney accepted that “hardcore” players wouldn’t “tolerate that sort of model … it’s going to require a lot of development and iteration” to figure out ways to monetize console experiences without leaving those players feeling like “they’re being ripped off or cheated.”

Sweeney described Epic’s future path as a developer, explaining that while at the start of the last generation they decided “console was going to win” and they considered their major investment to be partnering with Microsoft for Gears of War on Xbox 360.

In the next generation, however, “we are not focusing on any one thing,” he said.

“[Epic will] build some games for PC, some games for mobile, and some for console,” said Sweeney. “And any time we make something for one, we’re going to explore how it fits on other platforms … we are going to be building a lot of multi-platform experiences.” (source:gamasutra)


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