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分析游戏中的关注问题及其解决方法

发布时间:2013-03-22 15:46:14 Tags:,,,,

作者:Kevin Gliner

关于游戏和关注度这一话题我已经谈论了好几年了。那时候,我注意到游戏会为了赢得我们的注意力而与其它游戏和媒体展开激烈的竞争。尽管在过去十年间游戏的发展取得了很大的进展,并减少了各种障碍,但是在这个嘈杂的媒体环境中它们还是很难茁壮成长。

当我们展望未来时会发现,形势其实不是很乐观。随着内容创造成本的持续下降,我们必须努力确保内容数量的持续增加。尽管我们的选择不受限制,但是我们所拥有的时间却永远都不够。

关于关注问题的传统解决方法主要分为两部分:

减少障碍(又称休闲解决方法)

增加深度(又称硬核解决方法)

一般来说,优秀的休闲设计将影响着玩家游戏的意愿,而优秀的硬核设计则会影响他们游戏的激情。

attention(from chaneymarketinggroup)

attention(from chaneymarketinggroup)

休闲解决方法

减少障碍的方法要求游戏:

降低准入障碍

给出友好的承诺

确保注意广度的不可知论

拥有较短的“创建–尝试–失败”循环

不过,尽管这些特征能够减少障碍并提升玩家的游戏意愿,但是这却不能激发玩家继续游戏的激情。为了满足上述要求并加强游戏的易用性,大多数设计师会简化游戏机制以及这些机制的组合方式,并有效减少游戏的动态(基于MDA)。而最终创造出一款带有较小可能性空间和较低长期用户留存的肤浅作品。

成功的休闲游戏不会向玩家索取过多内容—-它们不强迫玩家将注意力从自己喜欢的事物上转移开,并且是与其它媒体相互补而非竞争。最优秀的休闲游戏总是拥有更大的用户基础以及较低的单位经济和较短的用户生命周期。

硬核解决方法

深度方法意味着游戏:

拥有广泛且多样的游戏动态

提供给消费者各种内容

让玩家有理由进行深入投资(通常是通过坚持,身份和关系)

这类型游戏倾向于触发玩家投身游戏的激情。不幸的是许多开发者总是创造各种障碍去阻碍玩家进入游戏。为了创造广泛的游戏动态,许多设计师便采取叠加游戏机制的方法(游戏邦注:如不断添加规格和系统)。为了让玩家能够看到并记住每个游戏环节的各种内容,并理解大量机制,他们便需要投入100%的注意力。但是却很少人能够做到这一点,除非那些愿意全身心投入于游戏中的玩家。结果便是,开发者将创造出一个带有巨大可能性空间和较高长期用户留存的深层次作品,但是它却在一开始便发挥了反弹效果。

成功的硬核游戏必须比其它媒体更具有吸引力—-它们会让你一心一意专注于其中,并告诉你它们才是最值得投入的选择。高品质的硬核产品总是拥有较少的用户基础和更高的单位经济以及较长的用户生命周期。

硬核+休闲

从本质看来这两种方法是相容的,但是我们会发现在使用其中一个方法的同时将会引起另外一个方法出现问题(作为游戏产业,我们已经设置了一个二分法将休闲和硬核产品分置于统一范围的两端;而中核游戏则是最新的迭代内容)。

许多问题都是伴随着游戏机制而出现,即大多数休闲游戏拥有简单的机制和动态,而大多数硬核游戏则拥有复杂的机制与动态。这里存在着一个原因:因为如此更容易进行设计与平衡(简单的动态意味着较小的可能性空间,即代表着更少的结果能够达到平衡;复杂的机制让我们能够更轻松地隔离系统以进行独立的调谐,特别是在处理与复杂的动态相互联系的大型可能性空间)。

我们真正想看到的是带有简单机制和复杂动态的游戏,因为简单的机制更容易理解并记住,而复杂的动态更具有深度且更能吸引玩家沉浸于其中。

到底该如何做?我们可以好好利用设计中的意外元素。

关注和意外性

为了呈现出意外的游戏玩法,我们需要组合一小套核心组件去创造出大量独特的游戏动态。以下是我们所使用的方法:

简单且容易理解的游戏机制(非常适合休闲游戏)

巨大的可能性空间,且带有复杂的动态(非常适合硬核游戏)

这类型的游戏通过使用一些机制而避免了规则复杂性(以及累赘的学习曲线/责任)。丰富的输出内容将提供给玩家富有深度且具有吸引力的游戏。

Magic: The Gathering(from mmobomb)

Magic: The Gathering(from mmobomb)

《Go》便是一个经典例子。这是一款只有2个规则但却带有各种输出内容(基于各种游戏和游戏类型)的游戏。而《万智牌》等卡片收集游戏则是较为现代的例子。更近的例子还有《小小大星球》,《我的世界》以及《模拟人生》。

还有一些游戏拥有较少的意外元素,如《吃豆人》,《骤雨》以及桌面游戏《Life》。

大多数游戏设计师已经非常熟悉意外理念,因为几乎所有游戏都具有一定程度的意外元素。但是我们倾向于避免设计意外性太强的系统,因为较大的可能性空间很难得到平衡(许多设计都使用了自上而下的限制方法去控制这一点,就像RPG中的分类,但这么做也只能压缩可能性空间,并且会破坏意外系统的利益)。

我们必须意识到意外元素本身并不能帮助游戏(不管是休闲还是硬核)吸引玩家的注意。除非:

你能够真正限制硬核元素的数量及其各自的功能。许多游戏虽然具有深刻的意外性,但是它们也拥有许多规则和系统,并且将会破坏休闲游戏的各种潜在元素。

更多输出内容并不意味着更多选择。根据用户的反应,《FarmVille》拥有很棒的意外元素,但是其功能却没有多少意义。《Backyard Monsters》的非正交设计元素便引出了一小部分的策略选择(只有少量主要的游戏策略)。

意外性并不等于易用性和深度用户粘性。你还需要避开其它烦人的摩擦(如糟糕的UI设计),如果可能性空间很无聊的话,那么再大的空间也是徒劳。

从根本上来看,利用意外性并不能为游戏扩展潜在的玩家:玩家仍然喜欢抽象的策略游戏。但是这么做却能够提高这些潜在玩家在众多媒体中选择你们游戏的几率。

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

Games Have An Attention Problem

by Kevin Gliner

It’s been several years since I first talked about games and attention.  At the time, I noted that games compete for our attention with other games, other media, and interruptions from friends, family and work.  Despite all the advances in friction reduction over the past decade, games are hard pressed to thrive — nevermind get noticed — in this noisy media environment.

Looking ahead, the trendline is not positive.  Content creation costs keep dropping, so the amount of content available keeps rising.  Our choices are unlimited but our time is not.

Traditional solutions to the attention problem fall into two buckets:

Reduce friction (a.k.a. the casual solution)

Add depth (a.k.a. the hardcore solution)

In general, good casual design affects a player’s willingness to play, while good hardcore design affects their desire to play.

The Casual Solution

The friction reduction method requires games to:

Have few barriers to entry

Be commitment friendly

Be attention span agnostic

Have a short build-try-fail loop

That’s all good.  However, while these characteristics reduce friction and increase a player’s willingness to play, they don’t actually generate a desire to play (or to keep playing).  In an effort to meet the requirements above and make the game more accessible, most designers simplify the game’s mechanics and the way those mechanics combine, effectively reducing the play dynamics as well (in the MDA sense).  The result is a shallow product with a small possibility space and little long term retention.

Casual games succeed by demanding less from the consumer — they don’t ask you to sacrifice attention you might prefer to devote to other things, complementing rather than competing with other media.  The best of these products tend to have large audiences with low unit economics and short user life cycles.

The Hardcore Solution

The depth approach, on the other hand, means the game:

Has extensive and varied play dynamics

Has a lot of content to consume

Gives the player a reason to make a deep personal investment (often through persistence, identity and relationships).

Again, a good list.  Games of this type tend to create a strong desire to play.  Unfortunately, they also erect a lot of barriers to someone’s willingness to play.  To create a wide range of play dynamics, many designers simply pile on the game mechanics (i.e. they keep layering on the rules and systems).  That’s a lot for someone to learn and then remember from session to session, and with a lot of mechanics to comprehend, 100% focus is required.  The only players willing to do that are the few that will make a large personal investment in the product.   The result is a deep product with a large possibility space and great long term retention, but it bounces most consumers at the start.

Hardcore products succeed by being more compelling than other media — they ask for your undivided attention and tell you it’s better spent on them than competing options.  High quality hardcore products tend to have small audiences with high unit economics and long user life cycles.

Hardcore + Casual

There’s nothing inherent to these two approaches that makes them incompatible, but you can see how solving for one can easily lead to problems with the other (it doesn’t help that, as an industry, we’ve set up a false dichotomy that places casual and hardcore products at opposite ends of the same spectrum;  mid-core is the latest iteration along these lines).

Much of the problem starts with the game’s mechanics, where most casual games have simple mechanics and simple dynamics, and most hardcore games have complex mechanics and complex dynamics.  There’s a reason for that:  they’re much easier to design and balance (simple dynamics imply a small possibility space, which presents fewer outcomes to balance;  complex mechanics make it easier to isolate systems for independent tuning, particularly when dealing with the large possibility spaces associated with complex dynamics).

What we really want are games with simple mechanics and complex dynamics, because simple mechanics are easy to learn and remember, while complex dynamics are deep and engaging.

How?  Make better use of emergence in our designs.

Attention and Emergence

To enable emergent play, a small set of core components are recombined to produce an unlimited number of novel play dynamics.  Here’s what we get with this approach:

Simple and easy to understand game mechanics (ideal for casual play)

A massive possibility space, with complex dynamics (ideal for hardcore play)

Games of this type avoid rule complexity (and burdensome learning curves/commitment) by working with only a few mechanics.  The rich output gives the game legs and enables deep, engaging play.

The classic example is Go, a game with only two rules but an incredibly varied output in terms of games and play styles.  A modern example would be Magic:  The Gathering and other CCGs.  More recent:  Little Big Planet, Minecraft, The Sims.

Examples of games that are minimally emergent, if at all:  Pac-man, Heavy Rain, the board game Life.

Most game designers are already familiar with emergent concepts, and indeed, all games have some degree of emergent play.  But we tend to shy away from designing heavily emergent systems because the large possibility space is difficult to balance (many designs introduce top-down constraints to control this, like classes in RPGs, but that simply reduces the possibility space and undermines the benefits of an emergent system).

It’s also important to recognize that emergence by itself will not help a game attract players interested in both casual and hardcore play.  To be effective:

You really have to constrain the number of core elements and their respective functions.  Many games are deeply emergent but they get there with a crazy amount of rules and systems that undermine any potential for casual play.

More output doesn’t mean more choice.  Farmville has great emergence in terms of user expression, but it’s functionally meaningless.  Backyard Monsters’ non-orthogonal design elements lead to a relatively small set of strategic choices (a few dominant play strategies).

Emergence doesn’t automatically mean accessible and deeply engaging.  You still have to avoid other annoying frictions (like bad UI design), and a large possibility space isn’t much good if it’s boring.

Ultimately, making stronger use of emergence won’t expand the potential audience for your game:  a player still has to like abstract strategy games if they’re going to play Go.  But it will increase how many of those potential players choose your game over all the other media choices they have at their disposal.(source:gamasutra)


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