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阐述“电子宠物”与《FarmVille》的趣味差异

发布时间:2013-06-21 14:44:49 Tags:,,,

作者:Rosstin Murphy

《FarmVille》是一款让玩家为了微不足道的目标而进行每天、每周进行周期性、重复性“刷”活动的游戏。当你厌烦了“刷”活动,你可以向你的好友发送邀请邮件,使你更快得到奖励。最后,当你也讨厌滥发邮件时,你可以花钱达到目标。这真是游戏的乐趣吗?好吧,这其实是Zynga的Roger Dickey所谓的“痛苦的乐趣”。

为什么要怎么对待玩家?为了挣钱。从2009年到2012年,Zynga经过迅速成长和巨大的成功,凭借数百万DAU,成为社交游戏界的霸主。不考虑 Zynga近来年的不济,他们至少称霸了几年。老实说,我并不是妖魔化Zynga。他们利用了邪恶的机制,但制作出比“痛苦的乐趣”更加叫好又叫座的东西 是游戏设计师的工作。而在应用纷纷采用免费模式和IAP的大趋势之下,这确实是严峻的挑战,但我认为迎难而上也是我们的责任。在此,我告诉你们,与其让玩 家沉迷于痛苦的乐趣,制作能够给人们的生活带来价值的游戏才是长久之计。

farmville-facebook-credits-farm-cash-purchase(from wonderhowto)

farmville-farm-cash-purchase(from wonderhowto)

在本文中,我不打算解释Zynga的策略到底是怎么回事。我只想指出这个策略的源头。Zynga并不是始作俑者。《FarmVille》 (2009)是模仿了中国开发者Ellison Gao的《开心农场》(2008),而后者又山寨了俄罗斯的一款农场游戏。再进一步说,人们通常认为《魔兽争霸》(2004)是致瘾模式的源头,特别是它的“休息XP”系统鼓励玩家每天登录以获得奖励和丰富的经验点。然而,我认为周期性玩法比它更古老。

“电子宠物”(Tamagotchi)是日本万代公司于1996年推出的一种虚拟宠物,由日本设计师Aki Maita设计。电子宠物引领了虚拟宠物的狂潮,是“口袋妖怪”(1996)、“菲比宝宝”和现代手机宠物养成游戏如《DragonVale》(2011)的始祖。

video-tamagotchi(from gamasutra)

video-tamagotchi(from gamasutra)

电子宠物正是“周期性关注机制”,也就是我们现在所说的“社交游戏玩法”的源头。为了让你的电子宠物一直活着,你必须每小时查看一次。你把它从口袋中掏出来,给它喂食、跟它玩耍、帮它洗澡,仅此而已。这个过程只需要几分钟就能完成,完成了就没你什么事了,所以你可以把它放回口袋了。你给它的周期性关注越多,它就成长得越好。好好对待它,你就会得到一只可爱、听话的宠物;对它不好,你得到的宠物就会讨厌、短命。你不能停止养育它,这是契约。电子宠物的寿命可以持续1个月至数年,如果它早夭,那就是你的错。

如果说电子宠物和《FarmVille》具有相同的核心机制,为什么当我想起我的电子宠物时,仍然有一股暖流涌上心头,而当我想到自己没日没夜地打理“农场”时,却气不打一处来?我认为这与制作者的意图、使用这种时间机制的原因和方式有关。电子宠物的即时机制并不是为了促进IAP或挫败玩家,而是为了让玩家与虚拟宠物产生一种亲密的感情。“我认为人类通过照顾某物得到乐趣,这是非常重要的。”Aki Maita如此解释她的设计。Maita并不是在老生常谈,她设计并测试它了。她花了数周时间观察中学女生如何使用她的电子宠物原型,并根据反馈优化她的宠物设计,使之更有感情。相比之下,Zynga首席执行官Marc Pinkus的理念是:“我不想搞什么创新发明。你并不比你的竞争对手聪明。只管抄袭他们的设计,直到你的业绩超过他们。”

Tamagotchi(from gamasutra)

Tamagotchi(from gamasutra)

你可以看到二者使用时间机制的意图是不同的。电子宠物就像活的、有感情的动物。当它需要睡觉时,它就睡觉。当它饿时,它就向你求食。你不能支付宝石或金币让它停止饥饿。相比于最近Storm8推出的游戏《Dragon Story》,它孵化蛋的时间太长了,但你可以支付金币使孵化立即完成。并不不是出于模拟真实生物学的需要,这款游戏让你等待显然是为了引诱你花钱。周期性事件不是为作为玩家的你而存在的,而是游戏公司为了让你付钱给他们而存在的。可以值钱跳过等待时间这个事实正说明了这个机制被滥用得多么糟糕。等待应该作为增加参与和刺激惊喜感的机制,而不是摇钱树。

t-chart(from gamasutra)

t-chart(from gamasutra)

我认为如果开发者能记住他们希望向受众传达的情绪和感觉,在设计游戏机制时以此而非赢利为中心,他们就会做出更有趣的游戏,使游戏丰富人们的生活,而不是沦为娱乐的负担。长远看来,那些致力于给玩家带来价值的设计师,最终会获得成功、名誉和金钱,而那些谋求挣“快钱”和让玩家上瘾的设计师,最终会一无所得。周期性玩法被戏称为“斯金纳箱子”玩法,但它本不必变成这样。社交游戏和社交机制不一定是恶魔。它们可以给忙碌的人带来欢乐,成为一种帮助人们成长、改变和得到惊喜的玩具,创造一个当玩家不在线时仍然存活和发展的虚拟世界。作为开发者和设计师,创造这样的世界是我们的使命。

建议:

1、确定你为什么执行某种游戏机制的原因和选择采用什么机制一样重要。

2、如果你在设计机制时怀着带给玩家美好体验的善意,那么结果就会是如此。

3、即时机制不一定是邪恶的。你应该使用它促进沉浸感和参与感。

4、不要允许玩家支付宝石或金币来避免等待。要么让等待成为游戏乐趣的一部分,要么彻底抛弃等待机制。

5、不要使用即时机制来掩饰内容匮乏的真相。(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

Tamagotchi, FarmVille, and “Fun Pain”

by Rosstin Murphy

FarmVille is a game about periodic, repetive action, grinding slowly over the course of days and weeks to a minor goal. When you get tired of grinding, you can spam your friends to get rewards faster. And eventually, when you get sick of that, you’ll pay to get where you need to be. Is this really fun? Well, it’s “fun pain”, as Roger Dickey of Zynga puts it.

Why do this to gamers? It’s a lucrative strategy. From 2009-2012, Zynga was a supergiant of social gaming, experiencing high growth and huge success, with millions of daily active users. Regardless of Zynga’s eventual fate, for those years they were king. Let’s get something straight; I’m not here to demonize Zynga. They capitalize on an evil mechanic, but it’s our job as game designers to create something both better and more lucrative than “fun pain”. With the current trend towards Freemium mobile apps and in-app purchases, this is a significant challenge, but I think we’re up to it. I’m here to tell you that in the long run, creating games that add value to people’s lives is a better strategy than getting them addicted to fun pain.

I’ll leave it to this article to explain exactly how Zynga’s strategy works. I’m just here to figure out where this all started. Zynga didn’t make this mess. FarmVille (2009) was a clone of Chinese developer Ellison Gao’s “Happy Farm” (2008), which in turn was a clone of a Russian farming game. Going further back in time, World of Warcraft (2004) is often cited as one of the originators of the addiction model, for creating a “rested XP” system that encouraged players to log in every day to reap the rewards of boosted experience points. However, I think that periodic gameplay is much older than that.

Tamagotchi was a virtual pet sold by Bandai in 1996, created by Japanese designer Aki Maita. Tamagotchi is responsible for the entire virtual pet craze, predating Pokemon(1996), Furby (1998), and current generation mobile pet-raising games like DragonVale (2011).

Tamagotchi is responsible for the periodic attention mechanic that “social gaming” is now known for. In order to keep your Tamagotchi alive, you had to check on it about once an hour. You pull it out of your pocket, feed it, play with it, clean up after it, and then that’s it. Nothing left to do after a couple minutes. You put it back in your pocket and wait for it to need you again. The more periodic attention you gave it, the better a final form it would achieve. Treat your Tamagotchi well, and you were rewarded with the cute and well-behaved Mametchi. Treat it poorly, and you were punished with the odious and short-lived Tarakotchi. You couldn’t pause the original Tamagotchi. It was a commitment. Tamagotchi could live anywhere from a month to years, and if it died early you knew it was your fault.

If Tamagotchi and FarmVille have the same core mechanic, why do I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when I remember my Tamagotchi, but an oily prickling when I think about my days playing FarmVille? I think it has to do with the intent of the creators, and why and how they used the time mechanic. Tamagotchi’s real-time mechanic was designed not as a way to support in-app purchases and frustrate gamers, but to create a feeling of connection with a virtual creature. “I think it’s very important for humans to find joy caring for something” said Aki Maita of her creation. Maita didn’t just spout this truism, she designed and playtested for it. She spent weeks observing how high-school girls used her Tamagotchi prototypes, and used the feedback to optimize her pets for emotional attachment. Compare to the philosophy of Marc Pinkus, CEO of Zynga: “I don’t want innovation. You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.”

You can see the difference in intent in the way the time mechanic is handled. Tamagatchi is a living, feeling creature. When it needs to sleep, it sleeps. When it’s hungry, it whines at you. You can’t pay gems or gold to force it to stop being hungry. Compare to the more recent Dragon Story by Storm8– if it’s taking too long for an egg to hatch, you can pay gold to make it happen instantly. Rather than simulating a biological need, the game is transparently making you wait in order to bait you into paying. Periodic events aren’t a mechanic for you, the gamer, they’re a mechanic for the company to get you to pay them. The fact that it’s possible to pay a dollar to bypass waiting demonstrates how badly this mechanic is being abused. Waiting should be used as a mechanic to foster anticipation and surprise, not as a money grab.

I think that if creators keep in-mind the emotions and feelings they intend to instill in their audiences, and design their game mechanics around those rather than money, they will create happier games that enrich instead of detract from people’s lives. In the long term, success, fame, and money will come to those designers who seek to add value to players, rather than go for quick cash and addiction. Periodic gameplay is being derided as “skinner box” gameplay, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Social games and social mechanics don’t have to be evil. They can be used to give busy people fun, interesting toys that grow, change, and surprise them, to create virtual worlds that live and develop even when they aren’t playing. As game developers and designers, it’s our duty to create those worlds.

Takeaways:

Why you implement game mechanics is just as important as what mechanics you implement.

If you have good intentions and design your mechanics to create good feelings in your players, it will show.

Realtime mechanics don’t have to be evil. Use them to foster immersion and anticipation.

Don’t allow people pay gems to avoid waiting. Make waiting part of the enjoyment of the game, or take it out.

Don’t use realtime mechanics to hide your lack of content.(source:gamasutra)


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