作者：Michael O’Connell-Davidson

很多人，甚至连业内人士都不理解游戏设计到底是什么。这是一个严重的问题。借新一代主机即将来临之际，我们可以探讨一下游戏设计到底是什么，以及它对玩家和开发者意味着什么。这个话题有点儿沉重了，因为为了理解游戏，你必须先理解游戏在经济和数学上的定义。

本质上，游戏是一个多位扮演者竞争以达到某个目标的情境；扮演者被定义为理性且智慧的人体。扮演者的目标可以是从胜利中得到的满足感，或者某些奖励（虚拟的或实在的）。如果现在你在玩某款设计得比较好的游戏，你的头脑应该立即找到许多对应标记了，特别是在AI方面。玩在线游戏能带来强烈的满足感，不只是因为人类喜欢获胜，还因为人类的行为通常比AI路径更有趣。电脑当然是理性的——通常比它们的人类对手更理性，但人类目前还无法让机器具有与人类相当的智能。

有一个游戏理论提供了一个“游戏”定义的分析案例，即“囚徒困境”。描述大致如下：

一个犯罪团伙的两名成员A和B被抓获。两人都单独拘禁，彼此之间无法对话交流或交换信息以。警方没有足够的证据让二人判主刑。于是他们决定判二人都拘禁一年。同时，警方告之二人：

*如果A和B都承认罪行，那么二人都坐牢2年

*如果A（B）承认罪行而B（A）否认罪行，那么就释放A（B），而B（A）坐牢3年。

*如果A和B都否认罪行，那么二人都坐牢1年

根据我们的老朋友维基百科，在纯粹利己主义的驱动下，最合理的做法是出卖同伴；因为背叛同伴的人不可能坐牢3年，所以这是一个更好的结果，尽管互相不出卖对双方其实更有利。这个游戏在现实生活中却行不通，因为人们倾向于合作，但游戏不是现实生活——所以情况变得有趣了。

假设你是理性且智慧的人，当你开始玩游戏时，你总是面临一系列选择。选择的数量取决于游戏类型、所选择的关卡、所扮演的角色，等等。但更重要的是，无论是什么游戏，玩家都会有的两个选择是，继续玩下去或者退出游戏；与“囚徒困境”的情形不一样，你没有继续玩下去的义务。我们假设你玩游戏是为了娱乐，不是像上述情形中的罪犯那样是被强制的，所以当你觉得游戏不再有趣时，最理性的选择应该是停止玩下去。

游戏为什么不再好玩了？原因有很多，但最主要的一个是，玩家觉得没有获胜的希望。如果你的所有行动都导向失败（即使你有能力拖延不可避免的失败），那么为什么还要玩下去？努力没有意义了，退出多人游戏也就可以理解了。当然，除非是因为故障导致不可能胜利，游戏往往提供一些获胜机会——但如果这些机会太渺茫（你进展下去所付出的努力远远超过努力下去可能获得的乐趣），那么理性的做法是，退出游戏。这就是为什么当人们在游戏中“卡住”时，会选择退出了，因为更加努力是不理性的。

Civ5(from digitaltrends.com)

所以：优秀的游戏设计要求失败不应该成为预料中的结局，且胜利不应该明确直到游戏本身结束。《文明5》在了发布最新拓展之前存在一个大问题，也就是玩家之间的差距越来越大，胜负太早确定，以至于游戏后半部分相当无聊的。MMORPG不能吸引非常多人，是因为这类游戏是不可能获胜的；这倒不是说MMORPG设计得不好，或者这种类型不好，而是它们被设计得像跑步机，让玩家不断地玩下去，因为这就是MMORPG商业赖以生存的的特点。因为它的赢利野心太明显了，所以从一开始人们就知道它就是纯粹的“游戏”，这意味着许多人不乐意加入。

为什么像《吃豆人》和《街头霸王》这样的游戏能长久地保持人气？不是因为人们错位的怀旧情结，而是因为这些游戏在胜负何时变得明显方面设计得非常好。虽然在现实生活中，有时候参与才是最重要的（如果没有“重在参与”，我们这个社会就会变得太残酷了），但游戏的设计初衷是为了获得快乐，所以在游戏的任何阶段，任何玩家都应该有机会获胜。当然，有些游戏采用了怪异的方法——确保运气可以反转，这也不是答案；《马里奥赛车》往往包含可用于惩罚第一名玩家的武器，这就鼓励玩家尽量保持第二名，同时让技术水平高的玩家受挫。

记住我所说的，游戏设计的黄金法则是，让所有玩家都有获胜的机会，但仍然奖励高技能的玩家。如果你希望玩家在游戏中玩得更开心，你应该鼓励技术，比如加入排行榜，或者在比赛中让技术水平相近的玩家匹配。作为开发者，你必须吸引玩家达到流状态；虽然这在多人游戏中更复杂得多，优秀的匹配系统是完全可能实现的。在离线游戏中，AI可以并且应该适应不同技能水平的玩家，尽管说得容易做得难，因为我们距离真正的人工智能还有很长的路要走。另外，我认为许多人都会感到愤怒，如果他们获胜是因为游戏AI同情他们（游戏邦注：100%理性的AI会尽可能维持游戏运作，所以让某人保持一种可以不断玩下去的胜利状态其实是达到上述目的的最好办法）。

这显然是非常困难的，但已经有成功的案例了。《街头霸王》（和一般的格斗游戏）都是这么设计的，所以生命条很大程度上是随意减少的，因为在比赛的任何时候总是可能避免伤害和保证完美的胜利。《吃豆人》、《俄罗斯方块》等也是一样，失败持续时间非常短，玩得好的奖励却足够丰富，所以玩家可以玩得很高兴。甚至《使命召唤》也是有趣的，因为玩家死亡也是一瞬间的事，而且射击敌人很爽快很灵敏。

问题是，开发者似乎太执著于把游戏复杂化，以掩饰他们自己都不知道应该怎么玩自己的游戏的真相。电子游戏中的AAA游戏相当于电影中的好莱坞大片，更加专注于突出华丽丰富的视觉和声音特效，而忽略了玩家获胜和失败的可能。虽然我们正在制作更先进的游戏机，以继续改进前者，但可笑的是，游戏开发者经常把“游戏”部分放在游戏本身的空想之后。复杂度不只是体现在图像上；就规则而言，复杂度也是很成问题的，因为玩家有时候会迷失在规则的迷宫中，不知道自己是正在成功还是正在失败。再者，如果游戏就是无趣，再怎么跟高层抗争也是没有意义的；跟政府机构打过交道的任何人都可以告诉你，政治是跟乐趣最不沾边的东西。

AAA游戏当然没什么错，但发行大预算的游戏越来越有风险了。我们现在面临的行业局势是，只要搞砸一款游戏，工作室就可以关门大吉了。我想营销人员一定很困惑，为什么预算和开发时间都相当充足的游戏却不能在今天的市场上成功。我猜是因为大公司不再做游戏了，而是打包片段；事实上，许多现代游戏的设计都本末倒置了，因为开发者把使它们成为游戏的属性当成了“末”，而把来自其他媒体的、能让它们赢利的东西当成了“本”。以《荣誉勋章：铁血悍将》为例，这款游戏显然是在模仿《使命召唤》的赢利策略，努力借用相同的修辞，却抛弃自己原本的特点。游戏公司真的以为广大玩家都是好骗的吗？当然，你必须向广大玩家营销游戏，但不要自欺欺人了——如果玩游戏没意思了，没有什么东西能阻止玩家退出游戏。（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）

Game Design: it’s the winning, not the taking part

by Michael O’Connell-Davidson

Game design isn’t something that many people understand, even within the industry, and that’s a real problem. Now we’re approaching a new console generation, this is a good time to start talking about what game design actually entails and how it informs both players and developers. This might get a little bit heavy, because in trying to understand games, you need to try to understand the economic and mathematical definitions of what a game “is.” OK, so I can hear you tabbing out from here, but please bear with me – I’ll do my best to keep things interesting.

In essence, a game is a situation in which multiple actors compete to achieve certain goals; actors are defined as individuals who are both rational and intelligent. An actor’s goal can be anything from the satisfaction that comes with winning or some sort of reward (virtual or otherwise.) Immediately, this should raise a couple of flags in your mind if you’ve given computer games much consideration, especially with regards to artificial intelligence. The reason playing games online is so satisfying is because human beings enjoy lording their victories over one another, but also because the behaviour of a human being is typically more interesting than that of an AI routine. Computers are certainly rational – often more rational than their human counterparts – but creating a digital intelligence is impossible for us right now.

An example analysis of a “game” as defined by game theory is the ”prisoner’s dilemma,” which is as follows:

Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The police admit they don’t have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They plan to sentence both to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the police offer each prisoner a Faustian bargain. Here’s how it goes:

If A and B both confess the crime, each of them serves 2 years in prison

If A confesses but B denies the crime, A will be set free whereas B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)

If A and B both deny the crime, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison

Our old friend Wikipedia notes that in purely individualistic terms, the most rational thing to do in the game is to betray your partner; as the betraying actors have no chance of receiving the three year sentence, it typically yields better results, despite cooperation being ultimately more rewarding. The game breaks down in real life as people tend to be biased towards working together, but video games aren’t real life – and that’s where things get interesting.

Assuming that you are both rational and intelligent, when you begin playing a video game, you always have a number of choices available to you. These differ depending on the game, and encompass what level to select, what character to play as, and so on and so forth. More importantly, though, a meta-level choice available to the player is whether to continue playing or to switch the console off; unlike within the situation described by the  prisoner’s dilemma, you have no obligation to keep playing. We’re assuming that you’re playing video games for the purposes of entertainment, not because you’re the victim of a particularly eccentric prison sentence, so when a video game stops being fun, the rational thing to do is to stop playing.

There are a number of reasons games stop being fun, but one of the biggest is when a player feels that have no chance of winning. If all of your actions lead to failure (even if you have the capacity to delay the inevitable), then why keep playing? No effort is rational, which means ragequitting in multiplayer games is actually somewhat understandable. Of course, unless the game in question suffers from a glitch in which victory is literally impossible, games always tend to offer some chance of victory – but if this chance is too low (and the amount of effort you need to expend  to progress further outweighs the perceived enjoyment that might result from doing so), then the rational thing is to switch off. This is why people quit games when they “get stuck,” because trying harder isn’t rational.

So: good game design dictates that loss should not be a foregone conclusion, and that victory should never be clear until the game itself has ended. Civilization V had a problem prior to its most recent expansion where the gap between players would typically widen to the point where winners and losers would be decided too early in the game, thus the late game phase was criminally dull. MMORPGs don’t appeal to a large number of people because they’re effectively designed to be unwinnable; this doesn’t mean that MMORPGs are typically poorly designed, or that the genre is a wash, but they’re designed like treadmills to keep you playing because this is what the MMORPG business typically relies upon. Because it’s so blatant, the terms of the game are visible from the outset, meaning that many people aren’t willing to get involved.

The reason games like Pac-man and Street Fighter have endured for so long isn’t because of misplaced nostalgia. It’s because as far as games go, they are very well designed in terms of when loss and victory become clear. While in real life sometimes taking part is all that counts (and society would be a much worse place without such activities), video games are designed to be entertaining, so victory should always be attainable at all stages in the game and for all players. Of course, some games resort to bizarre methods of making sure fortunes can be reversed, which also isn’t the answer; Mario Kart games typically contain weapons designed to punish players in first place, which incentivises staying in second place for as long as possible and makes the game very frustrating for players of high skill.

Bearing what I’ve said in mind, then, the golden rule of game design should be to create games where victory is always attainable for all players, but skill is still adequately rewarded. If you want players to get better at the game, you have to incentivise doing so, either by offering them better in game items, with leaderboards, or by matching them with players of approximate skill online. As a developer, you need to lull players into a state of flow; while this is much more complex in a multiplayer environment, with good matchmaking protocols it’s totally possible. In offline games, AI can – and should – adapt to players who are having difficulty with the game or who are simply finding it too easy, although this is easier said than done because true artificial intelligence is a very long way off. Also, I think many people would be infuriated if they were under the impression a video game intelligence was letting them win out of pity (a 100% rational AI would want to remain operational for as long as possible, so letting somebody win just enough to keep them playing would effectively be the best way for it to achieve that end.)

This is obviously very challenging, but it has been done. Street Fighter (and fighting games in general) are designed so that the health bars are largely arbitrary, because it is almost always possible to avoid damage and secure a flawless victory at any point in a match. Pac-man, Tetris and so on are designed in such a way that losing never takes too long, and that the rewards for playing well were ample enough that people could have fun. Even Call of Duty is enjoyable because player death is short and quick, and shooting at opponents feels poppy and responsive.

The trouble is that developers often seem more caught up in making games incredibly complex to make up for their own lack of ideas about how their game should play out. “Triple-A” titles – the video game equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster – focus less on the player’s potential to win and lose and more on the game’s visual and auditory nuances. While we’re building better consoles to improve on the latter, it seems somewhat absurd that video game developers tend to frequently put the “game” part second to the abstraction of the game itself. Complexity is not just graphical; complexity in terms of rules is equally as problematic, meaning that players sometimes get lost in a labyrinth of rules and can no longer properly discern whether or not they’re winning or losing or getting closer to either outcome. Again, there’s no point fighting through a bureaucracy if it isn’t enjoyable, and lord knows anybody who’s tried to deal with a government body will be able to tell you that bureaucracy is the furthest thing from fun.

There’s nothing wrong with Triple-A titles, of course, but releasing big budget games gets riskier and riskier with every console generation. We’re at the point now where it only takes one bad game to force a studio into shutting its doors, and I think marketing executives are confused why games with lavish budgets and long development cycles aren’t doing particularly well in today’s market. I’d hazard it was because large studios are no longer producing games, but packages of set pieces; effectively, many modern games are designed upside down, in that what makes them games is deemed less important than the tropes from other media that make them marketable in the first place. I mean, really, take a look at Medal of Honor: Warfighter – the game was a clear attempt at the Call of Duty money, leaning hard into the same tropes, but what made it a game was unremarkable at best. Do games companies genuinely believe that the public is so easily fooled? Sure, you need to market products to the public, but don’t kid yourselves – if playing a game isn’t enjoyable, there’s basically nothing stopping consumers from switching them off.(source:venturebeat)