作者：Ben Serviss

又是一个阳光明媚的周日清晨。你在被窝里打滚，把柔软的被子和床垫都弄乱了。这是新一天的开始。你会再赖一会儿床吗？还是起床出去散步或去健身馆？打算去见好友？无论你决定干什么，此时是一天中的所有可能性的开始。

现在，假如你决定这个周日早上玩游戏。无论你是卡在10分钟的不能跳过的过场动画里，或是无趣的强制迷你游戏，还是令人沮丧的加载页面，或即使你玩的正是你想玩的游戏，你的体验将被记录为一个固定的生命事件。

在一个充斥着各种免费游戏、网页游戏、完整版、试玩版等等的世界里，玩家永远不缺少可以玩的游戏。培养这种意识——尊重你的玩家和承认他们均出一部分有限的时间用来玩你的游戏，可以让你做出更好的游戏。

Chrono-Trigger-clock(from gamasutra)

玩家时间：最宝贵的资源

当电子游戏仍然是属于表少年的怪癖时，游戏时间越长越好。现在，因为各种平台不断推出各种游戏，游戏争夺玩家时间的竞争比以前更激烈了。突然之间，40个小时的游戏体验似乎不像曾经那么吸引人了。

游戏开发者应该有意识地尊重玩家的时间和精力，毕竟玩家的年纪越来越大了，能够用于玩游戏这一兴趣好爱的时间越来越少了。

所以，你要怎么做？以下是简单的步骤。

1、所有游戏玩法都必须服务于游戏的目的。

大部分游戏致力于为玩家创造乐趣或令人愉悦的情境。这些游戏的体验如果能坚持这一原则，那么会达到最好的效果。正如任天堂集中精力把移动角色这一个简单的动作做好，玩家在你的游戏中做的一切都应该服务于这个目标。

Xbox机甲战斗模拟游戏《Steel Battalion》因庞大的实体操作器而声名狼藉。这个操作器拥有超过40个按键，光是“启动”这个事件就需要操作多个按键并按正确的顺序切换。这样的操作方式似乎是在任意浪费玩家的时间，但事实上，强化了游戏的目的——模拟操作战斗机器人的真实情况。

2、所有游戏玩法都必须围绕故事主题展开。

这一条只适用于以故事或剧情为主的游戏。如果你打算围绕游戏展开生动的情节，却设计了一系列只适用于玩法的规则和另一系列只适用于剧情的规则，这么做还合理吗？

例如，如果玩家在你的游戏中大部分时候是在杀无名无姓的敌人，却在过场动画中让你的角色看到尸体时表现得悲伤，你真的认为这样合情理吗？这种双重标准仍然是游戏中的准则，这就是绝大部分游戏故事都不如其他媒体的重大原因。通过这种做法，你妥协了你想叙述的故事，弱化了游戏的整体力量。

3、不要炫耀你做其他事有多好。

过场动画做得非常长，过场动画不可跳过，过场动画与情节无关——这些设计通常对制作人来说很有趣，却玩家来说却未必。

虽然存在例外，但有些设计师如小岛秀夫就因此闻名，如果不是曲折的、意外的影片向玩家传达明确的信息：再等一等，也许你之后会玩到。这必然会让那些带着主动操作而不是被动观看的目标来玩你的游戏的玩家失望的。

这也适用于非游戏主线的部分。简单的迷你游戏和附加的益智元素只会扰乱游戏的核心玩法，分散玩家的注意力。

4、避免玩家停机时间。

无论何时玩家准备好且乐意玩游戏但不能玩，因为游戏的运行方式，那就是主动的玩家停机时间。这包括常规的加载时间，通常是不可避免的，但可以分散到重刷时间、冷却时间、失败的提示动画和未优化的加载页面里。

无论何时，在剧情、适当的难度平衡和技术限制下，总是有办法尽快让玩家回到主动操作中。

尊重你的生命

当然，这个概念适用于你人生中的一切事情——特别是与他人的互动。即使你所处的互动活动是老套的或例行公事的，记住，那也是值得尊重的，因为它正是当下。

只要有人玩游戏，你的游戏就必须尊重玩家的时间——即使它只是你做着玩的一个普通的独立项目。即使你表现得并不明显，只要你尊重了玩家的时间，他们就会感觉到你的诚意。（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）

Honor Thy Player’s Time

by Ben Serviss

It’s a glorious Sunday morning. You stir and stretch in your bed, a mess of wonderfully soft sheets and covers. The whole day is open. Will you laze around for a bit more? Get up and go for a walk, or to the gym? Make plans to meet up with friends? Whatever you decide, this moment is the birthplace of the day’s possibilities, when just thinking of the wide expanse of possibility makes you smile.

Jump forward 100 years. Unless dramatic advances in cryogenics are discovered, it’s highly likely you’ll no longer be among the living, and your lazy Sunday afternoon from so long ago will now be one fixed event of the myriad fixed events known as your life. However insignificant your choice may have been, your decision on how you used some of the finite time at your disposal can never be unmade – for better or for worse.

Now, say you decided to play a game that Sunday morning. Whether you got stuck in a 10-minute long unskippable cutscene, a stultifying yet mandatory mini-game, a frustrating sequence replete with long loading times, or even if the game was exactly what you wanted, your experience is logged as another fixed life event.

In a world of seemingly unlimited free-to-play games, browser games, Steam sales and trial versions, players will never be bereft of games to play. Choosing to honor your players – and acknowledging that they have chosen to share some of their limited time playing your game – can be a surprisingly effective way to help cut out filler and make a sharper, more rewarding play experience.

Player Time: The Rarest Resource

When video games were still an oddity favored by teenagers and pre-adolescents, the higher the hours of gameplay to cost ratio was, the better. Now, with tons of games constantly coming out on all sorts of platforms, there are more games than ever vying for our time. Suddenly, the prospect of a 40-hour game doesn’t seem as appealing as it once did.

Choosing to consciously honor the player’s time and investment aligns well with recent trends of aging gamers, who have less and less free time to devote to their favorite hobby.

So how do you go about doing this? In theory, the steps are simple.

→ All gameplay must serve the aim of the game. Most games strive to create fun or joyful scenarios for their players. These games would be best served by adhering to their mandate for the entire experience – no excuses. Just as Nintendo famously focuses on making the simple act of moving your character entertaining, everything the player does in your game should serve its purpose.

The Steel Battalion controller. Not pictured: Foot pedal controls.

The Xbox mech combat simulator Steel Battalion was notorious for its mammoth real-life controller, with over 40 buttons to manage, and an involved ‘start-up’ sequence that involved manipulating its buttons and switches in a precise order before you could even take a step. This sequence may seem like it arbitrarily takes time away from the player, but in fact this only helped to reinforce the game’s purpose – to simulate what it actually would be like to pilot a giant robot of war.

→ All gameplay must build towards the narrative theme. This only applies to games where narrative and story are a focus. If you’re trying to craft a compelling story around your game, does it really make sense to have one set of rules that apply during gameplay, and another that apply only during ‘story sequences’?

For example, if you spend the majority of a game killing faceless enemies, only to have your character mortified when faced with a corpse in a cutscene, would you realistically think that makes any sense? The fact that this double standard is still the norm in games is a huge reason why an overwhelming majority of game stories are looked upon as inferior to other media. By doing this, you compromise the story you’re trying to tell, and weaken the overall power of the game.

→ Don’t show how good you are at making other things. Cutscenes that go on for way too long, cutscenes that are unskippable, cutscenes that have little to do with the plot – this kind of indulgence is often more fun for the creator than the player.

While there are exceptions, and some designers like Hideo Kojima are celebrated for their signature, if not meandering cinematics, unexpected ones deliver a clear message to the player: Keep waiting, and maybe you’ll get to play later. This can’t help but be disappointing to someone who entered your game for the purpose of actively playing, not passively viewing.

The cinematics for the summon spells in Final Fantasy VIII caught flack for being unusually long as well as unskippable.
This also applies to anything not in the game’s main field of expertise. Shallow mini-games and tacked-on puzzle elements only detract from the central gameplay promise your players came to fulfill.

→ Avoid player downtime. Whenever the player is ready and willing to play but cannot due to the game getting in the way, that is active player downtime. This includes routine loading times, which generally can’t be helped, but can sneak up on you with ill-conceived respawn times, cooldown times, failure state cutscenes and un-optimized forced loading screens.

Whenever there is a way to get the player back to active play as soon as possible that is consistent with the narrative, appropriate difficulty balancing and technical constraints, take it.

Honor Thy Lifetime

Of course, this concept applies to everything else in your life – especially interactions with others. Even if you’re in the middle of an interaction that is banal or routine, remember that it is always a remarkable one because it is the one that is happening right now.

As long as someone plays it, the same will be true of your game – even if it’s a modest indie project you made on your own just for fun. Even if you don’t make it obvious, when you respect the player’s time, they’ll know.(source:gamasutra)