作者：Dean Takahashi

世界上有许多人想制作很棒的游戏，美国游戏开发者则渴望分享自己所掌握的开发知识。我到柏林与一些游戏行业元老讨论了后者过去数十年的游戏开发经验，以及他们对于进入这一领域的建议。

我在柏林参加的Quo Vadis游戏开发者座谈会中的成员包括Glen Schofield（Sledgehammer Games联合创始人，代表作为《使命召唤：高级战争》），Noah Falstein（谷歌首席游戏设计师），Jens Begemann（Wooga首席执行官）以及Ed Fries（前微软游戏工作室主管，目前是一名活跃的游戏创业顾问）。

我们探讨了如何进入游戏行业以及他们对游戏领域未来趋势的预测。虚拟现实是大家讨论的焦点，手机游戏和AAA主机游戏也不例外。本文是包含许多观众提问的第二部分讨论内容。（点击此处阅读第一部分内容）

game-veterans-in-berlin(from venturebeat)

问：我有两个分别是12和14岁的孩子。他们并不会在手机游戏中购买IAP。但现在有一代玩家是在F2P游戏甚为普遍的环境中成长起来的——他们很快就会拥有自己购买IAP的能力。你们是否认为这可能成为让手机游戏更难实现收益的另一个因素。

Begemann：任何年龄段都有大量玩家根本不在手机游戏中购买东西。可以说有95%左右的玩家是非付费用户，只有5%玩家会付费。但付费比例还会增长，因为还会出现更多让用户觉得自己的消费很值当的游戏。我们已经看到大量让用户白花5美元却一无所得的糟糕游戏。但有越来越多在手机游戏中消费的用户获得了“一杯啤酒5美元，我在这里也只不过是花了一杯酒钱，这很划算”的体验。他们会对同款或其他同类游戏中的消费更感兴趣。

这与年龄有一定关系，因为可以在手机游戏中消费的群体显然是成年人，他们有更多可自由支配的钱。现在也有一些七八十岁的老人为游戏掏钱，多数是女性。但最重要的因素还在于，人们只要能获得有价值的东西，他们就会继续消费。

问：我想问问关于增强现实的话题，因为我是这一行的从业者，这个领域现在极具吸引力。我们已有多年制作同一题材游戏的经验。我们了解平台游戏、动作游戏、战略游戏。但对于拥有全新规则的新平台而言，我们是否需要新型的游戏？你是否认为游戏题材也在发展，或者你是否看到了利用这些新平台接口的新游戏题材的发展潜力？

Falstein：我们从过去的经验中可以清楚看到一个现象，即首批入驻某个新平台（尤其是拥有新功能的平台）的游戏，通常都是经过调整后的旧版游戏。直到有人进行大胆尝试，推出新一代游戏时，这个平台的游戏才会真正火起来，并令世人惊叹：“啊，原来这个平台的游戏可以这么玩啊！”

我认为增强现实技术就属于将以这种方式发展的领域之一。我敢说利用增强现实技术获得成功的热门游戏一定是那种之前从未出现的作品。它不会是改良版的射击游戏之类的产品。这也正是游戏行业最让我兴奋的特点之一。我们要继续创造新技术和新的可能。我认为这还仅仅是我们即将开创新局面的领域之一。

我可以让你预览一下我认为可能成为现实的新游戏类型。这就是与我们项目Project Tango设备相关的游戏。你通过这种设备不但可以看到一个栩栩如生的虚拟世界，它还可以让你知道其中的虚拟对象在现实世界中的位置。这样你就可以在此推出一种潜行游戏，让你在自己的世界中隐秘地前进，如果你转弯速度过快，就可能碰到士卫或听到警告。我不知道这种理念是否会成为热门游戏，但它的确是之前从未出现的东西。

那些反应不够快的人却能够因为慢人一步而获得成功，这真是个很有趣的现象。也许这是因为我上了年纪，所以会认为这是人人都想看到的结果。但谁知道未来走向会有什么变化呢？我们无法预知未来会出现哪种热作。

GamesBeat：许多手机游戏公司是抓住一个品牌并试图因此获得成功。Gle，我想知道你对于获得正确的品牌并对其他进行创新开发有什么看法。你已经拥有《使命召唤》。你已经拥有大家如此熟悉的品牌，你会如何进行创新？

Schofield：每年都有这个问题。我们将有哪些与众不同的举动？我发现在游戏行业中最大的变化和变革，就是从2D到3D的转型，或者说从8位到16位的变化。现在动视的人会中我说，“我们得改变体验电子游戏的方式！”我说，“除了主机更强大之外，这一行几乎没有什么变化。”我们一直在进行创新，但只有游戏玩法发生变化时我们才会注意到这一点。

过去Wii刚问世时，它极大改变了我们玩电子游戏的方法。对我来说，像这种情况才算是最大的变化。对于我们而言，当今最大的变化是数字游戏的出现。我们的游戏永远不会结束，我们的产品永远不会完工，我们要继续制作游戏。这对我们来说是个巨变。我们要根据移动平台创造变化。某天我们也许会将两个平台整合起来。我们想让人们一直体验《使命召唤》，所以我们一直在关注所有的新平台并思考“我们该如何采纳这些平台？我们该如何令其兼容自己的游戏？”

问：我要问的是关于社会责任的问题。多数公司会通过提供良好的待遇、医保等福利来吸引新员工。我们在德国创办了一个名为Gaming Aid的组织，志在为游戏领域的从业者提供其所需的帮助。你是否认为，随着游戏行业的发展壮大，这一行的慈善行为也会成为一个社会关注话题？

Schofield：我可以说，至少《使命召唤》每年都向公益组织捐出数百万美元。这是一个极大的善举。我们现在有一名前海军陆战队的四星将军替我们负责这个项目。我们旗下工作室Sledgehammer Games每周、每月、每年都有公益活动。我们会走出社会在学校进行演说，尽己所能推广善举。

GamesBeat：我想可以这样问，你们如何组织一个与AAA游戏相关的公益活动，类似于音乐领域的Band Aid？

Fries：Penny Arcade在支持Child;s Play公益组织方面表现良好。我今年参加了他们的义卖活动，他们收到了60万美元左右的善款。这些善款来自《Desert Bus》玩家。你听说过这款游戏吗？

Schofield：我听说过，我是它最初的美术人员之一。

Fries：对于不知道这款游戏的人，我可以说明一下。《Desert Bus》其实是一款最无趣的游戏。你在其中要实时驾驶汽车，行驶8小时穿过沙漠。这些玩家轮流连续玩了一周的游戏，并因此筹到了大笔善款。

Schofield：这真是太奇怪了。这款游戏莫名其妙被盗了。它从来没有获得发布，尽管我们已经完成了开发。它的设计者是Penn。我们还制作这另一款游戏《Impossible Level》。我们都认为这款游戏不会有销路，事实也的确如此。我不敢相信它居然变成一种慈善工具了。

GamesBeat：我们要回到关于游戏未来走向的话题了。Quo Vadis Desert Bus？

Schofield：不试一下怎么知道呢。游戏的未来前途相当明朗。

问：我是X世代出生的一员，也是首批伴随电子游戏成长起来的人之一，现在我们年龄老了，已经迈入60或70高龄。我们喜欢许多新概念，但你就是不敌20来岁的年轻人。我觉得面向老年人开发游戏具有很大的市场潜力。

Begemann：我可以说的就是，我们手机游戏的许多玩家平均年龄是40岁，有时候是50多岁。但这些游戏并非PvP类型，而是让玩家合作的社交体验，或者是寻物解谜，谜题游戏等类型。我也不知道未来会不会出现老年人的电子竞技游戏。

glen-schofield(from venturebeat)

Schofield：我们是否能推出简单、中等、困难和老年模式？我们现在也为色盲用户对游戏进行了一些调整。

Falstein：我曾同一名在媒体上极具曝光度的神经系统学科Dr.Adam Gazali共事。他的一大发现就是通过使用《Neuro Racer》这款特定的电子游戏，就能够让不擅长开车和进行多任务处理的六七十岁老人观察到擦身而过的标志。他通过这种游戏让老年司机达到了20多岁的司机同等的驾车水平。更棒的是，这些老人在之后6个月中不再玩该游戏，也不再体验其他电子游戏或者其他辅助的情况下，仍然保持了这一水平。也许医生也该向老年患者推荐电子游戏这种医方，以便保持人们敏捷的技能。

Schofield：我迫不及待地希望迎来60和70多岁并且了解电子游戏的用户，因为只有到那时候我们的律师、法官和政客才会更加理解我们的行业。

Begemann：这是一个很好的切入点。昨天有一场德国游戏颁奖典礼，其中就有不少重量级的政客出席。我在五年前看到同个颁奖典礼的情况却是，到处充满“我并不是很懂游戏，但我的孩子成天玩游戏……”这种论调。现在情况已经发生变化。有一些任期内的政客会说自己也玩游戏。这种代际变化已逐渐出现。

GamesBeat：游戏是全球性的经济领域。对你和公司来说，这意味着什么？游戏是全球性的，它具有普遍性，这是否会改变你所做的事情，你经营公司以及参与行业活动的方式？

Schofield：麦当劳会根据不同地区的消费者调整食物口味。我想这对我们也同样适用。我们想进入中国，想进军不同市场。但我们得先看到这些市场截然不同的特点。他们玩家的游戏方式也不尽相同。这对我们来说是一个学习的过程，但我们仍然想进入海外市场。

Falstein：谷歌显然是全球化的公司。从游戏层面来看，我自己在多个地方与多种人打交道之后，就知道我们只是在尝试许多不同的战略。一方面，这不仅仅是帮助一个国家的开发者向其他地区销售游戏，同时也在帮助新兴市场在本地打开销路，创造健康的游戏行业，便于一个国家的开发者创造出本土用户会喜欢的游戏。

对我来说，这真的很有趣。数年前我制作LucasArts游戏时，那些游戏在德国表现相当出色。我一直不懂其中的原因。从全世界范围来看，这些游戏在德国销量最好，尽管其中含有许多隐晦的笑话和我们不知如何准确翻译的双关语。许多时候你就是无法说明为何来自某个国家的游戏在另一个国家也可以热卖。现在我们有了开放性的数字游戏市场，我们可以从中找到自己所需的内容，世界各地的人都可以在其中找到可玩的游戏。

Begemann：提到国际化和移动领域，显然这个市场现在已经实现全球化。另一很有趣的方面就是，游戏领域的从业情况也极具国际化特点。我们在柏林总部有250多名成员，但德国本土员工不足一半。工作室分布着40多个不同国籍的员工，其中许多人根本不会讲德语，但这却并不妨碍大家工作。

如果你也像我们一样是针对全球市场开发游戏，你就必须要有极具国际化的成员一起创造适用于国际市场的内容。如果我们只有一群德国员工开发游戏，那么游戏可能就只适用于本土市场。所以我们的成员来自全球各地是一个好现象。

Falstein：我在德国当顾问的时候，发现有大量关于微观管理经济的游戏类型。在德语中表达这种游戏题材的词语很长，该类游戏只适用于德国用户，在非德语地区的销量并不好。所以你们公司所采用策略真的很可行。

Begemann：的确如此。现在还是有德国人专为德国市场制作的游戏。但我认为这种现象正在发生变化。

ed-fries(from venturebeat)

Fries：我记得曾经有人告诉我游戏无法在中国盛行的原因，声称中国的青年男女都必须在学校努力学习（这一点不假），他们的家长永远不会让子女因为游戏而分心等等。但现在，我们都看到了这个市场惊人的数据。腾讯已经成了当今世界上最大的游戏公司。

另一个有趣的发现就是，中国并不仅仅是一个消费大国。我们有一个认知倾向就是，当我们征服更多市场时，这些市场就只会成为我们产品的消费者。事实却并非如此。他们反正征服了游戏行业。我们已经看到中国人的品味以及中国游戏设计对世界的影响。与此相似，德国在桌游领域也产生了同样的效应。我们所谈论的其他类型的游戏也可能传播到世界各地。与其说是我们打开了新市场向其兜售产品，不如说是它们自己改变了游戏行业格局。（本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao）

Gaming’s veterans tell how to break into the business (part 2)

Dean Takahashi

Disclosure: The organizers of the Quo Vadis event paid my way to Berlin, where I moderated this session. Our coverage remains objective.

People around the world want to make great games. And American game creators are eager to impart their hard-earned knowledge. I traveled to Berlin with a group of gaming veterans who talked about their decades of experience in game development and their advice for those breaking into the business.

The panel I moderated at the Quo Vadis game developer event in Berlin included Glen Schofield, the cofounder of Sledgehammer Games, which created last year’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare; Noah Falstein, the chief game designer at Google; Jens Begemann, the CEO of Berlin’s Wooga; and Ed Fries, the former head of Microsoft Game Studios and an active game startup adviser.

We talked about how to break into the business and their predictions about where gaming is going. Virtual reality was high on the list, but so were mobile games and triple-A console titles. Here’s part two of the discussion, which includes a lot of audience questions. Here’s part one.

Question: My kids are now 12 and 14. They don’t make in-app purchases for mobile games. But now an entire generation of players have grown up in a world where free-to-play games are natural — and now they will be old enough to make in-app purchases of their own. Do you see this as another factor that may be driving mobile revenue even harder?

Begemann: The vast majority of players of any age don’t ever purchase anything in mobile games. I’d say the average is that around 95 percent don’t spend money, 5 percent do. That share seems to be increasing, because there are more and more examples of games where you get fair value for your purchase. We’ve seen a lot of bad examples where if you spend $5 you get nothing back. But more and more people have had purchase experiences in mobile games that are more like, “Well, a beer is $5, I just spent $5 here, and that was actually worth it.” They’re more interested in purchasing in the same game or in other games.

It’s a bit connected to age, because obviously the people who spend in mobile games are adults who have disposable income. We have 70 and 80-year-olds spending in games now, mostly women. But the big factor is that if people get good value, they’ll continue to spend.

Question: I wanted to ask about the topic of augmented reality, because I’m working in that industry and it’s a fascinating place right now. We’ve been doing the same genres in games for many years. We know platformers, action games, strategy games. But for new platforms, which have a new rule set entirely, do we need new kinds of games? Do you see genres evolving, or do you see the potential for completely new genres coming up to take advantage of those interfaces?

Falstein: One of the things we see clearly from experience is that the first games on a new platform, particularly one with new capabilities, tend to be the old games shoehorned into the new platform. It’s not until the next generation of games, when someone does a daring experiment, that suddenly it goes crazy. Everyone says, “Ah, there’s a new way of using this platform.”

I think that augmented reality specifically is one of those areas that’s going to evolve that way. I’d go out on a limb and say that the hit game that will put augmented reality on the map will be of a type that hasn’t been seen yet. It won’t just be a better shooter or something. That’s part of what excites me about the games industry in general. We keep creating these new technologies and new possibilities. This is just one of several areas that I think are going to open up a lot of new things.

I’ll give you a preview of one of the types of games that I think are going to be possible. This is something I’m thinking about with our Project Tango device. It’s not just that you can look through it and see the real world with virtual objects in it. It knows where it is in the real world, so you could have stealth games where it’s not about controlling a character. It’s about you moving through your own world stealthily. If you turn too quickly there could be a reaction from guards or an alarm that goes off. I don’t know if that would be a huge hit, but it’s never been possible before.

The idea that someone who doesn’t have fast reflexes might be able to succeed by being very slow, I think that’s intriguing. Maybe it’s because I’m aging that I think this is what everybody wants. But who knows where it will go? That’s part of what I love about it. We just can’t tell what the next big hit will be.

GamesBeat: A lot of mobile game companies are about to go grab a brand and try to succeed with it. Glen, I wonder what thoughts you might have about getting the right brand and innovating with it. You have the biggest brand there is in Call of Duty. How do you innovate when you have something that’s so familiar?

Schofield: That’s the question every year. What are we going to do that’s different? I’ve found that the biggest changes and innovations in games, the big sea changes like going from 2D to 3D, or when we went from 8-bit to 16-bit—when things change dramatically—People at Activision say to me now, “We’ve got to change the way we play video games!” I say, “Well, nothing’s changed in the console except that it’s more powerful.” It’s not like we have virtual reality. We’re always innovating. But that’s when we’re going to see a change in how we play.

Look at when the Wii came out. It dramatically changed the way you play a video game. That, to me, is when you’re going to see the biggest changes. For us, the biggest change for us these days is digital. Our game never ends. We’re never done. We continue to make the game. That’s a big change for us. We’re looking to make changes based on mobile. Someday we’re going to blend the two. We want people to be playing Call of Duty all the time, so we’re seeing all these new platforms and thinking, “How do we adopt that? How do we bring them into our way of gaming and take over?”

Question: I’m asking about social responsibility. Most companies try to approach new employees with good benefits, health insurance and so on. In Germany we founded an initiative called Gaming Aid, which is working within the games industry to support people in need. Do you think that, in the future, charity in general from within the games industry is a topic that’s upcoming as it gets bigger?

Schofield: I can speak about Call of Duty specifically, at least. We’re giving away millions every year toward veterans’ charities. It’s a very big initiative. We have a former four-star general from the Marine Corps who’s running it for us now. At Sledgehammer Games we have charity efforts every week, every month, on a yearly basis. We go out and talk to schools all the time. We do whatever we can.

GamesBeat: I guess a question could be, how do you do a triple-A version of a game-related charity, like Band Aid for music?

Fries: Penny Arcade has done a good job supporting the Child’s Play charity. I was at their auction this year. All of a sudden this huge chunk of money came in — $600,000, something like that. It was from a group of people who played Desert Bus. You know this game?

Schofield: I do. I was one of the original artists. It was so weird. That was the Penn and Teller game. We finished it. I’d worked with Penn and Teller. They were crazy.

Fries: For people who don’t know, Desert Bus is basically the dullest game ever made. You have to drive a bus in real time across the desert for eight hours. These guys did this telethon where they were just playing in shifts constantly for a week and raised a huge amount of money.

Schofield: It’s pretty weird. Somehow the game was stolen. It was never released, even though we finished it. Penn designed that. There was one other game we made there, called the Impossible Level. He brought in Lou Reed. Lou Reed did this song. The two of them walk in, and Reed kills you. We’re like, “That’s never going to sell!” And we were right. I can’t believe it’s turned into a charity vehicle.

GamesBeat: I knew we were going to get back to the future of games here. Quo Vadis Desert Bus?

Schofield: Well, you never know. The future of games is pretty darn bright.

Question: I’m from the X generation, the first one that grew up with video games, and we’re becoming old, getting into our 60s and 70s. We like a lot of these new concepts, but you can’t compete against a 20 year old. I feel like there’s a lot of money and a lot of future in creating games for an older generation.

Begemann: One thing I can say is that for many of our mobile games, the average age among players is about 40. It’s in the 50s sometimes. But these are particularly not player-versus-player (PvP) games. These are social experiences where you’re collaborating, or hidden object games, or puzzle games and things like that. I don’t know if we’ll see an eSports senior circuit.

Schofield: We could have easy, medium, hard, and senior? We do some things now where we adjust for color blindness. We have a mode in there for that.

Falstein: This isn’t quite what you’re talking about, but I’ve worked with a neuroscientist, Dr. Adam Gazali, who’s gotten a lot of press for things he’s done. One great thing he’s discovered is that by using a specific video game, Neuro Racer, he was able to take 60- and 70-year-olds who were very bad at driving and multitasking – looking at signs that are going by, things like that – compared to younger drivers, and by using this game he was able to get these older drivers almost to the same performance level as twenty somethings. Which is great, but the amazing thing is that they went six months without playing the game, without any refreshers or playing other video games, and they kept the lion’s share of that improvement. It may well be that doctors will start prescribing video games to people as they get older, just to keep our skills sharp.

Schofield: I can’t wait until we get a generation in their 60s and 70s that understands video games, because then that’ll mean our lawyers and judges and politicians will understand us better.

Begemann: That’s actually a very good point. There was a German game award show yesterday, attended by all these major politicians, people from the federal level on down. I saw the same award show five years ago, and the keynote went something along the lines of, “I don’t understand games very well, but my kids play them. …” That’s changing. We have politicians on stage now who say that they play games themselves. This generational change is slowly happening.

GamesBeat: It’s a global gaming business. For you and your companies, what does that mean? The fact that gaming is global, that it’s pervasive, does that change what you do, how you run your companies, how you participate in the industry?

Schofield: I go back and forth when I see McDonald’s. McDonald’s has adapted to different countries. They bring their food into these places. I know that for us, we’re doing that same thing. We want to be in China. We want to be in different countries. But we have to look at these markets that are completely different. They play differently. For us it’s a learning process. But we’d love to be around the world.

Falstein: Google is certainly worldwide. On the games level, after traveling and working with many people myself, we’re just trying a lot of different strategies. One thing, though, is not only helping people in one country sell to other countries, but also helping emerging markets sell within their own countries and create robust games industries where it may be culturally easier for developers in a country to make games that their compatriots will enjoy playing.

It’s an interesting thing to me. When I worked on the LucasArts stuff years ago, those games did incredibly well in Germany. I was never quite sure why. Proportionally, compared to the whole world, this was where those games sold best per capita, despite having a lot of inside jokes and puns and things that we didn’t think would translate very well. Lots of times you just can’t tell when something from one country will do well in another. It’s wonderful that we have this open digital marketplace now so that we can get stuff out there and all kinds of people around the world can play it.

Begemann: Speaking of international and mobile, obviously the market is global now. Another aspect that is also very interesting is that when it comes to employees working in games, that’s a very international thing as well. We’re based here in Berlin with all of our 250-plus employees in one office here, but less than half of those employees are German. We have more than 40 nations represented. Many of them don’t speak a word of German, and that’s fine. It’s great.

If, like us, you create games for the whole world, games that should work almost everywhere, you have to have a very international crowd together to create something that also works internationally. If we were a group of Germans making games, they would mainly work well here. It’s very inspiring to see our employees from all over the world coming here and working together.

Falstein: When I was consulting in Germany, I found that there was a whole class of games about micromanaging economies. There’s a long German word for the genre that only works in German and they’ve never sold well outside German-speaking countries. It’s great having stuff that works in your own country.

Begemann: It’s true. There are games by Germans for Germans in Germany. But I think that’s changing.

Fries: That ties to a point I wanted to make. I’m old enough to remember being lectured about why games would never be big in China. I was told that Chinese young men and women have to study too hard in school, which is true, and so their parents would never let them be distracted by games and so on and so forth. And now, of course, we’ve all seen the numbers. Tencent is arguably the biggest game company in the world today.

The other interesting thing to take away is that China didn’t just become a consumer. I think we have this predisposition to believe that when we conquer more of the world, so to speak, they’re going to just become consumers of our products. In fact, that isn’t at all what happened. They conquered the game business. We’ve seen how Chinese taste and Chinese game design have influenced the rest of the world. Likewise Germany has had that effect through board games and the like. These other kinds of games we’re talking about can spread to the rest of the world. It’s not so much that we open these new markets up and can sell into them. It’s more that they change the games industry themselves.（source：venturebeat）