作者：Cliff Harris

本文的内容可能不是那么流行。如果你是《我的世界》/《星际公民》/《Flappy Bird》/《江南Style》的粉丝，你便可以把目光移开了。

我认为有一种现象正在不断变强，这对于所有的内容创造者来说则是一个坏消息。好吧，是对于99.99%的我们来说。这种现象便是媒体的全球化，并且是由少数人所主导着这种全球化。

让我们退回到几百年前，那时候你可以成为村子里最优秀的琵琶演奏者。其他人都不可能在琵琶演奏方面超越你。但是在30英里以外的地方却有一个比你更厉害的琵琶演奏者，但是没人会离开自己的村子，所以这种比较也就没了意义。你可以继续演奏琵琶，而人们可能会愿意付钱去听你演奏。这是多么平和的时光呀。

让我们再往前一点，即来到电视和收音机盛行的时代。这时候情况就有所不同了，因为现在的你可以在广播上听到邻村的琵琶/吉他演奏者的表演。这意味着整个国家的人都能够听到他的演奏。所以这个人将成为全国性的明星，但是有很多当地人也很厉害。这对于他们来说是件蛮痛苦的事，但还不算是灾难。毕竟与英国的每一位吉他演奏者竞争就是件艰难的事，但幸运的是你还不用与全球的吉他演奏者竞争。BBC广播并不会出现在伊斯兰堡，即使伊斯兰堡的人能够听到这一广播，也会因为文化差异而导致没人能够欣赏你那奇特的英文歌曲的。

最新一部《变形金刚》中有一个以中国为背景的场景，在对话中人们表示相信政府能够拯救自己。这会让中国观众和政府都感到开心。这也是现在的状况。没人会为了只面向自己的国家销售去创造一部电影。内容也变得更加全球化。这种情况已经持续了几十年，并且一年比一年更显著。现在的娱乐主要是数字化，并且不存在明显的界限。所有娱乐内容间的发布日期都不会差太久。并且文化差异也在逐渐消失。

gangnam(from gamasutra)

所以现在我们所看到的垄断不只是基于全国层面，还是基于世界层面。不只是关于软件和服务，同时还关于文化。我从未想过韩国的说唱明星会创造一股全球性的的热潮。而现在我们可以看到一个打扮得像《灰姑娘》里面的恶姐姐的中年大叔于圣诞节的时候在英国朗利特庄园跳着《江南Style》的舞蹈。这是一种全新的变化。

当文化变成全球化，流行变成全球化，那便只留下一张榜单。每个人都知道每个人喜欢什么，一些广为人知的内容便得更广为人知。

iTunes排行榜便是应用的目标。只要出现在排行榜最上方，你便会感到满足。但问题在于，因为现在的排行榜/新闻源/全球媒体都缺少多样性，所以人们对于优秀内容的看法将趋于一致。那些致力于编写流行歌曲的人将会开始写出像《江南Style》这样的歌曲。手机游戏会越来越像《Flappy Bird》，而桌面游戏也会越来越像《我的世界》。

这会导致大多数成功且受欢迎的内容变得更加大众化。但是因为这种大众化是全球性的，所以情况也变得越来越糟糕了。为什么我会在意这点？为什么这种情况是糟糕的？

这种情况之所以是糟糕的是因为它会导致随机扰动变得更夸张。某些内容的名气推动元素都有可能将其从排行榜的100名变成第9名。它也因此会获得更多关注，从而来到第1名的位置，然后因为获得许多关注它将持续待在那个位置，而因为这样它也具有更大的报道价值，从而让它变得更加受欢迎，这种循环会不断持续着，所有的一切动力都是源自一次非常小的机遇，也许只是一个媒体人表示喜欢这一内容。而任何一个小小的问题也会被夸大数百倍。

我的意思是其实《江南Style》，《我的世界》，《Flappy Bird》和《星际公民》并没有实际上那么厉害。我并不是说它们并不优秀，并不惊人，而是它们的受欢迎程度在某种程度上与其质量是不相干的。人们之所会购买某些东西是因为大家都在购买这些东西。某些东西之所以变得更受欢迎是因为它已经很受欢迎了，那么这时候情况就糟糕了，因为当你在创造某些内容时，它的成功将更多地取决于运气。所以这是非常糟糕的。

所有的这些情况中的一个亮点便是Steam。基于Steam的首页重新编写是很酷也是必要的行为。以前如果一款游戏获得首页推荐，它就会变得更受欢迎并更畅销，玩家的口口相传也会带来更多销量，从而再成就下一个首页推荐。而现在情况也不是这样了。如果你喜欢一款复杂的PC策略游戏，你可能会驻足于我的游戏《民主3》在Steam上的推广。而这种推广只是为了你而进行的。现在的Steam拥有数百个微小众社区，所以许多开发者拥有机会能够在这些社区变得更受欢迎。

而在所有媒体中我们都需要这样的微小众社区。为什么还存在“流行歌曲排行榜”或电影排行榜？为什么《速度与激情》创造了XX美元这一新闻在产业之外还存在任何报道价值？是否因为它也受到其它产业的人士的喜欢？全都是因为排行榜！排行榜一直在推动文化通话并不断发展一些无害但却平淡的内容。

所以为什么苹果不采取与Steam一样的做法并纠正这样的问题？因为他们并不需要在意这样的问题。作为一名开发者，看到自己所创造的游戏注定会遭遇失败，但也有可能变成像《我的世界》或《Flappy Bird》那样的游戏是件很奔溃的事。这是一个风险非常高的产业。但对于那些拥有网上商店的来说，他们根本不会在意。因为他们不关心排行第1的游戏是真正出色的还是可笑的。他们只会想着不断赚取更多利益。所以运转一间应用商店是一种有效的避险策略。我也希望自己能够拥有这么一间商店:D。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Implications of a global market on random success

by Cliff Harris

I might be unpopular in this post. If you are a huge minecraft / star citizen / flappy bird and gangnam style fan, look away now.

I think there is a phenomena that is becoming stronger and stronger and I think its bad news for all content creators. Well, for 99.99% of us. That phenomena is the globalization of media, and the concentration of it in a few hands.

Zap back a few hundred years, and you could be the #1 best Lute player in the village. Nobody else could touch you for lute playing. You rocked. 30 miles away there was a better lute player, but nobody ever left their village anyway, so who cared. You could play the lute, and people would pay you to hear it. Happy times.

Zap forward a bit and we have TV and radio. And thats different, because now you can hear that Lute / guitar player from the next village on the radio. And that means everyone in the country can hear him. So that guy gets to be a big national star, and the lesser local people don’t do so well. And thats tough for them, but probably not a total disaster. After all, competing with every guitar player in the UK is tough, but you aren’t competing globally. BBC radio doesn’t play in Islamabad, and (and this is crucial) even if it did, nobody would like your weird English music over there anyway, due to cultural differences.

The latest transformers movie had a scene set in China, and dialog where people say to trust the government to save them. Both put in to keep Chinese audiences / government officials happy. This is what happens now. Nobody makes a movie based on selling it to people in their country. The stuff is global. It has been, obviously for decades, but its becoming more and more so every year. Now entertainment is predominantly digital, there are literally no borders now. Staggered release dates wont last much longer. Cultural differences are eroding.

So now for the first time we seeing the emergence not just of monopolies on a national level, but an international level. Not just in terms of software and services, but in terms of culture. I never thought I’d see a Korean rap star become a global phenomena. I witnessed middle aged men dressed up as the ugly sisters from Cinderella doing a gangnam style dance one Christmas in Longleat house, England. This is new.

When culture is global, and popularity is global, there is only one chart. THE chart. Everyone knows what everyone likes, and what already has coverage gets more coverage. Saturation coverage.

The itunes charts are pretty much *the place* for apps. Get to the top there, and you are laughing. The problem is, because there is less variety in charts / news outlets / media globally now, you are getting more of a centralized consensus on what is good. People who are only going to write about one pop song (the very mainstream non specialist media) would write about gangnam style. One mobile game? well flappy bird obviously (or angry birds…), one desktop game? well obviously minecraft.

And this leads to the crazy irony of the most successful, popular content getting more and more publicity. Thats always been true but its getting much, much worse because now that is global. Why do I care? why is this bad?

I think its bad because it leads to random perturbations becoming exaggerated. A slight boost in popularity of something bumps it from #100 in a chart to #9. it gets more attention so it goes to #1, and then so much attention it stays there, and then the mere fact that it stayed there becomes newsworthy making it even more popular, and the cycle continues, all potentially from a tiny, tiny bump, maybe a single media personality took a liking to it. A minor disruption in a flat surface is exaggerated to a mountain.

What I’m saying is that gangnam style, minecraft, flappy bird and star citizen are not *THAT* good. I’m not saying they aren’t good, or great even, or amazing even, but the level of popularity is totally disconnected from the quality at some point above the ‘ten million copies sold’ level. Stuff is getting bought *because it is getting bought*. And stuff is becoming popular *because it is already popular* and that sucks, because when you produce content, the success of it is too much attributed to luck. And thats bad, bad bad.

One of the bright points in all this is actually steam. Steams front page re-coding is awesome, and exactly what was needed. Beforehand, if a game got a front page feature, it became popular, and sold a lot, and the word of mouth generated a lot of sales which led to a front page feature and…. etc. Now, there is no such thing. If you love complex PC strategy games and politics, you might be staggered at the promotion my game ‘Democracy 3′ gets on steam. But thats just for you. Steam now has hundreds of micro-niches, and lots of developers have the chance to be popular in that niche.

We need the same for all media. Why do ‘pop charts’ even exist? or movie charts? Why on earth does the fact that ‘fast and furious’ made X dollars have any newsworthy value outside of the industry? Should I go and see it because its popular with everybody else? Fuck no. Charts suck. Charts encourage a homogenization of culture and promote the bland and inoffensive.

So why don’t apple do what steam do and fix this problem? Because *they do not need to care*. As a developer, its terrifying to know a game I make will almost certainly fail, but *might* become minecraft or flappy bird. Thats a very very risky industry. But for people with an online store, they (except steam) don’t care. Why should they? They don’t care if the #1 game is awesome or a fart joke. They collect their slice of *all* the money anyway. Running in app store is the ultimate hedging strategy in games. I wish I owned one ._(source:gamasutra)