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有关任天堂的第一款手机游戏《Miitomo》

发布时间:2015-11-09 14:30:47 Tags:,,,,

作者:Christian Nutt

在与手机开发商DeNA展开正式合作的几个月后,任天堂公开了自己的第一款手机游戏《Miitomo》。这似乎不是人们所期待的内容;这看似就是一款游戏,并且未利用该公司那些宝贵的IP,如马里奥或塞尔达。

可想而知他们的粉丝都表现得非常抵触;这甚至不算一款真正的游戏,顶多只能说是一款游戏化的通讯应用。让我们看看下图,即他们公告中的一张幻灯片:

slide(from gamasutra)

slide(from gamasutra)

不过更有趣的还是来自市场的反应。当然了,这也不算任天堂的核心用户,即《大乱斗》系列粉丝和Amiibo手棒收集者们想要的东西,那么主流手机用户又是怎么想的呢?

似乎投资者都希望该公司能够凭借其声名鼎赫的IP继续发展;并且自从公布了这一消息,该公司的股票在盘后交易中下降了将近9%。

所以看来没人喜欢这个消息。《Miitomo》在三月发行,该公司同时也表示在2017年3月之前,他们还将发行其它四款智能手机应用,但除非任天堂真的取得了很好的成绩,否则我想没有人会愿意为他们的想法买单。

虽然如此我们还是可以看看《Miitomo》到底是怎样的游戏以及为什么它会诞生。我并不认为这是一个糟糕的理念,反而刚刚相反。

如果你想真正了解这款游戏是关于什么,你应该好好看看它的幻灯片展示。而我也打算在此进行简要的描述:你将在游戏中创造一个Mii角色;你在现实生活中的朋友会问你问题;你需要回答这些问题;这能够与你的朋友一起分享信息,你们也有可能开始进行一些对话,你将能够从中学到更多东西。

不像人们所期待的那样,这是一款更具社交性,但是缺少游戏化的游戏。

miitomo_gameplay(from gamasutra)

miitomo_gameplay(from gamasutra)

《Miitomo》是如何运行的:一个朋友提出一个问题,你将回答这个问题;他将与另一个朋友分享信息,然后你的朋友将问你更多有关你的问题的问题。

如果你的对象是主流网络用户的话会出现这样的理念是毫不让人吃惊的:就像日本本土的Line等聊天应用便主导着亚洲市场,而就像任何拥有Facebook账号的人都知道实名制服务在主流用户间非常受欢迎。

所以《Miitomo》在普通用户中非常受欢迎。任何曾向不打游戏的家长,朋友或其他重要的人呈现最初Wii的用户便知道这点。就像《Tomodachi Life》也很受欢迎。

虽然这款游戏可能会因为备受争论而让许多西方用户记得它,但是它在日本市场却是一款非常畅销且受欢迎的游戏。利用与朋友的Miis进行交流的基本理念是很有效的,如此任天堂能够更有效接近那些主流用户。但比较起来《Tomodachi Life》更像是一款游戏,而《Miitomo》却不是这样的。

我认为《Miitomo》就像是任天堂全新“任天堂账号”服务的“特洛伊木马”,即只要用户登录,它便能够在智能手机,PC,主机和掌上电脑上进行传播,并交换数据。让用户能够因为创造Mii并将自己带到这个生态系统中而感到兴奋—-即使他们不一定喜欢任天堂。

我认为西方用户不能理解《Miitomo》的原因与它是来自日本有关。在美国,我们可能不能理解我们的休闲玩家朋友。即关于他们是怎么想的以及如何看待非休闲内容;但是在日本,人们可能会希望通过外部图像去表现出内在想法以及最密切的关系。

而《Miitomo》便是打破这些隔墙的一种有趣方式。《Tomodachi Life》的前提是“Miis盛行”—-你的朋友和家人将积极参与。而这一次,真正的Miis来了,这不再只是任天堂游戏设计师所设想的可笑情节。

这与“电子游戏”背景和“社交”背景间的主要区别具有直接联系,就像我们在手机上使用的社交网络服务一样,如Facebook或Twitter。任天堂尝试着利用这一理念以及与手机用户相关联的专业知识,而不是将自己的想法强加于其中。我认为这是非常有趣的。

同样吸引我的还是对于这是否受到任天堂的合作伙伴DeNA的影响的好奇。到目前为止这还是未知的。我们知道任天堂主导着制作内容,但它选择了一个合作伙伴而不是独自进行肯定是有原因的。上任总裁Satoru Iwata认为这一合作是具有建设性的,他这么说道:

“当考虑到可行的联盟时,任天堂认为必须谨慎地考虑每家公司的优劣是否相得益彰,以及两家公司的企业文化是否够和谐,这比只是专注于潜在的短期优势重要得多。”

看着任天堂与DeNA会对彼此产生怎样的影响是非常有趣的,但到目前为止我们还很难看出什么变化。

任天堂拥有“低调的”社交网络体验。我之所以说“低调的”是因为除了@badmiiverseposts外,你很难再了解Miiverse,除非你是一名活跃的任天堂平台用户。但Miiverse却是任天堂运行了多年的一个活跃的社交网络系统,而该公司也可以从该体验中获取更多经验教训。

任天堂一点都不傻。虽然人们普遍认为,或者至少是西方Twitter用户这么认为,该公司完全脱离了当下的节奏。Wii U的重要失误便是显著的证据。但是如果你将这种看法作为一切前提的话,你便很难合理地判断该公司的任何新理念了。

我认为《Miitomo》的存在是非常合理的。它将能够帮助该公司获得一些手机用户—-至少是在日本市场。我的问题主要是关于它在西方用户间的可行性及其利益可行性。但关于后面的问题,我认为这是任天堂并不在乎的;在这里将用户带进其服务生态系统的特洛伊木马策略便扮演着主要角色。

该公司总裁Tatsumi Kimishima是这么描述《Miitomo》的,“这是面向智能设备的一款免费开始的交流应用,顾名思义,这是我们的智能设备应用,即能够免费开始并推进My Nintendo会员服务的应用。”

让我们着眼于下图的幻灯片:

slide(from gamasutra)2

slide(from gamasutra)2

任天堂智能手机业务的目标是“提供利用智能设备特征的任天堂般的应用。”

这听起来就是《Miitomo》不是吗?

我必须承认:《Miitomo》的诞生并不是一个让人兴奋的消息。它是关于一个目的的大胆表现。显然《Miitomo》并未为任天堂如何将其宝贵的IP带到手机领域奠定基调,但生该公司屡次强调这便是他们想要做的。

这一次人们低估了任天堂采取的方法。而现在人们开始羡慕它的大胆。《Miitomo》向人们展示了该公司是如何看待手机用户:他们就是将手机用户当成手机用户,而不是一家公司或自己的粉丝。而就像《纪念碑谷》的首席设计师Ken Wong指出的那样,如果你想要在手机领域获得成功,这点真的非常重要。

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

Miitomo: What’s Nintendo trying to do with its first smartphone app?

by Christian Nutt

If you haven’t heard, months after it formally partnered with mobile dev DeNA, Nintendo has announced its first smartphone title: Miitomo. It’s nothing that people had expected; it seems to be barely a game, and doesn’t leverage the company’s treasured IP, such as Mario or Zelda, at all.

Fans are predictably snarky; it’s not even a game, really, but almost more of a gamified messaging app, it seems like. Take a look at this slide from the announcement:

More interesting, in a way, is the market’s reaction. Sure, this isn’t something that Nintendo’s core audience of Smash Bros. fans and Amiibo collectors wants, but a mainstream mobile audience? It seems plausible.

Yet it seems that investors were expecting the company to come out of the gates with its big-name IP, too; its stock has dropped nearly 9 percent in after-hours trading, since the news broke, after the Tokyo market close (it’s not open yet, as of this writing.)

So nobody much likes the news, it seems. Miitomo launches in March; the company also said it has four more smartphone apps following on its heels, to be released by March 2017, but until Nintendo comes up with the goods, I’m guessing nobody is going to budge on their opinion much.

Still, I thought it worth considering what Miitomo is and and why it exists, as I see it — if not to persuade anybody, at least to get it out there. Because I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s a pretty good one.

You should really take a look at this slide presentation if you want to get a grip on what the app (yes, app, not game) aims to do. But here’s the quick version: You make a Mii avatar; your real-life friends ask you questions; you answer them; it shares that info with your friends, and hopefully starts some conversations, as you learn more about each other.

It’s more social and less game than anybody expected — that’s for sure.

How Miitomo works: A friend asks a question, which you answer; she shares the information with another friend, and then, your friends can ask you more about your answer, too.

It’s not all that surprising if you think about the mainstream internet population, though: Chat apps like Japan’s own Line dominate in Asia, and, as anybody with a Facebook account knows, real-identity services are popular amongst mainstream audiences. (Here are some crazy stats on Line, by the way.)

The Mii, too, is popular with the average person. Anybody who remembers showing the original Wii to a non-gaming parent, friend, or significant other knows that. Popular, too, is Tomodachi Life.

While it may be best remembered in the West for controversy, it’s a multiple-million seller, and particularly popular in Japan. Leveraging its basic idea — interacting with your friends’ Miis — makes sense, as Nintendo approaches a mainstream audience. But Tomodachi Life, while shallow, is still very much a game; Miitomo does not appear to be.

I think Miitomo is something of a Trojan Horse for Nintendo’s new “Nintendo Account” service, which will span smartphones, PCs, consoles, and handhelds, with a single login, trading data between them. Getting people excited about making Miis hooks them into that ecosystem — whether they love Nintendo or not.

One thing I think Westerners will likely have trouble understanding about the appeal of Miitomo directly relates to its origins in Japan. In the U.S., if we feel like we don’t understand even our casual friends, and what they think, we consider that unusual; but in Japan, people are expected to project an outer image and guard their inner thoughts in all but the most intimate relationships.

Miitomo is a fun way to break down those walls a little bit. Tomodachi Life’s premise is “Miis gone wild” — your friends and family acting bizarre. This time, it’s the truth, as supplied by the user, and not a goofy scenario devised by Nintendo’s game designers.

That ties directly into, I think, the crucial difference between a “video game” context and a “social” context, as defined by the social networking services we use on our phones — like Facebook or Twitter. Nintendo is trying to leverage its ideas and expertise in line with mobile users, rather than impose its own ideas onto them. And that strikes me as rather interesting, actually.

What also interests me is whether or not this is the influence of Nintendo’s partner, DeNA. That’s, so far, unknowable. We do know that Nintendo is in charge of what gets made, but it chose a partner rather than going it alone for a reason. Late president Satoru Iwata’s comments on partnerships are instructive, here:

“Nintendo is a company that, when considering possible alliances, believes that it must carefully review such factors as whether or not each company’s strengths and weaknesses will smoothly complement each other and if the corporate cultures of both companies will work in harmony, rather than focusing on the potential short-term advantages,” he said.

It’ll be very interesting to see what influence DeNA has on Nintendo, and Nintendo has on DeNA, but it’s far too early to tell.

Nintendo already has silent social networking experience, too, which it must have learned from. I say “silent” because outside of @badmiiverseposts, you wouldn’t know much about Miiverse unless you’re an active user of Nintendo’s platforms. But Miiverse is a vibrant, if cloistered, social network that Nintendo’s been operating for a few years now, and the company has had to have learned more than a few lessons from that experience.

Nintendo is not stupid. The popular perception, at least among the Western Twitterati, is that the company is completely out of step with current times. The massive misstep of the Wii U seems ample evidence of that. But when you begin with that as your premise, it’s hard to judge the company’s new ideas any differently.

I think Miitomo makes sense. I think it will likely gain the company a bunch of mobile users — at least in Japan. My questions revolve around its viability for Western audiences, and also its financial viability. But when it comes to the latter question, I don’t think Nintendo really cares; I think the Trojan Horse strategy for getting users hooked into its service ecosystem is the main play here.

After all, the company’s president, Tatsumi Kimishima, said as much. He described Miitomo as “a free-to-start type communication application for smart devices, namely, our smart device application, which can be started for free and will push forward the My Nintendo membership service.”

Take a look at this slide, specifically the 4th bullet point:

A goal of Nintendo’s smartphone business is “Offering Nintendo-esque applications which take advantage of the characteristics of smart devices.”

That does sound like Miitomo, doesn’t it?

But yes, I must admit: Miitomo is far from an exciting announcement. It falters, as a bold statement of purpose. Miitomo obviously doesn’t set the tone for how Nintendo is going to tackle bringing its beloved IP into the mobile age, and the company has said time and again — including immediately before announcing Miitomo — that this is exactly what it intends to do.

Nintendo’s approach this time around is understated — as is characteristic of the company. Right now, people crave boldness from Nintendo, though. But Miitomo does say something important about how the company looks at mobile audiences: It sees them as they are, and not necessarily as the company, or its fans, want them to be. And as Monument Valley lead designer Ken Wong pointed out today, that’s vitally important if you want to succeed on mobile.(source:gamasutra)

 


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