游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

销毁失败的游戏去创造真正成功的游戏

发布时间:2016-04-05 10:56:24 Tags:,,,,

作者:Kris Graft

在硅谷流传着这么一句咒语:“快速失败,经常失败。”这意味着你应该从失败中走出来并做些什么,从失败中学到东西,并将从中所学的应用于自己的下一次迭代中,并以此获得更好的结果。然后你会再次失败,并再次重复这一过程。从理论上来看,你将因为从连续的失败中获得学习而在短时间里获得一个好结果。

supercell dead games(from gamasutra)

supercell dead games(from gamasutra)

正是遵循着这一咒语,Superell非常擅于经历创造成功游戏过程中的失败。这可能会让人觉得奇怪,因为这是一家主导着iOS和Android平台畅销游戏排行榜前列的公司。像《卡通农场》,《部落战争》以及最近的《Clash Royale》等游戏都为Supercell创造了超过50亿美元的价值,这是毋庸置疑的巨大商业成功。

但这一成果是建立在开发团队所埋葬的许多Supercell游戏的基础之上。在3月份的GDC大会上,Supercell的游戏美术师同时也是游戏总监的Jonathan Dower表示在他们过去创造的10款游戏中,有7款游戏是在原型创建过程中便被销毁,2款是在软发行期间被扼杀,最终只有《Clash Royale》面向全球市场发行了。

如今《Clash Royale》已经出现在手机排行榜的前列。这对于经历了10次尝试并最终脱颖而出的1款游戏来说是件好事。

在GDC之后的访问中,Dower解释了开发者应该在什么时候销毁正在创造中的游戏。他说道:“我认为每支团队和每款游戏所面临的情况都不同。但是一旦你想到了‘其它游戏’或脑子里构思出自己‘应该’创造的游戏,你便可能已经否定了正在创造的游戏。我认为这也是一种很好的预示。”

需要注意的是这是适合Supercell的方式,但却不是所有游戏类型都通用的方式。也有人认为,比起扼杀一款低于平均水平的游戏,应该坚持于其中并投入较长时间去开发它。最近的一个例子便有《火箭联盟》,即一款花了7年时间才诞生的游戏。

有人认为Supercell是一家能够承担得起在游戏发行前将其销毁的公司,但是许多游戏开发者却没有足够的财政能力去丢弃自己投入大量时间和经历所创造的内容。

Dower说道:“在游戏创造方面Supercell的确拥有一些不错的运气,但是它也不是一家拥有绝对安全财政后盾的公司。在发行任何成功内容之前它也销毁了许多游戏。”

即使有人反对经常销毁游戏,但是也有人认为应该认真分析何时一个项目正在拖开发者的后退或者阻止创造者创造出更优秀的内容。Dower在GDC大会上的演讲中说过:“我们都与这些游戏具有情感联系,但在某种程度上我们必须认真去思考是否该处理它们。”

也许有人认为像Supercell这样的公司在决定是否销毁一款游戏时会进行综合分析,当然在讨论过程中会出现各种参数,但是对于Dower来说,他们的决定最终都是源自一小部分资深游戏创造者的感受。Dower表示,在Supercell,执行者不会去宣判或赦免一款游戏的死刑。在这里,生或死的决定都是由那些创造游戏的人员所做出的。

这也引出了当团队中有人不同意存在问题的游戏的命运时会发生什么事。Dower的团队是在桑拿房中一起决定销毁正处于软发行阶段的《Smash Land》,他也表示最好能够与同事一起讨论去做决定。

他说道,如果对于游戏的命运存在反对意见,“我们便会持续去讨论这一问题并最终解决它。如果团队中有人真的认为他们能够继续维持游戏的发展,那么我便会让他们去证明我们决定销毁游戏是错误的。”

Supercell拥有来自全世界的180个工作人员,其中的70个是开发者。Dower表示基于开发者去决定游戏的存亡是不需要来自管理层的意见,这也是Supercell所遵循的一大原则。

Dower表示:“我的一个基本品质便是信任。我们欢迎那些能够做出各种重要决定的人才。在这里CEO的角色便是去信任这些人才。否则我们的整个工作系统都会受到影响。”

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

Maybe it’s time to kill your game and move on: Supercell on cutting your losses

By Kris Graft

There’s the Silicon Valley mantra of “fail fast, fail often.” It essentially means you ought to get out and make something, expect to fail (and fail) to reach your initial goal, learn from your failure, then upon your next iteration apply what you learned from that failure, for a better result. Then you fail again, then repeat. In theory, you’re supposed to get to a great result in a shorter period of time by learning from a concentrated succession of failures.

Following that mantra, Supercell is super-good at failing at making successful games. This might come as a surprise to some — the company is one of the few mobile game studios able to command positions at the top of the top-grossing charts on iOS and Android. Games like Hay Day, Clash of Clans, and most recently Clash Royale have pushed Supercell’s valuation to over $5 billion, reflecting inarguable financial success.

But that success is built on the graves of Supercell games murdered by the very teams that made them. At GDC in March, Jonathan Dower, a game lead and artist (and a self-purported serial killer of games) at Supercell outlined how of the studio’s last 10 games, seven were killed in prototype, two were killed at soft launch, and one — Clash Royale — actually launched globally.

Clash Royale is currently topping the mobile charts. That’s not bad for the one out of 10 games that made it out alive.

In a follow-up interview following his GDC talk, Dower explained when a developer should kill off an in-progress game. “I think it’s different with every team and every game,” he said, “but once you get that feeling about the ‘other game,’ or about the game you ‘should’ be making, in your mind, you’ve probably already killed your game. I think that’s a good indicator.”

Note that this is Supercell’s way, and not applicable or appropriate to all game types. There are arguments for sticking with a sub-par game and developing it over a long period of time, instead of outright killing it. One recent example is Rocket League, a game seven years in the making.

There’s also the argument that Supercell is a company that can afford to completely axe a game (or games) before release, and many game developers aren’t in a financial position (i.e. have a $5 billion valuation) where they can throw out so much time and effort.

“Supercell has had some really good luck with their games, but they were that studio [that didn't have a financial safety net],” Dower argued. “They were that company that was killing games before releasing anything successful.”

Even with the arguments against the idea of killing games often, there is something to be said about analyzing when a project is dragging a developer down, keeping creators from moving onto better things. “We get emotionally connected [these games], but at some point you have to think [whether or not] you can fix it,” Dower said in his GDC talk.

One might think that a company like Supercell runs comprehensive analytics when deciding whether or not to kill a game — and of course metrics do come into the conversation — but for Dower, the decision ultimately boils down to the gut feeling of a small team of experienced game makers. The execs at Supercell don’t issue a death sentence or grant a pardon, Dower said. The life or death decision is up to the people who’ve had their hands on the game.

That raises the question of what happens when people on a team disagree with the fate of a game of questionable viability. Dower, whose team jointly decided to kill the soft-launched game Smash Land in a sauna over beers, said it’s best to just keep the discussion going with your coworkers.

“We’d probably just keep talking about it, keep hashing it out,” if there was a disagreement over a game’s fate, he said. “If someone [on the team] really, really believes that they can keep this going, then there might be a discussion…[I'd ask them to] ‘Prove me wrong.’”

Supercell has 180 developers worldwide, 70 of which are developers. Dower said developer-driven game-killing wouldn’t be possible without the trust of management, an important key if you’re to adopt the philosophy of Supercell.

“That’s one of the base qualities, the trust,” said Dower. “We’re hiring people who can make those big decisions. [The CEO's] role is to trust them. Otherwise, the whole system breaks down.”(source:Gamasutra

 


上一篇:

下一篇: