本文原作者：Michail Katkoff 本文译者：Ciel Chen

你们中可能有人读过艾德凯特摩（Ed Catmull）的《创意公司》：这本书着重描述了皮克斯动画工作室的创造历程，讲述了其创意的经营过程，这些经历让皮克斯似乎总能源源不断地给我们带来惊艳的大片，同时这本书也提出了关于皮克斯公司能够在惊人的成长中仍旧保持其创造力的一些见解。读了这本书，让我联想到我自己在游戏开发中的经验以及之所以一些工作室在资源稀缺的情况下仍然能经营得比别人好的原因。

那，别误会我。我可不是想装模作样把自己当成爱德凯特摩。我在游戏行业至今为止只有7年的经验，白手起家创造了仅有的一间工作室。我从未在大型AAA级工作室或者是小型私人工作室工作过。但是我在给一些顶尖工作室做网页和触屏游戏的免费试玩方面是有一些经验的，也因此我有了同一些游戏行业的杰出人才共事的机会。

那么，一间成功的游戏工作室即有能力运营高质量的游戏，又能在这样一个竞争激烈的行业中独善其身的原因是什么呢？ 基于我自己的经验，我认为这样的工作室有七个特点：

#1 小而精的团队

庞大的团队需要中间管理层。沟通交流变得必不可少，各种各样的会议明显增加，这使得程序员和美工最终把大把时间花在开会而不是开发游戏。

拥有感的缺失。在一个紧凑的团队中，每名成员都会齐心协力地关心游戏的质量，在第一时间发现每一个漏洞。而在一个庞大的团队里，开发者和美工们只关心自己负责的那部分，而未能偶尔了解作为一个整体–他们的工作进展得如何。

我倡议：游戏项目团队规模的应合理化，起步于小，在设计项目明朗化，需要新的人才时再保守扩展规模。

在成功的工作室中，游戏项目应由一个由4到6人组成的经验丰富并联系紧密的核心团队开始，随着项目的进展：从概念转向预产期，生产期再到实际操作，壮大到15到20人。这保证了团队发展的有机必要性，因为每一个新进的成员都绝对是基于“团队需要”而加入的。

庞大的团队规模实际上是减慢了发展速度的。总的来说，注意保持团队的精瘦，确保每个人员的加入都是加速了项目的进程而不是拖后腿。

game category(from gamedev)

#2 更多地重视软件本身

基本上一个游戏团队的唯一目标就是创作出风靡一时的作品。一开始，迈向这个目标的进展是由原型样本所来展现的，之后则是通过游戏的内测和公测来呈现。成功的工作室首先在可玩性方面有较快进展，然后根据这些构建所产生的定性反馈开始迭代。最后，对一个游戏团队的最终考验就是测试发行期间游戏必须达到关键性能指标（KPIs）。

对于那些那些无法达到关键性能指标或无法对接收到的定性反馈做出反应的项目，工作室必须有勇气叫停。叫停这样的项目非常重要，因为全球范围地发行一款表现不佳的游戏会成为整个工作室一个糟糕的长期决策。这将耗尽那些启动新项目以及支撑成长中的游戏所需要的资源。

快速和实质性的进展可以通过玩转不断变化的内部构造来达成。对可玩性的强调让团队通过反馈改进构建而达成里程碑。经常性的回顾内测可玩性也会鼓舞团队士气，随着构建的改进，反馈的日益积极，团队会感受到他们成果的进步。

#3 采用通用基准游戏

通用基准让团队能够很快地构建游戏并使其具备可玩性，以便游戏测试和测试发行的数据能够开始指导游戏的发展。

根据我的经验，游戏在开发过程中变得越是独特和复杂，风险也就越大。成功的游戏工作室倾向于通过选择非常明确的手游、页游和棋盘游戏这类的基础游戏来限制过度创新带来的风险。有了明确的通用基准，在前期制作和制作期间的开发便有了行之有效的概念，这意味着团队所构建的产品特点与系统在一两个参考性的游戏中是存在的。除了减少风险，强大的通用基准减少了研发时间，这让设计者，程序员和美工们有时间去学习其他好玩的游戏。

暴雪娱乐公司的《炉石传说》(blizzard’s Hearthstone)就是在万智牌（Magic the Gathering）的启发下创作的。这让设计者们能在保meta-game的深度构建的同时还降低了入门门槛。

还有另一个运用通用基准的方法，尽管这个方法比较风险也更耗时——首先把一款游戏的通用基准完全解析出来；接着团队借鉴其通用基准创造出有明显区别的另一款游戏。通过通用基准来构建游戏是暴雪娱乐公司超级拿手的，比如《炉石传说》的通用基准借鉴了《万智牌》；《风暴英雄》则借鉴了《英雄联盟》的；还有《守望先锋》也是深受《军团要塞》的启发。

#4 玩自己的游戏，直到精疲力竭

团队爱玩自己创作的游戏就会构建出很棒的游戏。玩一款自己正在构建的游戏总是有些困难的，尤其是在开发初期，会有各种漏洞，还缺少最终美术风格。然而如果团队能够不断地去玩它，这个团队最终不但能够排除所有的漏洞，让体验者不再抱怨连天，还会创造出一款玩家们热爱的游戏。

以我的经验来看，玩自己的游戏直到精疲力竭是很多成功游戏工作室优化用户体验的秘诀。由模拟器来完善游戏的逻辑可行性，由游戏测试来优化用户体验。但最重要的还是整个团队一起来玩这个游戏。

#5 尊重玩家

我们的玩家都是我们的粉丝。他们玩我们游戏的时间可能甚至超过了我们自己。他们在我们的游戏中或者围绕着我们的游戏建立社交群体，逐渐成为游戏中的牛人。作为成功的游戏工作室，目标不止是让我们的玩家玩得开心，而且要让他们感受到游戏的挑战性。

如果一个工作室忽略了玩家感受，在游戏里就会有所呈现。当一款游戏的管理者和设计者认为玩家头脑太简单以至于无法理解更深层的游戏技术，这样的游戏将会缺乏Meta-game及游戏的深度探索元素。没有了这些元素，游戏剩下的只会是重复的循环和糟糕的长期停滞。这样对玩家的不尊重会让游戏进入险境，这将损害在开发中的游戏并且扼杀了围绕一款成功游戏所建立的社区群体，这是无论多少营销来支持游戏也无济于事的。像拳头（Riot）、暴雪（Blizzard）还有Supercell这样的公司都大力投资到他们游戏的社区中，对玩家都带着深深的敬意。这些公司之所以能创作这样大量成功的耐玩游戏，是因为有围绕着游戏组建的强大社区群体，他们使游戏变得更好。

#6 把决策权交给团队

成功的游戏工作室会把决策权交给团队，让团队自己决策并为自己作出的决策负责。随着游戏的内测和公测的进行，团队会收到一大堆严厉和有参考价值的反馈。这样的反馈应该转化为团队的量化里程碑目标。

当一个团队被给予了游戏开发的决策权，这将让团队坚守为达成自己里程碑目标所做出的承诺；与此同时，这还提高了决策质量，因为一旦团队自己做出了决策，就不会有人为由此产生的结果而抱怨；还有最后一点，团队自己做决策会让他们学习得更快，因为做决策必须经过分析并为此有了更大的责任感，这让团队成员能够做出更好的假设和执行方案。

让团队进行尝试和体验失败对工作室来说是艰难的，因为他们的职责是组建团队并让他们尽可能在最短时间内发行出有冲击力的游戏。然而剥夺团队决策的权利会让团队冒着游戏质量下降的风险，让他们对这个自己构建的游戏缺少拥有感。我注意到，成功的工作室领导们，他们愿意挑战和倾听，为赋权和增加团队的责任感营造最好的环境。

#7 游戏就是要发行

成功的工作室发行的游戏风靡全球。令人惊讶的是，那些拥有以上六个特点的工作室常常没有勇气下决定发行他们的游戏。这些工作室似乎对自己的作品过于苛刻了，以至于这样的苛刻在发展过程中与其说是帮不如说是害。当苛刻开始削减游戏团队的自信时，根据反馈做出需要的改变，增加对应的特点，这下所需要的时间就开始增多了。苛刻是很重要的没错，但我认为，与其为没有尽头的内测反馈做出调整，团队也需要为他们所相信是正确的东西而有所坚持。

我的一个朋友兼前同事，他发行了好几款超级棒的游戏在Facebook和手机平台上，他/她这样说过：“在游戏开发中只有一件事是失败的，那就是你没能发行任何游戏”。也就是说，如果不把游戏发行出去，你永远不会知道它会不会火起来。当然，游戏测试给了游戏有用的指示，但终究是市场对游戏做出最后的裁决。有时，比起在游戏产品中终于构建出了最终版游戏的所有特点，却发现这些游戏特点并无法真正运作起来，或者发现游戏在测试发行期间居然达不到关键性能指标，那还不如当初简单点把游戏直接测试发行出去。反正最后这也只是许多“游戏即将完成”的发布中的一个而已。

（本文由游戏邦编译，译者Ciel Chen，转载请保留版权，或咨询游戏邦，微信zhengjintiao）

7 Characteristics of a Successful Game Studio

by Michail Katkoff on 02/27/17 04:50:00 am

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Some of you have likely read Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. The book dives into the creative process at Pixar and describes how the studio managed their creativity, which resulted in a seemingly endless string of blockbuster movies, and it provides insight into how Pixar maintained its creativity throughout tremendous growth. Reading the book had me reflecting on my own experience in game development, and pondering why some studios fare better than others, despite having fewer resources.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not pretending to be Ed Catmull. I have only 7 years of experience in the games industry and till date, I’ve only built one studio from the ground up. I haven’t worked in AAA studios or in tiny indie studios. But again, I do have experience in making free-to-play games for web and touchscreen devices in a few of the top studios and I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with some of the most talented people in the games industry.

So, what makes for a successful game studio that’s able to ship quality games and sustain itself in a competitive industry? Based on my experience, I’ve identified seven characteristics that make a game studio successful:

#1 Compact Teams

·Large teams create middle management. The need for communications and various meetings increases significantly and engineers and artists can end up spending significant portions of their time in meetings instead of building the game.
·The absence of ownership. In a compact team, every member cares about the quality of the game as a whole and bugs are spotted instantly. In large teams developers and artists concentrate on one individual piece at a time, failing to sometimes see how their work integrates into the game as a whole.

I’m an advocate of right-sized teams on a game project, starting very small in the beginning and conservatively scaling as the design becomes clear and there’s need for new talent.

In successful studios, game projects start off with an experienced and already gelled core team of four to six professionals and grow up to fifteen to twenty strong as the project moves from concept to pre-production, production and live operation. The growth of the team is organic as new team members get brought in on an absolute need-to-have basis.

For a couple reasons, ambitious team sizes actually slow down the development instead of speeding up the progress. Overall, look to stay lean and make sure that people who join accelerate the progress instead of slowing the team down.

#2 Value Software Over Presentations

Essentially a game team has only one goal: to create a hit. In the beginning progress towards the end goal is exhibited through prototypes and later on through internal and external playtests. Successful studios make fast progress towards first playables and start iterating based on the qualitative feedback these builds generate. In the end, the ultimate test for a game team is the soft launch during which the game has to reach key performance indicators (KPIs).

Studios must have the guts to shut down projects which fail to reach KPI goals or respond successfully to the qualitative feedback the team receives. Closing projects is important because launching a low-performing game globally can become a bad long-term decision for the studio as a whole. It can eat up resources that are needed to kick off new projects or support growing games.

Fast and tangible progress can be made and measured by playing ever-evolving internal builds. Putting emphasis on the playables gets the team into the groove of hitting milestones with builds that have been improved based on feedback. Regularly reviewed internal playables also boost teams’ morale and give a sense of progress towards the launch as the builds improve and feedback gets increasingly positive.

#3 Use Benchmark Games

Benchmarks allow the team to get a game built quickly and have it playable so that playtests and soft-launch data can start guiding the development.

In my experience, the more unique and complex the game becomes in development, the greater the risk grows. Successful game studios tend to limit the risk of over-innovation by choosing very clear benchmark game(s) from mobile, web or board game(s). With clear benchmarks, development done in pre-production and production is based on proven concepts, meaning that the features or systems the team is building exist in one or two reference titles. In addition to decreasing risk, strong benchmarks cut development time as designers, engineers and artists have a playable version to learn from.

Blizzard’s Hearthstone is heavily inspired by Magic the Gathering. Designers of the game have
been able to keep the deep deck building meta-game while significantly lowering the entry barrier.

Another approach to using benchmarks, though a bit riskier and time-consuming, is to first thoroughly deconstruct the benchmark game. After that, the team creates their own noticeably differentiated game based on the benchmark. Building on benchmarks is something Blizzard is extraordinary at with games like Hearthstone, which is based on Magic the Gathering; Heroes of the Storm, which used League of Legends as a foundation benchmark; and Overwatch, which is strongly inspired by Team Fortress.

#4 Play Your Games Until Exhaustion

Teams who love to play their game end up building a great game. Often, especially early on in development, it’s hard to play the game you’re building. The build is buggy and lacks most of the final art. Yet by constantly playing it the team ends up not only clearing away all of those bugs and nagging user experiences but also actually creating something that players will love.

In my experience playing the game to exhaustion is actually the secret sauce of tuning and user experience at many successful studios. Simulators help finalize the set in-game values. Play tests push user experience. The first step is always to play the game as a team.

#5 Respect Your Players

Our players are our fans. They play our games even more than we do. They create communities inside and around our games making them into phenomena. Successful studios aim to create games that not only delight their players but also challenge them.

If a studio doesn’t think much about their players it will show in the software. When product managers and designers consider players too simple to understand deeper mechanics, their game will lack meta-game and deeper exploration elements. Take away meta-game and you are left with repetitive loops and poor long-term retention. Losing the respect towards players is a dangerous path that not only hurts a game in development but can also kill a community around a successful game, no matter how much marketing is set to support it.

Companies like Riot, Blizzard, and Supercell invest heavily into their communities and carry deep respect towards their players. This allows these companies to create massively successful long-lasting games that are further elevated by strong communities around the game.

#6 Empower Teams to Make Decisions

Successful studios empower game teams to make their own decisions and carry the responsibility of decisions made. With both internal and external playtests game teams receive a steady stream of very harsh and highly actionable feedback. This feedback should then be converted into quantifiable milestone goals by the team leads.

When a team is empowered to make decisions regarding the development of their game, it increases commitment to execute as they’ve set the milestone goals for themselves. It also improves the quality of decision-making because once the decision is made there’s no one else to blame for the outcome. Finally, by empowering the team to make decisions, the studio enables teams to learn faster. Decision-making requires thorough analysis and with increased responsibility team members will end up making better hypotheses and action plans.

Letting teams experiment and fail is a tough call for studio leads, whose responsibility is to build teams and push them to launch hit titles in the shortest time possible. Yet withholding decision-making power from the team risks downgrading the game teams into pods with less ownership of the product they’re building. I’ve noticed that studio leads that challenge and listen create the best environment of empowerment and responsibility.

#7 Always Ship

Successful studios launch games that grow into hits. Surprisingly often, studios that have all six of the above elements don’t have the guts to pull the trigger and ship their games. These studios tend to be too critical towards their own work to a point where the critique actually hurts rather than helps the development. When critique starts chopping away the confidence of a game team it also tends to increase development time as changes and new features are added to cater to the feedback. Critique is crucial but I believe that the team also needs to stand behind what they believe is right rather than constantly adjust to the never-ending internal feedback.

A friend and ex-colleague of mine who has launched some of the absolute best games on both Facebook and mobile said that there’s only one way to fail in game development and that is by not launching anything at all. What he meant was that you never know if the game will be a hit or not. Sure, play tests give a good indication but in the end, it’s the market that will give the final verdict. Sometimes it’s simply better to release the game out in the soft/beta launch than to build out all the end game features in production just to witness that the end-game features don’t actually work or that the game can’t even hit its KPIs in soft-launch. In the end, the launch is just one of numerous releases the game will be making.(source:gamasutra.com)