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Rami Ismail:游戏行业单靠好产品并不意味着能脱颖而出

发布时间:2019-04-26 08:39:00 Tags:

Rami Ismail:游戏行业单靠好产品并不意味着能脱颖而出

原作者:Brendan Sinclair 译者:Willow Wu

在上个月的GamesIndustry.biz的投资峰会上,Vlambeer联合创始人Rami Ismail对Epic Games的两位负责人David Stelzer和Sergey Galyonkin进行了采访,从独立开发者的角度出发,详细了解Epic Games商店的更多细节。当被问到独立开发者怎么才能在Epic的内容规划中存活下来时,Stelzer挑起了眉毛。

“是金子总会发光的,”Stelzer说。“而烂游戏自然也有它的去处。”

鉴于大家一致认同要让玩家发现你的游戏越发困难了,游戏行业是实力主义的看法——也就如Stelzer所说的有才华的人终会成为行业佼佼者——可能不太符合某些创作者的情况。GamesIndustry.biz在第二天的PAX East采访了Ismail,他并没有把这个看法放在心上。

“很多人都愿意相信,只要作品好,你就能脱颖而出,”Ismail说。“我觉得很多人的工作成果都不错,大家很容易就认为只需要做到这一点就好了。生活中没有其它东西会影响这些,比如你的资源,成长环境等等,但显然这是错误的。这个行业不是这样运作的。

“这个行业跟权力有关、跟渠道有关、跟资源有关,你在哪里出生、讲什么语言、有多少资金、之前做过什么游戏、人际网络等等。你的游戏能不能成功,这其中涉及到很多因素。”

甚至大家所认为的“不知道从哪里冒出来的游戏”(比如Motion Twin的《死亡细胞》,或者Mike Bithell的Thomas Was Alone),Ismail说其实这就是从业很多年没有大热门作品,直到某天有游戏终于得到青睐的结果。

“人们问,‘那这不就是凭实力的吗?’答案是否定的,这叫作对的人在对的地点对的时间有了对的资源而手头上刚好有一款质量过硬的游戏,” Ismail说。“但是他们说只有好游戏才能脱颖而出。也就是说能登顶的应该都是好游戏,但这并不意味着这些创作者可以在开发完成后坐等好消息的到来。这是众多因素促成的结果。”

radical fishing(from vlambeer.com)

radical fishing(from vlambeer.com)

他补充说,一个真正的实力主义行业不会存在“隐藏的瑰宝”,或者是出现埋没多年,直到一个Twitch红人主播发现它才真正火起来的情况。

“这个不真实的说法之所以这么普遍化是因为1.开发者们希望它成真;2.对平台、分销商、商店来说轻松很多,” Ismail说。“‘这是个靠实力说话的行业,如果你的游戏这次反响不好,下次就必须做出更好的游戏,’大家都这么说。”

Ismail说,他和许多其他开发人员可以从他们自己的游戏中看出这一点。一个开发者最引以为傲或者认为自己是最好的游戏,并不一定会收获理想中的口碑或者商业成绩。比如说,Ismail是最喜欢的其中一个游戏是Glitchhiker,他和其他五位开发者在全球游戏创作节(Global Game Jam)上做出了这个游戏。玩家在同一水池中抽取(和贡献)生命,累计得到100分就可以加一条命。池水干涸后这个游戏也就不能再玩了。总的来说,这个游戏只存活了不到七个小时。

“我觉得开发者想做的和玩家想玩的是非常不一样的,” Ismail说。“我试图根据我的生活状态、我所处的位置以及我之前的作品来创造有趣的东西。所以我做的很多东西都和我的生活经历相对应。”

他解释说《天空奇兵》(游戏邦注Luftrausers)是Vlambeer两位创始人在十分愤怒的情况下创作出来的,因为他们之前的游戏Ridiculous Fishing被山寨了。

“因为气愤所以就做了一款泄愤的游戏,我们就是这样应对生活的,” Ismail说。“我们写作,我们做游戏,我们做糟糕的音乐,我们做事情来应对生活中遇到的事,试图表达一些东西,不管是沮丧还是快乐。”

Vlambeer的下一个游戏Ultrabugs也是对他们上个游戏Nuclear Throne的回应。Nuclear Throne是一个庞大的项目,前后花费四五年才完成。他们现在计划开发一系列街机小游戏,把Ultrabugs作为开端。

“大家的游戏都越做越大,” Ismail说。“为了达到这个目标,他们会耗费更多资源、时间和预算,因为在如今,制作庞大是最容易吸引玩家的方式之一。资力雄厚的团队和预算有限的团队之间有明显的差距。”
就算单看独立游戏圈,制作成本也是越来越高。工作室规模在扩大,人们为追求精美的视觉效果投入更多资源,雇佣一流配音演员,还有其它方面的资源追求。

“我之前也见过这种比赛,”Ismail说。“3A游戏圈出现过同样的情况……我只想将精力集中在有趣的游戏上,我只想做些比较小的东西,希望我们能够证明还有用户会喜欢这类游戏,这样其它开发者们就能受到鼓舞,进一步优化游戏,最终得以发行。因为现在的市场趋势真的是把游戏越做越大。”

Ismail听过很多开发者不惜一切代价也要做出他们的梦想游戏,现在他想听不一样的故事。

“我们更关注的是一个工作室如何才能在不需要赌上一切的情况下在市场中生存下来,”Ismail说。“你应该可以开发一个有趣、引以为豪的游戏,而且不用卖掉房子或者去做二次抵押又或者是放弃买医保,这才是正常的。我们想要讲述的故事就是这样的。一个工作室运转良好,有很棒的用户,有忠诚的社区,做游戏不用抵押家当,手头的项目是一个能够给团队带来自豪感的游戏,而且大家相信玩家也会喜欢它。”

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

At last month’s GamesIndustry.biz Investment Summit, Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail posed questions to Epic Games’ David Stelzer and Sergey Galyonkin, seeking details on the Epic Games store that would be most relevant to independent developers. When asked what indie developers looking to make it through Epic’s curation process could do, Stelzer’s response raised some eyebrows.

“The cream always rises to the top at the end of the day,” Stelzer said. “If you make a crappy game, then there are places where you can put crappy games.”

Given widespread agreement on the significant challenge of discoverability, the idea of the industry as a meritocracy where “the cream always rises to the top” might not sit well with some creators. GamesIndustry.biz caught up with Ismail the following day at PAX East, and he didn’t give the idea much weight.

“It’s something a lot of people would like to believe, that just good work would set you apart,” Ismail said. “Because I think a lot of people are doing good work, and it’s easy to believe that’s all you need. That there’s no further parts of life that affect that, like your resources, your upbringing, or anything else that affects that. But it’s obviously and pertinently untrue. That’s not how the world works.

“The world works with privilege. It works with access, with resources, where you’re born, what languages you speak, the amount of money you have, what previous games you’ve made, the network you have… There are tons of factors that play into whether or not your game will be successful.”

Even when there’s a game that people think “came out of nowhere” (think Motion Twin’s Dead Cells or Mike Bithell’s Thomas Was Alone), Ismail noted that the actual story involves creators who’ve worked for years but simply hadn’t had a high profile until their breakthrough game.

“People ask, ‘Well isn’t that meritocracy?’ And no, it means the right person with a good game was in the right place at the right time with the right resources,” Ismail said. “But they say only good games rise to the top. And the games that rise to the top tend to be good, but it doesn’t mean a game that’s good will automatically rise to the top. It’s a combination of factors.”

He added that an industry that was truly a meritocracy is incompatible with the idea of a hidden gem, or of games that go unnoticed for years but breakthrough on Twitch years later when a popular streamer discovers them.

“One of the reasons it’s such a common myth is because a) developers want it to be true, and b) for platforms, distributors, stores, it’s an easy way out,” Ismail said. “‘It’s a meritocracy. If your game didn’t do well, you have to make a better game next time.’”

Ismail says he and many other developers can see that in the receptions of their own titles. The games a developer is most proud of or believes to be their best don’t always line up with the critical or commercial reception they receive. For example, Ismail said one his favorites is Glitchhiker, a Global Gam Jam entry made with five other developers in which everyone who played drew from (and contributed to) the same pool of lives, and which became permanently unplayable after that pool was exhausted. All told, the game existed for less than seven hours.

“I think what developers want to do and what players want to play are very different things,” Ismail said. “I’m trying to make interesting things around the state of my life, where I’m at, and the work I’ve done already. So a lot of my work is a response to things that happened in my life.”

As he explained, Vlambeer’s Luftrausers is a game created largely out of the anger he and the other half of Vlambeer, Jan Willem Nijman, had after their previous title Ridiculous Fishing was cloned.

“We were angry so we made an angry game, because that’s how we deal with life,” Ismail said. “We write, we make games, we make bad music, we do things to deal with where we are in life, our frustrations and happiness, trying to express things.”

Vlambeer’s next game, Ultrabugs, is similarly a response to its last game, Nuclear Throne. Where Nuclear Throne was a sprawling project that took four or five years to put together, Ultrabugs is intended to go small, the first of a series of smaller-scope games that will be collected under the Vlambeer Arcade banner.

“Everybody is making bigger games,” Ismail said. “Across the space, people are making bigger games, spending more resources, more time, more budget making things that are bigger because it’s one of the easiest ways of standing out right now. There’s a very clear distinction between the haves and the have nots in the space.”

Even in the indie space, production values are increasing, studios are growing, and people are devoting more resources into polished visuals, top-notch voice actors, and other resource-intensive pursuits.

“I’ve seen that race before,” Ismail said. “Because AAA did the exact same thing… I just want to focus on [interesting games]. I just want to make some smaller stuff, and I hope maybe if we can prove there’s an audience for that, that developers who make work like that feel encouraged to try really polishing a game like that up and releasing it. Because right now the market is just really leaning toward bigger.”

Ismail has heard plenty of stories of developers who risked it all to make their dream project. Now he wants to hear a different kind of story.

“We’re just more interested in how can a studio keep their head above water without having to blow everything on it,” Ismail said. “That’s how this should work. You should be able to make interesting games you’re really proud of that don’t require you to sell your house, or get a second mortgage, or get rid of your healthcare. But those are the stories we keep telling. We just want to tell the story of, ‘We’re a studio in a good spot. We have a great audience. We have a community. We’re making games, doing it without betting the bank, and we’re doing it in a way that we’re still making work we’re very proud of that we think our fans will like.’”

(source:gamesindustry.biz


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