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GDC大会现象:新游戏崛起,独立游戏开发者成大会主角

发布时间:2011-03-08 17:48:24 Tags:,

“电子游戏大会”一词总让人联想到一群玩家的娱乐盛宴,大家凑到一块体验经典街机游戏、任天堂游戏、现代的巨制游戏,甚至是观看新游戏的预演视频等等,总之人们会在操纵杆和控制器的世界中热热闹闹地度过一整天。

video game convention

video game convention

但“游戏开发者大会”的情况却并非如此。

在上周的旧金山会议中心,超过1万9千名的人员出席了这场大会。在一个大厅中,许多基层编码员在桌子前相互测试对方尚未完工的iPhone手机应用程序;在隔壁的一个展览厅中,来自索尼和任天堂的代表正观看以小猫和英国石油大享为主角的视频游戏。在楼上,数千名观众正聚精会神地聆听行业专家发表Facebook热门游戏《FarmVille》为何不能称为“游戏”的观点。

总之,第25届GDC大会聚集了来自世界各地的编码员、美工和设计师,他们共同在五天时光中体验和分享游戏的乐趣。GDC大会主管Meggan Scavvio也承认,“我们的观众就是游戏开发者,至少在这个时期是如此。”从这一点上看,这场大会并不有趣,为与会人员创造乐趣也并非它的宗旨。但这个宗旨却掩盖不了一个最为有趣的现象:游戏正向社交网站、智能手机甚至是现实生活渗透,“游戏开发者”这一概念也比以前的涵义更为广泛。

游戏开发者简·麦格尼格尔(Jane McGonigal)最近通过《破碎的现实》(Reality is Broken)这本新书,宣扬游戏对人类生活的“积极影响”。她在GDC大会的演讲中多次提到,游戏与教育、社会改革等其他领域的界限正日益模糊。

她在接受美国《大西洋月刊》的采访中表示,“游戏开发者”的定义也可以延伸到那些重视游戏作用的普通人身上,“游戏并不仅仅提供娱乐,它们还具有引导、激发人们采取行动的功能。”在这前一天的会议中,还有一款游戏向人们展示了教孩子们避免染上疟疾的方法,而且该游戏采用的是最基本的系统,以便第三世界国家的儿童也能体验这种乐趣。据游戏邦了解,麦格尼格尔最著名的一款社交游戏《EVOKE》,支持玩家将自己现实生活中的商业项目做成图片、视频等文件形式,上传到网站中与其他玩家共同经营,风格有点像《FarmVille》,但它具有极强的现实生活基础。

《FarmVille》是本届大会的热点话题之一,这主要是因为该游戏开发商Zynga是社交游戏之王。Zynga在本届大会上令人印象最深的演讲主题是“为40多岁的女同胞设计游戏”,并展示了关于《FarmVille》一般玩家的心理分析资料,指出游戏开发理念应服务于所有类型的玩家,例如减少复杂的按钮、让玩家自我设定游戏进程等。

相信没有人会忽视《愤怒的小鸟》开发商Rovio在本届大会的存在(大部分原因是该公司员工全部身着显眼的红色带帽“愤怒的小鸟”运动衫),该公司董事长Peter Vesterbacka自称是Rovio的“Mighty Eagle”,他在演讲中号召游戏开发者向手机游戏领域进军,他认为在过去几年,手机设备供应商好比是垄断专制的前苏联,主宰了手机游戏市场,但苹果iPhone平台的问世,让这一行发生了翻天覆地的变化。

游戏邦认为,其他平台也发生了不少变化。从Android、Xbox Live再到可下载的电脑游戏领域,“独立”电子游戏也可以在这些平台中一鸣惊人。在本届GDC大会上,去年的热门游戏《Super Meat Boy》的双人开发团队吸引了大量的追随者,赢得了堪比摇滚歌星出场的热烈掌声。尤其值得注意的是,这两者对索尼和微软的挖苦,却进一步提高了他们的声誉。另一个著名的独立开发者是马库斯•佩尔松(Markus Persson),他因《挖矿争霸》(Minercraft)这款可下载游戏而赢得了GDC的五项大奖。游戏邦获悉,这名瑞典开发者以一身标准的程序员行头出现在颁奖典礼上,将他的第五尊小雕像举过头顶,用浓厚的声音宣示,“独立开发者加油!”。从这一点上看,GDC已成小制作游戏的光彩盖过《使命召唤》等大作的几个稀有的游戏展会之一。尽管《使命召唤》的发行商暴雪公司以及其他大型游戏公司,在大会展区中收到了不少开发者的自荐信,但多数展区和会场的关注重心却是小型开发者——不是在帮助他们获得融资,提供吸引新玩家的游戏设计理念,就是在向他们传授要将1美元的手机游戏当成一项长期服务,而非一次性交易项目的运营理念等等。

如果你的洞察力足够敏锐的话,就可以从8-bit的冒险类游戏《Nidhogg》、iPad格斗类游戏《Shot Shot Shoot》,以及由高校成员开发的古怪游戏《Octodad》中看出,GDC正成为独立游戏佳作诞生的乐土。正如Meggan Scavvio所言,“你在GDC上看到的东西,很可能就是未来三五年会玩到的游戏,在这里你可以看到电子游戏的未来。”

关于游戏行业的未来发展趋势,《吃豆人》之父岩谷徹(Toru Iwatani)所发表的见解最为有趣。据游戏邦了解,他演讲的本意是介绍他在80年代开发经典游戏的故事,但这个故事听起来却像是Wii和智能手机游戏吸引新用户的途径。这位先驱创造的游戏,具有明确目标、简单的控制系统、令人难忘的角色形象、灵巧的设计和非常理想的用户反馈结果。他建议现代游戏开发者也采用同样的方法,并告诉与会者,“人人都可以从《吃豆人》中获得乐趣,就像社交网站一样。”(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

iPhone Gives Indie Game Developers New Hope

SAN FRANCISCO — With the phrase “video game convention,” which has become more common as the industry expands, comes an expectation of fans geeking out on games. Arcade classics, Nintendo favorites, modern hits and even sneak previews fill the halls of modern game expos, all with joysticks and controllers at the ready.

The Game Developers Conference isn’t like that.

At San Francisco’s downtown convention center last week, over 19,000 attendees looked at the world’s fastest-growing hobby through a different prism. In one hall, dozens of basement coders huddled around tables to test each other’s unfinished iPhone apps. In the neighboring exhibition hall, representatives from Sony and Nintendo looked quizzically at a politically charged video game starring kittens and British oil tycoons. Upstairs, a thousand-strong crowd listened to philosophical treatises about whether the Facebook smash Farmville should be called a “game.”

All par for the 25th edition of the GDC, where an international crowd of coders, artists and designers obsessed over the fun of games for five full days. “Our audience is [game] developers,” said GDC director Meggan Scavvio, “and that’s it. Period.” In that sense, the show doesn’t deliver de facto fun, nor does it attempt to. But that mission statement belies the GDC’s most interesting revelation: As games expand to social networks, smartphones, and even real life, the concept of a game “developer” is more fluid than ever.

Take Jane McGonigal, a game maker whose recent book Reality is Broken loudly proclaims gaming’s “positive impact.” She could be found all over GDC talking about the increasingly blurred line between games, education, and social reform, particularly when she announced a “live game” set to launch within the New York Public Library on May 20.

“The definition of ‘game developer’ is expanding to people who are taking seriously the power of games,” McGonigal said in an interview with The Atlantic. “They don’t just entertain but also teach, inspire or get people to take action.” A panel the prior day showcased a game that teaches children how to avoid malaria — and works on rudimentary game systems so that third-world countries can actually play it. And in one of McGonigal’s most successful social networking games, titled EVOKE, players create real-life small business plans, then document them with photos, videos and online collaboration with other players. Kinda like Farmville, only real.

Farmville was the hottest topic — and often punchline — throughout GDC, mostly because the game’s creators, Zynga, were royalty at the show. The most interesting of Zynga’s panels, titled “Designing Games for the 43-Year-Old Woman,” laid out a psychological profile of the so-called average Farmville player, along with game-making concepts that would honestly improve games for all player types, such as eliminating complicated buttons and letting players create their own play schedules. Some of the game design tips were a bit audience-specific, of course: “Pour her a proverbial glass of wine. Be charming [with your game]. Be George Clooney!”

You couldn’t miss the makers of Angry Birds, either (mostly because the Finnish game company Rovio dressed its staffers in bright-red Angry Bird hooded sweatshirts). Rovio chief Peter Vesterbacka, who called himself the company’s “mighty eagle,” had another take on the changing face of game developers: access to cell phone stores. “[In past years,] mobile providers decided on our behalf what games to put out,” he said. “It’s like our neighbor in Russia. Apple changed this with the iPhone.”

Same with other platforms, really. From Android to Xbox Live to downloadable computer games, the notion that an “indie” video game could break out as a smash hit pervaded the show floor. The two-man team behind last year’s smash throwback hit, Super Meat Boy, commanded huge crowds and rock-star level applause at its GDC panel, and the guys upheld their reputation by taking digs at games companies like Sony and Microsoft. Another indie sensation, Markus “Notch” Persson, won a combined five trophies at GDC’s awards ceremonies for Minecraft, a downloadable game that he hasn’t even finished coding. At the awards, the Swede took the stage in official programmer gear — a black duster and black hat — and held his fifth statuette in the air, asserting with a thick accent, “Go indies!” In that sense, GDC is the rare games show whose small-fry content can outshine the likes of Call of Duty. To be fair, CoD publishers Activision, and other big companies, attracted a long line of hopeful developer applicants at booths on the show floor, but most booths and panels focused on enabling smaller game makers: helping them get funding, digging through game philosophies to attract new players, making money from $1 apps by treating games as a perpetual service rather than a one-time transaction, and so on.

If you looked hard enough, you could find the next big game tucked into the GDC ruckus, from the delightful 8-bit fencing adventure Nidhogg to the iPad combat game Shot Shot Shoot to the bizarre, college-developed Octodad. It’s no secret: GDC is a breeding ground for indie hits. “What you see at GDC is what you’re going to be playing in 3-5 years,” president Meggan Scavvio says. “You’re looking at the future of video games here.”

Perhaps the most interesting panel about future games came from a timeless attendee: Toru Iwatani, the father of Pac-Man. His panel was meant to tell the story of his ’80s classic, but the story he told seemed to ring true for the way modern Wii and smartphone games have invigorated a new audience of games fans. He created a game with clear objectives, simple controls, memorable characters, smart programming and enjoyable feedback, and he commanded modern game makers to do the same. Even through a translator, Iwatani-san’s message to developers rang true: “Everyone can have fun with Pac-Man. It’s like a social network!”(source:theatlantic)


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