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gamasutra博客作者点评当前社交游戏的六个缺陷

发布时间:2011-03-23 21:12:49 Tags:,,,

游戏邦注:本文原作者为Gamasutra博客撰稿人Adam Russell,他深受本月的游戏开发者大会的启发,从6个方面深入剖析社交游戏的不足之处。

社交游戏是整个行业的热门话题,它在最近的游戏开发者大会上也扮演重要角色,就连游戏行业的杰出代表岩田聪也在大会发言中多次提及社交游戏。但也有人认为,当前的社交游戏还存在许多问题,这一领域的从业者Adam Russell就持有这种看法。

以下游戏邦根据Adam Russell所述编译的6大观点:

farmville

farmville

1.社交游戏不“社交”

Adam Russell认为大部分的社交游戏本质都是反社交的。

他认为,社交游戏是合作体验,是玩家之间的即时在线合作/竞争体验。

少数朝此方面尝试的游戏之一是《Holiday Village》,游戏中玩家和朋友合作共同建造圣诞村庄。但游戏邦获悉该游戏最高记录的MAU仅有10112,而这不过是《Cityville》MAU最高记录(1亿左右)的0.01%。

更遗憾的是,即便是Zynga表现最普通的游戏,其MAU都比《Holiday Village》更多。

2.不要强制用户分享消息

“打败怪物,分享消息。”“发现小羊,分享消息。”“晋升新等级,分享消息,博得朋友称羡。”

大部分的社交游戏最让玩家感到沮丧的是,玩家时不时就会看到弹出消息,提醒其和朋友分享所玩游戏。游戏邦发现像《Ravenwood Fair》之类的游戏对于弹出消息不加限制。Adam Russell表示他在某天早上加载了这款游戏,就发现才离开18个小时就收到了7个请求,要求其分享消息或者食物。Adam Russell称自己在这一过程中,不过是在房子里填充了货物,砍下了几棵树。他并没有取得晋级或者完成某项任务之类的显著成就。

能够通过社交网络及时分享信息,固然是好的。但Adam Russell表示他不希望停下当前游戏去关闭弹出窗口。

加入分享功能当然重要,但游戏邦认为开发商应确保这一行为不会损害玩家的游戏体验。

3.避免阻碍玩家游戏进程

大多数热门社交游戏的核心在于其能量系统,这实际上间接阻碍了玩家体验游戏的进程。开发商的市场营销部门也许另有看法,但Adam Russell认为事实就是如此。

游戏邦发现玩家的每个行动都要消耗能量,当能量值为0时,玩家只能耐心等待能量的恢复,或者花钱购买道具补充能量。

从游戏设计的角度看,Adam Russell觉得这个构思颇令人不解。开发商也许认为用户会在数小时后恢复能量时,再次回到游戏中,但这种做法其实是在驱逐用户。

4.游戏乐趣才是第一要务

Playdom的斯科特·约翰·西格尔(Scott John Siegel)日前在蒙特利尔国际游戏峰会(Montreal International Games Summit)上表示,“GDC社交游戏峰会更像是一次商务会晤。”

玩家玩游戏是因为游戏有趣,如果开发商开发的游戏受用户欢迎的话,那么他们会很愿意为游戏掏钱。但游戏邦认为如果开发商把重心放在如何使玩家花钱,那么就没有分清事情的主次。这就是为何传统游戏玩家在谈到Facebook游戏时,总是不屑地嗤之以鼻。

5.不要刻意隐瞒任务内容

玩家花钱买物品,消耗能量把物品组建起来,然后被告知如果要完成任务,还需要收集50个难以搞定的小配件。

这完全就是将游戏过程荒谬延伸,玩家都已经把物品构建出来了,才被告知还要收集其他小配件。

游戏邦认为这就好比去宜家家居,花100英镑买了个五斗柜。回家后发现,要把五斗柜组装起来,还得另外买螺丝和胶水。而螺丝和胶水30天才能得到1个,如果是花钱买的话,每个要花500英镑。所以只好把这堆木头搁置一旁,这样一来连放袜子的地方都没有。你于是觉得这堆木头很碍眼,没有耐心花5年的时间来收集螺丝。所以只好花1万英镑购买缺少的零件,这样当天就可以把柜子组装起来。

结果,你花10100英镑购买了你原本认为只需要100英镑的东西。

6.要及时修复漏洞

这只不过是个社交游戏,用户不会在意它的速度是每秒2帧。

Adam Russell表示,他曾经从事过质量管理的工作,所以听到这种话很生气。他认为,漏洞百出,玩起来令人不快的游戏非社交游戏莫属。例如,《Music Tycoon》,登陆页面完全是个糟糕的UI(用户界面)(只有5%的登陆成功率),控制系统反应迟钝,音乐搜索工具也不尽人意。

尽管游戏开发商可能会解释,游戏会推出更新版本,他们一直在不断升级游戏,修复漏洞,但实际上,这款游戏问世已有11个月了,但进步却仍然不甚理想。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Six Reasons Why (Most) Social Games are Awful

Social games are a popular topic within the games industry at the moment. The recent Game Developers Conference was dominated by the discussion of social games, with luminaries such as Satoru Iwata dedicating a large part of his keynote speech to the subject.

Rather than just read what people have to say on the subject I thought I’d share my own thoughts, especially as I now work in this sector.

Below are what I consider to be the six worst things about social games.

1. Social Games aren’t Social Games

In my opinion, most social games are inherently anti-social.

Social gaming in my mind means collaborative play, playing with or against someone in real time, whether locally or online.

One of the few games to attempt this was Holiday Village, a game in which you create a Christmas village collaboratively with friends. This had an all-time high of just 10,112 monthly active users (MAU). To put this into comparison, this is 0.01% of the all time high MAU of Cityville (101,231,340).

Even shameless, inferior copies of Zynga’s titles receive a far greater audience than this.

2. People Share Things Because They Want to, Not Because you Tell Them to

“You defeated a monster, share the news.” “You found a sheep, tell everyone.” “You levelled up, I bet your friends will be really impressed if you tell them.”

One of the most frustrating things about the majority of social games is that you are bombarded with pop-up messages telling you to tell people that you’re playing the game. Titles like Ravenwood Fair don’t even limit the pop-ups to significant achievements. I loaded up the game this morning after being away from it for only eighteen hours and received seven requests to share news or food. All I did was restock my buildings and chop down some trees. I didn’t do anything even mildly significant like level up or complete a quest.

Having the ability to instantly share information with your social network is brilliant, but I don’t want to have to stop what I was doing to close a massive pop-up box.

Include a share option by all means but please integrate it in a way that doesn’t intrude on the player.

3. Don’t Ever Tell a Player when to Stop Playing

A key ‘feature’ (read: irritation) of the most popular social games is an energy system. This is essentially a way to stop people playing your game, I’m sure the marketing department would word it differently but that’s how I see it.

Every action costs energy and once your energy reaches zero you have to wait for it to replenish over time, or buy more using real world money.

From a game design point of view I find this mind boggling. You’re deliberately turning players away from your game assuming they will come back in a couple of hours once their energy has replenished.

4. It’s a Game, Make Player Enjoyment Your Priority

“The GDC social games summit felt like a business summit.” So said Playdom’s Scott John Siegel at the recent Montreal International Games Summit.

People play games because they are fun, if you create a game that people enjoy playing they will be happy to put money into it. If you have to resort to thinking of ways to force the player to part with their money, you’ve got your priorities wrong and it’s no wonder that traditional gamers turn their noses up at the mere prospect of playing a Facebook game.

5. Stop Withholding Information

You’ve paid for your item, spent energy to construct it, now you have to collect fifty warlock nipples to finish it.

Not only is this a ridiculously drawn out process for buying an item but you’re not even told about the warlock nipples until after you’ve constructed it.

It’s akin to going to Ikea and handing over £100 for a chest of drawers. When you get home you put the chest of drawers together only to find that you have to by the screws and glue separately. Screws and glue that you’ll only find one of every thirty days or which cost £500 each. So you’re left with a pile of MDF in your bedroom and you still have nowhere to put your socks. You cannot bear to live with such an eyesore and you can’t wait the five years it will take to collect enough screws, so you end up paying £10,000 for the remaining items so that you can finish your chest of drawers that day.

Final cost: £10,100 for a product which you thought was going to cost just £100

6. Bugs Should be Fixed, Not Ignored

It’s only a Facebook game, people won’t mind that it runs at 2 frames per second.

Having a background in QA, this final point really annoys me. Some of the most bug-riddled games I’ve had the displeasure of playing have been social games. Take for instance Music Tycoon, if you can even get past the loading screen (there’s about a 5% success rate) you are faced with a terrible UI, unresponsive controls and a terrible music search facility.

I’ve heard the excuse that it’s iterative, and that you’re constantly upgrading the game and ironing out the bugs but Music Tycoon was released eleven months ago.(Source:gamasutra)


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