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人物专访:Zynga高管解析社交游戏的战略发展模式

发布时间:2011-04-20 17:04:41 Tags:,,

游戏邦注:日前Zynga首席设计师布莱恩·雷诺兹(Brian Reynolds)和Ensemble联合创始人布鲁斯·雪莱(Bruce Shelley)在采访中就社交游戏的未来发表了各自的看法。

Zynga自2009年聘请了布莱恩·雷诺兹(游戏邦注:其之前任职于Big Huge Games)担任公司首席设计师,就深知公司未来发展战略的之一是雇用社交圈外的传统游戏开发者,为该新兴领域引入行之有效的模式和设计理念。《FrontierVille》是布莱恩加入公司的首款作品,该游戏的成功无疑巩固这一战略的地位。

Ensemble Studios(游戏邦注:其为《帝国时代》开发商)联合创始人布鲁斯·雪莱(Bruce Shelley)日前接受媒体采访时谈论了自己成为Zynga的设计顾问始末,以及从中获得的经验。

Age

Age

二者在谈及社交游戏如何在短期内实现规模、质量显著提高时,道出了社交领域的发展实质。他们还谈论了设计师提高自我的必要性,并称借助简单而丰富的游戏设置快速吸引玩家如今变得更具挑战性。

能否讲述下你是如何加入Zynga,成为其设计顾问的?

BS(布鲁斯·雪莱):布莱恩告诉我说Zynga希望更多来自Sid Meier设计学院(Sid Meier School of Design)的人士加入公司,帮助公司设计游戏,全心专注游戏设置方面。因此我开始同Zynga的几个外部工作室合作。

事实是公司分配我到外部工作室的,这些工作室不在旧金山;他们在全国有5、6个这样的工作室,我负责配合其中几个。或许明年我将集中负责其中一个,尝试制作一款很棒的游戏,但我还不是很确定。

我代表不同的游戏设计理念,因此工作室成员将我视为富有经验的专业人士,能够为那些年轻的设计师提供帮助。他们也希望能够分配游戏的部分内容让我负责,至少是短期内由我负责。大部分工作室都有自己的创意总监和首席设计师,有的或许还有产品经理,有时他们会持不同的意见。这种情况下,他们会参考我的意见,他们认为我富有经验,可以裁决最终决定。

可以谈谈Sid Meier设计学院吗?为何它和社交游戏的联系如此密切?

BR(布莱恩·雷诺兹):我认为部分原因是Sid(游戏邦注:席德·梅尔是著名游戏先驱,经典游戏《文明》系列之父),其核心是快速成型,他在此方面无人能敌。只要提到例如“消防员”这个词,两周后他就会开发出相应的游戏。游戏中玩家可以沿着从柱子爬上爬下,将水龙头对准某个物体,此外,游戏还会出现消防车。他可以就任何东西制作游戏,并让游戏核心快速成型,随后在玩家体验过程中不断完善。

这实际上是开发者通过体验游戏,挖掘游戏有趣之处,然后稍作调整,让游戏变得更富趣味性,或者剔除无趣游戏内容,来推动游戏不断完善。待到游戏发布之时,玩家看到的是真正有趣的游戏。

这种方法在社交游戏领域富有成效,我们的游戏更多关注设计。出于带宽限制,我们尽量美化游戏的页面。但是,社交游戏和3D、1GB游戏不同,其通过网络及时呈现给玩家的内容量非常有限,因此玩家无需面对令人生厌的加载进度,

也就是说设计决定了游戏的娱乐性。我的意思是说,设计好坏确实同游戏娱乐性存在密切联系。二三十年来,我们不断设计模型,推出续集,从中我们发现了许多检验游戏趣味性的标准。

两年前你加入Zynga时,不同理念的成员之间能否和谐共处呢?

BR:在游戏推出续集方面,成员之间并不存在异议,这也为什么我认为自己可以融入其中。因为他们已经习惯了游戏发在布后仍可进行修改的模式,这也正是吸引我的地方。开发商在吸引了庞大用户群后,还可以对游戏进行修改,这是个很好的机会。

如今网络公司游戏设计师的理念大相径庭,我们需要找到合作共事的方式。首次成功典范就是《FrontierVille》,游戏取得巨大的成功,所以现在每个人都很开心,配合也很默契。(笑)

frontierville

frontierville

那布鲁斯你的工作进展情况如何?你为他们提供帮助,他们向你学习。作为行业元老,你从他们身上学到了什么呢?

BS:我学到了社交网络的相关知识,以及“社交”元素的运作方式。我的意思是,除了多人游戏外,我们很少关注社交互动。例如,如何进行较量,如何融入游戏,如何展开聊天?这就是社交网络涉及的内容。从中我自己学到了,如何促使用户在游戏中互相用联络和帮助,同时深入挖掘潜在用户。

游戏玩家和非游戏玩家的规模都非常庞大。我希望为玩家提供真正有趣的游戏,从而使他们心甘情愿为游戏掏钱。

我对这个全新的游戏领域有了进一步认识。游戏的更新速度着实令人称奇,而且很快可以获得用户反馈信息,而传统游戏开发商需要花费数年完成项目后,才能获得这些珍贵的数据。

过去收集数据十分困难;开发商只能从中获得有限的信息。开发商得通过浏览论坛来了解用户评论,通过评论的重复数量来判断玩家喜欢或不不喜欢游戏内容。

如今我们可以轻易得到所有相关数字,迅速调整人们喜欢和不喜欢的游戏内容。开发商只需要花费几天就调整和完善游戏。

Zynga向来毫不避讳地承认自己参考用户反馈参数设计游戏内容,因此有人可能会持不同看法,“Zynga应该跟着感觉走。”对此你怎么看待?

BS:我认为这很荒谬。我觉得开发商应该关注用户对于游戏的喜好,对此做出相应的调整,而否认这一观点,认为“我的感觉更准确”的观点,根本就是无稽之谈。推出《Age》游戏的时候,我时刻关注用户的反馈,每隔一个月就做出相应的修改。起初这一方法毫无成效,我甚至一度怀疑它的适用性。但随后Zynga逐步缩小了信息收集和内容调整的范围。

BR:好的设计师都希望基于数据设计游戏;但事实上我们很难获取那么多的数据。就像布鲁斯说的那样,过去开发者花了好几年时间制作游戏,然后才开始收集第一手用户真实数据,接着从中获取某些信息,但他们只有在1、2年后才能将其应用到下款游戏。

但是,这些确实是宝贵的独到反馈信息。“哇,反响很好”或者“唉,不尽如人意”,这些是来之不易的宝贵信息,如今我们在游戏发行的当个礼拜内就可以获得信息,然后将其应用至手上正在开发的游戏。

社交游戏并不存在传统游戏的时间问题,因为我们常常在游戏就要推出的时候,才突然涌现想出一些好点子。反馈信息是这样反作用于游戏中的:当我们发现“用户在某个环节中,纷纷退出游戏”的时候,“我们体验这个环节的时候,纷纷退出游戏”的时候,“我们下周就把这个环节去掉”。用户会不满哪些方面?这对于大家来说是种双赢的效果:玩家更喜欢游戏,而游戏设计师可以确保自己的游戏青春永驻。(笑)

BS:即便是思维敏锐的Sid Meier都只有在亲身体验游戏后才能发表相关看法。我的意思是说,并非人人都是才能卓越,刚体验游戏就能获知游戏的大概。所以快速学习确实令人受益匪浅。

而且有些信息的重要程度也各不相同。我们认为《Age》游戏能够在15分钟内就掳获用户的芳心,并将其转变为游戏的忠实玩家。社交网络将之称为“首次用户体验”,这至关重要。

BR:如今前15秒和前1分钟才是黄金时间。拥有15分钟的时代已经一去不复返了!(笑)

BS:他们还没发行过此类游戏(游戏邦注:指15秒或1分钟就掳获玩家芳心的游戏),我不认为这是个内在要素,但黄金时间机制在某些游戏中确实行之有效。社交领域还可以融入更多的新鲜元素。

布莱恩,你在GDC Online大会上发言时表示,你希望社交游戏能够变得更为复杂。

BR:我肯定不是说“复杂”。(笑)

也许你指的不是复杂,而是更有深度的游戏体验。

BR:更有深度!更有深度!对的,我说的就是更有深度。重要的是,过去游戏玩家通常是那些通过DOS完成所有自动批处理文件的用户,他们的技术悟性很高,而且喜欢分析游戏,但这并非游戏的有趣所在。

游戏玩家显然非常变得非常有限,但开发商可以不必拘泥于界面的复杂性,玩家会愿意继续体验游戏的。

但操作系统逐渐变得越来越完善,越来越便于用户操作。我的意思是说,玩家采用Windows操作系统,而之后又出现Windows掌机游戏包,玩家无需安装游戏,只需登入Windows,点击体验,就可以享受游戏了。

消除玩家体验游戏的障碍,那么游戏会面向更多的用户。越来越多的用户愿意为游戏掏钱,开发商也因此提高营收。

所以我认为以设计师的角度来看,社交游戏的设计诀窍在于挖掘游戏的深度。内容的选择、模式及其他元素对于游戏的持久趣味性至关重要,促使玩家愿意不断体验游戏,进一步探索隐藏的游戏元素,或者战胜新挑战。

回到90年代,当时我们可以通过更好衔接各部分,将游戏稍微复杂化。而如今,游戏的设计更富有挑战性,玩家十分关注游戏深度;同时开发商还得确保游戏通俗易懂。所以即便是非常细小的组成部分,彼此之间也是有微妙的互动。这正是我们的追求所在,这也是我们实践于《FrontierVille》的理念。

取个例子,虽然《FrontierVille》有很多小系统,但是玩家并不需要事前阅读说明手册。而是更多像这样,“这里有很多的东西,只要点击就可以了。不论点击什么,总会有些美好的事情发生!”最终玩家会发现,点击动物和植物会产生不同的结果,也许还可能注意到,“如果我把羊放在这个地方,那么牧草永远长不回来。”

所以如果玩家不希望牧草重新生长,那么就可以选择将动物放置于此。但玩家也不是非得这么做,玩家不受游戏指南的指示,也不会有窗口弹出说:“嗨,羊会吃牧草。”游戏完全是靠玩家自己体验,自己摸索,然后发现,“我掌握了些诀窍!我太棒了,因为我掌握了诀窍。我觉得整个游戏和体验过程感觉很好。”我想我们会接着朝此方向设计游戏。我们今后将能够更好地消除障碍,深化体验。

sunset

sunset

布鲁斯,你最近几个月频频被问到相同问题,你是否疲于为社交游戏辩护?你需要为社交游戏正名吗?

BS: 完全不需要。我们吸引了一群从未真正体验过好游戏的用户,《踩地雷》(游戏邦注:也就是用户耳熟能详的扫雷游戏)是他们体验过最棒的游戏。社交游戏为他们提供了很多有趣的元素;我认为这点非常好。事实上,玩家非常愿意为此掏钱,我们靠此维持公司的运作,我认为这是个绝佳的机会。我从中学到一些东西,整个过程趣味十足。我认为这完全没有必要加以辩证。

布鲁斯,你似乎非常自得其乐。

BR:是的我过得非常快乐。老实说,我这21个月里所做的设计工作比我之前几年的要多得多。能够成为游戏设计师实在是太棒了,设计师处在社交游戏领域的最前沿,因此他们能够创造具有社交性的游戏,这些种类繁多的全新社交游戏是我们未来的发展方向。所以就拿今年的社交游戏《CityVille》和《FrontierVille》来说,大家可以比较下它们和去年的社交游戏《FarmVille 》和《Café World》之间存在的差异,我确定是不是《Café World》。

BS:应该是《Treasure Isle》。

BR:事实上《Treasure Isle》是今年年初的作品。也可以参考前年的作品。我的意思是说,整个行业只有2-3年的历史。所以如果回到2-3年前,开发者们讨论的是“呆板的互咬”,这是十分基本的游戏元素。然后玩家开始转投《Wars》游戏(游戏邦注:这是文本RPG游戏)。

再后来玩家就开始接触Flash游戏,如今的Flash游戏日渐完善。我认为Flash游戏将会持续发展,变得越来越受瞩目,越来越有趣。能够成为游戏设计师,身处整个游戏类型的最前沿,实在是非常趣味,这是一片工作的乐土。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

The Strategic Evolution Of Social Gaming

[Zynga stunned the industry when it hired veteran PC strategy developer Brian Reynolds to head up its Zynga East studio -- but the success of FrontierVille put to rest any questions about the decision. Here, he and Ensenble co-founder Bruce Shelley chart the future of social games.]

With the hire of Brian Reynolds away from Big Huge Games in 2009, Zynga made clear that part of its strategy going forward was to hire “traditional” game developers from outside of the social space to inject tried and true methods and design philosophies into an emerging area. That strategy was no doubt cemented into place by the success of his first game with the company, FrontierVille.

Along with Reynolds, Bruce Shelley, co-founder of shuttered Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios, explains how and why he’s come on as a design consultant for Zynga, and what he’s taught and learned.

The two speak to the evolving nature of the social space — pointing out in how in a very short time the games have massively grown in scope and quality. They also discuss the need to be better designers, explaining how the need to hook audiences quickly with simple but meaningful gameplay makes the process much more challenging.

Can you explain how you interact with Zynga and how you ended up with the consultancy gig?

Bruce Shelley: Well, Brian talked to me about how [Zynga] would like to have more people from the “Sid Meier School of Design” to help with the gameplay of the games, and not worry about any aspect except how the games play. So I’ve been working with a couple of Zynga’s external studios.

Basically I’m assigned to work with the external studios, the ones that are not in San Francisco; they have something like five or six studios around the country, and I work with a couple of those. I’m probably going to be plugging into one of those for most of my work for maybe the next year — I’m not sure — and try to make one really good game, to make something really good.

So I’m another design voice. In this case, the studio there, they see me as a person with experience, who can help with young designers. Also they want to assign parts of the game to me to be in charge of, at least for awhile. Most studios have a creative director and a lead designer, and maybe a product manager, and sometimes they all have different ideas about something. So in this case, they see me as another voice, and a voice of experience, that can help them arbitrate their decision making.

And Bruce, how has it been? You’re aiding them and they’re learning from you. What are you learning from them, as someone that’s a long time veteran of the industry?

BS: I’m learning about the social networking space, the way the “social” works. I mean, we never concern ourselves much with social interaction other than multiplayer, you know? Like how do you matchmake, can you get into a game, can you chat? And that was the extent of it. But the idea of connecting, and helping each other out in the play of the game, and also reaching an audience we never got to before, I think, [is what I'm learning].

This is a big space of people who are playing games and not paying. … The idea of giving them really interesting games — to the point that they’re actually willing to pay something — that’s kind of interesting to me.

I think I’m learning about this whole new area of gaming. This rapid iteration is pretty amazing, and to have the data come back — we never had that… You had to finish your project and work on it for years before you started getting some meaningful data.

It was difficult to collect, even; there was only a limited amount of stuff you could learn. And you had to trawl through forums to hear what people were saying, and the repetition of a forum post would be a measurement of how serious they were about not liking this or liking this.

And now we get all these numbers that really reinforce quickly what people are liking, what they’re not liking and allows you in a space of a few days to make changes in a game and improve it.

Zynga’s very open about metrics-driven game design and that gets this negative reaction sometimes from people who might say, “Well, you should be following your gut.” What do you think of that?

BS: I think that’s ridiculous, and I think that watching what your consumers are doing with your game and responding to what they’re obviously liking or not liking, and to deny that and say that “I know better,” I think, is pretty foolish. When we did the Age games, we watched what our people did, and we patched those games on a bi-monthly basis based on what we were seeing. We weren’t right the first time with any of those games, and so there’s a conceit that I don’t think does apply. And Zynga has just really narrowed that turnaround time where we gather information and can make a change.

BR: I think the good game designers wanted to be as data-driven as they could; there just wasn’t much data. It used to be — as Bruce said — that you spent years making the game and then you really started to get your very first true user data when you ship, and you try to learn a little bit from it, but you couldn’t even apply it until your next entire game a year or two in the future.

But, still, those were valuable golden insights that showed, “Wow, that really worked,” and “Wow, that really didn’t.” And it used to be those were hard-won nuggets of value, and now we can see something this week, and actually react to it with the current game.

It’s not like the current game is just lost to time because we didn’t think of something important by the time we launched it; we can go work that back into the game when we see, “Oh, yeah, people are quitting when they do this. They come to this part and they quit, so they must not like that.” [laughs] “Let’s take it out next week.” What’s to complain about there? That sounds like a win-win for everybody — the players like the game better, the game designers get to keep having their game. [laughs]

BS: Even Sid Meier, let’s say, a guy of that caliber, is really only guessing until he plays. I mean, I don’t think anybody’s that smart, to have all these games figured out the first time. So the idea that we can learn quickly is a really positive thing.

And certain things are a little different in importance here. With Age, we thought that the game had to have a great first 15 minutes to get the people engaged and hold ‘em. And in social network it’s called the “first time user experience.” And it’s critical.

BR: And now it’s like the first 15 seconds and the first minute — it’s the golden minute. You don’t have 15 minutes! [laughs]

BS: They don’t publish this — and I don’t think they publish this — and I don’t even think it’s an internal thing, but there are golden mechanics that work. … There are a lot of things that are new that I hadn’t run into in other games.

What is it about the Sid Meier school of design that seems to meld so well with the social games space?

Brian Reynolds: So I think it’s partially the fact that Sid created a system of making games where the core of it was rapid prototyping, and he was the best at it, ever. You would say ‘firemen’, and he would — two weeks later — have a game where you’d be like going down poles and pointing hoses at stuff and there’d be fire engines. So he could kind of make a game out of anything and get the core of it up running really fast, and then you play it and you revise it, and you play it and revise it.

And it’s the act of sort of pushing on it, of actually experiencing the game and seeing the parts that are fun, and then changing them and making them more fun, or taking out the parts that aren’t fun that then goes on for however much time you have. And by the time you launch, you got something that really is fun.

That method turns out to work really well in the social space, where our games really are substantially about the design. Because we’re bandwidth constrained, we make the game board look nice and put nice art, but it’s not like it’s 3D and a gigabyte of content coming down — there’s a very finite amount of stuff that you can put through the internet in time for the player to not get tired of the loading bar.

So what that means is that it’s actually how well we design it that dictates how entertaining it’s going to be. I mean, it’s a really key coefficient in how entertaining the game’s going to be is how well we designed it. And so the fact that we can prototype, and iterate and prototype and iterate, and that for having done it for 20, 30 years we know a lot of the touchstones of where to look for the fun.

When you joined Zynga two years ago, was that jarring for the people that worked there — that method?

BR: Well, the iterating part was not, and that’s one reason that I felt like it was going to be a good fit. Because they were already used to the fact that they had this new, cool advantage of, you can get a game out and you can still keep changing it, and that was what was really fascinating to me. Talk about a great opportunity — to be able to continue to evolve your game once you have all the users pushing on it.

Now the idea of game designers, per se, for a company that really came out of the web space, well there was some culture shock there, and we had to figure out how to work together. But we did it successfully first in the form of FrontierVille, and had a really big success with that. So now everybody’s happy and working together pretty well. [laughs]

Brian, at GDC Online when you gave your keynote, you said that you expect these social games to become more complex…

BR: I bet I didn’t say “‘complex.” [laughs]

Maybe not complex, maybe deeper experiences…

BR: Deeper! Deeper! That must have been the word. See, the thing is, that it used to be the kind of people that could even get through all the autoexec.bat stuff with DOS to play a game, well they were pretty technically savvy and they apparently liked to figure things out that weren’t always the pleasant parts.

And there were fewer people you could sell a game to, but you could be a little bit lazy about how complicated the interface was and they’d still play it.

But gradually, the operating systems became better and more user-friendly. I mean you had Windows, and then even after Windows, there’s console games that kind of package it all up and there’s no installing something — you just jam it in and hit play and you’re going.

Taking out all that friction, caused by people having people figure stuff out, makes more people like your game. There’s more people that are willing to play the game and so then [comically whispers] you can make more money.

So what I think will happen with social games… the trick — if you’re a game designer — is to figure out how to put depth in. Because it’s the choices and the patterns and all that stuff that makes the game fun, and last for awhile, and makes you be able to play the game more than one time, makes you always kind of looking for the next little hidden thing, or trying to get over the next challenge.

And back in the ’90s, we could make the games a little more openly complex, in how the parts fit together. Now it’s actually more challenging to design the games, because you have to be very subtle with your depth; it has to be very accessible. So extremely simple parts that just happen to have very subtle interactions with each other — that was what we were trying to do with– that was what we were trying to do with FrontierVille.

For example, have a lot of little systems, but we don’t make the player have to read a book on how to play before they can start. It’s more like, “Oh look, there’s a whole world of stuff; just click on stuff. No matter what you click on, something good will happen!” And then, eventually, you notice that animals work a little bit different from plants, and then maybe you notice, “Oh look, if I put a sheep here, then the grass doesn’t grow back.”

And so if I don’t want the grass to grow back, then that’s a good place that I’ll put my animals around to eat the grass. But there’s nothing that said you had to do that, and there’s no manual that tells you, and there wasn’t even a pop up that said, “Hey, by the way, the sheep eats the grass.” It’s just you kind of play, and you notice, and then you think, “Hey, I learned something! I’m cool because I learned that, and then I feel good about the game and the experience.” I think we’ll continue to learn how to design games that way. We’ll be better and better at hiding the friction, but making there be depth.

Bruce, you’ve been consulting just for a few months. So are you tired yet of trying to justify social gaming? Do you need to justify social gaming?

BS: Absolutely not. I believe we’ve reached out to a bunch of people who never had really good experiences; Minesweeper was the best game they could play. And the social networking games are giving them a lot of really interesting stuff; I think it’s a fantastic thing. And the fact that they’re willing to pay for it and we can make a living doing this, I think it’s a terrific opportunity. And I’m learning things, and I think it’s fun to be doing it. I don’t feel any need to justify it at all.

And Brian, you seem pretty comfortable.

BR: Oh, I’m having a great time. Honestly, I have done a lot more game design in 21 months or whatever it’s been, than I’d done in quite a number of years before that. It’s a great place to be as a game designer. It’s the forefront of this brand new thing that suddenly you can make games that are social, and there’s going to be all kinds of new games that are social that we’re really just figuring out how to do. So look at this year’s social games — CityVille and FrontierVille — and then compare them to last year’s social games, maybe FarmVille and… I don’t know, Café World.

BS: Treasure Isle.

BR: Treasure Isle — Treasure Isle’s actually early this year. And then look at the games from the year before that. I mean, the industry’s only been around for about two or three years. And so if you go back two or three years, you’re talking about, you know, “accept my zombie bite.” Really basic stuff. And then you get up to the Wars games, the sort of text RPG games.

And then you get the Flash games, and now the Flash games are getting better. And I think you’re going to see it continue to evolve and get more and more interesting and more and more fun, and it’s really fun as a game designer to be working at the forefront of this whole new kind of genre. It’s a very exciting place to work.(Source:Gamasutra


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