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Shannon Clark依自身经历谈未来游戏模式设想

发布时间:2011-06-16 11:34:15 Tags:,,

作者:Shannon Clark

游戏邦注:本文发稿于2009年6月27日,所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。

我的游戏背景及游戏业当前状况

从4岁时爷爷教我玩象棋起,我就是个游戏玩家。幼年时我玩过AD&D(游戏邦注:全称“专家级龙与地下城系统”,是一套设定详尽复杂的RPG游戏系统)等角色扮演游戏,通常担任地下城主。高中时跟许多同学定期玩各种类型的游戏,我们在课余时间玩过许多桌游,开展AD&D竞赛。有时我们会于午饭过后在食堂比赛,不过经常是在当地的游戏店中。

我有个高中同学的父亲当时正是Mayfair Games的职业游戏设计师,他在公司指导许多传统桌游的开发,比如《Cosmic Encounters》。包括我自己在内的许多同学偶尔会充当新桌游的测试玩家。当地的游戏店由此前某个真诚的战棋玩家建造,是座很大的传统风格建筑,当时我们每晚和周末都在里面待上数个小时,玩各种各样的游戏,包括古老的战棋游戏、角色扮演游戏和各种桌游。我时常在想自己踏进大学校门后也会保持定期玩游戏的习惯,但事实并非如此。不知出于何种原因,我不再是个活跃游戏玩家,尽管偶尔会和朋友们玩玩象棋和卡片游戏。

20世纪90年代的数年时间里,我成为真正的职业万智牌(游戏邦注:集换式卡牌对战游戏)玩家和商人,每年可以赢得交易价值逾4万美元的卡牌。我时常在各种赛事中获胜或者取得很高的名次,每年拿到的奖金超过5000美元。我的朋友表现更好,他们在全球赛事中获胜,到世界各地玩万智牌。在此过程中,他们可以从某些赛事中赢得上万美元的奖金。当我意识到可以在数小时的时间里赚到比工作数天还多的钱,就辞去了自己的工作。

World-of-Darkness(from blogspot.com)

World-of-Darkness(from blogspot.com)

随后,我还活跃于实况角色扮演类游戏(游戏邦注:在此类游戏中,玩家亲自扮演游戏角色,还使用道具和仿制武器参与模拟的战斗)中,主要玩White Wolf的游戏《黑暗世界》。我玩的这款游戏于20世纪90年代在芝加哥诞生,并迅速成长为在世界各地城市流行的近百款游戏。这些游戏有着共同的规则和世界,允许玩家在其他城市举办的游戏中扮演来自某个城市的角色。这种游戏产生的结果是,不同大陆的玩家可以也确实进行互动(游戏邦注:作者的朋友去巴西玩游戏),芝加哥附近每周会有数次游戏活动发生。

此类游戏非常有趣,极具拟真性和吸引力。虽然我们会在只为自己预留的场地玩游戏(游戏邦注:玩家需要不时集资租赁场地),但我们也会在其他事件中玩此类游戏。通常会选择夜总会,在芝加哥现代艺术博物馆的那次经历最令人印象深刻,当时我们在户外待了一整天时间庆祝夏至的来临。在上百个甚至上千个没有参与到游戏中的人里玩游戏能够为互动添加层次感,显得特别有趣。

过去数年间,侵入式虚拟现实互动游戏(游戏邦注:下文简称“ARG”)迅速风行并获得成功,虽然在此期间明显受到某些警告的影响。多数此类游戏的目标在于对某个特定事件或产品进行商业推广,通常是电影或电视剧。以即将上映的电影《第9区》为例,你可以选择在ARG电影世界中扮演人类或外星人。

在某些方面,ARG的模式已完全成形。游戏的开端是一系列的线索,通常隐藏于大批发布的内容中,如广告牌、海报、电影预告片以及间或发布的其他广告形式。这些广告中的线索通常是电话号码或网址,引导玩家进入ARG。自此,将玩家引向其他站点或电话号码的系列线索中经常会潜藏着小游戏或挑战。

随着时间推移,发布的线索不断增加,使得ARG的故事情节得以发展。多数ARG的模式很像漏斗,随着谜题逐渐发布,追踪事件的玩家会越来越少。接下来,这些ARG会发布最终线索,及时解开谜题的玩家受邀参加活动或得到某种形式的奖赏(游戏邦注:如观看电影试片或其他类型的礼物和奖赏)。电影或电视剧真正上映后,ARG结束(游戏邦注:《Lost》或《Fringe》之类的ARG会在整季播完后结束,其中每集都有隐藏线索)。

尽管这些游戏可以有效地为新电影或电视剧吸引和构建粉丝群体,但不幸的是这种模式有许多副作用。

1、随着游戏逐渐变得复杂,对新玩家的吸引力会逐渐降低。多数情况下,玩家无疑会在维基百科或其他站点上设置词条来解释当前所了解的内容,但游戏的进展也使其对新玩家的吸引力变小。最终奖赏颁布之后,新玩家通常更没有参与其中的兴趣,甚至连现有玩家的兴致也会受到影响。

2、尽管某些ARG会添加大量玩家设想的内容和故事情节,但多数此类游戏的故事由设计师来决定。虽然玩家可以随意访问各种线索和站点,但按照特定时间表发布的新线索按照已经设定的情节来发展故事,并没有发生改变的空间。

3、少数ARG偶尔有“现实世界”事件,但多数媒体大部分内容销售面向全球,这意味着目前多数ARG的玩法主要仰赖于大众媒体和网络(游戏邦注:有时也通过语音信箱或800号码向玩家发送短消息)。

数周前,《Spymaster》在Twitter上发布。此类游戏是在Facebook等社交网络上流行多年的游戏的变体,通常利用现有社交元素和关系来构建游戏玩法。以《Spymaster》为例,玩家的Twitter粉丝数决定了间谍网的大小。玩家粉丝中玩《Spymaster》的人数越多,在游戏中获得的优势也就越大(游戏邦注:粉丝成为玩家间谍网络中的间谍大师,可以在游戏中提供奖励)。

Twitter或Facebook之类的社交工具使你拥有许多与他人交流的方式,游戏利用这些工具在你的社交网络中散布与游戏活动相关的信息(游戏邦注:这种行为经过玩家同意)。毫无疑问,随着大量朋友开始玩,这些游戏可以也确实迅速成长扩散开来。

虽然《Spymaster》或Facebook上各种黑帮游戏等(游戏邦注:现在iPhone上也出现此类应用)趣味游戏从这种非常简单的游戏玩法和玩家互动空间中获利,但它们提供的动作类别相对有限。玩家在某段时间内能做的事情受到限制,尽管玩家时常会根据正式游戏玩法元素演变出新的互动方式,但是与其他玩家互动的游戏方式仍然偏少。以《SpyMaster》为例,许多玩家单纯为游戏目的开设Twitter账户,同他们在游戏中合作的人构建起粉丝网络,目标在于组成强大的游戏帮会。

我玩过《Spymaster》而且乐在其中,由于这是个相对轻量级的游戏,所以我每天只玩几分钟时间。这些游戏的运营模式还未成形,但应该注意的是,部分游戏公司声称Facebook上的某些黑帮游戏每年能带来上亿美元的盈利,这些盈利主要来自游戏玩家用来提升经验值的虚拟货币类商品。少数《Spymaster》玩家正开始通过SpyMasterFans等站点来传播游戏。他们在这些网站上成立组织、分享游戏想法和观点、在新式互动中互相挑战等。

或许你已经注意到,我在阐述自己的游戏背景时并没有提及数量众多的电脑游戏。20世纪90年代初期我接触过全文本版的《第二人生》,但我从未在电脑游戏上投入过大量时间。虽然我确实见证了社交电脑游戏的崛起,但仍未玩过此类游戏。目前,社交电脑游戏有两种主要模式。

自由国度(from gamersky.com)

自由国度(from gamersky.com)

1、大型多人在线游戏(游戏邦注:下文简称“MMOG”),包括最著名的《魔兽世界》(游戏邦注:下文简称“WOW”)和其他出自世界各地公司之手的游戏。MMOG主要采用三种模式:订阅,开发公司通常会定期发布的扩展包(WOW便采用这种模式,这也是最为常见的模式);需要玩家购买扩展包的免费游戏(游戏邦注:《激战》是少数采用这种模式的游戏之一);包括软件在内的最新免费游戏模式,玩家可付费购买虚拟商品和道具(游戏邦注:索尼游戏《自由国度》采用这种模式,但订阅玩家可获得额外的好处)。

2、基于服务器的游戏。主机游戏以及许多PC游戏逐渐拥有多人游戏选项,现在游戏公司时常会提供服务器,帮助玩家寻找其他玩家进行对战。微软XBox 360的Xbox live和Valve的PC游戏Steam服务就属于此类游戏服务。成为Xbox live会员需要缴纳费用,而且多数情况下玩家需要购买游戏。

电脑和主机游戏中还有许多更为微妙之处。在这两个领域里,所设计游戏能够激起的互动玩家数以及互动持续时间至关重要。主机游戏方面,通常只有数量相对较少的玩家(游戏邦注:比如4VS4)通过互联网或局域网对战。MMOG的不同之处在于进行互动的玩家数量较多,许多游戏在世界各地设有多个服务器,这些服务器间的游戏规则可能还会有细微的差异。这意味着多数情况下某个服务器的玩家无法同其他服务器玩家互动,互动行为仅限于选择相同服务器的玩家。某些游戏鼓励玩家合作来实现某些游戏目标,如《魔兽世界》中有些任务需要同个公会的40名或更多玩家合作完成。有些游戏也含有玩家间的互动元素,玩家可以直接与其他玩家对战。由于游戏间存在差异,这种行为可能发生在游戏世界的各个角落(游戏邦注:在PVP服务器中),也可能被限制在某个特定的游戏区域。

关于未来游戏的某些想法——新形式的开放、多玩家ARG

我知道电脑和主机游戏有着令人诧异的图像和游戏玩法,但它们也有内在局限性。语音聊天已渐渐成为许多游戏中玩家间互动的重要组成部分,但玩此类游戏的人仅限于那些拥有所需设备和足够资金来购买必要游戏及订阅游戏的玩家。

除进行中的电脑和主机游戏变革外,下面我将提出些许社交游戏的发展方向。ARG游戏的发起者是单一媒体,因而游戏世界时常局限于某部特别的电影或电视剧(游戏邦注:少数情况下会以某个艺术师为单位),我将在下文阐述新游戏模式和运营元素。

1、将轻量级、易于使用的技术同频繁的多城市实时互动及事件联系起来。上述两种元素单独存在时并不一定能够带来乐趣,但如果将二者结合起来,游戏的趣味性就会得到提高。

2、技术可以承载或构建于Facebook或Twitter等现有社交工具之上,但也需开设自己的网站,或许还应该设计手机应用。

3、大部分游戏世界进程和互动由玩家来推动,设计和运营游戏的人员稍加调控即可。后者的主要工作是设计游戏世界和背景故事,偶尔为游戏行为和元素提供帮助,让玩家们来发展情节。

4、摒弃单发起人将事件推动到某个特定结局的模式,游戏应该含有多个不时进出游戏的发起人,以各种方式与游戏进行互动。有些发起人可以将游戏故事隐藏在媒体中(游戏邦注:电视剧或电影),其他发起人提供现实道具并支持“现实世界”中的游戏相关事件。这些互动可以采用时下流行的轻量级模式,游戏角色以电影为背景,二者间的关系如同《A Newspaper Story》(游戏邦注:欧亨利短篇小说)与其中所提的报纸一般。我认为这会给玩家带来大量的乐趣,对那些电影或电视剧的营销也能发挥作用。

5、游戏应该允许新玩家随时参与其中,而且玩家可以灵活调整玩游戏的时间。玩家可以选择每天玩游戏,也可以每月只玩数次,甚至暂停数月后重返游戏。这需要精细的游戏设计来进行平衡,让每个人都有很多事情可以做,使任何人都不会对游戏感到厌烦。上述想法意味着这些游戏的多数内容不可过分侧重“关卡”,重点在于角色扮演和互动。游戏中会出现谜题和合作性任务,不喜欢此类角色扮演的玩家也可以小心谨慎地参与到游戏中,从互动中获得奖赏。

6、运营模式包括隐藏在实物(游戏邦注:如T恤、交易卡、书本、漫画、各种数字下载内容等)中的线索和游戏元素,这种模式已为其他类似游戏成功使用。某些游戏的发起人不仅将游戏元素藏在他们出售的商品中,而且还通过促销行为给游戏提供经济支持。

以上便是我的基本想法,但还未设计出具体的游戏。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Social game ideas – open ended, multi-sponsor ARGs

Shannon Clark

My background in games and the current state of things

I have been a game player since my grandfather taught me to play chess at the age of 4. In my youth I played AD&D, Shadowrun and many other role playing games – usually at the DM. At my high school there were a bunch of us who played all types of games on a regular basis, we played many boardgames after school, had AD&D campaigns including one we ran at times over lunch in the cafeteria and were regulars at the local games shops.

In fact the father of one of my high school classmates was a professional game designer at the time for Mayfair Games where he lead the development of many classic board games, games such as Cosmic Encounters. A number of us, myself included, occasionally were drafted as gametesters for new board games. At the local games shop, a massive, custom designed building built by a serious historical minatures gamer, we would spend hours many evenings and weekends playing a wide range of games, including historical minatures, roleplaying games and all types of boardgames. I always assumed that I would stay playing games on a highly regular basis when I entered college but that didn’t happen, somehow I didn’t stay as active a game player, though I did play the occasional game of chess and lots of card games with friends.

In the 90’s I spent many years as literally a professional Magic the Gathering player and dealer, in one year I earned over $40,000 trading pieces of cardboard and won prizes valued into well over $5,000 in many tournaments which I often won or placed very highly. Friends of mine were even better, winning at a global level and traveling around the world to play Magic the Gathering (and winning well over $10k from some tournaments in the process). I quite my regular job at the time when I realized I could make far more money in a few hours than I would earn in days.

A bit later I also became active in a range of Live Action Role Playing games, mostly around White Wolf’s World of Darkness game. The game I played started in the mid-90’s in Chicago, grew rapidly to include nearly 100 games in cities all around the world all sharing a common set of rules and world and which allowed players to play their characters from one city at the games held in other cities. As a result players could and did interact across continents (friends of mine went to Brazil to play the game) and there were games happening multiple times every week near to Chicago.

It was great fun – immersive and engaging. While we did play in spaces we reserved just for ourselves (we would contribute to rent spaces from time to time) we also played in the midst of other events – often in nightclubs, once very memorably at the Chicago Museum of Modern Art when they stayed open for 24hrs to celebrate the Summer Solstice. Playing in the midst of 100’s or even 1000’s of people who were not playing the game added layers to the interactions and was extremely fun.

In the past few years Alternative Reality Games (ARGs) have become increasingly popular and successful, though with some notable caveats. Most, though not all, have been run as commercial promotions for a specific event or product – very often a movie or TV series. Currently the upcoming movie District 9 for example is running an ARG where you can play either a human or an alien in the world of the movie.

The model of ARG’s has become in some ways fairly formalized. They start with a series of clues usually embedded inside of something in mass release – billboards & posters, movie trailers, occasionally other forms of advertising. The clues in these ads, often a phone number or a web URL lead a player to signup to the ARG. From there a series of clues lead to other sites or phone numbers often with embedded small games or challenges.

Over time additional clues are released which further the ARG’s storyline. For most ARG’s the model has become a bit of a funnel, with fewer and fewer players continuing as the puzzles are released, usually these ARG’s lead up to a final end clue and often the players who figure it out in time arrive at an event or get a prize of some form (a sneak preview of a movie for example as well as other gifts & prizes). Then often the ARG comes to an end as the movie or TV show is released (or the season ends in the case of ARG’s such as Lost’s or Fringe’s where there were clues embedded inside of each episode).

These games are effective ways of engaging and building fans for a new media property but they have many unfortunate side effects of this model.

They generally are less and less engaging for new players as they grow in complexity – sure most of the time players set up Wiki’s or other sites to explain what is known so far, but as the game goes on it becomes less compelling for new players – and once the final reward is given out it often is far less interesting to new players (and even existing players may cease engagement)

While some ARGs have included a wide degree of player driven content & storytelling, for most there is a very heavyhand of the ARG designers at work in telling the story and though players can visit many parts & sites in any order they want there tends to be a very linear path of the story being told by the nature of new clues being released on a specific timetable.

A few ARGs have had occasional “real world” events but the global distribution of most media for the most part means that most ARGs now primarily employ mass media & the Internet for the game play (also often voicemail/800 numbers for some parts and frequently SMS messages to players).

A few weeks ago a variation of a type of game which has been popular for a few years inside of social networks such as Facebook was released on top of Twitter – Spymaster – these games build upon usually preexisting social elements and relationships to form part of the game play. In the case of Spymaster your twitter followers become the size of your “spy ring” and you gain game play advantages by having more of your followers also playing Spymaster (they become “spymasters” in your “spy ring” and give you game bonuses).

Add in the fact that social tools such as Twitter (or Facebook) have many ways for you to communicate with people – and the games take advantage of these tools to send out messages about your game play activity to your social network (with your permission) and not surprisingly these games can and do often experience rapid, exponential growth as large networks of friends all start playing.

However while fun games such as SpyMaster or the multiple Mafia based games on Facebook (and in those cases now also with iPhone apps) suffer from (but also benefit from) a fairly simple game play and room for interactions between players. They offer only relatively limited sets of actions, have constraints on what you can do in a given period of time, and allow for only a handful of direct in game ways to interact with other players. Though often players evolve ways alongside of the formal game play elements to interact. In the case of SpyMaster many players have set up Twitter accounts only focused on playing Spymaster and have built up networks of followers with whom they coordinate in game actions and for strong in game cliques.

I play Spymaster and enjoy it, though it is a relatively lightweight game, so I only play for a few minutes most days, if that. They haven’t yet settled on a business model, but it should be noted that some of the Mafia games on Facebook are already part of game companies rumored to be rapidly approaching over $100M/year in revenues, primarily through the same of virtual currencies to game players to use to enhance their game experiences. A few players of SpyMaster are starting to expand the game via sites such as SpyMasterFans. There they are forming groups, sharing ideas & insights into the game, challenging each other to new interactions etc.

You may have noted that in my recounting of my own game playing background, I have not mentioned a lot of computer gaming. In the early 1990’s I ran a Muck (think an all text based version of Second Life) but I never got into computer gaming very much. So I haven’t played, though I do follow, the rise of social computer games. At present there are two very important models of social computer games.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (mmog’s) most famously World of Warcraft (or WOW) but also dozens of other games from companies around the world. There are three primary models of MMOG’s – subscription (usually with regular expansion packs as well) – this is WOW’s model and is the most common, free to play but game and expansions needed (Guild Wars is one of the few that use this model) and the newest model free to play including the software but virtual goods & items available for purchase (Sony’s Free Realms uses this model though subscriptions are available with additional benefits).

Server based games. Increasingly console games as well as many PC games have multiplayer options and game companies are now often offering services that both run server instances and help players find other players to play against. Microsoft’s Xbox live for the XBox 360 and Valve’s Steam service for PC games are two examples of these game services. Often a fee is required for membership (for XBox live) and in most cases the games have to be purchased to play them.

There are many further nuances to computer and console games. For this post the most crucial of which is the number of players they are designed to facilitate interactions amongst and the length of that interactions. Console games often are limited to a relatively small number of players competing against each other (4 vs 4) which can be over the Internet or over a local area network. MMOG’s differ in how many players they handle interactions amongst – many have multiple “servers” which are different instances of the world and which may have slightly different game rules, meaning that in most cases players on one server do not interact with players on another so they are limited to the number of players who choose to play on a given server. Some games are designed to encourage cooperative play where players cooperate together to achieve game goals (WOW has quests that can involve 40 or more players from a single Guild working together). Many games also have elements of player vs player interactions where players fight directly against other players – depending on the game this could occur anywhere in the game world (on a given PvP server) or in many games may be limited to a specific area of the game.

Some ideas for the future – open ended, multi-sponsor ARGs of a new form

While I know that computer and console games have many incredible aspects offering amazing graphics and game play capabilities they also have in-built limitations. Even with voicechat which is increasingly an important part of the player to player interactions in many games playing such games is limited to players who have the required equipment and financial resources to buy the necessary games & game subscriptions.

So here are a few ideas I have for where social games could go in addition the ongoing evolution of computer & console games. Instead of an ARG which is sponsored by a single media property – and which is thus usually tied to the world of that particular movie or tv show (or less often an artist such as NIN) I would suggest a game with the following models & business elements.

A combination of lightweight, easy to adopt technologies AND frequent, multi-city live interactions & events. Neither element would be necessary to enjoy the other but if you used both your game play enjoyment would be enhanced.

The technologies could leverage and be built upon existing social tools such as Facebook or Twitter but would likely have a website and perhaps mobile applications as well

Much of the world and game interactions would be driven by the players with a light touch of the people designing and running the game – they would mostly design the world & backstory and would occasionally facilitate in game activities and elements, but the game would be designed for the players themselves to evolve the plots & ongoing stories.

In place of a single sponsor driving the event to a particular end point the game would have sponsors that come and go and which interact with the game in a variety of ways – I could see some sponsors embedding story from the game into their media (tv shows perhaps even movies) while others would provide real items and help support game related events in the “real” world (as well as having in game repurcussions). These interactions could at times be lightweight – having characters from the game (probably mostly actual player’s creations) who appear in the background of a movie – say as items in a newspaper story – this would I think be a lot of fun for players – and great marketing for those movies or tv shows.

The game would be designed to allow for new players to join at any time and for players to play at a wide range of play cycles – some playing daily while others playing only a few times a month or taking a summer off and resuming months later. This takes careful game design to balance and to give everyone a lot to do without the game becoming boring for anyone – but it suggests that for the most part these games would only have light elements of “levels” or the like but heavy elements of role playing and interaction. Though there could also be puzzles and cooperative quests so players uncomfortable with heavy roleplaying could ease into participating in the game as well and be rewarded for that interaction.

The business model could include clues & game elements embedded in physical items (t-shirts, trading cards, books, comic, digital downloads of many forms etc) which is a model that other similar in some ways games have already used quite successfully. Some of these products could be from sponsors who not only embed game elements in something they sell but also support the game finacially & through promotional efforts.

So that is the basic ideas – I haven’t yet designed an entire game example just started thinking about this, if it sounds like fun (or if you know of examples I should take a look at) please leave comments or contact me privately. (Source: shannonclark.wordpress.com)


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