游戏在各种移动设备中都受到了广大群众的热爱，在过去的几年中，三分之一的美国手机用户曾玩过手机游戏。同时，将近四分之一的ipad应用程序是游戏。然而，是什么令手机游戏如此有趣呢？据XeoDesign的创建者Nicole Lazzaro和一些著名的游戏玩家认为，令新一代手机游戏真实有趣的关键在于令用户社交化。“手机游戏和异地社交游戏将会成功。”她说，“你不必在同一个地方，或同一个时间进行游戏，便可以和真实的朋友进行互动。”

mobile game

Lazzaro的研究表明，社会联系是人们进行各种游戏的四大原因之一。她认为，下一步发展手机游戏的关键在于加强游戏中玩家相互拜访，竞争和互动的能力。这也意味着说要去超越现行游戏的驱动技术。

Lazzaro预计在接下来的5年中，手机游戏将通过社交网络而变得更加有趣，玩家可以在手机游戏上一起做任务。这将超越“cow clicking”般的社交游戏，如FarmVille。“Charades这款游戏很有趣，因为你认识你的同伴。在这款游戏中，你有机会在你的朋友面前做傻事。这加强了社交联系，令人们感觉更贴近彼此。同时，你也能更加了解和信任你的朋友。”

Lazzaro同时注意到手机设备中的定位系统和照相、录像功能能令手机游戏和现实生活相结合。这样的游戏不仅能追踪和汇报你的行动，而且知道行为发生的地点——并提动图像证据。从本质上说，游戏是激发感情的工具。

Lazzaro认为手机社交游戏可以并且应该令玩家对游戏任务进行交流，从而提高玩家的兴趣，令游戏更有趣。“我认为手机游戏同时也对现实世界有所助益，玩家可以一起打扫公园、保护森林、甚至拼车。”如今，Lazzaro的游戏公司XeoPlay正在研发一款集合社交和真实的游戏Tilt HD：Flip’s Adventure in 1.5 Dimensions，这是一款4月公布的为ipad设计的环保游戏。在TiltWorld网站的中，有一张全球地理布局图。通过虚拟的TilePoints，Lazzaro想令游戏和真实世界的价值体系相联系并因此“令世界的每一个地方都展现其与众不同的美妙。”

So，又是什么令手机游戏无趣？

“在这个方面，最大的问题在于游戏设计者……如果将游戏毫无修改地适用到另一个平台上，那么它将如同Xbox上的射击游戏一般无聊。（译者：dora）

Games are among the most popular things people do with their mobile devices. In the past year, more than a third of U.S. cell phone owners have played a game on their phone. Also, up to a quarter of all iPad apps are games.

But what makes a mobile game really fun? According to Nicole Lazzaro, founder of XeoDesign and a noted expert on improving the player experience, the key to the next generation of really fun mobile games is to make them social.

“Mobile games with asynchronous social play will be a success,” she said. “That’s the idea that you can interact with people in the real world, but you don’t have to be in the same place or play at the same time.”

Lazzaro’s research indicates that social connection (“people fun”) is one of the four main reasons why people play any kind of game. “Games have always been an excuse to hang out with your friends.

Mobile games give you an opportunity to have that experience in short micro-sessions, wherever you happen to be,” she said.

According to Lazzaro, the next step in making mobile games more fun is to increase players’ ability to check in on, catch up with and interact with their friends via games. This means looking beyond the competition dynamic that drives many current games.

A big part of “people fun” is social grooming, such as hitting the “like” button on a friend’s Facebook status. Such “like” mechanisms could help make mobile games more social, like shouting “Good one!” when a friend scores a goal in a real-world game.

“I haven’t seen this strategy much yet in mobile games,” Lazzaro said, “but there’s a big opportunity to use it to create mobile games that are truly social. There could be games where you get to like not just who your friends are, but the actions they take.”

She predicts that over the next five years, mobile games will get more interesting and fun through deeper integration with social networks, where players collaborate to accomplish things. This would go beyond “cow clicking” social networking games like FarmVille and instead borrow interactive elements from party games like Cranium, Pictionary and Charades.

“Charades is fun because you know your fellow players. It gives you an opportunity to do silly things in front of your friends,” Lazzaro said. “This promotes social bonding, it helps people feel closer. It also helps you learn more about your friends and build trust through interaction.”

Lazzaro also noted that the location awareness and photo/video features built into mobile devices could support games that integrate real-world actions. Such games could track and announce not only which actions you took, but where you did them — and provide visual evidence.

This would blur the distinction between games and real life in interesting ways. Foursquare is one of the most popular mobile applications because it’s both location-aware and a form of social game, Lazzaro said.

Games are basically a tool for stimulating emotions. Lazzaro thinks mobile social games can — and should — include more prominent collaboration dynamics — ways for players to communicate about in-game tasks, which raise emotions and make games more interesting.

“I see huge opportunities for mobile games to make a difference in the real world,” Lazzaro said. Players could collaborate to clean up a park, protect a watershed, drive less or contribute to a cause.

Lazzaro’s game company XeoPlay is incorporating social features and real-world connections into Tilt HD: Flip’s Adventures in 1.5 Dimensions, an environmental awareness game released in April for the iPad. (An iPhone version is due out soon.)

Currently, Tilt players accumulate “TiltPoints.” GamersInfo.net explains that these points can be “assigned to an ecological hotspot,” such as the site of this year’s volcanic eruption in Iceland or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

A map on the TiltWorld.com site shows a geocoded global layout where players are most active, displaying the total world points in play, a world score of total TiltPoints accumulated and the current challenge players are aiming to take on.

Lazzaro wants to be able to correlate the virtual TiltPoints to real-world value and therefore “make a tangible difference in places around the world where it could do the most good.”

So what makes mobile games not fun?

“At this point, the biggest thing that goes wrong is when game designers … [simply import] a game from another platform and adapt it for a smaller display, without distilling the essence of key features or considering shorter play sessions,” Lazzaro said. “It’s basically the same first-person shooter that you played on the Xbox. Boring.”