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从“多人游戏”角度看“社交游戏”定义

发布时间:2011-11-08 15:58:18 Tags:,,,,

作者:Juuso

对于我来说,很难去回答社交游戏到底是什么这个问题。它们并不是局限于某一平台(例如Facebook)的游戏。社交游戏就是一种时下流行的多人游戏。

以下我将列举出一些多人游戏的例子:

多人游戏(from gameproducer.net)

多人游戏(from gameproducer.net)

《NHL ’93》,我必须和兄弟同时在房间里玩这款游戏。这是一款脱机多人游戏。

《NHL ’11》是一款在线多人游戏,玩家可以在游戏中体验到多种不同的乐趣。我兄弟可以在他家里与我一起在游戏中进行对决。也就是我们可以“同时”在不同地方玩这款游戏。但是如果其中一方退出游戏,游戏也就结束了。

《FarmVille》玩家总是于不同时间在不同场所玩这款游戏。简单地说,也就是只有我和兄弟都有时间,我们才能一起玩《NHL ’11》,但如果是《FarmVille》,我们便不再受到相互的时间限制。所以《FarmVille》是一款不受时间约束的多人在线游戏。

就像在《魔兽世界》中,我既可以与兄弟一起玩游戏,也可以选择不同时间进行游戏,并也能够彼此交互(就像是我可以在空闲的时候到游戏中收集资源,并在后来我兄弟登录游戏后与之进行交换等等)。所以《魔兽世界》算是一款既能够同时进行也可以分别进行的多人在线游戏。

虽然也存在许多难以辨别性质的游戏,但是至少,通过这个方法我能够更加深刻地认识到多人游戏,并且进一步了解社交游戏。

我不想搅和到任何学术争论中,并且不想深陷于任何事物里,我只是想借此寻找两样东西的不同点。

游戏中的社交因素不只有“时间”和“场所”。我认为社交游戏中还有大量的元素等着我们去挖掘。我想,很多单人游戏都可以学习并借鉴社交游戏中的一些机制。

假设有一款捕鹿游戏,而你一个人在进行这款游戏(游戏邦注:例如脱机的单人体验)。如果你能够与好友交易武器,并与之比较排名,甚至指派他们进行相关“工作”,如“我需要鹿角,你能帮我收集到吗?”,等等这些机制都能够让游戏变得更加有趣,并且能够让单人游戏体验变得更具有社交性。

我知道我在这篇文章中所提到的内容太过于简要,而如果你想了解一些更为详细的观点,可以去找Raph Koster(游戏邦注:Playdom创意设计副总裁)的一篇博文:“论析在线游戏的社交机制”(2010年GDC Online),以及“对社交机制的进一步剖析”(2011年GDC)。这两篇文章都深入解释了多人游戏的机制,甚至分析了何为多人游戏。

反社交游戏

我正是从这里开始产生疑惑,为何“社交游戏”的定义如此迷糊。有时候,事物的对立面能够帮助我们更好地去下定义。举个例子来说,“在线”多人游戏的对立面是“离线”或者“脱机”多人游戏。而“多人玩家”的对立面则是“非多人”或者“单人玩家”。

既然如此,如果你的游戏并不属于社交游戏,那么它是否就是“非社交游戏”还是“反社交游戏”了?对此我感到质疑。人类是社交动物,总喜欢与别人分享自己的发现。游戏中总会包含一定的社交因素,并且不同的游戏利用社交因素的方法也不同。

我们不应该将“社交游戏”归类为邪恶的游戏,相反地,我们应该仔细研究这类游戏的本质,它们是如何运作,以及对于其它游戏有何帮助。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Anti-social games, defined

By Juuso

It hit to me what social games are. They are not platform specific (aka “Facebook games”). Nope, social games are games that have become multiplayer in a funky way.

Here’s a very simplified chart about multiplayer games (not about social games):

NHL ’93, which me and my bro played same time, in the same room (place). It is an offline simultaneously played multiplayer game.

NHL ’11 can be an online multiplayer game, played same time (among many other things). My bro is sitting in his home, me on my home and we both play the match (and I win of course). Different location (or “place”) and “same time”. If he goes away, playing stops.

Farmville player are located in different places, and play on different times. I’m simplifying this a “bit” I know. I cannot play NHL ’11 with my bro unless we play it same time. But I could play* Farmville with my bro, even though we’d play it in different times. This gives Farmville the aspect of being an online multiplayer game, played in different time

*maybe in some parallel universe where gravity has been turned upside down and people born 92 years old, getting younger from there on.

World of Warcraft can be played online with my bro simultaneously, but we can also choose to play it on different times and there are things that we can do to interact (I think we can collect resources on our own time and then later exchange them with each other or something like that I think). WoW can be viewed as online multiplayer game that can be played both same and different time.

There’s also the black spot, which I don’t know if it’s harvested, but at least to me this is one way to look at multiplayer games and also get some thoughts about what social games can be.

And I know, I wouldn’t pass academic argument, but for the sake of not going too deep into things… just let’s say that’s a pretty okay way to view differences.

But that’s not enough…

But social aspects in games are more than just “time” and “place”. I think there is huge amounts of things to learn from social games. I could imagine very many single player (resource gathering) games that could all benefit from many mechanics social games have to offer.

Platform is irrelevant.

Let’s say there’s a deer hunting game that you play solo (offline, single-player experience). It might be fun to be able to trade weapons with buddies, check their rankings against your own ranking, perhaps even assign them “jobs” where you say that “I’d need deer horns, can you get me some”. And number of other things. All these could help make the single player experience more social.

I know I made huge simplifications in this blog post, and if you want some good stuff, check out Raph Koster’s blog: see GDCOnline: Social Mechanics talk (2010) and GDC11: slides for Social Mechanics talk. These one go much deeper into multiplayer mechanisms… and what multiplayer even is.

Anti-social games

This is where I started thinking why “social games” definition is so blurry. Sometimes a way to define things is to look from opposite direction. For example, the opposite of “online” multiplayer could be “non-online” aka “offline” multiplayer. And opposite side of “multiplayer” could be “non-multiplayer” aka “single player”.

After all, if your game isn’t social, is it then “non-social” or “anti-social”? I doubt it. Humans are social animals (or beasts) and share their findings. There are social elements in games and different games take advantage of them differently.

It’s quite useless to classify “social games” as evil, rather I think we all could take a good look at what they really are and how they work… and see if there’s some good stuff to be used *cough* in real games.

Please notice: you might not want to take so seriously the last words in that previous line.(source:gameproducer


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