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解析游戏趣味性的成因及7项要素

发布时间:2011-11-13 09:08:20 Tags:,,,,

作者:Tony Ventrice

游戏化是人们最近热议的话题,圈内许多人士都在讨论游戏化与游戏体验之间的相似性。

我对这种讨论持有两种观点:

1.“游戏化”这个词汇带有机会主义色彩,并且定义模糊。它看似包揽了游戏的所有优点,但其实际作用目前仅停留在积分和徽章奖励这个表面上——例如忠诚及名望系统。

2.游戏的意义极为丰富,当前游戏化形式的起步并不算糟糕。将忠诚及名望系统与网站或产品绑定的做法已不鲜见,相信游戏玩法的其他元素也将接踵而至。

在这里,我想为游戏趣味性的“结构”下定义,并探索这些元素应用于现实商业的可行操作方法。本文将主要剖析游戏、有趣、玩这三个概念之间的交集。

gamification-Badges(from clarisaherrera)

gamification-Badges(from clarisaherrera)

游戏为何具有趣味性?

不少学者和游戏设计师都曾探讨过这个问题,游戏设计界对此问题的普遍回答是:游戏让玩家选择和学习。先来看看一些游戏行业元老的观点:

Raph Koster在《A Theory of Fun》中指出:

趣味性就是大脑处理问题的活动。

Jesse Schell在《The Art of Game Design》的看法则是:

游戏就是人们通过的玩乐的心态解决问题的活动。

我完全同意这二位的说法。我自己也做过几乎相同的定义:(趣味性就是)有趣的决策(Sid Meier也说过同样的话)。我下此结论的原因是,我个人很喜欢游戏中的“决策”和“挑战”元素。

如果你是为像我、Raph和Jesse这类人设计游戏,这种定义应该十分管用。电子游戏设计已经有30多年的发展史,假如你的工作是解析游戏,并在企业网站等全新领域中重新运用“趣味”元素,那么深入理解其定义必将为你派上大用场。

出人意料的事实

我们看到有不少游戏正逐渐丧失其教育性,《FarmVille》和Foursquare尽管其中所涉决策有点无趣,可供人学习的知识极少,但仍然被称为“游戏”。如此看来,通过“选择”和“解决方案”来定义游戏似乎有些片面。

但也有一个观点可支持原来的定义。《FarmVille》当中还是有一些可让人学习的元素。至于Foursaquare,我想人们从中学到的通常就是在哪能保住自己的市长头衔,在哪会失去这顶“乌纱帽”……

但我并不是在为游戏的旧定义背书。事实上,我认为这些“游戏”中的学习层面太肤浅,几乎不能算是具有教育性。就算你假设《FarmVille》玩家的智商略低于一般的“真正游戏”玩家,那也不能解释他们长期逗留游戏的原因——他们是持续数月泡在游戏中,这么长的一段时间早就足够傻子学会游戏中的一切操作和活动。

我们其实只有两种选择:要不就否认它们属于“游戏”范畴,要不就承认游戏的意义远甚于传授知识。

在深入讨论这个话题之前,我们也许可以再给旧定义一个辩驳的机会。Schell和Koster并没有说游戏只是传授知识,他们称游戏是以“玩乐”或“好玩”的心态学习新事物。Raph的解释如下:

趣味性与情境有关。我们融入一项活动的原因极为重要。

所以,有趣游戏的定义并不仅局限于学习知识,但Koster和Schell两者都无法用一句话简要概况游戏趣味性的定义。看来,“有趣”确实是一个非常微妙的词语。

哪些元素构成了游戏趣味性?

正如上文所述,游戏设计师已有自己的答案,那就是游戏趣味性的要素之一:学习。我认为这确实是一个恰当的说法,有些游戏的趣味性几乎完全围绕“学习”而设计,例如《魔术方块》(Rubik’s Cube)和《珠玑妙算》(Mastermind)。

我想设计师对此话题还有其他高论,但为了节省时间,现在得轮到学术界发表观点。

如果你看过Salen和Zimmerman的《Rules of Play》,那就应该听说过社会学家Roger Caillois对四种玩游戏形式的看法:

竞争、机会、角色扮演和改变观感。

虽然Caillois是社会学家而非游戏设计师,其总结的四种玩游戏形式看似过于随意,但我们仍然不得不佩服他能够在不同角度下此定义。我认为他的观点颇具独创性。

竞争很显然属于趣味性范畴,从晒出外州车牌照到与他人比赛快速挖煤,几乎每一项具备这种特点的活动都可以转变为游戏。

角色扮演也很显然属于此列——我们还能用其他词语来解释孩子们玩过家家、模仿消防员等此类行为和活动吗?

改变观感可能是Caillois最有趣的提议了。

电子游戏中偶尔也会出现这种情况(游戏邦注:有些游戏通过曲扭规则来“迷惑”玩家,有些游戏则以光影和音效创造一种令玩家产生“幻觉”的体验),但虽然我很想把它添加到我们的趣味性元素列表中,但从总体上来看,改变观感应用范围有限,在商业项目中尤其如此,所以我们将跳过并忽略此项。

最后就是机会。机会是一个可望改变既定结果的机制。两名技能并不在同一水准的玩家如果在一款缺乏机会的游戏中相遇,那就很容易在游戏开始之初辨出胜负。机会对保证游戏平衡性和产生悬念来说十分重要,但并不一定具有趣味性,也并非玩游戏的必要前提。

游戏设计师Marc LeBlanc所列出的元素比Caillois更详细和实用,尽管从他的职业来看我应该将其划分到上文的内容中,但我发现他的工作更适合从学术角度发表观点(游戏邦注:Marc LeBlanc与美国西北大学的学者合作甚密)。

LeBlanc认为游戏趣味性具有8要素:

感觉、友谊、幻想、叙事、挑战、探索、表现和服从。

感觉包括坐着过山车在半空盘旋呼啸的刺激感,跑步者的兴奋感,或者按摩时的舒适感,但在游戏化环境中,它的应用甚至比改变感观还少。

友谊要涉及社交层面的概念,它与友好和归属感有关。我们很难找到一款完全以友谊为支柱的游戏,但许多人就是因为这一点而喜欢玩派对游戏。

举例来说,我发现《Apples to Apples》是一款傻气十足的游戏——它的赢家是随机选择的,但我还是喜欢玩这款游戏。为什么?因为我发现自己会忽略其中的竞争和学习元素,总是沉浸于社交互动和众人欢笑之中。对我来说,友谊就是我玩这款游戏的唯一原因。

幻想叙事彼此相关但又十分相似(我认为它们分别描述了游戏故事的前提和过程),我不知道是否有人会将故事称为游戏,但从营火会故事或卧谈会故事来看,我们总会不禁发现幻想和叙事的相似性,或者至少会承认它们存在乐趣。

许多游戏都包含故事元素,我甚至还听说有人只是为了知道故事结局而玩游戏。我认为凭这一点已经足够将这两者纳入趣味元素列表中了。

挑战探索正是Koster和Schell已经提到的元素,所以它们毫无疑问当属此列。

表现角色扮演十分相似,具有许多共同特征。

服从这个词听起来让人颇为不悦。LeBlanc将服从定义为“无意识地玩游戏”,尽管它似乎也应该纳入我们的列表,但它却并不具有任何教育性。如果它也算是有趣,那么凌晨3点的电视广告也很有趣,那我想大家就会觉得我们对趣味性的定义过于广泛了。

所以在Marc的8个要素中,我们只撷取其中的6个。

下面我要介绍的一位学者是Nicole Lazzaro,她的研究范围包括我们前面谈到的“选择”和“挑战”,但她主要关注游戏玩家的情感和心理研究。

在她看来:

调查结果表明人们多数时候是为了游戏所创造的体验(例如:肾上腺素兴奋,错位的冒险经历,脑力挑战),或者游戏构造提供独处或好友陪伴等因素而玩游戏。

她看起来是从情感角度来研究游戏(游戏邦注:作者认为这种研究角度的实用性存在疑问),但也确实提出了一个有价值的观点:纯粹的情感因素在“有趣”概念中占有重要地位。

人们究竟为什么要看恐怖电影,与伴侣调情,相互恶作剧?因为他们发现这些活动可以强化恐惧感,激励感、幽默感、悬念和意外感。

说到这里,我要再介绍一位可能好像从未与这些话题沾边的学者Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,他是我们所知的心流理论专家。在他看来,所谓“心流”就是:

当人们完全沉浸于某项活动中时,就会丧失时间感。在这种状态下,人们的每一个动作,每一步行动和想法都与前者流畅衔接在一起,就像玩爵士乐一样。

人们常把心流状态用于描述“平衡的难度”,或者将其视为另一种心理状态而忽略它。我认为这个话题比以上的任何一种解释都要有趣得多,它当然也应该纳入我们的趣味元素列表中。如果要说明哪些心流状态可以称为“游戏”,我可能会以重复将球弹向墙壁的现象为例。尽管此类活动也包含学习技能的要素,不过我认为这种技能并无价值,也许应该包含更多有意义的内容。

总结

综上所述,我们现在可以整理出一份构成游戏趣味性的元素列表:

1.学习/挑战/探索

2.角色扮演/表达

3.竞争

4.友谊

5.幻想/叙事

6.情感

7.心流

以下则是我根据自己的看法进行调整后的简化版列表:

1.发展

2.选择

3.竞争

4.身份

5.故事

6.情感

7.心流

我认为如果还有其他什么需要添加的元素,也都可以归入以上7个要点的范畴。

假如我们将“游戏”一词定义为:为寻找乐趣而进行的一种活动,我想这更有助于推进我们对游戏化的分析和研究。

我将在之后的文章中对以上各个元素进行说明,解释它们独立存在时会发生的情况,以及它们运用于传统游戏领域中的情形。

简化列表元素的原因

我们在文章开篇已经提到了三个概念:学习、挑战和探索。这里我还要添加第4个概念:成长。成长意味着超越原来的水准,向更高更好的方向前进。

我之所以更情愿使用“成长”一词,原因在于比起其他三个概念,它更为直接地切入重点:我可能学习了一些东西,但却并不感觉自己在朝有用的方向进步;我可能在进行挑战,但却讨厌那些不必要或无意义的障碍;我可能探索到了些东西,但却发现它们毫无意义。只有发展这个概念同时准确地表达了一种个人发展和积极体验的状态。

如果你将故事(它包括幻想和叙事)的概念忽略不计,就会发现角色扮演和表现这两者十分相似。它们都可以提供一种让你无拘无束,表达自我主张和新价值观的机会。这似乎又贯穿了两种元素:身份和选择。身份很重要,但它实际上在本列表其他元素中已无所不在(如下文),因此不再赘述其意义。由此可见,选择,或称为自主权确实该在本列表中占据一席之地的元素。

友谊是一个很有趣的词语,我们这里指的是一种归属感——即在一个社会环境中的角色或地位。没有哪一个词比身份更适合形容它。我知道自己是谁,其他所有人也都知道这一点。虽然友谊通常暗指一种纯粹的朋友社交关系,但又不能用友情这个过于准确的词取代它——毕竟几乎所有人都追求一种身份感,但大家却不一定都喜欢与人打成一片。

至于幻想/叙事,我之前已经提到,这两者分别描述了故事发生的前提和过程。“叙事”可能更易同时概括这两种状态,但若要用于表达拥有趣味性的故事,却不免显得过于正式和冷漠。用户都喜欢称为“故事”,而我也觉得这个描述确实更有深意。(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

Gamification: Framing The Discussion

by Tony Ventrice

[As a prelude to a full-on examination of gamification, Badgeville's Tony Ventrice digs deep into what makes games games, using work that's come before as a basis to explore this new tool -- the first of his ongoing series of articles on gamification.]

A lot has been said about gamification recently, and a lot of circular arguing has gone around what it means to compare an experience to a game.

I have two responses to this discussion:

1. “Gamification” as a term is indeed opportunistic and vague. While the word seems to imply a land-grab for everything that is great about games, in current practice it only represents points and badges: loyalty and reputation systems.

2. Games have a lot to offer, and the current form of gamification isn’t a bad place to start. There is a lot to be gained from tying loyalty and reputation systems to a website or product and, as the concept evolves, other aspects of gameplay are sure to follow.

What I would like to do is define the full scope of what makes games fun (not a trivial task by any means) and then explore the practical application to real-world businesses. This journey will be made in multiple parts.

* Part 1 will be to dissect the concept at the intersection of the following words: Game, Fun, Play. The objective will be to end with a list of aspects — aspects of what make games fun.

* Each of the following parts will explore how these aspects might be applied to business enterprise.

What Makes a Game Fun?

This question has been asked many times, by both academics and game designers. A common conclusion on the game design side is that games represent choice and learning. I’ll let a few of the most prominent experts in game design put it in their words.

Raph Koster says in A Theory of Fun:

Fun is the act of mastering a problem mentally.

Jesse Schell says in The Art of Game Design:

A game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude.

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I came to basically the same conclusion when I defined gameplay for myself as: interesting decisions (apparently Sid Meier said the same thing — I may have got it from him.) I came to this conclusion because personally decisions and challenge are what I enjoy about games when I play them.

And this definition is perfectly functional if you’re designing games for people like me and Raph and Jesse; games like the video game industry has been designing for the past 30 years, and will go on designing for the next 30 years. A deeper understanding is only really useful if it’s your job to deconstruct a game and rebuild the “fun” in a completely new context, like, say, a corporate website.

An Unexpected Truth

Gradually, we’ve seen examples of games where the learning has been peeled away. FarmVille and Foursquare are evidence that people are willing to call something a “game” even if the decisions are vapid and the learning is simplistic. Defining a game by choices and solutions doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.

An argument can be made to defend the old definition. There is learning in FarmVille, if just a little bit. And Foursquare, well, I suppose you learn where you have a chance at maintaining mayor status and where you don’t…

But I’m not buying it. The fact is, the learning aspect to these “games” is so thin it hardly counts. Even if you posit that the average FarmVille player is less intelligent than the average “real game” player, it doesn’t explain why FarmVille players play for so long — we’re talking about months, more than enough time for even a simpleton to learn everything there is to know in the game.

The truth is, we have only two options: either refuse to call these things “games” or admit that there is more to games than just learning.

But before we move on, we’ll give the old definition one more chance. We’ll note that Schell and Koster didn’t say games were just learning, they said games were learning with a playful or fun attitude. Raph elaborates:

The lesson here is that fun is contextual. The reasons why we are engaging in an activity matter a lot.

So, the definition of a fun game is more than just learning, and neither Koster nor Schell has found it simple enough to condense into a one-sentence definition. Fun, it turns out is a very tricky word.

Once Again: What Makes a Game Fun?

The game designers had their say, and have given us the first aspect of fun for our list: learning. I think it’s a suitable first element, and examples of games where the fun is represented almost solely by learning might include pattern-solving puzzles like Rubik’s Cube or Mastermind.

I’m sure the designers have a lot more to say on the topic but, in the interests of time, I’d like to give the academics a turn now.

If you’ve read Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play, you’ve heard of the sociologist Roger Caillois. Caillois posits there are four forms of play:

Competition, Chance, Role Playing and Altered Perception

The list seems rather arbitrary. As a sociologist, Caillois is not a game designer, but you have to appreciate the distance he’s given himself in his definition. And I think he’s made some rather unique observations.

Competition seems like an obvious addition to our list — almost any activity that can be measured has been turned into a game at one point or another, from spotting out-of-state license plates to shoveling coal faster than the other guy.

Role Playing also seems obvious — what other way can you explain children playing house, or firemen, or any other game young children play?

Altered Perception is probably Caillois’ most interesting proposal. From recreational drug use to rolling down a grassy hill and then attempting to run in a straight line, altered perception is an undeniable, albeit often over-looked aspect of play.

It even turns up in video games occasionally (some games “mess” with the player by distorting the reality of the game rules unexpectedly, while others bombard the player with lights and sounds, resulting in a “trippy” experience). I’m tempted to include altered perception to our list — yet, by and large, this is not an aspect of play with many practical applications, particularly in the context of business, so out of the interest of space, I’ll omit it.

Finally we have Chance. Chance is a mechanic desirable in competitive play to avoid deterministic outcomes. Given two players of unequal skill, in a game without chance, the outcome is known before the game even begins. Chance is a very important mechanic for game balancing and building suspense (something I’ll get to later), but not inherently fun, or a reason, per se, to play a game.

Game designer Marc LeBlanc gives us a slightly longer and more practical list than Caillois. While LeBlanc might find better company in the previous section with the other designers, I’ve included him here because in his work he’s chosen to take a more academic approach (he’s even collaborated with academics at Northwestern University).

LeBlanc’s list of eight kinds of fun:

Sensation, Fellowship, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Discovery, Expression, Submission

In the interest of time, I’ll cut through these quickly, picking out which to keep based on their value to our investigation.

Sensation might include fun things like the plunge of a rollercoaster, a runner’s high, or a pleasant massage — but in the context of gamified experiences, it is probably even less useful than Altered Perception.

Fellowship introduces the idea of a social aspect — a sense of friendship or belonging. Finding a single game represented purely by fellowship is difficult, but many people choose to play party games solely for this reason.

For example, I find Apples to Apples to be an asinine game — winners are chosen arbitrarily — yet I enjoy playing the game. Why? I find that to enjoy the game, I ignore the implied competition and learning, and focus instead on enjoying the social interplay and collective laughing. For me, the only reason to play Apples to Apples is the Fellowship.

Fantasy and Narrative are relevant but quite similar (I’d say they respectively describe the premise and events of a story). I don’t know if anyone would call a story a game, but in watching the interplay of a campfire story or a bedtime story you can’t help but see the similarities and at least admit the presence of fun.

Many games contain stories, and I have even heard of people playing games that were terrible simply because they wanted to know how the story turned out. I think this is enough evidence of fun to keep these two — at least as a single shared entry in our list.

Challenge and Discovery are What Koster and Schell were talking about (the player discovers new techniques and applies them to challenging problems) so we’ll categorize these with learnign.

Expression is very similar to role playing, and we’ll group the two for now and see if we can’t come up with a common feature.

Submission is, honestly, a bit unexpected. LeBlanc defines Submission as “game as mindless pastime”. Although this is a very tempting addition to our list, it unfortunately says nothing informative. By this inclusion, 3:00 AM television infomercials are fun, and I think anyone can agree that such a stretch results in a definition far too broad for our purposes.

We’ve made it through Marc’s list and retained 6 out of his 8 items, at least in some respect.

Next, I’d like to introduce an academic named Nicole Lazzaro. Nicole’s study covers the basics of choice and challenge that we’ve already talked about, but what she does differently is focus her studies around the emotional state of gamers.

In her own words:

Game Advertising Online

Our results revealed that people play games not so much for the game itself as for the experience the game creates: an adrenaline rush, a vicarious adventure, a mental challenge; or the structure games provide, such as a moment of solitude or the company of friends.

While she seems to view every aspect of a game from the perspective of emotion (and the utility of this perspective may be questionable) she does raise a worthy point: pure emotions most likely have a role in the concept of “fun”.

After all, why do people watch scary movies, flirt with their own spouses, play practical jokes on each other, or play Crocodile Dentist? They find surges of emotion like fear, arousal, humor, suspense and surprise to be fun.

I have one more academic who never seems to get integrated properly into these discussions, and his name is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is the foremost expert in what we know as flow. In his own words, flow is:

Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.

Flow is often used to mean “balanced difficulty”, or is just as often dismissed as simply another emotional state. I believe the topic is actually much more interesting than either of these interpretations, and warrants its own entry in our list. For examples of flow that might be called “games”, I might cite bouncing a ball repeated off a wall or flinging cards at a hat. While these activities do involve learning a skill, I think the fact that it is a worthless skill might be indicative of something else going on.

What Makes a Game Fun? A Summary

We’ve heard from some of the most recognized experts on the subject (hopefully I haven’t abbreviated their voices unfairly), done some paring for utility, and here’s our working list of features that make games fun:

1. Learning / Challenge / Discovery

2. Role Playing / Expression

3. Competition

4. Fellowship

5. Fantasy / Narrative

6. Emotion

7. Flow

Before moving on, I’d like to do a little editing — nothing serious, just some renaming and a little shifting of shared similarities. I’ll include my reasons below for anyone who cares to argue.

Final List:

1. Growth

2. Choice

3. Competition

4. Identity

5. Story

6. Emotion

7. Flow

We now have a list of aspects that make games fun. I believe any proposed addition can be categorized under one or more of these seven. If it can’t, I’m more than willing to add another entry (or acknowledge and dismiss it, like sensation).

If we take the word “game” to be defined as: an activity engaged in for the pursuit of fun (and this is basically how the dictionary defines it), I think we’re ready to move on with our analysis of gamification.

In further articles, I will address each of the aspects on our list, what they might look like independent from the rest and how they might be used in a context outside of traditional gaming. Given the breadth of the content, I won’t be able to go into exacting detail, but I hope to cover each enough to set a trajectory towards further constructive thought.

How I Arrived At the List

For our first entry, we already have three proposed names: learning, challenge, and discovery. I would like to propose a fourth to represent them all: growth. Growth conveys an unequivocal sense of going somewhere, improving on a previous state.

What I prefer about “growth” is that it cuts more directly to the center of the desired experience than the others; I might be learning something, but not feeling as if it’s progressing towards any useful end. I might be challenged, but resent it as an unnecessary or pointless obstacle. I might discover something, but feel it to be irrelevant. Only growth clearly conveys both personal development and a positive experience.

Once you filter out the concept of story (covered under fantasy and narrative), role playing and expression are actually very similar. They describe an opportunity to assert the values that make you who you are and the freedom to try out new values without judgment. This seems to convey two things: identity and choice. Identity is important, but it’s already been covered elsewhere on the list (see below). That leaves us with choice, or autonomy, which is important enough to warrant an entry of its own.

Fellowship is a funny word that can’t help but conjure up images of Hobbits. What we’re really talking about here is a sense of belonging — a role, or place, in a social context. Nothing seems to describe it better than identity. I know who I am, and so does everyone else. While fellowship implies a purely friendly social relationship, friendship may be too specific — it’s probably safe to say almost everyone desires a sense of identity, but not everyone craves harmony and alliance.

For fantasy / narrative, as I mentioned earlier, these two respectively describe the premise and events of a Story. “Narrative” is a probably the more inclusive of the two, but yet seems too cold to properly convey the fun feeling of getting wrapped up in an engaging story. The users call it “story”, and I feel it makes the most sense to do the same.(source:gamasutra


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