作者：Mike Rose

长久以来，游戏行业就太痴迷于平台和商业模式，以至于忘记了电子游戏到底是什么——享受创造游戏的乐趣和激情。DICE公司的Karl Magnus Troedsson如是说。

Troedsson是《Battlefield》开发商DICE总经理。他在GDC欧洲会议上提出“为什么我们这么痴迷于这些无聊的东西呢？”为什么我们常常讨论哪个平台比其他的好，什么商业模式会占优势？

Troedsson指出：“商业模式和平台总是在变化，如果我们做出好游戏，无论怎么变，我们都能生存下来。”

当然，你不能简单地忽略所有商业会谈，毕竟保持绩效曲线的上升总是很重要的。然而，“乐趣才是成功开始的地方。”

DICE的核心价值：质量、创意和乐趣

DICE本身有三个主要的关注点：质量、创意和乐趣。这是帮助他们保持前进方向的核心价值。Troedsson补充道：“找到你的关注点并坚持它极其重要。市场太分化了，没有办法兼顾太多不同的东西。”

说到质量，开发商有可能高估了某件产品，试图在上面添加太多东西，以至于忽视了乐趣元素，在发行以前不能适当地修饰游戏。

Troedsson认为：“《Battlefield 1942》就是一个活教材。”DICE试图在游戏中添加太多交通工具、大型场景、大量不同的场景等。虽然游戏仍然很有趣，但那时确实尝试过头了。

对开发商来说，创新也是一块可以协调的区域。“创意是一个热门词”，但这个词到底指什么，没什么比它更不明确的东西了。

battlefield-1942(from ppblogs)

许多人都痛惜“续作”，认为对同一款游戏翻来覆去地开发制作不是真正的创新。Troedsson却认为，对于不理解创新到底是什么的人来说，这是“站不住脚的论断”。

“不一定非要有什么大变化。创意有不同的程度，这取决于你的落脚点。”例如，在《Battlefield》中加入奖章，可能算不上什么重大的进步，但对于许多了解这一系列游戏的玩家来说，这就是创新。

《Bad Company》中的场景破坏是DICE在FPS领域创新的另一个例子。创造这些环境“是很让人头疼的”。但它改变了玩家游戏的方式。Troedsson笑道：“你不再以静止的角度看房子了——如果我要穿过房子，我会在房子上打个洞再钻过去。”

随着游戏质量的提高，创新必须达到合理的程度。Troedsson认为，如果你在游戏中添加太多创新元素，你就没有时间修饰游戏，也无法保证游戏的品质了。

电子游戏开发的最后一个关键元素是乐趣——这个话题在DICE公司尚无定论。Troedsson表示，“乐趣”这个词的含义相当模糊，他的工作室现在更倾向于使用“激情”。

Troedsson总结道：“开发游戏并不总是有乐趣的——这是一段流血流汗流泪的奋斗历程。”但如果你对自己的游戏充满激情，玩家们会看到你的努力和付出。（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）

Why are we so obsessed with the boring parts of game development?

by Mike Rose

The industry has become far too obsessed with platforms and business models, to the point where we’ve started to forget what video games are actually about — having fun and feeling passion for what we create, says DICE’s Karl Magnus Troedsson.

“Why are we so obsessed with the boring parts?” asked Troedsson, general manager at Battlefield developer DICE, as part of a talk at GDC Europe this morning. Why do we so often discuss which platforms will cannabilize others and which business models will prevail?

“Business models and platforms come and go,” noted Troedsson. “If we make great games, we will survive all the different transitions.”

Of course, you can’t simply ignore all the business talk, and keeping ahead of the curve is always important. However, says the DICE GM, “fun is where it really starts.”
DICE’s core values: Quality, innovation and funDICE itself has three main focuses which it believes helps to keep this direction: Quality, innovation and fun. “It’s so crucial to find your focus and stay true to it,” he adds. “The market is too fragmented to do a lot of different things.”

When it comes to the quality, for example, it’s possible to over-scope a product and try to do too much, overshadowing the fun elements and not allowing your company to properly polish the title before launch.

“Battlefield 1942 was a textbook example of over-scoping,” notes Troedsson as, at the time, DICE tried to add too many vehicles, large environments, lots of different environments and 64 player online. While the game turned out to be enjoyable, it was far too much to attempt at the time.

Innovation, too, is an area that can be a balancing act for developers. “Innovation is a bit of a buzzword”, he says, noting that it’s a little unclear on what exactly the word refers to.

Many people, for example, lament “sequelitis” and say that bringing out iteration after iteration of a franchise is not true innovation. This, argues the DICE man, is “a cop-out argument” from people who don’t understand exactly what innovation entails.

“It doesn’t have to be a radical change,” he says. “There are different levels of innovation, and it depends on where you sit.” The inclusion of medals in the Battlefield franchise, for example, may not appear to be a huge step forward, but for many players who understand the series, it feels that way.

The environment destruction in Bad Company is another example of where DICE has applied innovation to the FPS space, says Troedsson. Creating these environments “was a pain in the ass”, he laughed, but it changed how people played the game. “You don’t look at a house in a static way anymore — I’ll just make a hole in the house and go through instead.”

And yet, as with boosting the quality of your game, innovation needs to be of reasonable levels. If you push too many innovative elements into your titles, says the GM, you simply won’t have time to polish your game and make it of good quality.

The final key element to video game development — fun — is a topic that is currently in flux at DICE right now. The word “fun” has become rather ambiguous at the company, says Troedsson, and his studio now leans more towards the word “passion.”

“Development isn’t always fun — there are blood, sweat and tears,” he says. But if you are passionate about your game, that will show through and customers will see that you care.(source:gamasutra)