作者：Tristan Donovan

如果游戏开发中有某个角色声称可以整合项目制作的各个部分，那便是制作人。制作人的职责是引导项目开发、管理工作流程、保持所有事情稳步发展。然而，虽然他是游戏开发过程中的既定部分，但却不具有固定性。

有些制作人在工作室中辛苦劳作，处理项目中的日常任务，至少在较小型的工作室中，他们常常需要加入项目开发，而不是纯粹地催促开发进程。而有些制作人则需为发行商效力，监督外部工作室的开发进度。

网络游戏开发商Bigpoint外部制作人Thorsten Stein表示：“外部制作人与内部制作人的主要区别是，外部制作人的团队位于公司外部，相比内部团队，他对这些外部成员行使的权利更少。”

多人在线游戏专家RedBedlam制作主管Steve Finn指出，无论制作人在哪工作，其核心职责都是管理项目。“只要制定一张甘特图，遵循‘在哪个时间进行哪些任务’，这样就可以减少团队成员执行某个任务的时间。”

他表示：“制作人的大部分工作便是管理员工。在办公室内，你要扮演父亲与母亲这双重角色，而在业务洽谈时，你应保护自己的团队，并尽量满足客户的需求。”

由于制作人常常是游戏运营与创意之间的连接桥梁，因此他们需要解决来自各个方面的压力。

Cartoon Network Digital高级制作人Jeff Riggall提到：“那是巨大压力。团队成员都对你寄予厚望，如果你无法立刻做出一些实效行为，或者项目进程稍稍有点落后，那么你就会感受到压力。”

“另外，追求开发成果的高层人士也会给你造成压力，逼迫你理清头绪。制作人属于独特群体，他们可以承受任何压力环境，保持平静心态。”

因此，制作人应采取哪些步骤保持事情稳定进展，同时缓解工作压力呢？为此Riggall、Stein、Finn与澳大利亚世嘉工作室Darius Sadeghian提供了一些建议。

game producer(from gamerzpedia.com)

1.广泛涉猎

MMO游戏《消失的墨迹》英国开发商RedBedlam制作主管Steve Finn指出：“如果你曾在车间工作过，那么这种经历具有一些作用，否则人们会认为‘他又知道什么呢？’”

“我目前工作的最大优势之一便是，在启动项目时，我必须着手进行一些属于团队成员工作范畴的琐事，因为当时没有人可以抽空做这些事情。所以，我绘制了一些3D图画、2D图画、UI设计、编程，我只做其中的一小部分。”

“那只是一小部分，毕竟我不是一个美工或者程序员，但如果你想指导他人按照你的思路执行某些任务，或多或少理解行话、他们的工作范畴以及所面对的挑战实则具有一定优势。”

2.抽空创建游戏原型

Cartoon Network Digital高级游戏制作人Jeff Riggall指出，原型创建是游戏开发的基础，开发者们不能忽视这一步骤——即使开发周期十分短暂。

他指出：“至少，比起盲目从事项目，期望成果符合自己的设想，快速创建出具备核心功能的游戏原型具有一定作用。比如，《Dreamworks’ Dragons: Wild Skies 》的开发周期并不长，只需6-7个月的时间。但我们必须创造一些飞行物体与QiuckTime系列的原型，因为这是检查项目可行性的唯一途径。你可能没有时间创建原型，但作为制作人，你确实需要挤出时间执行这个步骤。”

3.了解外部合作伙伴

当制作人负责发行领域时，同外部工作室建立联系是他们重要的职责范围。网络游戏发行商Bigpoint外部制作人Thorsten Stein表示：“与外部伙伴合作时，经常沟通是其中一个关键部分，因为你并不了解这个团队，因此你很难预测可能出现的问题。”

“当我与韩国合作伙伴开发《Maestia》时，每天，我们都会通过Skype进行交流。由于时差问题，我们仅能利用早上的4个小时讨论开放性问题，但当我们都在休息时，我们仍能知晓对方的想法。”

他补充道：“访问外部工作室也十分重要。如果能够面对面打交道，那就能够降低我们之间的合作难度，如我同事所言，应时常在洗手间碰面——如果制作人无法正确维护自己与伙伴的关系，那他可能会在其它领域失去他们的支持。”

4.制定决策

Riggall指出：“作为制作人，你必须制定决策。有时会是正确的决定，有时会是错误的，但无论结果如何，你都必须做出决定。如果由于事情发生变化或者决策错误，你需要重新作出调整时，着手执行吧，但你应保持项目稳定进展，制定决策，然后推动它们向前发展。”

澳大利亚世嘉工作室高级制作人Darius Sadeghian对此表示赞同，他指出：“制作人也会犯错。我就犯过不少错误，但重要的是能够承认错误，改正，而后继续尝试。如果你发觉自己犯了一个错误，向团队坦白，不得已的情况下可以暂停工作进程，或者转变发展方向。”

5.展示与汇报

Sadeghian表示，定期举行“展示与汇报”会议是保持大型团队开发进程稳步进展的重要途径。他指出：“你应保证团队成员十分清楚奋斗目标与游戏的核心支柱。有时候我们很容易忽视整个项目的视角与目标，只关注其中的特定事件。”

“我们拥有大批员工，有时多达85人——而且我发现，越多的团队成员会催生出更多的独特视角，从而会分裂一些开发过程。因此，我们应利用更多的‘展示与汇报’会议，重新设定游戏的开发视角。”

“你可以每周五定期举行一次展示与汇报会议，然后告知‘嘿，伙计们，这是我们将着手执行的项目与奋斗目标’。这确实是提醒自己与团队成员发展目标的不错方式，同时可以将他们引向开发方向。”

6.多种解决方案

RedBedlam的Finn指出，我们有许多解决问题的办法。“有时，程序员可能会利用程序方法让自己走出困境，有时，你可能需要像我这种压根不了解程序问题的人出现在团队中，说道‘好吧，我们应放下这个问题’。”

其中一个例子当数开发《dPals》（游戏邦注：这是RedBedlam为History & Heraldy创建的适合8-13岁女孩的虚拟社交世界）HTML5版本的过程。Finn指出：“当前版本的角色会在闪光灯下翩翩起舞。为了在HTML5版本中再次实现这种效果，我们不得不重新绘制动画，而投入的巨资却得到十分难看的画面，由于我们已在其中倾尽全力，因此孩子们在第一次看到这个画面会发现‘还可以’。”

“我们投入大量时间考虑如何转变这些旧式资产，然后我突然意识到我们根本不需要这样做。我们应告诉客户，我们可以耗费数年时间尝试这种做法，但我们真正需要的是创建一个跳舞机制，让好友定期聚集在一块跳舞，那么为何我们不尝试这种做法呢？当我将此告诉客户时，他们答道：‘哦，是的。这是个不错的创意。我们的看法不谋而合了。’”

7.不要唯唯诺诺

Cartoon Network的Riggall表示，制作人不该唯唯诺诺；他应避免赞同客户或高级主管传送的每个创意。

“你应该表示‘我们应就此想法讨论下’，而不是采纳这个创意，表示认同，然后着手执行。你应向他们解释为何有些事情应这样做，或者表明自己的看法，提出自己认为更棒的创意——因为你的建议2天后便能见效，而他们的想法可能需要3周时间。重要的是，与他们进行这类对话，不要成为一个唯唯诺诺的制作人。”

8.具备敏捷性

同许多工作室一样，澳大利亚世嘉工作室在开发《London 2012》时也尝试采用敏捷项目管理方案。Sadeghian表示：“我经常陷入一种困境，我想在游戏中实现大量事件，由于授权的众多限制，我们无法灵活地制作游戏内容，设定时间表——那我们该怎么做呢？”

“我们采用的混合型敏捷方案可以解决这一难题，我们利用跨专业团队，首先得到了一些更加复杂的事件，然后我们测试这些事件，并与其它事件进行对比，预先设定它们是否可以与游戏恰当匹配。”

“我不能以能够正确利用敏捷方法处理任何事情而将自己定义为敏捷团队，但我们会选择可行事件，而这为我们团队创造了更多交流机会，因为他们属于跨专业的成员。而且由于我们采用Sprint会议，它具有更大的生产力，且成效显著。”

9.永不放弃

Riggall指出：“如果你不确定某事，那么你应弄清楚，或者咨询专业人士。如果你不理解工程师所阐述的为何某件事无法进行，那么你应与他坐下来，让他以你能够完全理解的方式解释一遍。不要忽略问题，然后告诉高层领导：‘他说他已经在寻找解决方案了，但还没找到，我们会继续努力’。这是他们最不想听到的答案。”

“你应当理解问题所在，那么你就清楚该如何提供帮助，因此你可能会：‘我发现你遇到了问题，虽然我并非百分之百清楚发生了什么，但我认为这与另一位工程师从事的任务有关，我可以把你们召集在一块，对此进行交流。’”

10.建立并保持工作流程

Bigpoint的Stein表示，早点建立工作流程具有重要性，我们应让所有成员参与到游戏的开发过程中，保证他们不会遗漏任何一个流程。他指出：“在设定最后一个工作流程前，有时，有些项目可能会长时处于“滞留”状态，因为我们必须找到外部工作室中可以抽空评估某些方面提议的正确人员。”通过设定清晰的工作流程，为每个员工分配不同的任务，“现在，我们鲜少见到延迟现象。”（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）

10 Tips: Increasing the Effectiveness of Producers

by Tristan Donovan

If any single role in game development could lay claim to being the glue holding projects together, it’s that of the producer. It’s the producers’ job to steer the project, manage workflows and generally work to keep everything on track. But while producers are an established part of game development process, it is a role that is far from fixed.

Some producers toil away within development studios, handling the daily task of managing a project and — in smaller studios at least — often getting involved with work that goes beyond the tighter remit of simply producing a game. Others work for publishers, overseeing the games being developed by external studios.

“The main difference between an external and an internal producer is that the team of an external producer sits outside of the company and that he nearly always has less authority over them than with internal teams,” says Thorsten Stein, an external producer at online game publisher Bigpoint.

Regardless of where they work, project management is a core part of the producer’s job but, says Steve Finn, head of production at online multiplayer specialists RedBedlam, “just coming up with a Gantt chart and going ‘there you are, that’s that done’ reduces the role down to one of time keeping.”"

A lot of the job is managing people,” he says. “In the office environment you’re a combination between mum and dad, and in the business environment you are very protective of your team, and trying to make the client as happy as possible.”

Since producers are often the bridge between the business and creative sides of game development, producers need to be able to cope with stress from all angles.

“It can be super stressful,” says Jeff Riggall, senior games producer at Cartoon Network Digital. “You’ve got the team members that are looking to you, and if you don’t have something you can do right away or if things are falling behind you’ve got that stress.

“On top of that, you’ve got people that are higher than you who are looking for results and that pressure coming down on you too to figure things out. Producers are a unique type of individual that can take those stressful situations and not blow up.”

So what steps can producers take to keep things moving along and ease that pressure? Gamasutra asked Riggall, Stein, Finn and Sega Studios Australia’s Darius Sadeghian for their top tips for producers.

1. Know a little about a lot

“It helps if you’ve had experience on the shop floor, because otherwise people think ‘Well, what does he know?’” says Steve Finn, head of production at RedBedlam, the British developer behind MMO The Missing Ink.

“One of the greatest advantages in coming into my current job was that I had to do some of the pieces of work that ultimately ended up being my team’s role when we started because there was no one else at the time to do it. So I did some 3D art, some 2D art, some UI design, some programming, a bit of all of it.

“Most of it was balls, of course, because I’m by no means an artist or programmer — but if you want to instruct someone on what you would like them to do, it’s good to have even a smidgen of understanding of the lingo, what they do, and the challenges they come up against.”

2. Make time to prototype

Prototyping is a game development basic, but it’s something that cannot be neglected — even when development cycles are short, says Jeff Riggall, senior games producer at Cartoon Network Digital.

“It helps tremendously to at least do a quick prototype of your core features rather than going in blind and hoping something is going to work the way you want,” he says. “With Dreamworks’ Dragons: Wild Skies we didn’t have long. It was a six to seven month development cycle. But we had to prototype some of the flight stuff and QuickTime sequences because it was the only way to see if it was going to work the way we wanted it to. You might not have much time to do it, but as a producer you’ve really, truly got to squeeze it in.”

3. Get to know external partners

When working as the producer on the publishing side, building relationships with the external development studio is a crucial part of the job. “When working with an external partner, constant communication is one of the key aspects, because you have no insights into the team so it is difficult to anticipate problems,” says Thorsten Stein, an external producer at online games publisher Bigpoint.

“When I worked with our Korean partner on Maestia, we maintained communication via Skype on a daily basis. Due to the time difference, we only had about four hours in the morning to discuss any open issues, but we were able to catch up on anything that had come up while either of us were not at work.”

Visiting external studios is also vital, he adds: “It is much easier to work together when you can pin a face to the voice and, as one of my colleagues would say, always take a look in the restrooms — a partner that is not able to maintain them properly might also be lacking in other areas.”

4. Make decisions and own them

“As a producer, you’ve got to make decisions,” says Riggall. “Sometimes you’ll be right, sometimes you’ll be wrong, but you’ve got to make decisions. If you’ve got to go back and make changes because something’s changed or you made the wrong decision, so be it, but you have got to keep things moving, make decisions, and drive things forward.”

Darius Sadeghian, senior producer at Sega Studios Australia, creators of London 2012: The Official Video Game, agrees. “Producers can make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes, and admitting them to yourself, and amending, and moving on is really important. If you feel you’ve made a mistake, be honest with your team and halt work or move in a better direction if you have to. I’ve found that it is good to say when you’ve made a bad call.”

5. Keep on track with show and tell

Regular “show and tell” meetings are an important way to keep the development process on track with larger teams, says Sadeghian. “It’s important to make sure that your team is always aware of what you’re trying to aim for, and what are the core pillars of your game,” he says. “With London 2012, it was really easy sometimes to get focused on specific events and lose sight of the overall project vision and goals.

“We had a lot of staff — sometimes as many as 85 people — and I started to notice that the more people you had, the more they started to find their own personal vision for the game, which started to fragment some of the development. So we introduced more ‘show and tells’ as a way of re-establishing the vision of the game.

“You’d have a show and tell every Friday and go, ‘Hey guys, this is what we’re going to be doing and what we’re aiming for’. That was a really good way of reminding yourself and the team of the goals and that steered it back to where it needed to go.”

6. Solutions come in many guises

There are always other ways of solving problems, says RedBedlam’s Finn. “Sometimes a programmer might want to think of a programmatic way of getting themselves out of a cul-de-sac they’re in, and sometimes you need an idiot like me who doesn’t understand half of these programmatical problems to come along and just say ‘Well, we’ll drop it then.’”

One example of this was during the on-going development of a new HTML5 version of dPals, the virtual social world for eight- to 13-year-old girls RedBedlam created for History & Heraldy.

“The characters in the current version have dance moves that are all done in Flash. In order to animate those again in HTML5, we would have to do all the animations again, and it becomes really ugly from an expense point of view, because it uses up a lot of hours doing something that once the kids have seen the animation once is a bit ‘meh,’” says Finn.

“We spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to convert the old assets, and then I had the sudden realization that we don’t need this. What we needed to do was talk to the client and tell them that we can spend ages trying to do this, but what we really want to do is have a dancing mechanic where friends can put together a dance routine — so why don’t we do that and bin this? When I spoke to the client they said: ‘Oh yeah. That’s a good idea. We’ve been thinking the same thing.’”

7. Don’t be a yes-man

Producers shouldn’t be yes-men; avoid agreeing to deliver every idea fed down from the client or senior managers, says Cartoon Network’s Riggall.

“You should say ‘Let me talk with you about this’, not just take it, say yes, and run with it. Explain the reasons why something was done the way it was, or talk about ideas you might have, and what you think is better — because your suggestion might be a two-day turnaround, while their idea might be a three-week turnaround. Being able to have that type of dialogue and not be a yes-producer is important.”

8. Add at least a sprinkling of Agile

In common with many studios, Sega Studios Australia experimented with the ideas of the Agile project management approach on London 2012. “I was constantly in the dilemma that we have X number of events to deliver, the license requires so much that there isn’t much flexibility in the content or timescale — so how do we do this?” says Sadeghian.

“We took a hybrid Agile approach that really worked well for us, where we used cross-discipline teams, got more complicated events out first, and benchmarked those compared to other events to pre-plan whether we can get it all fitting together correctly.

“I wouldn’t say we were an Agile team in terms of doing everything Agile does correctly, but we picked what we felt worked, and it created more communication within the team because we had them in cross-discipline teams. And because we were using sprint meetings, it just felt like there was a bit more productivity, and it worked pretty well.”

9. Don’t let anything go

“If you’re not certain about something, go figure it out, or ask that question,” says Riggall. “If you didn’t understand something an engineer was saying about why something was not working, sit down with him and get him to explain it in a way that means you completely understand it. Don’t just let it go and say ‘Well, he said he was looking and couldn’t find it, and we’re trying’. That’s not an answer senior leadership want to hear.

“You need to understand what it is, so you can understand how to help, and that might be you going, ‘I see you’re having this issue, and I don’t know 100 percent what’s going on, but I do think it is tied to this other thing that this other engineer is working on, so let me get you guys together and chat.’”

10. Establish a workflow and stick to it

It is important to establish a workflow early on, and get everyone involved in the development of the game to commit to not bypassing it, says Bigpoint’s Stein. “Before we has established the final workflow, projects were sometimes ‘laying around’ for quite some time, because we had to get hold of the right person within the external studio, who had to find the time to evaluate certain aspects of the proposal,” he says. By setting out a clear workflow and assigning individual personnel to different tasks “these delays are much more infrequent now”.(source:gamasutra)