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Chris Bennett谈游戏在非娱乐领域的运用

发布时间:2012-12-04 15:58:08 Tags:,,,

今天,我们有幸采访了深入探索游戏层,并将游戏技术、平台与机制运用到非娱乐领域的设计师Chris Bennett。以下是我们的访谈内容。

Chris,作为制作人兼设计师,你拥有EA、Digital Chocolate、Playfirst与其它游戏工作室工作背景,并且已在游戏开发领域开拓自己的领地,成为引导设计师向移动平台与社交游戏转变的先锋。那么,在你制作的所有游戏中,你是否有自己的钟爱之作呢?

《Message in a Garden》这款游戏便可以体现我对游戏制作的热爱,它主要涉及人类之间的联系。该游戏最早由Digital Chocolate于2004年推出。回想那段日子:苹果App Store尚未问世,Facebook还只是高校社交网络,智能手机还未出现。《Message in a Garden》是一款包含社交元素的花园模拟游戏——你可以分享来自Burpee种子目录的真实植物图片,享受游戏中的欢快节奏。如果按照我们的现在水平,该游戏极其简单。

但那时,它极大地改变了运营商销售手机内容的方式。而且我们发现,游戏节奏与图片分享能够保持玩家的兴奋感。

这让我想起了Linkedln的新特性,即你可以借此支持他人的特定技能。我十分好奇它于上周推出的新特性。在深入了解之前,我花费15分钟时间评价他人技能。该节奏十分合理,使用方法也特别有趣。他们可能并没有这种打算,但他们却将其制作成了游戏。而后它发挥作用。吻合商业人士对网络粘性与互动性方面的要求,对用户而言,它具有趣味性与实用性。我会想:“已经有9个人支持我的功能,它应该十分出色。”

video game(from opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)

video game(from opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com)

在你个人喜爱的所有游戏中,其中是否存在某些吸引你的元素?

我喜欢通过游戏与其他玩家结合。以前,我是个极客,我喜爱“单兵作战”,独自阅读书籍与杂志。后来,通过早期基于文本的网络,我发现了其它用户。此后,我频频通过网络与他们联系,现在则通过游戏。

最近,你还会从事一些非娱乐公司的业务与设计顾问事宜,帮助他们利用游戏技术与机制效应。目前,你主要从事哪类项目?

我的一半精力是在开发游戏,另一半则投入到游戏层领域,你会发现,现在教育技术与保健公司暗含大量有趣元素。某家教育技术公司正试图将游戏层添加到学习过程中,以备SAT或GRE这类大型考试。他们拥有一个在问题服务方面表现出色的引擎,但人们在学习几小时后,却纷纷离开。他们需要建立一个更棒的体验。而我们的任务是提高用户粘性,吸引学生的注意力。

我们并未因此构造游戏,但我们会引用游戏中的关键因素,即任务与叙述模式,而且我们总会向学生提供一些有用的微小信息,让他们选择自己接下来的目标。所有这些元素有助于提高学生的参与度与成就感。你可以借此实现任何目标:比如减掉20磅、首次奔跑5000米、通过测试。游戏并非单指愤怒小鸟类型。它可以是设计出激励用户粘性的体验模式,以此获得商业利益。

如果客户并不熟悉游戏,也从未体验游戏,对此你该怎么定义目标?你该如何向这些非玩家客户解释游戏效应与社交机制?

几年前,我开始认识到玩与游戏的力量。我无意中听到某位中年妇女称道:“我不是玩家,我只是喜欢玩《FarmVile》。”玩家们表示,社交游戏并非真正的游戏,而社交游戏用户则指出他们并非玩家。我们暂且称他们为非玩家用户。这仍是个巨大市场。好比那些跑步但不喜欢被定义为跑步者的人们。在锻炼身体时,我并非真正的举重运动员,而只是在健身房举重的锻炼者。即使我们执行同一事项,我们仍在体验方式、留存量以及活动节奏方面存在差异。

游戏层并非指将产品制成游戏。而且将其分解为各个组件与体验模式。每款糟糕游戏都会包含某些有趣成分。而每款顶级作品也会暗含一些差错。我们需分解游戏体验,理解造就其出色与影响力的原因,而后借此重造更加强大的游戏体验。

《魔兽世界》可谓是《无尽的任务》的完善与先进版本,而其3D版本则改造于基于文本模式的MUD机制《网络创世纪》的2D版,后者是我在20年前曾经潜入大学服务器体验的游戏。

对许多人们而言,《魔兽世界》的有趣之处在于,他们总能从中获得并掌握某些事物,而且可以与其他玩家共同体验。我不必了解合作者在现实生活中的身份,便能感受到快乐,并与他们联系。而这是当你与其它用户结合时发生的奇迹效果。

哪类公司或领域首先采用这种方式?为什么?

目前,保健方面属于重大领域。其推出的Nike Plus与Fitbit机制均取得成功,Zamzee这类公司也战胜了儿童肥胖问题。保健领域十分适合游戏层运用,因为人们拥有大量相关愿景与目标。他们渴望瘦身、变得更加强壮、快速与健康。

比如Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab中BJ Fogg对婴儿阶段与小习惯效应的研究。他与团队正在寻找能按照人们需求改变他们生活的方法。步骤基本一致,必要事项也完全一样,但他致力于帮助人们从这些微小的强大步骤中找到意义。

最终,我们发现了吸引人们玩游戏与参与的巨大能量——叙述方式。当你观看电影时,那是一则故事、你希望成为故事中的一角。游戏也是如此,但你需要创作自己的故事,并与之互动。儿童在水池内玩塑料剑——这便是则故事,也许可以是《星球大战》系列中的某个插曲。玩游戏可以集中我们的注意力,平静我们的心态。

游戏可以将我们彼此结合。当我效力于PlayFirst工作室,制作《Diner Dash》时,我们在电脑上发起了一场活动,以此吸引人们体验游戏。在此,我发现某个小女孩的体验方式。她刚够操纵控制器的年纪,她的母亲则在一旁帮她制定策略。另外,还有一位老年妇女坐在她们后面,什么也没做,只是鼓励着自己的外孙女。看着三代人从各自视角共同体验游戏,以此互相结合。这对我而言意味深长。

diner-dash(from download-game-demo.com)

diner-dash(from download-game-demo.com)

在设计游戏时,我尤为注重社交结合。制作所有人都喜爱的游戏存在难度,如同在酒吧与好友共同观看比赛——这是一种不错的体验方式,但我们难以聚集负有家庭责任的大忙人。其实,多数情况下,我仍在尽力重造那种社交结合感。

你是否与商业客户探讨过游戏的趣味性?

我十分乐意讨论这方面话题。但坦白讲,大部分客户均以实现商业目的为主。因此,我必须谈论这方面问题,解决他们的担忧,找出向前发展的关键指标,而后以此为目标。

你的客户主要面临哪些商业问题?这是否具有一定模式,或共同主题?还是每次情况都不一样?

一般都是用户粘性与留存率方面的问题,既如何让用户回到游戏进程并继续体验。我建议,开发者不要根据用户目前情况制作游戏。首先,他们应认识到制作一款杰出游戏十分困难。如果之后,你还在努力实现用户粘性、教育或保健指标,那么制作难度会相应提高。

相反,我会追溯他们正在进行的事项,比如准备测试、编写新故事。我会以学生视角出发。因此,我的真正目标与主要动机是什么?如果我是学生,现在我肯定处在糟糕状态,压力巨大地努力朝理想大学奋进。如果我没有在测试中获得优异成绩,父母会感到失望,朋友会嘲笑我,而我也只能选择备选学校,而不是理想的学校。

为此,我的想法是:“我该如何创造出让孩子为理想大学奋战的体验模式呢?激励他们做到最好?”我们应当把其测试准备行动与实际目标结合起来。比如,当他们解答完所有问题后,仪器能够预测他们实际的SAT分数。借此,我们可以警醒学生他与预期目标的差距。也许你还达不到“安全”学校的要求,因此,你应多加努力,提高自身要求,符合备选学校的需求。不久之后,你会开始向理想目标进军。同时你还需考虑到,考试准备阶段十分枯燥,但其暗藏着深远意义与影响。利用相应的测量尺度,学生可以看清自己与目标的距离,并进行某些完善。在此,我只是利用叙述模式,影响孩子为自己理想所付出的行动,比如进入大学。并展示出我们如何通过改变叙述模式,取得更棒效果。

你是一位能够考虑到商业与设计双重方面的设计师。那么你是如何将设计问题转变为商业策略,又是如何利用设计开发业务要点?我们知道,大部分成功作品与游戏层运用都能把握利益与设计方面的平衡与融合,对此你有何见解?

大型的社交游戏公司一般均知道如何解决这类问题。他们的团队都会包含游戏设计师与关注病毒传播与盈利渠道的产品经理。我会考虑到这两个方面,但小型公司并不具备成立这种双重团队的人才,因此,我会在业务指标与项目管理上提供帮助。我们会设置一个成功标准——比如获得100万个DAU,可以指下载量或转化率方面。接着,我们会测试该目标是否现实、能否可行、可否改进。同时,我也会辅助项目管理,找寻发展轨迹,实现他们的设计与商业目标。

趣味性是一个很有压力的词汇,通常我们在首次执行项目时并不会以此为目标。客户的目标是盈利,而不是游戏的趣味性。一开始我们会注重商业方面。一旦我们设立这些目标,我便会与他们分享相关经验与成果。

我并不是要他们以此构造游戏,而是通过剖析目标与当前经验,达到目标。以上便是游戏创意、故事情节与真正体验的来源。

在关注游戏行业时,你是否发现游戏设计、游戏界面或游戏技术存在某些有趣的新趋势?

目前,移动平台的最大变革当属免费游戏市场的兴起。iOS平台、App Store与其出色产品的结合是游戏领域的重大转折点。当我们目睹这些移动游戏扩展到TV领域(游戏邦注:比如苹果TV与Ouya设备),我们能够明确,自己确实拥有在PC与主机之间体验应用的真正交叉功能。我十分幸运自己曾在1995年帮助EA在Sony PlayStation平台首次发行游戏。但我会告诉你,现在我不会选择该平台。

另一有趣领域是Kickstarter与Indiegogo这些公司的集资现象。他们正在支持一种全新类型的游戏,有点类似免费模式。无论粉丝支付多少费用,他们都可以支持自己在意的目标。这种多层次集资模式与扩展目标理念包含了一些游戏层元素。我曾与有过在Kickstarter成功融资的项目成员合作,他们确实为游戏培养了可观的用户基础,而如果采用传统开发方式,这些游戏根本不可能获得融资。你不需要100万个用户,你只需1万或500个。这非常有效!

目前,社交游戏正在走下坡路,但可以回想一下雅达利在盒装游戏时代的没落情景,社交游戏领域依然在继续前行。只是它们跳入了另一个平台,继续制作游戏。然而,社交网络也有成功和失败。从来没有人可以在某个平台上聚集大量用户——但Facebook平台吸引了10亿用户。这是个惊人数目。人们可以随处体验游戏。但Facebook针对社交游戏的30%抽成总让开发商颇有怨言。可苹果也对开发商抽成30%,这两者有何区别?原因在于,人们普遍认为在iOS或Android平台开发游戏的成本相对较低。他们也逐渐了解该领域的生态系统,并且相比Facebook,他们较少在这些平台收到垃圾邮件。同时,他们渴望获取新用户。

不少独立开发商并未针对Facebook平台制作游戏,他们也没有投身于商业市场。现在,他们会利用iOS开发包或Android开发包制作游戏,而后自主发行游戏。他们并不会依赖Facebook平台,而是依靠自己的能力推广游戏。

假如让你畅想下未来。你能够预见未来的开发趋势吗?

Facebook对全球意识与文化的主要影响是,人们逐渐淡忘隐私问题。因此,不久以后,他们会将所有人引入我们在三年前可能无法接受的新时代。总之,我发现,Facebook正积极引领我们进入一个更开放社会。

如果我们将这种开放性引用到移动应用,或者让公司开放自己执行的项目,我可以预见其巨大潜力。人们希望开放性、透明化地工作,建立彼此之间的信任感,而后借此访问更多数据,帮助、鼓励他们。人人都希望成为部落的一员,他们并不希望单独解决问题。他们渴望得到帮助与联系。也许,我无法每天与你一起跑步,但我可以旁边给予鼓励。(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

Interview with Game Designer Chris Bennett: “Connect People. Design Experiences. Use Baby Steps. Just Don’t Put Game Lipstick on a Pig.”

Chris, with this series of interviews I am exploring the game layer, or the application of game technologies, platforms and mechanics to non-entertainment sectors, as well as leading edge thinking in game design and the digital game industry.  As a designer who bridges both worlds, your thoughts are particularly relevant, so I look forward to our conversation today.

Q.  Chris, you’ve had a great career in game development, as a producer and designer, with experience at Electronic Arts, Digital Chocolate, Playfirst and others, and you’ve been in the forefront of designers riding the shift to mobile platforms and social games.  Do you have a favorite game among those you worked on?
Message in a Garden, which is a microcosm of why I love making games because it’s about connecting people.   This game was early on, at Digital Chocolate back in 2004.  Think back to that time:  pre-Apple App store, Facebook still only on a dozen campuses, before the smartphone explosion.  Think of it as a garden simulator with social elements—you could share images of real plants from the Burpee seed catalogue—and a really lively cadence of play.  It seems like such a simple game by our standards now. But at the time it was a huge change from what the carriers were used to selling on their phones. We found the magic that keeps people excited through cadence of play and sharing the pictures.

It reminds me of the new LinkedIn feature where you endorse people for specific skills.  So it pops up last week and makes me curious.  Before I know it, I’ve spent fifteen minutes rating others.  The cadence was right.  It was just fun to use.  They may not have intended this, but they made it into a game.  And it works.  It fits their business need for more engagement and interaction on the site, and it’s fun and helpful for me as a user.  I can think “Hey! 9 people have endorsed me on this, so that’s kind of cool.”

Q. Of the games you enjoy personally, can you identify elements that make you enjoy the game?

I enjoy connecting people through play.  I was such a geek when I was young, engaged in “lonely play,” reading my books and magazines.  I discovered other people through the early text-based internet.  I began connecting people through the internet and now through games.

Q.  Recently you have also done a bit of business and design consulting to non-entertainment companies, helping them take advantage of the power of game technologies and game mechanics.

What kinds of projects are you working on now?

I probably do half my work on straight game development and half on the game layer.  You see a lot of interest in this right now from edu-tech companies and the health and wellness companies.  One edu-tech company was trying to add a game layer to the process of studying for big tests, like the SAT or the GRE.  They had a good engine for serving questions, but they were experiencing a huge drop off after only a few hours of study.   They needed a better experience.  Our mission was to increase engagement and capture the student’s attention.

We didn’t make it into a game, but we did pull in key elements from games.  Quests and a bit of narrative yes, but also always serving up something the student can work on, in bite-sized pieces, always giving the students a choice of what to work on next.  All this adds up to pushing the student to higher levels of engagement and achievement.  You can use these tools on any kind of goal:  losing 20 lbs, running your first 5k, passing your test.  A game doesn’t have to have angry birds hurled at pigs.  It’s about designing experiences that encourage engagement and the business results you are going for.

Q.  With your clients who are less familiar with games and do not game themselves, how do you define a game?  How do you explain the power of game and social mechanics to non-gamers?

Several years ago I had a realization about the power of play, versus a game.  I overheard a middle-aged lady saying, “Oh I’m not a gamer, I just like playing FarmVille.”  Gamers say social games are not really games.  Social game players say they are not gamers.  Okay, so let’s say they are not gamers.  They are still a huge market.  I compare it to people who run but don’t want to be called runners.  When I work out, I am not a serious weightlifter, but I am lifting weights just like the jocks who live there in the gym.  Our experiences, our intentions, our cadence of activity vary but we are still doing the same thing.

The game layer is not about making your product into a game.  It’s about breaking it down into components and experiences.  Every bad game has something interesting about it.  Every world-class game has something wrong with it.   It’s breaking experiences down and trying to understand what makes those things great, what makes them have impact and lets you rebuild it into something much stronger.

World of Warcraft is just a prettier and more-advanced version of Everquest which is a 3D version of Ultima Online which is just a 2D version of the text-based MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) that I used to sneak on university servers to play 20 years ago.

For many people, MMOs are fun because there is always something to achieve and master and you are doing it along with other people.  I didn’t necessarily know the people I played with in real life but it was fun, it was connecting people.  That’s when the magic happens, when you connect people.

Q.  What kinds of companies and sectors do you see adopting these approaches first?  Why?

Health and wellness is a big sector now.  The sector has had successes with Nike Plus and Fitbit, and companies like Zamzee that combat childhood obesity.  The health and wellness space is a great fit for game layer applications, as there are lots of aspirations and goals.  People want to lose the weight, get stronger, get faster, get more fit.

Take the Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab and look at the work BJ Fogg is doing on the power of baby steps and tiny habits.  He and his team are looking at getting people to make the changes they want to make in their lives. The steps are the same, what you have to do is the same, but what he’s doing is helping people find meaning in those small powerful steps.

And that finally steps us around to what I think is one of the great powers of play and engagement, which is narrative.  When you watch a movie, it’s a story, a narrative.  You want to be part of the story.  Play is the same thing, but you get to create your own story and interact with your story.  Kids playing with foam swords in the pool–they are embedded in a narrative, maybe an episode from the Star Wars series.  Play can focus us. Play can calm our minds.

And play connects us.  When I was at PlayFirst working on the Diner Dash franchise, we had computers laid out at an event so people could play the game.  I saw a little girl playing.  She was just barely old enough to manipulate the controls, and her mother helped her on the tactics.  An older woman stood behind them, not clicking, not participating, but just encouraging her granddaughter.  What I saw was three generations experiencing the play, each from their own lens, connected through a play experience I had helped create.  That meant a lot to me.

Social connection is a big focus when I design, doing something with other people.  It’s tough to create those together times we all enjoy, like watching a game with friends in a bar—it’s a great experience, but hard to put together for busy people with families and obligations.  Basically in many situations I am trying to recreate that social connection.

Q .  Do you talk about fun with your business clients?

I’m always happy to talk about fun.  But honestly, most of my clients are trying to reach a real business goal. So I need to speak their language and address their concerns, figure out the key metrics they want to move forward and then go from there.

Q.  What kinds of business problems are your clients trying to solve?  Any patterns or common themes or issues you see cropping up, or is each case pretty unique?

It’s almost always about either engagement or retention; about getting their customers or users to come back and continue.  I advise people not to make what they are doing into a game.

Making a great game is a terribly hard job to do in the first place.  If you then pile on the engagement or education or health and wellness metrics you are trying to achieve, you’ve made it even harder.

Instead, I go back to what they are doing, like the test prep product, and wrap a new narrative around it.   I put myself in the shoes of the student.  What is my real goal, my main motivation?  If I am the student, I am in an awful situation, very stressed out, trying to get into the college I want to get into.   If I don’t do well on the test, my parents will be disappointed, my friends will mock me and I will have to go to my backup school, not my dream school.

So I look at it and say, “How do I create an experience that gets kids to fight for their dream school, not just their safe school or their stretch school, but motivate them to go for the best?”  We need to connect the actions of their test prep to their real goals.  For example, as they work their way through the questions, the instrument can predict their actual SAT score.  We use that score as a wake-up call on how your performance relates to your shot of getting into a particular school.  Maybe you aren’t even scoring high enough to get into your “safe” school, so you do some work and nudge the measure up to high enough to get into your stretch school.  Pretty soon, you want to push that measure up all the way to your dream school.

Think about it.  There’s nothing fun about doing test prep, but there is a lot of meaning and impact there.  By using a measuring stick they relate to, students can see how a little improvement can really help them achieve their goals. What I try to do is reach a kid through the narrative that is already in their head, like one about getting into college. And show how we can change that narrative and make it better.

Q.  You are one of those hybrids who have the training and background to think through business issues as well as design issues.  How do you bring design into business decisions, and business concerns into design development?  We know there’s a balance and an integration between profit and design found by the most successful games and game layer applications, but do you have any tips on how to think through that balance and manage the tradeoffs?

If you look at the big social game companies, they know how to do what they know how to do.  They team a game designer with a product manager who focuses on virality and monetization.  I do both in my head, but smaller companies don’t have the people for that kind of dual team, so I help them think through business metrics and project management.  I work with them on a definition of success–a million DAUs, this many downloads, this percentage of conversion.  Then we take their goals and test for reality, for feasibility, for opportunities to make it better.  I help them on project management as well, figuring out the development path to meet their design and business goals.

Because fun is such a loaded word, we don’t typically use it much at first.  They want to reach a business goal, not a fun goal.  We focus first on the business.  Once we have those goals set, I speak with them about the experiences they want, the outcomes they want.  I tell them this process is not about making it into a game, but about breaking down their goals and building experiences that help them reach their goals.  And that’s where the creativity, the storytelling, the real experience of play comes in.

Q.  Focusing for a moment on the game industry itself, any emerging trends you find particularly interesting in game design, game interfaces or game technology?

Biggest thing happening right now is the free-to-play market in mobile games. The combination of iOS and the App Store and Apple’s amazing products has been a game changer. And when we see these mobile games expanding to the TV in products like Apple TV and the Ouya console, we will have true cross-app functionality that completely bypasses the PC and the major consoles. I was fortunate enough to work on one of EA’s first Sony PlayStation launch titles back in 1995. But I tell you, I would not want to be Sony Entertainment right now.

Another really interesting area is what’s happening in the games crowdfunding space with companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.  They are supporting a whole new kind of game.  It’s kind of like the free to play model.  A fan can pay a little or a lot to support a cause he or she cares about.  And the multiple levels of funding and the concept of stretch goals has some elements of the game layer right in there. I’ve worked with several people who have done successful Kickstarter campaigns, who really launched great communities to support their games, games that wouldn’t be funded in a traditional development deal.  You don’t need a million people, you need 10,000 people or maybe just the right 500 people.  It’s very empowering!

Social games are crashing now, but think about how Atari got overhyped and crashed back in their cartridge game days, but it went on.  They leapt onto the next platform and kept making games.  Social networks don’t have that yet.  You have failed social networks and successful social networks.  No one has ever put so many people on a platform–they’ve put a billion people on the Facebook platform.   It’s astounding.  People will go somewhere for their game experience.  People who used Facebook for their social games, well, developers got upset about Facebook taking 30%.  Apple takes 30%.  What’s the difference?  Now people say it is cheaper to develop on iOS or Android.  They are starting to understand the ecosystem better, they see less spam than on Facebook. They want to reach new audiences.

Lots of the indie developers–two guys in a garage–they aren’t making games for Facebook, they aren’t going for commercial markets at all.  Those people can take the iOS developer kit or an Android kit and publish their game now.  They aren’t dependent on Facebook, only on themselves and their ability to market it.

Q.  Let’s put on your futurist hat for a moment.  As you peer into the future, what new developments can you imagine?
The major effect of Facebook on world consciousness and culture is that they brought privacy issues to the ick factor, and then they stepped back one step.  As they do that, over and over, they bring everyone along to a new place we never would have accepted even three years ago.  Overall I find it very positive that Facebook has brought us all along to a more open society.

I see tremendous potential if we can start bringing that openness into mobile apps around exercise, or into being more open about what a company is doing.  People want to be open and transparent and build trust in the work environment, and use that openness to give access to more data to help their people, to motivate them.  Everyone wants to be part of a tribe, not alone with their problems.  People want to help, people want to connect.  Maybe I cannot run with you everyday, but I can cheer you on while you run.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights with us today.  Here’s to you continuing to connect people through games and the game layer.(source:moksaventures)


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