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阐述游戏机制与游戏化概念的区别

发布时间:2013-03-12 17:23:15 Tags:,,,,,

作者:Andrzej Marczewski

随着游戏化成熟发展,我们所谈论的相应词汇也应该进行规范。有一个频频被滥用,从游戏设计中借用的词汇就是“游戏机制”。我在游戏行业中认识的许多人都告诉我,他们觉得多数游戏化领域中的人士弄错了这一概念。

那么何为“游戏机制”?

让我们首先来看下游戏机制究竟是什么。以下引用不同著名游戏设计书籍和文献的定义:

“核心机制代表玩家关键时刻的操作活动。在一款游戏中,核心机制创造了一种重复行为的模式,一种经验式的玩法构建模块 。”——Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman,《Rules of Play》

“机制是玩家在一个游戏情境中的不同动作,行为和控制机制。机制支撑着整体玩法动态。”——Robin Hunicke,Marc LeBlanc & Robert Zubek,《MDA Frame Work》

“这是游戏的流程和规则。机制描述的是游戏目标,玩家为何能够或不能达到目标,以及他们如此尝试时会发生什么情况。”——Jesse Schell,《The Art of Game Design,A Book of Lense》

以《太空入侵者》为例。当你射击一个外星人时,就是由一系列游戏机制决定子弹穿行方式、速度和轨迹,它击中敌人时会发生什么情况。而植入盾牌也同样是一个游戏机制,你如何与盾牌互动(躲在其后或射击它)是一种游戏动态。改变这样核心机制会经常改变游戏玩法,所以如果你通过飞船改变了子弹开火的速度,游戏难度也会发生变化。

在游戏化领域,我们并不需要这样深入地描述一个系统的内在工作原理。但这并不意味着其中没有任何机制。

为阐述简便,我想我们可以提取一些游戏机制或核心机制的定义总结如下:

“决定系统中交互结果的一个特殊规则集,它们包括输入、过程和输出。”

我们还可以将动态表述为:

“用户对这些机制集合的反应。”

游戏化核心机制的例子

正如我所言,游戏化确实有一个类似于游戏核心机制的流程,让我们简单举例。我们想增加某品牌Facebook页面的“赞”数量,我们将使用传统的点数、勋章和排行榜作为奖励。

点击“赞”按钮可以得到一些点数,点数又可以让用户取得勋章,并且跻身排行榜前列。

gamified-like-mechanics(from gamasutra)

gamified-like-mechanics(from gamasutra)

这其中还包括一些机制。

点击按钮收到奖励是一个机制。改变机制的平衡性可能会改变用户点击按钮所获得的点数。

这些点数会通过二级机制进行处理。第一次奖励的勋章/奖杯要取决于用户目前所拥有的点数。第二次奖励根据用户点数以及用户在排行榜位置,给予他们一些地位等级。

像进度条、勋章图片以及排行榜等物品只是一些便于查看反馈的视觉教具。但关键是,我们谈论游戏化现象是,从来没有到达这一深度。而这正是开发者以及游戏设计师在这一过程中发挥作用的环节。他们可以平衡游戏化系统的核心机制,以便令其呈现最佳终端用户体验。他们需要考虑算术和逻辑功能的问题。

讨论的重点

我个人认为,我们应该讨论的是类似游戏的理念,期望行为,激励因素和支持因素。

首先来谈谈期望行为。在“赞”按钮这个例子中,我们希望人们点击“赞”按钮,这很简单。

下一步就要考虑如何激励他们点击按钮,毕竟这只是一个对用户而言几乎没有什么内在价值的行为。我已经多次提到关于外在vs内在动机的话题,在此就不再赘述。在这一例子中,我们可以将自主权、精通度、目的和关联性(游戏邦注:这可划分为社交地位以及社交联系)视为我们基本的内在激励因素,而奖励、同伴压力和回避性(避免受到惩罚》则是外在激励因素的典型。我们还应该考虑到一些情感因素,尤其是忠诚度。

接下来再看下支撑这些激励因素的内容。有了奖励,你就可以看到基本点数、勋章和一定经济形式的成就。有了地位,你可以看到排行榜的名次,并且在一定程度上,勋章和成就还可以当成炫耀地位的资本。以下表格是更多可用于支持游戏化活动的激励因素。

激励因素(from gamasutra)

激励因素(from gamasutra)

这是一个非常简单的例子,但却足以解释我们游戏化一种体验的工作原理。你可以使用下图操作方法:

gamified-like-motivators-and-supporters(from gamasutra)

gamified-like-motivators-and-supporters(from gamasutra)

注意这些箭头指向期望行为。

此外还要考虑到一些潜在的非预期行为,人们有可能只是为了得到地位等奖励而刷屏,狂摁“赞”按钮。

这很重要吗

正如我开篇所言,随着游戏化的成熟发展,我们所使用的描述语言也应得到规范。我们可以借用其他领域的术语和理念,但如果滥用就会令其丧失原本的意义。游戏机制就是我所举的一例,但我肯定你还能想起其他有点随时间发展而变味的东西。

附:激励因素与支持因素范例(非完整列表)

激励因素                 可能的支持因素

自主权                     自定义/选择/自由

精通度                      等级/挑战

目的                          给予/利他主义/故事/更丰富的意义

地位                          排行榜/成就管理

社交联系                 推荐相似用户/合作“体验”

奖励                          点数/勋章/成就

同伴压力                 同行评议/反馈/评分制度/吹牛/夸耀系统/竞争型“体验”

回避性                     失去点数/丧失地位/游戏结束

稀缺性                     独特/特殊奖励/奖励计划

趣味性                     真正的游戏/问答游戏/竞赛

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

Game Mechanics and Gamification

by Andrzej Marczewski

The following blog was, unless otherwise noted, independently written by a member of Gamasutra’s game development community. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of Gamasutra or its parent company.

Want to write your own blog post on Gamasutra? It’s easy! Click here to get started. Your post could be featured on Gamasutra’s home page, right alongside our award-winning articles and news stories.

As gamification matures, so to should the language that we use to discuss it. One term that seems to get particularly abused, which we have borrowed from game design, is Game Mechanics. This all came from various discussions I had been having with people in the games industry.  All of them told me that they felt that most people in gamificationare getting this (and more) wrong.

What are Game Mechanics?

To understand why this might be let’s first take a look at what came mechanics are. The following are quotes taken from various well known game design books and papers.

“Core Mechanics represent the essential moment-to-moment activity of players. During a game, core mechanics create patterns of repeated behaviour, the experiential building blocks of play.“ Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman: Rules of Play

“Mechanics are the various actions, behaviors and control mechanisms afforded to the player within a game context. the mechanics support overall gameplay dynamics”
Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek: MDA Frame Work

“These are the procedures and rules of your game. Mechanics describe the goal of your game, how players can and cannot try to achieve it, and what happens when they try.”  Jesse Schell: The Art of Game Design, A Book of Lenses

For example, consider Space Invaders. When you shoot at an alien, it is the sets of game mechanics that define how the bullet will travel, it’s speed and trajectory, what happens when it hits the enemy and so on. The inclusion of a shield is also a game mechanic, How you decide to interact with the shield (hide behind it or shoot it) is a game dynamic. Changing these core mechanics will often change how the game plays. So if you change the speed of the bullet fired by your ship, the difficulty changes.

In gamification, we don’t tend to need to talk about this depth of inner workings in a system. However, that doesn’t mean there are no mechanics in place.

For our purposes, I think that we can distil the definition of a game mechanics or more appropriatly core mechanics down to

“A distinct set of rules that dictate the outcome of interactions within the system. They have an input, a process and an output. “

Further to this we can also state that dynamics are

“The users response to collections of these mechanics”

A lot of people in gamification are getting this wrong

I recently asked on Quora what “game mechanics” from the SCVNGR list of 47 were in fact game mechanics.  For those that don’t know this list lives as a deck of cards that can be mixed and matched to create new game ideas. Some of the items on this list such as Epic Meaning, Blissful Productivity and Behavioral Momentum are spoken about a great deal in the same breath as game mechanics when you hear people discussing gamification. In general, of the 47 mechanics listed only a small handful were considered actual game mechanics. Raph Koster, author of “A Theory Of Fun for Game Design”, went so far as to explain what each of the 47 was. The majority were really feedback and desirable outcomes of a well balanced system. His response is worth a read actually. That does not mean they are of no value, far from it. Some of the ideas described are great food for thought when you consider gamified systems and it is well worth looking over. Also, this is not the only list out there that talks about similar concepts in the same breath as game mechanics – it is just well known!
An Example of Core Mechanics in Gamification

As I say, gamification does have game like core mechanics, as a quick example let’s look at a very basic example.  We want to increase the number of Likes content on a brands Facebook page gets. We will use the old classic; points, badges and ladders.

Clicking the Like button gives you points. Points are used as the basis for getting badges and also position within a Leaderboard.

gamified like mechanics

There are several mechanics involved here.

Clicking the button to receive a reward is a mechanic. Changing the balance of the mechanic would then change how many points are given to the user for a click.

These points then get processed through two secondary mechanics. The first awards badges / trophies based on how many points the user now has. The second takes the points and works out where the user now sits on a leaderboard, giving them some level of status.

Things like progress bars, images of badges and leaderboards are just visual aids to monitor feedback.  The thing is, when we talk about gamification we never really need to get into this kind of depth. This is where developers and also game designers reside in the process. These are the people who can balance the core mechanics of the gamified system to give the best end user experience.  They are the ones who need to worry about the maths and the logic functions.
What should we be talking about?

Personally, I feel we should be talking about game like ideas, desired behaviours, motivators and supporters.

Start by looking at what the desired behaviour is. In our Like button example, we want people to click the Like button, pretty simple.

Next we should consider what may motivate the user to click the button, an activity that has little or no intrinsic value to the user.  I have spoken about motivation numerous times, so will not bore you now with the benefits of extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation. For our purposes, we can consider autonomy, mastery, purpose and relatedness (broken down into social status and social connections) as our basic intrinsic motivators and rewards, peer pressure and avoidance (the desire not to be punished) as examples of extrinsic motivators. We should also consider certain emotions, in particular here, loyalty.

Next to look what may support these motivators. With rewards, you’re looking at basic points, badges and achievements in some form of economy. With status you can look at leaderboards and also to certain extent badges and achievements to show off status. The table below shows more examples of motivators that may be used and what could be used to encourage and support them.

Desired Behaviour     Motivation     Supporters

Click Facebook Like     Rewards     Points, Badges

Loyalty     Custom / Unique Rewards

Status     Leaderboards, Points, Badges

Purpose     Giving. Donations to charity every N likes

Social Connections     Suggest similar users

This is a very simple example, but goes to illustrate a working method of talking about how we can gamify experiences. Represented in pictures you could use the following.

gamified like motivators and supporters

Notice the arrows are heading towards the desired behaviour; they are metaphorically supporting the behaviour.

It is very important to consider some of the potential undesirable behaviours as well though (dynamics if you will). People abusing the like button to gain status, that sort of thing.

Does it matter?

In the grand scheme of things, probably not. However, As I said at the start, as gamification matures so should the language used to describe it.  It is fine to steal ideas and phrases for other disciplines, but as we abuse them they begin to lose their meaning.  Game mechanics are my major example of this, but I am sure you can think of other things we are talking about that may have somewhat changed meaning over time.(source:gamasutra


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