作者：Matthew Diener

本届E3最令我难忘的一刻并非典型的大型产品展览，而是当我安静地坐在迪士尼展位前的一个房间，打开笔记本电脑时，旁边一位记者看到我的电脑桌面是《塞尔达传说》三个角色的壁纸时，遂打开自己的iPad，让我看看它的屏幕背景也是《塞尔达传说：风之杖》。

他朝我笑笑，用一种浓厚的斯拉夫口音说：“《塞尔达传说》！很棒！”

我微笑点头回应，清楚我们可能无法就这一共同兴趣进行太多交流，但这已经足以令我深思。

当代手机游戏还能创造Link、Pac Man、Sonic或马里奥这种久经时间考验的经典角色吗？

角色意识

当然，从短期来看，手机游戏还是有可能创造出令人难忘的角色。

现如今，除非你真的是住在穷乡僻壤，不然就应该不难看到许多《愤怒的小鸟》授权商品——等到2016年《愤怒的小鸟》电影上映时，这一趋势还会更加明朗。

但目前来看，除了Rovio的小鸟，或许还有《割绳子》中的Om Nom，其他手机游戏都还没有创造出久经考验或具有辨识度的角色。

angry bird space(from pocketgamer)

看看现在全球市场中的顶级游戏——Supercell的《Clash of Clans》或GungHo的《Puzzle & Dragons》，它们都没有一个能够让玩家在未来5年内牢记在心的标志性角色。

没错，这些游戏现在盈利可观，但除此之外，它们还有其他能够让人们长期记忆的元素吗？

如果没有标志性的角色，我们只能质疑这些现在颇具人气的游戏，还能持续几年的势头。

困惑

如果再把范围延伸到《宝石迷阵》和《Candy Crush Saga》这类游戏中，就会发现更有趣的情况：这些获得巨大成功的游戏也没有任何标志性的角色。

bejeweled(from pocketgamer)

显然，手机游戏要获得成功并不一定需要创造令人难忘的角色，但它们究竟该不该如此呢？

换句话说，我们究竟应不应该将资金投入概念艺术、会议和3D角色渲染技术，用于创造令人难忘的手机游戏角色？

如果开发者想创造两三款令人印象深刻的智能手机游戏，那就一定要作出肯定回答。

但由于金钱利润的驱使，多数开发者容易迷失远大前景，正如Pocketgamer记者Jon Jordan所言，手机游戏行业已经进入了“由上个月的活跃用户数量，而非过去十年的历史来衡量成功”的状态。

由此可见，手机游戏开发者并无创造可让粉丝辨认、主观化的标志记角色的可量化需求和动力。

除非，他们真的想创造那种可能与玩家共鸣的作品。（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）

Opinion: Lack of memorable characters risks making mobile games forgettable

by Matthew Diener

One of my memorable moments from this past E3 didn’t come during one of the event’s typically big presentations.

I was seated in a quiet room in the Disney booth with a handful of international journalists waiting on an appointment when I opened up my laptop.

The man next to me craned his neck over when he saw my wallpaper – a stylized version of The Legend of Zelda’s triforce – and clicked the home button on his iPad to wake it up. His background was the cast of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

He smiled at me and, with a thick, Slavic accent said, “Legend of Zelda! Cool!”

I smiled and nodded back, knowing that we probably couldn’t communicate much past this basic interest – but it was enough to get me thinking.

Will mobile games ever produce characters that will stand the test of time like Link, Pac Man, Sonic, or Mario?

Character witness

Certainly, there’s evidence that – in the short term – mobile games are capable of creating memorable characters.

You’d need to live in a very rural part of the world to have not seen some form of Angry Birds branding in your local shops – and that will change once the movie will land in theatres in 2016.

But with the exception of Rovio’s birds and possibly Cut the Rope’s Om Nom, mobile games just aren’t creating enduring or even identifiable characters.

Angry Birds’ cast of characters has gained universal appeal

When you look at some of the top games in the global market now – Supercell’s Clash of Clans or GungHo’s Puzzle and Dragons – there’s nothing much in the way of a signature, franchise-defining character that will be remembered by gamers five years from now.

Sure, these games are making hundreds of millions of dollars now but will they be remembered in the long-term for anything other than their success?

Without iconic characters, one can only wonder at this what the influence these now-popular games will hold in a few year’s time.

It’s puzzling

If you broaden the scope a bit further to include games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush Saga, things become even more interesting: these titanic titles have enjoyed success without a flagship character of any kind.

Clearly, mobile games don’t need to create memorable characters if they want to be successful… but should they?

Bejeweled’s most recognisable feature is the gems themselves

Put another way, will the money spent into concept art, meetings, and 3D rendering of characters be worth the investment?

If the developers want to create a game to be remembered two or three smartphone generations from now, then the answer has to be yes.

Yet with money rolling in faster than most lucky developers can count, it’s easy to lose sight of this bigger picture – especially if, as my colleague Jon Jordan argues, the mobile landscape really has changed to the point that it “measures success by your past month’s active players, not your past decade’s history.”

To this end, there’s really no quantifiable need for mobile developers to create iconic characters that fans can internalise and identify by.

Unless, of course, they want to create something that really resonates with their players.（source：pocketgamer）