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独立开发者应该将游戏当成自己的宝贝

发布时间:2013-09-16 14:55:58 Tags:,,,,

作者:Keith Burgun

在数字游戏世界中,你通常是站在一个范围的两端。一端,你拥有的是AAA级作品——在GameStop拥有较多用户并且你能够看到有关你们产品的电视广告。而另一端,你拥有的是独立作品,你只能通过应用商店或口头模式进行宣传。

尽管关于AAA级游戏我拥有一大堆问题,但是我却发现我们不该去指责它们。在大多数情况下,它们只是做着自己该做的事。它们所处产业的期望值和标准是数百万美元的产值,这也意味着这里存在较低的风险。如此便导致这些游戏虽然具有较高的生产率,但是其游戏玩法却失去了独创性。

不过我并不能为此责怪它们。它不仅要求投资者投入数百万美元于一个看似很棒的理念,同时还能保证有关“僵尸末日”的第三人称行动游戏的成功。人们只会一而再地花65美元去购买这些内容。所以你并不能责怪AAA级游戏创造者所做的一切,并且这也不是我们本篇文章的讨论内容。

但是你却能够责怪独立开发者所引起的一些问题。作为一名独立游戏开发者,我认为去批评同僚们的一些行为是合理的。对于过去几年里围绕着独立游戏世界的所有炒作,我认为存在一个最大的阻碍——并不是关于它们缺少预算。

我认为独立游戏开发者真正应该正视的是他们对于自身工作的糟糕态度。大多数情况下,独立开发者只是创造应用,将其推向应用商店,并转战下一个项目。

经历一件新事物的成本

我作为一名美术人员/创造者/内容制作者的意识形态的基础部分便是对那些体验我的作品的人负责。当某些人坐下开始玩我的游戏/听我的音乐/读我的文章/看我的视频时,他们也在消费自己的资源,资源往往比金钱更有价值。他们付出了时间和关注,在某种程度上,这也是对于他们整体立场的挑战。

为了说明我的观点,让我们假设一个人带着对于世界的某一观点走向了一件艺术品。这一观点包含了他们的所有体验—-他们看过的所有电影,他们读过的所有漫画书,他们看过的所有视频,绘画,诗歌,以及他们的所有个人经历。他们带着整体的体验走向了你。

之后他们走向了你的作品,那件全新的作品。这是他们的整体体验中不曾看过的内容。这将引起他们某种程度的紧张,矛盾,就像他们需要将这一新事物整合到自己的整体体验中。

这时候,我们想办法为这一新内容腾出一块空间——希望进行有效整合从而避免它会破坏其它已存在的体验。通常情况下我们会将其与相似内容分在一块,不过这便会造成思考模式的转移,从而让我们陷入混淆中。

这整个过程都会让人感到不安,因为其中包含一定的风险。整体体验是我们自我认同的一大组成部分,不管何时它们受到了挑战,都会让人感到害怕。我们有时候还会产生各种质疑。这也是人们为何会被与自己知晓的事物相似的内容所吸引的主要原因—-这具有较低的风险。

当然了,许多人意识到冒险是自己的兴趣,所以他们便会时常逼迫自己走出安逸区。但这并不意味着他们不需要给予任何付出。即使你愿意尝试新内容,成本也是不可避免的。

thehospital(from gamasutra)

thehospital(from gamasutra)

游戏开发者的责任

知道了这点,你该如何去设置内容让人们去判断这是否是最棒的内容?

我知道这已经是陈词滥调了。显然我们都应该尽自己所能;这是所有人都知道的道理。我知道存在一些现实局限将导致我们不能竭尽所能,至少是在特定时间框架之下。也许是一些个人问题阻碍了你。也许你只是想不出一些难题的解决方法。谁知道。你可以说出许多导致自己未能尽所能的正当理由。

但关于下述情况却不存在任何借口

在你认为真正创造出最棒的内容前便将产品推向公众。

发行某些内容,之后发现因为某些问题否则它们可以变得更好,然后觉得你永远都不会这么做了。

这是独立开发世界一种常见的现象。开发者会发行一款看似大学项目的半成品游戏,即为完成的测试版本。此外,他们也并未真正去支持已发行的游戏。为此我找出了一些原因。

“独立游戏并不是真正的游戏”

上个月我一直在OUYA主机上的应用商店中寻找着游戏。我很欣喜地发现了4或5款真正带有创造性游戏玩法的有趣游戏。但是所有的这些游戏似乎都未能到有效的完善和支持。

关于独立游戏的独立性很棒的一点便是你可以知道是谁创造了这些游戏,给他们发送电子邮件,他们也能快速地给你回复。我便给OUYA上4或5个创造了非常棒的游戏的不同开发者发送了电子邮件。

通常我会写的两大内容是:

你是否计划添加/完善在线多人游戏元素?排行榜/联盟?以及其它社区功能,如聊天机制?

通常我会玩一些足以作为体育运动的优秀游戏—-这是我个人生活的一部分,但是为了做到这点,开发者需要努力在游戏中创造一个社区。

我喜欢你的游戏,但是我认为它需要进行适当的完善。

在大多数玩过的游戏中,我认为自己能在游戏一个小时内便找出最佳策略。我知道某些内容对于新玩家来说是不协调的,但开发者也向我证实了他们知道这种不协调。

我给开发者写了一列很长的修补清单。我给他们画了新的地图,图表等等,并且都是免费的!

很遗憾,不管我如何强调,最终收到的都是令人沮丧的回应。开发者通常会说:

我们只是太想进入下一个新项目中。我能理解这种感受,但是每年推出2至3款普通的游戏并放任它们逐渐被人遗忘并不是消耗时间的好方法。如果你想要将制作游戏当成是一种实践的话这当然可行,但前提是不应该将其交到别人手中。世界上已经有太多平庸的事物了,所以你这么做只是再平添噪音罢了,只会导致人们更加难以发现真正优秀的内容。

未看到自己的游戏/资深的潜力。当然,也许游戏拥有一个简洁的游戏理念,但是这是否真的有价值?它永远都不可能像《英雄联盟》那般出色!毕竟这只是一款独立的游戏。

我真的觉得独立游戏开发者认为自己创造的内容并不是“真正的”游戏。他们会以为真正的游戏是由拥有80人以上的团队以及上百万美元成本所创造的。我们只是在做一些“业余爱好”。许多独立开发者隐藏在一些表面上看似“糟糕的游戏”后—-即在一些看似愚蠢的主题下尝试着去创造真正具有创造性的出色内容。

至少有一位开发者在阅读了我的建议后回应道:“我很害怕改变任何内容,因为我并不想让事情变得更糟糕。”

你的游戏就是你的宝贝

事实上,独立开发者有能力创造出不只与AAA游戏持平,同时还有可能更加出色的游戏,因为他们敢于冒险。如今,每个独立开发者既有可能创造出年度最佳数字游戏,也有可能创造出史上最出色的游戏。《我的世界》便是非常显著的例子。某个人想出一个很棒的理念,然后去支持它,并最终实现它。

当然有些开发者也会说:“那是《我的世界》。如果我现在能从自己的游戏身上获取数百万的收益,我便会支持它到底!”的确存在像《超级食肉男孩》,《时空幻境》和《愤怒的小鸟》这样超级成功的游戏。但这却不重要,因为不管你的游戏是否取得成功,你都要为那些购买了自己游戏的人负责。如果你知道如何让游戏变得更好,你就有责任去落实。

好消息是,落实这一责任不仅能够帮助你的游戏进一步迈向成功,同时也能对你未来的游戏带去更大的帮助。

我并不是说你现在就需要将游戏变得更好。我能理解有时候开发者会受到生活的逼迫。如果你不得不延迟游戏完善的话,那也没办法。但是一旦你有能力这么做了,你就需要马上去支持游戏。修正问题,添加或删除某些规则,添加新的社交功能,添加变体,不断向别人宣传自己的游戏,保持游戏的活跃性。

我希望看到开发者能够对自己的游戏感到骄傲并在发行十年后继续完善它们。即使只是每隔几年添加个小补丁。同时开发者们还能专注于建造游戏社区,并通过各种方法推动人们去探索游戏系统。

你的游戏就是你的宝贝。你可能花了1年或更长时间致力于游戏创造,所以在它发行时便将其放任不管像话吗?如果游戏并未取得成功,你更有理由去支持它。你应该创造一些出色的平衡补丁并告知人们。消费者总是喜欢看到一款备受支持的游戏。如果我知道自己能够从开发者手中获取平衡补丁,新功能和其它更多内容时,我便会更加欣慰于自己的消费。

我并不是说不让你创造新游戏,也不是说让你完全留在5年前发行的游戏中。我所强调的还是态度。独立电子游戏开发者只是对于自己所创造的内容带着一种错误的态度。他们似乎只想着创造一款游戏,将其上传到应用商店,然后对一些严重的问题创造1或2个补丁,便将其永远抛在脑后。我们可以比这个做得更好,并且我们需要对那些愿意花时间去玩游戏的玩家负责。

Baby-in-a-Basket(from emmalouisephoto)

Baby-in-a-Basket(from emmalouisephoto)

将游戏当成小宝贝来看待。当它/他还在襁褓中时,努力使它变得足够强大。游戏的发行也就像小宝贝开始上学前班时。在几十年后它/他将变得足够强大,可以去上大学,找工作,但这并不意味着它/他就不再是你的小宝贝了。你应该作为游戏永远的后盾(游戏邦注:就像你永远都是自己孩子的家长一样)。如果你能够做到这点,我相信玩家也永远都不会离开你的。

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

Indie Devs: Your Game is Your Baby

by Keith Burgun

In the world of digital games, you generally have two ends of a spectrum.  On one end, we have the AAA stuff – the stuff that has a standee at GameStop and that you might see television commercials for.  On the other end of the spectrum, you have the indie stuff – stuff that you encounter simply browsing app stores or due to word of mouth.

While I have a whole slew of problems with AAA games, I don’t find it that interesting or worthwhile to criticize them.  They are, for the most part, doing the only thing that they can do.  They work in an industry where the expectation and standard is a multi-million dollar production, which in turn means that very few risks can be taken at all.  This results in games that are of high production quality, but which are extremely safe, canned, and unoriginal in their gameplay.

But I can’t blame them for it.  Not only is it asking a lot of any investor to risk millions of dollars on an idea that seems like it could be cool, but making another third-person action game about “zombie apocalypse!!!” is basically a guaranteed success.  People just buy these things, year after year, over and over again, for sixty-five dollars.  So you can’t blame the AAA people for what they do, and that isn’t what this article is about.

However, you can blame the indies for some of the problems they have. Being an independent game developer myself, I feel it’s particularly fair for me to criticize some of the behavior of my colleagues.  And for all the hype that’s been swelling around the world of indie games over the past few years, there is one issue holding them back from their potential more than anything else – and it isn’t their lack of a budget.

What I am going to hold indies accountable for is their generally poor, unsupportive attitude towards their own work.  For the most part, indies make an app, throw it on a store, and are onto the next thing.

The Costs of Experiencing A New Thing

A fundamental part of my ideology as an artist/creator/stuff-maker-guy is that I have a responsibility to the people who experience my work.  When someone sits down and runs my game / listens to my song / reads my article / watches my video, they are paying out a resource of theirs, a resource more valuable than money.  They are paying me their time, and further, their attention, and to some small degree, a challenge to their entire point of view.

To illustrate my point:  a person comes to a piece of art with a certain view of the world.  This view that they already had contains all of their experiences – all the movies they’ve ever seen, all the comic books, all the videogames, paintings, poems, and of course, all of their personal experiences.  They come to you with some Grand Total of Experience.

But then they see your thing, which – assuming it isn’t a complete copy of something that already exists – is a new thing.  It is not already represented in their Grand Total of Experience.  This simple fact actually causes some degree of tension, some dissonance, as the person must now incorporate your new thing into their Grand Total of Experience.

In this moment, we scramble to make room for this new thing — to organize it in such a way that it doesn’t ruin what was already there.  Most often we categorize it alongside other things we consider “similar”, and then are relieved.  Sometimes we can’t do this, however, and it results in a paradigm shift, which can be awkward, confusing, or even painful.

This entire process generally is uncomfortable, because of the risks involved.  That Grand Total of Experience is a big part of how we self-identify, and whenever it gets challenged, it’s scary.  We can sometimes feel like our entire being is in doubt.  This is why people tend to gravitate towards things which are at least similar to things they already understand – it’s a lower risk.

Of course, many people realize that it’s in their interest to take these risks, and so they force themselves to go outside their comfort zones quite often.  But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t paying the costs.  Even if you have a positive attitude about trying new things, the costs cannot be avoided.

The Game Developer’s Responsibility

So, knowing this, how could you ever put something out there for people to see if it wasn’t the best you can do?

I realize this sounds like a platitude.  Obviously we should all do the best we can; everybody knows that.  And I know that there are real-world limitations that cause us to not be able to do our best, at least within a given time frame.  Maybe there’s a personal tragedy which interrupts you.  Maybe you just really can’t come up with a solution to some difficult problem.  Who knows.  There are plenty of legitimate reasons for why doing your best would be delayed.

But there really is no excuse for either of the following things:

Releasing something into the world before you feel like you’ve done the best you can, or

Releasing something, then finding a problem with the thing / way it could be made vastly better, and then deciding you’ll never do it

And yet, this is standard protocol in the indie development world.  People release half-baked games which feel like college projects, or unfinished betas*, all the time.  Further, actually supporting your released game is nearly unheard of.  I have some ideas for why this is.

“Indie Games Aren’t Real Games”

Last month, I picked up an OUYA console, and I’ve been scouring its entire app store looking for games.  I’m happy to report that I’ve found at least four or five really original, interesting games with innovative gameplay.  However, just about all of these feel like they aren’t well-balanced, refined, supported, or have the set of features that would really allow the game system to shine.

What’s really nice about the indie-est of the indie games – which many of these interesting OUYA games are – is that you can look up who made these games, send ‘em an email, and they’ll probably get right back to you.  I emailed about 4 or 5 different OUYA developers** of some of the coolest games on the system.

The two most common things I would write people and say are:

Do you have any plans to add/improve online multiplayer to your game? Leaderboards/Leagues?  Other community features like chat?

Often I’ll play some really great game that is fully capable of being a sport – a thing that is a part of a person’s life, but in order to do this, there generally needs to be some effort on the part of the developer to create a community around the game.

I love your game, but I think it needs balancing/fixes.

Most games I play, I feel like I’m able to find the optimal strategy within an hour of playing.  I’m fully aware of how some things can seem imbalanced to a new player but actually aren’t, but I’ve gotten confirmation from the developers themselves that they know their game is not balanced.

I’ve written developers huge patch change lists.  I’ve drawn them new maps, charts, etc – all for free, mind you!

Sadly, to both of these, no matter how emphatic and specific I am, I’m almost always sent back a depressing response.  The developers almost always:

Are just eager to move onto the next thing.  I understand this feeling, but the idea of pumping out two or three mediocre games and leaving them to fade into obscurity every year isn’t a positive way to spend your time.  If you want to make games as practice for yourself, that’s fine of course, but don’t subject other people to it, at least without a huge flag saying, “this isn’t meant for other people to play!”  The world already has enough mediocre crap, so you’re really just adding noise to the world and making it harder for people to find the good stuff.

Don’t see their game/their own potential.  Sure, maybe it has a neat gameplay idea, but what’s that really worth?  It’ll never be great like League of Legends!  It’s just an indie game, after all.

I really think that indie developers have, on some deep psychological level, bought into the idea that the things they make aren’t “real” games.  Real games are made by teams of 80+ people with millions of dollars.  We’re just doing “hobbyist” little digital arts and crafts.  Many indies hide behind a facade of “being a gag game” – having some kind of outrageously silly theme that they feel excuses them from having to try and make the game be truly great, because hey, it’s just a novelty product after all!

I’ve also had at least one developer tell me, after reading my suggested patch notes, “I was scared to change anything because I didn’t want to make it worse.”

Your Game Is Your Baby

The reality is that indies have every capability of making games that are not only as good as AAA games, but vastly better, due to the fact that they can afford to take risks.  Right now, every indie developer has it within his power to create not only the best digital game of the year, but arguably the best game of all time, ever, digital or otherwise.  Minecraft (not a game by my definition, but a colloquial game) is a great example.  Someone came up with a great idea, and then supported it, and saw it through.

Of course, some developers will say, “yeah well that’s Minecraft.  If I was making millions off of my game, you can bet I’d support it then!”  It’s true that there’s an entire echelon of super-successful indie games like Super Meat Boy, Braid and Angry Birds.  But that’s actually irrelevant, because no matter how successful or unsuccessful your game is, you have a responsibility to the people who bought your game.  If you know how you can make your thing better, you have a responsibility to do it.

The good news is, actually acting on this responsibility can only improve your chances of better success with that game, as well as with any games you do in the future.

I’m not saying you have to make it better right now.  I understand that sometimes life gets in the way.  If you have to delay improving your game for some amount of time, then that’s how it has to be.  But as soon as it is possible, you need to support your game.  Fix balance issues.  Add or remove rules if it will improve the game.  Add new social features.  Add variants.  Keep telling people about your game.  Keep it alive.

I want to see developers taking pride in their games and improving them decades after they’re released.  Even if it’s just a small patch every couple of years – after a certain amount of time, the game won’t need much in the way of fixes.  Then focus on community building, variants and other cool ways for people to explore your system.

Your game is your baby.  You probably spent a year or more working on it, so how does it even make sense to just abandon it once it’s out?  If it’s not successful, that’s even more reason to support it.  Make some awesome balance patch and tell people about it.  Consumers love to see a game that’s being supported.  If I know that, when I buy this game, I will be getting balance patches, new features, community support and more from the developer, I feel way better about my purchase.  In fact, you almost can’t even put a price on that.

I’m not saying never make a new game, and I’m not saying stay full-time on a game you released five years ago.  What I am saying is more a problem of attitude.  Independent videogame developers simply have a bad attitude about the things they make.  They seem to want to make a game, upload it to the app store, maybe issue one or two patches to fix critical issues, and then move on forever.  We can do so much better than that, and again, we have a responsibility to our players, who have kindly loaned us their time.

Treat your game just as you would a baby.  In its infancy, work hard to make it strong.  When it gets released like when your baby’s first day in preschool or something.  After a couple of decades, it might be strong enough to move out, go to college, get a job, but that doesn’t mean it stops being your baby.  You should always be there for your games, the way a good parent is always there for their child.  If you are, I believe that players will always be there for you.(source:gamasutra)


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