开发者谈制作跨平台游戏的注意事项

原作者：Rebekah Valentine 译者：Willow Wu

不久之前，开发者们还在愤慨某些平台拥有者固执己见，不允许他们的主机开放跨平台。但是现在，越来越多的大型游戏都应用了这项技术，一些较小型的产品也加入了跨平台阵营。

AccelByte技术部门副总Raymond Arifianto认为跨平台趋势只会继续火热下去。他在2020 GDC大会上发表了一篇题为“你的游戏准备好跨平台了吗”的演讲，为开发者们提供了一些实施跨平台的建议——其中涉及到游戏本身、进度共享和消费三方面。

了解福利与限制

“当你在不同平台发行游戏时，你可以使用对应平台所提供的一些服务，”Arifianto说。“比如Xbox Live、Steamworks，这些都是很有利用价值的。但如果你做的是跨平台游戏，很遗憾这其中的大部分功能你都不能用。你要有自己的一套服务系统，要有自己的匹配系统。

“所以你能使用的第一方平台功能有哪些？首先肯定是ID和账户，电商服务也是必要的，尤其是你打算通过IAP来盈利的话。还有那些平台要求你使用的东西，就比如说，如果你打算让游戏登陆Xbox One平台，你肯定得用他们的多人游戏联机配对系统，即使你有自己的配对系统。”

了解你的玩家

一款游戏如何在Steam、Epic、Xbox、PlayStation和Switch上识别玩家？

“这是通过一种叫做账户关联的东西来实现的，”Arifianto说。“这样一来，你就可以把你的账户跟不同平台的账号关联起来。可能你已经多多少少有所了解了……就比如说你有与育碧的Uplay账户，你就可以登录他们的网站关联其它账号。Epic Games也同理。

dragons watch bundles（from pocketgamer.biz）

“最新的《使命召唤》系列游戏是可以跨平台的，你想在游戏中跟玩家组队的话，你就得用动视的ID。如果你是在Xbox上玩，而你朋友在PlayStation上使用的是 PlayStation ID，你是无法搜到他/她的，系统只认动视的账号。

“这种标准化的账号识别系统是跨平台游戏的基础。”

Arifianto补充说开发者们应该在早期就考虑到《通用数据保护条例》（GDPR）和《加州消费者隐私法案》（CCPA）等法规，并从一开始就确保能够毫不费力地将新平台关联到账户系统。

多人游戏配置

Arifianto列出了一些游戏开发者需要搭建，或者说至少要考虑到的一些事项：

·匹配系统

·会话管理

·玩家资料

·统计数据

·排行榜

·成就

·规则

·游戏中的文字或是语音聊天

“如果你正处于选择引擎的阶段，要确保这个引擎对跨平台功能是友好的，”他继续说道。“我的意思是说，它要有支持客户端-服务器同步的内置功能。

“当你想让你的客户端连接其他玩家时，我建议不要直接用P2P方式。特别是考虑到你无法使用平台内置的某些资源，如Xbox设备连接安全保障，尤其是主机连接PC的情况，这些潜在风险让人背后发凉。我的建议是使用数据加密的服务器，或者使用某种中继服务器辅助的P2P服务器。”

他还建议封锁服务器模拟行为——现在大家都在用30fps，这个数字可以再放宽一些。但渲染不需要被封锁。

SPOP vs MPOP

Arifianto建议有条件的话还是要应用跨平台进度共享，并且采用Single Point of Presence(SPOP)模式，也就是说同一时间点，游戏只能在一台设备上运行，而不是Multiple Point of Presence(SPOP)这种多开模式。

SPOP模式意味着玩家必须要登出当前设备才能再登陆新设备。Arifianto认为这是最简单且最安全的方法。

MPOP会造成很复杂的情况，因为当用户同时登录多个设备时，MPOP会创建一个访客账号，容易导致进度保存出现问题。虽然在大多数情况下都推荐使用SPOP，但开发者应该仔细斟酌下这种模式给游戏带来的利弊。

注意认证要求

Arifianto打趣说一个游戏开发者，一生有三件事情是绝对可以保证的——死亡、纳税，以及发行补丁时认证失败。

“认证这个事有时相当棘手，”他说。“一两句话肯定是解释不清楚的，要求太多了。各个平台的情况都不同。在做跨平台游戏的时候，你不要忘记了这个额外事项。

“做好足够的准备，了解平台的要求是什么，顺利通过这个繁琐的平台认证过程。”

最后，Arifianto敦促开发者们在试图展开跨平台相关工作之前，应该仔细思考一下跨平台的玩法、跨平台购买、共享进度对他们的游戏来说是否真的有意义。

“如果你想在未来想做几款跨平台的游戏，或者说如果你想做一款可以长期运营下去的游戏，那么这些跨平台设计对你来说的确非常值得一试，”他说。“制作一款跨平台的游戏并没有想象中那么艰难。你需要时间和精力，也需要有真正合适的基础设施来支撑这个功能。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

It wasn’t all that long ago that developers were lamenting the stubbornness of certain platform holders over allowing cross-platform play on their consoles. But now, more and more big games are making use of the technology — and a handful of smaller titles, too.

AccelByte VP of tech Raymond Arifianto believes that cross-platform’s rise will only continue, and in his GDC 2020 talk “Is your game cross-platform ready?” he offered several tips for developers considering cross-platform implementation — including cross-play, cross-progression, and cross-buy — in their titles.

Know what services you can and cannot use

“When you are shipping games on different platforms, there are platform services available for you to use,” Arifianto said. “They are great. Xbox Live, Steamworks — they have robust capabilities. If you want to make a cross-platform game, unfortunately, you cannot use most of those. You’ll have to have your own set of services and your own matchmaking, which links behind the scenes and connects to the different services.

“So what can you use from a first-party platform? You definitely have to use identity and account. You also have to connect and use their e-commerce services, especially if you are intending to monetize your game with in-app purchases. And then anything the platform requires you to use. As an example, if you ship games on Xbox One, I’m sure you know you have to use their multiplayer session directory, even if you have your own matchmaking service.”

Know your players

How does a game identify a player across Steam, Epic, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch?

“This is done by something called account linking,” Arifianto said. “With account linking, you want to be able to link your common account with the different varying platform accounts. You’ve probably already seen some of these… If you have a Ubisoft Uplay account, you go to their website and that’s where you actually link the different accounts. Same thing with Epic Games.

“If you play Call of Duty, the latest Call of Duty has cross-platform capabilities. When you’re looking for your friends in Call of Duty, you have to use the Activision ID. Even if you’re playing in Xbox, you can’t search your friends who are playing in PlayStation with their PlayStation IDs, because the game is not going to know about it.

“This whole unified account system is the fundamental piece for the rest of your cross-platform games.”

Arifianto added that developers should be thinking early on about compliancy with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, as well as ensuring from the start that they have a way to add new platforms to their account system easily.

Get people playing together

Arifianto outlined a list of components developers need to build — or at minimum, take into consideration — for most games in order to connect players into the same sessions cross-platform:

·Matchmaking
·Session management
·Player profiles
·Stats
·Leaderboards
·Achievements
·Rules
·In-game text and voice chat

“If you are in a position to choose your game engine, make sure the game engine you are choosing is friendly with cross-platform,” he continued. “What I mean is that it already has a built-in mechanism to do client-server synchronization.

“When you want your clients to connect to the other players to play, I would suggest not going with the direct peer-to-peer route. Especially due to the fact that you cannot use the built-in platform libraries, like the Xbox secure device associations, it gets pretty hairy especially when we’re talking about console connecting to PC. I would suggest going with either a data-gated server, or use some kind of relay server assisted peer-to-peer to build your mesh.”

He also suggested having server simulations locked — everyone’s using 30fps now, but the number can be flexible. Rendering, however, does not need to be locked.

SPOP vs. MPOP

Arifianto recommended implementing cross-progression where possible, and advised using single point of presence as opposed to multiple to allow players to keep playing a single game save across multiple platforms.

SPOP, he said, is when users can only be logged into their account on one device at a time, and logging into one will log out the other. It is, per Arifianto, the easiest and safest to implement.

MPOP, he said, can get very complex, as it effectively creates a guest account when users log into more than one at a time, and can cause issues with ensuring that progress is saved correctly. Though he recommends SPOP in most situations, developers should consider the advantages and disadvantages for their specific game carefully.

Beware of extra certification requirements

Arifianto quipped that there are three things guaranteed in life for a game developer: death, taxes, and failing a certification on one platform when releasing a patch.

“Certification can be pretty tricky,” he said. “It’s quite a long list. It varies from platform to platform. And one thing to keep in mind about making a cross-platform game is that there is actually an extra section that talks about cross-platform games.

“Provide yourself enough buffer to go through the platform certification and understand what is required.”

Finally, Arifianto urged developers to think carefully about whether or not cross-platform play, progression, or buy actually made sense for their games before trying to design around it.

“Cross-platform is ideal for developers who want to make several cross-platform games in the future, or if you want to make a game that you are going to maintain for a long time, that has a long live-service plan,” he said. “Building a cross-platform game is non-trivial. You need time and effort, and also you need investment to actually have the proper infrastructure to support it.”

（source：gamesindustry.biz ）