作者：Dean Takahashi

沒有人能像Will Wright（《模擬城市》和《模擬人生》等大受歡迎游戲的創(chuàng)造者）那樣清楚地談?wù)撚螒?。他在本周的Game Horizon Live中通過即時網(wǎng)絡(luò)廣播與我們討論了未來游 戲的發(fā)展。在提問與回答環(huán)節(jié)中，他談?wù)摿嗽S多有關(guān)游戲發(fā)展方向的主題。

他表示自己受到了“寒武紀(jì)大爆發(fā)”（就像5億年前的寒武紀(jì)時期，涌現(xiàn)出了眾多新生命形態(tài)）的啟發(fā)，即在應(yīng)用商店中面向智能手機(jī)，平板電腦和其它平臺開發(fā)獨立游戲。

Wright 與別人共同創(chuàng)建了Maxis，并創(chuàng)造了像《模擬城市》等游戲。藝電在1997年收購了Maxis，而Wright也在藝電繼續(xù)創(chuàng)造了《模擬人生》和《孢 子》等游戲。他在2009年離開 了藝電，并創(chuàng)建了一系列初創(chuàng)公司。他最新的公司名為Syntertainment，主要專注于創(chuàng)造性游戲和娛樂與現(xiàn)實間的 互動。

Will Wright（from venturebeat）

Wright得到了許多獎勵，其中便包括Interactive Arts and Sciences學(xué)院頒發(fā)的“Hall of Fame”獎。Wright建議年輕設(shè)計師在一開始可以先研究非游戲領(lǐng)域，并從中獲得更多創(chuàng) 造性靈感。以下是Wright在Game Horizon 2013年的Q&A環(huán)節(jié)中的內(nèi)容。

Will Wright：實際上，你所面對的是2個平臺。你需要應(yīng)對計算機(jī)平臺（即關(guān)于代碼，技術(shù)等內(nèi)容）以及人心。當(dāng)你設(shè)計了一款游戲時，它將同時運行于這些平臺上。我們也會在 計算機(jī)上運行我們于模擬中所執(zhí)行的一些內(nèi)容。但是也有一些內(nèi)容是不適用于計算機(jī)上，所以我們最終選擇在玩家的想象力中運行。

舉個例子來說，在《模擬人生》中，當(dāng)你聽到人們在交談時，你并不是真正聽到他們在說什么。經(jīng)過多次實驗，我們決定讓角色用英語或其它知名的語言交談，但它們卻很快變得 自動化且不斷重復(fù)。如此真實的面紗便消失了。相反地，如果他們的交談并不清楚，你的腦子里便會開始想象他們的對話。《模擬人生》具有有聲語調(diào)。游戲角色擁有情感。你能 夠感受到他們的憤怒與調(diào)情。盡管我們并未真正聽到相關(guān)話語。從根本上來看，我們所做的便是將模擬部分分解到人們的想象力中。

當(dāng)我在幾十年前開始職業(yè)生涯時，那時候人們所關(guān)注的焦點還是計算機(jī)的快速運行。我們能在屏幕上呈現(xiàn)出多少像素？我們每一次都要與機(jī)器相抗衡，就為了呈現(xiàn)出更棒的性能。 但是從很大程度上來看，這些限制并未起到多大阻礙。我不認(rèn)為面前存在著多少技術(shù)瓶頸或障礙。而現(xiàn)在，我們的關(guān)注焦點在于如何通過有趣的方式去利用人類的想象力，人心， 創(chuàng)造性。我們將嘗試著把人類的想法帶到一個特定的狀態(tài)，讓他們能夠在此慢慢感受到樂趣。有時候這會是一種流動狀態(tài)。他們將在挑戰(zhàn)，成就和難度之間徘徊著。而其它時候則 是更加自由，富有創(chuàng)造性和表現(xiàn)力的狀態(tài)，或者與別人進(jìn)行分享的社交狀態(tài)。

顯然，我們不是很理解人心。從某種意義上來看，游戲設(shè)計便是一種應(yīng)用心理學(xué)。我們一直在侵入人類的心理。我們一直在腦子里創(chuàng)造一些能夠帶給自己樂趣的機(jī)制。有時候是通 過挑戰(zhàn)，尋找模式，有時候則是通過解決問題。而我們的大腦將與之連接在一起去享受這些內(nèi)容，從根本上看來這也是一種學(xué)習(xí)過程。我們的大腦將意識到通過學(xué)習(xí)，推動局限性 并突破障礙將能讓自己獲得獎勵。從某種程度上看來，游戲設(shè)計是擴(kuò)展我們思維的一個過程。

我可以坐在那里著眼于計算機(jī)的規(guī)格，并理解它能執(zhí)行或者不能執(zhí)行的所有內(nèi)容。而關(guān)于人心我們卻找不到任何指南。這是一個未知的領(lǐng)域。對于游戲設(shè)計師而言，這是我們探索 人心的一大基本方法。

Game Horizon：世界上有哪個游戲設(shè)計師是你最佩服的？他是現(xiàn)在還是歷史上的人才？

Wright：這是一個很好的問題。我會毫不猶豫地說出任天堂的宮本茂。我之所以如此欣賞他是因為，他總是將玩家放在最重要的位置上。馬上遞給某些人控制器會呈現(xiàn)出怎樣的感 覺？他所致力的觸覺和動覺是怎樣的？這是由內(nèi)到外的影響。玩家最初5秒的游戲體驗如何？而下個10秒的體驗又是如何？他的游戲總是圍繞著這些技能展開，這是非常讓人驚訝且 獨特的體驗。加上他也會落實各種各樣的工作，所以我才會這么欽佩他。

同樣地還有Peter Molyneux，我認(rèn)為他嘗試了許多冒險。他的創(chuàng)造在某種方式上刺激著我的感受。我還很喜歡Sid Meier的游戲。他的游戲具有可玩性。它們就像是一把把舒坦的椅 子，能讓你安心坐著。桌面游戲和戰(zhàn)爭游戲一直伴隨著我成長。而Sid在這兩大領(lǐng)域一直非常突出，所以可以說Sid及其游戲重新塑造了我們的青春時代。當(dāng)然還有許多值得我們尊 敬的設(shè)計師，但是我卻很難一將其一一羅列出來。

我所說的這三個人都屬于我們這一代的游戲設(shè)計師。當(dāng)然還有許多其他人，以及擁有大好前途的人正在進(jìn)行一些很棒，且具有實驗性的創(chuàng)作。我覺得，比起以前，我們現(xiàn)在擁有更 多技能型設(shè)計師，這對于游戲產(chǎn)業(yè)來說是個好消息。一部分原因是源自越來越多不同平臺的出現(xiàn)。我們不再需要一個擁有100個人的龐大團(tuán)隊。一個非常聰明的小孩也能夠與好友一 起創(chuàng)造一款應(yīng)用并呈現(xiàn)在App Store中。有些非常優(yōu)秀的設(shè)計師也才開始采取行動。

GH：什么元素對你的游戲創(chuàng)造帶來了最大的影響—-你所創(chuàng)造的模擬不只停留在機(jī)制上，它也通過某種方式模擬了生活？

Wright：書籍對我的游戲創(chuàng)造產(chǎn)生了很大的影響。我總是會瞄準(zhǔn)一些特定的主題，即關(guān)于一些學(xué)術(shù)性內(nèi)容。最初我的靈感是源自Jay Forrester，即現(xiàn)代系統(tǒng)動力學(xué)（追溯到50年代 ）的創(chuàng)始人。我閱讀了他是如何使用不同系統(tǒng)（包括城市，工廠和整個世界）并模擬這些系統(tǒng)。他想要將其分解成不同配件，并基于這些配件去創(chuàng)建模型。

童年的時候我也花了很多時間去創(chuàng)建模型，包括飛機(jī)，船，塑料和木頭等等。后來我又沉迷于汽車，坦克等對象的模型創(chuàng)造，并因此讓我想要創(chuàng)造自己的機(jī)器人。后來我購買了第 一臺計算機(jī)，并開始構(gòu)建屬于自己的早期機(jī)器人。在構(gòu)建機(jī)器人的同時，我意識到一些非常復(fù)雜的問題，以及AI問題。

同時，我不僅對創(chuàng)建靜態(tài)實體模型感興趣，我也很想知道如何去創(chuàng)建動態(tài)的世界模型。即創(chuàng)建內(nèi)在動態(tài)世界以及如何運行。在模擬道路上，Jay Forrester帶給我很大的靈感。還有 其它靈感是來自波蘭作家Stanislaw Lem，他寫了許多關(guān)于微觀世界，模擬世界，以及處理這些事物的相關(guān)倫理學(xué)的內(nèi)容。對于我所創(chuàng)造的不同游戲，我的靈感來源都是不同的。螞 蟻專家Edward Wilson對于螞蟻的研究推動著我們創(chuàng)造了《SimAnt》。而Christopher Alexander在建筑領(lǐng)域的觀點激發(fā)了我去創(chuàng)造《模擬人生》。所以說我的大多數(shù)靈感都是來自 閱讀。

GH：新《模擬城市》中好像面臨了一些問題，這對于你的新設(shè)計帶來了何種影響？

Wright：我現(xiàn)在正致力于創(chuàng)造更多手機(jī)體驗。從經(jīng)濟(jì)和業(yè)務(wù)角度來看，這完全不同與早前的包裝模式。我認(rèn)為早前的那些基于PC以及陳列在架子上出售的游戲?qū)⒖焖侔l(fā)生轉(zhuǎn)變。我 們正處于一個新興市場中。主機(jī)公司及其業(yè)務(wù)模式也是如此。其過去的業(yè)務(wù)模式是向用戶出售主機(jī)和一堆游戲，并因此推斷主機(jī)的開發(fā)。但是現(xiàn)在，人們只需要花費3至5美元，甚 至不用花錢（基于微交易）便能在應(yīng)用市場上買到自己喜歡的游戲。

我們正在從局部最大值過度到一個完全不同的領(lǐng)域。對于許多業(yè)務(wù)模式而言，這是一種非常不舒服的過度。過去幾年里在PC市場上出現(xiàn)了各種盜版行為。而DRM（游戲邦注：數(shù)字版 權(quán)管理）是一種解決方法。免費模式則是另一種解決方法。在我們能夠判斷消費者將會接受并喜歡哪一款游戲之前，我們將經(jīng)歷一個進(jìn)化過程。這是關(guān)于你該如何在避免經(jīng)濟(jì)風(fēng)險 的前提下將玩家?guī)У接螒蝮w驗中的問題。

而關(guān)于DRM（這是針對《模擬城市》及其發(fā)行而言），因為那時我們還未與藝電展開合作，我也不便多說。但是我想說的是，在新項目中我們是不會考慮DRM的。而現(xiàn)在關(guān)于我們會 選擇哪種業(yè)務(wù)模式（游戲邦注：不管是微交易還是訂閱式，或者其它模式）都還是未知數(shù)。并不存在已建造的模型。人們一直在嘗試不同的內(nèi)容，并享受著不同程度的成功。

SimCity German City(from ea.com)

GH：你談?wù)摿嗽谶^去5年里游戲產(chǎn)業(yè)中出現(xiàn)的所有改變。有許多內(nèi)容是圍繞著該產(chǎn)業(yè)的構(gòu)建方法，銷售方式。對此你提及了微交易和章節(jié)游戲。這是關(guān)于業(yè)務(wù)方面的內(nèi)容。你是否認(rèn) 為這會對游戲設(shè)計帶來積極影響，或者影響游戲設(shè)計方式？

Wright：當(dāng)你轉(zhuǎn)向免費模式時，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)，它其實就是我們之前所謂的游戲演示的擴(kuò)展版。我們可以下載一個演示版本，如果喜歡它的話便可以選擇購買完整的游戲。我們已經(jīng)經(jīng) 歷過這種過程。

我堅信，如果游戲?qū)τ谕婕襾碚f具有價值，如果玩家真的喜歡游戲體驗，那么他們便會愿意以某種形式去支付游戲。而這將在某種意義上賦予游戲更大的穩(wěn)定性，如此便不再是關(guān) 于你擁有多少市場營銷預(yù)算的問題了。雖然這一點仍很重要，但卻不如之前那么重要了。過去我們需要考慮貨架空間以及如何在有限的渠道中進(jìn)行分配等問題。這是一個巨大的過 濾器，有可能導(dǎo)致發(fā)行商退卻或不愿承擔(dān)風(fēng)險。而最大的銷售策略一直都是游戲續(xù)集。發(fā)行商們總是愿意投入上百萬美元于一些已經(jīng)大獲成功的游戲的續(xù)集中。但是卻不愿嘗試一 些初出茅廬的作品。

從這個意義上來看，我們所擁有的全新業(yè)務(wù)模式將非常適于游戲開發(fā)。我們也看到了越來越多人敢于在此冒風(fēng)險，因為他們不再需要投入大量的市場營銷費用。并且我們現(xiàn)在所面 對的平臺也不再是要求投入數(shù)千萬美元去開發(fā)一款頂級游戲的平臺。

我們正轉(zhuǎn)向一個全新的世界，在那里玩家從游戲中所獲得的價值與你從玩家身上獲得盈利的能力具有更加直接的關(guān)系。我便從一些親身嘗試的游戲中感受到這一點。我下載過一些 真的很棒的免費游戲，甚至能讓我在幾個月后仍然沉浸于其中。那時候我真的很樂意在游戲中消費。其實這主要是因為游戲向我證明了它擁有這樣的價值。我是否真的想要反復(fù)玩 這款游戲？我是否沉浸在其中？如果答案是肯定的，我便會為它打開錢包。我認(rèn)為，如果玩家從游戲中所獲得的價值與你從玩家身上獲得盈利的能力間擁有更直接的關(guān)系，便會有 更多人認(rèn)可這個產(chǎn)業(yè)。沒有什么比在游戲中花費了40美元但在玩了半個小時后發(fā)現(xiàn)它其實很無聊更糟糕的情況了。我們一直在避免這種情況。

GH：你是否認(rèn)為自己之前的游戲也能從新系統(tǒng)中受益？

Wright：這很難說，因為我們也發(fā)現(xiàn)游戲的目標(biāo)玩家群體不斷擴(kuò)展著。我想，我們的一些游戲之所以能夠取得巨大的成功是因為它們吸引了更廣泛的玩家群體。但是它們卻仍只能 出現(xiàn)在一些有限的平臺上。也就是它們都是基于PC的游戲。而當(dāng)提到我所創(chuàng)造的游戲的續(xù)集，如《模擬人生2》，《模擬城市2000》等，玩家們便更加樂意投入30美元或40美元去購 買這些游戲，因為它們已經(jīng)擁有了一定的知名度。可以說第一個游戲版本起到了推廣作用。這是口口相傳的效果。人們會說：“你應(yīng)該試試這款游戲”。你可能會在好友的家中接 觸到這款游戲，并在后來自己也買了同樣的游戲。

現(xiàn)在，這種即時性更能推動著我們?nèi)L試一款游戲。如果有人說起我的iPhone上的一款游戲，我便能在2分鐘內(nèi)去嘗試它。我不再需要到商店購買，將其帶回家并進(jìn)行安裝了。這種 即時性讓用戶能夠嘗試更廣泛的內(nèi)容。另一方面，你還擁有無數(shù)工具能夠幫助游戲吸引玩家的注意。如信號或者聲音。

GH：你是否有想要嘗試的游戲類型或設(shè)計理念，但卻從未有機(jī)會落實行動？現(xiàn)在的開發(fā)周期遠(yuǎn)比以前短，并且風(fēng)險性也大大減小了，所以是否有哪些內(nèi)容是你有機(jī)會進(jìn)行嘗試的？

Wright：我擁有許許多多理念，甚至有可能超越我的壽命。我曾投入了數(shù)個月時間致力于一個理念，即一款戰(zhàn)術(shù)模擬游戲。它基于3D流體動力學(xué)。我想要采取一些有趣的方式去抓 住空氣并移動它。而現(xiàn)在，基于多觸屏界面，我能夠更輕松地實現(xiàn)它（相比之前用鼠標(biāo)和鍵盤操作的方法）。不過還有許多理念是我因為技術(shù)或模擬難度等種種原因而未能付諸行 動。不過我覺得真正讓我感興趣的還是實踐過程，即更深入地理解玩家，并且與一些特定的成員共同開發(fā)并完善一款游戲。

GH：幾年前我們曾采訪了Ken Perlin，我知道你們時不時也會進(jìn)行交流。如果你能夠組建一個夢想開發(fā)小組，你會希望邀請哪些人？

Wright：這要依項目而定。在過去幾年里我已經(jīng)與一些非常優(yōu)秀的人一起工作。特別是在編程領(lǐng)域中，一個優(yōu)秀的程序員的效率比一個不錯的程序員高出100倍。但這也完全取決于 人們對于一個項目的積極性。如果你能夠想出一個理念并計劃哪些人適合該項目，那么他們便是你理想中的團(tuán)隊成員。所以我很難在此說誰更有資格加入夢想團(tuán)隊。

Ken及其作品帶給我很大的啟發(fā)。在開發(fā)《孢子》的早期，我們向他咨詢了許多程序生成內(nèi)容。很多時候我都能夠很幸運地與自己所欣賞的一些人合作，如Christopher Alexander 和James Lovelock。他們不同程度地參與了我們的項目制作。而我的夢想便是讓那些帶給我們靈感的人參與其中，并給予我們適當(dāng)反饋。

GH：你現(xiàn)在玩的哪款游戲能夠帶給你一定靈感，或者你喜歡玩哪一款游戲？

Wright：有趣的是，在我玩游戲的時候，我完全不覺得它們會成為靈感來源。我只是單純地在打游戲，并享受著游戲樂趣。在生活中的某些時候，我會放下游戲設(shè)計師的身份，忘 記我是以此謀生，而只是坐著玩游戲?，F(xiàn)在能夠帶給我最大的樂趣便是《World of Tanks》。在童年的時候我很喜歡“第二次世界大戰(zhàn)”這段歷史（游戲邦注：甚至創(chuàng)建了許多坦 克模型），而《World of Tanks》擁有許多不同于“第二次世界大戰(zhàn)”的坦克。我之所以會覺得它很有趣是因為它很像第一人稱射擊游戲。玩家無需擁有快速的反應(yīng)，反而更加需 要策略型思維能力。這些坦克的行駛速度較慢，炮塔的轉(zhuǎn)向也不快。當(dāng)我在玩第一人稱射擊游戲時，我還被一名14歲的小孩擊中過。所以《World of Tanks》是像第一人稱射擊游 戲那樣許多人都能夠輕松獲取勝利的游戲。

world-of-tanks(from gamingshogun)

我也會在iPhone和iPad上玩許多應(yīng)用。但是通常情況下我都不會陷太深。我之所以嘗試這些應(yīng)用是為了尋找一些真正有趣的內(nèi)容。有時候是為了研究一個新奇的界面或者不同的方 法。它們對于我來說也是靈感的來源。許多基于回合制的策略游戲伴隨著我的成長，所以我一直都很喜歡這類型游戲。就像我便連續(xù)好幾年都在DS上玩《Advance Wars》。Sid Meier的《文明》以及最新面向iPad的《文明：變革》也是我很喜歡的游戲。我會花大量時間去玩這些游戲。

Game Horizon（GH）：你認(rèn)為設(shè)計師和玩家對游戲的態(tài)度存在分歧嗎？

Wright（W）：許多人設(shè)計游戲是出于不同的動機(jī)。如果你跟不同的游戲設(shè)計師對話，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)其原因取決于他們所處的地位、任職公司（比如小工作室）等。有些人只想讓公司成 功，而并不關(guān)心做什么游戲。他們努力研究成功的游戲類型。有些人的動機(jī)就比較藝術(shù)了，像獨立游戲開發(fā)者就大多屬于這一類人。他們希望推動游戲設(shè)計這門藝術(shù)，嘗試新奇的 和有趣的東西。他們努力發(fā)明和發(fā)現(xiàn)新的游戲類型。有些人對某種游戲類型非常執(zhí)著：“我想做出有史以來最好的二戰(zhàn)FPS?！边@更接近一種技藝的態(tài)度。

然而，玩家想的是坐下來好好玩一把游戲，管它是什么游戲。Sid Meier曾經(jīng)說過，有時候游戲設(shè)計師為玩家設(shè)計游戲，有時候他們?yōu)樽约涸O(shè)計游戲。對此，我有好幾次都覺得愧疚 ?；仡欉^去，我已經(jīng)吸取教訓(xùn)了。

simearth(from myabandonware)

多年以前，我設(shè)計了《模擬地球》，當(dāng)時我對模擬游戲非常著迷。我花了許多時間研究氣候與地質(zhì)之間的關(guān)系之類的東西。然而，玩家看不到這些深層次的東西。他們看不到零散 的部件協(xié)同運作是多么精妙的事。對他們而言，他們所看到的東西只是圖像和物品。玩《模擬地球》時，玩家就像被丟進(jìn)一個不斷下墜的駕駛艙，面對各種旋轉(zhuǎn)中的計量表，他們 不知所措，想不出輸入與結(jié)果的關(guān)系。這種模擬太復(fù)雜了，玩家無法享受和學(xué)習(xí)。作為設(shè)計師，我完全沉浸于模擬中，卻忽略了玩家。這段經(jīng)歷讓我受益匪淺。這種事確實常常發(fā) 生。

現(xiàn)在，游戲市場風(fēng)云變幻。通過從玩家身上收集指標(biāo)，我們能夠在幾個小時內(nèi)發(fā)現(xiàn)困擾玩家、娛樂玩家以及讓我們自己感到吃驚的地方。我們能夠從玩家信息中了解到很多東西， 以至于開發(fā)迭代循環(huán)也更加密集了。

GH：你同自己的玩家直接交流嗎？玩家會聯(lián)系你、讓你回答問題嗎？還是說多得處理不過來？

W：我盡量與玩家保持聯(lián)系吧?，F(xiàn)在，對任何一款已發(fā)行的游戲來說，最重要的工作之一就是社區(qū)管理，包括傾聽玩家的意見、了解玩家的需求和反饋玩家、關(guān)心和培養(yǎng)玩家社區(qū)。 如果玩家知道你有關(guān)注他們，玩家社區(qū)就不會衰落，而會變得更加活躍，甚至成為你的游戲傳道者。此外，你還要知道，你的游戲吸引玩家的東西是什么？讓玩家最受挫的東西是 什么？你反饋和修復(fù)問題的速度有多快？一旦你跟玩家社區(qū)展開對話，你就是在與他們合作，讓他們幫助你改進(jìn)游戲。我們有技術(shù)、指標(biāo)和玩家社區(qū)，現(xiàn)在處理反饋和解決問題的 效率非常高了。

GH：你之前提到玩家狀態(tài)這一概念，認(rèn)為玩家可能處于不同的心理狀態(tài)。是否有什么狀態(tài)是你想更加深入研究的？是否可能幫助你產(chǎn)生新的游戲想法？

W：在某種程度上，游戲是從核心大腦，也就是爬蟲類腦（游戲邦注：主管呼吸、血壓、心跳等生理系統(tǒng)，也掌管反射性動作如恐懼、快樂等基本情緒反應(yīng)）開始的。早期的游戲以 攻擊、防御、生存為主題。最初，我們的游戲是針對爬蟲類腦的，因為它容易且高效?，F(xiàn)在，游戲開始以大腦皮層和更廣泛的情緒反應(yīng)為目標(biāo)，使玩家進(jìn)入不同的狀態(tài)?，F(xiàn)在有許 多游戲都非常強調(diào)思考、冥想和放松，這與導(dǎo)致腎上腺素分泌增多的早期游戲是相反的。

對于玩家，現(xiàn)在的游戲更加外化。也就是，玩家進(jìn)入某些世界，應(yīng)對周圍的事物。我們研究得不多、我個人非常有興趣的領(lǐng)域之一就是，我們?nèi)绾巫屚婕腋杏X到更多的內(nèi)心狀態(tài)， 即他們自己的心理。他們的頭腦中想的是什么？游戲可以把玩家個人的許多想法提取出來，讓玩家看到自己在游戲中的有趣反應(yīng)，而不只是一些外在的模擬現(xiàn)實或虛構(gòu)的世界。對 我而言，這些自我反射的游戲暗示著某種自我意識的精神狀態(tài)。我們在游戲中還完全沒有探索過這些精神狀態(tài)。

GH：你認(rèn)為游戲中的敘述是否會阻礙那種體驗產(chǎn)生？

W：我認(rèn)為游戲中總是存在敘述和自由之間的矛盾。比如說，我現(xiàn)在坐在這里給你講一個故事。對你來說，這是一段非常被動的體驗。游戲的主要優(yōu)勢其實是，由玩家驅(qū)動游戲的發(fā) 展。這就是交互性，是玩家對處境的掌控力。

我一直記得，玩家告訴我的他們在游戲中做的獨一無二的事。所以我認(rèn)為游戲更像是一個玩家表演故事的平臺，而不是游戲設(shè)計師講述故事的媒介。對我而言，講述故事基本上是 把玩家置于被動的地位。

作為游戲設(shè)計師，我認(rèn)為采取這種思路——“我們?nèi)绾谓逃螒蜃R別玩家想表演的故事，然后反應(yīng)和支持這些故事？”，是更加有意義的。游戲本身可以成為幕后的導(dǎo)演，看著玩家 推動故事發(fā)展，為故事增加戲劇性。

GH：去年，《Journey》在英國和美國獲得許多獎項，你玩過這款游戲嗎？我提到它是因為它的敘述平衡很微妙，它告訴玩家的很少，而是讓玩家自己去感知角色的情緒。

W：是的。我認(rèn)為《時空幻境》也把握得很好。盡管非常復(fù)雜，但我不認(rèn)為沒有辦法做到。

Journey(from forbes.com)

GH：許多讀者認(rèn)為下一代主機(jī)的危機(jī)是，畫面越來越精美了，但玩法越來越單薄了。你認(rèn)為這種擔(dān)憂是必要的嗎？

W：從歷史上看，游戲業(yè)中一直存在圖像、像素、多邊形之間的競爭?；仡?0年或30年前玩的游戲，當(dāng)時游戲角色的像素極低，但我仍然喜愛那個角色，仍然對它充滿感情。再看看 現(xiàn)在的設(shè)備，我們可以制作渲染得非常華麗的角色和物品，但它們的行為仍然像螞蟻一樣低級。我們在圖像方面已經(jīng)非常非常先進(jìn)了，但在模擬和行為方面，我們?nèi)匀缓苈浜蟆?/p>

與此同時，我發(fā)現(xiàn)人們在玩的仍然是我們在20年前就能做出來的游戲。盡管這些游戲仍然很有趣。人們很沉迷，肯花時間玩。你可以把畫面打磨得非常逼真，暫時吸引玩家的目光 ，但歸根到底，能讓玩家堅持玩上30、40個小時的東西還是玩法。

隨著我們在模似現(xiàn)實的道路上越走越遠(yuǎn)，開發(fā)成本也上升了。結(jié)果，你需要百萬美元投入才能與市場上的其他游戲打成平手。我認(rèn)為，這種現(xiàn)象仍將繼續(xù)存在，但在整個市場上會 越來越少。我不肯定這只是行業(yè)的問題。我們有這么先進(jìn)圖像處理器來產(chǎn)生逼真的畫面是件好事，但玩法才是重點。而制作逼真的畫面只是其中一個努力方向。誰知道我們還有 多少不同類型的玩法還沒開發(fā)出來。這才是需要開拓的領(lǐng)域。

GH：繼續(xù)這個問題，你對索尼、微軟和任天堂的新一代主機(jī)有什么看法嗎？

W：一方面，它們要競爭游戲，但另一方面，它們也在競爭成為媒體中心。這就是新一代游戲的戰(zhàn)爭。游戲之所以有趣，是因為無處不在，甚至隨著游戲化運動而滲透到文化的方方 面面。游戲的觸手開始伸向其他媒體形式?？淳W(wǎng)頁、聽音樂、看電影、上社交網(wǎng)，都有游戲的影子。游戲可能成為這些活動之間的樞紐。

下一代主機(jī)就會出現(xiàn)這種情況：你購買的是一部玩游戲的機(jī)器，但事實上它成為你的媒體中心。從消費者的角度看，玩游戲、看YouTube和聽音樂并沒有多在差別，只是不同形式的 數(shù)字娛樂活動罷了。媒體中心可能就是新主機(jī)將扮演的角色。

至于其他平臺，無論是社交平臺還是手機(jī)平臺，我認(rèn)為我們將把這些平臺看成新游戲開發(fā)的前沿和更多受眾的開發(fā)渠道。主流的美國玩家每五年就會購買一部主機(jī)，更新一次Xbox 或其他游戲設(shè)備?，F(xiàn)在，人們更多地把時間花在iPad等移動設(shè)備上。

GH：現(xiàn)在有許多新的輸入設(shè)備如Kinect、Google Glass和Oculus Rift等。你認(rèn)為多觸屏幕會將它們淘汰掉，還是這些新技術(shù)并駕齊驅(qū)？

W：現(xiàn)在的新輸入設(shè)備真是五花八門。這是一件好事，因為輸入方式簡單，而輸出結(jié)果卻大為進(jìn)步——更高的分辨率、更好的音效等。在以前，玩游戲時，你要一個鼠標(biāo)、一個鍵盤 和一根游戲控制桿。而再看看多觸屏幕和Kinect這些東西，你就會覺得它們?yōu)橛螒蜷_發(fā)世界開拓了一片新天地。

我認(rèn)為更有趣的一種設(shè)備是像Google Glass這種眼鏡。它將徹底改變游戲的視野、吸引廣泛的關(guān)注，是值得探索的新技術(shù)。

再者，即使有了這些輸入設(shè)備，無論是多觸屏幕還是動作感知技術(shù)，或者只是鼠標(biāo)和鍵盤，困難的部分仍然是玩家心理學(xué)。在這方面，輸入設(shè)備還沒成為大瓶頸。我可以想象圍繞 幾乎任何一種設(shè)備設(shè)計游戲中有趣的效果。不同設(shè)備各有優(yōu)勢。很難用鼠標(biāo)和鍵盤玩跳舞游戲，但用Kinect就非常好。某種設(shè)備適合某種游戲。我認(rèn)為不存在“以不變應(yīng)萬變”的 解決方案。多樣化才是王道。

GH：人們對Oculus Rift尤其感興趣。90年代時，虛擬現(xiàn)實可是高端技術(shù)，但運用并不深入，現(xiàn)在，它已經(jīng)落后了。有沒有什么新類型游戲是針對這種操作方式的？

W：強化現(xiàn)實的技術(shù)還有很大潛力。從實用的角度出發(fā)，“頭上戴這種東西會頭暈吧？”仍然要考慮到許多非常現(xiàn)實的問題。但將游戲與現(xiàn)實相融合的相法確實讓我很感興趣，比純 虛擬現(xiàn)實技術(shù)（頭戴上設(shè)備后，真實世界就消失了）更吸引我。虛擬現(xiàn)實技術(shù)可能也有實用性的問題，畢竟仍然能感覺得到周圍的動靜。如果讓我選擇一種可能大大促進(jìn)游戲的技 術(shù)，我想我會選擇強化現(xiàn)實技術(shù)吧。

GH：隨著大量游戲從付費模式轉(zhuǎn)向免費模式或免費試玩模式，你認(rèn)為這對游戲設(shè)計師和他們設(shè)計游戲的方式有何影響？

W：從某種程度上，這讓設(shè)計師的心態(tài)回歸到老式街機(jī)游戲時代。你如何讓玩家在最開始的幾分鐘內(nèi)就對你的游戲愛不釋手？我們要給他們許多甜頭。這是一個巴浦洛夫問題。你必 須逐漸體現(xiàn)游戲的價值，從情感上吸引玩家。

一旦玩家對你的游戲產(chǎn)生感情，他們就更容易把手伸向錢袋了。給他們“只要你打開紅色的大門，就有好玩的東西了”這樣的承諾是遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不夠的。

這一定程度上增加了設(shè)計師的負(fù)擔(dān)。如果在這幾分鐘內(nèi)我不能吸引玩家，那么我在游戲中的其他努力就白費了。我必須花更多時間考慮玩家在游戲中的“初體驗”。這未必是件壞 事。讓玩家喜歡上游戲后，下一個問題就是，如何留住玩家。也就是游戲的粘性。

過去幾年，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)的最有效的辦法是建設(shè)玩家社區(qū)和社交互動。只要我與其他人產(chǎn)生互動關(guān)系，我就會有聲望、影響力、認(rèn)同感，游戲的粘性就產(chǎn)生了?；邮褂螒蜃兂缮缃豢?間，而社交正是使游戲產(chǎn)生粘性的方法之一。

在商業(yè)方面，越來越多人嘗試新方法，如先開發(fā)游戲的一部分，看看反響后再決定是否繼續(xù)投資，以免投入過多收不回本。游戲不一定總是零零碎碎地發(fā)行，但我肯定游戲會一面 銷售一面改進(jìn)。也就是說，先發(fā)布第一版本，吸引玩家后，再添加其他內(nèi)容。這是一種分階段的開發(fā)方式，根據(jù)反響決定投入。這種現(xiàn)象會越來越多。

相關(guān)拓展閱讀：篇目1，篇目2（本文由游戲邦編譯，轉(zhuǎn)載請注明來源，或咨詢微信zhengjintiao）

Game Horizon’s Q&A with Will Wright on the future of games

Dean Takahashi

Nobody talks about games as lucidly as Will Wright, the creator of blockbuster franchises from SimCity to The Sims. He discussed the future of games at the Game Horizon Live event in a live webcast this week. During his Q&A session, he talked about a wide variety of topics about where games are going.

Wright said that he was inspired by the “Cambrian” explosion of games (as in the meteoric growth of life during that epoch in Earth’s history) that has come from indie game development on app stores for smartphones, tablets and other platforms.

Wright cofounded Maxis and created games like SimCity. EA acquired Maxis in 1997, and Wright went on to create titles like The Sims and Spore while at EA. He left Electronic Arts in 2009 and set up a series of startups. His latest company is Syntertainment, which focuses on creative play and the interaction between entertainment and reality.

Wright has won multiple awards and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame. For young game designers getting started, Wright advised them to study nongaming fields so they can get more creative inspiration. Here’s an edited transcript of a portion of the Q&A with Wright at Game Horizon 2013. This is part one of the Q&A and we’ll run part two on Sunday.

Will Wright: Really, you’re dealing with two platforms. You’re dealing with the computing platform, which is code and technology and all that stuff, and you’re dealing with the human mind. When you design a game, it’s running on both of these platforms at once. A lot of the things that we can crunch numbers on in a simulation, we do that on the computer. But a lot of other things that the computer is not well-suited for, we actually run that in the player’s imagination.

For example, in The Sims, when you hear the people talk, you don’t actually hear them saying anything. You hear this kind of gibberish language. Through a lot of experiments, we determined that we could actually have them speaking in English or some other known language, but they very quickly became robotic and repetitive. That veil of reality disappears. On the other hand, if they speak gibberish, your mind naturally fills in the blanks and imagines a onversation.
The Sims have vocal intonation. They have emotion. You can tell if they’re angry or flirting or whatever it is. We don’t hear the exact words, is all. In essence, what we did is we offloaded that part of the simulation into the human imagination.

When I started out in my career many decades ago, it was all about how fast the computer can run. How many pixels can we put on the screen? We were always fighting the machine at every turn to get more performance out of it, to do more tricks. Those limitations, for the most part, have just fallen by the wayside. I don’t feel like I have any meaningful technological bottlenecks or barriers ahead of me. At this point, it’s about how we best exploit the human imagination, the human mind, human creativity, in interesting ways. We’re trying to get somebody’s brain into a certain state that they enjoy. Sometimes it ’s a kind of flow state. You’re at this border between challenge, accomplishment, and difficulty. Other times it’s more of a free-form, creative, expressive state, or something where you want to share, more of a social state.

Obviously, we don’t understand very much about the human mind. Game design, in some sense, is applied psychology. We’re hacking human psychology. We’re dealing with these mechanisms in our brains that give us joy, enjoyment. Sometimes it’s through challenge, or through finding patterns, or through solving problems. Our brain is wired to enjoy these things, which fundamentally is the process of learning. Our brain is wired to reward us for learning and pushing
our limits and doing things outside of our barriers. Game design is in some ways a process of getting us into that state of expanding our mind.

I can sit there and look at the specs of a computer and understand all the stuff that it can and can’t do. The human mind, though, we have no manual for. That’s uncharted territory. As game designers, this is one of the fundamental ways in which we’re exploring the human mind.

Game Horizon: Which game designers in the world do you most admire? Current or historical?

Wright: That’s a good question. Obviously, [Shigeru] Miyamoto and Nintendo. What I admire most about him is that he always takes the player first. Right off the bat, giving someone the controller – what does it feel like? How tactile and kinesthetic is what he’s working on? It works from the inside out. What’s the first 5 seconds of the player experience? What’s in the next 10 seconds? His games have this craftsmanship around them that’s amazing and unique. Plus, the variety of things he’s done. So I very much admire him.

Also, Peter Molyneux. I think he takes a lot of risks. He’s got this vicarious thing about dealing with little worlds full of little people, which very much matches my sensibilities in a way. Sid Meier, I’ve always enjoyed his games. His games are just playable. They’re like a comfortable chair you sit in. I grew up playing board games and war games and stuff. Sid did as well, so I think Sid in some ways is re-creating our youth, the kinds of games we would play back then. There are lots more. It’s hard to pick them out.

All three of these are from my generation of game designers. There are a lot of other people, up-and-coming people, doing weird, cool, experimental stuff right now. I feel like we have a much wider crop of very skilled, talented designers now than we ever have, which is great for the industry. Partially it’s the result of having all these different platforms. You don’t need the 100-person team. A really smart kid can go out there with a couple of his friends and put an app out on the App Store inside of a year. Some of the greatest designers out there are just getting their start right now.

GH: What were the biggest influences for the kind of games that you’ve created – the simulations you’ve built that are more than just mechanical, that simulate life in a way?

Wright: A lot of my influences for my games come from reading, from books. Specific themes and subjects usually are very targeted, coming from academic stuff. I was very inspired initially by Jay Forrester, who was the father of modern system dynamics theory back in the ‘50s. I was reading about how he was trying to take different systems – cities, factories, the whole world – and simulate them. He wanted to deconstruct them into component parts that he could
build a model of.

As a kid I spent most of childhood building models – planes, ships, plastic and wood. I started putting in motors and building tanks and stuff like that, which led me to the idea of robots. I bought my first computer to control my early robots. Doing robotics, I started realizing that most of the really hard problems in robotics and AI were software problems.

At the same time, I got very interested in not just modeling the world with static, physical models, but also how to model the world dynamically. Modeling the internal dynamics of the world and the way things work. I’d say that Jay Forrester was a big inspiration down the simulation path. Another inspiration was a Polish writer named Stanislaw Lem, who wrote a lot about micro-worlds, simulating worlds, and the ethics of dealing with these things. A lot of philosophical questions that these little worlds bring up. For the different games I’ve done, for almost every game there’s some major nspiration. Edward Wilson’s work with ants inspired SimAnt. Christopher Alexander’s work on architecture inspired The Sims. So I get most of my inspiration from reading.

GH: There have obviously been a few issues with the new SimCity. How has that affected you in the design of your new work?

Wright: What I’m working on now is going to be much more of a mobile-based experience. It’s in a totally different ballpark economically and business-wise from the old shrink-wrap model. I think a lot of the old titles, the old franchises that are PC-based and whatnot, are going to have to evolve very rapidly. We’re in a new market. It’s true of the console companies and their business models as well. Their business model used to be that you’d buy a console and they’d sell you a bunch of games and that would pay for the console development. Now people are being conditioned, in the app markets especially, that games cost three to five dollars, or they’re freemium, with microtransactions.

We’re going from one local maximum, in the business landscape of games, to a whole different one. For a lot of business models that’s going to be a very uncomfortable transition. There’s obviously been a lot of piracy over the years in the PC market. DRM is one approach to it. Freemium is another. There’s a Darwinian process happening right now before our eyes as to which ones consumers will accept and which ones they’re going to be comfortable with. It’s a question of how you pull somebody into an experience, without frontloading the economic exposure from the consumer’s point of view.

As far as DRM – and this is relative to SimCity and what happened with the SimCity launch – I wasn’t really working with Electronic Arts at that point, so I can’t say much about that specifically. But I’d say that kind of DRM issue isn’t really much of a concern for me on the new project working on. The business model that we do choose, whether it’s icrotransactions or subscription or however we try to monetize it, is a very big unknown right now. There is no established model. People are experimenting with all these different things and meeting varying levels of success.

GH: You talked a bit about all the changes that have come over the industry in the last five years. A lot of that is centered around the way the industry is structured, how things are sold. You mentioned microtransactions and episodic games. That’s all been on the business side of things. Do you feel that any of that has been a positive for the way games are designed, the way that design is approached?

Wright: As you move to something like a freemium model, what’s happening is, it’s really just an expansion of what we used to call game demos. I’d download a demo and if I liked it I’d go buy the game. We’ve granularized that process.

I am a firm believer that if the game has value to the player, if the player is enjoying that experience, then the player will be willing to pay for it in some form. I think that it puts games on, in some sense, a more even footing, in that it’s not so much about how big of a marketing budget you can put behind it. That’s still a large component, but it’s not as huge as it used to be. It used to be about things like shelf space and how you’d get distribution in very limited channels. That was such a huge filter that in some ways it was causing the publishers to fall back and be very risk-averse. The biggest-selling category was always sequels. Publishers were comfortable investing millions of dollars into the second and third versions of something they knew was successful. They were much less comfortable with trying something totally experimental.

In that sense, the new business models that we have are very good for game development. We’re seeing much more experimentation and risk-taking, because you don’t necessarily have to plunk down as much money on marketing and distribution as you did on game development. The platforms are such that I don’t just spend tens of millions of dollars to develop a top-level game on the platform.

We’re moving to a world where there’s a more direct correlation between the value a player gets from a game and your ability to monetize from the player. I ’ve experienced this myself with certain games that I’ve played. There are games that I’ve downloaded, freemium games, that I’ve really gotten into and that I’m playing months later. I’m willing, at that point, to put money into the game – significant amounts of money. In some sense it’s up to the game to prove itself to me first. Do I really want to play this thing again and again? Am I getting into it? Then I’ll open my wallet and start putting money into it. I think the more direct the correlation between the value a player gets from a game and the amount of money we take from the player, the more people will feel good about the industry. Nothing feels worse than dropping down $40 on a game that you buy at a software store, bringing it home, playing it for half an hour, and finding out that it sucks. We’re moving away from that.

GH: Do you think that any of your previous games would have benefited from this new system?

Wright: It’s hard to say, because at the same time, what we’ve seen is a huge widening of the demographics of our players. The reason why some of my games have been fairly successful, I think, is because they pulled in a much wider group of people. But still, they were on a very limited set of platforms. They were typically PC-based. When you get to the sequels to some of the games I did – The Sims 2, SimCity 2000, and so on – at that point people knew what these things were, and they were much more likely to drop the $30 or $40 to buy the game. In the first versions, it probably did mitigate the spread of these things. It was just word of mouth. People said, “You should check this game out.” You’d play at your friend’s house and then go order it.

Right now, there’s such immediacy to being able to try a game. If someone tells me about a game on my iPhone, I can be playing it in two minutes. I don’t have to find it in the store, bring it home, and install it. That immediacy allows the consumer to experiment with a much wider variety of things. Now, on the flip side of this, you have a thousand cool games competing for your attention. It’s about signal and noise.

GH: Are there any game genres or any design ideas that you’ve had and that you wanted to work on, but you never had a chance to do so? Now that development cycles are shorter and risks might be mitigated, is there anything like that you might have a chance to work on?

Wright: I’ve had so many ideas, some that could go way beyond my lifespan. There’s an idea I worked on for many months that was kind of a tactical storm simulator. It was based on 3D fluid dynamics. I wanted to be able to go in and grab the atmosphere and move it and manipulate it in interesting ways. By now, with a multi-touch interface, it’s probably much more achievable than it was with the old mouse and keyboard approach. But yeah, there are so many ideas that I got into at one point in time or another, and then for whatever reason – technology or simulation difficulty – they dropped by the wayside. For the most part, though, I think that the thing that’s interested me the most is the path that I’m going down, which is understanding the player very deeply and having a game that develops and evolves with particular people.

GH: A couple of years ago, we had Ken Perlin come and give a speech. I gather that you talk to him from time to time. If you had a dream team of people that you’d put together, who would they be?

Wright: It would depend on the project. I’ve worked with a number of great people over the years. Typically, in programming, it’s one of these fields where a great programmer is 100 times more effective than a really good programmer. But it also depends entirely on how motivated people are towards the project. That’s another huge multiplier. If you can come up with an idea and figure out who would be really into it, those are the people you want on the team. So it ’s hard for me to say that there’s one dream team.

Ken and his work have been a huge inspiration to me. He was doing a lot of the early consulting for us on Spore, the procedural generation stuff. At various times I’ve had the privilege to work with some of the people who’ve inspired me with their writing — Christopher Alexander, James Lovelock. I’ve gotten them involved to various degrees on projects. When you get the person who inspired the idea to come in and start giving feedback, to me that is the dream.

GH: What are the games that you are playing at the moment that you’re getting inspired by, or that you just love to play?

Wright: It’s interesting. When I play games, I don’t necessarily feel like I et inspired by them at all. I just sit and play them. I enjoy them. There’s some part of my life where I put aside the fact that I’m a game designer, that I do this for a living, and I just want to sit and blow things up. My current guilty pleasure is World of Tanks. As a kid I always loved World War II history — I built a lot of tank models — and World of Tanks has all these different tanks from World War II. It’s fun for me because it’s kind of like a first-person shooter for old people. You don’t need to have fast reflexes to play
this game. It’s much more about strategic thinking. These tanks go slowly and the turrets don’t turn fast. When I play first-person shooters I just get my butt kicked by 14-year-old kids. So World of Tanks is like a first-person shooter that someone like me can play fairly successfully.

I play a lot of apps, too, on my iPhone and iPad. Usually I don’t play them very deeply. I try a lot of them just to look around for cool things. Sometimes it’s a novel interface or a different approach. Those are probably a little more of an inspiration for me. I grew up playing a lot of turn-based strategy games, too, so I’ve always enjoyed those. Advance Wars on the DS, I spent many years playing that. Sid Meier’s Civilization, as well as the new one on the iPad, Civilization Revolutions. Those are the kinds of games I spend most of my time playing.

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Will Wright, the creator of blockbuster franchises like SimCity and The Sims, discussed the future of games at the Game Horizon Live event in a live webcast this week. During his Q&A session, he discussed a wide variety of topics about where games are going.

Wright said that he was inspired by the “Cambrian” explosion of games (as in the meteoric growth of life during that epoch in Earth’s history) that has come from indie game development on app stores for smartphones, tablets, and other platforms.

Wright co-founded Maxis and created games like SimCity. Electronic Arts acquired the company in 1997, and Wright went on to create titles like The Sims and Spore while at EA. He left Electronic Arts in 2009 and set up a series of startups. His latest company is Syntertainment, which focuses on creative play and the interaction between entertainment and reality.

Wright has won multiple awards and was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame, and in 2007, he became the first game designer to receive a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. For young game designers getting started, Wright advised them to study nongaming fields so they can get more creative inspiration. Here’s an edited transcript of a portion of the Q&A with Wright at Game Horizon 2013. This is part two (click here for part one).

Game Horizon: Do you think there’s a disconnect between the people who design games and the people who are playing them?

Wright: A lot of people design games for different reasons. If you talk to different game designers, it depends on where they are, what company they’re in, if they’re in a startup situation, and things like that. Some just want to build a successful company. They don’t really care what kind of game they make. They’re trying to figure out what the hot genre is. Other people are much more into artistic expression. These are more like your indie game developers. They want to push forward the state of the art in game design and try new, weird, interesting things. They want to strike out and discover new genres. Some people are very wedded to a particular genre. “I want to do the coolest first-person shooter set in World War II that’s been done so far.” It’s much more of a craftsmanship approach.

At the end of the day, as a player, you want to sit back and have a good time and enjoy whatever it is. I think that Sid Meier said once that sometimes game designers design games for players, and other times they design games for themselves. I think I’ve been guilty of that a couple of times. I’ve learned from that, as I step back.

With SimEarth, which was a game I did many years ago, I got really into the simulation. I spent all this time getting the climate connected to geology and things like that. From the player’s point of view, they didn’t see under the hood. They didn’t see all these bits and pieces moving around and how beautifully it worked together, this wonderful clockwork. For them, all they saw were these graphs and things. Playing SimEarth was like being put into the cockpit of a 747 in a nose dive with all the gauges spinning. They were pushing the controls around, trying to come up with some association between their input and the outputs. The simulation was too complex, I think, for players to enjoy and learn from. As a designer, I got totally into the simulation and forgot about the player. That was something I learned a lot from. So that does happen a lot.

Right now, the market is so immediate and so Darwinian. With the metrics that we’re able to collect from players, we’re able to discover within a few hours where players are getting stuck, what they’re enjoying, what things are surprising us about their activities in the game. We’re able to learn from players so much more quickly that it creates a much tighter iteration loop.

GH: Do you engage directly with your audience? Do people contact you and ask you questions and you reply, or is that just overwhelming?

Wright: [I engage] as much as possible. One of the most important roles for any game being released today is community management. Listening to the players, getting a sense of what the consensus is from the players, and responding back to them. Part of that is just care and feeding of the community. If they understand that you’re listening, you can spin it from going bad and turning into a flame war to bringing them on to your side and making them into your evangelists. Another big part of that is understanding what they’re enjoying about your game. What are the things about your game that are most frustrating to them? How quickly can you respond to that and fix it? As soon as you can start the conversation with your community, then you’re working with them. They ’re helping you develop the game. We have the technology and the metrics and the communications to do that now very effectively and very rapidly.

GH: You mentioned earlier the idea of player states, the different psychological states that a player can be in. Are there any particular states that you’d like to explore more? If you did that,would that lead to new game ideas, possibly?

Wright: Games, in some sense, started almost from the core brain, the reptilian brain. Early games were about aggression, defense, survival. The reptilian brain is what we were initially preying on because that was easy and effective. Now games are starting to get to the outer layers of our brain and a wider palette of emotions, and that brings the player into different states. A lot of games out there right now are very reflective or meditative, very relaxing, which is the opposite of the early games that were all about adrenaline.

Games are also more external to the player now. In other words, it’s about the player being sent into some world and dealing with things around them. One of the areas that we haven’t explored much that I’m very interested in is how we get players to get more of a sense of their internal states, their own psychology. What is it like to be inside their head? Games can extract a lot of that from individual players and allow players to see interesting reflections of themselves in the game, not just some external virtual reality, some fictitious world. These self-reflective games to me imply a certain mental state of self-awareness that I think we haven’t explored at all in games.

GH: Do you feel that narrative can get in the way of that kind of experience?

Wright: I think that there’s always going to be this tension between narrative and freedom or agency in games,. I could sit there and tell you a story. That ’s a very passive experience. The chief strength of a game, though, the thing that almost defines a game, is the fact that you’re driving it. It is interactive, and you get to steer the situation. What I’ve kept with me from gaming are the unique stories that players have told me about things that they did in a game, things nobody else did. So I think of games more as a platform for players to play out stories than as a medium for the game designer to tell a story. To me, telling a story is almost, right off the bat, putting the player in a passive role.

As a game designer, I think it’s much more interesting to get on the path of “how do we teach our games to recognize the story that the player is trying to play out and then respond and support that story?” The game itself can become something of a director in the background, watching the player drive the story forward, and then try to support and amplify that dramatically.

GH: Did you play Journey, which won lots of awards in the U.K. and the U.S. last year? I mention it because it found a very interesting balance between the narrative, which it tells you very little about – you discover it yourself – and this sense of emotion in the characters.

Wright: Yeah. I think Braid captured that as well. I’m not saying there aren’t ways to do that. It’s a very tricky thing, though.

GH: We see a lot of readers arguing among themselves about the danger of next-generation consoles delivering more advanced visuals but forgetting about the gameplay aspect – just giving us more flash. Do you feel like that’s a valid concern?

Wright: Historically, we’ve had this kind of arms race in the games industry. Graphics, pixels, polygons. If I look back to the games I was playing 20 or 30 years ago, when there were just a few little pixels on the screen that made up a character, somehow I still cared about that character. I was able to infuse that character with life. Looking at what we can do with modern-day equipment, we can build these beautifully rendered humans and creatures, but their behavioral range is still about that of an ant. We’ve gone way, way ahead on the graphics side, but on the simulation and behavioral side, we’re still many steps back.

At the same time, I see that people are playing these games in the app market that we could have done 20 years ago. They’re still fun, though. People engage, and they spend time playing them. You can go down this path of hyper-realistic graphics, and it’s impressive and nice to look at for a while, but at the end of the day, it’s gameplay that’s going to keep me with a game for 30 or 40 hours.

As we get on that more realistic path, it also makes development much more expensive. That’s where you wind up needing millions of dollars to put something on the market that’s on par with everything else. That world will continue to exist, I think, but it’s going to become a smaller and smaller chunk of the overall games market. I’m not sure that it’s even all that relevant to the industry as a whole. It’s cool that we have these advanced graphics processors to create these hyper-realistic images, but gameplay is what makes up the broad landscape. Making things realistic is just one path through it. Who knows how many different types of innovative gameplay are out there that we haven’t yet discovered. That’s the frontier.

GH: Going on from that, do you have any thoughts on the new generation of consoles in general or the different approaches between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo?

Wright: Gameplay is one thing, but a lot of these people are also competing to become your media hub. That’s the battle they’re starting to fight. Gameplay is interesting because it’s becoming more ubiquitous. It’s starting to infuse our culture everywhere with this gamification movement. People are seeing gameplay send tendrils out into other forms of media. The way I browse the web, the way I think about music or movies, the social networks I use. Games could
potentially become the connective tissue between these things.

If you look at this next generation of consoles, they’re seeing that. You buy this as a game machine, but really it’s going to become your media hub. From a consumer’s point of view, there’s not a huge distinction between gaming and watching YouTube and listening to music. They’re all different forms of entertainment that I’m enjoying digitally. That’s probably the biggest role for these new consoles going forward.

With these other platforms, whether they’re social platforms or mobile platforms, I think we’re going to see those as maybe the larger frontier as far as new, innovative game development and reaching a broader audience. Mainstream America had been in this cycle of buying a console every five years, upgrading the Xbox or whatever. Nowadays people are spending more time on their iPads or tablets and things like that.

GH: There are lots of novel interface mechanisms being delivered these days – Kinect, Google Glass, Oculus Rift, and so on. Do you think the multitouch touchscreen is going to wipe them all out, or do you see those innovations flowering alongside each other?

Wright: There are so many different input devices appearing right now. It’s kind of nice because for the longest time we had all this growth in the output from your computer – higher resolution, better sound – and the input was pretty much still the same little straw. You had a mouse, a keyboard, and maybe a joypad. Seeing things like multitouch and 3D Z-buffer Kinect types of things, they’re opening up interesting new areas in game development.

I think one of the more interesting ones is going to be on the eyewear side of things, wherever that goes — Google Glass and so forth. That’s going to be something that feels fundamentally different, that’s going to be a whole new thing to explore. It’s going to have a lot of social stigma attached to it, which will be interesting and fun to explore.

Again, even with the input we have, whether it’s multitouch or gesture or just mouse and keyboard, the hard part is still getting into the psychology of the player. I don’t see that theinterfaces are that big of a bottleneck in that direction. I can imagine designing an interesting effect in a game around almost any interface. Each one has its strengths. It’s hard to do a dance game with a keyboard and mouse whereas a dance game with Kinect works pretty well. Certain interfaces will become the home of certain genres. I don’t see any one-size-fits-all solution. I see a sea of diversification.

GH: The Oculus Rift in particular has drawn a lot of interest. Virtual reality was a big thing in the ’90s, but it never quite worked out, but now it’s come back again. Do you see new genresbeing created specifically for this much more integral control method?

Wright: The augmented-reality thing has a lot of potential going forward. There’s still the pragmatic aspect of “how long can I wear this on my head without getting motion sick?” There are some very practical concerns. But the idea of blending gaming with reality is very intriguing to me. It’s more intriguing than the idea of pure virtual reality, where I put on the headset and the whole world disappears. It’s probably more pragmatic as well, to still have some awareness of what’s around you. If I had to pick one technology that I think is going to be a leap forward for gaming, it probably would be down the augmented-reality path.

GH: As a lot of games and genres migrate from a premium business model to free-to-play or free-to-try, do you see that reflected in the role of the designer and the way that you design a game using those models?

Wright: In some sense, it puts the psychology of the designer back where we were in the old arcade days. How do you get somebody, in the first couple of minutes, to enjoy the activity enough that they can’t stop? We’re giving them a bag of potato chips, so to speak. It’s a very Pavlovian thing. You have to unveil the value of a game progressively and get the player emotionally hooked.

Once you get them emotionally hooked, it’s a lot easier to get them to pull a dollar out of their pocket. It’s more than just the promise of “this is going to be really cool if you open the red door.”

In some ways, it frontloads a lot of the designer’s task. Right off the bat, if I can’t get the player past a certain point with this game, any other effort I put into the game is wasted. I’mgoing to spend a lot more time thinking about the initial user experience. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Then, once you’ve pulled somebody into the experience, it’s a question of how you keep them there. What’s the stickiness?

One of the most effective ways that we’ve found over the years revolves around community and social interaction. As soon as I’m interacting with other people — I have some reputation, I have a role, I see this as part of my identity — that’s as sticky as anything. It’s going to bring games into a somewhat more social space because social is one of those thumbnail methods for making the experience sticky.

On the business side, you’re going to see a lot of people trying things, to some degree, where you’re putting something out with a certain amount of development and waiting to see if people get pulled into it efore you invest too much on the back side of the experience. We’re not necessarily going to see games revealed episodically all the time, but I can definitely see games growing while they’re on the market. I come out with a first version, and when people get into it, I add more layers to it. It’s staged development, where you reinvest based on success. We’re seeing alot of that happen.