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发表于 2006-8-29 08:06:00
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Re: Chris Crawford on game design(translate by Letian)
Chapter 12 Random Sour Observations
Sleaze
The worst consequence of the domination of the games industry by young males has been the steady descent of aesthetic standards. In the early Atari days, games were meant to be family fun—clean, upbeat, even cute. There were, of course, always those who sought to make money by appealing to the more sordid interests. One of the first of these was a videogame for the Atari 2600 entitled Custer's Revenge. In this sublime work of art, the player as General George Custer must cross the playfield, avoiding a snowstorm of thorny tumbleweeds that threaten to injure his exposed and erect member. On the opposite side of the screen waits an Indian maiden tied to a post. A successful traversal yields the rewarding opportunity to rape said maiden with a series of upward thrusts with the joystick. The storm of outrage generated by this deliberately provocative "game" played right into the hands of its sleazy purveyor.
Such games were surprising exceptions to a prevailing attitude that games should provide happy, clean fun. Nintendo reinforced this attitude with its early enforcement of "family values" in games for its platform.
The first-person shooters broke the dam. The very first, Castle Wolfenstein, copped a nasty attitude with its deliberately glorified killing. Victims cried out "Meine Liebe!" as they died; blood spattered as they fell. The lead designer, John Romero, continued to develop this vicious style with the enormously successful Doom and its many sequels. Each game showed more gore more realistically. One hit game of the early 90s, Mortal Kombat, seemed to take special pleasure in gore, concluding each victory with the yanking out of the loser's spine. The material accompanying the games reeked of an ugly nihilistic attitude toward killing. All this was, of course, billed as satire or pure fantasy, but the bloody-minded style took hold of the industry. I recall an ad for a game in the mid-90s featuring a man holding a gun lying in a bathtub full of blood. Smelling the scent, the industry advanced the cause with more blood-soaked shooters like Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto. The third installment in the latter series boasted an especially vicious style, offering players the opportunity to hire and then murder a prostitute. As I write this, the newest sleaze game, BMX XXX, is generating plenty of consternation among industry outsiders, intense jealousy among competitors, and even greater anticipation among players.
Compounding the problem is the approbation that the industry bestows upon such products. A prudent industry would treat sleazy products with harsh disdain, but the games industry cannot conceal its delight in sleaze. Grand Theft Auto III won industry awards despite the damage it did to the industry image.
Industry insiders protest that they are merely offering the players what they want; they are not imposing values on players but responding to values already inculcated in youths by a sick society. This is self-serving circumlocution. The games industry is not passively responding to values imposed upon it by a ruthless marketplace; it has selected its own audience, driving away most who do not revel in blood-soaked killing. By offering such games, the industry has attracted the kind of audience that demands them—thereby reinforcing the cycle.
The result of this profound strategic marketing blunder is an industry that is steadily descending into ever-deeper sleaze. The only solution is to take a deep breath, devote a large amount of money to breaking out of this self-imposed pit, and pay the price of developing a healthier marketplace.
第十二章 无处不在的观察
副作用
全以年轻男人为基础建立游戏工业的最糟糕的副作用就是，美学的稳
步倒退。在Atari公司的早期游戏，意味着让家庭一起来玩------游戏是
纯粹，乐观，甚至是美好的。当然，那时候也总有人也出售低级趣味的游
戏以换取金钱。这些最早的一个例子就是，Atari2600上的一个视频游戏
，名字叫做“卡斯特的复仇”。在这个貌似庄严的创作中，玩家扮演卡斯特
将军，必须穿越敌方阵地，避免枪林弹雨的袭击伤害他裸露的下半身。在
屏幕的另一侧，有个印第安少女被捆绑在一根柱子上。任务成功时，玩家
就可以通过猛推游戏杆来强暴这个少女。这个下流的游戏使得Atari公司
声名狼藉。
有些游戏让人感到健康，愉悦，这才应该是游戏所表现的。任天堂在
早期的“家庭游戏”中强调了这一概念。
第一人称视角设计游戏打破了常规。最早期的，Wlofenstein城堡
，把屠杀变成了游戏所赞扬的东西。牺牲品们喊着“Meine Liebe！”被杀
掉了；当他们倒下的时候，鲜血溅落一地。主设计者John Romero，把这
种不健康的风格在他Doom游戏和很多doom升级版本中继续发扬光大。
Doom在商业上取得了成功，一代又一代的doom升级版本力图表现出更加
逼真的屠杀。一个让人印象深刻的在90年代初期的游戏------“魔宫帝国
”所表现出来的血腥，在每一次获胜的时候都会把失败者的脊骨撕开。在
游戏中对于死亡是一种漫不在乎的态度，它却取得了成功，这真是个讽刺
。于是用死亡带来的视觉冲击成了游戏工业的通用模式。我记得在90年代
中期看到一个游戏中的广告，是描写一个男人在战斗中倒在血泊里。感受
这种气息，游戏工业更加血腥的代表作是半条命和侠盗猎车手。还有一些
游戏也是不健康的，甚至给玩家藏起来并且谋杀一个妓女的体验。当我在
写这些的时候，BMX xxx公司发行了最新的游戏，包括恐怖系列，这些系
列让同行嫉妒，让玩家期待。
这些现象都说明了一个问题，游戏工业在一些不健康的方面走的太远
。一个谨慎的行业应该鄙夷那些浅薄的东西，可是游戏工业却赞赏这些东
西。侠盗猎车手3因为对游戏行业的摧毁而赢得了奖章。
游戏行业的解释是，他们只不过提供了玩家所想要的；他们并不是强
加给玩家一些价值观，而是把代表年轻玩家想要的价值观的东西给了他们
。这是一种曲解。游戏行业不是被动地适应市场；它选择了自己的用户群体，把那些大多数不喜欢血腥暴力的玩家抛弃了。提供这样暴力的游戏，游戏工业吸引的是那些热爱暴力的玩家。这是恶性循环。
这种战略上的市场错误就是，游戏行业正在越来越走向低级趣味。唯一的解决手段就是做一次深呼吸，把大量的金钱投入到这个行业中，花时间去建立一个健康的市场。
（如果你以为他只是说说而已，那你可错了。Chris Crawford已经这样做了。他花费了14年来建立一个Storytelling系统，主要是描述人类社会之间的社交关系，现在还没有开发完成。译者注）
atian.dpnet.com.cn，welcome!
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发表于 2006-8-30 11:42:00
