共享游戏：社交游戏设计

It’s a truism that even in the era of instantly accessible content, nothing quite rivals the power of word of mouth. Social media can help us to find new trusted content to download, but maximizing your game’s social impact requires more than integrating the Facebook, Twitter, or even the Everyplay plugins into your game.

这是不言而喻的，即使在即时访问内容的时代，也没有任何东西可以与口耳相传的力量匹敌。 社交媒体可以帮助我们找到可下载的新内容，但要最大程度地发挥游戏的社会影响力，不仅仅需要将Facebook，Twitter甚至Everyplay插件集成到您的游戏中。

Creating a social game has the potential to bring with it huge benefits such as increased installs, increased retention, and even retention through social factors. The following chart comes from our 2014 online survey of 3000 games players and shows how sharing behaviors can impact spending.

创造社交游戏具有带来巨大收益的潜力，例如增加安装量，增加保留率，甚至通过社交因素带来的保留率。 下图来自我们2014年对3000名游戏玩家的在线调查，并显示了分享行为如何影响支出。

As a game designer, you have to understand not only the player’s underlying motivation to share, but his journey to engage with shared content. I’ve written about this before when I tried to classify social player engagement using “The Six Degrees of Socialisation”.

作为游戏设计师，您不仅需要了解玩家分享的潜在动机，还需要理解他参与共享内容的过程。 之前，我曾尝试使用“六度社交化”对社交玩家的参与度进行分类。

We don’t need to explore this in detail here, but essentially players are willing to engage at different levels based upon the effort, reward, and risk of doing so. Like ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’, we have to fulfill their most basic need first before players will consider higher states of engagement. However this is actually an upside-down pyramid, as the effort involved to sustain each sunsequent state grows ever higher and involves greater personal risk. Let’s look at the kinds of behaviors we might eventually hope to get from our players.

我们无需在此进行详细探讨，但本质上，玩家愿意根据自己的努力，回报和风险来进行不同程度的互动。 像“马斯洛的需求层次”一样，我们必须首先满足他们的最基本需求，然后玩家才能考虑更高的参与度。 但是，实际上这是一个颠倒的金字塔，因为维持每个紧急状态所付出的努力越来越大，并且涉及更大的个人风险。 让我们看一下我们最终希望从玩家那里得到的行为。

1. Wanderer – The lowest level of social interaction, such as using helper characters based on real players who happen to play at the same time as you (e.g. Hellfire/Puzzles & Dragons).

   流浪者–最低级别的社交互动，例如根据碰巧与您同时玩耍的真实玩家使用辅助角色(例如，地狱火/拼图与龙)。

2. Personal Affirmation – A simple public statement of the players’ engagement in a game. There is no expectation for others to engage back as this is a broadcast of their identity.

   个人肯定 –关于玩家参与游戏的简单公开声明。 别指望别人参与，因为这是他们身份的广播。

3. Social Capital – An indirect benefit from some kind of display in the context of a game that reflects the taste/talent or commitment to the game. A key aspect to many IAP decisions.

   社会资本 –在游戏环境中通过某种显示方式的间接收益，反映了游戏的品味/才能或对游戏的投入。 许多IAP决定的关键方面。

4. Making A Statement – Beyond the simple broadcast comes a more competitive declaration usually involving scores, some amazing captured content, or an act of creativity.

   发表声明 –除了简单的广播之外，还有更具竞争力的声明，通常涉及乐谱，一些令人惊叹的捕获内容或创造力。

5. Meaningful Communication – The start of leveraging a game to intentionally communicate to others, rather than in a gameplay context by using the game as the medium.

   有意义的交流 –利用游戏与他人进行有意交流的开始，而不是在使用游戏媒介的情况下进行游戏交流。

6. Esoteric Lore – Games (particularly where there is ambiguous strategy) become the focal point for social debate and depth of knowledge of game Lore becomes inherently valuable.

   神秘的知识 -游戏(尤其是在存在歧义策略的地方)成为社会辩论的焦点，并且游戏知识的深入性具有内在的价值。

7. User Generated Content – When player creativity breaks the barrier of what is essential to play and creating content becomes the purpose (sometimes across other mediums).

   用户生成的内容 –当玩家的创造力突破了玩法必不可少的障碍时，创建内容成为目的(有时通过其他媒介)。

8. eSports – When competition becomes formalized & stratified to the level where observing professional play is as intrinsically enjoyable as any sport (often with significant prize money).

   电子竞技 –当比赛正式化和分层到可以观看职业比赛与任何运动一样的内在乐趣的水平时(通常会有很多奖金)。

Encouraging these behaviors can be incredibly powerful as long as its authentic. For the purposes of this post we don’t want to confuse social features with ‘gift spamming’, which has almost nothing to do with genuine social communication and is essentially a derivative form of gameplay advantage. That can have its place, but it has been so overused that it has damaged player trust. Instead, we have to create the conditions which enable players to communicate and make this inherently enjoyable; but we can’t force them to use them. As much as we all want to make our game the next eSport or YouTube sensation, that is out of our hands and success only comes from our players. Every game can benefit from social design, but it takes a touch of alchemy for games to ‘Go Viral’.  It seems that this is often based on the following factors:

只要是真实的行为，鼓励这些行为就会变得异常强大。 出于本文的目的，我们不想将社交功能与“垃圾邮件发送”混为一谈，“垃圾邮件发送”与真正的社交交流几乎无关，本质上是游戏优势的衍生形式。 那可以占有一席之地，但是它被过度使用以至破坏了玩家的信任。 相反，我们必须创造条件，使玩家能够进行交流并使之具有内在的愉悦感； 但是我们不能强迫他们使用它们。 我们所有人都想使我们的游戏成为下一场电子竞技或YouTube的盛事，这是我们无法控制的，成功仅取决于我们的玩家。 每个游戏都可以从社交设计中受益，但是游戏要想“走红”就需要一些炼金术。 看来这通常是基于以下因素：

• Social Zeitgeist: Timing is everything. There are countless games out there and your game has to stand apart not just in terms of play, but also in its timing with the audience. What makes your game stand out as not just the next Angry Birds, League of Legends, World of Tanks, etc., but something ready right now to replace them?

  社会时代精神：时间就是一切。 那里有无数的游戏，您的游戏不仅要在玩法上脱颖而出，而且还要在与观众的时机上脱颖而出。 是什么让您的游戏脱颖而出，不仅是下一个《愤怒的小鸟》，《英雄联盟》，《战车世界》等，还可以立即替代它们？

• Social Identity: Players need ‘hooks’, which let them easily identify both themselves and all who belong to your player’s community as ‘Us’ and those who don’t play as ‘Them’. This may come from the art or playing style or even inherently in the skill curve. However, you need something which directly connects your audience and lets them stand apart.

  社交身份：玩家需要“挂钩”，这使他们可以轻松地将自己以及与您的玩家社区相同的所有人都标识为“ Us”，而不将其识别为“ Um”。 这可能来自艺术或比赛风格，甚至可能来自技能曲线。 但是，您需要一些可以直接联系您的受众并使他们脱颖而出的东西。

• Niche Lore: An incredible level of Niche Lore (detailed and specific knowledge) can be required by players in order to maximize their potential playing these games. This is especially important where there are ambiguous or asymmetrical strategies of play. Don’t mistake this for complexity, even a game like Puzzles & Dragons has an incredible depth of hidden knowledge which comes into play only in later phases of long-term play

  Niche Lore：玩家可能需要不可思议的Niche Lore(详细知识和特定知识)，以最大程度地发挥这些游戏的潜力。 在存在模棱两可或不对称的比赛策略时，这一点尤其重要。 不要将其误认为是复杂性，即使像《 Puzzles＆Dragons》这样的游戏也具有令人难以置信的深度知识，只有在长期游戏的后期才能发挥作用

• Brand Reach: Scale is a vital factor in all of this, as is having both deep marketing pockets and endorsement from your existing community – YouTubers or Platform holders absolutely help to expand your reach. Scalability is not just the number of users though. It requires a depth and repeatability of game play that can last for months, or better yet, years, while still sustaining a predictable uncertainty. You need a critical mass of content and audience if the game is to gain a self-sustaining momentum.

  品牌影响力：规模是这一切的重要因素，深厚的营销实力和来自现有社区的认可也是如此– YouTuber或平台持有者绝对有助于扩大您的影响力。 可伸缩性不仅是用户数量。 它要求游戏的深度和可重复性可以持续数月甚至更好的数年，同时还要保持可预测的不确定性。 如果游戏要获得自我维持的动力，就需要大量的内容和受众。

If we want a successful game, then we can’t afford to ignore these social factors even if we don’t think our idea is likely to gain the heady heights of League of Legends or Minecraft. Benefiting from social experiences is about understanding not just how we connect players to each other, but also how to incorporate the design choices which make communication inherently worthwhile. Let’s look at a psychological model of sustaining social connections:

如果我们想要一款成功的游戏，那么即使我们认为我们的想法不太可能获得《英雄联盟》或《我的世界》的顶峰，我们也不能忽视这些社会因素。 从社交经验中受益不仅在于理解我们如何将玩家彼此联系起来，而且在于如何融合设计选择，从而使交流具有内在价值。 让我们看一下维持社会联系的心理模型：

相互依存理论 (Interdependence Theory)

This model looks at how any social relationship involves a degree of effort and an expectation of some kind of reward (love, happiness, acceptance, pleasure, companionships, etc). If we consider our engagement with a game a social relationship, we must acknowledge that there are a lot of games out there which present themselves as having a positive social experience. If we don’t understand the delicate balance between effort and reward in our game and how we compare to others, how will we be successful at retaining users? How we communicate with players and, more importantly, how they communicate with each other, takes on a new dimension. Just like any human relationship, communication is key to understanding how what we’re getting out of being together compares to what we would miss out on if we separated.

该模型着眼于任何社会关系如何涉及努力程度和对某种回报的期望(爱，幸福，接受，享乐，陪伴等)。 如果我们认为与游戏的互动是一种社交关系，那么我们必须承认，有很多游戏表现出自己具有积极的社交体验。 如果我们不了解游戏中努力与回报之间的微妙平衡，以及我们如何与他人进行比较，那么我们如何成功留住用户 ？ 我们如何与玩家交流，更重要的是，他们如何彼此交流，呈现出一个新的维度。 就像任何人际关系一样，沟通是理解与他人分开时我们所失去的东西的关键。

So what practical tips can we apply to our game design that will create the best potential for social sharing and retention? And of course to maximize this potential if we manage to become part of the social zeitgeist. This seems to come down to understanding how your game delivers on the following:

那么，我们可以将哪些实用技巧应用于我们的游戏设计中，从而为社交共享和保留创造最大潜力？ 当然，如果我们设法成为社会时代精神的一部分，则可以最大程度地发挥这种潜力。 这似乎归结为了解您的游戏如何在以下方面实现：

重播性 (Replayability)

Replayability is an essential aspect of any game as a service. In many eSport games, this goes as far as ensuring that the start conditions are identical every time with players choosing upgrades only during play. This is a valid strategy but it comes at a price where the game risks impacting the ongoing sense of purpose and progression for many players. These players will hit a ‘skill’ ceiling when it comes to such games and may churn earlier as a result. This approach can also directly limit otherwise useful In-App Purchases, which could have delivered not just social capital, but also good strategy options. However, some (often MMO-style) games only unlock the best equipment as the player journeys through the game, with each new monster the player meets being slightly more difficult than the last. This can quickly unbalance the play too far away from the skill and the autonomy of players. Breaking the game strategy and progression into independent loops can mitigate this. For example if you had a game which had a preparation stage, in-play improvements, and victory conditions, then you could take the following approaches: 1) Player Preparation: The character/tools you take into play have both positive and negative aspects which affect play style. 2) In-Play Upgrade Path: Players may adjust in advance, but there are ‘standard paths’ for newer players. Make the advantages strategic. 3) Victory Conditions: Taking part and completing play should always be rewarded to give you a chance to improve. Victory itself should introduce new choices/strategies which contribute to the player’s sense of purpose and engagement, rather than simple linear improvements which equate to the player just fighting a bigger monster each time.

可重玩性是任何游戏即服务的重要方面。 在许多电子竞技游戏中，这样做的目的是确保每次启动的条件都相同，而玩家只能在比赛中选择升级。 这是一个有效的策略，但代价是，游戏可能会影响许多玩家持续的目标感和进步感。 这些玩家在此类游戏中将达到“技能”上限，因此可能会更早流失。 这种方法还可以直接限制本来有用的应用内购买，这不仅可以带来社会资本，而且可以带来良好的战略选择。 但是，某些(通常是MMO风格的)游戏在玩家游历游戏时只会释放最佳装备，而玩家遇到的每个新怪物都比上一个困难得多。 这会很快使游戏失去平衡，使游戏与玩家的技能和自治能力相距太远。 将游戏策略和进展分为独立的循环可以缓解这种情况。 例如，如果您的游戏有准备阶段，进行中的改进和获胜条件，那么您可以采用以下方法： 1)玩家准备：您所玩的角色/工具既有积极方面也有消极方面，影响打法。 2)游戏中升级路径 ：玩家可以提前进行调整，但是对于较新的玩家来说，存在“标准路径”。 使优势成为战略。 3)胜利条件：参加比赛和完成比赛应始终得到奖励，以使您有提高的机会。 胜利本身应该引入新的选择/策略，这些选择/策略有助于玩家的目的感和参与感，而不是简单的线性改进，即等同于玩家每次只与一个更大的怪物作战。

能力VS：辅助功能 (Competence VS: Accessibility)

There is nothing quite like a challenge to create a sensation. We love the extraordinary difficulty of games like Dark Souls or Superhexagon, but these frustrating challenges eventually wear on us over time. The trouble is that the difficulty curve cannot be never ending or our players will reach a point where the effort overwhelms the rewards of success; one where they either can’t afford the time or simply don’t have the reflexes of their friends.The ability to learn how to play the game is too often poorly understood by developers who may introduce cumbersome tutorials or fail to communicate clearly enough for mass market players to feel they know how to even get started. Many games also mistake the nature of competitive play. While competition is a huge motivation for some, the vast majority of people are not motivated solely by competition. They need other things to motivate them, such as progression and narrative- You don’t want to alienate your social audience by limiting accessibility to those with sufficient skill.This becomes easier to manage when you stratify the game, allowing players to reach their own level of competence and find others of a similar level, or when you provide alternative success criteria. Remember that a player’s own goals have to feel attainable, even if they can’t compete at the very highest levels.

没有什么能像挑战一样引起轰动。 我们喜欢《黑暗之魂》或《超级六边形》等游戏的非凡难度，但随着时间的推移，这些令人沮丧的挑战最终会给我们带来困扰。 问题在于难度曲线不会永无止境，否则我们的玩家将到达努力压倒成功回报的地步。 他们要么负担不起时间，要么根本就没有朋友的React。开发人员往往对学习如何玩游戏的能力了解得很少，他们可能会引入繁琐的教程，或者无法清晰地交流信息，大众市场参与者感到他们知道如何开始。 许多游戏也误解了竞争性游戏的性质。 尽管竞争对某些人而言是巨大的动机，但绝大多数人并非仅出于竞争动机。 他们需要其他东西来激励他们，例如进步和叙事-您不想通过限制具有足够技能的人的可及性来疏远您的社交观众。当您对游戏进行分层时，这变得更容易管理，使玩家能够达到自己的水平能力水平，并找到其他具有类似水平的能力，或者在您提供其他成功标准时。 请记住，即使玩家无法达到最高水平，他们自己的目标也必须实现。

出现VS：平衡 (Emergence VS: Balance)

We have talked about Replayability and Purpose as important factors to balance. If we fail, it can lead to not only sterile gameplay, but also sterile game visuals. We need our games to sparkle when they are watched by an audience. This means we need to uncover unpredictable elements of gameplay or visuals which will delight viewers as well as players – this often takes the form of effects triggered by unique combinations of actions.Consider tactics introduced with a new playable character or an emergent property of an item in gameplay, such as Acid being combined with Stone. The key to developing successful emergence is that it’s not about randomness; it’s about a set of rules having player-led uncertainty. Hill Climb Racer has consistently been one of the games with the most shared replays on Everyplay, because the emergent properties of the game’s physics always deliver a joyful result – catastrophic failure. That failure isn’t randomly imposed, as it’s an emergent property where the physics meets sensitive player controls.

我们已经将可重播性和目标性作为平衡的重要因素。 如果我们失败了，这不仅会导致游戏玩法不畅，而且还会导致游戏画面不畅。 当我们的游戏被观众们观看时，就需要让它们发光。 这意味着我们需要发现将使观众和玩家感到满意的游戏或视觉元素中不可预测的元素–这通常采取由独特的动作组合触发的效果形式。考虑采用新的可玩角色或物品的紧急属性引入的战术在游戏中，例如酸与石结合。 成功出现的关键在于，它与随机无关。 这是关于由玩家主导的不确定性的一组规则。 Hill Climb Racer一直是Everyplay上重播次数最多的游戏之一，因为游戏物理性的新兴属性始终带来令人愉悦的结果-灾难性的失败。 失败不是随机施加的，因为它是物理遇到敏感的玩家控制的一种新兴属性。

The choice of attack method in a MOBA itself only becomes interesting to watch when it’s defended by another player and their choice of character. There are (usually) only 3 paths, yet they remain interesting based on how each player leverages their abilities and advantages against each other. Their teamwork, communication skills and knowledge are just as important as the game itself. All of this falls apart if the emergent properties in a game overwhelm the inherent balance of the game. If the game loses balance, it stops being fun and any emergent properties are rendered worthless.

仅当MOBA受到另一名球员的防守以及他们选择的角色时，MOBA本身的进攻方式选择才变得很有趣。 (通常)只有3条路径，但是根据每个玩家如何利用自身的能力和优势相互竞争，它们仍然很有趣。 他们的团队合作，沟通技巧和知识与游戏本身一样重要。 如果游戏中的新兴属性压倒了游戏的固有平衡，那么所有这些都将分崩离析。 如果游戏失去平衡，它将不再有趣，并且任何新兴属性将变得毫无价值。

自主VS：叙事 (Autonomy VS: Narrative)

Games are fundamentally an expression of the player through the game where their actions help to shape their own narrative. This is what makes games different from any other media. We need this capacity in a game in order for our choices, skills and actions to make a difference. However, in many very popular games the player is either discovering the single solution setup by the designer or unlocking the narrative the game designer wants to tell.True, autonomy can’t be possible if you’re playing a character with a specific story to tell, but how can we understand what our character can do or why we should emotionally connect with them without any context? Designer-led (rather than player-led) games are largely at odds with this concept and therefore negate the benefits of social play, but that doesn’t mean that narrative doesn’t have a place in social games. As Wolfgang Volk said at Respawn 2015 “[SIC] games have rules, conflict, and character, they are already stories and any narrative we create around that should be designed to help the game and its rules be better understood”. Again this becomes easier when we separate out aspects of the game from the player setup, the in-game upgrades, and the post-play sense of purpose.

从根本上说，游戏是玩家通过游戏进行的一种表达，他们的行为有助于塑造自己的叙述。 这就是使游戏不同于其他任何媒体的原因。 我们在游戏中需要这种能力，以便我们的选择，技能和行动发挥作用。 但是，在许多非常流行的游戏中，玩家要么发现设计师的单一解决方案设置，要么解锁游戏设计师想要讲述的故事。诚然，如果您要扮演具有特定故事的角色来实现自主性，说出来，但是我们如何才能理解角色可以做的事情，或者为什么我们应该在没有任何上下文的情况下与他们建立情感联系呢？ 设计师主导(而不是玩家主导)的游戏与这一概念大相径庭，因此否定了社交游戏的优势，但这并不意味着叙述在社交游戏中就没有地位。 正如沃尔夫冈·沃尔克(Wolfgang Volk)在Respawn 2015上所说的那样：“ [[SIC]游戏具有规则，冲突和特征，它们已经是故事，而我们围绕此创建的任何叙述都应旨在帮助游戏及其规则得到更好的理解”。 当我们从玩家设置，游戏内升级和游戏后的目的感中分离出游戏的各个方面时，这又变得更加容易。

In the end though, there is only so much we can do to create the right conditions for social experiences. In many ways the most important tips have very little to do with game design itself.

最后，我们只能做很多事情来为社会经验创造合适的条件。 在许多方面，最重要的技巧与游戏设计本身几乎没有关系。

1. You Can’t Fake Authenticity – Engage honestly with your players, listen yet still lead.

   您不能伪造真伪 -与玩家诚实地交往，倾听却仍保持领先。

2. Trust Your Audience – Going social means losing control – but this is good (when moderated).

   信任您的听众 –社交意味着失去控制–但这很好(当主持时)。

3. Players Have Their Own Audience – Why is your game fun for your players’ friends to watch.

   玩家拥有自己的受众群体 –为什么您的游戏让玩家的朋友们观看有趣。

4. Social Isn’t Just an SDK – It’s about how you use those tools inside your game.

   社交不只是一个SDK –它与您如何在游戏中使用这些工具有关。

5. Social Reflects a Hierarchy of Needs – We don’t all have to make eSports games.

   社交反映了需求的层次结构 –我们不必都制作电子竞技游戏。

Think about the player’s own audience to make the most of the experience and then download the Everyplay SDK here to capitalize on shared content creation.

考虑玩家自己的观众以充分利用体验，然后在此处下载Everyplay SDK以利用共享内容的创建。

演示地址

翻译自: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/09/01/games-made-for-sharing-social-game-design/