盘点推动游戏领域历史性变革的现象编辑本段回目录
我们处在快速变化的创意行业，该领域的趋势会在1年内出现大起大落，或者突然出现新标准。但这些快速发展和变化趋势不是空穴来风。
每次行业变革都有催化剂。若没有《毁灭战士》，我们现在会处在什么阶段？若Facebook没有出现，MySpace游戏能否吸引众多用户？还有Unity或Unreal Engine 3？
我们决定深入探讨，研究某些近来改变游戏行业态势的概念、游戏、公司和服务内容，或好或坏。
Mojang（斯德哥尔摩，瑞典）
关于Mojang及其轰动巨作《Minecraft》的讨论很多。游戏共有400万个付费帐户和1600万名用户，收益丰厚，是款非常杰出的作品。这款游戏将用户生成内容发挥到极致，将玩法和创造融合起来。
minecraft(from indiegames.com)
但之所以将Mojang纳入在内的原因不在于其所获收益。所有公司都能够通过秘密手段获得收益，但Mojang完全秉承透明原则。
首先，这证明自筹资金“alpha阶段付费”模式的可行性。其他公司之前试过，有些获得成功，但《Minecraft》是此概念的倡导者。根本来说，就是让用户尽早就喜欢的内容付费——但开发者要继续支持内容，修复漏洞，倾听用户心声，坦诚相待。
《Minecraft》开发者Markus Persson主要通过Twitter而非新闻媒体发布消息，他们尽量直接回复邮件和评论（游戏邦注：虽然就1000万用户而言这有点不切实际），这也让Mojang成为未以公司形式发布消息的先驱。
此外，由于公司将发行的游戏因以“Scrolls”命名而遭Bethesda起诉，Mojang开始对其他公司的公然复制行为视而不见，这些克隆作品主要集中在XBLIG和PC平台，有些创收超过100万美元。
Mojang正逐步改变其他公司看待游戏行业的方式。这家瑞士公司以实际行动证明开发者能够在保持诚实、透明及即时回应粉丝的情况下获得丰厚营收。
Kickstarter（纽约）
Kickstarter知名度很高，但我们中也许有人还不知道这家公司。Kickstarter是协助新项目募集资金的公司，它向买家提供奖励，向需要宣传的公司伸出援手。虽然Kickstarter还有其他同伴，但它规模最大，至今赞助许多成功的游戏项目。
Kickstarter只分成少量捐款（5%，亚马逊分成另外的3-5%支付服务费，但这对融资公司而言只是很小一部分）。
这些公司许多原本没有门路，因此大众融资对于独立游戏社区而言就是非常重要的渠道。《Cthulu Saves the World》和《Blade Symphony》等作品都是通过Kickstarter融资，《Octodad》因成功在此平台获得融资而推出续集。
相比通过发行商或天使投资人融资，大众融资的最大特点是Kickstarter不享有所提交项目的所有权，不对项目的顺利完成负责。
许多成功项目似乎都是在催促下完成，而没有受到真正的推动，但非发行商赞助模式的出现对独立游戏开发者而言是件幸事，目前Kickstarter在此是先驱推动者。
Gameloft（巴黎，法国）
Gameloft主要侧重制作3类游戏：手机版授权游戏，如《刺客信条》和《Splinter Cell》，原生游戏，如《Asphalt》，及“克隆”既有热门游戏，如《Uncharted》和《Pokémon》。
不论如何，在借鉴既有成功作品方面， Gameloft算是不断挑战极限。该公司基于手机平台制作合适的精美游戏，让人不会质疑其原生内容。
《N.O.V.A.》的敌人、武器和环境设计同《光晕》类似。《Shadow Guardian》借鉴《神秘海域》的主题和玩法元素。《Crystal Monsters》采用《Pokémon》的主题、玩法和战争视角。《Eternal Legacy》令人回想起《最终幻想XIII》。《StarFront: Collision》无法隐藏自己的《星际争霸》影子。你能够轻易从中发现“相似”之处。
Left, Crystal Monsters. Right, Pokémon Black from gamasutra.com
这不算抄袭，而是受到极大影响。由于围绕IP和玩法构思战斗题材的不断涌现，Gameloft工作室设法绕过此问题。这似乎是该公司所走的路线，因为只要Naughty Dog或任天堂等公司没有发行iOS版本，Gameloft就会抓住机会推出风格类似的高质量作品。
虽然有人会好奇这家公司的设计会议会是什么样子，但Gameloft无疑正在改变自己的发展路线。有趣的是，任天堂已明确表示自己永远不会投身iOS平台。Gameloft却会促使各公司提早思考自己的手机平台策略（游戏邦注：即比Gameloft抢先一步）。
Rovio（埃斯波，芬兰）
《愤怒的小鸟》本身不是什么神奇的游戏。但游戏无疑取得惊人成绩，目前的下载量超过5亿次，但将游戏分解后你会发现，这不过是款标准的物理运动益智游戏，游戏采用多年前就已存在的公式和比赛风格。不是这款游戏令Rovio得以出现在此列表中，而是公司对游戏的支持方式。
当《愤怒的小鸟》成功势头一览无遗时，Rovio并没有着手续集或是新作品。该公司采用MMO开发者所推崇的“游戏即服务”模式，将其进行浓缩，配合手机尺寸。该公司坚持在游戏的2年生命周期中持续发行额外关卡，假日主题版本及其他更新和升级内容（包括付费道具）。
即使现在，大家依然还继续购买《愤怒的小鸟》，因为Rovio清楚用户只要体验游戏，就会进行讨论。当这些用户讨论时，其他人就会产生兴致。持续制造话题对游戏来说非常重要，还有就是进行广泛移植，包括即将问世的任天堂Wii U和3DS版本，还有其他传统手机和操作系统。
Rovio起初是开发J2ME手机游戏的公司，主要接外包工作，有些作品通过移植新平台大放异彩。但他们的聪明之处是，若他们发现某作品备受关注，他们就会全心投入，而不是转移至下份合约。该公司还通过新平台验证新商业模式的可行性。
这是否具有持续性？Rovio当然这么觉得，夸口称若公司上市，其IPO价值会超过PopCap。这依然有待观察，但公司完美地将《愤怒的小鸟》推向更多用户，没有人质疑他们只靠一款作品吃饭的做法。这需要真正的别出心裁。
Humble Indie Bundle（基于互联网）
Humble Indie Bundle是个非常有趣的尝试——将若干独立游戏捆绑起来，向用户提供“购买所想内容”的下载模式。利润要在开发者间分成。此前也有人尝试过此模式，但并未到达这般规模。
游戏质量及所获关注意味着首批捆绑游戏有望创收130万美元。随后的捆绑内容表现更突出，令各相关公司获得额外收益，同时依然持有作品所有权。
项目的另一大优点是在作品在获得显著发展的同时依然保持独立感觉。随着捆绑模式的日益成功，它们开始吸引投资者的眼球。据悉，Sequoia Capital投入470万美元风投资本发展捆绑模式，这是笔不小的资金。
此外，第三组“独立”捆绑内容的销量比前两款略胜一筹，只有少数粉丝不满游戏的资金来源缺乏独立性。只要游戏具有独立性，无需提交版权税，Bundle能够继续改变独立开发者对后发行商业模式的看法。
微软Kinect（雷德蒙德，华盛顿州）
Kinect是微软顺应游戏运动控制狂潮（游戏邦注：这始于任天堂的Wii）所推出的产品。通过3D摄像机，Kinect让我们的整个身体变成控制器，就早期数据来看，情况似乎非常乐观。
虽然微软过去几个月并未公布任何数据，但据悉截至2011年3月，此外围设备已售出1000万件。Kinect摄像头即刻变成市场上最便宜的3D摄像头，设备很快被业余爱好者修改，以适应非标准用途，并伴有早期演示文稿，展示某些惊人技术，从即时空间的3D渲染到古怪的显影仪。
kinect from gamasutra.com
显而易见的是，Kinect迅速变成游戏玩家和整个技术社区的宠儿，若不是微软挡在前面，业余爱好者必将大显身手。所以2011年2月，微软基于PC推出一款非商业Kinect软件开发工具包。虽然基于PC的第三方市场才刚刚开启，但这片市场已获得些许显著发展。
Google Chrome融入此脚本，旨在通过手势控制浏览器，MotionBuilder通过Kinect实现低成本运动追踪，其他人则凭此探索硬件设备的模拟现实游戏。除游戏外，Kinect还被用于视频追踪，如试穿Topshop的新衣服和医学成像。
Kinect的出现有力证明，若你向聪明之人提供价格合理的诱人产品，产品就会创造自己的生命。虽然Kinect的最突出之处在于游戏，但当我们的世界同其他领域交叉，就会出现更美妙的情况。
Pixologic Sculptris（洛杉矶，加州）
不久前，ZBrush及后来的Mudbox迅速占领游戏美术世界，提供比传统Maya建模更贴近雕刻艺术的3D建模环境。其多边模型无人能及——但对某些内容而言，此软件过于复杂，需要大量劳动。
sculptris Rabbit Head from gamasutra.com
所以业余爱好者Tomas Pettersson于2009年利用休闲时间推出Sculptris。此软件依然处在alpha阶段，但已凭借更简单的用户界面和更快速的数字雕刻进入过程获得某些美工的青睐。
虽然有人将其称作“简化版ZBrush”，但软件如今处在ZBrush公司和 Pixologic控制之中，在更便于使用的程序包中融入同样多的能量。
美工，尤其是独立美工，因这个软件（游戏邦注：它的瞄准是向新用户呈现数字雕刻世界）的出现而倍感激动。此外，用户能够免费下载此软件，虽然Pixologic希望将用户转移到ZBrush，及其更强大、更深刻的工具组中，让这些程序包能够进行互动操作。
Valve Steam（科克兰，华盛顿）
Steam已有效证明自己是可行的PC数字发行平台。目前Steam有3500多万用户，控制大片数字游戏推广市场。据悉，如《Super Meat Boy》和《Bastion》等可下载掌机游戏开发者，在Steam所获的收益超过掌机平台，因此掌机和PC交叉开发变得日渐普遍。
Valve的平台已变成独立游戏开发公司进军PC领域的标准化选择，EA和GameStop等公司也通过自己的操作系统（分别是Origin和Impulse）进军该领域。
姑且不论PC游戏未来是否分散至各服务平台，但Steam依然是此模式的先驱，它有效改变业内各公司的运作模式。Steam通过推出Steam Cloud（这让某些游戏数据得以存在在云端）、嵌入式DRM解决方案和Steam Guard（放置黑客盗取帐号）持续更新内容。
虽然Steam已问世多年，但其持续及日渐强化的重要意义让我们很难对这个平台视而不见。
Zynga（旧金山，加州）
这是社交领域的重量级人物。Zynga确实非常庞大，截至2011年11月公司有2.32亿活跃用户及2000多名员工——公司还在社交领域许多方面独领风骚。
关于企业保密性，Zynga其实相当公开自己的开发实践，愿意在大会上分享自己网页游戏开发的最佳模式，讨论游戏中的社交参数运用。
zynga adventureworld from gamasutra.com
就实际作品而言，Zynga有效凭借《Empires & Allies》和《Adventure World》等作品将硬核玩家吸引至社交领域。其他作品无疑也起到促进作用，但看到大公司不是一味求稳着实令人非常高兴。
Zynga还经营Zynga.org项目，这个慈善机构已向有价值的公益项目捐款数千美元（游戏邦注：主要基于游戏中的道具购买）。虽然有人质疑Zynga模式的合法性及其主导地位，但该公司确有创造某些有益成果。
苹果iOS（库比蒂诺，加州）
虽然这一创新技术才于不久前诞生，但凭借iTunes及iOS平台，苹果还是称得上主导游戏行业变革者。iPhone、iPad和iPod Touch自问世以来就迅速发展成戏行业主要力量，他们本身就是相当有凝聚力的平台。
苹果设备不仅让苹果跃升成技术先锋，还开拓新事业，给众多独立开发者创造福祉。苹果三七分成模式已变成业内标准，苹果放缓发展脚步的迹象。
虽然苹果并未在家用电脑的游戏移植方面给予同样关注，但很多人预测未来iOS会同此平台出现某种程度的趋同化。
云端游戏服务
开发者似乎都认为云游戏是数字媒介发展的重要步伐。它让玩家免于更新自己的PC或掌机，创造游戏开发的平台未知模式。目前这个领域有两大主要竞争对手——OnLive（帕洛阿尔托，加州）和Gaikai （橘郡，加州）。
OnLive目前正在推广自己的实体设备OnLive Game System，它能够将游戏内容输入电视机顶盒，用户能够直接使用控制器。目前已有超过50家公司同OnLive签订协议，这令玩家能够在上述掌机、PC或Mac上体验游戏内容。
而Gaikai是基于浏览器的服务，没有瞄准特定游戏掌机，能够嵌入网站。许多热门游戏都搭载该平台。
两家公司谁输谁赢不是重点——游戏变革者是云服务本身，它让玩家从掌机迭代和游戏PC升级内容中解放出来，同时能够在某些情况下安装或下载软件。游戏搭载云服务仍然不是完全可行的模式，因为服务器相当昂贵，但随着成本的下降，可能性显然会逐步提高。
Mozilla/Khronos Group的WebGL
随着下代网页内容的出现，基于浏览器的3D游戏开始变得越来越普遍。为让此得以实现，我们需要比Java更胜一筹的语言。而Mozilla WebGL的出现恰好满足此需求。
虽然WebGL仍不够完善，但它能够在未借助插件程序的情况下提供3D图像的API，这对浏览器3D游戏而言是历史性的进步。这个领域还有其他竞争者，但目前WebGL是浏览器游戏开发社区的宠儿。
随着文库的扩展，最佳模式开始出现，发展趋势表明我们将在浏览器上体验到更多免插件3D游戏，进一步降低玩家的准入门槛。谁有不同意见？
Depth Analysis的MotionScan（悉尼，澳大利亚）
《LA Noire》也许险些令工作室（Team Bondi）关门，其销量并未达到母公司（Rockstar Games）的预期，但游戏确实带来新技术。Depth Analysis的32高清摄像头装置能够抓住角色脸部各角度，栩栩如生地呈现給数字世界的对手玩家。虽然角色依然在游戏引擎中生成，但动画效果着实令人惊叹。由于游戏想让玩家判断角色是否讲真话，准确的表现无疑非常重要。
Motion Scan John Noble from gamasutra.com
经过多年研究，Depth Analysis的付出似乎已有回报，因为《LA Noire》的表现受到广泛赞誉。公司称他们每天最多能够采集50分钟的影片，制作20分钟的表情动画。
此技术目前只有Depth Analysis享有，但鉴于它已出现，其他人很可能会开始跟随其后。现在唯一的问题是由于出现如此栩栩如生的表情动画，其余的电脑生成身体画面相比之下就会变成不那么逼真——但这是留待日后考虑的问题。
谷歌的服务平台（山景城，加州）
谷歌的Android平台是目前iOS在智能手机游戏领域的真正竞争者，此操作系统目前搭载众多设备，给某些平台开发者带来极大销量。就连索尼也在其即将问世的平板电脑中采用此系统，而旨在将游戏输入电视（游戏邦注：就像标准游戏掌机一样）的电视机顶盒目前也在制作之中。
但就游戏开发而言，谷歌在免费合作软件中产生的影响更大。虽然Google Docs不是储存技术文档或电子表格的最佳地方，但它无需付费，在建模阶段无疑作用显著。
谷歌继续在合作软件领域挑战自己的极限。虽然有人会谴责称在数据挖掘中，用户变成他们的产品，但我们无法否定服务的有效性。
就未来来看，谷歌将在Native Client解决方案上取得较大进展。其目标是让ARM源代码能够在浏览器中安全运作，促使网页程序能够以本地速度运作。这给浏览器游戏带来的影响显而易见。更快总是更好！
网页开发管道
虽然这些多半还处在初级阶段，但将浏览器技术融入游戏开发管道中将是未来的重头戏。有些公司，如Insomniac，正在探索自己的解决方案，在关卡编辑等内容中整合浏览器和引擎。
其他公司也开始通过层叠样式表格的3D转换格式创建UI和HUD，甚至是在非浏览器游戏，还有就是客户端的存储解决方案。
Fabric Engine这样的公司非常确信网页管道的未来，因此他们基于此创建自己的业务。虽然当前很多技术主要用于创建网页应用，但就连暴雪这样的公司都能够将他们更传统的管道技术运用至网页内容制作中。我们期待未来这里能有更多看头。
Riot Games（圣塔莫尼卡，加州）
虽然微交易模式已在韩国实现多年，但这要深入美国和欧洲的硬核玩家还是颇有难度。越来越多西方开发者采用该模式，但Riot Games的《英雄联盟》却没有这么做。
这款游戏采用巧妙的微交易设计，这样玩家就不会觉得若自己没付费，体验的就是“局部”游戏，而那些付费的玩家则能够进行吹嘘。
作为在线玩家&玩家游戏，《英雄联盟》巧妙地设置成竞争玩法，这令游戏在其他国家拥有额外支撑点。这款游戏是引进中国的作品之一，运营商腾讯甚至还因Riot的成功而将该公司全部买下。
游戏的巧妙设计，大众化机制及包罗万象的亚游戏都很好说明西方免费游戏开发的美好未来——有人也许会说是整个PC游戏行业。
league of legends from gamasutra.com
独立基金
独立基金由众多独立游戏开发知名人士创建，包括Jon Blow（《Braid》）、 Ron Carmel和Kyle Gabler（《粘粘世界》）及Kellee Santiago（《Flower》）等人士。它的目标是“修复无法运作的机制”——也就是独立开发者和发行商之间的关系。
基金目前主要支持4个已公布项目，即Steph Thirion的《Faraway》、Dan Pinchbeck的《Dear Esther》、Andy Schatz的《Monaco》以及Toxic Games的《Q.U.B.E》。
基金的首要目标是协助另类作品的发行工作。就如基金在其官方网站所说的，“我们进行较小规模的投资，要求较少回报。目标是开发者能够从自己的作品中获得足够收入，从而独立支撑下个项目。这样，就有更多开发者能够随心所欲地制作自己的疯狂作品。
资金提供灵活的预算，偿还比例基于所借资金，若游戏无法创收，开发者也不存在长期义务。若没有此资金支持，所赞助的游戏是否具有可行性有待进一步讨论。这是个有趣试验，随着游戏开始运作，开发者分享体验反馈，资金似乎就变成有待观望的模式。”
专利诉讼
专利诉讼总是挥之不去，它们无疑改变游戏的面貌。似乎每周都有人公开起诉索尼、任天堂、微软等任何他们能想到的公司，称这些公司“移动数字屏幕的物体”，破坏他们的专利。
美国历来就有深厚的诉讼文化，也许此焦点转移至游戏行业是早晚的事，但我们还是忍不住将这些专利称作资金榨取机。很多诉讼都来自游戏以外的行业——主要是就算法、技术和过程申请专利的工程师。
这些诉讼很多都是知识产权的合法误用，但更多时候只是某些想要达到宣传目的公司的炒作。遗憾的是，此处的唯一获胜者是律师及握有模糊不清专利、心怀不轨的工程师。这意味着游戏开发和开发者所获的资金将越来越少，这显然会令行业朝不良方向发展。
手机社交平台
OpenFeint是iOS刚发行时的主流手机社交平台，主要在各游戏中提供成就和排行榜服务。但苹果随后推出自己的平台Game Center。现在OpenFeint亦搭载Android平台（游戏邦注：OpenFeint已被日本公司GREE收购）。日本最主要的社交游戏平台运作者是DeNA，其Mobage社区依然是当地最受欢迎的功能手机空间。公司旧金山子公司Ngmoco最近也将Mobage推向西方市场。
所有这些公司和平台都在竞争第一的位置，显然这依然是块重要市场。玩家想要成就，希望在游戏中看到社交元素，这是游戏领域的真正变革所在。手机游戏几年前还主要呈现单独体验，但随着这些平台的出现，此局面出现极大改变。
单个解决方案能否主导所有平台，或者市场是否会出现分化？只要用户的需求得到满足，开发者间存在互相操作性，变革的意义就不再是谁在斗争。
美国最高法院（华盛顿 D.C.）
美国最高法院宣布视频游戏受《第一修正案》保护，推翻加里福利亚州的禁止向未成年人出售暴力视频游戏法律规定，这是具有里程碑意义的决定。如官方文件所述，“视频游戏受《第一修正案》保护”。和受保护的书籍、戏剧和电影一样，它们通过类似文艺设备传达构思及此媒介特有的功能。
supcourt from gamasutra.com
法院还表示，“心理学研究称接触暴力视频游戏同儿童不良影响存在联系，但这并未说明接触这些内容会使儿童采取攻击行为。此过程所带来的影响微乎其微，同其他媒介所造成的影响几乎没有什么区别。”
虽然所规定内容在业内人士看来平淡无奇，但想想若是法院在此持否定态度会是什么情况。这是行业未来创意自由的关键点，我们能够在行业出现审核制度的情况下有效运用此规定。在其他像电影、重金属和漫画书那样曾吞噬美国儿童心灵的新邪恶内容出现之前，视频游戏依然需要可靠的保护伞，《第一修正案》恰好为视频游戏的存在提供了充分的法律依据。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Brandon Sheffield）
Game Changers
by Brandon Sheffield
[In this article, originally published in the October 2011 issue of Game Developer magazine, editor in chief Brandon Sheffield selects 20 different things that have changed the course of the game industry -- be they companies, technologies, or anything else.]
We work in a rapidly-changing creative industry, where trends can rise and fall inside of a year, or move on to become new standards that all shall follow. This kind of rapid growth and change doesn’t come from nowhere, though.
There are catalysts to every big industry shift. Where would we be without the business and game architecture of Doom? If Facebook hadn’t come along, would we be employing thousands of people for MySpace games? What about Unity, or Unreal Engine 3?
We’ve decided to drill down and look at some of the recent concepts, games, companies, and services that are changing the game industry, for better or for worse. Now let’s all get out there and keep changing things for the better!
Mojang (Stockholm, Sweden)
Much has been said about Mojang and its monster hit Minecraft. At over 4 million paid accounts and 16 million users total, the game is a massive financial and critical success. It takes the concept of user-created content to new extremes, making the gameplay and the creation one and the same.
But the reason Mojang makes our list is not just the money. Any company can make money with underhanded tactics — but Mojang has done so with absolute transparency.
For one thing, it proved the viability of the “pay at alpha” model of self-funding. Companies have tried it before, and others have done it since, but Minecraft wrote the book on the concept. Essentially, let people pay for something they like as early as possible — but make sure you keep supporting them, fixing bugs, listening to your audience, and being as honest with them as you can.
Minecraft creator Markus Persson makes most of his announcements to Twitter rather than through press releases, and does his best to answer most emails and comments directly (though that’s impossible with 10 million users), which puts Mojang at the forefront of not company messaging as well.
On top of that, as the company gets sued by Bethesda for using Scrolls as the title of its upcoming game (Bethesda thinks Mojang’s Scrolls sounds too much like its own The Elder Scrolls), Mojang is turning a blind eye to the blatant copies of its game that have cropped up on XBLIG and PC, some of which have made over $1 million.
Mojang should be changing the way companies think about the game business. The Swedish company proves you can be honest, transparent, and responsive to your fans, and still make a massive profit.
Kickstarter (New York, NY)
Kickstarter is likely universally-known by readers of Game Developer and Gamasutra, but on the off chance there’s someone among us who’s unaware, Kickstarter is a company that takes donations on behalf of a fledgling (or finishing) project, offering incentives for buyers, and general goodwill for the company that needs a boost. Though Kickstarter is certainly not the only game in town, it is the largest, and has funded the most successful game projects to date.
Kickstarter takes a small cut of the donations (5 percent – Amazon takes another 3 to 5 percent for use of its payment service), but this is a small price to pay for a company looking for funding.
Most of these groups wouldn’t get anything otherwise, and the crowdfunding model has turned out to be a big deal for the indie game community in particular. Games like Cthulu Saves the World and Blade Symphony got their funding from Kickstarter, and Octodad got a sequel due to its successful campaign on the service.
The great thing about crowdfunding versus getting funds from publishers or angel investors is that Kickstarter owns no part of submitted projects, and (for better or for worse) does not hold them accountable for their successful completion.
Most successful projects seem to be nudges to completion rather than actual kick-starts, but a publisher-free funding model is a blessing to any independent game developer, and Kickstarter is currently the leading way to make that happen.
Gameloft (Paris, France)
Gameloft splits its time between making mobile versions of licensed game properties, like Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell, original titles like Asphalt, and blatantly “similar” titles to popular games like Uncharted and Pokémon.
For better or for worse, Gameloft has pushed the envelope when it comes to making games that draw on the success of other titles. The company makes entirely competent, great-looking games for mobile devices (and occasionally consoles) that leave absolutely no question as to their origin.
N.O.V.A.’s enemy, weapon, and environmental designs look suspiciously like those from Halo. Shadow Guardian borrows themes and gameplay elements from Uncharted. Crystal Monsters uses the themes, gameplay, and even battle perspectives from Pokémon. Eternal Legacy calls to mind Final Fantasy XIII. StarFront: Collision does not hide its StarCraft allusions. You don’t have to stretch your brain very much to see the “similarities.”
Now, this isn’t stealing, but it is a case of extreme influence. As battles around IP and gameplay concepts rage, Gameloft’s studios have managed to consistently skirt the issue. And it seems to be working for the company, because whenever someone like Naughty Dog or Nintendo doesn’t release a game for iOS, Gameloft is there to pick up the slack, and make a decent quality game that scratches a similar itch.
While one certainly wonders what the company’s design meetings are like, there’s no question that Gameloft is changing the business. This is especially interesting when you get to companies like Nintendo, which says it will never release a game on iOS. Gameloft is forcing companies to think about their mobile strategies a bit earlier, before Gameloft decides to think of it for them.
Rovio (Espoo, Finland)
Angry Birds is not really an amazing game in itself. It’s certainly a massive hit, with over 500 million downloads as of this writing, but when you break it down, it’s nothing more than a standard action physics puzzler using a formula and playstyle that has existed for many years. It’s not the game that puts Rovio on our list — it’s how the company has supported it.
Once it was clear that Angry Birds was going to be a success, Rovio didn’t start planning a sequel, or even a new game. It took the “games as a service” model touted by MMO developers, and shrank it to mobile size. The company has released extra levels, holiday-themed versions, and other updates and upgrades (including some item purchasing) consistently throughout the game’s now nearly two-year lifespan.
People are still buying Angry Birds even now, because Rovio knows when people are playing a game, they talk about it. And when people talk, others become interested. Consistently building buzz has been critical for the title, but so has a massive campaign of porting to every device under the sun, including upcoming versions for Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS, but also older phones and operating systems.
Rovio began as a mobile company doing J2ME games and working from contract to contract, and some of that shows in its porting lust. But the clever bit is that when they found a hit, they stuck with it, instead of moving on to the next contract again. The company also used new platforms to prove out new business models (the first version on the Android OS was free-to-play with ads).
Is this sustainable? Rovio certainly thinks so, bragging that when it goes public, its IPO will be worth more than PopCap’s. This remains to be seen, but the company is doing a fantastic job of pushing Angry Birds out to as many people as possible, without a huge backlash saying that it’s just milking one franchise. And that takes real ingenuity.
Humble Indie Bundle (Internet-based)
The Humble Indie Bundle was an intriguing experiment — pack several indie games together, and give people a “pay what you want” model for downloading them. The profits were to be divided up among the developers. There had been attempts at models like this before, but not on this scale.
The quality of the titles as well as the buzz generated meant that the first bundle went on to generate almost $1.3 million. Subsequent bundles have done even better, helping all companies involved generate additional income without the bundle claiming any ownership over the products themselves.
One of the project’s additional successes comes from its ability to retain that indie feeling while growing massively. As the bundles have gotten more successful, they attracted the attention of investors. Sequoia Capital provided venture funding of $4.7 million to the bundle’s future growth, which is a decidedly un-humble amount of money.
Even so, the third “Indie”-branded bundle has surpassed the previous two in sales, and only a minimal amount of ill-will has been generated from fans decrying the less-than-indie funding source. So long as the games are indie, and no royalties are asked for, it appears the Bundle will continue changing the way indies look at their own post-release business.
Microsoft’s Kinect (Redmond, WA)
The Kinect was Microsoft’s answer to the motion control craze in games that started in earnest with Nintendo’s Wii. Through the power of a 3D camera, Kinect was to make your full body the controller, and early numbers looked good.
Though Microsoft hasn’t released any statistics in the last several months, as of March, 2011, the peripheral had sold over 10 million units. The Kinect camera was instantly the cheapest 3D camera on the market, and the device was quickly modified by hobbyists for non-standard use, with early demos showing some amazing technologies, from 3D rendering of a space in real time, to curious visualizers.
It quickly became clear that Kinect was a hit among not only game players, but the tech community at large, and if Microsoft didn’t get in front of the bus, the hobbyists were going to drive it away. So in February, 2011, MS released a non-commercial SDK for Kinect for PC, and while the third party market for PC-oriented use has only begun, a great number of impressive strides are already being made.
Scripts exist in Google Chrome to control the browser with hand gestures, MotionBuilder is using Kinect for cheap motion capture (as are some hobbyists), and others have found virtual reality game applications for the hardware. Outside of games, Kinect has been used in video surveillance, for trying on new clothes in Topshop, and medical imaging.
Kinect is proof positive that if you provide intelligent people with an affordable and intriguing product, it will take on a life of its own. While the Kinect’s greatest success will likely be in games, when our world crosses over into other spheres, even greater things can happen.
Pixologic’s Sculptris (Los Angeles, CA)
It wasn’t too long ago that ZBrush, and later Mudbox took the game art world by storm, offering 3D modeling environments that were closer to sculpting than they were to traditional Maya modeling. The high-polygon models couldn’t be beat — but for some, the software was too complex and labor-intensive.
And so it was that hobbyist Tomas Pettersson set about developing Sculptris in his spare time in 2009. The software is still in alpha, but already has artists excited, with its simpler user interface and speedier entry into the world of digital sculpting.
Though some call it a “ZBrush lite,” the software is now under the guiding hand of the the ZBrush company, Pixologic, and packs nearly as much power into a more user friendly package.
Artists, indies especially, have gotten excited about the development of the software, which looks to open up the world of digital sculpting to a whole new audience. What’s more, it’s free to download, though of course Pixologic hopes to transition users into ZBrush and its more robust, deeper toolset, allowing interoperability between both packages.
Valve’s Steam (Kirkland, WA)
Steam has more than proved itself to be the digital publishing platform of choice for PC games. With over 35 million users as of this writing, Steam commands a huge chunk of the digital game distribution marketplace. Developers of downloadable console games such as Super Meat Boy and Bastion have reported making significantly more money on Steam than on consoles, and cross-platform development across console and PC is becoming more common as a result.
Valve’s platform has become the de facto standard for independent game companies looking to publish on PC, and companies such as EA and GameStop have tried to make inroads with their own systems, with Origin and Impulse respectively.
Regardless of whether the future of PC games will be fragmented across multiple services, it was Steam that proved the model, and continues to be a game changer for companies across the industry. Steam continues to update, with Steam Cloud, which allows some storage of game data on a cloud service, built-in DRM solutions (for better or for worse), and Steam Guard, a safeguard against account hacking.
Though Steam has been available to some degree for many years, its continued and increasing relevance keeps it on our list.
Zynga (San Francisco, CA)
Here we have the 500 pound gorilla of the social space. Zynga is huge, to be sure, with 232 million active players as of November, 2011, and over 2,000 employees — but the company is also leading the social industry on multiple fronts.
For its huge corporate anonymity, Zynga has actually been rather open with its development practices, sharing best practices for web game development at conferences, and discussing the use of social metrics in games.
In terms of its actual games, Zynga has also made big strides when it comes to trying to get the core gamer into the space, with games like Empires & Allies and Adventure World. Others have made inroads, to be sure, but it’s nice to see when a larger company doesn’t play it totally safe.
Zynga also runs Zynga.org, a charity outlet that has donated thousands to worthy causes, based on in-game item purchases. Though some question the legitimacy of Zynga’s practices and place at the top, it is doing some good while up there.
Apple’s iOS (Cupertino, CA)
Though the revolution came some time ago, Apple deserves to make our first list of game changers for iTunes, and its supported iOS platforms. Since their inception, the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch have collectively become a major force in the game industry, and a (relatively) cohesive platform in their own right.
Apple’s devices have not only skyrocketed Apple to the top of the technological heap, they have also launched the careers and assured the fortunes of a great many independent developers. Apple’s 70/30 percent revenue-share has become the industry standard, and the platform shows no sign of slowing down.
While Apple hasn’t put as much focus on facilitating games on its home computers, many expect some manner of convergence across iOS in the near future.
Cloud gaming services
Developers in general seem to agree that cloud-based gaming is an important step in the advancement of the digital medium. It can free players from having to keep their PCs or consoles up to date, and could pose a platform-agnostic model for game development. But at present, there are two major players vying for the biggest slice of the pie — OnLive (Palo Alto, CA) and Gaikai (Orange County, CA).
OnLive is currently pushing its physical device, the OnLive Game System, which streams game content to a TV-connected box that allows the direct use of controllers. So far, over 50 companies have signed on with OnLive, which allows gamers to play on the aforementioned console, their PC, or Mac.
Gaikai, on the other hand, is a browser-based service, with no specific game console, and the ability to embed in web sites. Many leading games are already available on the service.
Whether one of these companies wins or loses is not the point — the game changer is the cloud service itself, which frees consumers from console cycles, game-based PC upgrades, and in some cases, installation or downloading of software. Gaming on the cloud is not a totally proven model yet, as the servers are quite expensive, but as costs go down, prospects certainly look up.
Mozilla/Khronos Group’s WebGL
As the next generation of web content starts to become a reality, 3D games in browsers become more common. And for that to happen, we were going to need something better than standard Java. Mozilla’s WebGL, among other 3D web libraries, has risen to fill that need.
Though WebGL is far from perfect, the fact that it provides a 3D graphics API without the use of plug-ins is an extremely important step toward 3D games in the browser. There are some competitors out there, but at the moment, WebGL is the (slightly fickle) darling of the browser game development community.
As the library expands, and best practices start to emerge, trends indicate that we’ll be playing a lot more plugin-free 3D games in our browsers than ever before, further reducing the barrier to entry for players. And who can argue with that?
Depth Analysis’ MotionScan (Sydney, Australia)
LA Noire may have shuttered a studio (Team Bondi) and not fully pleased its parent (Rockstar Games) in the sales department, but it also brought us one heck of a piece of tech. Depth Analysis’ 32 high definition camera setup allowed full capture of all aspects of actors’ faces, mapping that to their digital counterparts for an incredibly lifelike performance. Though the characters were clearly still made in game engines, the animation was truly astounding. Since the game hoped to allow players to gauge whether characters were telling the truth, precise performance was incredibly important.
After many years of R&D, Depth Analysis’ work appears to have paid off, as the performances in LA Noire have been universally lauded. The company claims its setup can capture up to 50 minutes of final footage, processing up to 20 minutes of facial animation automatically per day.
This technology is available only from Depth Analysis, so far, but now that the technique has been illuminated, it’s likely that others will follow. The only problem now is that with such lifelike facial animation, the rest of the computer generated body begins to look even less realistic by comparison — but that’s a problem for another day.
Google’s productivity services (Mountain View, CA)
Google’s Android platform is currently the only serious contender to iOS in the smartphone game space, and has shipped on millions of devices, yielding massive sales for some of the developers on the platform. Even Sony is using it for its upcoming tablets, and a set-top box is in the work to serve games to televisions like a standard game console.
But in terms of game development, Google has arguably made an even greater impact in free collaboration software. While Google Docs may not be the perfect place to keep that game design document or store spreadsheets, it’s free, and certainly useful in the prototyping phase.
The company continues to push the envelope in the free collaboration space, and though some may decry the fact that through data mining, their users are their product, few can deny the services’ usefulness.
Looking forward, Google is making good strides with its Native Client solution. The intent is to get ARM native code running safely in browsers, allowing web programs to run at near-native speeds. The implications on this for browser-based games are pretty clear. Faster is (almost) always better!
Web development pipelines
Though much of this is still in its infancy, integration of browser tech into game development pipelines is looking to be a big deal in the near future. Some companies, like Insomniac, are building their own solutions, integrating browsers with their engine for things like level editing.
Other companies have begun using cascading style sheets’ 3D transforms to build UI and HUDs even in non-browser games, and let’s not forget client-side storage solutions.
In some cases, groups like Fabric Engine are so convinced of the future of web pipelines that they’ve build their entire business around it. Though a lot of the current tech is primarily for building web applications, even companies like Blizzard have found uses for the web in their more traditional pipelines. Expect to see more of this as the years wear on.
Riot Games (Santa Monica, CA)
Though the microtransactions model has been proved in Korea for years, it had some difficulty making inroads with the core gamer in the U.S. and Europe. More and more games from Western developers have been adopting the model, but Riot Games’ League of Legends is truly knocking it out of the park.
The game uses intelligent microtransaction-based game design that doesn’t make players feel like they’re playing a “partial” game if they don’t pay, and gives those that do pay something significant to crow about.
As an online player-versus-player game, League of Legends has also been intelligently built for competitive play, which has given the game extra legs in other countries. The game is one of a handful to be brought to China, and distributer Tencent Holdings went so far as to purchase Riot outright because of its success.
The game’s smart design, its democratic moderation system, and overarching metagame exemplify the future of Western free-to-play game development — and some might say, the PC game industry as a whole.
Indie Fund
The indie fund was put together by a host of indie game development notables, including Jon Blow (Braid), Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler (World of Goo), Kellee Santiago (Flower), and others. Its aim is to “fix a system that never worked” — that is to say the relationship between indies and publishers.
The fund currently supports four announced projects, Steph Thirion’s Faraway, Dan Pinchbeck’s Dear Esther, Andy Schatz’s Monaco, and Toxic Games’ Q.U.B.E.
The fund’s overarching goal is to help products come to release that are markedly different from the norm. As the fund says on its official site, “We make smaller investments and ask for less in return. The hope is that developers see enough revenue from their game to self-fund their next project. And voilà, one more developer that is free to make whatever crazy game they want.”
The fund promises a flexible budget with no milestones, proportional repayment based on the amount borrowed, and no long-term obligations if the game fails to make its money back. And it’s debatable whether the funded games would even be possible without this financial backing. It’s an interesting experiment, and the fund seems like a model to watch as the games start to roll out and developers give feedback about their experiences.
Patent litigation
Patent lawsuits appear to be here to stay, and they’re definitely changing the face of games. It feels like every week, someone is crawling out of the woodwork to sue Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and any other company they can think of for violation of their patent for “moving objects on a digital screen.”
The U.S. has a particularly litigious culture, and it was perhaps a matter of time before greedy eyes turned toward the game industry, but we can’t help but decry most of these patents as mere cash-grabs. Many of these suits came from outside the industry — engineers here or there who saw fit to patent an algorithm, technique, or process.
Some of these lawsuits are legitimate misuses of intellectual property, but many more are simply posturing matches between companies looking to stake out their marketing arenas. Unfortunately, the only people that win in these weaker cases are the lawyers, and quite often the shady engineers with their vague patents. That means less money for game development, and less money for developers, and certainly changes the industry for the worse.
Mobile social platforms
OpenFeint was the dominant mobile social platform on iOS upon launch, serving achievements and persistent leaderboards across multiple games. But then Apple came out with its own solution, Game Center. Now OpenFeint exists for Android as well — and has bought by Japanese platform holder GREE. That country’s top dog is DeNA, with its Mobage service, which dominates the country’s still-popular feature phone space. Mobage was also recently launched in the West by its San Francisco subsidiary Ngmoco.
While all these companies and platforms duke it out for first place, it’s clear that this is an important space. Players want achievements, and they want social elements in their games, and that’s the real game changer here. Mobile games, even a few years ago, were largely solitary experiences, but that has changed completely with the advent of these sorts of platforms.
Will one solution rule them all, or will the market fragment? As long as consumers’ interests are served, and there some interoperability for developers, the revolution matters more than who’s fighting.
The U.S. Supreme Court (Washington, D.C.)
In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that video games are protected under the auspices of the First Amendment, striking down a California law that would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors. As the official ruling said, “Video games qualify for First Amendment protection. Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium.”
The court also said, “Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects produced by other media.”
While the ruling may seem obvious to those of us in the industry, one can only imagine what might have happened had the court ruled in the other direction. This is a critical point in the future creative freedom of the game industry, and can be used to good ends when the inevitable future cases of video game censorship crop up. Until a new evil comes along to steal the hearts and minds of America’s youth, as movies, heavy metal, and comic books did before them. video games will continue to need solid defense in the courts. And the First Amendment is pretty much the best thing we could ask for.（Source：gamasutra）
