游戏开发者不可小觑的理念创造
作者：Jukka Hilvonen
好吧好吧，我知道你们没有时间去创造理念。你们必须专注于创造游戏，因为到最后还是游戏最重要。毕竟很多人跟你说过“理念并不值钱，执行才真正重要”。
我能理解，因为我以前也是这样想的。我听过上百次同样的话。几年前当我在之前的公司中领导手机游戏的开发时，我便非常沉迷于执行过程，并认为要想创造一款“最畅销的游戏”便没有时间去考虑创造具有创造性的理念。我们的每份工作都拥有严格的日期限制，看板上也总是堆积着满满的任务，所以整个团队需要艰苦面对着我们承诺给发行商和平台所有者的时间安排。
除此之外我们还总是沉迷于与竞争游戏和功能的对抗（游戏邦注：就像《部落战争》等前100名畅销游戏）。所以我们几乎找不到任何空间去创造这些游戏所不具有的功能。我们使用了像App Annie和Gamerefinery等工具从数据上去验证我们所创造的游戏符合当时畅销游戏所遵循的”神奇公式“。而我们这么做都是为了投资者，游戏所有者以及我们自己，因为我们都认为这便是创造出热门游戏的真正过程。
但当我离开公司时我意识到了这其实是一个并不完整的过程。我也因为是自己领导着这一过程而感到羞耻。我的意思是，这就像是我要求人们在工厂生产线上制作螺母和螺钉一样。可以说这整个过程都非常乱来！
yelling game icons（from gamasutra）
就像你可以在App Store上看到许许多多《部落战争》的复制品，相似的游戏图标等等，显然我们并不是产业中唯一遵循这一过程的人。那么为什么在App Store有如此多相似的游戏图标呢？因为比起想出属于自己的游戏理念，我们都太过沉迷于仿效那些已经成功的案例。
创造理念很难
所以为什么我们会这么做呢？一部分原因是想出理念真的很难。反倒参考成功对象并仿造他们的做法会轻松许多。这同时也是因为我们低估了理念的作用，就像开头所说的那样，我们被灌输了太多“理念并不重要，执行才重要”的思想。
这也是我们会前往App Annie去寻找相似的游戏并从中获取灵感去创造出与现有游戏相似功能的原因。我们也总是会在谷歌上搜索创造完美游戏图标的方法。所以最终才会诞生那么多基于不同视觉效果但却极其相似的游戏图标。
而我想在这里向你们强调的是，理念其实非常重要。如果你只是想要通过理念去获取资金的话，那么对于投资者来说理念可能并不重要。或者如果你想要说服潜在的招聘者聘请自己的话，理念可能也不是那么重要。但是你必须清楚，说这些话的人都是基于与正在创造游戏的你截然不同的角度。
对于你来说理念其实非常重要
当你在公司真正努力工作的时候，理念对于你来说便非常重要。当你缺少时间，金钱，资源等等一切时，理念便会表现出自己的威力。当一个拥有正确思维模式的人在你需要支付给员工工资前为你想出了有关外包工作的10个好主意时，你便会清楚理念的重要性。当有人为你们那只有2个人且拥有极少资源的工作室的下个产品想出一个优秀且可执行的理念时，你便会清楚理念的重要性。当有人想出一个帮助你推动产品发行的优秀且低成本的市场营销理念时，你便会清楚理念的重要性。对于那些需要找出让代码能够重复使用的巧妙方法的程序员来说，理念也非常重要。
当《HexHRVR》的开发者Chris Benjaminsen想出一个非常棒的游戏理念并创造了这些理念去最大化游戏发行时，你便会清楚理念的重要性。当Rober Topala发行了他最受欢迎的游戏《Geometry Dash》时，你便会清楚理念的重要性。
事实上在每一个游戏开发阶段理念都很重要。在概念开发的早前阶段理念很重要，在游戏优化阶段理念也很重要。你必须拥有有关在特定的动画事件中使用怎样的粒子效果的理念。或者你必须拥有自己该如何在游戏中优化这些例子效果而确保游戏能够顺畅地运行于终端设备上的理念。一旦你拥有一个理念，那么剩下的工作便是执行并测试该理念。即剩下的都是非常纯粹的工作。
而糟糕的事实就是，理念并不会突然出现在我们面前。为了想出一个真正优秀的理念，我们通常都需要先想出20个不怎么样的理念。每一个优秀的美术师在想出有关《部落战争》的复制内容的特殊理念前可能需要先舍弃无数糟糕的理念。创造理念是一件非常困难的事。创造理念其实就是在从无到有地创造某些东西。而因为我们是懒惰且追求安逸的人类，所以我们总是会想办法去避开那些复杂的东西。
为了能够创造出更多具有创意的理念，你必须拥有一个适合自己的系统，并让自己能在这里投入大量时间去创造理念。即每一天你可能只需要在此投入10分钟时间便可。
你可以将其当成一个健身项目。如果你未能制定这一项目的话你便更难主动去健身了。而当你拥有了这样的项目，你在特定时间里便不需要去思考该做什么。因为你已经事先做好所有计划了。你只需要像个机器人去执行它们便可以。
从另一个角度看来创造理念就像是增强肌肉一样。一开始总是比较困难，但是在那之后一切就会变得简单起来。很快地你便会注意到自己很享受健身的过程并且不想错过任何一节课。而创造理念也是如此。一开始真的非常难。但随着时间的不断流逝，它会变得更加简单。一旦你注意到自己从创造理念中获益，你便会被深深地吸引住。想出理念并遵守时间安排的好处便是你将继续想出更棒的理念。这不只是关于你的游戏的更棒的理念，同时也将面向其它所有的一切，即包括建议，创造更棒的公司文化，鼓舞员工士气等等。
所以我想问你们，我们是否应该每天投入10分钟去创造真正的理念？每天花费这10分钟去避开为你们游戏创造毫无创意的图标。每天花费这10分钟去避开在你们的免费游戏中执行传统的能量机制。每天花费这10分钟去避开参考前20款畅销游戏并效仿别人的做法的习惯。
（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译）
Ideas are worth more than you think
by Jukka Hilvonen
Okay. Okay. OKAY! I get that you don’t have time to spend on generating ideas. You have to keep focus on making games because in the end, games are all that matter. Right? After all, how many times you have been told that “ideas are worth nothing, execution is worth everything”?
I get it, I’ve been there too. And I’ve heard that same clause a hundred times. A couple of years ago, I was heading the development of mobile games in my previous company. I was so obsessed with the execution and making a “top grossing game” that there was hardly any space in generating original ideas. Every deliverable had strict deadline and Kanban board was so much full of backlog items that the team had real challenges in keeping up with a schedule we had promised to our publisher and platform holders.
In addition, we were obsessed with tracking our competitors’ (e.g. Clash of Clans and others, above top 100 grossing titles) games and their features. There was hardly any room for generating features that were NOT in those other games too. We used tools like App Annie and Gamerefinery to statistically validate that we were making games that would fit into the “magic formula” dictated by the top grossing games at that time. We did it for our investors and for the owners but also for us because we really thought that it was the right kind of process to make hit games.
It was until I had left the company that I realized how unfulfilling the whole process was. And how ashamed I felt because I was the one leading the process. I mean, it was like we wanted to people to produce nuts and bolts in the factory pipeline. And the people who were working at us reminded actually artists like van Gogh, Gauguin, Coppola etc. who were trying to make Starry Nights, The Godfather or the likes. The whole process was totally nuts!
And as you can see from the App Store with dozens of Clash of Clans clones, very similar game icons and other phenomena, it is evident that we were not the only ones who were adopting this kind of process in the industry. Why so many App Store game icons look the same? Because we are too obsessed with learning best practices than coming up with our own ideas.
Creating ideas is hard
So why we do this? I think it’s partly because coming up with ideas is hard. It’s much more easy to see what the top-performers have done and do something similar. Also, it’s probably due to undervaluation of ideas because it’s said to us over and over again that “ideas don’t matter, execution does”.
That’s why we tend to go to App Annie to look for similar games to get some inspiration and to produce similar features that are already in the existing games. Or when we Google best ways to perfect the game icon. That’s why the end result is a pile of yelling heads with similar gameplay icons topped with different visuals.
What I want to show you that ideas DO MATTER. They don’t matter to VCs if you are trying to get a funding based on your idea. Nor do they matter to potential recruiter if you try to convince her to employ you because “you have so great ideas”. You have to understand that the people who say these things, come from a different perspective than you who are making games.
Ideas matter.. to YOU
But ideas do matter when you are working your ass off in your company. Ideas start to show their power when you are short on time, money, resources – everything. Ideas matter when someone equipped with the right mindset comes up with 10 great ideas for how you can get the next outsourcing gig, a month before you should pay to your employees. Ideas matter when someone comes up with a great, implementable idea for the next product for your two-man studio with low amount of resources. Ideas matter when someone came up with great, low-cost marketing ideas, day after day, to boost the launch of your product. Ideas matter to programmers who come up with clever ways to make the code more reusable.
Ideas mattered when Chris Benjaminsen – a developer of HexFRVR – who came up with awesome little game idea and generated ideas to maximize its distribution. Or when Rober Topala released his famous game Geometry Dash.
The truth is that ideas matter in every stage of game development. They matter during the early phase of concept development and they matter during the polishing stage. And beyond. You have to have an idea what kind of particle effects to use with that specific animation event. Or how you can optimize those particle effects in your game to make it run smoother on end devices. Once you have the idea, the rest is implementation and testing does the idea work. The rest is pure, hard, work.
The Ugly Truth is that ideas don’t just show up out of the blue. In order to come up with one great idea, there’s typically twenty not-so-good ideas. Every great artist had dozens if not hundreds of horrible ideas before they came up with one exceptional idea for another Clash of Clans, The Starry Night or The Birds. But creating ideas is hard. Creating ideas is literally creating something out of nothing. And since we are lazy, comfort-seeking human beings, we usually want to avoid hard things.
In order to maximize your creative output, you have to have a system in place so that it’s more convenient for you to take the time to come up with ideas. Every day. And all that it requires is 10 minutes. 10 minutes a day to become an idea machine.
Think it like a gym program. It’s 10x harder to motivate yourself to go to a gym if you don’t have a program. When you have a program, you don’t have to think about what moves to do at that given time. Or how much weight to lift at any given time. Or how many reps you have to make. You have all that planned in advance. You just do it, execute it like a robot. Like a machine.
Generating ideas is just like building up a muscle from another perspective too. First it’s really hard to get that first set – heck, even the first rep done. But after a while it gets easier and easier. Soon you’ll notice that you actually like it and don’t wanna miss the sessions. Generating ideas is like that. At first, it’s really, really hard. But day after day it gets a little easier. Once you notice the benefits of generating ideas, you are hooked. The benefits of keeping up in the schedule of coming up with ideas is that you are going to come up with better ideas. And not just better ideas to your game, but to everything – closing deals, creating better organization culture, motivatin employees – everything.
So I want to challenge everyone and ask that should we perhaps invest those 10 minutes a day into actually generating ideas? 10 minutes away from going to the usual route of creating yelling face icon for your game. 10 minutes a day from implementing that traditional energy mechanic into your free-to-play game. 10 minutes away from looking that top 20 grossing list of games and trying to do something that everyone else is doing.
What do you think? Are ideas undervalued in these times over execution? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.（source：gamasutra）