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童言无忌：电子游戏是怎样打造成的？
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很多孩子，特别是男孩，非常喜欢玩电子游戏。偶然玩玩当然没有问题，但有些孩子却非常上瘾，玩的没日没夜的，甚至因此而荒废学习。家长老师对这样的孩子都是相当头痛的。有一种方法对他们却常常有奇效：那就是想办法将孩子的兴趣从玩游戏引向游戏编程。
白露为霜注： 这是小女儿小宝在高一时写的一篇有关电子游戏的文章, 当时她13岁。对于喜欢艺术和喜欢工程的孩子来说，电子游戏开发行业是不错的职业选择。
电子游戏是怎样打造成的？
这是一个高科技的时代。每个新版的苹果”爱疯” (iPhone) 都是在热切期待中到来。大人孩子排队几个小时，有时甚至露宿在外，为了是得到一款最新的任天堂Wii或者索尼的PlayStation 3。但在触动按钮和Xbox 360控制器诱人的光泽后面，兴旺的电子游戏产业到底发生了些什么呢？尽管电子游戏早已进入千家万户，主流社会中真正了解其幕后故事的人并不多。
今年夏天，作为一个暑期计划 (summer program)的一部分, 我有机会探访电脑和视频游戏巨头艺电公司（Electronic Arts 或 EA），大开眼界。位居加州硅谷的艺电公司是世界上最大的第三方游戏开发商，生产出一些非常流行的电子游戏，比如“模拟人生”(Sims) 和它所有的衍生版。“模拟人生”是一款以生活为基础的模拟游戏，让玩家能完全掌控一个家庭，一家服装店，甚至是一座城市。艺电也几乎垄断了与体育有关的游戏，产品中有名的如：“One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird”和“Need for Speed”(极品飞车)等。 EA的视频游戏还包括“指环王”和“哈利·波特”系列等。
从外表上看，艺电公司在加州红木城占地巨大的总部同其他高科技公司没什么两样。但仔细观察，艺电却是个完全不同的地方：公司里摆满了几乎每一个可以想象的到的电子游戏。公司员工在休息时跳起“Dance Dance Revolution”，从超高科技的自动售货机里买饮料，在“研究室”（又名“游戏室”）里放松一下，或者干脆在公司大堂里玩起电子游戏。当然对电游的设计者来说这并不仅仅是游戏和玩乐。电玩的设计，绘图，编程并不是象玩游戏那样轻松和有趣。当然，我并非否认电子游戏变得越来越有挑战性，只是玩家们并不需要找出代码中的错误。
在早期的日子里电子游戏常常是由单个人开发的。例如，有名的“俄罗斯方块” (Tetris)，一个在20世纪80年很代流行的下降拼块游戏，最初的设计和编程是由俄罗斯科学家阿列克谢·帕基特诺夫(Alexey Pajitnov) 在他的业余时间完成的。但那样日子早已一去不复返了。现代电脑和电子游戏有着复杂的故事情节，数以百计的人物，超炫的三维建模，高清的图像和超快速的行动。其结果是，电子游戏的创建需要投入大量的人力和物力。开发一个人们所喜爱的游戏需要由艺术家，技术艺术家(Technical Artists)，设计师，程序员和测试人员组成的“军队”的通力合作。
艺术家是那些绘制游戏中每一个场景的背景和字符的人。这可是一项艰巨而琐碎的工作。
技术艺术家的作用，按维基百科的说法是：“在艺术家和程序员之间架起一座桥梁。” 作为一个技术艺术家需要有相当不错的编程知识以及良好的艺术技巧。
游戏的设计师负责规划剧情故事线，制造矛盾，增加戏剧性，尽力使游戏具有趣味性和参与性。
程序员的作用不言自明。他们负责游戏的编码工作，最有可能使用的是C++语言（我可以从经验告诉你，这是一个相当棘手和可怕的语言）。
最后还有游戏测试人员(QA)。这可是许多孩子的终极梦想的工作： 他们可以整天玩电子游戏，还可以拿到报酬，真是太好了。测试人员报告游戏的问题，并提供反馈，帮助程序员，设计师们改进游戏。
如果你没去艺电的专卖店的话探访之旅就是不完整的。这是一家在公司内的商店，在那里你可以按折扣价购买EA游戏。我抓起了几个“模拟人生”添加到我有限的游戏收藏。每个十元。告诉那些非游戏玩家，这是一个非常好的价钱！
艺电公司看上去像是一个有吸引力的工作的地方。所以不难预料，我暑假计划里的同学现在都想去EA工作。的确是这样，艺电是一个少有的将艺术性和创造力与工程才能真正融为一体的地方。虽然为了最后期限赶工可能会压力很大，但无论是从薪水还是从就业前景来看电子游戏行业是很有吸引力的。在过去的十年里，电玩的技术水平飞速演进，行业的前景无可估量。在艺电公司这样的地方工作，为你提供了观赏互动娱乐的未来的前排座椅。
The Art of Making Video Games
This is the age of technology. This is the time when the arrival of the Apple iPhone is eagerly anticipated; kids and adults alike wait for hours in line, sometimes even camping out in order to get a Nintendo Wii or a Sony PlayStation 3. But beyond the pushing of buttons and the pretty shininess of the Xbox 360 console, what really happens in the booming video game industry? Despite the wild popularity of video games, few people in mainstream society really know what goes on behind the scenes.
This summer, I had an opportunity to visit computer and video game giant Electronic Arts (www.ea.com/home.jsp) as part of a summer program. Silicon Valley based Electronic Arts is the world’s biggest third-party game developer, churning out some popular games such as the Sims and all their expansions. The Sims are wildly successful life-based games, as they allow the player to have a complete control of a family, a clothing store, or even a city. Electronic Arts also has a virtual monopoly on sports-related games, producing some notable ones like “One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird” and “Need for Speed”. EA also made the video games for “the Lord of The Rings” and “Harry Potter” series.
EA’s campus in Redwood city, California, is huge, and stocked with pretty much every video game imaginable. Employees taking breaks play “Dance Dance Revolution”, get drinks out of the super-high tech vending machine, laze around in the “research room” (a.k.a. the game room), or play video games in the lobby. But all is not fun and games for video game designers. Designing, drawing, and programming the game is hardly as easy or fun as playing it. Not that I am insinuating that games are not getting more and more challenging. It’s just that the player hardly has to fix bugs in the code.
In the early days, games were often developed by single person. For example, “Tetris”, a popular falling-blocks game in 1980s, was originally designed and programmed by Russian scientist Alexey Pajitnov at his spare time. But those days are long gone. Modern computer and video games have complicated story lines, hundreds of characters, sophisticated 3-D modeling, Hi-Def quality graphics and super fast actions. As a result, making a video game nowadays requires a tremendous amount of manpower. It takes an army of artists, technical artists, designers, programmers and testers, to say the least, to create a game.
Artists are the ones that take care of drawing the background and characters for each scene, a painstaking job.
Technical Artists, says Wikipedia, “bridge the gap between artists and programmers.” Being a technical artist requires a fairly good knowledge of programming as well as good artistic skill.
Game designers plot the story lines, create conflicts, add drama and try their best to make the game interesting and engaging.
Programmers are self-explanatory; they are the ones responsible for the coding of the game, most likely in C++ (which, I can tell you from experience, is an exceedingly tricky and awful language).
Being video game testers, on the other hand, is an ultimate dream job for many kids because they get paid to play video games all day long. Testers report bugs and provide feedback so programmers can improve the game.
No trip to EA is complete without paying a visit to the EA shop – an on-site store where you can buy games at a discount price. I snatched up a few Sims to add to my limited game collection at $10 each. For your non-gamer, it is a really good deal!
Electronic Arts seems like a fun place to work. Not surprisingly, now everyone in my summer program wants to work for EA. Indeed, it is a rare place where artistry and creativity truly fuse with engineering prowess. While working towards a deadline may be stress inducing, the video game industry has loads to offer, from handsome pay to a rewarding career. With technology quickly evolving the way that it does in this decade, there is no limit to what may come. Working at a place like Electronic Arts gives you a front row seat to the future of interactive entertainment.
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