游戏开发者职业精神编辑本段回目录
不知储位浏览游戏公司的招聘广告时，是否曾发现，大多数公司称其正在寻找对游戏充满激情的人。多么热情洋溢，多么浪漫四射，多么妙趣横生的召唤啊。这还没完呢，广告继续宣扬公司员工多么干劲十足，最后希望和他们一样的热血青年共创辉煌！“哇！”天真的年轻人乐坏了：“激情，我有啊！这说的就是我啊！”
招聘广告这么说是因为他们希望把那些爱幻想又爱游戏的人钓上钩。许多游戏公司就是靠这群无辜的家伙才存活下来的。如果可能的话，游戏公司当然希望能雇到经验丰富又天真无邪的空想家，可惜世界上不存在这种动物—— 据William Blake（游戏邦注：此人是十九世纪英国浪漫派诗人，著有诗集《天真之歌》、《经验之歌》等）的权威观察，所有人，要么天真无邪，要么经验丰富，不存在二者兼具的人。
“激情”不过是雇主的一个借口罢了。在这个游戏行业里，因为激情，你就必须疯狂地加班加点，并且对少得可怜的工资毫无怨言。许多招聘广告都强调应聘者要有激情，至于雇员的薪水能过上什么品质的生活，基本上绝口不提。
他们提过员工的育儿扶助、家庭保险或休假计划吗？没有！他们所做的就是保证来应聘的是单身汉，而且对家庭生活漠不关心，对休假更是兴趣索然。
这种行径一方面伤害了无辜的应聘者，另一方面也麻烦了HR。因为诱人的广告词只能保证吸引到的家伙对电子游戏充满激情，至于是否具有入行的资格就另当别论了。这意味着一大帮家伙抱着不切实际的幻想发出了自己的工作申请表，而事实上自己并不胜任那份工作。HR的工作就是把这些人挑拣出去。
激情有什么好处？有什么坏处？所谓激情，好比一团燃烧的火，是一种无法驾驭的渴望或其他情绪，如愤怒。当这种情绪发展到极端形式，麻烦就大了。如果任其发展壮大，激情就会变成一种自我沉溺。这种感觉似乎很美，但其本身与创意或成效没有半点关系，和才能就更是毫无瓜葛。
passion(from rumahpintar-kembar.com)
艺术需要激情。真实的艺术来源于灵魂，艺术家必须满怀激情地相信自己的所做所为。没有激情参与的创作只是浪费时间。艺术离不开激情还因为艺术远比游戏行业包含更多的激情。
游戏行业的产物大部分并不是艺术品。对于那些坚持追随自己的梦想、全然不顾梦想所指的空想家，请另谋高就吧，本行业需要的只是200个像工蜂一样能生产能销售的员工。
Peter Molyneux（游戏《神鬼寓言》首席设计师）是业内出了名的梦想家，但他可不属于编写代码和模拟场景的一员。游戏行业中的绝大多数人根本就没机会像他那样“指点江山”。
公司下达旨意了：“2014年我们要推出一款全新的赛车游戏，你和你还有你去完成车轮的部分，你和你还有你去搞定消音器的部分。”领旨照办，不然就等着被炒吧。游戏开发就是一种极为耗体的工作，特别是对那些位于行业最底层的人而言。
激情过剩还有一个问题。毕竟这是一种颇为原始又无理的情绪，所以一旦情绪上来了，怎么可能跟其他人搞好关系呢？如果我的激情告诉我游戏要这么做，而制作人的激情又说游戏应该那么做，口舌之战怕是在所难免。游戏不是电影，谁也不是创意的权威，整个项目也不是受一个制作人的热情摆布。游戏开发是齐心协力，同舟共济，其中必然存在妥协和协商。
所以，当你面对一大堆沉闷又重复的工作还要不断地向自己的幻想妥协时，你怎么保证热情的火焰不熄灭？答案就是，你不必费劲地护住那点火苗。当激情的浪潮消退，支撑你渡过难关的就是职业性。
职业性是多种因素的集合体。一个对得起公司的责任感——如果老板待你不薄，你总是希望涌泉相报的吧。
另一个是对得起用户（玩家）的良心。产品最终是要拿给玩家去使用、享受和评判，长远地看，他们才是你的衣食父母。最后一个，可能也是最重要的一个是，对得起自己的觉悟——纯粹是因为你为自己能制作游戏而感到自豪。
职业态度就是熟知自己的工作、做好自己的工作、并为自己的工作感到自豪（即使你自己并不购买最终产品）。随着游戏市场的扩大，越来越少玩家会像游戏开发者那样，对相同的画面和乐趣情有独衷。
游戏从业人员少有老太太或小萝莉，但我们的用户中却有这类人的身影。对于她们，我们是有所亏欠的，因为我们能为《合金装备》的粉丝鞠躬尽瘁，对她们却没有一视同仁。
最近，我给一个在荷兰开发的严肃游戏当顾问。游戏的目的是通过比较愉快的方式训练医生的技术，这款游戏能够使医生更加专注同时提高其手眼的配合默契。除了医生能玩到这款游戏，我们也向普通大众开放。我确实不是这款游戏的目标人群，但没关系——既然开发商雇用了我，我就要在工作中竭尽所能。
我听到很多人说：“没激情的工作我不干。”如果是艺术家，这番可爱的宣言还挺有作派的，但随着项目的扩大，越来越没有开发人能享受这种奢侈了。相反地，是因为职业性使然你才继续做下去。
运动类游戏，我干了好多年了。不过，这类游戏仍然不是我的喜好。我接下工作因为这是对我的老本行、好公司、好团队的极大提升。我发现原来自己的才能还能挥洒到这方面——我在自己设计的那部分里加入实况报道部分，极大地提升了游戏的品质。
我对什么有激情？没。我只是专业；我对公司尽到责任。另外，我渐渐地开始欣赏运动类游戏设计中的独特挑战。我很高兴粉丝说我们的游戏是市面上最好的。
两个人，一个有激情，一个职业性，我更愿意用那个职业性的人。所谓职业性，就是明知道眼下的工作不是你的那杯茶，但还能喝得津津有味。
有些人不管遇上什么项目，都能把工作做好，有些人确实对某类游戏有激情，但一接手不是自己喜欢的工作就嚷嚷着要换，对我而言，前者更靠谱。如果可以，我会尽量让前者做其喜欢的事，至于后者，项目完工果断让对方走人。
激情和职业性当然不是互相排斥的品质。最佳代表就是凡高。关于他，人们做了许多肤浅的精神病分析——“他的画作如此与众不同，因为他是个疯子。”如此等等。
但凡高不是一个单靠原始的才能和激情来创作的天真艺术家。如果你读过他写的信，你就会发现他是一个素养很高的艺术学者，也受到其他思潮的影响。
passion works(from dailyartmuse.com)
当没有人买他的画作时，让他坚持画下去的是激情，但让他的才发得以充分开发并展显得淋漓尽致的却是职业精神。如果说他的画作令人动容，那是因为他能不顾精神病而坚持创作，而不是因为他靠精神病而坚持创作。
那些宣称“激情至上”的招聘广告应该适可而止了。听起来很酷，除了作为要求员工加班加点还只付低工资的借口，基本上毫无意义。这种广告本身对公司的发展也并无好处。
热情不能为才能或甚至基本的能力作担保。对老板来说，能力、自豪感、原则、正直、奉献、组织、交流和基本技能比激情更实用。对你，当然还是职业精神更有用。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，作者：Ernest Adams）
The Designer’s Notebook: Passion Versus Professionalism
by Ernest Adams
Read a few dozen game recruitment ads, and you’ll soon notice that most of them say they’re looking for people with a passion for games. It sounds very enthusiastic and romantic and fun. The ads go on and on about how much passion the employees at the company have, and how they’re looking to employ people who are just like them! “Wow!” says the na?ve young modder in his bedroom. “I have passion! That’s for me!”
Industry recruitment ads say this because they’re hoping to attract starry-eyed innocents who just love games. Many game companies depend for their survival on the exploitation of starry-eyed innocents. Ideally, of course, they would like to find highly-experienced starry-eyed innocents, but there ain’t no such animal — you can be innocent or you can be experienced, but not both, as William Blake observed.
“Passion” is an excuse used by employers to mistreat their employees. Your passion is supposed to make up for the insane hours and low pay for which the industry is notorious. Many job ads emphasize the importance of passion in applicants; few emphasize the quality of life that the employer offers.
How many of them talk about their on-site child care, their whole-family insurance plans, or their generous vacation policies? None. They’re all assuming the reader is a young single male with no interest in family life, and ideally, no interest in taking any vacation.
This practice does a disservice both to the innocents and, if they would only realize it, to the human resources people who have to sort through the job applications. It encourages everyone who has a passion for video games, regardless of their skills as a developer, to apply. This means that large numbers of people get unrealistic hopes and send in resumes for jobs they’re not qualified for, and the HR people have to dig through them all.
Let’s talk about what passion is good for, and what it isn’t. Passion is a burning, ungoverned desire or other emotion, such as anger. In its extreme form, it’s really obsession, and that’s never good. When cultivated intentionally, passion is a form of self-indulgence. It feels nice, but by itself, it isn’t necessarily creative or reliably productive, and it has nothing to do with talent.
Art requires passion. True art comes from the soul, and the artist must believe passionately in what she does. Someone who makes passionless art is a hack. Art also requires passion because art is even more badly compensated than the game industry is.
The game industry doesn’t produce works of art for the most part, and for every visionary who insists on following her own dream regardless of where it leads, the industry needs about 200 worker bees who actually make the products that sell.
Peter Molyneux gets a lot of credit for being an industry visionary, but he’s not the one who writes the code or models the landscapes. The vast majority of the people in the industry don’t get a choice about what to work on.
The company says, “We need a new driving game for 2014, and you’re going to do the wheels and mufflers.” You can do it or get fired. There’s a lot of grueling donkey-work in game development, especially at the lower levels.
There’s another problem with passion, too. Because it’s raw, unreasoning emotion, it doesn’t necessarily play well with others. If my passion tells me to make the game one way, and my producer’s passion tells her to make it another way, there are bound to be fireworks. Games aren’t movies; we don’t hand total creative authority to a single director and let his passion rule the project. Games are collaborative efforts, and that requires compromise and diplomacy.
So how do you keep up that burning enthusiasm when your job requires a lot of tedious, repetitive work, and a lot of compromises to your vision? The truth is, you don’t have to. When passion fails, what gets you through the day is professionalism.
Professionalism is a combination of factors. One is desire to do a good job for your company — if your employer treats you well, you want to give them your best.
Another is desire to do a good job for your customers, the players — they are the ones who will use your products, enjoy them, pass judgment on them, and in the long run they are who really pays your salary. Still another — and perhaps the most important — is a desire to do a good job just for yourself, simply because you take pride in doing it.
Professionalism is about knowing your job, doing it well, and being proud of it even if you wouldn’t buy the resulting product. As the markets for games expand, fewer and fewer of our customers will have the same demographics, and interests, as game developers.
Few of us are old ladies, and fewer still are little girls, but a good many of our customers are, and we owe it to them to do just as good a job for them as we do for Gears of War fans.
Recently I consulted on an important serious game in development in the Netherlands. It’s intended to train surgeons in a way that’s much more entertaining than the usual surgery simulators; it will keep them engaged for longer and improve their hand-eye coordination. We’re working to make it accessible to the general public, too. I’m not really the intended audience, but that doesn’t matter; the developers have hired me to give it my best and that’s what I’m doing.
I hear a lot of people say, “I wouldn’t want to work on any project I didn’t feel passionate about.” That’s lovely as a statement of artistic integrity, but as projects get bigger and bigger, fewer and fewer developers have the benefit of that luxury. Instead, you do it out of professionalism.
I worked for years on sports products. They were not, and still are not, my favorite genre. I took the job because it was a big improvement over my old job, for a good company, on a well-regarded team. I found a niche where I could put my talents to good use, and I significantly improved the quality of our products in my particular area of design, which was simulated play-by-play commentary.
Was I passionate about it? No. I was professional about it: I did a good job for the company. What’s more, I came to appreciate the unique challenges of sports game design, and I was delighted that our fans thought our game was the best on the market.
I would much rather hire someone with professionalism than passion. Professionalism is dedication to doing a great job even if you’re not the target audience.
Somebody who will turn in good work on any project I put them on is much more useful to me than someone who is really enthusiastic about one genre and moans when he’s asked to work on anything else. I’ll make an effort to move the former to something she likes when I can. The latter gets fired at the end of the project.
They’re not mutually exclusive qualities, of course. One of the best examples of passion combined with professionalism was Vincent Van Gogh. There’s a lot of shallow psychoanalyzing about Van Gogh — “his paintings are so distinctive because he was mad,” and so forth.
But Van Gogh was no na?ve artist operating on raw talent and passion alone. If you read his letters, you discover that he was a well-educated scholar of art, much influenced by the ideas of others.
His passion kept him going when nobody would buy his works, but it was his professionalism — his endless desire to learn more and do better, that exploited his talent to its fullest. Van Gogh’s early works didn’t amount to much. It was his growth as a serious, thoughtful, professional artist that turned him into what he became.
In fact, his bouts of madness had nothing to do with it; they disturbed his thinking and prevented him from painting. If anything, his work is all the more impressive because he was able to do it in spite of, not because of, his illness.
It’s time for a moratorium on recruitment ads that demand passion. It sounds cool, but ultimately, it’s meaningless except as an excuse for demanding long hours and offering poor benefits. By itself, it’s not much use to development companies, either.
Passion is no guarantee of talent or even basic competence. Ability, pride, discipline, integrity, dedication, organization, communication, and social skills are much more useful to an employer than passion is. And they’re more useful to you, too.（source:gamasutra）
