译介|中英双语《连线》杂志：游戏业旺季今非昔比

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导语：《连线》WIRED 杂志无疑是全球所有科技媒体中最先锋又最具人文关怀和文化素养的「雅痞科技媒体」。这篇关于传统意义上「秋季大作迭出」的文化反思，文笔优雅，思维尖锐。（比只会写 bad ass , awesome「买爆」的死宅媒体不知道高级到哪里去），指出了如今研发成本高昂的游戏大作背后的隐忧。 

#双语游戏新闻# 旨在「玩游戏，学英语」，寓教于乐。给大家带来原汁原味、有营养的英语原文游戏新闻和文章，以及在下的拙译和注释。还是要不断提高自己的姿势水平。我会坚持做这个系列，如果你有兴趣，可以在微博订阅 #双语游戏新闻# 这个话题或关注 @叉小包

《连线》杂志：游戏业旺季今非昔比

WIRED：GAMING'S FALL SEASON AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE​

作者：JULIE MUNCY

原文链接：https://www.wired.com/story/gaming-fall-season-doldrums
​ON OCTOBER 27, three of the biggest videogames of the year arrive, all at once: Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, Assassin's Creed: Origins, and Nintendo's Super Mario Odyssey. Together, these three titles represent a cross-section of the big-budget gaming industry, from a family-friendly run-and-jump romp to a bloody rampage through a Nazi-filled alternate history. From power fantasy to primer on Ancient Egyptian architecture, this one day showcases much of the best of what triple-A gaming—the biggest, costliest games by the biggest, wealthiest publishers—can do.

10月27日这一天，三款今年最大牌的游戏一口气同时发售：《德军总部2：新巨像》、《刺客信条：起源》和任天堂的《超级马里奥 奥德赛》。眼前这三款作品，就好像如今耗资巨大的游戏产业的一个横截面：有全家齐乐、跑跑跳跳的恣意玩耍，也有浴血奋战杀光纳粹的架空历史；还有权力幻觉，和古埃及建筑学启蒙。这一天集中展现了「3A游戏」——那些最顶级、最有钱的发行商推出的最顶级、最耗成本的游戏——所追求的极致体验。

// 注释

cross-section 横截面，横向对比

romp 嬉闹

power fantasy 权力幻觉（即玩家在游戏中通过人挡杀人神挡杀神而获得至高无上的支配感，这里有一篇论述游戏中权力幻觉的文化批评文章，可供进一步参考：http://theenemyreader.org/problematizing-power-fantasy ）

primer on 启蒙

It represents enough money to balance the budget of a small country. Maybe even a medium-sized country. Accounting for years of development time, bleeding-edge machines and software, and astronomical advertising budgets, these three games, all told, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

这样一款游戏的成本相当于一个小国家的全年预算。说不定甚至是一个中型国家。耗费数以年计的研发周期， 采用最最尖端的硬件和软件技术，最后搭上天文数字的广告预算，这三款游戏，都是用几千万美元堆出来的。

// 注释

bleeding 在流血的，这里是夸张的比较级，相当于「very very very」

astronomical 天文学的

None of this is new, of course. The holiday season has been the destination for the most expensive, most hyped games and consoles for just about as long as the industry has existed. But every year it feels a little more stark. It used to be that the fall release window, which nowadays stretches from mid September to early January, was a veritable deluge of titles from all corners of the market. Now, fall releases are broad but shallow. Fewer than 10 of these games come out every year, representing the combined hopes and pocketbooks of all of the industry's major players. A Call of Duty, maybe a new Star Wars game, a couple of Nintendo entries and, if we're lucky, some big-budget original titles. Otherwise, the fall release season looks remarkably like any other part of the year. In fact, unless you're someone like me, who's obligated to play all of these big games, it's even a little dull.

当然，这已经不新鲜了。游戏产业自诞生以来，「节日季」几乎就一直是售价最贵、宣传最猛的游戏和主机的争夺目标。只是如今有种一年不如一年的感觉。以前每逢秋季发行窗口（如今已延长到从九月中旬开始到次年一月初），市面上就会汹涌澎湃地冒出各式各样的游戏来。而现在，秋季新作「声大」却「量少」。每年这样的「大作」不会超过10款，却霸占了游戏界大多数玩家的全部期待和钱包。「年货」必备《使命召唤》，或许再来份《星球大战》新作，几个任天堂的，如果我们运气好，还能有几个大成本的原创新作。除此之外，秋季大作期已经和全年的其他时段没什么两样了。实际上，除非你是像我一样，有把全部大作都玩一遍的强迫症，否则秋季甚至都有些无聊。

// 注释

holiday season 节日季，指从10月底的万圣节到12月底圣诞节，是美国人一年里最疯狂的「购物季」

stark 荒凉

deluge 大暴雨、大洪水

What happened? Money, mostly. Most aspects of big-budget game creation has gotten more and more expensive over the past decade. Part of this is due to inflation, but the larger culprit is the publishers themselves, who have driven an ever-escalating arms race of technology and scale. These big games are bloated, immensely complicated machines now, built by hundreds of people in collaborative design efforts among multiple studios across continents. This scale creep means that fewer of these games can be economically produced, and each one has higher pressure on it to succeed, which in turn ratchets up marketing budgets to absurd amounts. In 2015, publishers spent over half a billion dollarson television advertising alone, and there's no way that number's gotten smaller since.

怎么回事？还不是因为「钱」。过去十年来，大制作游戏的成本还在不断攀升。部分原因是通货膨胀，但真正的罪魁祸首还是发行商自己：他们陷入了一场无休止的技术与规模的军备竞赛。这些大型游戏如今成了臃肿庞大、构造极其复杂的机器，由分布在世界各地的多个工作室几百号人协同设计。这种恐怖的规模，意味着从经济角度而言，只能让更少的游戏投入制作，而开工的每一个面临的成功压力都更高，最终水涨船高助推市场预算攀升到荒唐的地步。2015年，游戏发行商仅在电视广告一项，就花费了五亿美元以上，可以想见这个数字只会越来越夸张。

// 注释

inflation 通货膨胀

culprit 罪魁祸首

arms race 军备竞赛

The effects of this are felt in every corner of the industry, and they're not great. Mid-tier studios, producing modestly scaled games on modest budgets, have essentially disappeared, unable to compete with this massive products. The independent game scene, while critically successful and massively influential, is constantly facing a struggle to remain solvent, even for the most successful creators. And if scale and budget has increased, worker rights certainly haven't. If your studio fails to produce what seems most profitable at the time, it might just get shut down—just ask Electronic Arts subsidiary Visceral Games, shuttered last week after the company decided that the Star Wars game they were developing didn't meet EA's projections of profitability in a shifting marketplace. Meanwhile, while costs have gotten higher, retail prices have stayed stable, capping out at $60. Which, in turn, leads to publishers pouring more money into more ways to move product, which feeds back into the entire cycle.

其连锁反应波及游戏业的每个角落，且不是什么好影响。那些投入合理预算制作规模合理游戏的中型工作室，已基本消失，它们无力承担这么庞大的作品。而独立游戏那边，就算是大获成功、极具影响力的作品，也经常要面对收支平衡的压力苦苦挣扎，即便是最成功的厂商也是如此。而尽管规模和预算增加了，劳工待遇却没有。如果你所在的工作室没有顺应潮流做出最赚钱的游戏，那差不多就可以关张大吉了——比如 EA 子公司 Visceral Games。上周 EA 认为该工作室正在开发的《星战》游戏无法达到 EA 的期待，在一个动荡的市场中盈利，就此关闭了工作室。与此同时，尽管成本高企，游戏零售价却保持不变，$60 美金到顶。这回过来，导致发行商不择手段撒更多钱去驱动游戏制作，就此恶性循环。

//注释

influential 有影响力的

projection 期待、预期

​So year after year, when fall rolls around, there's something unsettling about it in the video game world. It's increasingly sparse and loud, a reminder year after year that the industry is as large but also as troubled as it's ever been, at least since the console market crashed in the '80s. And when Friday rolls around, and you buy one of the three big titles—or don't—it's worth remembering that the system that produces those games isn't going to be sustainable forever. Eventually, something is going to have to give. It'll be interesting to see what that something is.

于是年复一年，每当秋季降临，我就不免对电子游戏世界忧心忡忡起来。这一季越来越冷清，越来越喧哗，年复一年地提醒你如今游戏业变得更大了，也面临前所未有的困境——至少是自 1980 年代主机市场大崩溃以来。「黑色星期五」即将到来，你要是趁促销购入这三大作中的一个——或没有——我都想提请你想一想：产出这些游戏背后的商业机制是不可永续的。最终，总有什么要被牺牲掉。至于到底是什么，就且看且珍惜了。

//注释：

sparse 匮乏的