????現(xiàn)在休息片刻。

????就在剛才，我花幾分鐘時間收割了莊稼，建立了幾家小企業(yè)，收了租，并且雇傭了幾個Facebook的朋友在我的社區(qū)大廳里工作——這是因為上個月，我加入了“城市小鎮(zhèn)”（CityVille）游戲的玩家大軍?！俺鞘行℃?zhèn)”是社交游戲公司Zynga出品的一款城市建造模擬游戲，自從它面世以來，F(xiàn)acebook的用戶經常會看到這樣的好友動態(tài)：“JP需要甜甜圈來喂飽饑餓的警察！”或是“JP需要鳥食來喂鴿子！”

????上次我曾在《財富》雜志的網站里坦承自己是個狂熱的、喜歡用photoshop修照片的Facebook迷。不過我這次的自白甚至比上一次更加難為情。當時許多讀者都認同“想要被喜歡”這個概念。然而如果你告訴別人，你是個“城市小鎮(zhèn)”迷的話，這就好比你當眾宣告自己是小甜甜布蘭妮的粉絲一樣，恐怕很難算得上是一件給自己長臉的事。

????得知我是“城市小鎮(zhèn)”迷后，我最好的朋友盯著我說道：“如果你讓我也加入那個游戲，我就把你拉黑?！彪m然說這話的時候，她的臉上掛著笑容，不過我能感覺到她并不是在開玩笑。同事們的反應也大同小異，要么面無表情地盯著我，要么就是腹誹一番，然后說上一句“哦，不錯啊”之類的話（翻譯過來就是“怪人”。）

????我并不怪他們。作為傳統(tǒng)單機游戲的鐵桿玩家，我一向是避免玩休閑游戲的。當然，我曾寫過關于休閑游戲的文章，甚至在某種程度上對它表示尊敬——因為任何能吸引新玩家的游戲都是好游戲——不過我從來沒有真正理解休閑游戲是怎么回事，直到幾周前，我第一次玩到“城市小鎮(zhèn)”。

????I'm taking a break.

????Right about now, I take a few minutes to harvest crops, put up several small businesses, collect rent, and hire Facebook friends to work at community halls. That's because last month, I joined the legions on CityVille, the city-building simulation game from Zynga that annoys Facebook users with News Feed updates like, "JP needs donuts to feed hungry cops!" or "JP needs bird seed to feed pigeons!!"

????Confessing as much by way of Fortune.com is even more embarrassing than the time I came out as a feverish, freaky-deaky photo-shopping Facebook addict. While many readers at the time identified with the notion of wanting to be liked, telling someone you're a CityVille fan seems as dubious a distinction as announcing yourself a Britney Spears fan.

????"If you ask me to join, I'll block you," my best friend mused. She said this with a smile, but I got the sense she wasn't joking. Reactions from some colleagues were similar, from blank stares to silent judgment, followed by something like, "Oh, good for you." (Translation: "freak.")

????I don't blame them. As a hardcore traditional console gamer, I used to avoid casual gaming. Oh, sure, I wrote about it, and even respected it to an extent -- any kind of gaming that brings in new players is a good thing -- but I never really got it until my first chance encounter with CityVille a few weeks ago.

????當時我還寫了一篇關于設計師陳音凱（音）的文章。這位設計師花了超過12年的時間設計真實世界里的建筑，不過現(xiàn)在，他卻在為“城市小鎮(zhèn)”設計虛擬住宅。要想更好地了解陳音凱的成就，唯一的方法就是試玩一下這款游戲——當然，問題是我一直沒停下來。

????總之，我每天至少要在我的虛擬小城上花一小時的時間。一開始的時候，我經歷了游戲的各個奇妙的環(huán)節(jié)，似乎被無限膨脹的宿命感所籠罩了——從一顆莊稼開始，打造有史以來最大的、能自我發(fā)展的虛擬社區(qū)，似乎是上帝賜給我的神圣權利！

????沒過多久，相對較慢的免費模式就滿足不了我了，于是我打破了自己的另一條“鐵律”，購買了價值5美元的虛擬商品，好讓游戲進度快一些。當然，5美元并不算什么，不過這就像一個無藥可救的癮君子，嘴上說自己只嗑了1克藥，事實上卻嗑了5克。

????悲哀，悲哀，悲哀啊。

????這實在太令人難為情了，因為我曾經發(fā)過誓，這一天永遠不會到來。我從小就是傳統(tǒng)單機游戲的忠實玩家，從1989年的第一款Game Boy掌機開始，美國境內銷售過的所有游戲機我?guī)缀醵加惺詹?。我曾花費數(shù)千小時的時間，一遍又一遍地打Boss、過任務、刷數(shù)據(jù)、找新功能，使我的技術變得更厲害——玩家們把這個過程叫做“磨刀”。

????作為一個游戲的純粹主義者，我原來最喜歡的就是由高性能的硬件創(chuàng)造出幾乎無限個抗鋸齒多邊形（3D制圖的建筑?？欤?，以產生震撼的視覺效果，然后把有15個按鈕的振動控制器連接到一塊大平板屏幕上。不過，自從我成了“城市小鎮(zhèn)”的玩家后，我一度熱愛的Wii、Playstation 3和Xbox 360游戲都被打入了“冷宮”，在我的平板電視底下，落滿了灰塵。

????不知不覺間，我的生活重心也已經發(fā)生了變化。我再也沒有那么多的閑暇時光和耐心了。在我十幾歲的時候，我可以花大把的時間玩最新款的游戲。另外歸功于大學的長班教學（block scheduling）制度，上大學的時候，我在白天也有同樣長的時間，用來玩《俠盜獵車手》（Grand Theft Auto）等游戲。

????不過現(xiàn)在情況變了。并不是說我現(xiàn)在沒有閑暇時間了，只是現(xiàn)在的閑暇時間沒有以前那么多了。我想這就是為什么休閑游戲會大受歡迎，因為他既吸引了那些“非玩家”，也吸引了鐵桿玩家。休閑游戲沒有什么華麗的視覺效果，玩法也并不復雜。（任天堂Game Boy游戲機1998年的色彩效果大概就能帶動《城市小鎮(zhèn)》，而不會有什么問題。）

????不過這并不是重點。對于一個拇指長繭、時間充裕的老玩家來說，玩《俠盜獵車手》可能是件很有樂趣的事。不過對于游戲菜鳥或是時間很緊的人（比如我）來說，像“城市小鎮(zhèn)”這樣簡單的游戲可以讓用戶見縫插針地趁閑暇時間玩上幾分鐘，他們不需要游戲說明，也不需要接受什么指導，而等他們離開游戲時卻仍然充滿成就感。這種游戲更加平易近人——而且它還是免費的。

????它的畫質給力嗎？不。它的玩法有創(chuàng)意嗎？它是否是完全原創(chuàng)的，或是具有創(chuàng)新性？答案都是否定的。但它卻出奇的簡單有趣。

????這種方法顯然是有效的。《城市小鎮(zhèn)》打破了所有的紀錄，成了有史以來最大的在線游戲，它的月度活躍用戶高達9200萬人，幾乎是全世界所有休閑游戲玩家人數(shù)（2億人）的一半。Zynga公司也受益匪淺。據(jù)報道，該公司平均每天的銷售額達到100萬美元，去年該公司的營收達到6億美元。

????所以當我告訴人們，這些天我正在玩《城市小鎮(zhèn)》的時候，即便有人投來鄙夷的目光，那也沒什么。因為顯然我并不孤單。

????譯者：樸成奎

????That's when I wrote a story about Yick Kai-Chan, the game's resident architect who spent over 12 years designing buildings in the real world but now designs all the virtual buildings in CityVille. To better understand Chan's achievements, it only made sense to give his work a spin -- of course, the problem is I never stopped.

????Altogether, I spend at least an hour a day on my virtual city. When it first started, I went through fugue-like gaming sessions, seemingly struck by this inflated, screwed up sense of manifest destiny -- it was my god-given right to build the largest self-sustaining virtual community possible one corn crop at a time!

????And not long after, dissatisfied with the relatively slow progress enabled by the game's free mode, I broke another self-imposed cardinal rule and bought $5 worth of virtual goods to speed things up. Granted, it wasn't much, but that's like a lapsed drug addict saying he only had one gram of narcotics as opposed to five.

????Sad, sad, sad.

????It's all sorts of embarrassing because I swore to myself this day would never come. Growing up a hardcore traditional gamer, I've owned almost every gaming console released stateside since the first Game Boy in 1989. I've logged thousands of hours doing what we gamers call "grinding," engaging in redundant gameplay mechanics like boss battles or driving on the same courses over and over to up our stats, unlock features, and make ourselves more competitive.

????As a gaming purist, I wanted high performance hardware spitting out zillions of anti-aliased polygons (the building blocks of 3-D graphics) for impressive eye candy and vibrating controllers with 15 buttons all hooked up to a big flat screen. Yet, here I am a CityVille player while my once-beloved game consoles -- a Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 -- rest under my flat screen gathering dust.

????Without my knowing it, my priorities had changed. I don't have the same free time and patience. When I was a teen, I could devote chunks of time to playing the latest console release, and thanks to block scheduling in college, I had equally long stretches during the day to dedicate to games like Grand Theft Auto.

????That's not the case anymore, which is not to say I don't have free time, I just don't have as much as I used to. And I think that's why casual gaming has taken off, both with people who don't call themselves "gamers" and hardened gaming vets. The genre doesn't offer gorgeous graphics or complex gameplay. (Far from it, actually. Nintendo's Game Boy Color circa 1998 could probably handle CityVille in some form without a problem.)

????That's not really the point. Playing Grand Theft Auto might be fun for a thumb-callused gamer with ample free time, but for newbies or even just gamers with tight schedules like me, something like CityVille in all its simplicity lets users wade in at their leisure, no manual or tutorial required, for a few minutes, then walk away feeling like they made some serious headway. It's so much more accessible – oh, and it's free.

????Is it graphically ambitious? Nah. Does it have innovative gameplay? What about being wholly original and innovative? Nope and nope. But they are incredibly simple and fun.

????The approach is obviously working. CityVille broke all sorts of records to become the biggest online game ever with 92 million active monthly users, nearly half of the 200 million casual gamers around the world. And Zynga isn't hurting. The company reportedly makes over $1 million in sales a day and pulled in $600 million last year.

????So when I tell people what I'm playing these days and I get judgmental looks, that's OK. Clearly, I'm not alone.