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Games and the 'Geek Stereotype'
ChinoH81 writes "Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."
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What this gentleman didn't consider is that most of us would prefer to spend $20-$40 on a videogame we would play for weeks, than $20-$40 to go to a movie for 2 hours and have a bag of popcorn.
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But, whatever.
But this is largely due to the high price of a game, around 40. compared to the cost of video rentals or a cinema ticket
I went to see Tomb Raider this week with my girlfriend, including soda and popcorn that came out to be about 35 pounds. The price is about the same, but the movie only lasted 2 hours. A good game can last for months.
Companies are concentrating on mass-appeal over fun. In the early 90's, a game was a huge hit if it sold 100,000 copies. Today, with numbers like that it would be considered a flop. Because of that, the newer games are dumbed-down to appeal more to the masses. Eye-Candy is considered more important than playability.
It's the same situation in the board game industry. Everyone's played monopoly (which is a lousy game), but who here has even heard of Puerto Rico or Settlers of Catan which are two of the best games on the market now.
Jason
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So games won't be fun unless they're designed to be fun? What will they realize next? Software won't be easy to use unless they put some thought into the interface.
This is why older games are still popular, with less graphics and sound to work with, the hook had to be the game itself. You had to play it because you wanted to play it, not because it looked pretty.
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Actually a lot of people. When asked why they like game X they explain all the technical details like the graphics, sound, detail. A lot of them never say it is a fun game. These people play games so they can get to the next cinematic scene. It it wasn't for the cinematic reward after hours of boring game-play the games would never be played. The many of the old games of the 80s did not have any cool graphics and many of them did not have any defined ending, if they did it was some small text with The End or You Win. The reward for playing the game for hours was playing the game itself not winning or the grand diversions in the middle.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Hell, even retarded Ahnold movies, like Terminator and The 6th Day, bring up relevent settings and illuminate moral questions? Only a handful of the finest games, like Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Civ explore the awy the world works (worked) outside my limitied experience. Well, I guess Black and White was worth something; a failed game, but it brought that morality and consequences to the table, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each...
Maybe if Warcraft had actually let me choose if the Palladin went bad, and made me struggle with the choice.
The only place in gaming I've seen this sort of development is in the small brand traditional (pen& paper) RPG companies. But they have their own geek-factor by nature of the format.
Looks good for your age..
ChinoH81 writes "Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the
people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."
Never going to be as popular?
Funny that the Games Industry makes WAY more money than the Hollywood.
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Great point. But what would the "killer app" be? Different games appeal to different people for different reasons. However, there are always going to be people who just don't "get" games. For example, I love mystery/puzzle games like Myst, but I also enjoy a FPS like Quake or Unreal. I can't stand strategy or sim type games though. To me those games lack any appeal because of the involvment and complexity but the interface is piss poor. Now, if we were at a point where a sim or strategy game could be a fully immersive experience with VR, I would be more intrigued. We're just not there yet. I mean think about it. Wouldn't life really suck if you have to click on people and type in order to interact with them all the time? I'm sure some of you have eventually tolkd the person you were IMing to give you a call on the phone because it's much easier to communicate verbally rather than textually. SO I would argue that what needs to change to make games more appealing is to essentially move them into the realm of being alternate reality with very well rendered spaces and avatars. Until then, the only really fun games are same-gnome, tetris the puzzle game and Chicken Invaders (which runs well under WINE BTW...) :)
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I remember those games fondly also...however, I think we have different expectations today. Would you really buy "Moon Patrol" if it was available at Best Buy today? Would you play it for more than 5 minutes? I don't think I would.
I recently had the chance to play "Roadblasters" at an airport arcade, which was one of my favorite games as a wee lad. Here's the thing: It was Lame. Just totally unredeemable.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I don't know if 1942 and Battlefield 1942 are actually related branding wise, but BF1942 has definately carried on the 1942 tradition of simple, fast paced games for me. It's simple enough that my roommate was able to start playing right away and still have lots to explore play wise (he's learning to dive bomb and strafe now).
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Speaking as a industry veteran, a games designer of some years, I now understand what I've been doing wrong all these years. Fun. Damnit! Why didn't I think of that before?
This observation is, of course, like unto a thing made entirely of poo. I find it particularly offensive coming from the Redmond crowd, whom I've had some dealings with. I am no longer inclined to take advice from a bunch of middle-aged cardigan-wearing preppy types who know everything about project management and zip about gameplay, other than what's been fed them by their Usability department focus-testers.
MS Usability have a lot of influence over people who are commissioning. They have their act honed and appear to be doing their best to reduce gameplay to a science - to quantify fun. I've been through some of their reports and it's not easy reading. It sums up their attitude to games: clinical, rationalized, objectified, sanitized, blah. They think too hard about it.
What a difference it is talking to Nintendo. Right from the off they tell you gameplay is king. Everything comes back to the control system. They pound this into you again and again, but it's good. Because they have not made this a science; they treat games design as an artform and know how subjective a thing it is. They understand fun. They know their stuff.
but is it a slow news day or what? =)
:) but what the article is trying to say is quite worthwhile: that people who make video games need to concentrate on making them fun for people who won't put up with the broken affordances of today's products. and in doing so, they'll have to fix them. :)
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:). developers that want to target working adults need to fit games into their lives, not the other way around.
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heh, yes, that has to be one of the worst bbc taglines i've seen.
to make this somewhat on topic, i'd actually say that i have to disagree with the article. i think if you concentrate and try to push it out to a demographic thats not familiar with gaming, they'll just resist it more than they normally would.
if you push present products onto an unsuspecting populace, then yes, they will, as they should. but what about if you start fixing games, so they actually appeal to more than the standard asocial obsessive-compulsive type?
video games are often broken. for example, time investment. games often require sinking several continuous hours at a time, and not many people can afford that (students excluded
another example are broken reward/punishment schedules: negative conditioning cycles are commonly hidden in mundane game elements, such as in having to reload a level until you get it right. pavlov would be proud.
and then there's juvenile storytelling, which is a huge turn-off. most people don't bother with pulp fantasy because it's puerile; why should they bother with even worse RPGs?
there are, of course, more problems than that, and they are complex, and without easy fixes. and maybe they will get addressed eventually, if hardcore gamers only stopped touting them as features...
My other car is a cons.
I think it's a fairer comment than you're giving her credit for. Geeks tend to like games that involve a huge commitment in learning and practice before you begin to succeed. And they like lots of fine control. My wife calls my favorite computer game (Space Empires IV) "Spreadsheets in Spaaaaace!" because it's mostly about economic and logistical management rather than intense combat or stunning visuals. I can play it for hours at a time, but I'm well aware that I'm far from normal in this regard. For most people, it would be like doing tax returns as recreation.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
I'm always faintly amused when an "expert" takes the time out his/her busy schedule to tell us something so obvious and/or useless.
In the practical matters, video games are already on a par with television and Hollywood. Major game releases can expect to have revenues which approach those of major feature films. In their target demographic (teenage and older males) they are already occupying a greater portion of their conciousness than other media. To argue that they aren't going to be as popular as films is pointless: they already are.
But what really seems silly to me is the following quote:
To this I would merely counter with a question: "What movie have you seen recently that changed your life?" C'mon, let's get real. Even if movies do have that power, most of them fall way short of that standard, and yet they remain popular and engaging. Frankly, I don't need movies to tell me how to feel, or to teach me about myself: I have a real life with real family and real experiences to teach me that.But what I do not have is the ability to pilot a light-speed fighter against impossible odds!
It's not exactly earth-shattering to claim that games should be better. They should be. It doesn't take an expert to observe that video gaming still remains a male-dominated activity. But the simple fact is that video games and movies have made a pretty good living out of catering to their audience, and it seems strange to argue that some revolution needs to occur before it will really take off.
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
I don't actually agree that games should be challenging.
They should seem challenging, without actually having to be challenging.
A drooling moron with no motor skills should be able to beat a game. But whenever anybody beats it, it should feel to them like it took skill, like they accomplished something.
You need to create the illusion that the game is challenging, but without denying the rewarding experience of overcoming the challenge to any of your players.
If a game is too hard for me, I'll get frustrated with it and won't play it. If a game seems too easy for me, I'll get bored with it and won't play it. But if I beat every challenge and don't realize that there's almost no way to lose, I'll have fun.
This is my opinion regarding computer games, D&D, card games, pretty much any game. Everyone should be able to have fun playing. Everyone should have the illusion that they just barely had enough skill to win.
(I think Warcraft 3 probably nails this perfectly. It felt to me like I only overcame it through skill. But personally, I totally suck at RTS games -- I mostly just have fun pushing the buttons and watching the little blinkenlights. However, all sorts of people who are more skilled than me at RTS games also enjoyed it. I conclude that they must have gotten the illusion down right.)
I am looking forward to the day when I wont have to pick up a phone ever again.
So you prefer short-hand glyphs to actually talking to someone where you can hear the tonal inflections? I gotta say, I think that's strange. There are so many flame wars started just because people mistake the intent behind text messages.
Then came Jutland, a WW1 navy simulation. It was much more intense and beautiful. It had streaming video cut scenes, awesome graphics (for the time) and complex game play. But was it fun? Well, unless you knew the cheat code to show the proper the angle of your guns it was a lesson in frustration. Great looking game that was almost impossible to win.
Next was Aegis: Guardian of the Fleet. This was a serious game. It simulated an entire Aegis class battle cruiser in modern day warfare. It tended to be long and boring. Again, lots of detail and great graphics, but terrible game play. Not fun.
Fast Attack was another beautiful looking game with tons of detail and gameplay that closely followed the targeting and tracking routines of a real Fast Attack submaringe. But was it fun? Well, maybe if you're a navy simulatin buff. But I got the game for free and could play test it while I worked tech support and I wouldn't even finish it. Boring and impossibly complex to play.
Then came Conqueror 1086 (which we use to refer to as Conqueror 1286, Conqueror 1386, Conqueror Pentium!) The graphics were still good, but they put much more work into the gameplay and story line. And guess what? It was fun to play. I wish we wrote better code to control the game speed. It's impossible to play on today's fast computers. The screens scroll by so fast that you can't controll it. Too bad, it's a great game.
Now we have games like Uplink that have almost no graphics to speak of and yet are really fun to play. Do you see a trend here? The 3D graphics and surround sound do not make a game fun. The STORY makes a game fun, the GAMEPLAY makes a game fun. You'd think this wouldn't be news by now, but people are still surprised to learn that lesson.