Designing Videogames For The Wage Slave

Thanks to Ron Gilbert's weblog for pointing out a GameDev.net article discussing the topic of "Designing Games for the Wage Slave" . The author explains: "We balance on the knife's edge between our glorious time-squandered youth, and the commitments of inevitable middle age... If games can adapt to the needs of the working gamer, they can find a lucrative niche." He goes on suggest practical tips for game developers, including 'Don't Waste My Time' ("Make every moment count. I don't play games to punish myself. I play them to be entertained, rewarded, and challenged"), 'Curiosity Killed The Cat...' ("Constant death was a necessity in the days of video arcades... Now, in the comfort of our lounges or offices, what reason is there to keep dumping us out of the game we bought with our hard earned cash?"), and 'I Need Help' ("Make any necessary information available from within the game.")

Comments

Re:MMORPG's not a good example

[Erik K. Veland]

Apparantly you've missed the Rest-system debate of the World of Warcraft beta, which was a soft version of this designed to give the causual gamer a bonus. "Powergamers" were all up in arms at this idea that "punished them for playing the game too much"!

The rest-system merely gave a bonus (more XP per kill) if you were "rested" and you got progressively more fatigued until you got a penalty (less XP per kill) if you were tired. You could play as much as you wanted of course, you just wouldn't progress as fast (still much faster than one who didn't play of course). The original rest-system required you to log out for 8 hours straight to go to the Rested-state.

The rest-system has since been tuned to give a negliable bonus and you don't have to rest as long.