Fun vs. Casual At EA

Game Tycoon has up an interview with Todd Kerpelman, the Creative Director for EA's Pogo Games. Pogo specializes in the market of 'casual games,' and the site quizzes him on what it takes to make simple games fun. From the article: "If you want to focus more on casual games, I think it's a common trap for game designers (myself included) to come up with some idea that's innovative or clever, and we end up being so impressed by our cleverness, that we often overlook the fact that there's a simpler (and probably more fun) solution out there. So maybe the issue isn't that there's "fun" stuff that doesn't make for popular games, but there's 'clever' stuff that we often mistake for 'fun.'"

Comments

We have met the enemy and he is us!

[Black Art]

And if you don't make a fun game, you get fed to Albert the Alligator.

Re:We have met the enemy and he is us!

[Tackhead]

> And if you don't make a fun game, you get fed to Albert the Alligator.

Yeah. Now Pitfall... there was a great example of a game that was both simple and fun! (Now what about the, umm... pogo stick that appeared in Pitfall: The Lost Expedition? It must work, because Edge of Reality hasn't been borged by EA yet :)

Kill EA

[Anonymous Coward]

Kill it good! :-)

And then

[Konster]

First, you make fun games, then EA buys you, works your company into the ground until all the best talent leaves, then takes whatever is left and sells the same thing year after year after year with only minor revisions. Then the suits sit around in slack-jawed befuddlement at why the numbers are down, and business is dropping.

It's not like PC gaming is a new thing; it's been around long enough for companies to have a pretty firm grasp on what makes a game fun. And yet, the suits sit around in slack-jawed befuddlement at why the numbers are down, and business is dropping.

Re:And then

[Billly Gates]

" ... Then the suits sit around in slack-jawed befuddlement at why the numbers are down, and business is dropping."

Well the problem is simple. The fact is the programmers dont work hard enough and we need to increase productivity by firing people and have 1 programmer do the work of 2. That will make us so much money and solve the problem.

Re:And then

[cloudofstrife]

I think one of the big trends in business right now is to cut costs. A lot of management doesn't realize that cutting costs does not mean that a project is going to do better. In fact, it has the opposite effect, especially in game development. Almost all companies that make good games (Blizzard, Square for the most part, and others that I'm not remember at the moment) don't rush them out the door and refuse to set dates for release. However, there isn't any one way to guarantee that a game will be good (coughdaikatanacough).

Re:And then

[Anonymous Coward]

There are too many war-based games out there. It's possible to have fun without killing people.

As the North Korean Central News Agency said in their review of Ghost Recon 2: "This may be just a game to them now, but it will not be a game for them later. In war, they will only face miserable defeat and gruesome deaths."

Re:And then

[Anonymous Coward]

First, you make fun games, then EA buys you, works your company into the ground until all the best talent leaves, then takes whatever is left and sells the same thing year after year after year with only minor revisions. Then the suits sit around in slack-jawed befuddlement at why the numbers are down, and business is dropping...

Hmmm.... how long did you work at Westwood Studios?

Re:And then

[Kuvter]

That's why I'm buying Spore, but not Spore 2, or should I say Spore 2008.

My fear

[Lord_Dweomer]

I used to be a hardcore gamer but now, after leaving college and entering the work force I have been forced to become a casual gamer due to lack of time.

That is fine, there is an increasing number of games being made for people like me.

HOWEVER! My big fear is that companies like EA will look at these two markets...the hardcore and the casual and say "hmmm, the hardcore gamers will pay outrageous monthly subscription fees and pay for addons and the casual gamers are adverse to it because the value for their time spent playing said purchased products will be far less than that of gamers who have more time to spend playing and therefore getting their dollars worth"

At this point, the suits will perform a dark ritual that will summon a demon who will command them to find a way to rape the casual gamers and milk them for all they're worth, such as by charging a higher monthly fee for an "accelerated account" that will be capped at the number of hours you can play it per month, but will allow you to advance in the game faster (such as by getting more XP per kill). I'm actually surprised nobody has thought of that model yet. But yeah, my big fear is that EA will say "casual gamers won't buy as much as hardcore gamers, but maybe we can charge them more for less".

Re:My fear

[BionicPimp]

such as by charging a higher monthly fee for an "accelerated account" that will be capped at the number of hours you can play it per month, but will allow you to advance in the game faster (such as by getting more XP per kill). I'm actually surprised nobody has thought of that model yet.

You need to patent this idea immediatly so that EA/SONY/{{insert joyless game corporation here}} can never do this to us, or make them pay severely if they do.

Re:My fear

[Lord_Dweomer]

If only you were legally allowed to patent business models...oh wait.

I'm actually curious though, can anybody poke some holes in the "accelerated account" I describe in my grandparent post? I'm curious if that kind of thing would actually work or if it has serious issues. If it wouldn't work then thats one less thing to worry about.

Re:My fear

[skreeech]

well,

capped playtime might not be very good in an mmo model. It could discourage the player from playing sometimes which could lead to them quiting.

would players be able to switch from one model to another?

I think players would use the accelerated account to level up in less playtime(waste less of your life grinding) then switch to the cheaper model that doesn't have capped playtime and play the "fun parts" of the game. The community might not like this.

The hardcore player might get many of these more expensive accounts instead of many of the traditional type though which would raise the profits.

Everything has it's flaws, a company might decide it works.

Re:My fear

[Luigi30]

[i]capped playtime might not be very good in an mmo model.[/i] Tell that to China.

Re:My fear

[CerebusUS]

Well, from a purely WoW perspective, hitting level 60 isn't really the goal of the game, it's the phat loots that you get from making endless high level raids.

Which is why I cancelled my account.

So levelling up faster just gets you to the end game faster which just lets you... um... Yeah, I don't know what the point is after that.

I'm probably too jaded on MMOs to be much use to you. Right now, they all seem to embody the worst elements of capitalism both in their billing model and their gameplay.

Re:My fear

[Psychochild]

Actually, you can already see a bit of this business model in modern online games in what I like to call a "pay for perks" business model. In this model you don't pay just to play the game, but you do pay for enhancements ("perks") in the game.

A great example of this for a U.S. game is Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. In addition to the subscription-based servers, you can join servers that are free to play. However, some activities and in-game items cost "doubloons", which are a currency that can only bought using offline money (or "real money" like dollars, etc.) You can play most of the game and enjoy a majority of the puzzles without paying one penny. But, most people do buy at least a few doubloons to enjoy a larger section of the game. You can also convert the doubloons to in-game currency ("pieces o' eight") at a fixed rate.

This model is good for the player for two reasons: first, it allows you to control how much you want to spend. Only want to spend $5 this month? No problem, just buy that many doubloons. You aren't forced to pay $15/month like other recent games charge. On the other hand, you might decide that you want to have more in-game cash without spending the time to earn it; in this case, you can spend more than $15/month and get more money to spend in the game. So, even people who want to experience more of the game but that have limited play time can enjoy the game as well.

Of course, most current players won't like this type of system. To be perfectly honest, the $15 you pay for a month of gameplay is an incredible bargain for entertainment. So, having access to the whole game for a low monthly fee is a great deal for the people that play the game for dozens of hours every week. These people could end up paying more in the long run if they want to play the same number of hours over an extended period of time.

From a developer point of view, this business model is nice. It doesn't put limits on how much a customer can spend per month on your game. Also, even though some people play essentially for free, others will usually spend more than enough to make your average income per customer higher than it is under a subscription model. I've heard stories of people spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a game in one month. Personally, I couldn't see myself ever doing that, but I'm more than happy to take someone's money if they want to do that in my game. :)

The biggest downside is that your game has to be well-designed for this business model. It's very hard to shoehorn it into the game after launch. You also have to balance what people can buy very carefully with what people can earn in the game. If you give too big of an advantage to the people buying stuff, you'll upset the people that can't afford to keep up. If the advantages aren't good enough, people won't buy the items....

I wrote about this a bit on my professional blog, where I pretty much say the monthly subscription business model is doomed. Perhaps a bit strong of an assertion, but probably accurate. Goes into more description on why I think this is a good future business model from the developer's point of view. I also cover some of the negative aspects in more depth.

Hope this is interesting for some people. :)

Have fun,

Re:My fear

[paedobear]

It's a model that's pretty big in Korea right now, and has been for some time - I'm still surprised that MS haven't managed to get something like Pangya on XBox Live Marketplace yet.

Re:My fear

[Aladrin]

At this point, the suits will perform a dark ritual that will summon a demon who will command them to find a way to rape the casual gamers and milk them for all they're worth, such as by charging a higher monthly fee for an "accelerated account" that will be capped at the number of hours you can play it per month, but will allow you to advance in the game faster (such as by getting more XP per kill).

You know, I hate you for even dreaming this up, let alone voicing it. You know SOE will find and exploit it post-haste. -sigh-

Re:My fear

[Anonymous Coward]

My fear is that a bunch of execs will sit around, having the following conversation:

"Okay. We've got HARDCORE gamers and CASUAL gamers. In order to please the HARDCORE gamers we've accelerated the Unreal Tournament schedule to release a new version of the game every 6 months. To please the CASUAL gamers we've gotten that bubble-bobble guy and he's gonna make us a bunch of similar games."

I used to be more hardcore, but now that I'm out of college I can't spend all my time being the most gamingest gamer evar. So I'm not willing to buy the latest and greatest triple-A FPS/RTS/Whatever every 6 mo. But I'm still looking for something more involved than the latest Tetris-descendant.

But executives are executives, and there is no reason to think that they will suddenly understand or be interested in serving me. Instead the world will be reduced to easy dichotomies. I've been better served by my xbox recently anyway. Except that the 360 costs one meelllioonnn dollars and the new nintendo looks like it will consist mostly of dollhouse games. Oh well.

Re:My fear

[duncangough]

Me too!

http://suttree.com/2006/06/29/the-item-model/

Play for perks is a nice name, too. I've been using the Item Model to describe it.

Re:My fear

[Billly Gates]

Then adults like us buy a Wii which nintendo will be marketing towards casual and hardcore gamers alike. I hate consoles compared to pc's because the games are not as customizable and the controls are not as good. Net play is another reason.

But nintendo actually makes some fun and fine games like Zelda and mariokart. I think I will keep the pc for FPS's though for obvious reasons.

Ebay = accelerated accounts.

[Behrooz]

Ebay = accelerated accounts. It's already happened, but the MMO game makers are either a little slow to get on the bandwagon or terrified of the PR nightmare of market forces kicking the crap out of gameplay.

Personally, I think any game where players want to skip ahead that badly has serious design issues to begin with. I can't believe that anyone plays the current generation of MMO games, because they are all straight-up retarded.

If P.T. Barnum had lived long enough to see the internet, he'd have had to change 'There's a sucker born every minute' to 'There's a retard born every minute'. Then he'd have married Lowtax and proceeded to make WoW, but with lots of circus animals instead of orcs.

Re:Ebay = accelerated accounts.

[cgenman]

I have spoken to many people who have made these games, and even they admit they just aren't fun yet.

You have the powerful model, the Everquest model, which caught on here and made someone a lot of money. Now every toothbrush salesman who has 40 million to throw at an MMO wants an Everyquest model game. So they want swordfighting, they want adventure, they want light questing, and they want a bajillion hours of content, updated in 6-month expansion packs. And with World of Warcraft, they want auction houses, even more casual fighting, 30 classes, tens to hundreds of thousands of pieces artwork, vs and solo play, and tons and tons of "crafts" to grind.

They assume that WoW won over Everyquest II by doing more, and therefore demand more of the same from the people producing them.

Thankfully there are some experimental other MMO games out there, creating new genres of play on a shoestring budget with more artistic freedoms. You have to dig for them, but they're worth finding.

Re:Ebay = accelerated accounts.

[Psychochild]

Personally, I think any game where players want to skip ahead that badly has serious design issues to begin with.

That's like saying that any game with god mode in it has serious design issues. Just because someone wants to get ahead doesn't necessarily mean the game is unfun or boring, but rather that people like to get ahead. This feeling tends to be more acute in online games ("MMORPGs") because you're competing against other people and some people just can't stand being the second banana. Not to say that some game couldn't be a little less grindy, but the mere presence of eBay doesn't indicate that the game sucks.

My thoughts,

Re:Ebay = accelerated accounts.

[Cocoa Radix]

Personally, I think any game where players want to skip ahead that badly has serious design issues to begin with.

I agree, wholeheartedly. I used to play Diablo II a lot, and almost NOBODY actually played the games. There were, out of the 27 quests, maybe 15 that were completed a lot; some players chose to run through the game completing far fewer quests than this. Everyone asked for a "rush" to the next difficulty, and then to the next, and then to the last boss in the last difficulty, at which point they, well, fought him over and over and over. Nobody actually liked playing the game, and that's because the second and third sections (the two largest of the five) were boring and uncreative.

The same thing happens in Guild Wars, which I play right now. People pay other people to be "ran" to very difficult-to-reach areas very early in the game, so that they can buy nicer stuff.

I played WoW for about two months, and then I couldn't stand it any longer. The game was more grind than anything that I had ever experienced. And all of my friends were like "dude, just keep playing. It gets better and better." And I would say "well, it's kind of a grind right now," to which my friends would say "yeah, the teens are a grind. Wait till you're at twenty." So I get to twenty. The grind triples. "Just wait it out, man, the twenties are a pain in the ass." Thirty. Exponential grind increase. And so on, and so on.

There's nothing in WoW to keep me from killing myself (in real life). So I quit. I now only play Diablo II with friends who want to actually go through the game, because everyone else on the Internet just wants to skip to the very end.

Guild Wars I like a lot, because it's newer, especially the Factions expansion, and there are a lot of people who, like me, want to play through every single quest. Plus the skill system makes you really think about how you want to go into battle, which I like. Crazy-damage combinations may end up getting you killed, while status-affecting skills might incapacitate your enemies enough for you to easily dispose of them.

Also, Guild Wars has a definite "end," where you've finished all the quests and beaten the last boss. So does Diablo II. WoW, however, and I'm guessing many similar games, have no progressing storyline, nor an ending. In WoW, there is no goal. To reach level 60, some say, but so what? What do you do then? Pat yourself on the back for wasting hundreds of hours in grind sessions? Cool.

I want to see an MMORPG where there's a great storyline that you're forced to play through, where picking a character class really makes for an experience completely unique from any of the other classes, and where interaction with people and smart team play are essential to winning. Maybe someday...

Re:My fear-Going on a buying binge.

[Nataku564]

I wasn't a customer of EA ... then they bought Westwood Studios.

I am become EA...

[SupremoMan]

the Destoryer of Gaming Worlds.