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Dealing With Fairness and Balance In Video Games
MarkN writes "Video games are subject to a number of balance issues from which traditional games have largely stayed free. It can be hard finding players of comparable skill-level to create even match-ups, diverse gameplay options can quickly become irrelevant if someone finds a broken feature that beats everything else, and some online games make your ability to play competitively a question of how much time and money you've invested in a game, rather than the skill you possess. In this article, I talk about some of the issues relating to fairness and balance in games, in terms of the factors and strategies under the player's control, the game's role in potentially handicapping players, and the role a community of gamers plays in setting standards for how games are to be played. What are your thoughts on managing a 'fair and balanced' gaming experience?"
I had the chance to play Bobby Fischer at chess once. He kicked my ass around the block.
Then he called me a fucking dirty Jew.
Which was weird, because I'm not Jewish.
Thinking about it now, I probably shouldn't have thought I could play chess with him.
Back in the real world where playing video games cost a quarter or two, sometimes you only got to play 3 rounds of Street Fighter 2 because the other guy was master of Guile's Sonic Boom/Spinning upside-down kick combo. These days, you just disconnect and go find another game to join. Back then you risked cold hard cash every time you went in to play.
I'm stuck with an older DSL, since my local service providers are not finished upgrading here. 768Kb. If I'm going PvP against someone with 5Mb fibre or a T1, frame lag is going to get me my ass handed to me in a few seconds. One possible way to fix that (at least for PvP) would be to adjust the speed to match the slowest connection involved. Obviously not good for overall game play, but in direct combat with other players.
I don't agree with the article about the expectation of fairness in games vs real life. I think in both cases what we really want is to know the rules, so we have a chance of following them and making it through.
In games I simply want things to be moderately predictable - so that with experience I can become better. And then I want variation; it gets pretty tedious if it is always just the same few things you do, like just killing monsters.
That's easy! Just get the ones published by Fox News!
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Please excuse me widening the discussion but... I play quite a few RTS games and I've noticed that over the last few years the various different playable races in those games have tended to become very similar in ability.
It used to be the case that in an RTS there were generally one or two races that were slightly better than the others but now they are very well balanced. The problem is that they have balanced the races by making them all the same and thus removing one of the most interesting aspects of the genre.
In AOE II for example you could pit a strong ranged race against a strong close combat race and have a damn good game with each side trying to lure the other into traps that play to their strength. By AOE III every race was damn near the same.
Ah well, maybe one day someone will have the courage / time to properly balance a game again. Oh and, get off my lawn you kids.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Quake Live does a great thing by having you go up against a bot, and then determines your level of skill from that and then emphasizes those servers which are taylored to your skill level when you look through the server browser.
Of course you see people who play outside their skill level, but for the most part you are surrounded by people who play on your level.
The summary contradicts itself: Either it is balanced or your skill decides whether you are successful. If someone just is better at the game through sheer talent, how could this ever be balanced. And should it be?
Now balancing the avatars is another matter. If there is a glitch or a combo move that just pwns everyone, then that is a game imbalance. So you can own my ass using three moves from Guile? Well, nice for you, but I can play all the other characters and have fun. You will always win, but don't expect me to play you very often if that's all I'm going to see from you. Basically, if it doesn't happen to be WoW then such people will very soon be playing alone, thus balancing the game again ;).
Making it 'fair and balanced' can be fun (handicapping in golf or go), but in most cases it just makes a video game crappy.
Back in the days of Rainbow Six (yes, and now you can get off my lawn) I created an online ranking system based off of chess' scoring system. This worked great for the players and teams, as you didn't really have to find people on your own skill level to have something to gain.
If I (a mediocre chess player) were to play the reigning world champion of chess, he'd stand to gain maybe 1 point in his ranking by winning (I'd lose 1 I think), but if I were to win, I'd gain upwards of 24 or 32 points (and he'd lose a lot of points). This scoring system makes it worthwile for the best player to avoid drawing or losing to a less skilled player.
We did get a few complaints about the scoring, because the "best" players were used to them being unable to lose their top spot without losing to #2, where as with this system, someone could overtake them simply by winning lots and lots of games against less skilled players/teams. This has the upside of enticing people to play more, and not just by cherry picking from the top 10. Any adversary is okay, as it gives you a chance to win more points.
See more on the Wiki page
Here's a game that from the start of the game tries to balance things: you can pick a skin but your character will not be any faster or stronger than any other. Same thing goes for the weapon, the only differences are the map layout and the different team objectives, these are asymetric. And the skill levels of each player will give you an edge after each winning round thus promoting the best/luckiest players.
A game could be balanced, like some Quake III maps where each side is a mirror image of the other side and if you play these deathmatch on a 1 on 1 then it is fairly balanced. But who plays Quake 3 these days?
Battlefield Heroes is going to have player balancing, but I wasn't lucky enough to get a beta key :( Hope it works well, as I'm fed up with having my ass handed to me by a 12YO.
Author obviously never played basketball with his friends.
You mean this?
Time spent training is a large factor, if not the largest, in attaining a high level of skill. Good equipment helps in real-life games and sports, too. Some even insist that shell and slate stones make them play better go. Go figure. :)
Natural Selection had success in balancing itself by inviting diversity among its players. The marine team has chain of command - it allows less experienced players to be effective by following orders. On the alien team every player is equal. Both teams need strategic thinkers and good shooters. It leads to a enjoyable game for a larger spread of personality and experience level compared to, say, Counterstrike.
I prefer games with an appearantly random point reward system so there's no best pattern to look for and abuse. At first it might a bit annoying to get much less points than the last time you did the exactly the same thing but soon enough you'll stop worrying and fully concentrate on the game without caring about your rank. And that's the best gaming experience you can have.
Besides the automatic handicap system as explained in TFA, Mario Kart Wii has IMHO a very nice scoring system for online races. The system tries to pit you against other players with somewhat the same score, all though this does not always seem to work (it sometimes takes some races until you've formed a group of equally skilled racers). The amount of points you are awarded (or subtracted) at the end of the race depends on your race result and score of all players: If you have a lot more points than the other players (+/- 1000), then you have to finish 1st in order to win a few points, anything less, you'll end up with a severe penalty in points. On the other hand when you beat some players with more points than you are awarded a bunch of points while some other player that finished ahead of you, might get a score penalty. In my opinion the scoring system is one of the nicest I have experienced, with respect to keeping a balanced experience for casual and hardcore gamers.
At least once a week I tell my nine year old twins "the world is not fair". Seems appropriate here.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Many games offer a seemingly large freedom when creating your character, playset or play style, but eventually you find out that only a very narrowly defined path leads to success. Take WoW. You can, in theory, create almost limitless variants of skill point distribution, yet only a handful "work". For some classes, it's basically set in stone that you have this or that distribution, depending on whether you want to go against other players or some large raid encounter.
In other games, too, you are limited to a narrow set of viable choices. TFA uses beat 'em ups as an example where you can only pick a handful, or even only one, character to succeed, the others being basically fluff.
It's also not really "balanced" when you're basically forced to play by a certain strategy because all the others simply do not work. If you play an MMO and your class excels in mezzing, it ruins your class if mezzing is simply unnecessary, no matter how much you excel in it. Instead, you have to rely on your other spells which are maybe (in the end, when the devs heard enough whining and don't want to "break" the game for the others and make mezzing important) even as strong as the ones of another class, yet an important part of your character, maybe the reason why you chose it in the first place, becomes completely obsolete.
This can actually break a game. For a player, or for all.
Imagine an MMO where healing becomes obsolete because items became so powerful that nothing (short of a player wielded weapon) can harm a tank. Dedicated healer classes would certainly feel unbalanced and "useless". Now, instead of making healers important again, they're giving a boost to their damage spell lines and are told to behave like offensive casters. That's not what I made. I made a healer. If I wanted a damage caster, I would have made one.
Thus "balancing" a game may actually ruin it, when it is done without first considering what the player actually wants...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Finding a matching opponent for 1on1 matches, yes, I can see how that is tricky since it requires at central DB which stores that. But any team game which goes on for more than one round would in theory have at least the stats of the previous round available and when moving on to the next map the teams should be filled not by random chance but so that the top ranking players of the previous match are evenly distributed.
I have not yet seen something that simple and obvious implemented. If I had time I would write a mod for the game where this annoys me the most at the moment, but alas, I just leave annoyed when winning is too easy/hard and I can't switch teams to make it a bit fairer. Game devs, forget ever better graphics for a while and think about a better in game mechanics and interface issues more!
Okay, I'm sorry, but people throw around the word "skill" as though it is some special property that people either have or do not.
In fact, skill is the totality of what you need to be able to do to compete. In Darwinist terms, it is synonymous with fitness. Fitness, as a term, does not specify exactly what makes one fit; this is specific to each individual case, and is derived directly and in all cases from the conditions.
There are several methods by which one develops "skill", and they might or might not apply to a give game.
1. Skill is representative of reflexes. This is rare for most games; it usually is only true when the game is new and no-one really knows anything about it. In these cases, reflexes appear to be the same as skill because they represent an advantage that only one player possesses. Over time, other advantages usually develop to the point where reflexes alone do not represent (much of) an advantage by itself (but is a considerable edge for those who possess other advantages).
2. Skill is representative of time. This is the most common, because almost all humans are capable of both learning and adapting, and so in most cases practice results in elevated mastery. In almost every game, time spend playing is the single biggest advantage that one can have.
3. Skill is representative of money. This mostly used to apply in the days of coin-op arcade games, and is more of a derived skill representation as it enhances the advantage of reflexes by limiting the possibility of time. Those with money could get time to develop their reflexes; those without money had no time to practice and could get no advantage over reflexes alone. Money as a representation of skill is however making a comeback, with paid-for exclusive downloadable content starting to represent real advantages such as better weapons or earlier access to new maps.
4. Skill is representative of knowledge/intelligence. This is in many ways derived from time, but also somewhat independent of it insofar as an individual's natural pattern-matching and information processing and memory potential is concerned. This allows one to discover and or apply complex strategies or unusual rules to a competition, in their own favor. This is in many ways diluted over time, as information becomes disseminated.
Most games represent several values; Fighters and shooters represent skill mostly as Reflexes in the early days, but mostly Time at later stages of it's lifetime (some fighters can also significantly represent skill as knowledge/intelligence where long combo chains and complex moves are particularly important, or detailed knowledge of spawn times and map layouts). MMOs mostly represent skill as Time, but also Money (to varying degrees depending on many factors, and usually mostly in the early days). RPGs usually represent skill as Time and also in many cases significantly represent skill as knowledge/intelligence; on the other hand, Reflexes typically mean nothing at all. And so on. Other classes of advantages representative of skill exists, but are minor and mostly derived from the above.
Sorry to all of the elitists who decry modern games as overflowing with noobs who can't press buttons fast enough/aim their mouse precise enough, but "skill" doesn't just mean that. Almost all advantages come back mostly to time, and all are - in principle - subservient to it. If you say that you're skilled at a game, but don't really mean that you've simply played it a lot, then what you're really saying is that your advantage is likely to be temporary, unless you put time in.
What , you mean we should go back to the complex narrative of Pacmac for example? :)
Wow, I really have been programmed. As soon as I read "Fairness and Balance" I began wondering about liberal indoctrination.
I think it would also explain why I'm compelled to scream, "someday you will realize who your god really is" every time someone says the word China. Now I have this urge to buy a sniper rifle.
World of Warcraft underwent this with the new expansion. Nearly every class now duplicates each other with mostly flavor changes. Under their mantra of "bring the player not the class" they have excused themselves from having to balance unique class abilities by simply making them all have the same end result if not mechanics.
What should we expect? Schools are dumbing down education for lackluster students and teachers, why not extend it to games? Fairness is the new buzzword for "your playing with people who suck"
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't understand why the author thinks these issues are specific to video games.
It can be hard finding players of comparable skill-level to create even match-ups
...like it can be with any face-to-face game. In fact, video games make this vastly easier by allowing you to play with anyone across the world, instead of being limited to the set of people who can physically hook up with you.
diverse gameplay options can quickly become irrelevant if someone finds a broken feature that beats everything else
...just like in any board game, where one of the primary design trade-offs is to balance the various options available to the players, such that a variety of different strategies become viable, without any one strategy being a no-brainer.
some online games make your ability to play competitively a question of how much time and money you've invested in a game, rather than the skill you possess
...just like Magic the Gathering, or any other collectible card game, where the amount of money you have spent on your deck directly influences the options available to you in-game.
Seriously what's it with the disconnecting after a lost game?
It happens in 90% of my Street Fighter IV games on PSN. Even if those guys played and won multiple games in a row against me, most disconnect after only one lost game, some even after one lost round.
Do these people have no balls? Pathetic.
Do not be alarmed. This is only a test.
I have recently read a book called Playing to Win (available for free on the author's site), which makes a lot of interesting points on fairness and balance. A lot of the points made in this discussion are also mentioned in that book.
Personally I disagreed with many of the author's points but it was still a very interesting read. It's not a very long book, it can easily be read in a single sitting.
The author is David Sirlin, who used to be a pro player in several Street Fighter games, and has also worked (is still working?) as a game designer for Capcom. He doesn't just discuss Street Fighter though, but also RTS games like Starcraft, FPSs like Counter-Strike, as well as traditional games like chess and go.
This thread = epic fail
If somebody cheats in a game, that is one thing, but if you flat out suck at a game, why should us people that are good at it have to play a crappy nerfed version because you QQ'ed until the devs dumbed it down.
Getting beat in a game all the time does not mean inbalance, it just means you suck at that game. Sure, there are glitches here and there, but if you get pwned by everybody, that means it is not an inbalance, and that you just suck.
I, personally, like playing people who are way better than me. There is no way you will ever get better at the game if you play people of your skill level.
You need to play people way better than you, get pwned every way from sunday, figure out how to beat them, and then destroy them. That is getting better at a game.
Man, you noobs need to learn a noobs place.
Don't QQ about sucking at a game through slashdot, learn to play, and then come back and challenge me.
Until then, even on slashdot, you will only be seen as a noob who does too much QQ and not enough pew pew.
Now go practice up before I pwn you again noob
The Fox is in the henhouse?
Golf (a game I hate, thanks to working at a golf course as a teenager), has an easy answer - handicapping.
Back when I played Quake (yeah, I'm old, shut up, kid) online the problem was LPBs - Low Ping Bastards. If you were on dialup playing against someone with DSL or a T-1, you had no chance.
I got around this by what some may consider cheating - the use of varying skins. Now, there was a one-pixel skin (Called the "invisible man" IIRC) that I refused to use, because it was cheating, no doubt.
My three favorite skins that evened the odds against LPBs (not to mention players more skilled than me, and there were a lot) were first, the PC Gamer Coconut Monkey skin. I never could figure out what was so lucky about that skin, until someone I was playing said he didn't even realise I was a player.
Next was the Baal skin. This was a HUGE character, making it easy to hit, but hard to shoot at, because it scared the hell out of opponents. Nobody was used to seeing such a large skin and it spooked them. As soon as they saw me they'd run, even though they could have easily fragged me and my low-skill, high ping playing.
My favorite skin, though, was the nudechick skin. This one was a naked woman, complete with nipples and pubic hair. Nobody wanted to shoot the naked lady!
This one backfired when I ran across the PMS clan (Psycho Man Slayers), who later became online friends of mine.
But I always advocated speed throttling, where everyone's speed was lowered to the speed of the lowest speed player. This idea was universally dismissed; nobody wanted their speed to drop.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm surprised that DotA didn't come up in the article. It IS the most widely played RTS currently.
It's built using the perfect recipe for a balanced game. Millions play it, and thousands give suggestions on public forums on how to improve it. The most popular ideas usually make it into the game.
The old school says you play hard and work hard while you're playing. You endure thousands of defeats until you gain the skill necessary to do well.
The new school is some 13 year old kid who plays for 9 hours a day and calls you a noob. Hence we now have things like quake-live's skill testing and Left 4 Dead's Director(who isn't always fair).
I like the idea of the old school, and I'm old enough to be a member, but I can't play for 9 hours a day like I used to do. Skill matching is good, but may ensure you never advance your skills.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Generally, I find these to be the most highly unbalanced games. Some people like to play their sports just like they see in real life, but others just want to dominate and will do what it takes to get an edge. Often in Sports games there is too much in terms of "Trick shots" or the like. Hockey and Football especially. There are just certain plays in football that a guy will get wide open no matter how you cover him, and in hockey there are odd dekes you can do along the goal line to make the goalie go down, and do a simple wraparound and score 90% of the time.
I think that as our programmers, and obviously games, get better we see much more parity in online play, as they tweak AI and eliminate those errors, but we aren't there yet. I believe that these games SHOULD be based on skill and time and effort put into the game, but not so much into finding the bugs and 'cheap' ways, but by getting better at strategy. We need to learn to eliminate bugs before we have ultra competitive games.
I have to quit the game whenever the line snaps.
The monster fish are supposed to be fun, but they are so hard to catch it ruins the game.
I just started playing DOA4 online, The ranking system is seriously messed up.
If a Higher rank beats you at a lower rank they still get standard points.
They should get deducted a few points from what they earn.
Second, If you are a higher rank and get beat by a lower rank you get more then normal points deducted.
I mean it is fun, But they need to try to put similiar ranked fighters in matches with Similiar ranking.
Just my gripe going from starting at a C and jumping up and down in the E,D,and F ranks.
Back in the days of Rainbow Six (yes, and now you can get off my lawn)
Hello youngster. Back in the days of MUD, we already learned that balance does not exist as a stable concept. Balance is rebalancing, constantly. Big games need Balance Arches or Gods, or in normal words, balance management.
Someone with the ability to play chess at top level obviously has certain mental powers that mean his actions have to be examined VERY closely before pronouncing them insane. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic etc..
Not that I know much about Bobby Fischer. Is he even alive? All signs point to the probability that he is/was nuttier than a fruitcake. Still, I'd have to know alot more about him to be sure.
...
One interesting aspect of trying to make a game fair and balance is that rewards for beating content in large groups is left up to the groups to hand out.
In world of warcraft you have 10 to 25 people killing bosses that give 3-4 rewards and they have to decide on a way to handle it. In theory enough items should drop over time that everyone will get the items they need. But people fight to get the best items and over time that becomes the items that everyone wants.
Players have designed many systems of handing out loot based on various thing that they define as fair. That depends on leasdership and what their view of fair is. What is fair to the person that has been there for 2 years vs 2 months vs first time vs part time vs that one person you must have to do anything is very different. The experiences they have in real life or in game also impact that.
Every system has its advantages and problems. Do the people that need it just random for it, do the officers decide, do you hand out points for stuff and use them to "buy" the items with, or do you just take turns. You need leadership you can trust more then anything else to make any system work. Statistacly over time peaple tend to go for the same items and all a loot system does is change the order within the group that you get those items.
The thing is most games give the users no direction. This is good because it lets good leaders set up and run good systems that fit the group. But its also bad where people that should not be trusted are running it. Or in general where people have those differing oppinions of what is fair or what items they deserve will cause drama if left unchecked.
In my guild I use a solid system that fits our group. I don't have to step in and make jugement calls (calls that could be questioned) becuase the rules make those calls for me. I spent alot of time making those calls ahead of time when writting the rules. It keeps me and other officers on the same page and consistant. And everyone else knows what to expect every time a possible situation comes up.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
He died a bit over a year ago.
Didn't RTFA (this is /. after all), but this reminds me of a list I developed defining what is not fair PvP. And if it's not fair PvP I don't really consider it PvP at all (more like bullying at that point).
Also, since there seems to be some confusion about the definition of skill as seen in above comment, I'm using the commonly understood definition of : Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience. Experience being PLAYER experience, NOT the player's game character.
A lot of these points are redundant, mostly just pointing out what different cases would apply to various situations.
Fear is the mind killer.
You can try to make the playing field as level as possible, but eventually someone will find a way to give themselves an advantage.
Why shouldn't a player be awarded for their superior skills? Anyone who wants to be as good as that player is welcome to practice and do all the research they can to improve themselves.
I get my ass handed to me fairly consistently in Street Fighter 4. I expect that will probably always be the case, because I don't have the time or inclination to get good at the game. And sometimes you need to accept that you're not going to excel at certain things. Street Fighter 4 shouldn't have to accommodate me because of my poor skills.
I don't have the time to devote to an MMO, but that doesn't mean someone shouldn't be reap the fruits of spending their entire life in the game. I never liked the attitude that some people have that they should have access to everything in the game, regardless of how little play. These people knew what they were getting into when they bought the game. If they don't want to commit to prolonged gameplay sessions they shouldn't be playing MMOs.
I find games like Super Mario Kart intensely frustrating specifically because someone can come from behind merely because they've picked up some random powerup. It's especially in the newer versions of the game.
When skill or experience doesn't factor much into a game what's the point of playing? At that point it's a toy, not a game. Like Noby Noby Boy, a nice toy, but not much more than that. People who find themselves challenged by other games might find themselves more comfortable playing something like that.
The MS Trueskill system used in Halo 3 was concieved to create as fair a match as possible. On the surface the theory is very sound and the system is quite good. Unfortunately, it was ultimately broken my MS's oversights in marketing and misreading the intent of it's audience. The system is based on how "certain" it is of a persons rank. Losing games would make it more "certain" a person was that level. Meaning after a person starts breaking even in the W/L column, the system cements their rank there, and it takes long term streaks to change that value. The problem came in when gamers realized they could start a new account and rank up faster because their "certainty" varibale would begin anew with each new account. Again, not a huge problem until you realize M$ gives out one month trials of XBL like an crack dealer giving out first time free sample. The system lets he good players quickly advance and let newer players play people that are a good match for them. But with free accounts being unlimited, everyone just starts over on a new account as soon as they reach their peak, flooding the low levels with grossly mismatched games. What could have been a sound matching system was ruined by marketing.
I'm into AA, CODWaW, Combat Arms, Crossfire and other FPS online games. And my problem with them is that I cannot seem to compete on the same level with the people running $3,500.00 rigs, X-fi sound cards, Mega graphics cards running in crossfire or SLI, and all the other advantages they can afford that I cannot. I'm running a two year old rig I spent $1,000.00 on and I know I'm not getting the same resolution, frame rates and sound that they get. I would just like to see someone come up with a way to balance the equipment advantage.
Still in my pyro...still in the mines! {POF}LrdDragoon
I find the "fairest" games are very simple, and their mechanics are easily understood by all parties involved.
Also, of course, net code must be very efficient, reliable, and well thought out. Back when I played Counter-Strike, I'd class it as a very fair game (not counting the ubiquitous hacks and scripts) because most players quickly learn the whole layout of every map they are likely to play on, and the characteristics of every gun, so it just comes down to how you make use of it all. On the other hand, the netcode ruins it - I have countless memories of walking up to someone who's not moving, shooting them in the head 20-30 times from a foot away, then I'd spontaneously die as they instantly teleport somewhere else and start moving again because the server counted their shots and not mine (and they'd be the ones lagging!)
But for all their imbalances, I like fighting games and racing games for competetive play because their mechanics are very openly laid bare for all to understand and make use of.
This article just assumes games should be competitive. There are cooperative games. The Wii is pioneering more such cooperative games. Here is a general site on the topic of cooperative computer games:
http://www.co-optimus.com/
There are even cooperative board games:
http://www.familypastimes.com/
One great thing about cooperative games is that they make it easy for players of different skill levels to play together.
From Alfie Kohn's book, "No Contest: The Case Against Competition": ... In closely reasoned argument he shows that, while competition is deeply ingrained, it is also inherently destructive, especially where self-esteem is contingent on winning at the expense of others."
http://www.amazon.com/No-Contest-Case-Against-Competition/dp/0395631254
"Contending that competition in all areas -- school, family, sports and business -- is destructive, and that success so achieved is at the expense of another's failure, Kohn, a correspondent for USA Today, advocates a restructuring of our institutions to replace competition with cooperation. He persuasively demonstrates how the ingrained American myth that competition is the only normal and desirable way of life -- from Little Leagues to the presidency -- is counterproductive, personally and for the national economy, and how psychologically it poisons relationships, fosters anxiety and takes the fun out of work and play. He charges that competition is a learned phenomenon and denies that it builds character and self-esteem. Kohn's measures to encourage cooperation in lieu of competition include promoting noncompetitive games, eliminating scholastic grades and substitution of mutual security for national security.
So, there are other ways to have more fun.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cooperative+games
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I get the "money" part (if he means the purchase of game features), but the "time" part is silly. You get skill by investing time. Skill is the payout for a time investment, and time is often the payout for a money investment. It's different if you can buy game components with real money, but if you buy play time ... how is that different than the guy who put in $347 worth of quarters and 4120 hours to get the top score on Space Invaders at an arcade in 198x?
As someone who does this for a living, I always feel like fairness, balance, and skill are just tools. The thing that really matters is player psychology. The game doesn't actually have to really be fair or balanced. It just has to *feel* fair and balanced to the player.
Skill and balance are a means to that end, but I don't think they should be the primary focus.
It's tempting to think just making it perfectly balanced will make it fun, but that's only part of it. If the player experience isn't considered, it's easy to make something perfect mathematically, but boring or frustrating to players.
As Jeff Kaplan (former WoW lead) put it, Perfect skill matching would mean you lose half your games. Is that fun? Is there any other way to do it and be fair? Probably not. So they found another way to make it feel fun anyways.
Whenever I've played with friends who were used to RPG-type games where they're always the hero, they get confused when they play against real people and die a lot instead of easily killing everything like they did before. That makes me think designers should think about how they transition these players from killing computer opponents to real ones.
As far as measuring skill goes, a perfect skill-based system would determine your skill quickly and accurately and it wouldn't change much. That would feel pretty boring and probably wrong to a player.
So if your goal is to make a game fair and balanced, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. Instead, think of fairness and balance as some of the tools to make it fun, and focus most on the perception of the average player.
The author makes a distinction between playing for fun and playing to win as if they are mutually exclusive. In reality, it is most certainly possible to play for fun AND play to win, and I believe that should be the target of game design.
I believe the best way to deal with balance and fairness is to make a game with balance, as in players of equal skill have an equal chance of winning, and depth, meaning there are many valid and usable options available to the player at any point throughout the game. I think the notion of depth is an important one the author either didn't think about or doesn't recognize as being a characteristic that can be separated away from balance and fairness. He touches on the idea of a game that lets everyone start out on an even footing but that has a single dominant strategy to win. That means the game lacks depth.
Variety could be a word to apply to the depth of a game, however variety is not enough and just having that does not ensure depth. Imagine you are playing a fighting game with 10 characters that all vary wildly. Now imagine in this game, the characters can all do something to knock you down to the ground and once down on the ground all you can do is get up. That's variety without depth because after the throw you have no options and your opponent knows exactly what you are going to do and has plenty of time to capitalize on it.
Targeting players that both play to win and play for fun is important. Because if someone is really playing just for fun with no care about winning, then game design loses a lot of its importance. At that point you just have to keep them doing something amusing for some period of time and it'll keep them happy.
Playing to Win by Sirlin could be a helpful guide to anyone designing a gaming experience. Because, unlike the author of this article, I don't think you can ever exclude playing to win from playing for fun. If you are playing Super Mario and you can simply walk from one end of the level to the other, its not fun. If you add the challenge, and the fun is trying to get past it, congratulations, you are playing to win.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Xbox 360 has 18 buttons (a, b, x, y, left-bumper, right-bumper, back, start, left thumb stick, right thumb stick, 8-way D-Pad) and six analog axes (two 2-axis thumb sticks and two analog triggers).
The xbox chatpad accessory adds 37 buttons to the controller, but I don't think that they can be used for anything other than text entry. Additionally, you can plug in any USB keyboard and use it for text entry.
The reversed turn order does not really balance the situation that much in Power Grid...
If you fall clearly behind during the first third of the game, you can't really catch up unless the other players do something dumb. (Like building only coal plants and letting another player buy all the available coal...)
But it's still a fun game.
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Nothing in this post indicates that these issues apply only to multiplayer games. Uninformed readers might assume that what's being discussed applies to ALL video games. Many gamers avoid multiplayer games - particularly online multiplayer games - in favour of the single player experience. Why? In part to avoid the problems outlined in this article. Too often playing an online multiplayer game is like entering a world of loudmouthed, abusive, sociopathic children.
I understand that English is a living language, but I object to changes arising merely from repeated errors.