Gaming - a Serious Business

It's been quite some time, hasn't it?

Well, you know how it is. Life get's in the way and so the unread blog vanishes in to the mist.

What shall we talk about this time round?
How great Magic the Gathering is? Nah.
The exponential growth of the computer game market? Hmm it's been done.
What about the Golden Age of board games? Interesting but not specific enough.

I know, Role Playing Games. 

'Why would we talk about that?' I hear you say.
There are some excellent reasons we should talk about it. Allow me to assume the character of an all knowing game guru whilst we delve into the subject...

There are few types of games that can fully engross someone's attention and in the process stimulate or fulfill most(if not all) of the participants desires - what they want to get out of the game they are playing.

I suppose we should first try and categorise what it is people wish to get, achieve or experience from the activity of playing a game. This will begin as a non-specific idea, encompassing games in general and will then focus on RPGs in particular.

This post will act as an introduction to the subject. For those of you who may read this, prepare for your mind to be expanded, your thoughts to be read and for a new and healthy desire to participate in RPGs(if you do not already do so). For those already active in the world of RPGs, perhaps you will attain a new understanding of the game genre, it's designs, and insights that may further add to your enjoyment and creativity.

Chat soon*





*It may not be soon.

Magic the Gathering

Possibly the greatest modern game in existence. 
It involves prediction, maths, construction, psychology, bluffing, deciphering, monsters, magic, and a host of other fun stuff.

Together they make a game where each time you play will be different, each opponent you play will be different, the meta-game is constantly evolving due to new cards and new ideas, and it can be played both casually and competitively.

The basis of the game is that each player is a wizard. You will have a deck of cards that you have constructed, consisting only of the spells, creatures and artifacts that you wish to use. Mixed in to your deck of spells are lands that you draw your power from, these enable you to cast your spells. You pit your choice of spells and monsters against your opponent who will also be using their own selection in their deck.

    

Business Models

We have seen multiple business models emerge in the lifetime of video games. 
First we had an 'off-the-shelf' 'once-off' purchase for games. This made sense at the time and not only that, it had a certain majesty about it. You went in to your vendor and looked at every single game deciding where to spend your limited amount of pocket money. You had to make the right purchase, get the most bang for your buck. Or perhaps you might have played a game at your friends house and be blown away by it, so you had to get it too, not to have it because someone else had it, but to share in the journey to completion and to be excited about something, with someone. Or maybe you read a review in a magazine or got a little demo on a floppy disk on the front of it and been so impressed that you put your limited funds on the line and took the plunge with the full game. All of this was fun, an element of mystery and grandeur added to your purchase decisions. Once you had the game you would bring over to your friends house to play it together or they would call over to yours to get involved.  These times were great, but unfortunately they are not seen as much today as they used to be for a number of reasons, but that won't be delved into just yet.

Shortly after that, we had the influx of add-ons. Instead of new games, we were asked to purchase half a game to add on to our previous game. This was fine to begin with, as the price usually mirrored the content, and if the game had been good enough, we would most assuredly purchase the add-on. However. It did not take long for the business minds to take over the marketing of the game designers, and soon we were asked to buy add-ons that cost the same as the original game and that had very limited content. It was the first... disappointment consumers had when it came to the video game market, and it was soon to be followed by many, many more problems.

The era of the monthly payment is one that is still very much alive. While I am not a huge fan of this business model, I can understand when it is needed for a company/game and the reasoning behind it. That is not to say that every game/company that uses this model is correct to do so. In fact, most that do use this system have no right to demand this sort of payment from their customers. 
When you maintain a massive amount of servers, developers, designers, community websites and customer services it is of course vital that you have a steady income to support them. When a game's business model does not support it, there is a problem. One of the few games that can still legitimately run a subscription based business model is Blizzard's World of Warcraft. They continuously provide upkeep on their servers, maintain a steady stream of content and game patches as well as offering many services to their customers in addition to the game. The numbers playing the game are so huge, that no other business model would fit. This was one of the first games to require a monthly subscription and very few, if any, games since have had the right to demand this. They simply saw the success of 'WoW' and decided to copy their business model(and some cases their game). Of course, many of these games have very few servers, a small amount of designers, very few patches and added content and as such should not be using this kind of system. Yet they do, and of course the game dies. It would be nice if we could say that there is only a few who make this folly, but in all honesty, it would be too hard to calculate how many games have floundered at this very basic hurdle.
 Also to be found in this era is the 'buy our game in beta' model. The person who invented this is a genius but also a villain. Buying an unfinished product is just plain wrong. It is like making the consumer an investor without giving them any stock in the company. It only serves to make money for the developer at the cost of their target market. What happens a lot(and will continue to happen), is that the unfinished product will disappoint the consumer with its graphic look, its playability, its bugs and so once it comes to release, they are so fed up with it that they will not put any more time or money in to it. In these cases the whole thing feels just like a money making scheme, as if no game was really ever going to come out. They sold an idea without ever having the intention of following through with a quality product. Beta is for testing, if anything they should be giving money to the people that are playing it, not charging them. It's disgusting. When you link this in to a subscription based business model after paying for a terrible beta... well, it's just bad business.

In the short interim here, we saw and still see the digital download. It began at the same price as buying off the shelf, but thankfully it is now cheaper for obvious reasons. This is a good system and will remain to be as long as they manage the prices of the downloads. The influx of this style of sales has caused some issues with 'real shop' vendors, but it has been a long time coming, and if the shop took no actions to preserve it's profitability...well, you won't find any sympathy here.

Queue the entrance of the free-to-play, microstransaction based business model. A great model when done correctly. It works on a number of levels, but it has to be something that is incorporated in the game's design from it's concept. Here we see the need for balance again, in time Vs money. Real life money used within the game should only give advantages that real life time would be able to achieve. You do not want to alienate the players that will only spend a small amount of money(if any) from the game by giving people who spend no time but lots of money all of the best things in the game. If your game has no players, you have no game. It's simple when you think about it. Assigning monetary value to time is no easy task, but it's something that many designers don't bother with, and so it is left to the 'marketeers' to assign the value, which of course means squeezing the most money out of people in the shortest amount of time without any real concept of what will happen to the game in the future.


Too Lazy Didn't Read: Designers, please take the time to choose the right model for your game. 

Gameplay depth

 

  It's all well and good when a game is enjoyable to play, but how long will someone obtain the same level of enjoyment from the same gameplay? This varies from person to person, but ultimately, the interest levels will drop if the gameplay doesn't evolve. This is where good game mechanics and features come in. 

Let's say you are playing some sort of war based real time strategy game. Let's also say that you have infantry, cavalry and an air force at your disposal. Now you battle with an opponent against his/her forces, and it is fun. Great. However, two weeks later and both you and your opponent have the same forces and the battles begin to get repetitive. Limited outcomes are possible from your battles, and although different formations and mixes of troops add some level of depth to the game, you will not be long in finding a new game to entertain you. 

Now add some abilities into the troop features. Let's say the infantry have an option to set up a mortar. The mortar has to be manually controlled by you the user, it has to be aimed and you have to predict the landing spot relative to the enemy movements. The time spent using this feature of the infantry will mean that you will have less time to control the movements of your other forces and the infantry themselves will have to stay stationary. However the potential reward for landing a successful mortar shot on your opponent will mean that the lack of concentration in other aspects of the battle may pay off. So you are now given a choice. This simple feature allows for totally different 'styles' of play as well as keeping the player interested. The battles are no longer simply positioning and moving, now the player has another potential focus and area of gameplay where they can allocate actions, thought and time. 

Add various features into the other units of the army and you will have a constantly evolving game that can really only be limited in complexity by the physical capabilities of the player.

This is just one example of gameplay depth, and a very basic view of it. The area of game depth will be discussed again, and aspects of it will be looked at in a more detailed fashion.

 

What else?

Graphics?

 

Many will assume having 'good' graphics means having massively detailed in-game models, textures and environments. This is wrong. Good graphics means having a suitable style of visual representation for the type of game you have. This should be set in stone from concept. A designer has to see the finished game in his/her mind's eye before the game goes to development. Many designers get sucked into the world of 'MUST HAVE REAL LIFE QUALITY GRAPHICS', and this is very unfortunate. Just because you have the means at your disposal to increase the resolution/pixel count/polygon count of your game does not mean that you should. Also, designers get sucked into the world of 'WHAT IS POPULAR RIGHT NOW, LET US MAKE THAT THE STYLE OF OUR GAME'. This is also unfortunate, and the results are games with fad creatures for characters and a lack of immersive gameplay. If the game is supposed to be set in a grim post apocalyptic world, but the character is a smiling panda, the player won't exactly feel involved with the world. Further, should this apocalyptic world be littered with bright colours and friendly atmosphere, again the player won't feel like part of the game. It is by no means an easy task to find the right style for your game, but it is an important task.

A couple of examples of 'the right' graphics. Minecraft, pixelated but beautiful. Shadow of the Colossus, awe inspiring scenery on a huge scale. The fallout series always hit the nail on the head when it comes to visual representation.

 

Balance

 

Arguably the most important factor in game design. It appears in many forms and is often demanded from the developers by fans of games. It is important(especially in multiplayer games) to make sure there is an environment to begin a game in that offers no player any distinct advantage over another. That isn't to say that there is nothing in the game that will help a player gain advantage, the point is that the advantage is viable for any player to obtain, even if they have to compete for it. 

There aren't actually too many games that are perfectly balanced(if any at all), but there are games that strive for it. 

Starcraft is a Real Time Strategy game with three distinct armys to choose from. A human based army, very similar to the vision of space faring humans from the Alien film series; drop ships, marines and attitude. An alien race also similar to the aliens in the Alien series. A hive mind race that hatch from eggs and morph into creatures and structures. Another alien race that has a technology far in advance of the others. What they have in technology and combat strength, they lack in numbers. The designers are constantly updating the game in order to find the most balanced playing field while keeping the different armys... different but balanced. This is often found lacking in titles and as a result, they do not retain fans for any length of time. 

Popular games that had/have a well balanced(and updated) design.

Starcraft 1&2, Quakeworld & Quake 3/Live, Counter-Strike & CSS.

There are possibly a few more, but chances are it could be argued that they don't strive for balance.

Balance is connected in many ways to the over all development of a game. It will return in topic again.

What makes a game...good?

 

An interesting question. There are a number of aspects that make a game 'good'. Let's start with the challenge versus reward factor.

Challenge Vs Reward

 If the game is too easy, the player will get bored. If the game is too hard,  the player won't continue to play it. If the game is challenging, but there is no reward for completing a task, the player won't continue to play it. If the game is quite challenging but there are too many rewards for completing tasks, the player will feel no joy in accomplishing goals, and so they will not continue to play it. If the game is easy, and there are too many rewards, the player won't continue to play it. If the game is easy and there are no rewards...well you get the idea.

It is vital for a game to tread the thin line delicately to produce gameplay that will be both challenging and rewarding in a ratio that will keep a player interested. This is an element of balancing a game. Balance will be addressed further at a later date.