Moving to the Next Passage

When a new art medium is formed, it is a historical trend for it to draw from the previous popular medium; movies were influenced by photography, just as games are now influenced by cinema. When a new medium peaks in terms of what it can borrow and learn from its parent medium, the new medium will start to develop its own unique traits. At their relatively young age, games continue to mature as an entertainment medium. They are closing in on how long they will need to borrow from cinema. If the games medium wants to fully distance itself from derived narrative structures and progress into its own golden age, fully realizing the medium’s capabilities will be its first step.

Even from the earliest days of Electronic Arts and Trip Hawkins, game developers have strived to create interactive experiences that could make people cry. It’s a valiant goal that aims to enrich the possibilities of video games on an emotional level. Unfortunately, the approach commonly taken by popular games for this task doesn’t progress the medium away from cinema. Titles like Heavy Rain and Metal Gear Solid are classic examples of games that are only able to cause intendedl emotional reactions through the use of cutscenes, the proverbial crutch that games have borrowed from cinema to limp their way through shoddy narrative. Storytelling in video games needs to stop trying to imitate cinema and start utilizing the most basic aspect of games: the player’s ability to affect outcome.

Games as an art form have the unique trait of being able to create meanings through the player’s use of mechanics. Dynamic meaning is the most important differentiating factor between games from movies. It was not something that cinema was capable of teaching to games, so it could have only emerged from the games as the medium matured. The marriage of gameplay and narrative needs to be ubiquitous in the future of games before the medium can reach it’s golden age. The field of innovation in video games, indie games are already helping games get to that point.

Arguably the most important game that aims to forward the progress of games is Jason Roherer’s Passage. This short 5 minute experience provides provides no formal narrative structure, but instead relies only on it’s simple mechanics to create meaning. As a nameless character in an open world, the player can score points by traveling to the right and by finding treasures along the way. Early in the adventure, the player may find another character to be their spouse and travel side-by-side with, doubling the amount of points scored. Unfortunately, their married movement makes it impossible for the couple to reach certain treasures that are behind narrow obstacles - an allegory for the sacrifices/hardships of marriage. As the game continues, the couple show signs of aging with gray hairs and slower movement. The game’s most powerful moment comes in the form of death, when the player’s significant passes away and is replaced with a tombstone. Players then have to make the decision to either travel away from the tombstone to score a few more points or to spend their last few seconds by the grave waiting for their death.

The experience of playing Passage resonates long after the player dies. Within it’s 5 minute span, Passage can provide an emotionally profound view of life, mortality and marriage. There are no cutscenes needed to convey the game’s messages, because playing with the games’ basic mechanics of movement and obstruction creates the messages. The game uses rudimentary systems inherent in all games to serve as the catalysts for the game’s narrative. Passage cannot be translated into a book or movie, the game’s meanings can only be understood by playing it.

It’s time for games to take their final steps away from cinema. The path has already been laid out. Passage, created by one man and no budget, is a quintessential example of what the medium is capable of. Bigger triple-A titles need to break the mold of relying on movies to hold any emotional value. The golden age of games requires masterpieces that are meaningful through the utmost use of their abilities as games.

Post Mortem: Lymph

This post mortem was done for Lymph, my first game created while attending Digipen.

Lymph provided me my first experience as a producer on a game project. As well, Lymph was also the first game that I have worked on intended with an educational purpose.

3 Things That Went Right

1. Identifying Overscope in Pre-Production
   The team trimmed down the scope of the game in the early stages of pre-production. Keeping in mind their limited time frame, they decided to schedule their time for the creation of only the core essentials of Lymph. Further mechanisms were put on a wish list that would be completed if the project moved ahead of schedule.
2. Defining the Target Market
   Early on in pre-production, the team decided to create a game that provided an educational purpose for children. This goal helped guide many of the team’s design and development decisions. The team always considered how they could make the game more medically accurate while staying approachable for children.
3. Early Prototype
   By designing gameplay mechanics that were not easily comparable to other games, the team decided to build an early prototype of the game that would help test out their design. Doing this also helped the team establish a unified vision for the game. The prototype proved to be useful in providing an understanding of the game’s design to the team members.

3 Things That Went Wrong

1. Poor Schedule Management
   The team had the good start of creating a schedule from the initial stages of the project. Team members were scheduled to work during the same hours, but class schedule differences segmented the teams work hours. The lack of unified work hours meant that redundant work was often created, wasting valuable time. Having the ability to work the same hours would have been beneficial for the project.
2. Low Level of Communication
   As mentioned previously, the segmented work hours proved detrimental to the team. One of the negative effects of working separately was the low level of communication. Not communicating with other team members lead to development mistakes and design follies. The team needed to find some sort of efficient intermediary form of communication if solidified work hours was not an option.
3. Rush into Production
   Lymph was an existing prototype before it was introduced to the team. This lead the team to feel confident enough to rush into production after a quick pre-production phase. The negative effects of this were seen in the late stages of the project timeline, when design and asset oversights started popping up. More time could have been spent in the pre-production detailing out the deliverables of production.

Half Life 2: A Lesson in Intrinsic Motivation

Creating motivation is an essential ability that all video games require to be effective interactive experiences. Being the one entertainment medium that works off of user choice, games must ensure that users have incentive to confront the game’s challenges. Games can go about this in two ways.

Extrinsic Motivation - rewarding successful gameplay with real accolades

- and/or -

Intrinsic Motivation - causing the user to form their own motivations for completing the task

Each form has its merits, but intrinsic motivation is often considered the better of the two being that it is more cost efficient and a result or proficient design.

Valve’s Half-Life 2 at launch was a quintessential example of game that relied solely on intrinsic motivation. HL2 provided no unlocks upon completion but still managed to be regarded by many as the best game of its year. Multiple factors to create intrinsic motivation are in play in HL2: (1) intermediate challenge, the proposition of realistic goals; (2) recognition, the appreciation of accomplishments; (3) fantasy, the immersion of the senses; and (4) control, the freedom of choice.

Intrinsic Motivation Defined
There are many differing theories on intrinsic motivation. Some theorists believe that intrinsic motivation is fueled by one’s pursuit to enhance the perception of self. Others theorize intrinsically motivating activities are engaged in purely for the consequential enjoyment that accompanies them. Although there are many theories, the common base idea is that intrinsic motivation is driven by the pursuit of positive emotion. Catharsis, self-improvement, and the yearn for acceptance all serve as powerful motivators that are inherent to humans and require no external inducement.

Challenge as Motivation
Challenge plays two roles in the process of motivation: it is something users must be motivated to accomplish, and paradoxically it is also something that creates motivation itself. The presence of  realistic goals or seemingly accomplish-able tasks increases a user’s motivation to attempt challenges. HL2 and other games with good design all employ processes that create realistic goals. When players are presented with the “Gravity Gun” in the game, players are set in a safe and open learning environment that allows them to practice with the new tool. This provides the player time to understand the metrics of the weapon: its firing range, rate of fire, and visual feedback states. The learning environment comes with a variety of low-difficulty tasks to build up the player’s skill and confidence with the Gravity Gun. Immediately following this training is “Ravenholm,” a level where the Gravity Gun becomes essential for the player’s survival. The failure of tasks in this level are punishable by death, but because the player has built up their self esteem, these tasks are not overwhelming and the player has motive to take on these difficulties. Players are best motivated when they are faced with an optimal level of difficulty.

Challenge exists as a form of motivation in the game’s multi-player as well, but in a separate way. With no way to tier the levels of difficulty in deathmatch, the multi-player mode must rely on users’ desire for competition. For players that need to improve their skill level, the presence of high-difficulty challenges creates motivation.

Recognition as Motivation
HL2 employs more blatant forms of motivation through the use of its non-playable characters. In the game’s fiction, players take control of Gordon Freeman, a character that has garnered much attention in the game’s universe. Whenever Gordon meets up with his supporting cast of characters, he is bound to receive some sort of recognition by notoriety or fame, often expressed through verbal praise. When the player accomplishes a task, surrounding NPC’s will show visible or audible recognition. The cause-and-effect relationship between the completion of a task and verbal praise creates the positive emotion of satisfaction.

Fantasy as Motivation
Immersion plays a strong role in creating intrinsic motivation for imaginative players. If players can imagine their actions taking place in a real-life setting, the fantasy and conducive motivations become intrinsic. HL2 is set in a world that is very similar to the real world, providing a strong basis for believability. When Gordon Freeman receives affection from other characters, immersed players receive those positive emotions as well. If the player believes in the story and the universe, the goals of the character and the player become aligned and the player inherits the character’s motivations.
Immersion, is one of the more difficult ways to motivate, requiring all the facets of the game to work in tandem. The use of fantasy as motivation is absent in multi-player. The scenarios for multi-player are abstract, making it difficult for the player to form any sort of  fantasy around their actions.

Control as Motivation
Control is the one unique feature that games have as an entertainment medium; it is also one of the strongest factors that promote intrinsic motivation. Whether it’s for single-player or multi-player, HL2 creates clear cause-and-effect relationships between the player’s actions and the game world’s reactions. Player agency, the player’s belief that his/her actions have profound effects, creates reason and motivation for action.

Another conclusion that can be drawn is that the player’s feeling of control also creates a sense of responsibility to use that control. Control as a form of motivation can be expanded upon by varying actions. Players feel greater agency when they believe their specific actions provide results different from other players’ results.

Iterating on Community

from flickr

The past few years have been a period of growth and change for the video game industry. The validation and success of social games have created a frenzy amongst big game publishers to venture out into the blue ocean and grasp for the potential “casual” market. The initial success of social games acted as a sign of coming change for the industry. The importance placed on community by social game companies is influencing the structure of today’s triple-A game communities. As big name games are starting to model themselves after social games, the effect of social games is now becoming apparent.

No one foresaw the overnight success that social games would become. Zynga, the global leader and highest valued social games company garnered an estimated 30 million DAU (daily active users) with  its top 5 games in the month of September. In the last month, Cityville, Zynga’s most successful game, has reached more users than Call of Duty, 2010’s best selling game has reached in the last year. The company’s ability to exploit the social network set-up in Facebook is how Zynga’s market valuation rose above that of game giant Electronic Arts, and is tailing the current market leader, Activision. The industry was sure to take notice of social game’s rampant success. That’s when it became clear that games would head toward social.

Holding a game controller may not be universal, but wanting to be a part of a community is. “Games should be accessible to everyone, anywhere, anytime,” is Zynga’s main philosophy; it epitomizes the most sought after aspect of social games, their incredible reach. At their start, Zynga did what triple-A studios didn’t: use the community to expand the game’s reach. Social games are the most successful on Facebook because of the already present communities. Zynga saw the marketing value of having one user tell a friend about a game, and designed systems to inhibit that occurrence. This cross-pollination of marketing is how the average Facebook games manages to break 10 million DAU every month.

Large-scale developers are reevaluating when their users can give and receive from their community. 2011’s biggest FPS games, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 now have browser-based social services. Activision-Blizzard’s believes that social platforms like CoD:Elite “addresses the growing market shift towards social, casual and mobile gaming”.1 DICE commented on Battlefield 3’s social platform by saying, “social platforms for games will make a huge difference in how people perceive where the game starts and ends”.2 These sentiments are seemingly only continuing to be popular amongst industry professionals as more and more games begin to implement social platforms.

The social games template is not a bubble that is about to burst. In 2009, EA acquired Playfish (a social games company) for an estimated $400 million. Two years later, EA’s first Playfish game, Sim’s Social pierced Facebook’s top 5 games and ranked number two game in terms of DAU. Zynga is going public (filed for IPO valuation in July 20113) and will possible become the highest valued games publisher in the industry. Social games are a proven endeavor, and the industry will continue heading towards a more social future.

The games industry is a naturally evolving medium; it’s well-versed in iteration and change. It will constantly be searching for ways to make the medium more prevalent in today’s society. As far as the industry should be concerned, the adoption of the social games template is just another step taken to help grow the industry. In terms of popularity, games can take the place of movies, and in terms of creating communities, games can be like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

1) Bach, Patrick. Interview by Ben Strauss. “Battlefield 3 Producer Talks Attention to Detail“. Industrygamers.com. EuroGamer Network LTD. October 17, 2011. Web. October 19, 2011. http://www.industrygamers.com/news/battlefield-3-producer-talks-attention-to-detail/
2) Ward, Brian. Interview by John Kennedy. “Activision studio boss: console games have a social future”. Siliconrepublic.com. Silicon Republic Publishing LTD. October 14, 2011. Web. October 19, 2011. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/24064-activision-studio-boss-con
3) United States. Cong. Senate. Securities and Exchange Commission. Form S-1 Registration Statement with Zynga Inc. Washington: GPO, July 1, 2011. Web. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1439404/000119312511180285/ds1.htm

Going to E3, courtesy of IGN

Hit the link to find out the uneventful beginning.
http://games.ign.com/articles/117/1171759p1.html

Follow the blog to see how this tragic tale will come to it's poignant end.
http://www.ign.com/blogs/bernardssregardss