The Crowd as a Player
Ten Game Development Vices, Part Two

Ten Game Development Vices, Part One

Mason_vices What are the principal vices of the videogames industry? What do game developers do that they really shouldn't? And why do the same mistakes get made over and over again? This two-part examination of some the classic game development vices exposes some of the problems from inside the videogame industry.

The videogames industry is young, less than forty years old, and racked with bad habits. An industry friend of mine puts the chief problem of the games industry like this: When the new Star Wars movies premièred in Hollywood, Mann's Chinese Theatre was thronged with diehard fans dressed as a Stormtroopers and Wookies. You wouldn't put the geek dressed as a Stormtrooper in charge of writing a Star Wars script and expect anything good to come of it, but the videogames industry routinely puts its most obsessive videogame fanboys in charge of game development. We shouldn't be surprised that this gets us into trouble.

In this piece, each of the departments involved in making a videogame are examined and accused of one particular vice. In making these assessments, the assumption behind each is that the purpose of the videogames industry is to make games that players want to play, and not to make the games that developers want to play. Small indie developers may have that luxury – they can afford to be developing for a niche market that they themselves also represent. But this is rarely true of any developer with scores of employees. It is to developers such as these that the following criticisms are addressed.

 

1. Production: Over-refined Sensibilities

The chief problem with production – and it extends to everyone in videogame development – is over-refined sensibilities in connection with what a game is and does. To put it another way, producers have generally played just enough games to make them believe they know what they are doing, but not enough to really have insight into what makes a game work for its audience. To get to the point of understanding games, you need to play or study many games of different budgets and examine what works and what doesn't, and discover what can be achieved easily, and what with great difficulty. 

But it seems that the majority of producers, especially at publishers, play only the big titles i.e. games like Gears of War. They then make their decisions based on the quality of these titles. Yet these flagship titles have budgets in excess of $40 million, and are given the time to get everything right. Most videogame projects are developed on just a few million dollars, and cannot aspire to the standards of presentation of the top-tier titles. Trying to compete with these titles on presentation draws time away from every other department making everyone's job far harder than it need be.

There are some great producers in the videogames industry – especially those whose attitude is “what can we do with the resources we have?” But there are also some terrible producers who look at the games they themselves play and expect to bring the presentation values of those games to the table at their own company, irrespective of budget. Every project must be judged in the context of its own scope – and only top-tier titles can afford to be perfect. Most games don't need that level of polish, and to push for that standard is to squander development resources chasing a dream.  

 

2. Game Design: Complexity

There are a lot of great game designers working in videogames – or at least, there are a lot of great game designers working on the styles of games that game designers enjoy. But for an industry which sells a huge volume of titles to people with radically less game literacy than its employees, there are very few game designers with a working understanding of what the mass market's play needs might be. Worse, there are game designers who are blinkered by highly ideological dogmas such as notions of “what a great game is” (usually corresponding with what that game designer would want to play themselves).

Almost all game designers have a gift for dealing with complex systems – much of the game design process is system design, and when it is not, it is tinkering with systems that someone else has already designed for you (as in first person shooter developments, for instance, which borrow most of their design elements). Furthermore, game designers love complex game systems – which is why they enjoy playing strategy games (perhaps the most complex genre), strat-RPGs and tabletop hobby games with hefty rulebooks.

But most players aren't good with complex systems. They need adequate training to handle systems of even intermediate complexity, and when the game overwhelms them they switch off and lose interest. Game developers often fail to notice just how complex their game systems have become, because they have been working with the game for years and know it inside out. They fail to adequately consider what a new player will face – a problem exacerbated if there is no blind testing.

Even strategy games can be too complex, as the following story illustrates: Black Cactus were a London-based developer specialising in strategy games, a solid outfit with shrewd management and good staff. But their first release, Warrior Kings, suffered from having too many game mechanics. The developers pleaded with the audience after release, saying “it has a long learning curve, but once you get into it it's a great game”. They knew this, because they all played and enjoyed the game throughout its development. But there was too much for a new player to learn – they had priced out the audience through complexity. They went under two years later.

 

3. Programming: Physics

It seems to be a fact of life that game programmers are obsessed with physics. It's not surprising – the mathematically-adept, high-octane programmer wants something to sink their teeth into, and the maths are satisfyingly complex in physics systems. Trouble is, for everyone other than the programmers, physics are actually really quite boring. Yes, it's fun to see boxes tumble around when you throw someone into them, but this is a minor cosmetic addition to a game – it's rarely enough to support gameplay by itself.

Of course, you can make puzzles out of physics, which games like Half-Life 2, Portal and World of Goo embody. Nerds, programmers and game designers enjoy a brain-melting puzzle. But the mass market audience can’t solve difficult puzzles and has very little interest in trying – there’s a reason that the tasks in a game like Brain Age are not very difficult, and it’s also the reason it’s been able to rack up 17 million unit sales, a figure on par with Grand Theft Auto’s most impressive achievements yet on a tiny fraction of the development cost.

Physics modelling certainly appeals to geeks and programmers, but it represents a rather expensive means of showing off the power of the latest hardware. It rarely represents a source of unique gameplay.

 

4. QA: Punishing Challenges

It may be unfair to lay this complaint at the foot of the Quality Assurance department, the unthanked-yet-vital front line of the development process, but the wider market for videogames are looking for more than just punishing challenges in their games. Really, this is a blight that affects developers in general, and this complaint could be just as readily directed at producers, marketing or even game designers.

Game developers are packed full of players who like to strive to overcome, who rise to the challenge when a game smacks them up, and having played a lot of games (often in quite narrow genres) such players are more than capable of beating any obstacle when given time. But in the audience at large, it is a minority of players who want their games to beat them to a bloody pulp and dare them to rise to the challenge of beating them (the last ihobo audience study suggests only one in five players enjoy a game riling them up to anger).  

Far too much time is spent making sure the game is hard enough, and nowhere near enough time is spent ensuring that the game is easy enough. A well-crafted Easy mode can satisfy an order of magnitude more players than a well-crafted Hard mode, with the only counter argument being that the hardcore gamers who evangelise games may need their desire for adequate challenge to be met in order to publicise the game. But does a game crafted to meet the needs of such a player really have a future of mass market sales? Almost certainly not.

The “casual games” market has exploded on the back of the realisation that games can be short, simple and most of all forgiving. Console development falls short of incorporating this revelation about the wider audience for games, held back by arguments that amount to self-fulfilling prophecies: “The players who buy console games want punishing games, so that's what we make.” Not only is this claim a half-truth at best, it's small wonder that Nintendo's lean and user-friendly Wii and DS platforms are kicking ass in the console marketplace with a 59% share when their competitors have narrowed the horizons of their audience to match their own rather parochial tastes in games.

 

5. Art: Oversized Novelty Breast Syndrome

The art departments are generally the people who have their act sorted out; the quality of videogame art is often exceptional. Yet we still see female character models in many games with vital statistics fresh from the imagination of a hormonally-possessed teenage boy. Motorstorm was a top-tier release for the PS3, and it has a female motorcyclist with a physique better suited to a porno movie than a racing tournament. It's not just offensive to women to use these hyper-sexualised character models, it’s bad business for any game targeting a mass market audience to present itself with such amateur aesthetics.

Note that I'm not saying games should be populated with obese crew-cut lesbians or austerely dressed Victorian ladies – by all means have (conventionally) attractive female characters; both male and female players enjoy an appealing, well-crafted model. Just keep the super-sized T&A under the mattress, where it belongs. 

The opening image is Cathy Mason's Vices, which I found online here, at the Arkansas Arts Council website. As ever, no copyright infringement is intended and I will take the image down if asked.

Next week: Ham, Hollywood and Hell

Comments

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I'm sorry but you lost me at:

"You wouldn't put the geek dressed as a Stormtrooper in charge of writing a Star Wars script and expect anything good to come of it."

m/

You caught me, hook, line and sinker at:

"You wouldn't put the geek dressed as a Stormtrooper in charge of writing a Star Wars script and expect anything good to come of it."

l4w

"1. Production: Over-refined Sensibilities

and only top-tier titles can afford to be perfect. Most games don't need that level of polish,"

Ahahaha. Gears of War, perfect? Polished? Please. Have you even played it online? It's a mess. In fact, I heard the entire multiplayer was just an afterthought they tacked on when they realized it would be a terrible game if all it had was the single player campaign.

"2. Game Design: Complexity"

Agreed. I don't want to have to read a huge manual just to be able to play. In fact, I don't even want to read a small one. You should be able to figure out how to play by just fooling around. At most have an in-game tutorial, but don't make it too long or else it can start to feel like reading a manual.

Also, I don't think simplicity and depth are mutually exclusive. A game can be easy to get into and still be very deep. In fact, I think that's more commendable than one that forces you to learn a bunch of complex systems in order to play.

"4. QA: Punishing Challenges

Far too much time is spent making sure the game is hard enough, and nowhere near enough time is spent ensuring that the game is easy enough. A well-crafted Easy mode can satisfy an order of magnitude more players than a well-crafted Hard mode,"

Oh god please no. Easy modes shouldn't even exist. In fact, get rid of normal mode too while you're at it. That one's usually not hard enough either. Let's just have Hard mode and Insane mode!

"(the last ihobo audience study suggests only one in five players enjoy a game riling them up to anger)"

About this... I'm not sure if I've said this before, but have you considered that maybe a hard game doesn't necessarily cause anger? I know you're pretty confident about your theory that anger is a requirement for fiero, but I'm not entirely convinced. Mainly because in my experience, a hard game, and dying many many times, doesn't anger me. In fact, in some cases, dying even causes me joy. What does anger me is when a game is badly designed or unbalanced.

So. If I were one of the people taking that survey, and I came across that question, I would actually be one of the people saying I do not enjoy a game that riles me up to anger. Even though I do like games that are very hard.

"5. Art: Oversized Novelty Breast Syndrome"

Ugh, agreed. I am so sick of this in games and I'm not even a woman. They seriously need to give it a rest. I want a character, not fap material.

"Note that I'm not saying games should be populated with obese crew-cut lesbians or austerely dressed Victorian ladies – by all means have (conventionally) attractive female characters;"

Hey! Are you saying austerely dressed Victorian ladies aren't attractive characters? :P

Sirc: "I don't think simplicity and depth are mutually exclusive. A game can be easy to get into and still be very deep."

I agree with this claim, although I think there are still issues concerning the degree of complexity (or number of rules) that do affect the audience. But as ever, it does depend upon the type of game.

"About this... I'm not sure if I've said this before, but have you considered that maybe a hard game doesn't necessarily cause anger? I know you're pretty confident about your theory that anger is a requirement for fiero, but I'm not entirely convinced. Mainly because in my experience, a hard game, and dying many many times, doesn't anger me. In fact, in some cases, dying even causes me joy. What does anger me is when a game is badly designed or unbalanced."

Okay, a number of interesting points here. Firstly, no, anger isn't a *requirement* for fiero, it's a common precursor. Your dispassionate approach to failure is quite rare, but it's something I have seen in other players.

We've found that there are a few players - a minority, but still quite numerous - who when approaching a game immediately crank the difficulty up and wade in. They are happy to fail repeatedly until they succeed, because that gets them the fiero. Usually, we would observe some frustration prior to success, but not always.

But this isn't an argument against easy modes! That you don't use them doesn't change the fact that most people are "priced out" of games by the basic level of difficulty. It's almost impossible to make a game too easy for a young or game-illiterate player (although a few titles have succeeded in making themselves utterly trivial!)

As for whether a hard game necessarily causes anger - well it's the disparity between difficulty and player skill that causes frustration (anger) and the people who make games routinely misjudge just how incompetent the players can be. They judge the audience by their own skills, or by the skills of their studio as a whole - but of course, the people who work at a videogame studio are *not* representative of the audience at large!

Let me turn this hard/easy mode issue around on you? How could it possibly affect you if the Easy mode was made easier, or if Super Easy modes were added? You wouldn't play them, so what do you lose out on? Provided you have the Hard mode you want to play, isn't that enough for you?

Thanks for commenting!

"As for whether a hard game necessarily causes anger - well it's the disparity between difficulty and player skill that causes frustration (anger) and the people who make games routinely misjudge just how incompetent the players can be."

Not necessarily. I think a big factor is a player's personality. For example, I may be playing a very difficult game, and die 30-50 times to a boss (not an exaggeration. This is not uncommon for ultra hard games), but I'll keep trying until I win (unless the game is badly designed). But I've seen people playing easy games who give up after losing 3 times. And it's not just a matter of the game's difficulty outstripping their skills. They just don't have the drive.

"They judge the audience by their own skills, or by the skills of their studio as a whole - but of course, the people who work at a videogame studio are *not* representative of the audience at large!"

Everyone starts somewhere. No one is born with awesome gaming skills. At some point you just have to get in there and start losing. But a lot of people just don't want to start.

The game literate players didn't just appear out of nowhere. They got their skills by losing many times. And it's not like the games of yesteryear were easy so they had an easier time of it. In general they were arguably even harder than today. But did these kids cry and turn the game off after losing 3 times like the spoiled kids of today? No! Back in my day we had to walk 20 miles through the raging snow and back to beat our games! Uphill both ways!

"Let me turn this hard/easy mode issue around on you? How could it possibly affect you if the Easy mode was made easier, or if Super Easy modes were added? You wouldn't play them, so what do you lose out on? Provided you have the Hard mode you want to play, isn't that enough for you?"

Yeah, theoretically it wouldn't affect me. The only way it could affect me is by what you said in point 1. Squandered resources. What if hard mode isn't as good as it could have been because they were wasting resources on easy and ultra easy mode?

Sure, you could take the lazy way out and just do things like tweaking damage/defense/etc for the difficulties (and a lot of developers do). You can easily add easy and super easy modes like that. But that's not how it's supposed to be done. The real way to make difficulty modes is to change more fundamental things about the game. Stuff like putting in different enemies, modifying the behavior of existing enemies, giving bosses new moves and behavior. That kind of stuff.

I will admit that from the developer's perspective (trying to make a buck), using up resources on a hard mode is probably more of a waste than using them on easy.

Re: Complexity

I think it can be a good thing. But the game should never start out complex! Sensible learning curves should make any level of complexity ok I would think. If a game isn't complex enough, it can get repetitive I think. But then I have no idea what the mass market wants :)

Sirc: [disparity between difficulty and player skill causes frustration] You say: "Not necessarily. I think a big factor is a player's personality."

Undoubtedly there is a huge influence from the individual. But it is a "big factor" only in terms of the *degree* to which this can vary, not in terms of the *frequency* in which it varies. Which is to say, I suppose, that players such as yourself are a small minority. :) (I'd estimate 1% of the audience for games as a whole).

Also, I'm not sure it is a lack of drive that accounts for other people giving up - you are claiming you don't get frustrated facing the same boss 30 times, and you want to couch this in terms of your superior drive. But the other players give up (in general terms) not from a lack of drive, but from a distaste for excessive frustration. So I might counter that it was your immunity from frustration, and not your drive, that was the bigger contributor to you beating tough bosses. :)

"But did these kids cry and turn the game off after losing 3 times like the spoiled kids of today? No! Back in my day we had to walk 20 miles through the raging snow and back to beat our games! Uphill both ways!"

*grins* My experience in the arcades certainly fit this "when I was a lad" kind of anecdote - I can't believe what I routinely put up with in games like Rastan Saga, which I eventually learned to beat on one credit!

But one thing has significantly changed between then and now: back then, the number of players willing to play regularly was rather low. The more forgiving games of today are enjoyed by a greater number of people. I choose to see this as progress. :)

(Besides, the arcades died for me as soon as you could add another coin to continue playing - the challenge for me was always to beat them on one credit! These days, I can't imagine pursuing such torture for fun!)

"What if hard mode isn't as good as it could have been because they were wasting resources on easy and ultra easy mode?"

And conversely, what if the game franchise is cancelled because the developers spent too long on the hard mode and not enough on the easy or normal modes? :p

Honestly, because developers live the game's development, they almost always are tuned into the hard mode by the end of development. They forget how hard the game can be for a new player, as I accuse in this piece.

"The real way to make difficulty modes is to change more fundamental things about the game. Stuff like putting in different enemies, modifying the behavior of existing enemies, giving bosses new moves and behavior. That kind of stuff."

For harder difficulties, I would agree. For easier difficulties, it matters considerably less what you do. Consider how a "sandbox" mode removes the constraints entirely to make the game easier. This is not a major operation, but it radically expands who can play your game! :)

Yet, have you ever seen an FPS offer a sandbox mode? Never! Because FPS players are *horrified* at the idea that you might get to play the game without experiencing a significant degree of challenge. Yet there is no reason at all that you can't simply offer a "sandbox" mode in an FPS whereby after you die you simply regenerate on the spot and continue. Trivial to implement, expands the audience - yet never, ever done.

As an industry, we insist on making people play *our* way. Even if doing so means losing money.

Katherine: "Re: complexity I think it can be a good thing."

Yes, show me one Rational-expressing player who doesn't believe this! :p

I'm not arguing that we can't have complex games, and I agree with you that complexity can be layered into a learning curve - but what I am arguing is that the Achilles heel of any game designer is over-complexity. In the desire for complexity, simplicity is run over roughshod.

We should perhaps spend more time looking at the simplicity, and then find the ways to layer the complexity under it.

Thanks for the comments!

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