Some Challenges in Designing Games with Emergent Content

I like emergent play. I enjoy games in which surprising things can happen when different aspects of complex systems bump into each other.

I believe there can also be commercial value in games whose content emerges from system-interactions. Not only is interacting with such content fun for gamers like me, it's also valuable to smaller programming teams who simply can't crank out the vast amount of content needed by a game with pre-determined events and narrative.

But having this long-standing interest in emergent-content play means that I can also see some of the potential difficulties of this kind of play. There are benefits to designing a game around emergent play. But there are risks and gotchas that need to be understood and addressed as well.

1. Emergent content is not for everyone.

Not everyone likes emergent play. A lot of people --maybe most people -- playing games today prefer well-understood rules and outcomes. They don't want to be surprised.

For example, consider the players who think of "crafting" in a MMORPG as manufacturing lots of identical widgets to compete in a sales game. If you implement crafting to have emergence, you're saying that you won't always know exactly what you're going to get... but that's pure evil to the manufacturing/sales-oriented player because it means that they're "losing" resources every time something gets made that isn't exactly what they expected.

Another example is Minecraft. Minecraft certainly has emergence -- the time my niece rode a pig into a lava stream and set both of them on fire wasn't something I ever thought I'd see. So Minecraft is great fun for people (like me) who enjoy being surprised. It's also fun for the gamers who enjoy the sensation-oriented survival challenge. What it isn't so much fun for are the gamers who prefer clearly rules-based games with clear win conditions. These are the players who, since Minecraft launched, have expressed unhappiness that "I don't know what I'm supposed to do" and wanted things like character levels and "adventure mode" rules-based play. As Minecraft's developers have added those, Minecraft has now been said to have passed WoW in terms of total revenue... but it might not have done so without understanding that emergent play alone would not be enough to satisfy the gamers who like clear rules and win conditions.

It's OK to make games with emergence. But it's important to recognize that by doing so, you're limiting the audience for your game. If you're fine with that, awesome; if you think that emergence by itself will make your game broadly popular, though, that might need a re-think.

2. Emergent content is hard to balance.

Emergence is optimal for exploratory play. It can also be good for cooperative play. It's not good for competitive play.

Competitive play demands fairness, or at least the perception of fairness. Emergence works against that because it allows one player to experience content that another player probably won't. Emergent content lets one player "get stuff" that another can't. That creates a perception of unfairness, and that snuffs out any willingness to compete.

So it's important to understand that if you're determined to make a competitive game, then you either should not try to include emergent content, or at least be extremely careful in how you include it. If the world can generate things that one player might get that another might not, unbalancing the level of challenge for different players, then the typical competitive human player will probably find that extremely annoying.

There are ways to address this; the important thing is to recognize that it's a potential issue. Then you can think carefully about how to help your players feel they're playing a fair game.

3. Emergence isn't enough.

I'm not convinced that increasing emergence is sufficient to increase player engagement.

The word I usually use for this effect is "investment." Players who stay -- and keep paying -- are those who become invested in the world of a game. It becomes a place they enjoy being in, and want to come back to, and want to see more of. I think emergence can contribute to creating that sense of place; I'm just not sure it's the primary cause of investment. The appearance and sounds of a world also matter, as does the plausibility of the AI of non-player characters.

So, as one way of increasing the "feeling of place," I could agree with a judicious enhancement to emergent play. But I would suggest looking at emergent content as just one component among several for helping the world of a game feel more dynamic in a distinctive way, and thus increasing its ability to foster investment by more players.

4. You only pay once for an emergent game.

By making an emergent game, you're choosing to put all your money-generating eggs in one basket.

You can either make multiple non-emergent games with static content, or you can make one (or a very few) emergent games with dynamic content. Making just one game that players can happily play in for years (because new content keeps emerging) means you get one shot at their money as an initial sale, versus multiple opportunities if you make a larger number of smaller, fixed-content games.

This is why I feel pretty strongly that monetizing an emergent-play game needs to be done by putting a price tag not on the base game itself but on additional developer-created system expansions (things that add more dynamic elements into the world) and on player-created content that can be purchased by other players (for which you as the developer get a cut of each transaction).

If you're just going to sell the one game -- because it has emergent content -- then you need to plan to make your money on long-term, ongoing improvements to that game, not just on initial sales of the game itself. Frankly, I'm inclined to think that the best way to monetize a game like this is to give away the base game for free (to seed it as widely as possible into the general game-playing public) and plan to earn all revenue from nominal charges to download new dynamic elements and scenarios created by you and by other players.

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I hope it's clear that these comments aren't just objections to designing games to have emergent content. I like emergent content!

I do think it carries some potential gotchas, though. Those need to be considered along with the possible benefits of making a highly emergent game.

EA versus Valve: It's All About the DLC

Electronic Arts (EA) has until lately sold many of their hit games through Valve's "Steam" digital game distribution system (as well as in retail stores). Suddenly EA have started pulling their games from Steam. EA are selling these games on their own internal digital distribution system called "Origin," as well as on other digital distributors -- just not Steam.

Valve professes to be terribly puzzled by this unpleasantness. EA grumbles that it's all Valve's fault but won't say why.

The latest: Today, Gabe Newell, head of Valve and its Steam money-printing machine, emerged from his den to say that he's a little puzzled by all this, but he hopes EA will realize that it can make more money keeping its games on Steam, and gosh, he sure hopes all this unpleasantness can get sorted out soon.

Newell is reported to have said:

"We really want to show there's a lot of value having EA titles on Steam. We want EA's games on Steam and we have to show them that's a smart thing to do. I think at the end of the day we're going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It's our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don't have a natural right to publish their games."

Everything I've read so far says that this slapfight is not about the Main Game at all. It's about the follow-on sales of "downloadable content," or DLC, which is gameplay that's added to a game after it's initially released for sale.

Based on comments from EA, it appears that Valve are insisting that if the Main Game is sold through Steam, then any/all DLC for that game also has to be available through Steam. For their part, EA apparently (again, this is just my reading of the public comments from all involved) feel it would be a bad idea to allow Valve to dictate to them any terms of how their (EA's) game content will be distributed, so they are taking their Main Game and going home (to Origin).

If that is an accurate reading, then Gabe Newell is being a little disingenuous. The things he's quoted here as saying are all perfectly sensible, but he's (deliberately?) not saying anything at all about the actual source of contention.

I'm not even suggesting Newell's position on DLC is wrong. I can see the possible point that it is necessary for a digital distributor to be able to to provide the DLC along with the patches for a game in order to properly support that game, and to insist on that as a matter of effective business practices. The problem I have is with the principals in this little drama not simply coming out and saying so, if that is in fact what's going on here.

What makes this rather fuzzier is that it makes sense for EA to stand up their own digital distribution system. Even without the comments made by EA during their investor calls to describe their "forward-looking" intentions for digital distribution as part of their overall five-year strategy, it's simply smart for EA to not only distribute its own games digitally but to try to elbow its way onto the playing field as a distributor for other peoples' games as well. EA is big, but Steam is getting big; EA can't afford not to get into that game. The only thing that's been holding them back has been retailers, with whom EA has maintained a happy monogamous relationship in public... until now. I guess somebody at EA finally decided Steam was getting too successful and pulled the trigger on Origin.

My free advice to EA and Valve: sort this before it snowballs and really starts costing you money.

Game Development and National Tax Policy

There's been a lot of yelling lately about the UK coalition government's campaign-trail promise to enact a moderate reduction in the rate at which game producers are taxed, and the elimination of that tax break in the national budget the Conservative/Liberal Democrat government has actually proposed.

Let's leave aside for a moment the issue of politicians breaking promises made while campaigning. It's worth stopping for a second to consider the language that's being used in the news stories that gamers are reading to inform themselves about this issue of tax breaks for game development.

As a representative example, here are a couple of quotes from the story as written by the Computer and Video Games website:

"[P]ulling the tax breaks from the budget saves the country £190 million [$283.54 million]."

"Although the body [TIGA] admits that the planned tax break would cost £192 million, it claims over £400m would be recouped in tax receipts."

Both of these statements are misleading; they describe tax policy in terms of "costs" and "savings" that have no connection to the normal meanings of these words.

Reducing the rate at which businesses will be taxed in the future is not a "cost" because the government hasn't taken that money yet and therefore doesn't have it to spend.

And choosing not to reduce a tax rate does not "save" money. All it does is continue to extract money from producers at the existing rate. There is no "savings" in the normal (non-government weenie) sense of preserving money that would otherwise have been spent because, as noted above, no existing money is spent if the rate of future taxation is reduced.

More importantly, this deliberate misuse of language (which is definitely not restricted to the UK government) to portray reducing national taxation as "costs" and preserving existing tax rates as "savings" flows entirely from the assumption that all money belongs to the government to begin with. Only if all money is considered the government's money is it a "cost" to reduce the rate at which government takes that money from the producers who earn it through their labor, or a "savings" to continue taking the existing amount of money from businesses and individuals.

That assumption needs to be questioned.

Seen from the perspective that money belongs to the people and corporations who work together to earn it, a reduction in the rate at which the income of UK games producers is taken by the government would mean several things: a future UK government would have slightly less money available to spend; UK games producers would have more money available to them for investment in game development and publishing projects; and -- importantly -- investment in more games production than otherwise would have happened (because lower tax rates mean more money available for new projects) would potentially result in the government receiving *more* money in tax receipts even at a lower tax rate (though perhaps not as much as £400m as TIGA speculates).

But consider: if a reduction (not "elimination"!) of taxes for games producers could actually help generate slightly higher tax receipts to the government through the increase in business activity prompted by the games producers having more money to invest in new projects, then why not apply that logic across the board? Why make a special deal with games producers, which the government could then turn around and threaten to take away? Instead, why not reduce taxation on all producers to enable revenue-generating capital investment throughout the private sector of the national economy?

And by all accounts, that's precisely what the new budget from the UK coalition government proposes... at least for businesses. As Gamasutra reported in its own story on this issue: "The new budget also raises the value-added tax to 20 percent, makes cuts to National Insurance, and reduces the corporations tax." This is more of a shifting of revenue sources than an actual revenue-generating budget, since the likely benefits of reducing the corporate tax rate will be offset somewhat by hiking the VAT that increases prices everywhere.

Still, it's a step in a better direction than just mindlessly raising tax rates, which fails to maximize taxable new capital because it promotes government spending that is less efficient than private sector investment. Gamers don't need to be upset by the coalition government reneging on its promise of a tax break for the game industry specifically -- *all* industries, including game development, will be getting a break if this budget is enacted. (Gamers and everyone else can certainly be ticked off by politicians breaking promises, but that's an old and separate problem from economic policy.)

It's just a shame that so much of the reporting simply parrots the government spin that reducing tax rates to let people and businesses keep more of the money they work to earn is a "cost," and choosing not to reduce any tax rate constitutes a "savings." Reporters ought to be more careful that the language they use isn't unthinkingly promoting a government's self-interested agenda, and news consumers need to hold journalists to that reasonable standard.

Dear Producers: You Are Not Designers

Why do game designers allow producers to dictate design choices?

A little background: I'm a systems designer by inclination and a project manager (outside the game development industry) by professional experience. So I appreciate the value of both roles in creating properly functional systems on a budget and a schedule.

But if anything, this is why I'm annoyed every time I discover that some producer -- or worse, an executive -- is dictating design choices for a game. People acting in multiple roles tend to do none of them sufficiently well. And people who aren't designers by choice are probably going to make more incorrect design decisions than those who do choose to be designers.

So why do so many producers seem unable to stop themselves from dabbling in game design? Why is this allowed to happen so frequently in game development?

When a developer blog/chat/interview reveals that it's the producer who is determining core design elements, that suggests two things to me: firstly, that the producer is probably neglecting actual production-related tasks in favor of fiddling with the design. That's a bad sign for delivering a good product on time. Who's monitoring and managing the development process while the Producer is arguing with the Lead Designer over whether the game's hero needs a sidekick character?

And secondly, why the heck did they hire a Lead Designer if they're not going to let that person do their job? The title Lead Designer needs to mean something. That person needs to have the authority to specify the high-level systems of a game, and their creative authority needs to protected from producer encroachment. If the producers or other suits are so concerned about the creative direction of a game that they feel they need to do that person's job for them, then the correct action is to fire that designer and hire a new one because interfering can only reduce the impact of the vision for the game. When the designer does not have the power to enforce a consistent creative vision, when non-designers can impose their preferences solely because the org chart says they have the power to do so, the result will be a game that plays like it was designed by a committee... because it was.

Frankly, I think most producers are not equipped to be designers, and they should not try to fill both roles. A good producer is a valuable person, but that value is diminished when they're not doing their job (producing) because they're trying to do someone else's (designing). If you're a producer, but what you really want is to design, then demonstrate the courage of your convictions: step down as Producer and ask to be hired as the Lead Designer or Creative Director or its equivalent.

Finally, I note that this applies to both internal producers and publisher producers. Personally, I wouldn't want to sign a deal with a publisher that didn't include some text saying that final authority for creative decisions rests with the developer. (Naturally such a contract should also include a provision allowing the publisher to back out of the deal if they feel strongly enough that the creative direction is just too wrong.) I don't see any good in producers dictating design choices, whether those producers are part of the development studio or represent the publisher.

This does not mean that producers (or any other member of the development team) shouldn't be able to offer design ideas. Designers aren't perfect; sometimes it's helpful to hear what others think. What I'm arguing against here is allowing the Lead Producer or Senior Vice President in Charge of Whatever to dictate design choices simply because they sign the team's checks.

Bottom line: Power in a corporate hierarchy does not imply design competence. Let the designers do the designing, and let producers stick to producing.

Of course I recognize that this is wishful thinking on my part, and that producers of whatever ilk will continue to abuse their power by overriding the creative work of the people who supposedly were hired on the strength of their design abilities.

Doesn't mean I can't complain about it as a sub-optimal business process....

What Kind of Team Player Are You?

As a software project manager, I frequently have to interact with people filling different roles in the development process.

Over the years I've often been in the position of needing to work with these people to accomplish some goal. Usually they possess information I have to have in order to determine whether something can be done, or what specific steps need to be taken in order to get the job done right.

A few people have been helpful. Most are... less so.

In fact, I was eventually able to categorize the kinds of answers I can expect to get when I ask a "can I do X?" kind of question:

• "Yes."
  Translation: "You can do whatever you want, but you'll have to figure it out yourself; I'm clearly too busy/important to help you. Oh, and don't get it wrong, or else."
• "No."
  Translation: "I am a human roadblock. You will follow my required process. I will not tell you what that process is. If you ask, I will assume the attitude that it's something you should (somehow) already know."
• "Yes, but."
  Translation: "Progress is dangerous. Do you not realize just how many things might go wrong? It's my job to object continuously to every little thing you will ever propose, and to write emails to your manager disclaiming all responsibility if anything bad ever happens."
• "No, but."
  Translation: "No, that won't work, but here's some information that might help you find another way to accomplish your goal."

I love the "no, but" people. The "no, but" people understand that we all play for the same team, and that by taking a few extra seconds to help me be productive, they help themselves, too.

The only bad thing about the "no, but" people is that there aren't nearly enough of them.

Which kind are you?

Game Development as Customer Satisfaction

The Philosophy of Customer Retention

The creative side of game development is fun to talk about. A commercial game, however, whether a one-time product or a service like a MMORPG, has additional needs. In particular, it has to persuade people to choose to part with their money. And a development studio for commercial games, or for an online game, needs to make this persuasive case not just once, but repeatedly.

When it comes to repeat sales, I think successful non-game businesses may have something useful to offer game developers, and that's the concept of customer satisfaction as a conscious focus of daily business practices.

For commercial games, it's easy to think that "customer satisfaction" is some financial metric that can be left to the bean-counters: if a lot of units changed hands, if it made a lot of money, then customers must be satisfied. Making a game is just about doing your job of creating functional gameplay or art or audio; it's not about interacting with customers... right? Isn't that Marketing's job?

That might work. You could get lucky and wind up with a hit game, bringing you to the attention of many new customers. But what happens when you try to sell those customers another game product, or when you ask them to continue subscribing to (or microtransacting with) your game service?

What are you doing to keep customers once you get them so that your game development studio achieves a long-lasting state of continuous success instead of being remembered as a one-hit wonder?

Customer Satisfaction Defined

That's where customer satisfaction comes in. Far from being an after-the-fact affair, customer satisfaction works best when it's like water to a fish, when attention to satisfying customers is such an integral part of the organization's culture that no one even notices it any more.

So what does "customer satisfaction" mean? There's a simple functional definition: setting and meeting expectations.

Customers are satisfied when they understand what to expect from you, and when they get what they expected. An effective business, then, will take pains to define customer expectations properly, and then to meet those expectations consistently.

The Andy Unedited blog suggests four expectations that are common to all customers. I found them particularly interesting because each of them has direct application within the context of game development:

Customers expect accuracy. Visible bugs are the fastest and easiest excuse for rejecting your product. Don't give a potential customer that excuse.

Customers expect availability. For online games especially, you're providing a service in a competitive marketplace. If people can't access your service when it's convenient for them, they'll turn to someone else's. But even new single-player games need to become available on a regular basis from you so that customers can trust that you intend to meet their gaming interests over the long term.

Customers expect partnerships. Customers who sign up for a service want you to value their experience and listen to their opinions regarding that service. Customers know they have choices, and they expect you to remind them occasionally why you're still their best choice.

Customers expect advice. Gamers tend to object to feeling "forced" to do anything in a game, but they do expect you to guideposts that help them find the content that matters most to them.

So which of these expectations are being met where you work, and which aren't? Which of these things are you treating as a personal responsibility to increase customer satisfaction? Before you say, "that's not my job," are you sure there's nothing you can do to contribute to it?

In short, what have you added that communicates to everyone who spends their hard-earned money on your game that you value them as a customer and you want their business in the future?

On the Virtues of Plussing

A "thank you" screen at the end of a credit sequence (especially the ones that are twenty minutes long) is not sufficient. Focusing on making functional gameplay or art or audio is not enough. All your competitors are doing those things.

A memorable product -- a product whose creators, from bizops to programming, were consciously focused on customer satisfaction -- is one that has been made just a little bit better in every single feature. There's even a term for this, which comes from Walt Disney and has been picked up by such successful creative houses as Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar: "plussing." Everything gets created to meet its functional requirements... and then everything gets plussed in some way.

This isn't just some feel-good, buzzword-bingo "quality" statement that everyone just winks at. It's a proven tool for achieving customer satisfaction because it doesn't take the customer for granted. Plussing as a corporate policy is an understanding that customers will notice and appreciate extra effort.

When plussing is practiced by everyone in a creative shop, when it's so deeply embedded in the corporate culture that people actually compete to see who can most effectively plus their contributions to every product, customers notice. They may not recognize individual contributions, but the product as a whole will shine... and that, they do notice. Assuming the product meets their functional expectations, customers will remember that developer positively when considering whose future games are likely to meet their expectations of getting value for their money.

Summary

To sum up, the ultimate responsibility of everyone making a commercial game is to customer satisfaction. And everyone in the group can contribute to that goal by committing to making everything they do just a little bit better than it has to be.

Given the choice between a game whose developers did only what was necessary, and a game whose developers took personal responsibility for making everything they did a little better, which do you think you'd be likely to find more satisfying?

Distribution > Content?

Gamasutra reported today on the comments by game business analyst Mitch Lasky that distribution power is more valuable than developing good game content.

I think content matters more than that, but even so it's nice to see the value of a smart distribution model getting the attention it deserves.

I've been saying for years that id's success -- and the enormous kick-start their success gave to all PC gaming -- was due in large part to how the game design and distribution model for Wolfenstein 3D (not DOOM, which simply reused this model) were deeply intertwined. The game was built as a collection of levels with a boss fight at the end... and only the first collection was essentially free. Once you'd played the initial shareware levels, then discovered that there were two more collections of levels, each more over-the-top than the last, paying for "the rest of the game" seemed absolutely justifiable.

It was brilliant then, and it's still brilliant. All that remains to be seen is which developers and publishers will embrace it in its new "episodic content" form to work with the new broadband-enabled digital distribution portals coming into being, and reap the rewards thereby.

Some will naturally believe that retail sales of physical boxes have some special power that allows them to resist the allure of digital distribution. I think this misses what may be by seeing only what currently is. (The danger of straight-line projections, etc.)

Retail currently has two advantages over the ones and zeros of online distribution: one, it lets potential customers look at the game art and review blurbs on a physical box when deciding whether to buy a game, and two, it's still more comfortable than online shopping to older customers who buy games for their kids or grandchildren.

The second advantage is going to resolve itself with the passage of time.

The first advantage is one that digital distributors can counter in multiple ways, and some of those ways are unique to digital distribution. The obvious is to release each game with its own Web site full of glossy promotional content, and publishers are already doing that. I expect they'll become even more sophisticated at it over time.

Less obvious but perhaps ultimately more important will be the shift to design games for online distribution from the very start, allowing them to be designed to provide a small part of the game that can be downloaded and test-driven for free... which brings us back to the Wolf3D fusion of game design and distribution.

So who's going to control this brave new world of digital distribution of games?

I would be very surprised if the larger publishers like EA weren't already building their own portals. Their deal with Steam shows they're willing to test whether the retail channel retains its value.

In fact, I think it's a process that's already in progress across the computer game industry. Valve's Steam is just an easy-to-see example of the new "e-tailers" that are emerging as product accumulators. Sony Online Entertainment has been turning itself into precisely the same kind of one-stop-shop for MMORPGs for the past several years, either buying online games outright or making publishing/distribution deals with developers (through their "Platform Publishing" program) and making all the games available through their "Station Pass" system. CD Projekt recently introduced their GOG.com portal. Even Amazon.com can be seen as an important player in this emerging business environment of product accumulators -- the choice of Amazon.com as the target soapbox for opponents of EA's DRM protection of Spore suggests something of its growing importance as a game source.

The visible scramble by each of the big three console makers to provide their own online game distribution portals is another important thread in this pattern.

Within the next year or two I expect to see announcements from EA, Vivendi/Activision, and Infogrames/Atari of their own online distribution networks to try to compete with Valve. If their stables of games (and whoever else they can get to sign up) can be made large enough without becoming shovelware, that's probably going to be a successful line of business for the next decade or so at least, especially for those which value-add most effectively.

Whether all these will eventually shake down to just two or three big players, I can't guess yet.

Ownership of Items in Online Games

A recent post by Tobold on "virtual property rights" has been setting the geekosphere all a-flutter, so as a geek I figure I might as well weigh in on this again myself.

I agree that some folks seem, for whatever reason, to want to view this "who owns in-game objects" issue through a Marxian lens... but I'm not buying their conclusions any more than I buy other arguments that reduce to "because I want it."

What you do in a game isn't "work." When you pay to play a game, you aren't paying for a product, or for an opportunity to expend labor -- you're paying for an entertainment experience. On that basis, the whole notion of player ownership of any game object evaporates.

Let's say you rent an ATV for a couple of hours. When you're done, you don't get to keep the ATV. It was a tool for enabling you to enjoy an entertainment experience, and all you were doing was renting the use of that tool. In this light, whether the ATV is real or virtual is irrelevant; all that matters is whether you had a reasonable chance to have fun.

IANAL, but as I understand it, the product provided has to be fit for its communicated purpose. (That might make for an interesting legal challenge related to a MMOG, actually.) But again, the fitness qualification should apply regardless of whether the experience-enabling product is real or virtual. If the ones and zeros are being rented to you to allow you to have fun, then you don't own those ones and zeros any more than you own the ATV.

To the argument that game-specific virtual worlds are somehow unique by being RPGs, that an entertainment experience based on letting you pretend to be a literary character somehow grants you more of a right to ownership than some other kind of entertainment experience... I'd like to see that line of reasoning. How does it matter that you're pretending to be a character who can store objects in some inventory slot?

Again, I don't think being virtual makes any difference when what's being sold is an entertainment experience. Suppose I'm playing a character in a real-world Alternate Reality Game of your devising. As the operator of that ARG, you've bought a bunch of props to hand out to the people playing your game. Let's say that one of those props is a hammer, which you assign to my character for use as part of the game. If I then assert that because you let me use that hammer, I now own it, how would you respond?

More pointedly, suppose that in preparing for people to play your game you buy a hammer, some nails and some boards. You then assign those items to my character as props. If I have my character build a birdhouse out of those items, do I-the-player own the birdhouse?

If you say I do own it, what is the basis for that conclusion? If you say that I don't own the item I created in your game, then on what basis can you assert that players of a computer game own the looted or crafted objects in that game?

All that said, I will agree that the question of object ownership gets trickier for non-game virtual worlds like Second Life. And it's right to note that admitting the possibility of user ownership of in-world IP in non-game virtual worlds forces a need to try to distinguish between game and non-game virtual worlds. Since we can easily imagine gray areas between those types, that blurs somewhat any bright line we might want to draw.

But having acknowledged that there can be gray areas, I think we can still say that anything not in the gray area, anything that's clearly a game (such as WoW), creates no expectation of user ownership of anything other than time expended. All you're doing as a player is renting ones and zeros from a game operator to enable an entertainment experience. So far I've yet to see a satisfactory argument that being able to "create" "things" -- i.e., add more ones and zeros to the game operator's database through crafting a sword or other object -- during an entertainment experience creates any legally defensible expectation of ownership of those ones and zeros.

Of course, while I believe that a lawyer who understands virtual worlds could make the above case to even a gaming-impaired judge, game publishers obviously don't share that belief -- at least not to the extent that I do. And considering their lawyers would probably be arguing such a case in California, which case would therefore rise on appeal to the "we'll just make up whatever laws we want" Ninth Circuit, I can't say that the publishers are entirely wrong....

It's All Been Done? No Way!

[updated from May 25, 2007]

"And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no new worlds to conquer."

(The benefits of a classical education. ;-)

Looking around at the MMORPGs out today and in development, gamers can be forgiven for thinking that every possible style of game has already been invented. Fantasy, science fiction, and superheroes rule.

Naturally, some people can't resist trying to escape from these increasingly sterile forms. That's a good thing... but I wonder if we're trying hard enough.

The idea of just suggesting some relatively untried genres seems pretty obvious. Hard-boiled "noir" mystery, rival Mafiosi families... these genres will probably occur to most people once they get past "Western gunslinger," "Pirates," and "Post-apocalyptic." SOE’s recent announcement of "The Agency" is testing the sharks-with-lasers-infested waters of spy thrillers. And David Perry’s "Top Secret" multiplayer racing game is an interesting experiment in participatory development. But there are other possibilities worth exploring.

A pure genre idea I keep coming back to is pulp adventure, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs's "Barsoom" (Mars) novels. Four-armed green Tharks with swords and bad attitudes; sky pirates armed with radium pistols; gorgeous (or hunky, take your pick) red princesses (or princes) of Helium; and players whose characters come from Earth are able to leap tall buildings in a single bound because of the lower gravity of Mars. I think the copyright on these novels may even have expired... so why has a game based on this not been made yet?

That said, I think just playing with genres will soon prove to be a dead end. The literary forms of the past will be played out at some point. Instead, what about stepping out of the box a little further to look at possibilities that only online worlds can offer?

What if instead of making yet another Hobbesian, zero-sum, red-in-tooth-and-claw competitionfest someone made a game where competition was subordinate to cooperation, where players could choose to work together at a high level?

An idea in this style I came up with a while back was what I called the "Big Challenge" game. In this kind of game, the developer creates a detailed world, then sets -- wait for it -- a Big Challenge, then unleashes players on the game world. To "win" the game, players would have to work together to achieve the high-level goal, the Big Challenge.

One example of this sort of thing I came up with was writing code to simulate a lot of physical phenomena and processes -- matter, energy, chemistry, electromagnetism, gravity, biochemistry, photosynthesis, respiration, etc. -- and then stock the Earth of about A.D. 1750 with all kinds of natural resources. I'd then open it up to players and say, "Your challenge is to create a colony on the Moon that is self-sustaining for 100 people for six months. Go."

Players would then be able to work together to discover the processes and build the artifacts that allow travel and survival in the harsh void of space and on the surface of the Moon. They could form groups (such as corporations) that might compete with each other to reach some technological milestone first, but no one group would be able to do it all -- only through cooperating at a high level could the ultimate goal be achieved, at which point everybody who contributed wins.

And when that happens (probably sooner than I expect), I'd be ready with the next Big Challenge: colonize Mars.

And then: Colonize the asteroid belt.

And then? The stars are waiting.

Is there really no place for a game like this? Is the thoughtful, helpful, decent side of human nature unworthy of gameplay? I don't believe that... but where are the games proving me wrong?

But now let's step back even further. Here's a diagram I drew showing my personal interpretation of the various forms of playful software we've invented so far and how they interact to form specific modes of gameplay:



When I look at this diagram, I see the gaps. I immediately think, "What if...?" What if the Adventure circle were expanded to intersect with MMOGs? Could there be a massively multiplayer adventure game? What if the Strategy circle were expanded to CRPGs, so that you actually played a character whose effectiveness at strategic planning determined your character's story arc? What if the Strategy circle were expanded to MMORPGs, so that gameplay wasn't just a bunch of mindless one-on-one slapfights but represented hundreds of thousands of massive empires spanning a galaxy?

What if the Software Toy circle, with its emphasis on simulation, were expanded into MMORPGs? Can you imagine a game where the gameplay revolved around how well your characters responded to dynamic but comprehensible changes in complex systems? What kinds of complex systems would be fun to simulate if you could allow thousands of characters to fiddle with the switches and dials?

You get the idea. We're out of ideas? No new worlds to conquer? Baloney!

There is a wealth of novel gameplay modes just waiting to be plundered. And that can happen as soon as we're ready to step back and see the big picture that shows us the old conventions that are ripe for being challenged, when (as Bastiat pointed out) we stop allowing what is to blind us to what could be.

That doesn't mean throwing out everything. It means taking up the basic elements of gameplay and reconfiguring them in new ways.

All it takes is for somebody to try it and see what happens. Of course some of these ideas won't work. Of course trying and failing is expensive.

How expensive is the alternative of not trying anything new at all?

The Untimely Demise of the Epic Game

In a conversation between Gamasutra and new Infogrames president Phil Harrison, the following exchange got my attention:

Gamasutra: I know a lot of developers with whom I've spoken have indicated that, as far as they're aware, most players don't actually finish their games, and most people who sit down to watch a TV show or a movie always will finish it.

Phil Harrison: Exactly, and that was a key motivation for this game, was the fact that they did some research, and I forget the exact numbers, but it was something like only eight percent play to the end of the game.

If this is true, then I think it tells us something important about where computer games are headed.

The old paradigm was the "big" game: lots of levels, lots of NPCs and mobs, lots of stuff with which to interact, lots of story and dialogue. Even the early computer games followed this model (although the term "lots" is relative), in that the game was conceived as being something so big that you couldn't finish it in a single sitting. There'd be so many hours of content to explore -- 30 hours, 60 hours, even 100 hours -- that you'd have to stop several times on your journey to the end of the game.

What occurs to me is that the audience for home computer games has changed. In the Elder Days, the few folks playing computer games enjoyed the big game that took a long time to complete. These folks were already "core gamers" who were invested in playing all the way through any game they bought; the extent of the journey made finishing the game feel satisfying.

But it seems that things have changed. Old-school gamers who expect to finish a 100-hour game may now be a minority (perhaps an extreme minority of gamers); the majority may now look at computer games as just another quickie entertainment form -- not as a memorable experience, but just another way to kill some time. They either don't have lots of free time, or they simply aren't interested in investing large chunks of the free time they do have into just one game. This would explain why so few gamers may finish today's computer games.

Which leads to the question that Phil Harrison and probably other publishers are asking themselves: if most gamers never finish such big games, why make big games? Why invest millions of dollars' worth of development time and effort into an endgame that most players will never see?

If that's so, then we can expect to see other publishers follow Phil Harrison's lead and start funding only the games that appear better aligned with today's casual and short-attention-span gamer's lifestyle. Examples of this would be shorter games like Portal, and episodic games like Sam & Max. In other words, it's likely that we'll be seeing fewer epic-sized games like Oblivion or GTA IV.

Let's say this analysis is more or less accurate. That raises several questions.

First of all, if this is a real phenomenon, how does it relate to books? If people today really hated long narratives, who would read anymore? Is there any data that people today are no longer finishing books that they've bought? (I almost don't want to know the answer to that one in case it's actually "yes.") Is there any correlation between the kinds of people who buy and read big thick novels and those who play epic computer games through to completion?

Secondly, where does this leave MMORPGs? The typical online role-playing game is, by nature, a big game. If players play characters, those characters need a world in which to act... but building a world implies creating an environment that's big enough to feel like a well-realized place in which characters can participate in stories. Furthermore, since virtually all current MMORPGs use the character class/level convention, content must be created for different classes, but most players will only experience the content for one or two classes at most. From the individual player's perspective, they never see most of the character-specific content of any MMORPG.

Some of these concerns have been addressed by the recent emphasis in MMORPGs on quests/missions. By designing the typical quest to be something that can be completed in an hour or two, MMORPGs give players a convenient stopping point between gameplay sessions. However, this doesn't address the point that there's no "end" in a persistent-world game. As with epic single-player games, the end for most players of a MMORPG is simply to abandon the game.

So what happens to MMORPGs in a game development milieu where only the shorter/simpler games get development money?

Finally, a personal reaction: If we're looking at far fewer "deep" games in favor of shorter, simpler games, where does that leave me? I still love the deep, complex, highly immersive games; I enjoy investing myself in the games that feel like richly detailed and fully realized worlds. To me, the Looking Glass-style games -- Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, BioShock -- those are the games that really show off the unique art form that is computer games.

I really enjoyed Portal. At heart, though, I'm still a fan of games built as large worlds with extended narratives. A bag of chips, an apple, a box of popcorn -- those things are OK, but what's wrong with occasionally wanting something more substantial?

When substantial games that immerse the player's heart and brain are no longer being made in favor of cheap-to-produce game-y action games that can be played to completion in an hour or two, what's my incentive to care about computer games any more?

"Artificial Scarcity" of Games

Gamasutra published an article today by Matt Matthews which suggested that "artificial scarcity" would benefit the game industry.

The gist of this idea was that game publishers should copy Disney, who make their products available for only a relatively short time before yanking them from the market for 7-10 years. Something similar to this for games, the author says, would allow publishers to increase their prices since there'd be fewer games to choose from. And the benefit to consumers for this reduction in choice would be fewer "bad" games crowding out the good stuff.

While I applaud the author's willingness to suggest improvements to a system, there are several questions worth asking about this particular idea.

First and foremost, how does this proposal benefit consumers? What's the incentive for consumers to participate in a scheme that's clearly more about artificially inflating prices for the publisher's benefit than about satisfying consumer demand?

To this criticism that unnaturally restricting consumer activity would be bad for business, the author says, "The numbers behind the current digital markets are nebulous, to say the least. All we know are that prices are generally low and the truly high-quality titles get lost among the mediocre-to-poor." Really? Leaving aside the question of whether the prices of games (digitally distributed or otherwise) are actually "low," are gamers really unaware of which games are good and which are not? If that assumption is false, what's left of the argument in favor of artificial scarcity?

On balance, this proposal strikes me as another in the line of short-sighted tamperings that, like wage and price controls, create more problems than they solve because they're never as efficient over the long run as free markets.

Hands off, please. Let publishers provide good information about their products, and then let consumers and publishers negotiate freely on price.

Copy Protection of Games 3

The good news is that BioWare has announced that Mass Effect for the PC will not, after all, require online verification every ten days.

The bad news is that all the other DRM elements are still being forced on PC gamers who would otherwise be willing to pay to play this game.

BioWare noted that the change to the every-ten-days requirement was being made (at least in part) to help out military personnel who, after activating the game online, would not have Internet access and would otherwise not be able to play the game after ten days. If we take that at face value, then BioWare deserves a word of thanks.

But that still leaves open the question of why BioWare (or perhaps EA) shows no sign of altering its decision to require online activation of a single-player game.

Their stated reason is that it will deter piracy. They also suggest that this change better serves players by no longer requiring them to keep the game DVD in the disk drive while playing.

I'll leave the question of piracy alone for now. I'm certainly not going to parrot the chorus of assertions that "people will just pirate the game anyway" or even that "putting copy protection on a game makes it more likely to be pirated" as some people claim, confusing "pirated" with "stolen."

What about that other claim -- that forcing players of a single-player game to verify online is somehow better for them than requiring the DVD to be in the drive?

Here, I think some speculation might be fun. What if this is part of a strategic decision by EA to move away from retail sales of PC games?

That's not necessarily a bad thing for PC gamers. Big games are expensive to make, and part of the cost is retailer mark-up. If you can move to digital distribution as your primary sales medium, your costs should drop. Theoretically, that could allow producers to lower the purchase price of their games. Practically, of course, that won't happen; the vastly more likely outcome is that unit prices would remain the same and publishers would pocket the difference. But even that's not all bad for gamers, since it increases the likelihood of publishers staying in business, which means more and better games available.

EA may also see moving into digital distribution as a long-term competitive necessity. If that's "the future," EA will not want to leave it solely in the hands of Valve and/or Sony.

But if this is the real reason for pushing online activation on all their games, including single-player games like Mass Effect and Spore, then why not say so? If I can see that this is a business decision on EA's part, surely the professional MBAs over at Valve and Sony can figure it out, too. No competitive advantage would be lost by acknowledging a business strategy that everyone can see being implemented.

Furthermore, gamers are becoming increasingly sophisticated consumers. They know when they're being spun. So why do it? Why throw out some tepid rationalization for requiring online activation of single-player games like "it's easier than requiring a DVD" (when that's simply not true for many gamers) instead of an honest statement that "we're moving to digital distribution for all our games to reduce costs"?

If I'm correct in any meaningful percentage of this speculation, then it's another example of the Reality Distortion Field at work in the upper echelons of EA (and perhaps BioWare as well).

Here's another way to say it: Never, ever allow Marketing to run your company. Like fire, Marketing is a useful servant but a dangerous master... and they are never more dangerous than when your customers are knowledgeable about your industry and passionate about your products.

Copy Protection of Games 2

I'm annoyed.

First BioShock came out with the SecuROM Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy-protection software that not only required online activation and reactivation, but limited the number of installations to two (originally). The problem I had with this is the same I've had with Steam: it assumes that all consumers are criminals and insists that they submit to having invasive software placed on their PCs if they want to play the game. (A single-player game, I might add.) I despise that attitude; it is lazy (because it fails to make the effort of deterring the actual criminals) and insulting.

Now comes word that EA, publisher of the PC version of Mass Effect and of Spore, will be using SecuROM on those games and all their other major games to come.

Here's what Derek French of BioWare had to say when asked about this for Mass Effect for PC:

Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play [as BioShock does], it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

[Derek later added:]

For clarity, though, an internet connection is not required to install, just to activate the first time, and every 10 days after. You can be completely connectionless for 9 days and encounter no problems playing Mass Effect. And you don't need the disk in the drive to play.

My view of this was nicely summed up by a subsequent reply in that thread:

Seriously, if I wanted to play an online game, I'd buy an online game. Once is okay to activate. Two checks... well, I can deal. But constant checks for as long as I own and play the game, every 10 days? That's gotten a tad excessive. Sure, I have an always-on net connection but what happens if I don't play for 11 days and the moment I want to play my connection is down? Are you saying I'm not going to be able to play my perfectly legitimate purchased copy of the game, even the retail version, until I get permission? That's the kind of idiocy that annoys customers.

I'd much rather have to put the DVD in the drive when I play than be forced to do more than one [validation]. At least I can guarantee that I'll always have the DVD, but there's no way I'll believe any guarantees that my net connection will be there and/or EA's servers won't mess it up.

Matt Martin over at GamesIndustry.biz obviously gets it as well. So why is it so hard for game publishers to grasp the concept that making their games less friendly to valid purchasers than to pirates is stupid?

I have no patience with or sympathy for those who pirate copyrighted materials. So it's freakin' irritating to me that the single-player games I'm most looking forward to playing are going to include copy-protection schemes that assume I will mass-copy and distribute their product on the street unless prevented from doing so. I'm not opposed to systems that counter pirates; I'm opposed to systems that treat everyone -- including me -- like a pirate.

If I were the paranoid type, I might wonder whether this is the latest tactic by console makers to try to eliminate the PC as a gaming platform, in this case by getting game publishers to make playing PC games so obnoxious that gamers just give up on them....

Bah.

Grand Theft Auto IV -- A Skeptical View 2

So it looks like Grand Theft Auto IV may have become not only the best-selling game "OF ALL TIME"; if Strauss Zelnick is to be believed (according to a Gamasutra story) it has earned the most first-weekend revenue of any entertainment product ever. So I acknowledge that my earlier skepticism regarding GTA IV's sales numbers was wrong.

But why was I wrong? Why has GTA IV sold like this?

Is it really the content? Are so many normal people really so eager to play a game where you shoot lots of people in the head and steal various vehicles? (I'm not even getting into the whole "drunk driving" thing, which is probably overblown.) Is there truly such an attraction to pretending to do this kind of stuff to give GTA IV the greatest launch of any entertainment product ever?

I have to think there's something else going on here, that it's not really the content of the game that's responsible for its outstanding sales. I don't see how the content alone can account for such extreme sales numbers.

One possibility is the blitz advertising. It's thought that GTA IV took $100 million to make; if so, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a meaningful chunk of that was devoted to advertising. (And this might be a good place to observe that there doesn't doesn't seem to have been any cannibalization of GTA IV sales by Iron Man or vice versa, as some claimed to fear.) Maybe a significant number of people found the GTA IV video ads compelling, or just figured anything advertising that much had to be a "blockbuster."

Or perhaps GTA IV is the beneficiary of the Hula Hoop Effect, as I think has been the case for World of Warcraft. If a bunch of your friends say they're doing it, you're likely to do it too in order not to be perceived as uncool. I suspect this is the major reason behind most high-volume sales experiences, including that of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Finally, there were the suspiciously hyperenthusiastic reviews of the game by pretty much all the known game reviewers, led by the completely over-the-top coverage by G4 TV's X Play. As someone who was closely following the development of Star Trek Online by the former Perpetual Entertainment, I haven't forgotten the admission by the former PR firm Kohnke Communications in their complaint against Perpetual that they were "successful in creating pre-release 'buzz' around Gods & Heroes, and in convincing reviewers to write positive reviews about the game."

Kohnke C. later insisted that "reviews" was a typo, and should have read "previews"... but what's the real difference? Either way, it highlights the reality that there are PR firms out there who are pushing game reviewers to express positive impressions of a game, regardless of the actual quality of that game. That, of course, is what a PR firm is paid to do... but reminding people that this kind of spin goes on in the gaming press does not create confidence in the objectivity of reviewers -- just the opposite.

So who did the PR for Grand Theft Auto IV? Looks like they earned their money.

No, that doesn't mean I think all the gushing reviews of GTA IV were biased by some insider deals. But I do have to wonder; again, are people -- including game reviewers -- really so hugely interested in dealing out urban mayhem? I earnestly hope there's something more behind their glowing reviews than that.

Sigh. My less-than-enthusiasic response to this game is probably generating thoughts of "but dude, you haven't even played it!" Not that I'd mind comparisons to some elements of Fox News, but the uninformed Mass Effect criticism is not something I want to copy. So I guess if I want to continue questioning GTA IV's wondrousness, I'll have to reward Rockstar's promotion of simulated inner-city violence with some cash of my own.

Bleh. We'll see.

Grand Theft Auto IV -- A Skeptical View 1

What's the big deal about Grand Theft Auto IV?

I can't figure out why so many industry people are hyperventilating about this game, even to the point of guessing that it will be the "Highest-Selling Game OF ALL TIME." What is it that makes them think this game will be so successful both critically and commercially?

To explain this view, I probably should mention five points:

• I'm an avid Explorer who enjoys open-world games like Oblivion and Two Worlds and sim games like Spore.
• I prefer the fantastic to the mundane.
• I think computer games play a small part in forming our culture.
• I play PC games. I don't even own a console.
• I haven't played any of the previous GTA games.

So just speaking for myself to start with, I haven't heard anything about GTA IV that excites me. (Not like, for example, Spore, which really excites me.)

The one thing that sounds nice is the open-world aspect. I like the idea of being able to roam around and do the things I want to do when I want to do them. Linear games like Portal and Half-Life2 can be powerful when the story is good and the characters are interesting, but part of me likes having more freedom to create my own story in a rich gameworld.

That's a point in favor of GTA IV, then. But simply being an open-world game isn't enough -- the world, the setting, has to be interesting enough to want to spend hours there. And that's where I suspect the GTA series leaves me yawning.

I'm just not interested in "gritty urban" stuff. I don't care for cop shows or detective novels; when I want to be entertained I look for things that take me out of this world. The setting and characters of the GTA games just aren't interesting to me.

The realism also concerns me as it applies to the game's content. Zapping aliens and slicing monsters are sufficiently distinct from our reality that no cultural message is really being sent... but shooting cops and jacking cars is uncomfortable to me. It's close enough to a simulation of reality that it raises questions of whether that kind of thing should be tolerated even as mere entertainment.

Please note that this is not the simple-minded "video games are teaching our kids to kill!" complaint. I've never said anything like that and I'm not saying it here. What I'm saying is that games, like other media, are part of our culture; they both reflect and -- to some small degree -- create the culture in which we live. What we tolerate in our entertainment seeps into our real-world lives.

If so, then how should I feel about a game like GTA that glorifies the seedier, illegal and unethical aspects of modern life? How can I justify promoting even a small additional chipping away at a culture of courtesy, honesty and restraint by buying a game like GTA IV?

I don't want to make too much of that argument. I won't be out boycotting GTA IV; it's not that powerful. But I also don't see any reason why I should be expected to tolerate any "lawlessness is cool" message implicit in its gameplay by participating in its commercial results.

On the console vs. PC front, I've already talked about that.

Finally, there's no nostalgia factor for me regarding GTA IV. I never got sucked into playing the previous entries, so there's no "what happens next?" value in buying the latest installment.

So much for me. What about everybody else?

How far off am I from the mainstream gamer? Am I a lonely voice in the wilderness? Certainly I am on the PC vs consoles issue! But what about the other stuff? What is it about GTA IV that leads industry types to believe that it will appeal so massively to so many gamers?

In short, what does this game offer that I can't get from some other game that doesn't carry the same negative cultural baggage?

How Many Characters Per Server? 3

One of the arguments I've heard recently in favor of allowing players to run multiple characters per server (MCS) is that it benefits Explorer players.

I'm not convinced of that... and I'm probably one of the more hardcore Explorers you'll ever run into. Looking at MCS with my wannabe game designer hat on, I see it more than anything else as an issue of gameplay balance. That makes it primarily an Achiever concern.

In a typical MMORPG that's balanced for a single character's abilities and resources, someone playing five or eight characters on one server who share resources (skills, inventory slots, etc.) as though they were a single character -- an "ubercharacter" -- will have a significant advantage over someone who (for whatever reason) runs a single character per server.

Why should someone who plays their (single) character like an actual character in the gameworld be disadvantaged versus a player who treats characters not as people but as tools for beating a game? Why should the game be designed to provide a multiple-character-per-server capability that's primarily going to be used by some gamers to crank out a bunch of alts that have no identity as characters themselves, but are only used as person-shaped boxes that provide free skills and resources to a main character?

This argument really has nothing to do with Explorers. Real Explorers seek to understand systems in depth purely for the satisfaction that deep understanding brings -- they aren't concerned with trying to map systems as rapidly as possible for direct gameplay advantage, which is an Achiever way of thinking.

More pointedly, if there really was anything to the "Explorers want multiple characters" argument, such players would be perfectly happy with creating multiple characters on different servers. That would provide the breadth of ways to experience a gameworld that the Explorer appreciates. Those who insist that they "need" multiple characters on the same server are far more likely to be Achievers, who know perfectly well that this will give them a scoring advantage in a MMORPG whose challenge level was (by design) balanced for single characters.

So finding an alternative to an unrestricted MCS design is not about helping players experience a MMORPG as a simulation (which is how Explorers want to see it) or as a drama (which is how the roleplay-focused Socializers prefer to see it). It's about finding a design that insures that the quality of an individual's play within the gameworld is what determines their results, as opposed to gaining advantage by using an outside-the-gameworld mechanic such as running multiple characters on one server. In other words, MCS versus SCS is a question of how best to design the challenge level of a game so that the rules-based, score-keeping part of the MMORPG is the most fun for the greatest number of potential subscribers.

So how do we get there? One thing I have to point out is that at the most fundamental level, making a game means designing rules that are fair -- if the rules structurally advantage some players but not others over the gameworld (or over other players), then it's not a good game. So saying "I need N characters per server" is perfectly valid from one person's individual perspective, but it can't be the whole story when you're trying to design a game whose rules fairly serve the interests of thousands of players. Unrestricted MCS fails that test because it creates an artificial gap between those who (for whatever reason) focus on playing a single character versus those who play multiple characters as one ubercharacter.

That said, let's look again (in a little more detail) at some alternatives to unrestricted MCS.

One obvious and simple hack (which is why developers started doing it years ago) is to tag some items as "no-trade" or "soulbound." This has the advantage of being relatively trivial to implement, but at the cost of being a blunt instrument: while it limits muling/twinking, it also artificially restricts useful exchanges of items between different players. That's undesirable in a gameworld that needs an active player economy.

An alternative to this would be a more targeted restriction against allowing any interactions among the characters owned by one account. This would mean (for example) no trading items between one account's characters, or using the resources (such as bank vaults or houses) of other characters on the same account. This would minimize muling/twinking by individual players without unnaturally interfering with useful economic interactions between different players. Unfortunately, it would do so at the price of adding more complexity to the game code, including a possibly tighter-than-usual linkage between gameplay capabilities and the billing system.

Another way to allow multiple characters on one server might be to design the game such that the level of challenge dynamically adjusts to the number of characters one actively plays on a particular server. Someone who plays a single character would enjoy the same risk/reward ratio as the player who switches back and forth between five characters as though they were a single character will five times the resources and skills a normal character is designed to have. Unfortunately, while this approach could improve the fairness of PvE play, it does nothing to level the PvP playing field.

The best approach may be the simplest: instead of tacking on artificial restrictions to economic exchanges, or developing complex heuristics to try to make unrestricted MCS fair, why not simply allow only one character per server?

The true Explorer who wants to study different aspects of the gameworld can create a different character on every server. The usual counterargument to this is "but roleplayers need to be able to pick different characters to play depending on the other characters in a group." (I suspect that this ostensibly RP-friendly argument is usually made not by roleplaying Socializers but by Achievers who have other reasons for wanting MCS. :P)

What's important to see here is that if everyone lives by the same one-character-per-server rule, then roleplaying friends can all create different characters on other servers as well. Picking which character to play just means agreeing on which server to play on that evening. (I'm not saying that's always an easy discussion, but it's no harder than the same discussion of who gets to run which characters on a single MCS server.)

One final note: I've also heard people say, "But if real MMORPG designers thought that running multiple characters like a single ubercharacter was wrong, they wouldn't permit us to create multiple characters per server." I agree. I'm not saying players are wrong for doing what game designers allow them to do. I'm saying game designers are hurting themselves by building their games to permit players to create multiple characters per server. Maybe the publishers force them to do that; I don't believe there is any valid design reason for allowing players to make gameplay challenges easier than intended by running multiple characters as though they were one unnaturally gifted character.

---

On balance, I think SCS is definitely the right way to go for a MMORPG that allows characters to learn (and unlearn) skills. For a class/level game, however, I recognize that people want to group with their friends but don't want to have to run the same character forever (or, at least, as long as all their friends all run their same characters). So some form of restricted MCS, such as restricting exchanges between characters on the same account, might be made to work for a class/level game. It's still something of a hack, but it would cut down on the majority of ubercharacter action without preventing useful economic activity between different players (as soulbinding does).

The main thing is to realize that unrestricted MCS, regardless of how many people say they "need" it, really is a problem of gameplay design. It makes the game easier than the designers intended. In short, unrestricted MCS makes a MMORPG less fun.

I hope those leaping to disagree with me on this will at least recognize that my purpose is honorable. I'm not trying to make MMORPGs less fun for them (by "taking away" features); I'm trying as best I can by my lights to make MMORPGs as fun as they can be by encouraging designs that don't supply features that unnecessarily undercut the carefully-designed balance of character abilities versus gameplay challenges.

Basically I'm looking for areas where MMORPG design can be improved. Does anyone believe that MMORPGs as currently designed are perfect and holy and must never be questioned?

How Many Characters Per Server? 2

The specific trouble is with allowing multiple characters per server (MCS) who can share resources.

It's this combination of features that honks up the challenge level of a game balanced for a single character, making the play experience less fun. And yes, I argue that the play experience is made less fun by allowing people to semi-simultaneously play two or three or eight or more characters like one ubercharacter, even if some individual player insists that it's "more fun" for them personally if they can play that way.

I've also heard some players say they "need" multiple characters. "Need?" I think they really mean to say they "want" to have a bunch of alts. Anyone who believes that every player of a game -- not just themselves -- truly needs multiple characters per server ought to provide facts and reasoning to justify that belief, and in particular should show how all players actually "need" this capability, as opposed to the individual gamer simply "wanting" it.

In the meantime, here are some perfectly workable alternatives to allowing MCS.

1. Play one character at a time. When you've fully experienced the game through one character class, get rid of that character and start a new one. Why is this a problem?

2. Start different characters on different servers. If your intention (as I've heard some gamers claim) really is to enjoy different ways of experiencing the game as different character classes, you can do that on different servers. If you're going to claim you can't, then you'll need to explain why you don't just want to be able to share resources to make an ubercharacter.

3. Buy additional accounts. If you're determined to play eight characters like one ubercharacter in a game balanced for single characters, then you should be willing to pay for the privilege of not playing the game as it was designed to be played.

4. Disallow characters owned by the same account from exchanging items. Although players could still use third parties to swap items, this would reducing muling. And while reducing muling wouldn't completely solve the "ubercharacter" problem, it would help.

5. Find a game that's actually been designed to be balanced for playing as multiple characters on a server, rather than trying to push that capability on a game whose challenges are balanced for a single character.

The point to all this is not to be "mean"; it's not unfairly targeting "altaholics"; it's not to be inexplicably looking for ways to make MMORPGs less fun. In fact, the only reason I even express this position (which I know perfectly well that some people are going to claim to perceive as some kind of personal attack on "their" favored gameplay) is because I want these MMORPG things to be more fun, not less. And I'm persuaded that being able to use multiple characters on one server when the challenge level of that game was balanced for a single character makes a game less fun.

It's easy to look at these games in terms of what we personally enjoy. I do that sometimes myself when I put my gamer hat on. But it's not how a professional game designer ought to work, which is I try to emulate when I put my wannabe game designer hat on. If we're going to talk about what's best for a game overall, then we need to judge game features by whether they maximize fun for everyone who plays the game.

On that basis, allowing multiple characters per server for a game whose challenge level is balanced for single characters looks like a losing design, regardless of how passionately some self-focused gamers will demand that capability.

Is PC Gaming Dead? +

According to the NPD Group, North American retail sales of PC games came to nearly a billion dollars -- $910.7B -- in 2007. And that's not including sales through digital distribution.

A billion dollars in the N.A. retail market alone suggests that there's additional revenue to be found in other regions whose use of general-purpose computers is still growing.

And there is no sign that the market for general-purpose computers is drying up worldwide. As long as there are general-purpose computers, there will be good business to be done in making and selling games for those computers.

Even so, it's clearly not wise to assume that the mere existence of PCs is enough to guarantee the continued sales of PC games... not when console manufacturers are doing everything they can to make consumers (and retailers) believe that all the cool kids play their games on consoles (and handhelds), not PCs.

People have accepted the self-serving "the PC is dead!" comments by game console manufacturers as truth because no major PC hardware manufacturer has been equally vigorous in promoting the PC as a game platform. Perhaps the formation of the PC Gaming Alliance, along with Intel's purchase of Havok and game developer Offset Software, are early signals that those with a stake in PC gaming are finally ready to defend the value of the PC as a worthwhile platform for gaming.

That's not a crazy idea at all.

Voluntary Game Labeling vs. Government Control 2

For me the most interesting aspect of the content control question is how the tension between expressive liberty and child safety is addressed in different places. Western nations are pretty similar in that they all consider both of these things to be desirable. We all want to be free to express our beliefs, whether political, artistic, or religious. And we all want our children to be able to grow up safe from harm.

But having acknowledged these similarities, there are also significant differences not only in how we define some of these terms but in the legal traditions and rules we apply to them. And I suspect there are a lot of people who don't know about some of those differences, which leads to faulty expectations, which makes it harder to have a productive discussion.

So here are a couple of points for discussion and some questions about them.

1. A lot of Americans wrongly believe that "freedom of speech" is some kind of global right. In fact, the U.S. is one of the very few places on Earth in which a right of citizens to criticize their government -- which, I think a good argument can be made, is what "freedom of speech" is really all about -- is protected by their fundamental document of law, the U.S. Constitution. Other nations, including the United Kingdom, have no such constitutional provision protecting a right to free expression. Yes, as a practical matter Britons and others do enjoy substantial freedom of expression, but it's not a constitutionally-protected right. Public sentiment aside, there is no legal impediment to the U.K. or other governments restricting some form of expression should they choose to do so.

So Americans first need to understand that the expressive liberties they enjoy are not equally protected in other places. Arguments defending "free speech" don't apply outside the U.S. border. If the British government wants to say that a particular game's representation of sex or violence or drug use or anything is impermissible, then it can -- there's no "First Amendment" preventing that government from restricting political or artistic or religious expression on whatever basis it chooses to apply.

I think we should be free to consider the ramifications of assigning that power of censorship to government versus expecting private entities (game publishers, retailers, parents) to self-censor as in the U.S.. I'm not making any judgement here; I can see value and danger in both approaches. I'm just saying it could be an interesting and worthwhile discussion.

2. "Child safety" is indeed one of those things that's turned into a convenient tool for politicians everywhere to do whatever they want. But are they entirely wrong? It's absolutely valid to want our kids to be able to grow up physically/mentally/emotionally healthy. That's an appropriate goal for all members of a society, including those with no children of their own, which may make it an appropriate concern of our political representatives.

But to what degree? When government officials and parents disagree about how to raise a child, who should win? Either way, what precedent is set for other disagreements between government and families?

Furthermore, how the heck do we decide what things put a child's physical/mental/emotional health at risk? Does a swat on the butt scar a child for life? Some people are convinced it does; others are equally certain it doesn't. Does the artistic depiction of violence cause emotional damage to a child? Some, looking at gore-filled violence done to images of humans, are sure it does; others point out that if this were true for all such depictions, anyone who saw Wile E. Coyote repeatedly falling off a cliff when chasing the Roadrunner would be a basket case. Do violent games "desensitize" children to violence, leading them to shoot schoolmates? Or do violent games provide a useful outlet for aggression so that it's reduced in real life?

If we have so much trouble answering these questions, how can we justify using "child safety" as a reason to censor video games, whether voluntarily in the U.S. or by law elsewhere? At the same time, isn't trying to protect children from inappropriate material a responsible act?

But what's "inappropriate?" Do we need scientific, peer-reviewed proof that some game element produces measurable damage of some kind to kids before we may fairly condemn it? Or should we be free to act on the suspicion of potential damage because the cost of being wrong is so high?

Which brings us back to the question of who gets to decide. Whose responsibility is it -- whose responsibility should it be -- to determine what games children should not be allowed to see? Parents? ISPs? Teachers? Game publishers? Government ministers or unelected bureaucrats? Retailers?

Voluntary Game Labeling vs. Government Control 1

The possible release of the long-delayed Duke Nukem Forever has some folks wondering if it's possible in today's cultural climate to sell a game with all the sexism and violence of the original Duke Nukem games. This has led to questions about content control -- who should be in charge of deciding what games should be made, or sold, or played?

In the U.S., game publishers voluntarily agree to have their games labeled for content by a private advisory board, and some retailers (like Wal-Mart) voluntarily choose to restrict to adults the sale of some games rated as containing highly mature content. Control of content is distributed; publishers, retailers, and consumers all have some say in what's available. No one is completely satisfied, but the system seems to work for the majority of games.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the U.K. government is reviewing plans to label game content itself, and to use this rating system to make the sale of games it considers inappropriate to anyone under the age of 18 a criminal offense. (The British government is also said to be talking with ISPs about imposing standardized filters on web content.)

Hmmm.

This isn't intended to be some silly "U.S. vs. U.K." (or " U.S. vs. anyone") troll-bait. The point is to contrast voluntary labeling versus government labeling and criminalization of game content, because there's a serious difference of approach to be considered here.

Who do you want deciding what kind of games you can buy?