Games and the 'Geek Stereotype' 454
ChinoH81 writes "Video games are never going to be as popular as films or music unless the people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."
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Games and the 'Geek Stereotype'
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There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.
Duped? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
But, whatever.
videogames wont be popular.. (Score:3, Insightful)
like, no shit sherlock?
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ehm.. but
Movie Cost (Score:4, Insightful)
I went to see Tomb Raider this week with my girlfriend, including soda and popcorn that came out to be about 35 pounds. The price is about the same, but the movie only lasted 2 hours. A good game can last for months.
They've got it backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the same situation in the board game industry. Everyone's played monopoly (which is a lousy game), but who here has even heard of Puerto Rico or Settlers of Catan which are two of the best games on the market now.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
And in other news.... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why older games are still popular, with less graphics and sound to work with, the hook had to be the game itself. You had to play it because you wanted to play it, not because it looked pretty.
That's just a load of... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What the?! (Score:5, Insightful)
fun games (Score:2, Insightful)
I may be biased here, but as I see it, the really fun games are still coming from the same guy they have been for the last 20 years: Shigeru Miyamoto.
If you want fun games, games that aren't trying to be movies, pick up a Gamecube. Grab copies of Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker, and Metroid Prime. Then you have the right to complain to me that are trying to be beautiful and dramatic instead of fun.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
That, plus the fact that most folks go see a movie just once, whereas some games... well... you're the counting freak...
A call to developers (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, even retarded Ahnold movies, like Terminator and The 6th Day, bring up relevent settings and illuminate moral questions? Only a handful of the finest games, like Romance of the 3 Kingdoms and Civ explore the awy the world works (worked) outside my limitied experience. Well, I guess Black and White was worth something; a failed game, but it brought that morality and consequences to the table, showing the strengths and weaknesses of each...
Maybe if Warcraft had actually let me choose if the Palladin went bad, and made me struggle with the choice.
The only place in gaming I've seen this sort of development is in the small brand traditional (pen& paper) RPG companies. But they have their own geek-factor by nature of the format.
Re:Perhaps fun == easy and non-threatening? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any challenge becomes a frustration if you can't overcome it. And whether you do so depends on your basic proficiency, how immersed you are in the game world, whether you have a stick-to-it personality, etc. etc. For the hard core gamer, a game wouldn't be a game without some beat-your-head-against-the-wall apparent cul-de-sacs and that elation you feel when you finally bust through that.
Popularity (Score:4, Insightful)
people who make them concentrate on making them fun, says a leading game expert."
Never going to be as popular?
Funny that the Games Industry makes WAY more money than the Hollywood.
Re:no offense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Games of today (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently had the chance to play "Roadblasters" at an airport arcade, which was one of my favorite games as a wee lad. Here's the thing: It was Lame. Just totally unredeemable.
Re:Games of today (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know if 1942 and Battlefield 1942 are actually related branding wise, but BF1942 has definately carried on the 1942 tradition of simple, fast paced games for me. It's simple enough that my roommate was able to start playing right away and still have lots to explore play wise (he's learning to dive bomb and strafe now).
there is some truth to this... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony helped the market considerably, by openeing up the market of games to non-geeks. a lot of games out there are starting to appeal to those geeks girlfriends now. we've still got a way to go, but companies like nintendo are holding on for dear life to their old ways, to the old types of games.
as good as they were in their day, the world has moved on. Microsoft (sadly) have given the world more proof that Sony was right. They are helpingto extend the market.
But Ms Xbox here is right. The developers need to develop the games. But maybe they're too afraid of taking too big a risk. If they make a game about creating your own garden, how many sales will they make?
Money makes the world go round. and unfortunately for some potential gamers, their perceptions of fun may not be financially viable.
Saturation? (Score:2, Insightful)
Heck, I used to have basic TV with just 5 channels, I was doing fine. Now that I have over 100 channels, I can't find anything good to watch!! How weird is that.
Hard to meet (Score:2, Insightful)
Being a long time, hard core gamer the games I find easy are challenging or even frustrating to the majority of other game players. I feel as though I have wasted time and money if a game fails to challange me and forces me to make a concentrated effort to improve my play. Obviously this isn't what the masses are looking for. But in the long run I, and gamers like me, will buy more games. It seems that game developers know this and many new games are very difficult, and demand that the player accept a certain amounts of initial frustration in order to improve to the point of being able to beat the game. The old practice of starting a game off easy and ramping up the difficulty as it progressed often merely resulted in a bland experience. Much of the time spent playing was far too easy and eventually the player would hit a wall they couldn't pass because the game never had forced them to adapt and learn the game in order to pass difficult challanges.
I guess in short, everyone has different ability, and unique levels of patience when it comes to games. It's nearly impossible to make a game that can present challenged to gamers over the entire spectrum of tolerance. This is compounded by the spectrum being polarized between the hardcore gamers with a large skill base and drive to beat each game, and the intro level gamers trying to break into a market mostly aimed at the hardcore. As time goes on, more people will have grown up with video games and begin to flesh out the middle of that spectrum.
Silly, pointless article (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless it's already happened [usnews.com]?
The article also claims we need to fix perceptions the games are only for guys. Perhaps things could be improved, but we're doing pretty well, thanks [yahoo.com]. (The linked article scatters the good numbers all over, so here you go:)
Given the that the majority of game players are adults, claims like "She urged game makers to come up with titles that would appeal to a hardcore 15-year-old gamer as well as someone older who just wants to have fun," are just silly.
The quoted developer says "People don't focus on gameplay. Instead they make a beautiful game that is no fun." True to an extent, but the die-hard players are usually the most ruthless in demanding fun. A bad but beautiful game will get blacklisted by the dedicated gamers while truly innovative games can build up a cult following even without marketting.
The industry has problems, but it's improving all by itself. This is a silly article worrying over nothing.
Re:They've got it backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
Gosh (Score:5, Insightful)
This observation is, of course, like unto a thing made entirely of poo. I find it particularly offensive coming from the Redmond crowd, whom I've had some dealings with. I am no longer inclined to take advice from a bunch of middle-aged cardigan-wearing preppy types who know everything about project management and zip about gameplay, other than what's been fed them by their Usability department focus-testers.
MS Usability have a lot of influence over people who are commissioning. They have their act honed and appear to be doing their best to reduce gameplay to a science - to quantify fun. I've been through some of their reports and it's not easy reading. It sums up their attitude to games: clinical, rationalized, objectified, sanitized, blah. They think too hard about it.
What a difference it is talking to Nintendo. Right from the off they tell you gameplay is king. Everything comes back to the control system. They pound this into you again and again, but it's good. Because they have not made this a science; they treat games design as an artform and know how subjective a thing it is. They understand fun. They know their stuff.
Re:no offense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
heh, yes, that has to be one of the worst bbc taglines i've seen.
to make this somewhat on topic, i'd actually say that i have to disagree with the article. i think if you concentrate and try to push it out to a demographic thats not familiar with gaming, they'll just resist it more than they normally would.
if you push present products onto an unsuspecting populace, then yes, they will, as they should. but what about if you start fixing games, so they actually appeal to more than the standard asocial obsessive-compulsive type?
video games are often broken. for example, time investment. games often require sinking several continuous hours at a time, and not many people can afford that (students excluded
another example are broken reward/punishment schedules: negative conditioning cycles are commonly hidden in mundane game elements, such as in having to reload a level until you get it right. pavlov would be proud.
and then there's juvenile storytelling, which is a huge turn-off. most people don't bother with pulp fantasy because it's puerile; why should they bother with even worse RPGs?
there are, of course, more problems than that, and they are complex, and without easy fixes. and maybe they will get addressed eventually, if hardcore gamers only stopped touting them as features...
Re:Game play (Score:2, Insightful)
I can guarantee that I don't play MoM for the outstanding graphics. My fiance is still convinced that dragonturtles are actually sheep, and gryffins are
Re:What the?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Games hurt by 'geek stereotype'? Pttthhhhbt!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Pointless Pontification by "Expert" (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm always faintly amused when an "expert" takes the time out his/her busy schedule to tell us something so obvious and/or useless.
In the practical matters, video games are already on a par with television and Hollywood. Major game releases can expect to have revenues which approach those of major feature films. In their target demographic (teenage and older males) they are already occupying a greater portion of their conciousness than other media. To argue that they aren't going to be as popular as films is pointless: they already are.
But what really seems silly to me is the following quote:
To this I would merely counter with a question: "What movie have you seen recently that changed your life?" C'mon, let's get real. Even if movies do have that power, most of them fall way short of that standard, and yet they remain popular and engaging. Frankly, I don't need movies to tell me how to feel, or to teach me about myself: I have a real life with real family and real experiences to teach me that.But what I do not have is the ability to pilot a light-speed fighter against impossible odds!
It's not exactly earth-shattering to claim that games should be better. They should be. It doesn't take an expert to observe that video gaming still remains a male-dominated activity. But the simple fact is that video games and movies have made a pretty good living out of catering to their audience, and it seems strange to argue that some revolution needs to occur before it will really take off.
Re:Article is wrong about sales figures (Score:1, Insightful)
Challenging? Bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
They should seem challenging, without actually having to be challenging.
A drooling moron with no motor skills should be able to beat a game. But whenever anybody beats it, it should feel to them like it took skill, like they accomplished something.
You need to create the illusion that the game is challenging, but without denying the rewarding experience of overcoming the challenge to any of your players.
If a game is too hard for me, I'll get frustrated with it and won't play it. If a game seems too easy for me, I'll get bored with it and won't play it. But if I beat every challenge and don't realize that there's almost no way to lose, I'll have fun.
This is my opinion regarding computer games, D&D, card games, pretty much any game. Everyone should be able to have fun playing. Everyone should have the illusion that they just barely had enough skill to win.
(I think Warcraft 3 probably nails this perfectly. It felt to me like I only overcame it through skill. But personally, I totally suck at RTS games -- I mostly just have fun pushing the buttons and watching the little blinkenlights. However, all sorts of people who are more skilled than me at RTS games also enjoyed it. I conclude that they must have gotten the illusion down right.)
Re:Article is wrong about sales figures (Score:1, Insightful)
This article is dumb... (Score:3, Insightful)
What does this mean, games are no fun? Gee, then I must be having a miserable time and not even knowing it. If a person can't find a game that's fun, I dare say there's something wrong with them and not the gaming industry. First of all, they're probably not looking very hard for a game they would like. Second, they have some stereotype about what games are, leading them to just write them all off as something they're not into.
Of course, there is a large demographic of people who are simply never going to get into a video game. But I would dare say these are the same technophobes that are frightened of computers in general. The people for whom checking email is a chore they can't deal with on a regular basis. And these people are by and large, older people who aren't going to be in the picture in thirty years. The younger generation is overwhelmingly into technology and computer games.
And I've even seen exceptions to these situations. My mother never got into Street Fighter or Doom but played quite a bit of Mario, Tetris and Final Fantasy. These games are not too complex. I would even say a strategy game like WarCraft is not any more complicated than learning how to crochet. My GF who totally hates most modern games loves playing older videogames like Frogger and Galaxian via MAME. And if someone's a total stick in the mud why not boot up a video game version of Scrabble or Chess on the computer? Does anybody here hate Chess?!? It's just a difference of what people choose to spend their time figuring something out. And nobody would be trying to learn how to play more complex games if it weren't fun. Maybe that's part of the fun!
The game that I think has had the most mainstream appeal in the past few years is definitely the Sims. There were women at work who played this game, and would talk about their Sims as if they were family members. It is true that the most mainstream games to cross all demographic boundaries have been the more simple, straightforward, maximum "fun" games. Like Myst, PacMan, Tetris, Mario, Sims. These games are harder to come by and probably only come about every few years or so. But their abscene right now at this moment in time does not mean all other games are no fun, nor does it mean there won't be another mainstream game right around the corner.
All this Will Change ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Compare the latest Tomb Raider Game (Angel Of Darkness) to the original Playstation game for example. Wow!! its got nifty particle effects going on and lara now has Breast Inertia. The game itself however is nothing new, it breaks no new boundaries (other than technical ones) and the gameplay is the same (except they screwed up the control system and missed out all the cool things lara could do like light flares and drive vehicles)
But all this aside I beleive this must change. There will come a time when our console hardware reaches such unprecidented levels of realism it can go no further. There is only one thing left to improve when this happens and that is to think harder about the actual game itself.
There are plenty of people out there with fantastic ideas for game's but maybe dont have the skills or manpower to make it happen. I myself am forever dreaming up cool ideas, as I am sure are many other
Talking of which
Re:no offense.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am looking forward to the day when I wont have to pick up a phone ever again.
So you prefer short-hand glyphs to actually talking to someone where you can hear the tonal inflections? I gotta say, I think that's strange. There are so many flame wars started just because people mistake the intent behind text messages.
Re:Gosh (Score:4, Insightful)
So true (Score:4, Insightful)
Then came Jutland, a WW1 navy simulation. It was much more intense and beautiful. It had streaming video cut scenes, awesome graphics (for the time) and complex game play. But was it fun? Well, unless you knew the cheat code to show the proper the angle of your guns it was a lesson in frustration. Great looking game that was almost impossible to win.
Next was Aegis: Guardian of the Fleet. This was a serious game. It simulated an entire Aegis class battle cruiser in modern day warfare. It tended to be long and boring. Again, lots of detail and great graphics, but terrible game play. Not fun.
Fast Attack was another beautiful looking game with tons of detail and gameplay that closely followed the targeting and tracking routines of a real Fast Attack submaringe. But was it fun? Well, maybe if you're a navy simulatin buff. But I got the game for free and could play test it while I worked tech support and I wouldn't even finish it. Boring and impossibly complex to play.
Then came Conqueror 1086 (which we use to refer to as Conqueror 1286, Conqueror 1386, Conqueror Pentium!) The graphics were still good, but they put much more work into the gameplay and story line. And guess what? It was fun to play. I wish we wrote better code to control the game speed. It's impossible to play on today's fast computers. The screens scroll by so fast that you can't controll it. Too bad, it's a great game.
Now we have games like Uplink that have almost no graphics to speak of and yet are really fun to play. Do you see a trend here? The 3D graphics and surround sound do not make a game fun. The STORY makes a game fun, the GAMEPLAY makes a game fun. You'd think this wouldn't be news by now, but people are still surprised to learn that lesson.
Re:They've got it backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
The dice have too much influence in the game, you have no control at all over where you land, but where you land is all-important. As if that wasn't random enough, they throw in cards just to increase the random element.
Ultimately, whoever has the best luck completing monopolies right at the beginning will win even though it can take hours for them to finally win. I guess this is where you're saying the beginning is tedious because all you do is buy everything in sight; there's no thinking, and the end is tedious because all you do is throw the dice over and over until pure random chance picks the winner; once everyone has their properies and hotels there are no decisions to be made.
The other killer is it's an elimination type game. What are the first people eliminated supposed to do for the next couple of hours while the game continues?
I think the main reason Americans don't like board games is Monopoly is the main introduction to the genre. It would be much better to start people off with something like Acquire. It's at about the same level of difficulty and strategic complexity as Monopoly, but it doesn't have a lot of the problems I've just mentioned.
The random elements in Settlers are the starting locations of the tiles which is essential because you don't want to play the same game every time and the production rolls. The production rolls follow a probability distribtion; you know how often in the long run each region will produce and you can hold a hand of resources, so it's not much of a random element. If you want it to be less random, a lot of people play it with a deck of dice instead.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]