Variety, Social Aspects More Important To Game Success Than Graphics, Plot

proslack writes "In a study presented at the Human-Computer Interaction conference in Cambridge, England, British researchers Beale and Bond found that plot and graphics are not critical to the success of video games; price and the inclusion of social aspects (e.g. multiplayer or chat) were found to be more important." An unfinished version of the paper (PDF) is available from the researchers' web site. They said, "One of the most unexpected findings was that gameplay was not featured as one of the most important categories to fulfill," though they acknowledge that variety and cohesion were measured separately from gameplay, which past studies have not done.

Back in the 1980's....

[mikael]

One of the first multiplayer games we played was 'grid' [imageshack.us] by Peter S. Langston - it came with a USENIX archive tape. The game itself was an ASCII rendering of 'grid war' in first person perspective, but it supported inter-player communication. Other mainframe multi-user-dungeon games [wikipedia.org] were also popular as they also had the multi-player capability.

Re:Plot... I will miss you

[tetsukaze]

I agree that there have always been games that do focus on game play and leave out plot. I also agree that there are some very good games out there that do have amazing stories and writing. What I am seeing is a general trend away from those things. The best games will have everything, but the way I see it, games like Mass Effect and Bioshock are a dying breed. I loved the plots and characters in those games but I feel if the stories had been so so, they still would have been successful. I can't predict the future, but I think these games are on the way out.

Re:Nahh

[geminidomino]

Game Master driven CRPGS. I know they have them already, but I'd want to do one well. Theoretically, you can get a better experience through a computer than Pencil and Paper. And with computer you can play with people who all aren't in the same physical location. This dream isn't big enough to pursue however. I have so many things on my plate that I want to do.

You don't have to do it.

http://www.rpgobjects.com/index.php?c=orpg [rpgobjects.com]

Re:idle gossip

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to extrapolate from those findings to an individual's need to socially interact.

It's also easy to bludgeon people over the back of the head, drag them back to your house, and then eat them alive, but that doesn't mean you should do so. See also this [xkcd.com].

Re:Plot... I will miss you

[Anonymous Coward]

The best game I've ever played is Planescape: Torment. You'd REALLY hate it! All you ever do is click the ground to move around and sometimes on some items. And there's text. Sooo much text and hardly any speech, beside that one dead dude saying "updated my journal lol" every once in a while. You can't talk to other people, you can't ever laugh at them for caring about the plot.

Really, stay away from that one.