f13.net

A couple of things that I did a while ago just showed up for everyone to look at.

One is an interview with Next Gen from E3, touching on ways in which the Theory of Fun can be applied towards opening up new audiences for games.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=358&Itemid=2

The other is the IBM MMOG webcast conference, where I mostly talked about what I am calling "Moore's Wall"--the ways in which the advance of technology is preventing us from making better games.

Free registration: http://www-931.ibm.com/bin/event/reg.cgi?event_id=13&rep=0

Link to watch: http://www.westcast-systems.com/ibm/event/

IBM thing has also been Slashdotted:

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/06/1652245&tid=209

And HRose/Abalieno (pick a name!) has mirrored it so you can avoid the whole reg-and-streaming thing (but then you miss the slides).

Never miss the slides.

Will check it out when I get back Raph. I'm curious about your Moore's Wall, although, we've been discussing things like that for a while.  Nice name btw, well done.

What are the slides?

Oh, maybe I'll try to pack those too later. The bigger problem is that they aren't in order...

Anyway, I do not understand this one:

(http://www.streamnavig.com/ibm/event/domain94/2005/5/6410.jpg)

When has a "genre" actually seen a decline? Is this from the innovation point of view? Even if it is, I still fail to see this as a rule. It's a trend (and it's the same thing Richard Bartle wrote back then (http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041103/bartle_pfv.htm)) but nothing prevents developers to move in a different direction.

That's just a deliberate choice.

Well, I tried to upload it. My hosting is apparently quite lame, though. Not having a dedicated webserver for no good reason anymore sucks.

It's actually a decline in sales.

Speaking of a decline in sales, I don't mean to pry, but when are you starting your own company? I don't like seeing SOE slapped all over your graph. Particularly when the graph should have said "What Happened to Everquest 2" with the EQ1 Logo on the left end and the EQ2 logo on the right.

Raph, I respect you but not the leash that's holding you back.

If I were to try and boil the speach down, I would say that it is primarilly one of gameplay vs experience competing for space within the arena of technology.  When you describe "software as a gas", for example, that fills up the computing space available, I don't see why this is surprising (if you intended it to be described as such).  A bigger box means more room to do "stuff", but it still leaves a finite arena of stuff that you can push out.  It still leaves in conflict how much of the resources available you push toward gameplay or content.

Of course, there are a couple of other arenas you hit on, with the primary one being cost.  This isn't just a matter of technology, since some types of gameplay vs experience don't change radically with technology but are gagued more in terms of labor.  Drawing 3D objects is very labor intensive, and while technology can help, it is still primarilly a labor issue.  Gameplay here as well; while better tools and algorithms can make the problems somewhat easier, adding more gameplay still requires devs to map out the problems/solutions, create them, test them, etc.  Independant of what the technology is, labor is still required for the effort.

At present, your argument (and complaint?) is that the majority of technology and budget effort is spent on experience.  With the increase in the number of artists, and the devotion of client PCs towards support of art (graphics cards, etc), the game itself becomes experience over gameplay.  Looking at history as you have, you point out that gameplay has not evolved nearly so much as the art has; case in point, Wolfenstein vs Farcry.

However, I think you may have missed in your own argument a partial answer to the riddle.  It isn't in every case that experience wins out.  Reference your development curve, which goes from introduction, growth, maturity, etc and on into niche.  What you are talking about when you talk about niche is, in fact, victory of gameplay over experience.  The gameplay aspect of the game has evolved so far beyond most games that they take considerable amounts of time to learn.  While graphics may be attractive, they are not the key selling point; people who would be interested in such a complicated work are interested in it because it is complicated.  Or rather, because it is better representative of the gameplay they want.  Graphics are secondary, and need only to not detract from gameplay.

But of course, when you're chasing money (and you should be), niche isn't always the best option.  The niche market is a specialists market, and while money is to be made there (in many industries, specialty stores are seeing growth), there is still plenty to be said for a more garden variety game that hits higher sales figures.  If you are trying to attract a broader customer base, then the gameplay aspect of it can't be so complex that it is unintuitive - that voids your goal.  By reducing the gameplay side of the house then, it is natural to increase the experience side.  If you fail to do so, your compeditor surely will, and will bludgeon you to death in the checkout isle.

When taking this into MMOGs, you have to decide what kind of product you intend to make, and what your audiance is.  Games like UO are surviving because of their gameplay aspects, not their experience.  Forget cutscenes, and voiceover acting.  It tries to pretend it has graphics (UO:3D!), but it doesn't.  What it does have is a fairly involved and expansive gameplay experience, although here it is a more horizontal gameplay than vertical (as with ultra-specialized flight sims). 

A very serious problem that MMOGs are running head-first into, is how to get enough experience into an environment that lasts "400 hours" (or far more, in some cases) of experience.  To be frank, how in the hell can game houses create 400 hours of content and turn profit?  I think that's partly your question as well. 

Going back to standalones, part of the reason for being 8-12 hours for a console game is self-fullfilling; with the game being so heavy on experience and light on gameplay, users wind up tired of playing after too long.  The experience wears off.  It's the same reason that there aren't many 3 hour movies, and even utterly fantastic ones such as LotR have difficulty breaking it.  There aren't many TV series that have 400 hours of footage, even if you included commercials.  Customers will get tired of a game if the primary selling point of that game is experience over gameplay.

Not that experience is bad.  My favorite console game to day is Resident Evil 4.  There isn't much innovative about gameplay here, but the experience is outlandish (5.1 surround, lights off, at night... it's kept me up a couple nights now, and I love it).  Contrast with Civilization 3, which is just as extremely focused on gameplay (integration of game elements, advancement in multiple arenas, etc).  I have spent far, far more hours on the second.  Both are great games, but they knew where their focus was, and they hit the nail dead on.

I think that MMOGs as an industry are still not certain where their focus needs to be, either on an individual title scale or on the market scale.  On the one end they are pushing hard on the experience side with expansive storylines, up to date graphics, etc.  On the other, they are demanding hundreds of hours of commitment.  By their nature, MMOGs demand that their focus be on gameplay; MMOGs which devote too much on experience are going to suffer badly for that decision unless they can maintan ongoing, new experience.

On the experience front, I think things such as user created content can help, but that has virtually shut down since UO ceased the Seer program.  I find this extremely unfortunate and cry about it to devs every chance I get, because it is one of the few demonstrable ways to get experience to the customer.  And we're talking about a concept that's ten years old; certainly better tools, procedures, philosophical approaches and simply past experience, when devoted to the problem, can suggest better solutions. 

Pirates of the Burning Sea is tackling this problem in a slightly different way, with player submitted art, although here it is in a very narrow focus.  Matrix Online is trying to hit it from a mixed angle, with scripted missions but tallied based on user actions that have some feecack to players (with status of such going into the deep unknown, with SOE buying it... Raph?). 

I think there is a need for MMOGs to get back on the path of gameplay, because I think this is what this genre demands.  It shouldn't just be a novelty; if you expect people to spend hundreds of hours with your product, it had better be interesting enough in the long term to keep them there.  Experience doesn't cut it, because experience can be grok'd within hours.  If you can find a good solution to keeping new solutions comming at the players on a weekly or at least bi-weekly basis, maybe you can crack the nut.  If not, expect growth to slow or turn downward.

Some people are in awe of WoW's success, but I'm not.  They haven't focused too much on experience.  The game is pretty, but what they've done is pick an art style, and invest a fair bit into experience.  I think a decade from now, WoW will still be appealing to the market in the same way that the old SNES Zelda game was brought back in artform with Four Swords.  It's not neccessarily the most cutting edge graphics, but they are still good graphics, and of a form that will be accepted.  It's an interesting experience, but that doesn't have to be everything there is to see.  Not just a pretty lady, in other words.

For longevity sake, it has to be that way.  People are still nostalgic for UO's 2d isometirc client, even though it was outdated the day it was released.  It just works, both as an artform and as a gameplay tool (limiting scope of vision, etc).  Even though I'm a sucker for realistic graphics (RE4, etc), I wouldn't hesitate to pickup a game with an isometric view, long as it had good gameplay. 

I think that when taking this all in, it is why I refute that the notion of an Uncanny Valley exists.  It isn't that something close to realistic is "creepy-realistic".  I've yet to see a game hit it, although I have seen bad art.  People are cheerful to point out how the Final Fantasy movie bombed, in part due to its art, and set it as an example of UV in action.  They decline to acknowledge that The Matrix, along with many other movies, have in places entire actors built totally within CGI - and no one notices.  Nor do they discuss why FF is still so successful, despite the cutscenes in the game (and to a lesser extent, the normal engine) being on par with FF the movie.  Bad art means a bad experience, and it has nothing to do with the artform. 

A good experience means the art, story, and other elements come together.  They must fit together well, and must gel with the gameplay.  When it does, you get a great game; when it doesn't, it's painfully obvious that items are just strung together.  If you make a MMOG with focus on experience, but have trouble keeping that 400 hour level of content, then it's not going to gel.  You will get good day 1 sales, and watch as the numbers slip afterward.  If you can maintain that level of experience, whether it's through user created content or whatever else, then you might win.  Or you can change your focus, and go after gameplay, by making something so terribly fascinating you just can't put it down.  Either way, you have to identify your audiance, and the methods you wish to use to get to them.  Everything has to work in concert, or like an orchestra, the customers will pick out the bad notes. 

This is a very different viewpoint from technology curtailing creativity.  There is more than enough creativity required in any game, regardless of how you focus your energy, but just as artists are unlikely to have much interest in a cel-shaded game, game devs aren't likely to be much interested in content-driven games.  But as a creative coordinater, as a game architect, as the driving force, it has to combine both sides, even if it's lite on one.  Low gameplay does not make for a bad game; bad gameplay can, however, just as bad art can destroy an otherwise good game. 

Where is the mirror?

I don't want to say much without listening first.

If genres didn't experience a decline we'd have a happy Boog somewhere because Adventure games would still be out on the shelves each quarter.  We'd also have a lot more TBS games out there.  Even FPS games are starting to experience a decline as they morph into multiplayer rulesets instead of the single player experiences they started out as.

Side scrolling shooters

Breakout clones

RTS

Pac-Man clones

Adventure games (Zork to Mainiac Mansion to Monkey Island)

Beat'em ups

Things that are not fucking console ports with pissy small levels.

Maybe that last one doesn't really count.

Gold.

Space Invaders/Galaga clones around the same time.

Text adventures  are veeery niche, but kept alive under the "interactive fiction" moniker.

Tetris and derivatives (Puyo Pop etc.) clones.

TBS (especially of the old SSI and Lothlorien "boardgame on a computer" kind).

Man, I feel old.

I spose if IBM or HRose complains I can remove it. Until then...

http://www.f13.net/staff/shockeye/ibmevent.asf


[EDIT] I forgot to mention it's ~180mb.

I'd argue that the TBS/wargame genre was *always* niche. Wargaming as a whole (boardgaming included) is a small community. It embraced computer assistance early, and was a disproportionally large part of the nascent games market as a result. (I'd guess that's because simulationist titles such as ASL are actually playable on a computer.) The wild success of Civilization is an aberration in the history of TBS.

Really? That's what I was suspecting. And I call bullshit on it. Completely.

That trend is EVEN MORE a deliberate choice of the development. If a mmorpg sees a decline it's because it was planned with THAT aim.

If you build a world as "disposable" you cannot then whine because it is going toward a decline. The premises that have been chosen are the cause of what happens after. But this is again a choice and NOT an unavoidable destiny or a "rule". It's just the evidence of what is happening but the point should be about considering *why* it's happening instead of transforming the evidence in a pointless rule.

I wrote endlessly about this so I'm not going to fill another page. Instead I'll paste a comment of someone other on Corpnews:

Yes, but it doesn't have to be.  What existed was a fairly niche genre; what Civilization did was to dumb it back down to a level where most people could find it enjoyable, by removing or allowing automation of many of the gameplay elements.  It's similar in some respect to throwing auto-target into a FPS, or putting an advanced autopilot into a cockpit sim.  That series did one better though, because it allowed for reasonably fine granularity of control over the level of automation; in short, turning automation itself into an expansive gameplay element.  

There is a difference between saying the market has moved a genre toward niche, and saying the genre has moved toward niche.  The two are independant, and just because the market in a genre has moved into a fairly niche arena doesn't mean that it can be undone and brought back to a broad level.  What it does mean is a critical re-examination of the genre, and what elements are really important to make a game successful.  Someone said that side scrolling shooters are dead - no they're not, they just moved into 3D space over 2D (if you argue that point, you're defining genre extremely narrowly).  Fighting games aren't dead; Mortal Kombat: Deception is doing very well, and Super Smash Bros. Melee is still listed as a good game buy.  

Saying a genre has gone niche is like arguing that Drama is done for.  No it isn't, it's just that not many people are interested in or developing good content for that genre.  There's nothing about the market itself that prohibits it, except your own creativity.  The real reason that there are no good games in genre X is that people see a trend and decide they need to follow it; as a result, focus isn't put on genre X, so nothing gets put out for it.  One of the keys to Blizzard's success was to make games that were very mainstream in genres that were considered niche.  Blizzard comes along, nails WoW as mainstream, and has more subs than about everyone else in the US combined.  If you aim for a niche market, you will be niche.  

Last example.  People have been saying for some time that MMOGs were niche, and that the genre was relatively dead.  This followed the massive explosion of development in the genre, and subsequent failure of many games (both released, and ones that never made it).  Blizzard comes along and slams

Uh, I could have sworn the slide/graph represented a decline in sales over the lifespan of a genre, not a specific game.  Why are you rehashing your "games have to be designed for longevity by being worlds first because you can't marry the two and I have this idea that I have posted elsewhere eleventybillion times, why don't you people listen" schtick?

The thing is titled, "Stages of the game genre lifecycle."  Where do you get the game design part from that? 

Civilization falls into the "4x" subcategory of strategy games which was started by games like Reach for the Stars. I don't considered Civ a "dumbed down" TBS since the space-version precursors like RftS were never all that complicated to play. Developers still make 4x-style games today (e.g. the long-running HoMM series, Galactic Civilizations and the upcoming Civilization IV) but the rise of RTS games led to the decline of TBS games including the 4x genre.

Where is the evidence that the sales of a genre are in a decline?

Is this about the "fantasy" genre? Because it's obvious it is not declining.
Is this about game genre like "mmorpg", "FPS" etc..? Because it's obvious they aren't declining. (maybe transforming and mixing)

Hrose, please just start posting 500-word diatribes with nothing but the word "VIKLAS!" repeated over and over in them, because really, that's about as much sense as you are making.

In other news, the sun rose in the east today.

It is about game genres like RTS, FPS, and so on. And yes, there is empirical evidence that they nichify and decline in terms of market share (not necessarily net sales).

I agree, although one can make the argument that genres simply evolve into other genres.

For example 2D fighters don't sell nearly as well as they used to, but now we have 3D fighters, which are sort of a logical extension of that. We don't have Pole Position anymore, but Gran Tourismo is still doing fine. Zelda is still going strong, although in 3d form - but then you have the GBA Zeldas and 4 swords, which aren't really too different than the NES.

A lot of the genres that have died out were simply tied to tech to that gold. Text adventures, non-scrolling Pacman style games, etc. But even those games get new life as flash games, "Midway Classics", etc. One question I would have is how do you define a genre across changing technology? Is Mario 64 the same genre as Mario 3?

I would say TBS games are still doing well, but on the consoles.  The success of Disgaea lead its developer to expand its operations to North America just so it could localize the other games of its type.  The popularity of Final Fantasy Tactics has basically changed how that subgenre of TBS games are even named in many cases.

The whole concept of genre's is simply attempt to easily classify things that we're all prone to do.  Whether or not the graph is accurate is highly dependent of what you actually consider a genre at all.  So, yes, 2d side scrollers may have gone out of vogue to do the advances in 3d graphics cards but if you change the genre name to "level based action games" suddenly there still tons of them, just most of the current ones are 3d.  For example, the original Prince of Persia and PoP the Sands of time.   Are they the same genre or not?

So I agree with your question; does the technology define the genre?

Xilren

These discussions are good and interesting, but I can't help feeling that it's futile.

How do you quantify and document a formula for creating great art? Great, fun games seem to result from some random serendipity and from visionary decisions. The actual implementation of the project is key. How much fun has been squandered due to poorly managed projects, slashed feature sets, and rushed releases?

Sadly, this effort to quantify "what is fun?" may actually be counterproductive. You end up with a derivative hodge-podge that tries to imitate natural, "organic" fun.

In summary, games turn out like just about any other product. Great ones are born of random chance, great decisions by visionary people, and by excellent implementation. This obviously does not capture well as a repeatable methodology.

I don't think it's so much about that.  Good art is a critique up to the artists themselves, but what can be decided upon is to what extent the development should depend upon its art, and how it should fit into the business plan.  Is your goal cel shading or hyper-realism?  Cartoony?  What about 'classic', as with Four Swords?  To what extent should items be reused?  How do all of these decisions relate to your attempts at storytelling (lots of story, little story, type of story, etc), character interraction, usability (twitch-based WWII sims with realistic cammoflage enemies and me as a one man army, for the stupid), etc?

Many good examples already, but GODDAMNED TBS. And exacerbated by GODDAMND RTS.

Yes, I'm talking about Brian Reynolds again. Bastage.

Deliberation > spastic clicking.

To nitpick, most people would consider games like Disgea SRPG games, which are different from TBS gams. Games like Disgea are more tactics; when people say TBS they usually mean something like Civ or Heroes of M & M.

AMEN.

I hate the fact that games have to fit into a genre in order to get made (most of the time). I pine for the days when a single developer (or small team) could bang out a fun, interesting, wholly original game instead of having to spend valuable time and resources sucking off the folks with the dough and assuring them that "this is like (insert best selling title here), but better!"

Maybe the 8 bit days weren't so bad?

So, basically, whoever made this slide just took the product life chart out of the Marketing 101 class I took last year as an elective...and put some new labels on it.

(http://www.netmba.com/images/strategy/matrix/bcg/growthshare.gif)

This one is pretty marketing 101 also, but it applies, I guess.

I'd like to wonder this myself. If and when such a time comes, will you also be hiring know-nothing know it alls who like to think they have "experience", but really don't know shit and would be lost in the process of ACTUALLY creating a game?

I work for beer and pizza. However, no pepperoni. That'll be in my contract. That shit's just nasty.

I believe the mobile gaming industry has the best shot at being an arena for single-developer original games, as soon as they stop making copycat games.

The advantages to not falling into a genre is that you don't get clones. Case in point: The uncategorizable The Sims franchise. An example of a newly created genre is GTA III's "free-roaming 3PS", which led to a shitton of copycats. EA has the Sims market cornered, while the GTA franchise in theory competes with the likes of Driv3r, The Getaway or even Simpsons: Hit and Run.

Form factor matters.

I tend to think mobile is screwed already as a market. The only games that do well are major brands. The "shelf space" consists of a few words sorted by popularity--all you get to sell your game to the user is the game's name. The small players get nowhere. The carriers have a strangehold and refuse to carry titles they don't think will make it to the top.

You'd think that electronic distribution would mean long tail effects, but instead, mobile's limited display capability is causing a worse shelving issue than bricks and mortar retail have. :(

The best way to market/sell mobile games, especially through mobile phones, is by getting in good with the service provider, not trying to squeeze into the already squeezed retail market. If you aren't Sony or Nintendo and are trying to sell a mobile game on the retail shelves, your business plan is fucked and fundamentally retarded.

Of course, this also means the carriers need to be shown the stickiness factor that games can bring, as well as those sweet, sweet access/download fees.

Still beside the point.  Targeting minigames to the commuter crowd is still a finite market with little brand loyalty and huge barriers to entry.  Ringtones make more immensely more sense then games development.

By the time one gets to a decent form factor as game platform you're targeting a different demographic.

Ringtones is a huge market. I disagree that games are a finite market.

How many people do not currently have cellphones, for which having a mobile game might be an extra incentive to get one (or to pick a particular mobile operator when you do)? How many kids are going to be getting a mobile phone (whether contract or pre-paid) as they reach school age? How many games would an average cell phone user buy over the course of a year, especially if they are low-cost and downloadable?

For as cheaply as the games can be produced, they are amazingly profitable.

Sure but this is the same mirage that fueled the dot bomb "micro-charge" transactions model.  Sure the potential market is huge but does that mean the product will actually sell.  Ringtones make a lot of sense - it's a way for people to indulge vanity very cheaply in a form factor that is appropriate.  Games as a supportable business model don't.  Most people would rather just pull out a PSP or a gameboy in the lunchroom than thumb a cellphone in the subway.

No, "Most People" wouldn't. Because most people are not gamers, and just want to fiddle with something on their cellphone, especially if you are talking about kids. Sure, the form factors suck, but again, the margins per unit are pretty attractive.

seems to me this curve targets "teh shiney" game development, where a lesser/greater amount of the fun is wrapped up in the user getting a hang of a new type of game type.  I'll take the marketers would for it that  this is where the money is.

I can't help but think of an old-assed game called "empire".  Simple game, pretty simple rules, like a pre-cursor to Civ.  I played the shit out of that game.  Lately there has been a big slump in good games that I feel like playing, and I was thinking that it would be nice if I could load that game up and play.  Not changed much, maybe a little better AI.

Like developers were doing with chess for awhile.  Or like folks were doing with FPS games for awhile.  A multiplayer master of magic with better balance, just tweaks, not a complete re-write.

Isn't there room for development that focuses on progressing gameplay or AI?  Can't there be a business model that calls for modest amounts of modifications to be made to existing niche games that are offered as part of a service package?  Sign up for the service and get to play (solo or against other folks) any one of the games in the service.  As part of the subscription each of the games would periodically have some trial update offered, if folks liked it, it would become a permanant offering, if not the designers would go back to the drawing board.  Why do the good old games just fade away, or worse, get MOO 3'd?

I guess humans enjoy chasing the next fad too much for this type of service to make money, but I can't help but think that it would be cool to play a simplified version of gal civ, or empire, or some twitch-based game with not-so red-hot graphics, but AI that put up a good fight... or a persistant RTS world where it got progressively harder to win.

Maybe developers wouldn't want to work on that cause it's not sexy.  I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, but I sure would like to play empire again, or mulitplayer MoM.

Give me the ability to log in to WoW on my wi-fi'd PSP even just for trade skills, chat and AH working and i'll pay you double. (The odds of this happening with WoW are the same as me sleeping with Angelina Jolie but you understand.)

Mobile is only screwed if you define it as cellular. Which i agree is the vast market right now. But with a wifi city (mine is pretty good) or a leased GPRS connection mobile gets a lot broader than i think you mean here, and is not at all screwed imho. Of course you could argue that wifi doesn't qualify as mobile, i could just use a laptop, but the device is key - i won't pull a laptop out in a bank line up or on a train, i will use my PSP. Back a few years ago (well 2 yrs) i was getting GPRS --> laptop connections over bluetooth that were useable for web surfing - i can't imagine someone won't solve this for handheld gaming devices. Hell sony might just become a carrier - rumour has it apples considering it's own cell network for the apple/motorola iPhone.

/agree

I'll agree with that too. But "mobile gaming" IS generally defined as cellular. Your PSP is usually termed "handheld gaming." :)

There were traces of this style of interaction in SOE's cancelled title, Sovereign. I don't know if they ever got them up and running in even a testable "alpha" state since that project was rebooted so often. The point is, there are people out there who are thinking of this stuff, and odds are one day it'll work out. I agree, I think it'd be pretty swell.

/agree ;)

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