Another first post

Oh, hey. Didn't see you there.

I'm gonna second my esteemed colleague's concerns: I'm not certain what kind of things go on blogs. My take is that I'll write things on here, and they'll hopefully be thought-provoking enough to spur discussion.

But, most likely, they'll be entirely too long for anyone to want to read. Oops.

Since this is a blog associated with a group that cares about gaming to some extent, maybe I'll talk about my thoughts on gaming. Believe it or not, that can be quite the can of worms.


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Let's talk about video game genres.

The controversial pull that'll get you to endure a horribly long post: I think that there are only four genres of video games.

The genre of a game is dependent on what the game focuses on, and what makes it continuously interesting. A "good" game of a certain genre executes the qualities of a genre in a way so that it is continuously novel, interesting, and even challenging. "Good" games also tend to be very replayable.

You've got multiplayer games, narrative games, world games, and self-test games.

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Multiplayer games focus on the multiplayer aspect of the game. A game like Starcraft is a very multiplayer game, for example. Yeah, it does have the single player campaign, but it's not really why people still play it after all these years. It has a continuously healthy metagame and a thriving community that plays it, which gives the multiplayer game a lot of "life", as it were. This can also be said for fighting games like Melee, multiplayer FPSes like Counter-Strike, and the like.

A "good" multiplayer game is a multiplayer game that stays interesting when playing with other people. Since multiplayer games rely on a non-computer challenge, you shouldn't be able to entirely "figure out" a good multiplayer game. The mechanics of the game itself have to permit personal human ingenuity to be the factor of gameplay.

For example, a fighting game like mortal kombat is not a very good multiplayer game. On the "pro" level, winning a match in MK tends to amount to who can pull off the death combo first. Winning the round becomes a question of pressing a certain button combination faster, rather than a dynamic ordeal of strategy and skill.

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Narrative games focus on the narrative aspect of the game. A lot of RPGs are narrative games. The Metal Gear Solid series are very narrative games (though I'd argue that MGS3 is the best narrative game of them). Yes, these games do have a gameplay element, but the main pull is character development and the unraveling of events in the plot. Metal Gear Solid games tend to have a sum length of cutscenes that rival the amount of gameplay that you can put in them. Another example would be the Xenosaga games, which, interestingly enough, were almost made to be movies, but were instead made to be games since the Japanese movie industry was not as good as the Japanese game industry.

A good narrative game would have a very immersible and interesting story to it. All the elements known in making good literature, or good art, would be applied in making a high quality narrative game. That said, this is the genre of gaming that is most likely to be qualified as "art" in the future, since it is so capable of delivering a message to the player and capable of invoking emotions of a player through its narrative style.

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World games are games that also focus on immersion, but it's less about driving a plot or learning how a story unfolds, and more about exploration. Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls games are examples of world games. Yes, there are elements of gameplay and some narration going on, but the freedom to roam, to explore, and to interact with the virtual world is what is important.

A good world game would have a very immersible, deep world designed. An ideal world game would probably have a lot of crazy things going on for it, like a highly developed NPC AI so you feel like you're actually talking to someone, or an incredibly large and lush overworld. That said, world games are only going to get better and more possible as technology improves. As computers can process greater amounts of data, the virtual world becomes less restricted by the hardware. Eventually, the only limiting factor would be the player.

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Self-test games focus on gameplay and puzzles. Games like Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, God of War, and so on and so forth, are all self-test games. These games challenge the player to recognize and intercept obstacles in the player's way. These obstacles tend to be pre-set and static. Platforming can be seen as a kind of puzzle where you are to move the character in a certain configuration to achieve the solution. Moving your character from point A to point B, beating "enemies" in a certain way, and so on and so forth, can be considered a puzzle as well.

The great downfall of most self-test games is that, unless your memory isn't that great, most puzzles are solved by your first run through. Once you figure out a puzzle, then it's essentially solved so long as you remember how to solve it. That manifests in a self-test game like Zelda with knowing where to go and what to do for each quest and subquest and obstacle in the dungeons. A game like Tetris is an example of a "good" self-test game. It provides puzzles that are continuously challenging and unable to merely be memorized.

On the example of Zelda, the idea of "novel" puzzles could explain why the spinner in TP is so loved in its own right. It was something that had the capacity to provide very unique puzzles. By comparison to other Zelda puzzles, the boss fight with stallord was a very unique puzzle to solve.

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Now, this is not to say that games cannot attempt to have qualities in multiple genres. It seems to me, however, that one of these genres tend to dominate in successful games.

For example, in a game like World of Warcraft, one can argue that it is very viable as a world game and as a multiplayer game. I would argue back by saying that it is, more deeply, a multiplayer game.

With WoW, the player is presented with a very large overworld, filled with NPCs that give them quests and with many areas to explore. This is all well and good for the new player, who is forced to explore and traverse this overworld in order to gain experience and level up. For the duration of time spent developing a character, WoW takes a very "world game" position.

However, by endgame, the concern of the player is no longer exploration of the overworld. By the time they're level 80 (85? Has the new expansion come out yet?), they're probably more concerned about systematically getting more loot, gaining more money, and improving their ability to fight other players on the opposing faction. To get this loot, they probably have to go through high level dungeon raids, which have to be done in groups. If they are reliably going on these raids, then they are probably a part of a guild, which in and of itself is a social game construct that promotes a cooperative challenge among players. This is a constantly dynamic process, since it involves knowing other people's playing styles, having a feel for the supply and demand for goods by players (in the auction house), and so on and so forth.

The world of WoW, by comparison, is not nearly as dynamic. The overworld does not attempt to be any deeper than a medium for players to level. The different geographical areas tend to just have different colors for dirt in order to distinguish them. There is some memorabilia from the strategy games to make the world a little visually stimulating, and there is certainly the initial illusion that the world provides a dynamic and immersible environment. However, unless you're on an RP server, you're probably never going to make an attempt to sit around and lounge at an inn in town, and you're probably not going to find much interest in talking to quest-giving NPCs who are only concerned about you doing a job for them. Outside of your own personal leveling benefit, of course. So you can hurry up and play the game properly with other people.

By endgame, the player is far more concerned with their interactions with other players than they are with the overworld. The game is even designed in a way so that the world does not permit much exploration and intrigue. WoW finds its main strengths as a multiplayer game. And, given that millions of people play it, it does a very good job at being a multiplayer game. But it's not a very good world game.

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It seems to me that a successful game tends to emphasize one of these genres over the other. You can probably make the inference that some of these genres are more prone to have successful games than other genres.

For example, multiplayer games probably sustain the longest out of all the genres. Using Starcraft as an example, this is a game that has lasted almost fifteen years on the market, and it is still an incredibly vibrant game with a significant userbase.

This probably has to do with how the human mind is structured. We like working together. In real life, this was an evolutionarily beneficial trait when we were still hunting game and gathering berries. This would certainly lend to the potential cohesion of large groups in MMO games, and why organizing ourselves properly in these games has become such an interesting problem to guild leaders and the like.

This probably also has to do with how players provide unique inputs to games. A challenge presented by the computer will be limited by the capabilities of the computer program, or even the computer. A challenge presented by the player is limited by the capabilities of the player, which is far less predictable. Victory against another skilled player is not a clear-cut strategy, since people are capable of dynamically finding solutions and coming up with responses to your killer technique. This ensures that a good multiplayer game can't really go stale. So long as the game's limitations don't get in the way, and so long as there are enough players out there to play who are capable of learning and growing, there will always be an interesting game out there for you.

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The other genres present some challenges when trying to make successful games, because they aren't nearly as dynamic. World games are harder to make successful because computers still can't be as dynamic and interesting as other human beings.

A world game, however, relies on its world being interesting. This means that the world has to be dynamic to some extent, or at least, able to permit new things for the player to explore and pursue. A solution for this is to make a world game that has a lot of content in it. This would require the game hardware to be very advanced. Extrapolating from this, a great world game probably has to run on very advanced software.

Seeing as software and hardware are continuously improving in the real world, then world games can only get better as time goes on, right?

It would make sense. Sandbox games didn't really exist in a significant way until the last generation of consoles, when our technology really started getting up to snuff for these kind of visions. Yes, GTAI and GTAII were for the original PS1, but it was the PS2's rendition of their sequel, GTAIII, that started turning heads. Vice City and San Andreas continued to garner attention for how expansive their world was (among other things...). GTAIV had something around a 60 million dollar budget, and look at what they managed to do with THAT overworld!

So, the success of a world game seems to hinge on what the world game can do on its technology medium. But we would be mistaken not to count how demographic interests also play a role in the success of such games.

The thing is, some worlds are probably going to be more interesting than other worlds. Not only does the world have to be something fully developed, but it has to be a world that a player would actually want to go to. It has to be removed from reality to a certain extent, so that you're not doing something that's trivial or even undesired. GTA is removed from reality in the sense that you can commit crime inconsequentially, in an environment that very strongly represents a real-life city. Fallout 3 is removed from reality in the sense that it's a freaking nuclear wasteland.

Both are successful games, but why is GTA more successful than Fallout 3? You could probably turn to the human element to answer that, again. There are probably more relatively unimaginative people out there than imaginative people, and as such, they don't want games that demand incredibly far removal from reality. GTA is a profoundly realistic game, bar the fact that you're a criminal doing incredibly illegal things. It is something more tenable to reality, and it is possible that this provides a feeling among less capable individuals that is stronger than what Fallout 3 can provide for them. So, chalk it up to an evolutionary factor, I guess.

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Multiplayer games are easiest to make good games out of, followed by the world game. Narrative games, though, require a different approach.

Books are a very static medium. You read a book once, then you read it again, and nothing actually changes within the book. You might notice some things that you didn't on your first read, but nothing actually physically changed in the storybook. Despite this, there are a lot of books out there that are critically acclaimed as great books.

Why is this? They provide compelling characters to relate with in some way, interesting plots to follow, and on occasion leave you with interesting ideas to think about. Other mediums, like movies and works of art and music, are capable of capturing these same qualities.

So why can't a game do the same thing? Theoretically, they can, and they can do it better. Of all the mediums described, video games are the most intimate of them. With books, the plot is being carried out in your head. With music, you have an audio input. With movies, you have an audio and visual input. With video games, you have audio, visual, AND actual control of elements within the game. It all adds up to a very capable genre!

Well, there's a problem, and it's a demographic one. Reading books don't really happen to be the most popular hobby among people. A lot of movies tend to be really cruddy as well, and try less to be interesting and arty and more to be entertaining and stimulating in an almost manipulative way. Because it sells more.

So, again, why can't games suffer from the same setback? They do, and they do it worse. The demographic that plays video games are playing to be mentally stimulated, and there are way more efficient ways to do that than to get them involved in a story. In fact, because video games are so interactive, they can stimulate the mind a lot more easily with other genres, like with human-human interaction or with a thoroughly fantastical version of reality.

So, like any other medium, a really good narrative game probably isn't going to be very popular or mainstream. But it's probably going to stick around for a very long time.

I know people who are still thinking about new ways to interpret Final Fantasy 7. This is a game that's more than ten years old, but its story still remains one of great interest to its enthusiast. Similarly, a game like Metal Gear Solid can be watched and thoroughly discussed with people online for very long periods of time. Zelda, while I wouldn't consider it mainly a narrative game, has whole discussions about its timeline that have been around for years, and it's still inconclusive. I know that I replay games like The World Ends With You and Chrono Trigger from time to time because I find their narratives to be worth reliving.

Yeah, that's all pretty anecdotal, I admit, but I definitely think that, even though the more highbrow arty narrative games don't usually do as well as the multiplayer or world games, they definitely stick around in our memories longer. They have much more value in the long-term. Just as we can talk about great books that are 50, 100, 1000 years old, maybe one day we can talk about great narrative games of comparable ages. Good narratives will sustain in the long term, and that is what makes them valuable.

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Finally, to the self-test games. I would assert that these games are the hardest to make successful.

For one thing, they're typically single-player. The fact that it's player versus computer immediately limits how dynamic the game can be. You can memorize what obstacles are in your path, and you can respond accordingly.

For another thing, they tend to have a definite goal to them; to solve the puzzle. World games are open-ended and the player leaves when the player wants to leave; self-test games have to end when the game runs out of puzzles. There is no such thing as an infinite Mario level.

For yet another thing, they have virtually no use for story. The point is to solve the puzzles presented to the player; there's no real reason to care about the backstory or characterization of the character (who really cares about Mario's personality, for example). The way the challenges are dressed up don't really detract from the puzzles themselves (Mario could have easily been a blue block subject to gravity, avoiding red blocks and making sure to stay on yellow blocks).

Self-test games tend to be fun the first time you play through them, and then gradually become less interesting as you play through them again and again. Nobody likes grinding in an RPG because it's freaking boring. Nobody likes doing the same puzzle over and over again in a poorly-designed dungeon because it's just a chore. The challenges have to be varied and dynamic, but the game is single player, so it's not like the game is able to change anything within itself to stay pretty for you.

How many games do you have that fit this category? I, personally, have a lot of them. The original DKC games, the rareware games of the N64, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and so on and so forth. A lot of those games were games that I played a lot when I was a kid, but I haven't really touched for a while. Because I've beaten them. I'll occasionally play one for nostalgia's sake, but they aren't games that I play actively anymore once I'm through with them.

These games can't win in the long term because they aren't interesting in the long term. All the puzzles that they've offered have been solved. They really only have worth as memory. Games like SM64 and OoT are also only really made a big deal of anymore because of their place in history.

Newer generations of gamers can play these games, sure, but for a lot of gamers it's more of a historical novelty. How many of you younger gamers have actually sat down and played through SMB? Or the original LoZ? I'm not saying that none of you have (I'd expect one or two), but you guys that HAVE beaten them are certainly in a minority for your age.

So, what's it take to make a successful self-test game? I'm honestly not entirely sure. With Tetris, you have a very simple self-test presented to you, but there is still that element of variability in it, with the different blocks coming down. That's all well and good for a game that presents itself in that way, but what about a Mario game, or a Zelda game, or a Mega Man game?

Well, some self-test games have managed to etch out longer play times by providing opportunity for impromptu challenges posed by the player. Three heart runs, no item runs, speed runs, and so on are examples of this. This is supposed to be a way to make the game more interesting of a self-test, because it presents more rules for the player to follow when solving the puzzle. Achievements in XBox games do the same thing, somewhat; given certain criteria, solve the puzzle and get a reward. But even this is a temporary solution; what happens after you beat the run? What happens after you've gotten all the achievements?

Leaderboards are an interesting tool; compare your high scores in a self-test game with people from all around the world. This encourages challenge, and presents a new goal for the player: how to beat a certain score. This can definitely keep a game going longer.

I'm curious as to whether or not games like this can really sustain in the long term. However, they do have the value of sustaining in the short term, which is very important if we, once again, consider our demographics.

Self-test games are probably the easiest games to understand, when you think about it. Multiplayer games require you to be up to snuff with what people are currently doing in the game, world games require you to care about doing the things that you do in the world to some degree, and narrative games require you to interpret a narrative. Sef-test games are straightforward; given these things, meet a certain goal. It's so simple, a kid could do it.

In fact, that's what most kids will DO when they play video games. Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, etc are all very popular among kids. These are the games that tend to hook young players into playing games, because they don't require as much of a commitment and they're pretty simple to play. By extension, these are the games that tend to expose young players to more complex games.

So, these games certainly ARE valuable in getting new players into the fold, which is important if we want a more cohesive gaming community to arise.

They can also have value to older gamers who don't have as much time to commit to gaming anymore. Again, they're noncommittal and simple games to play. So, they can be played flexibly, even during a rigid schedule.

What am I implying here? That these games are casual? Well, yeah, actually, they are. People complain about how games are so casual these days, but in honesty, these are games that have always been around, and have always been successful. They even probably got YOU into gaming. Casual isn't a bad thing at all. When people are complaining about casual/hardcore stuff, I question if they know what they're really talking about. But that is a digression.

Self-test games, to conclude, are very hard to make successful in the long term, but they are still valuable in their own right. Even if it's hard to make a GREAT self-test game, we can still admit differences between good self-test games, mediocre self-test games, et cetera. Even if a challenge isn't very replayable, there is still value in how clever that challenge was. There are going to be lower standards in general with these kind of games, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing.

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If you read all that, then you're awesome.

-Nassim


Editor's note 10:00 AM 12/23: The original version stated that StarCraft has lasted more than fifteen years. StarCraft was released on 31 March 1998.