Thoughts on Cow Clicker
Earlier today, after watching Ian Bogost’s GDCO talk about Cow Clicker, I tweeted “I don’t think Ian learned the right things from Cow Clicker.” I got a lot of questions about that, so here goes:
Let me start with the fact that Ian is a friend, and we have had plenty of volatile and engaging debates on any number of game-related subjects. Let that fact color everything I proceed to say.
So I mentioned to him after his talk that he made an artifact that was a subtle and complex critique of a genre, using the genre itself, and got it to 50,000 people plus a bunch of press, who engaged with it on its own terms, and built upon it in creative directions as well as using it as a springboard for their own debate and commentary, even if only via ironic play of the same.
Ian reads this as a failure to some large degree, whereas to me, failure would have been if no one cared.
I read it as tremendous success, and also as validation of the notion that the limitations we see in the games today are not inherent to the social game paradigm (since his game managed to subvert and extend those paradigms through sheer intent). His game is proof positive, to my mind, that the games are not only cow clicking!
I say this even as I agree with elements of his critique. But I think he doesn’t give himself enough credit here. But Ian is a “glass half empty” kind of guy by his own admission, and the project did start out as satire…
I also think that there is a danger in saying, as he did, that he is concerned that people actually play Cow Clicker for entertainment. It is a mistake for a creator, IMHO, to believe that they “own” the “proper” uses/interpretations of their creation once it leaves their hands, and it has a whiff of worrisome elitism. This may perhaps be implicit in its origins as a satire. When I mentioned this point to him, he agreed, but said “But I don’t need to like it.” And that is also equally true.
The talk also had a bunch of stuff in it about audience, and I think that one of the elements there that set me off on that front was the notion that say, the creators of The Suite Life on Disney Channel don’t feel proud of what they do, and I think that is also a pretty dangerous avenue to go down.
That said — All props to Ian for seriously engaging with the topic enough to go as far as he did — it shows a level of intellectual honesty and rigor that few would venture to. I was one of those who said to him “you really should make one of these or seriously engage with them before you level this magnitude of accusation against them” and he took me up on it in spades. So my comment is in no way an attack on him, but rather a continuation of the debate. 🙂 In many ways, what he did was a brave act of game design. Most are content to carp from the sidelines. I just wish he gave his resulting work, and his audience, a bit more credit. 🙂
29 Responses to “Thoughts on Cow Clicker”
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Ian’s game IS proof positive that you can get people to waste their time on nearly any damn thing. Which is depressing.
However, I don’t imagine his re-engagement rate is high, nor his monetization, so perhaps there’s hope for the human race after all.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Raph Koster, Gus Mastrapa. Gus Mastrapa said: RT @raphkoster: Blog post: Thoughts on Cow Clicker https://www.raphkoster.com/2010/10/06/thoughts-on-cow-clicker/ […]
No disrespect but I think it’s a stretch to call a parody “brave“. I’d say it’s much of a marketing stunt (whatever his intention was it could be used successfully as such as proven) that just confirms some of my believes about a number of things… *cough* press *cough*
As an indie dev the kind of attention Cow Clicker received is more depressing than inspiring or thoughts creative… Jealous? Nah just cynic. I’d be jealous if Cow Clicker was mimicking my games. I’ll give props on his work (doing something is more than 90% of people are doing) even though the results are just good for me to bang my head on the wall.
The leap between Bogost being “…concerned that people actually play Cow Clicker for entertainment”, and your argument against creators who “…believe that they ‘own’ the ‘proper’ uses/interpretations of their creation once it leaves their hands,” seems to be a pretty big one. Is being concerned over a particular audience use truly a symptom of an authoritarian sense of ownership of a “proper” use of a text? It seems to me that there is room to both accept various audience uses and be concerned by some (or even all) of them.
Overall, though, I enjoyed this post. I don’t necessarily agree with some of it, but I love the discourse it fosters. Keep them coming
What I meant was brave was critiquing a genre, then when called on it, being brave enough to go learn enough to build a game in that genre, and even one designed explicitly to achieve the status of art. Sorry, but to m that takes some guts. 🙂
As Raph notes, he and I had a chance (not enough of a chance, but such is the Conference Life), to talk about his thoughts, which I take to heart. This stuff is messy and unsimple, and that was definitely a theme of my talk (or at least I tried to make it so, perhaps I didn’t succeed as much as I might have done).
Just one real material comment for those who weren’t in attendance. I did spend a good deal of time talking about the surprising and unexpected things people did with the game, and I actually made some pretty explicit statements about how users behave in spite of designers, so I humbly submit that elitism is not at issue here.
Point taken to some degree but to counter I’d say that time is a bit more required than guts here. I wish I could afford such experiment to “prove” I have “guts” but money doesn’t come in easily even though I believe in my opinions.
I guess my point was that I chose to have the “guts” to try to build something serious (a sandbox MMO built by a single person) and not having the “press” to follow made me a bitter person (or a more realistic person). So when I see experiments like that (that were not designed to be monetized even if the features were incorporated) that are praised to some degree it just add to the frustration. Yes it can be some nice theoretical point made but I still cannot link that to “guts” as there wasn’t any risks involved beside being wrong on some preconceived ideas.
Don’t mind me too much though. Like I said I’m just a bitter guy. A bitter guy that didn’t shocked enough to make a point.
I still think that what Ian has done is interesting though. Like I said he actually did it and a lot of people don’t do anything to add some weight to their words. I’ll need to find somewhere a transcript of what he said there.
But it’s still a demonstration (or a “joke” project) and that’s why associating guts to this kind of project doesn’t line up for me.
Ian: I missed your talk today but hope to make your next one here.
What I’d like to know is how you got your 50,000 users. As an indie dev, that’s not a bad start!
Was it the novelty/press related to the spoof element or did you actually market it?
@Michael
It was largely driven by publicity, yes. I did no marketing.
Actually I take that back. I did buy some Facebook ads as an experiment, and also for the poetry of having sidebar ads that said “click a cow in cow clicker” or some such.
There was something bothering me about this after the talk, and finally I realised what it was. What Ian dislikes about this kind of game – the mercenary approach, the lack of ideals, the lack of respect for players – was not a factor in the creation of Cow Clicker. Ian could never create a game of the kind he was challenged to create because that would involve his doing it for the reasons such games are created, rather than doing it to see what it was like to operate one.
Cow Clicker is a parody, and a pretty good one at that. Ian does make his point. However, because most players know it’s a parody, they’re not playing the game, they’re playing the meta-game. It’s the Facebook equivalent of Mornington Crescent: the game itself is pointless, but, knowing this is what makes the playing of the game fun.
End result: in trying to make the essence of a bad Facebook game, Ian captured the essence of a good one.
Richard
I too, unfortunately, could not attend the conference this year and disappointed that I missed this session. I await the transcript to read the materials.
Having said that, I would like to comment on a few things after reading the online conversations surrounding the talk and how a non gamer changed my attitude about the value of such games in 20 minutes of discussion.
So Cow Clicker is satire and Ian intended the “game” to elicit a particular response from the public upon its unleashing, only to find that those expectations were not aligned with what actually happened. This is the core issue that game designers are struggling with when creating properties that fit the social game (a term I am still not comfortable with) space. Ian stated that he finds it “incredibly disturbing” that it is the most popular piece of art he’s ever made when acceptance of any piece of work is rarely, if ever, up to the designer. Surprise, people will do things with your work (I mean it is interactive entertainment, after all) that you did not intend. But that, in no way, negates the creativity or design elements that exist in many games.
Look at another indie game, Minecraft. Minecraft is explicitly built to allow creativity and structure from the player base to emerge. Rules for how assets are utilized or formed at a base level stand and then the players control the actions of those assets (crafting) to iterate and build. You throw the ability for PvP in and it stands as a fantastic example of emergent gameplay. So what if the designer had no over arching metaphor or story to tell? The players contributed to the culture that emerges in the interaction space. And, in many ways, that can prove to be more resilient and guarded than any narrative or structure a designer provides to an audience because the players themselves see their investment in the world they inhabit. This design was not a failing on the part of the developer to craft a narrative or lack of creativity on his part. The design was to allow the payers to imprint the space with their creativity. And why shouldn’t a developer take credit for creating such a space where creativity can emerge?
Oh, and Minecraft would fit nicely into the social games genre if they added the network effect of joining friends.
As for creating culture, not everything has to be Hamlet. Why can’t, sometimes, the goal just be to make you smile? Why must something be viewed as simply tripe because there is no deeper meaning behind it other than to elicit a smile? Candy can just be candy. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a brilliant comedy that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it performed, but I also know some pretty funny fart jokes as well. The ability to make me laugh in both cases has an equal result on my state of being.
I respect Ian’s critique of the genre and always love to hear his thoughts on the subjects he turns his attention to. In fact, I have a slide in a presentation deck that I use when giving lectures on the application of games in education that is just about his company, Persuasive Games. However, sometimes the message can become muddied when, as Raph put it, the “whiff of worrisome elitism” seems to enter the critique.
As for my view on social network games like Farmville, it was recently changed in a meaningful way.
I never really understood the attraction to the game. Sure, I played around with it for a bit, made some 8-Bit game characters out of colored bales of hay and so on, but quickly grew tired of the space. I was explaining this to someone who has been playing Farmville for a long time and I mentioned that it is not a real game. And, in fact, it represents the WORST bits of gaming (time constraint punishment, grinding, etc.). How could anyone find enjoyment in that?
Her reply was, “Of course it’s a game. It’s whatever game you want it to be.” I asked her to elaborate on her position that it is fun or enjoyable and her reply was, “I like being able to design my own space, I only plant items that look nice when they grow and get to change the space when I want to.” She also elaborated on how the goal to raise enough money through farming to acquire additional items she wanted made it a game for her as well, determined to not pay for the item using real money is part of the challenge.
Finally, I asked her about the game possibly ever being viewed as art. Her reply? “If there is something that someone put thought into and designed, had enjoyment in creating that space, and makes them happy when they see it, why couldn’t it be considered art?” This conversation may not have completely changed the way I view Farmville as a game, but it definitely changed my understanding of what people can get out of it. And, at the end of the day, isn’t the goal of games to provide the player with some sense of value for the time they invested? It is not always up to the game designer to determine that value for every player.
Please god, not the “intentional fallacy” again. Bane of discussion throughout the 80s and 90s, I thought it had finally been discredited.
Cow clicker got the recognition it deserves because it was funny. Nothing really remarkable about that, the man had a good idea and acted on it.
I just had breakfast at a restaurant where they serve an omelette called Cow Puncher. There’s a sequel in that dish.
Anything done in front of an audience takes guts.
That’s a lovely comment Richard, and gets across very much what I was trying to say.
It’s funny – I had a strong feeling that finding people actually playing with and engaging with Cow Clicker would disappoint Ian on some level. I actually wondered a little if it was a meta-game being played with its audience (does Cow Clicker ‘lose’ if people actually play it, proving people will play anything? or does it ‘win’ if people actually play it because it’s a game doing what it should do?)
And yet, I “play” it, though I haven’t fed it any real-world money. Because occasionally someone is amused by seeing “I’m clicking a cow” as my status message, and I think everyone who has commented on it gets the joke and why the cow is funny. I think most people are playing it on the ironic level.
Richard, that is a great point and it encapsulates why Cow Clicker is so inherently different from the games it mocks. It is not an ethically challenged clone designed with the sole intention of making gobs of cash. Making money off games is a wonderful thing, but there should be other considerations as well that at least crack one’s top ten.
@Dave
It’s hard to get this across in a summary/response like this one, but in the talk I tried to explain what sort of artifact I think Cow Clicker is; neither an abstract theory nor a concrete product, but yet both of those and neither, or something in between.
@Richard
I tried to bring this up in the talk, the fact that I clearly didn’t abuse my players enough. It turns out to take a lot of effort to be as abusive as is necessary. I suppose that’s a failing of the original concept.
@Richard, Amanda
I think you’re both underestimating the number of players who are not playing the game ironically. It’s also worth pointing out that the “whales” in Cow Clicker, if indeed the game has them, are perhaps not monetary whales so much as earnestness whales, if that makes any sense. The minority (rather than the majority) of play drives “value” in most of these social games, right? Then again, it’s also worth noting that it’s very hard to tell what it really means to play the game ironically. Indeed, i’ve often looked at “serious” player comments and wondered if they are really serious comments or serious ironic comments. It’s all very turned in on itself. It’s also worth noting that qualitative features like irony are good examples of things that cannot be A/B tested, even if I wanted to.
@Chris
I talked about a number of these issues in the talk, and I realize that it’s frustrating to get only bits and pieces of them in these online reports.
Cow Clicker demonstrates the essential „evil“ of many games: they make you feel happy while not caring or learning. Just like the “family” in Fahrenheit 451 these games keep you from thinking. That is why soldiers should play games when not on duty.
Sometimes this can be good, if you relax from stress or depression. It will create a peaceful environment. But I would love to see more people help their real neighbor with their garden, than help on some pixel farm. Or you could go an touch a real cow…
Ian>I think you’re both underestimating the number of players who are not playing the game ironically.
I agree that if there are large numbers of people playing this game without any awareness of the rationale behind it, then that does put a large dent in my argument, yes.
I’d guess they’d be playing either because:
– They thought the cows were funny and amusing. This is a perfectly reasonable reason to play. People don’t buy wallpaper because it’s deep and meaningul, they buy it because they like it. People can play games because they like the UI aesthetic, even if the gameplay is pointless. You should maybe have got someone with no artistic ability to draw the cows…
– They’re bought into the idea of what a Facebook game is wholesale, and it didn’t occur to them that this game was supposed to be ironic. This is quite sad. Maybe if you’d called it “Bull Clicker”, a few would have been saved.
Richard
“Ironic” and “meta-gaming” describe a state where one is fully aware that an activity is frivolous, but in order to rationalize continued play, one adopts a jaded, cynical and/or analytical attitude. But the fact that we get the joke doesn’t mean the joke’s not on us.
@Volker – You are assuming that people can’t do both, play around in bits that are enjoyable and be social/active. If players could cultivate a real farm with the output the game provides, with the same level of effort they put into the game, we would have a world of real farmers. This position is one that makes no sense to me and is a weak critique of the Farmville activity.
@Richard – You hit it right on the head. I think many people have formed ideas of what a Facebook game “is” and can’t see the irony. This is unfortunate because it makes the evolution of games withing social networks a much more daunting task. I hope that is not the case because there are worlds of next generation social frameworks that will eventually eclipse Facebook and it would be unfortunate to have limitations on expected gameplay placed on that rising tide.
You all know that there are people who completely ADORE cows, right? I had at least one teacher in elementary school who obsessively collected cow figurines, and cow-patterned apparel and furniture. To many of us, they are smelly and yummy, but there is a great deal of cow love out there, not just in India.
I recorded a song about a tap dancing cow for a children’s play because they said they needed a song for a dancing cow and I told them cow’s can’t dance. Then I realized the one thing they can do is tap.
As Bartle said in the speech, “why” should matter. It puts soul into the thing. Otherwise, the player is a cow tapping instead of dancing.
Having just seen your talk today, I must say, “Ah Veblen goods!” when I see the Stargrazer cow for 2,500 Mooney
[…] old so I decided to give them another chances after the recent discussions about Cow Clicker here and here just name a […]
@Chris – I’m not looking for more real farmers. My point is, that social games are brain toys. They stimulate your desire for positive feedback (only very low the senses, like classic toys) and have little less to teach the players.