Squabble at Gamasutra
(Visited 5957 times) Game talk
Sep 132006
Looks like I have gotten into a bit of a squabble over in the Gamasutra letters column.
David Lannan wrote that “Koster has lost the plot” in response to the Gamasutra summary of the speech at AGC:
Koster has lost the plot – quite seriously.
He’s right only about one thing, and that is the change in market and the way games being made need to have reduced content. Everything else he says is completely unfounded and utterly incorrect.
I wrote a letter in reply which they’ve now posted as an editorial piece for some reason. I guess testy letters make good news item. 😉
Other interesting discussions of the talk have been going on at Quarter to Three and f13, by the way.
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I spent 60 hours this past week on Xenosaga III.
A few weeks ago I did a 3-hour session one Saturday on 99 nights for my 360, which is about as arcadey of an RPG experience as I’ve ever seen.
I suppose shorter play sessions happen for non-RPG games, but even when I was messing around with Project Gotham Racing I would routinely spend 2 or 3 hour sessions at it.
The only difference between online and offline in terms of how I play them? I can hit the pause button instead of waiting to go afk when I need to check the laundry or whatever.
So I’m not sure where he’s coming from with this whole “casual gamer” thing. Even the people I know who I would call casual gamers play for longer than 20-40 minutes at a stretch. Even on XBOX Live Arcade.
After reading your response, I guess I don’t understand where we’re getting this picture of the casual gamer from. Attention spans may have decreased, but everyone I’ve ever met who’s even lightly interested in gaming is still ready to plunk down a good hour or more – although they also will admit that it’s hard for them to do that uninterrupted, which is why single player games have pause buttons.
30-minute play sessions as the norm just seems far too short for anyone to have an enjoyable experience on an ongoing basis, unless we’re talking about something incredibly simplistic like, say, Space Invaders.
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I think we are seeing the term “casual gamer” to mean people who have access to a computer device, not people who would think of themselves as gamers. Really “Casual vs. Hardcore” is a pointless division.
My three word thought in reply to the original poster: “Console-centric much?”
Wow! the gaming industry as whole does not listen nor care. I think they all have their sights set on a different demographic all together to be honest. Read this Blog I found. http://theeisleycantina.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-thoughts-of-day-on-things.html
Maybe in that post I was being console centric Scott, but if it makes you feel better I have 4 active MMORPG subscriptions. 🙂 I also have a huge pile of CDs and DvDs of various single player PC games. I just picked on console titles because David Lannan seemed to be picking on the MMO aspect of Raph’s talk.
Point is, you can spend large amounts of time in games whether they’re single player or multiplayer online, and regardless of whether they’re RPGs, shooters, strategy games, sims, sports, or whatever.
Moreover I think that most games couldn’t even begin to be enjoyed with microsessions of 15-30 minutes. And I don’t know that games that could be enjoyed would hold the attention of many people well enough to be called entertainment on an ongoing basis.
From Qt3 forums (where I don’t have an account).
According to US Census data, personal expenditures on books have increased by almost 600% between 1959 and 2005 (adjusting for inflation). In the past 10 years, personal expenditures on books have more than doubled (72% growth after inflation). Personal expenditures for audio “tapes, records and disks” have increased by 82% since 1959 and have increased 17.5% in the last 10 years. Personal expenditures on “Video equipment and media” have increased by over 600% in 1959-2005 and in the last 10 years have increased by about 40% (again accounting for inflation). If you want to account for population growth, the population has grown about 70% since 1959 or about 8.5% since 1995 (so all of these growth patterns are outstripping population growth although music isn’t doing so by as large a margin).
The problem is that you are looking at per-item costs. And of course some of these have fallen. The cost to produce and distribute most of these items has fallen tremendously during this time and so it is natural to expect final prices to drop. Another example you cite of the cost for a music album in 1906 is particularly useless data given the methods used to produce these items 100 years ago. You can’t look at iTunes and say, “see, now consumers are only willing to pay $9.99 for a CD”. From what I’ve read, the average cost for a CD is just above this at $12.75 or so and the missing $2.76 is easily accounted for by including the implicit value in the packaging, the costs to produce that packaging and the costs to transport/distribute that package+CD to the consumer. Buying patterns have also shifted, for example from retail to online or from movie tickets to DVD’s, but this doesn’t indicate a lack of willingness to spend money.
And didn’t Napster do a good enough job of showing that sharing music actually increases a consumer’s average spending on music?
Raph wrote:
Gamasutra also posted the letter as a Letter to the Editor too. Gamasutra loves their Letters to the Editor, especially letters that are sufficiently lengthy to be articles. To me, Gamasutra should simply add a comments mechanism to each article, but then again, Gamasutra couldn’t love a comment as much as they could love a letter. Imagine “check out this awesome forum post!” That just wouldn’t have the same impact.
Actually, in Jessica Mulligan’s book, there’s actually a three-tier pyramid. Hardcore, Casual… and Mainstream. That might not have been the actual term (it’s been, what, two years since I last cracked it?), but it was definitely the gist.
My definition of the hardcore/casual split:
— Hardcore gamers are looking for something more challenging than real life.
— Casual gamers are looking for something less challenging than real life.
Anyone who averages more than an hour a day playing games is hardcore. Most of us are beyond hardcore, we are consumed by games. We pay money to go places and talk about playing games. We rant and rave on websites dedicated to games. Casual is ‘we have a Monopoly board and a couple decks of cards around the house somewhere.”
I think its funny how a guy looks at a piece of paper and thinks he now knows what people want in games. I dont care how many frikkin surveys they take, gamers want much more than any survey would let them answer.
Theres a reason why he refers to casual gamers as such, he obviously doesnt know wth a casual gamer is muchless a “hardcore player”.
think back to atari and pinball… people took jars of quarters… there has never been anything relatively close to what people call casual gamers.
You either played or you didnt. the average “casual gamer’ according to them is what? 3-4 hours compared to the hardcore 6-10 hours per day? 6-10 hours at the arcade was opening till close.If you stayed for 3-4 hours its only cause you ran out of quarters.
Raph, you’re much more casual in your “testyness” than the “industry” as a whole is used to seeing. I get a refreshing kick out of this particular single aspect of you, hehehe.
There’s different degrees of “casual”. It’s kinda like that bad Leroy Brown, there’s always someone who’s “more”.
20-30 mins gaming session seem an about right target for designers trying to seduce the casual gamer crowd.
Mark-
/sarcasm on
I think its funny how a guy reading a poll (survey) thinks he now knows what voters (gamers) want. I dont care how many polls (surveys) they take, voters (gamers) want much more than any poll (survey) could let them answer.
I think its funny how a guy (developer) reading a blog (or forums) thinks now knows what gamers want. I dont care how many (blogs/forums) they visit gamers want much more than any forum (blog) could let them answer.
Pollster: Hi, so whatcha think about that new tax rate hike?
Voter: man its teh suq!
Pollster: So you um, voted right?
Voter: Phwned!
Dev in forum: Hi, so we’re going to patch this with new upgrades to your class!
Gamer: man thats teh suq!
Dev in forum: So tell me why you think that?
Gamer: man thats teh suq!
Dev to other Dev:(I think we need a survey to get a better idea what they think)
Dev in forum: Hi, so we’re going to patch this with new upgrades to your class! Heres a survey just answer these 10 questions so we know what you think….
Gamer: man Im not taking that survey, thats teh suq!
Gamer talking to guildmate: Dude these Devs are so bad, they just dont know what we want at all!
/sarcasm off
Communication is a two way street, there is no limitation on how much data (and opinion) can be captured by any number of methods. The only limitation is your willingness to constructively participate. If you cant be bothered to do that, you get the game you deserve. Trust me there are plenty of people interested in “what you want” but unless your willing to provide feedback they may as well use a magic 8 ball.
As to casual vs hardcore, that distinction is meaningless unless you stratify it by type of game and platform, mainly because people play games for different reasons and to achieve different goals.
Yes, but then how would gamers maintain their self-righteous arrogance? Remember, devs are gods. You’re supposed to read their minds.
Has someone made a game out of filling out a survey yet? Besides 20 questions.
There was a puzzle on Islandia (TinyMUD) where you went into the “MAS Clinic” and had to fill out a survey of questions to determine whether or not you were suffering from MAS. Of couse, MAS was never defined. Those who were “in the know” recognized it as “Male Answer Syndrome”, and the trick to defeating the puzzle was to stop trying to answer all the questions. 🙂
Casual and hardcore are attributes of a larger psychographic profile.
Time spent using a product does not determine whether a player is a casual or hardcore user. Characterizing players as “casual” or “hardcore” based on time spent using a product is not useful.
Allen Sligar wrote:
I’d say that the distinction between casual and hardcore is meaningless when these psychographic attributes are misperceived as individual market segments…
The answer here according to MMO market philosophy of course is to make ’30 questions’.
Moreover in making this game, you would actually give the players the questions to ask, exactly 30 in total, with the answers leading to the conclusion of the correct answer. Then you’d need the shiny, a reward to display in some form, a golden colored question mark. Each player will surely feel godlike in their collections of shinies, especially those who collect more than others and can proudly boast their uberness.
Oh dammit flogged by the marketing wizard again…
Sorry I was trying to not get into the minutae, but I’ll clarify:
1. Your right as to psychographic attriutes
2. I made the assumption that demographic strata were included, I always make that assumption, afterall you should always have dimensions AND measures….
To whit:
A query off of a 1m user database of console gamers (assume X data points or enough to capture all the info you need about console gamers)
The question detail globally to a more granular level goes something like this:
gamers by platform: Console (not PC)
gamers by product: Console; Xbox, Wii, PS (Has someone made a game out of filling out a survey yet? Besides 20 questions.
The answer here according to MMO market philosophy of course is to make ‘30 questions’
The problem with this is that Data is just numbers and trendlines without underlying analysis and insight and making games actually requires all of this and “creativity” and adequate design decesion making. Data can never replace imagination, but it sure can help it out 🙂
omg my post got nerffed! eek Ill try again later
Anyhow rather than retype the whole thing my points were as follows:
1. Yes, your right MR, except that market segment depends, as far as data is concerned, on the question your asking.
2. That data does not speak to the issue of casual vs hardcore, only analysis and market insight coupled with data (data without definition is just numbers and trendlines) can provide accurate anwers. This is why marketing and consultant types get paid.
3. You cant design a game based on data (survey alone), besides self selected sampling has its own validity issues, because design requires crativity and imagination and experianced (or informed) decisions.
Sorry Allen, I didn’t mean my comment as a direct charge against marketing people. I meant it as more a corporate thing, all inclusive but led by the top boys and girls.
From your comments, everyone needs to have some input, and I agree with that. It’s unfortunate that there seems to be alot of misguided direction out there. At least that’s my opinion. I think it stems from alot of things, from old thinking in the single player games to the un-maasive online stuff, and includes players tendency to pick up on phrases and use them for their own meaning, even when those phrases don’t mean the same to them as to others. Unhappy players seem to think others mean the same thing they do when they use a phrase to make a much more complicated point. “Casual” gamer is a simple version of this. For some it means:
-not enough time, even though they play like a powergamer
-don’t want to spend alot of time because games are just a little quick fun time sink for them
-Don’t want to powergame but plays alot of “casual” looking around
-doesn’t like the intense “end game” raid style
-doesn’t want to be lost in intense depth of learning
…..and others.
From this, a person can take a poll and ask if players are hardcore or casual gamers, assuming that the answer will have mostly to do with their time spent per week. But you can see from this example that the poll will be misleading due to the assumptions made on all parties. But this is a basic example, and easy to see through and work a fix in through other question for someone like you. But other terms can also be misleading, assumed, and lead pollsters to wrong conclusions in a less clear way.
As far as the potential market for selling games to anyone who would attach themselves the title gamer is hardcore, anyone who has purchased a device specifically for playing games can possibly be considered hardcore.
Casual gamers or the generic gaming audience are the guys who play solitare on their Work PC at lunch time, those who play a few minutes of suduko on teh web. They don’t think of themselves as gamers, they are the casual market that is not being reached.
In an analogy with sport, casual is not those who play in amateur leagues as opposed to professional, its those who play in the park with a few mates and no rules.
Communication is a two way street, there is no limitation on how much data (and opinion) can be captured by any number of methods. The only limitation is your willingness to constructively participate. If you cant be bothered to do that, you get the game you deserve. Trust me there are plenty of people interested in “what you want” but unless your willing to provide feedback they may as well use a magic 8 ball.
Hey believe me, when developers actually do ask I do participate and even then they still cant get it right. Ive seen players submit long paragraphs and ideas directly to the developers and the devs could careless, even if that suggestion was supported by over half the playerbase.
You said it yourself Allen….
“Dev in forum: hi, So were going to patch this with new upgrades to your class”
When did you ask me if I wanted that upgrade or the contents therein to my class, you didnt..know how I know? because its not there. Then you turn around and say well this poll says you do? pfff right right, communication isnt two way buddy its forcefed and onesided in this instance. There never was a poll and even if there was it was already onesided with things that didnt even involve the playerbase.
Your point only recently has correctly been the case as everyone has learned from THAT company.
The Gettysburg Address, one of the greatest speeches ever spoken, was around two paragraphs in length. You don’t an essay to inspire or effect change. The more words used to express an idea increases the risk of that idea being misconstrued, misinterpreted, reinterpreted, and eventually devalued.
You should also consider the dynamics of communication when attempting to introduce ideas into bureaucratic organizations. Gather a group of people. Tell one person your idea and ask them to tell the next person. By the time the idea reaches the final person in the group, the idea will usually not be what was originally devised. The lesson is to communicate with the decision maker, but you can only communicate in a good relationship. That’s the trick.
Developers do get things right and developers do care. Developers are usually not “developers first, gamers second”. Developers are almost always gamers who also create games. Claiming that developers “can’t get it right” and that developers “could care less [regardless of customer demand]” is not a good first step toward fostering a relationship in which communication can occur. You’re just shooting yourself in the foot and burning the bridges before they’re built.
A leading business thinker from Stanford, James G. March, argues that ideas are art and because ideas are art, the elegance of ideas are more important than their relevance. Having worked in software quality assurance, I experienced this firsthand. The chances of an issue being resolved were greatly increased when the submitter of the issue plainly presented a strong case for resolution. These cases for resolution can be written in one to two sentences. Perhaps even in two to three words as in the case of branding. Anything longer in today’s instant-messaging society is simply a burden to digest, especially when time and money are on the line.
Genius is in the simplicity of things.
Thanks for advice Morgan but I wont be participating any more “suggestions for the game” type things.Im kinda tired of trying, Ive been at it for ten years and its like beating a dead horse.
I mean… I just dont see myself playing games that support shoving quests down my throat, ganking, no crafting and no social interaction within the playerbase and the only way I can see myself helping to change the situation is to go get the skill and be part of a company who feels the same way I do. Lord forbid… if that doesnt work then its just time to backoff of this industry alltogether. Until then I wont be subbing to anything out or released in 07-08 lol
Oh yea Allen …not every gamer out there replies to questions (when they are asked) with “its teh suk”.
Some actually try and help developers understand what it is they are asking for and if your developer sir I would ask you not assume that every gamer out there is below minimal intelligence or stoned and blown. Those are the people your obviously target polling if you are polling at all. You take gamers opinions as a joke the way your previous statements imply and I assure sir that your servers populations will be as low as the peoples iq’s logging into them.
I just dont see myself playing games that support
The solution to this is to support an indie company who builds a revolutionary game that doesn’t do this, and then point at them and tell people how much better the gaming life could be.
not every gamer out there replies to questions (when they are asked) with “its teh suk”.
It’s a fascinating thing to watch forums. First, we know that forum junkies are a vocal minority in the first place. Second, they’re also the most willing group; a poll on the main website or on the client gets in the way of gameplay. A poll on the forums will get more interest with less grumbling. Third, forum junkies have a tendency to disagree. Loudly. With each other. For months. Fourth, they have no problem treating devs the same way, and even if the devs withdraw from the conversation, they might push the argument to years-long laments.
A lot of good IQ goes down the toilet that way. The last time I went to a forum I hadn’t been before to do information gathering, I left with the impression that there was a law of stupidity in forum users. A law, because it wasn’t unique.
It’s one thing to say you’ll listen to the players. It’s another thing to get the players to tell you something worth listening to. I’m not saying it’s not possible; if it weren’t, people wouldn’t suggest it. It can definitely be done. But the lines of communication are very poorly fashioned in most cases because in most cases people just don’t know how to do it.
All of which can be avoided with a simple email stating something to the effect of…
Hello we the devs at (insert company here)would like to know in advance what you think your gaming experience lacks or exceeds in. Please take the time if you would to comment on what you would like to see added or taken out of your gaming experience as your opinion is greatly valued as a customer.
Or you simply actually meet the gamers and play the game with them, grab a group of your current local subscribers, invite them into the office, setup a gameplay session and ask them this…. What do we need to do to make this better for you? What do you see here that you dont like, what is missing? What do you like?
Now of course any company you hire who does surveys and does focus groups will disagree with this method and rightly so… your doing thier job, but hey your getting the info you want firsthand and not going off assumptions based on a set of choices in a survey lol. Im so sorry to those surveying companies! but its my opinion and I had to say it because I believe its how it should be handeled. Should I hide now? 😛
Or you simply actually meet the gamers…
A friend-of-…-my mom worked for EA for a time and let me do a beta test session for one of their James Bond games. Their criteria were decently rigorous and if I’d actually cared about the genre, I might’ve had more to say. It was basically, “Okay, go here, then here, then play. Okay, stop, write down your comments. Okay, next…”
any company you hire who does surveys
Any company you hire should be hired because they can do something you can’t. You hire a plumber because you don’t know how to use a wrench. You hire a data miner to get data you can’t get. If there’s a problem, I recommend that such miffed companies provide a custom package that costs more but let’s the developer configure the survey/focus group however they want.
All of which can be avoided with a simple email stating something to the effect
What is this email supposed to solve?
On the email bit as a developer…just try sending one to a gamer. That email takes a whole minute to write and will provide direct feedback to any questions you may want to ask. I mean its firsthand info and sends the message to that gamer that your really interested in what he/she has to contribute.
Well I agree on the hiring, if your not able for some reason to be a gamer first and dev second as someone mentioned above then yes by all means hire someone who is able to handle your situation in custom to your needs.
But I believe like you mentioned that just getting in there and experiencing what the gamer is going through and identifying with it when playing your game is the best way to go about it. Your no longer just the dev… your now the customer and your right along side the people who deal with what you may very well not get to see.
be a gamer first and dev second
I believe Morgan was saying that developers are typically gamers who decide they want to make games. It’s not a question of priority; developers who are gamers first usually don’t have a job very long.
That email takes a whole minute to write and will provide direct feedback to any questions you may want to ask.
Which gamers are you planning on sending it to? Say you’re a developer for World of Warcraft. We’ll even assume you send it to all 4+ million (theoretical) gamers. Even if we’re cynical and say it’s only 1 million. Are you honestly planning on reading all the feedback?
It’s not a question of priority; developers who are gamers first usually don’t have a job very long.
🙂 how will you ever know what gamers want if your not a gamer first?
Indeed its a job in a company with a business to run but remember what got you in that company in the first place? It was that you are a gamer 🙂
Now granted a company might say well lets take best modelers, system designers and writers we can find for this project ect..ect How would those people if those people infact never played a game in thier life or even liked it for that matter going to have any clue at all what or what not to put in? You cant get that off surveys.
Im not saying run around the office screaming leetspeak and having open pvp in the parking lot obviously lol and you didnt say I did but its more to say dont lose what you love to the business aspect of the industry. Once your judgements are built and based on paper and surveys your not a gamer or a dev anymore your a corporate clueless knucklehead basing games off of a fraction of information whos lost touch with what gaming is all about. your one of them!
You took that job for a reason…that reason to make the coolest game you could possibly make right? Once you move away from that then your just making pixels and puzzles and cramming them onto a cd in a titled box. If you wouldnt play the game you yourself make and enjoy what makes you think anyone else is going to?
Theres got to be that child inside that used to rush to the arcade… if thats not there your in the wrong line of work.
As for who your going to email….Start with a few irate customers for one, personally email 10 of those people and ask them “what is it about my game that has you so irate? What is it we are doing that you hate so much? We make this game for you to enjoy so let us know, we sincerely want to know where we need improvement so that you can have more fun playing our game Then see what you can do to the game to change that some. Address thier problem.
You’ll never be able to please everyone, thats impossible, but those ten gamers opinions go far. Those ten opinions turn into 100 to 10,000 see where Im going here? Some things are just better left off aquiring firsthand as a pose to sending mindless surveys with limited choices of information.
I just see nothing but problems with trying to go to the gamers seeking answers. If you are designing a game, you better damn well know what you are doing. This industry is really screwed up, much like any other business out there.
There’s just no effort anymore these days to read people, to find the good ones. Reading Raph’s story of getting hired at EA to make UO, along with a few others, it was obvious they knew what they wanted to make and made the effort to get the right people, the ones with skills that matched the idea. Oh, how I wish “bigger” people never stepped in.
It’s so classic, my father had a career in the electrical utilities industry, my wife has had a career with the same company. All the guys with loads of experiance and knowledge get passed up for promotions because they don’t have a freakin’ degree. Yeah, they’ll pay you to get a degree, but like my uncle the farmer told the government when they wanted to pay him to put his entire farm out to pasture (forget the name of the program, designed to keep the prices of crops up)…”Then I wouldn’t be much of a damn farmer, would I!”
My point for this industry is, find the leadership. Some have, Blizzard did a great job for what they wanted to do. EQ even did a great job at that point in time, as did UO.
Now it’s a different place in time, we’re all ready for the next “generation” x goodideas. Yet, most of the big companies are looking to repeat the past with same-ol’-same-ol’. Football coaches get retired that way, ya know?
There are some inde developers out there that really have a grasp. Look there for leadership into new terrain. Heck, we see Raph here, if some big company doesn’t grab him up, on his terms, I’ll call it chicken shit like my uncle did.
MarkT.
No Im actually not a developer (I like games to much for this), nor am I a marketer (I dont like meetings), Im in fact just a gamer just like you, or rather your a GamerLikeMe (http://www.myspace.com/3517522) or GameMarketMetrics.com 🙂 and a data miner. Everything you and these other guys are passionately debating are issues and problems I’m tackling. The communication, feedback, data, quality. So no I dont think gamers are stupid, in fact I think theyre an often misunderstood, underepresented, often ignored (no purposefully but because the correct communication channel mechanisims are not in place (YET!))rich, dynamic, and sometimes self defeating group of consumers that care (sometimes rabidly) about thier hobby.
My post was a hypothetical about how perceptions on both sides of the street are self perpetuating, something I’m trying to change. Sorry if you took it otherwise.
Comming your way January 2007…
One of the features we’ll have is deployability actually. This is one of the key features of what were doing, a customizable mechanisim deployable in less than 24 hours that provides instant feedback to the client (company) about thier userbase. Cancel buttons are instant and costly measures of performance and customer dissatisfaction, this will actully not be prohibitavely costly however, mainly because I would rather companies use this feature than worry about its impact to thier budget.