February 2013 Miscellany

Thoughts about some game-related topics that are not long enough for separate blog posts.

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I expect to be at PrezCon in Charlottesville, VA on the last weekend of Feburary, and at WBC in Lancaster PA.  Remains to be seen whether I'll be at Origins or GenCon.

I'll have various versions of Britannia (one less than two hours long) to try out, as well as a pirates game that needs to be tested by the more hard-core kinds of players we get at PrezCon.

I'm also interested in talking with people about the nature of game design.  (Which can be really interesting, believe me.)  You don't need to be an expert, you don't even need to be a game designer, because the players are more important than the designers. . .

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Alan Paull, English game designer and publisher, has started a blog that I'm sure will be good reading.  I've known him since 1977, and enjoyed many of his insights even as I sometimes disagree with him.  http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blog/2165
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What is typically called "gamification" is usually "scorification".  Scoring mechanisms are adapted to some work that is goal-oriented.  That, plus the idea that you're "playing" rather than working, can help make work less onerous.  But it isn't turning work into games.  Not good games, anyway.
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Even the higher class game magazines can get stupid, as when they're disappointed that Sony's presentation at E3 was not "stunning".  Getting punched in the face is stunning if you're not expecting it; finding out you have cancer is stunning, whether you expect it or not.  Being "stunned" by what someone says or shows in a presentation at E3 is NOT stunning, that's a sign of a weak mind.
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My book "Game Design" etc. is now available in a Kindle edition for $14.74! http://amzn.to/Wq3Vmx.
A "Nook Book" (ebook) edition from Barnes & Noble is $13.74.  The "Nook book" version may only be readable on Barnes & Noble ereaders!   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/game-design-lewis-pulsipher/1110783952 .

You may know that you can get a free PC program  that lets you read (and buy) Kindle books.  Something of the same kind is available to read "Nook Books" on iPhones, but I don't know about other platforms.
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My wife tells me about a friend whose 3 year old is spending money playing a "free to play" smartphone game.  Peter Molyneuax (Fable, etc.) thinks many "whales" (big spenders on F2P gmaes) are kids.  What happens when people, and smartphone controls, stop a lot of this?  Hard on F2P games?
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A big topic in the video game industry is whether consoles will continue to be viable in the future.  Some had predicted we wouldn't see new ones from Sony and Microsoft, but it looks like there will be.  I've always thought of consoles as 1) ways to stay away from a scary keyboard (long ago when people were much more apprehensive about computers) and 2) wannabe computers that quickly become outdated.  Yet they have persisted because they provide completely standard platforms for games (which PCs do not), because they're designed to be played on a big TV (which PCs are not), and because the manufacturers could make lots of money by controlling the games that could be played, and by thwarting piracy (especially in the cartridge era).

So given the directions of PC gaming and mobile gaming, why do people even want consoles, even if they're ultimately moneymakers for the manufacturers?  I don't know.
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Many video game makers have the saying "fail fast" (or "fail quickly").  That is, if something isn't working in a game, get it out of there, don't stick with it when you know, in your heart, that it isn't good enough.  Good advice for tabletop designers, too.

The only caution is that some people become so used to losing (failing) that they don't care any more.  Which is probably worse than the people who win all the time (assuming they win because they're good).

I understand that some first and second grade classes in some places are no longer given grades, so that we don't differentiate those who do better (for a variety of reasons) from those who do worse . . .  Hereabouts, the kindergarten teachers aren't allowed to give gold stars for exceptional work any more, for fear it might make the  kids who don't do anything exceptional feel bad . . .
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 In computer games, you can have complex rules that go on behind the scenes, if the players don't have to see what's going on.  You cannot do that in tabletop because people have to understand what's going on.  But if people have to see it, they need to understand why it is the way it is whether it's tabletop or video game.
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Here's an unusual website: http://www.virtualworldlaw.com/.  You can read about such things as a lawsuit over the ownership of twitter followers.
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Accumulation of victory points:

The older method tended to be, see who had the most points at the end of the game, don't accumulate points during the game.  The focus was on the long term, not the short term.

In this century, short-term thinking is commonplace, and players evidently feel a need to be rewarded as they play - winning at the end is not sufficient reward (and of course, in multi-player games, most people don't win any particular game).  Hence the tendency is to have a player score frequently, using the accumulated scores from the many scoring opportunities to decide who wins at the end.

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Every game has a narrative - a player's account of what happened to him and to others. Few have a story with plot, characterization, etc.
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All these egotistical dudes who think that the way they like games to work is the ONLY way, or is the way everyone likes them to work. . . I've been called an egotistical dude too, but I recognize that there are many, many ways to enjoy games, and my way is not even close to the majority nowadays.

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Tracking how "the word" gets around the Internet.  This is a piece at the site of the (German) Game Designer Association, SAZ, pointing to an about.com piece that in turn points to Joe Huber's review of my book "Game Design" etc.  http://www.spieleautorenzunft.de/newsreader-reports/items/tog-book-review-game-design-how-to-create-video-and-tabletop-games-start-to-finish.html

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Perhaps tabletop game designers focus more on "the journey" and less on "the destination" than video game designers, who tend to design for one player.  You can't lose a video game.  But most of the players in a multiplayer (more than two) tabletop game lose the game.  So the designer needs to make the journey enjoyable, rather than the destination of "winning", in order to accommodate most of the players.

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I have often speculated about how well chess or Go might sell if they had not existed heretofore and were issued as games today.  I think, not well at all.  Quite apart from both being very "difficult" to play well, chess would be heavily criticized for being so unbalanced in favor of white, and having so many draws.

I don't see their long history and intertwining with culture as a substitute for story or theme, as some have suggested.  It's simply the good luck of circumstances.  Monopoly, a poor design at best, enjoys the same advantage.  If it didn't exist and was issued today it would be a tremendous flop.

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Comic books might be the midpoint between RPGs that resemble novels and those that resemble tentpole (fantasy) adventure movies like Indiana Jones.  Not that most comics make any attempt to be believable.

And I have to say that most video games that attempt to be photo-realistic, are actually more like comics in play because of the many accepted conventions in such games: unlimited respawning, unlimited ammo sometimes, unbelievably accurate shooting, etc.