Passive v. active interaction
by abc · 01/07/2006 (6:01 pm) · 3 comments
So over my winter break I got to be around my older brother a while. He's a grad student and he's decided to(among other quirks) avoid keeping a computer set up in his apartment because it interferes with his studies. So when he's back home he tends to soak up as much gaming as he can. Usually he ends up getting "stuck" on one title until the vacation's over. The object of his addiction, on this particular occasion, was Cute Knight from Hanako Games, a Princess-Maker-esque life sim. We decided to buy it together - I tired of it after a few days; my brother, on the other hand, kept going until he left.
My rationale for quitting was "I've experienced all the gameplay. There won't be any new career paths or items. The only thing left is more endings, but they won't be substantially different to play through, so it's not worth it even if I miss out on a few things."
His rationale for continuing was "I haven't seen all the endings yet and I don't know exactly how to reach all of them. This is a problem I want to solve."
The reason I make this contrast is that it brings back the question of what a player wants out of the game experience. I felt that because the gameplay aspects of the story had essentially been solved, I was done and playing further was like playing more games of Tic-tac-toe. What intrigued me most was the demo - there were lots of options but you were given only limited time to try to execute them. In the full game, I realized almost immediately that there's enough time that it feels like the game world "collapses" towards the end - you just pick a potential ending and work towards it - so it starts feeling very rich and open and later ends up being heavily constrained once you narrow down the goals. This was something my brother really enjoyed, I think, while I considered it uninteresting.
Then I thought to myself this evening, looking at some other article, "this really does reflect on both me and him. He likes sitting there ten hours a day solving well-understood problems. I prefer wandering around and observing things and possibly making some non-obvious connection between them." Gamer psychology has been done to varying degrees before, but this was a real-world example of it. The question it raises for me is, how can I design a game that interests me in some way other than being a simple problem-solving exercise? This is what I usually find myself faulting games on - game experiences are hardly ever "passively interactive." And when they are it's usually as an interlude or endgame case, not as the core experience. I think this is the question I've been wanting to ask myself but couldn't decipher previously.
My rationale for quitting was "I've experienced all the gameplay. There won't be any new career paths or items. The only thing left is more endings, but they won't be substantially different to play through, so it's not worth it even if I miss out on a few things."
His rationale for continuing was "I haven't seen all the endings yet and I don't know exactly how to reach all of them. This is a problem I want to solve."
The reason I make this contrast is that it brings back the question of what a player wants out of the game experience. I felt that because the gameplay aspects of the story had essentially been solved, I was done and playing further was like playing more games of Tic-tac-toe. What intrigued me most was the demo - there were lots of options but you were given only limited time to try to execute them. In the full game, I realized almost immediately that there's enough time that it feels like the game world "collapses" towards the end - you just pick a potential ending and work towards it - so it starts feeling very rich and open and later ends up being heavily constrained once you narrow down the goals. This was something my brother really enjoyed, I think, while I considered it uninteresting.
Then I thought to myself this evening, looking at some other article, "this really does reflect on both me and him. He likes sitting there ten hours a day solving well-understood problems. I prefer wandering around and observing things and possibly making some non-obvious connection between them." Gamer psychology has been done to varying degrees before, but this was a real-world example of it. The question it raises for me is, how can I design a game that interests me in some way other than being a simple problem-solving exercise? This is what I usually find myself faulting games on - game experiences are hardly ever "passively interactive." And when they are it's usually as an interlude or endgame case, not as the core experience. I think this is the question I've been wanting to ask myself but couldn't decipher previously.
About the author
#2
Fable (finished it as a mostly good character thats it)
Kotor, Kotor2, Jade Empire (All as above)
Farenheit (again only played it through one time)
Halo(finished it in the default mode never went back)
Off of the top of my head those games all had more than one ending, and somewhat branching storyline and character development, but once I completed the story once I had no incentive to try and finish things I missed (sub plot quests), developing characters of different alignment or change the outcome.
01/07/2006 (10:51 pm)
I'm just like you. I play a lot of story based games and love them to death, but once done thats it. Games that fell in this category include:Fable (finished it as a mostly good character thats it)
Kotor, Kotor2, Jade Empire (All as above)
Farenheit (again only played it through one time)
Halo(finished it in the default mode never went back)
Off of the top of my head those games all had more than one ending, and somewhat branching storyline and character development, but once I completed the story once I had no incentive to try and finish things I missed (sub plot quests), developing characters of different alignment or change the outcome.
#3
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/23/15
My recent most example of a game which could not hold my interest was WoW. I figured the game out and it held no more interest for me. =) I had seen enough of the game to realize that whatever I experienced in the game going forward was going to be minor variations on what I have already experienced. The quest is to go find something or go kill something or go talk to someone. The objectives change, the locals change, but you are really just running the same treadmill over and over again. The complexity or depth of WoW is just an illusion they create by bombarding you with "new" information so you are distracted by the fact that you are actually on a treadmill.
Of course WoW is extremely popular... as was EQ1. People either don't know they are on a treadmill or don't care. Hell, maybe they are aware of the treadmill and they like it?? *shrug*
My main point in is that our drive for wanting ground breaking and involving games is a valid arguement for pushing the envelope of game design. Wanting a more realistic/challenging experience and wanting new frigging genres vs. the tried and true 'formulas' is key... especially for us indies.
On the other hand, the more mainstream our industry gets, the more watered down the expectations of the end users are going to be. Grandma isn't going to sit down and play something complex. She is going to play something easy and something familiar.
Thinking about it actually... maybe the complexity of WoW is is all the market could bear? Hehe. If you want to produce a game that infiltrates the mainstream on a massive scale there has to be low barrier of entry for everyone in terms of ease of use.
What I do know is that the 'professional' game industry is slowly turning into a factory production line and a huge percentage of the titles that are churned out are knock offs of some other hit. New features are added a bit at a time a game at a time. "After all, this is safe and it makes good fiscal sense, right? People are liable to buy game 'x' because it is just like game 'y' and 'y' did really well last year!!" The thing is that as much as we may deride this mindset it is true and will become increasingly true as gaming systems become as common as the phone or the tv.
At the end of the day I think the only thing that matters is that developers are making the games they want to make. There are always going to be people doing this for profit... hell, I am doing this for profit. But the day I can't make the games I want to make and have to make games some research department forecasts as being successful is the day I get out.
In the mean time we have lots of work to do, so I guess it is ok to let granny play her solitare as long as she is having fun...
-Unk
01/08/2006 (9:49 am)
FYI: There are some Escapist articles I read a while ago that briefly discuss the difference in mindset of casual vs. hardcore gamers which made me think on this issue as well.http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/23/15
My recent most example of a game which could not hold my interest was WoW. I figured the game out and it held no more interest for me. =) I had seen enough of the game to realize that whatever I experienced in the game going forward was going to be minor variations on what I have already experienced. The quest is to go find something or go kill something or go talk to someone. The objectives change, the locals change, but you are really just running the same treadmill over and over again. The complexity or depth of WoW is just an illusion they create by bombarding you with "new" information so you are distracted by the fact that you are actually on a treadmill.
Of course WoW is extremely popular... as was EQ1. People either don't know they are on a treadmill or don't care. Hell, maybe they are aware of the treadmill and they like it?? *shrug*
My main point in is that our drive for wanting ground breaking and involving games is a valid arguement for pushing the envelope of game design. Wanting a more realistic/challenging experience and wanting new frigging genres vs. the tried and true 'formulas' is key... especially for us indies.
On the other hand, the more mainstream our industry gets, the more watered down the expectations of the end users are going to be. Grandma isn't going to sit down and play something complex. She is going to play something easy and something familiar.
Thinking about it actually... maybe the complexity of WoW is is all the market could bear? Hehe. If you want to produce a game that infiltrates the mainstream on a massive scale there has to be low barrier of entry for everyone in terms of ease of use.
What I do know is that the 'professional' game industry is slowly turning into a factory production line and a huge percentage of the titles that are churned out are knock offs of some other hit. New features are added a bit at a time a game at a time. "After all, this is safe and it makes good fiscal sense, right? People are liable to buy game 'x' because it is just like game 'y' and 'y' did really well last year!!" The thing is that as much as we may deride this mindset it is true and will become increasingly true as gaming systems become as common as the phone or the tv.
At the end of the day I think the only thing that matters is that developers are making the games they want to make. There are always going to be people doing this for profit... hell, I am doing this for profit. But the day I can't make the games I want to make and have to make games some research department forecasts as being successful is the day I get out.
In the mean time we have lots of work to do, so I guess it is ok to let granny play her solitare as long as she is having fun...
-Unk
Associate Sam Bacsa
I've found myself doing the same thing you described yourself doing. Very few games have the ability to keep me in my seat for more than one playthrough. It's also pretty challenging to keep me in my seat for more than a couple of hours per session!
Deus Ex was really the first game that I've replayed countless times, and still find myself replaying to this very day. It's a really involving story, full of mystery and action, that I can't help but contiue to be interested.
Neverwinter Nights was also that sort of game. I played NWN for hours and hours, and even after I beat it the first time, I realized that I could beat it 20x more and still not be able to soak up every part of the story and gameplay.
Morrowind is another great example of such a game, although I have never played it. I have played its predecessors: Daggerfall and Arena... both very expansive games in terms of scope and richness in story.
It's hard to create games like that, which is why most people don't. But I also consider our genre of gamers different. We expect more. We don't like your typical shootemup (although, those are fun, too), we don't settle for second best "as long as there's gore involved". We like strategy and depth of story. We want a game that we can plausably suspend the disbelief of the scope of the gameworld (feeling vast and unending) and the storythreads (infinite and unscripted).
Thanks for the insights!
- Sam