Fun & Games
Wednesday 31 December 2008 ◷ 07:34
I'm no big gamer. But maybe that makes it even more important to think about what the few games I play should be like. Recent posts on Slashdot and Rakso show that things are complicated.
For me a game should be fun to play. And given there is supposed to be a lot of AI in today's games, shouldn't the game be able to determine if the player is still having fun? Pinball machines are supposed to have some mechanism to determine what kind of player is currently putting money in it and dynamically adjust the difficulty level so both the casual player and the hardcore player are enjoying playing the machine so much that they choose to put more money in it. This optimizes the profitability of the machine since everyone can play and the hardcore player doesn't occupy the machine for hours on one coin to get to a level he enjoys. It doesn't matter how skilled or experienced the player is, he should be having fun for some time and then put some more money into the machine to have some more fun. Most computer games aren't like that. You pay EUR 70 for a game and then the creator doesn't care how much you like it after that. Every player then enters the same learning curve, making it to difficult or to boring for a lot of players. While it could be possible to dynamically adapt the difficulty level to make the game more enjoyable for a wider range of players, the community won't accept it. What if the game server could detect how enjoyable the gameplay for every player in a multiplayer game was, and adjust so enjoyment would be equally spread among the players, or optimized in some way for all players? I think that would only show that gaming isn't much about fun. It's about competition, hierarchies, levels, grinding and investing huge amounts of time to get some feeling of achievement. The industry is driven by players investing in tools to get ahead, and the games aren't supposed to level the playing field. The more a player invests the more "fun" he is entitled to it seems.
Example. Levels that are dark. Fun would be to accept that it's hard to see in the dark and it requires a different approach then a daylight level. But the competition element makes players adjust the gamma of their screen so the darkness isn't a disadvantage for them. And since they suspect the other players are doing that as well - or just have a more advantageous gamma setting as default - it's not considered cheating. What if the game could detect based on their behaviour that players are seeing more than they are supposed to and make it even darker for them, and leveling the playing field so differences in gamma settings don't make the game more "fun" for the player with the most advantegous gamma setting? Then it would be harder to sell advanced graphics cards that do increase the visual experience of a game but don't give an advantage in the gameplay. You'd have a 120fps WHUXGA display, but still get fragged by a 25fps XGA player because the game is trying to make playing fun for each player. I don't think the player with the 120fps WHUXGA display would appreciate that, and since that's the player probably spending most on games, that's the kind of player the game developers are targetting.
It works the same in some sports. Boxing isn't just about Valuev beating everyone. There are other classes so there is more fun for everyone. And while Ferrari would like to win/buy every race by investing insane amounts of money, I quit watching Formula 1 when it was nothing more than watching Michael Schumacher drive in position 1 for about 70 laps. Not fun and a waste of a nice sunday afternoon. Americans have realized that it's not very entertaining to have some billionaire buy the best players and put them in one unbeatable team. They have created rules that prevent that from happening, while Europeans have some of the best soccer players not even playing because some billionaires can affort to keep them on their bench instead of entertaining the public in another team.
Competition shouldn't be the goal, being entertaining and fun to play should be the goal of games.