Category: games

A criticism of Xbox Live Arcade

I think I was overly optimistic when WiiWare was announced, imagining a future where consoles would be opened up to all developers, unleashing a wave of creativity.

But the question of control continues to be an important question, perhaps the most important for video games.

2d Boy Ron Carmel has posted a lengthy analysis of why he thinks XBLA is past its prime. Much of it comes down to the issue of control: the platform policies are built on centralized quality control, and individual contract negotiations, and Ron asks whether this really improves quality.

To boot, his data indicates that developers are slowly leaving XBLA.

Some of the more interesting suggestions:

  • Create a fair contract that doesn’t require negotiation. Everyone I know who’s been handed Microsoft’s boilerplate distribution contract for XBLA was angered and offended. It’s the most exploitative, one-sided distribution contract I’ve seen. I suspect it’s a holdover from the days where Microsoft only dealt with large publishers/developers and contracts were handled by teams of lawyers on both sides. Lawyers are probably used to conducting this kind of adversarial negotiation that begins with an unreasonably one-sided version. Smaller developers that don’t have a legal department are not used to this sort of thing. We each waste months of our time and Microsoft’s time negotiating the same stuff out of the contract, over, and over again. All that time, and in some cases money, would be much better spent making the game better. Efficiency aside, it’s a terrible way to begin a business relationship.
  • Solve the content discovery problem. This issue has three components. First, is bringing as many 360s online as possible. Microsoft is already doing a good job here. Last I heard the 360 has the highest online connectivity rate among consoles. Second, making it obvious to players that they can buy and download games. Too many people still don’t know what XBLA is, or that you can download games directly onto your 360. The dashboard should be designed in a way that makes it obvious that this is a possibility, and make it super easy to get into. Third, It’s important to put the best content in front of the player so that they have a positive experience purchasing games and would want to do it again. There are many approaches to this: Steam’s discounted promotions, the App Store’s Featured section, Kongregate’s top rated games list (top rated new games, all time top rated games, etc). The platform owner needs to make it SUPER easy for their users to buy software. This is how Apple, intentionally or not, solved the so called “piracy issue” (don’t get me started on how wrongheaded it is to think of those that download a game for free as “pirates”). The purchase process is so simple, smooth and painless that it’s easier to pay for an app than to “pirate” it.
  • Drop the greenlight process and open up development to everyone. Is the quality of the average game on XBLA higher than the average game on the App Store? Probably. There’s a ton of crap on the App Store, but the App Store has hundreds of thousands of games, compared to mere hundreds on XBLA. There are many, many more great games on the App Store than there are on XBLA. If done right, the curated approach may result in higher average quality, but it definitely results in fewer good games because of the overhead involved with bringing in each game. Players judge the quality of a platform by the quality and quantity of the BEST games available on it, not by the AVERAGE quality of all games.

And I find myself agreeing with this line of thought. The existence of low-quality music does not prevent me from enjoying music, and the existence of low-quality iPhone or Android game does not bother me either. Has the walled garden approach run its course?

Speaking on Gamification in Philadelphia

This Monday October 3rd, I will be participating in a panel on gamification at the Wharton school in Philadelphia.

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Gamification: Practical Advice from Game Developers

Monday, October 3, 2011 from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (ET)

Philadelphia, PA

Please join us for a networking event and discussion on gamification and game development, co-organized by Prof. Kevin Werbach (Wharton) and Nathan Solomon (Philadelphia Game Lab).

Computer games have long been the benchmark for well-designed, meaningfully quantified interactive user experience. Recently the term “gamification” has come into common use for applying gameplay functionality in non-game contexts. Is there more to this trend than hucksters throwing badges and leaderboards onto every website? What really makes games compelling? What can technologists, businesspeople, and game developers learn from each other?

We’ll begin with pizza and informal networking, followed by an overview of the state of gamification and a panel discussion featuring experienced game developers. Meet local entrepreneurs, developers, user experience experts, marketers, and students, and learn more about this emerging area.

 

Panelists:

Moderator: Chris Grant (Joystiq)

Jesper Juul (NYU)

Margaret Wallace (Playmatics)

Ethan Mollick (Wharton Management Dept.)

Eric Goldberg (Crossover Technologies)

Frank Lee (Drexel Game Program)

 

Attendance is free but space is limited. Register today!

Practice: Game Design in Detail

Please join us for Practice, our game design conference at New York University October 28-30, 2011.


What is the practice of game design?
Out of all the disciplines needed to make a game, game design is the most critical but least understood. PRACTICE is an unprecedented gathering of professional game designers that takes a rigorous look at the ideas and methods of game design.

Bringing together veteran designers across computer and videogames, paper games and sports, PRACTICE takes a close look at the nuts and bolts of game design. Through lectures and panels, workshops and discussion, we will explore the practice of game design, with a head focus on the concrete, day-to-day activity of designing games. And there will be plenty of time of gameplay and socializing too.

PRACTICE is not a conference about business, technology, or how to break into the industry. If balancing the variables in a virtual economy or theorizing about the effect of rule changes on a player’s emotional experience sounds like fun to you, this is the conference you’ve been waiting for.

This two day conference will be held at the Game Center on October 28th-30th, will a full schedule of events listed on the PRACTICE website.
Space is limited, so those interested in participating must purchase tickets.

For more information about the conference, follow this link.

NYU Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni – $400 (Limited Supply!)
To purchase at this price, login to NYU Home, navigate the the ‘NYU Life’ tab, and then scroll down to the bottom to ‘Ticket Central’ where you can click on ‘Buy Tix’.

General Admission – $500
To purchase at this price, please visit the online store here: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9218275

New book: “Tabletop: Analog Game Design”

ETC Press has another book out, this time Tabletop: Analog Game Design by Greg Costikyan and Drew Davidson.

Even as the digital revolution has progressed apace, tabletop games — board and card, roleplaying and miniatures — have grown and attracted many new fans. Indeed, in tabletop gaming there is far more diversity and design innovation than in digital games, and tabletop games have become of increasing interest to videogame designers, game design instructors, and people who study games of all forms.

In this volume, people of diverse backgrounds — tabletop game designers, digital game designers, and game studies academics — talk about tabletop games, game culture, and the intersection of games with learning, theater, and other forms. Some have chosen to write about their design process, others about games they admire, others about the culture of tabletop games and their fans. The results are various and individual, but all cast some light on what is a multivarious and fascinating set of game styles.

What PopCap Hates about Casual Games

(I didn’t blog about EA’s $750 million acquisition of PopCap since that was covered just about everywhere.)

Instead, here is a reasonably interesting list from PopCap boss Dave Roberts about what he dislikes about the casual game field that he helped create.

1. Gamification. He suggested it’s a trend enriching conference organizers trying to get corporate money into their pockets by promising to make anyone an “engagement expert.” “Really? Is everything a game?”

2. Portals. “I am sick to death of portals,” he said, specifically the commissions they charge game developers. “How can you charge developers 60 or 70 percent? I’ve been predicting for years that this would end … and it continues to mystify me.” Even with competition from Apple, Facebook and others, the portal rates haven’t come down. Roberts said he makes more money selling a copy of “Bejeweled” at Wal-Mart – with physical stores and greeters – than at Yahoo’s portal.

3. Get rich quick. “More than any other business I’ve ever worked in it seems to attract people who think it’s going to be really easy,” he said, noting that “Angry Birds” was something like the 52nd game made by Rovio.

4. Commoditization. “We have to figure out how to stop making shovelware … it really cheapens the whole industry.” Distributors need to be more selective and developers need to focus on quality, he said.

5. Money over fun. This was a reference to “evil social games” that trick people, lead to people pressuring friends on social networks and let players pay their way to the top of leaderboards. “Really those games make you feel like a beggar,” he said. PopCap is also making social games “but we don’t start in the dark underbelly” and the company doesn’t “want to ruin the environment for everybody.”

6. Simple games are easy to make. “This notion has been bugging me for years … making simple products is way more difficult than making complicated products,” he said. “Simple is more complicated, simple is elegant, simple is harder.”

7. Attack of the clones. Roberts showed a slide for a mock game called “VilleVille,” then lambasted developers who look at the top-selling game charts and then copy the leaders. “Really do you think you can out Farmville Zynga? What’s the point.” This is “a blight on the industry that drives me crazy.”

8. Stupid venture money. A lot of investors Roberts talked to over the years “look at our business as if it’s a manufacturing business” and expect it to be able to speed up production of its widgets. Money from these investors can “disrupt the entire ecosystem” putting in money “that makes it harder for people making great games.”

9. Middleware mania. Roberts called out “snake oil” vendors with tools promising to magically and instantly convert a PC game into a mobile and social title by pressing a single button. It never works, he said. “Usually the stupid venture money funds the stupid middleware companies,” he added.

10. Independent game companies. This was a self reference – PopCap was a standout independent, until last week’s sale to EA.

(From Brier Dudley’s blog.)