The Ludologist

(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.)

In New York at the end of the month:

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Tickets are now available for the NYU Game Center’s Master Class: MDA Workshop with Marc LeBlanc!
Please join us on July 30th and 31st from 10AM – 5PM at the Game Center on the 9th floor of 721 Broadway for a hands on workshop about game design principles and best practices. Full event details are posted below

The NYU Game Center is pleased to announce our first game design Master Class, led by veteran game designer Marc LeBlanc. The class is a two day, hands-on workshop that is open to both NYU students and the general public.For the last 10 years, Marc LeBlanc has led standing-room only game design workshops at the Game Developers Conference, the largest annual gathering of professional game creators in the world. His widely influential approach to game design, known as Mechanics / Dynamics / Aesthetics or MDA, emphasizes the unique way that games create aesthetic experiences through their properties as dynamic systems.

The Master Class is appropriate for both professional game developers with several years of experience in the industry, as well as students and those just beginning their careers. Exercises will focus on high level game design concepts and best practices, and will result in collaboratively designed, playable games.This two day workshop will be held at the Game Center on July 30th and 31st from 10AM to 5PM. Space is limited, so those interested in participating must purchase tickets.

Ticket prices are as follows:

NYU Students, Faculty, Staff, and Alumni – $100

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’.

Non-NYU Students – $200

To purchase at this price, please email ‘gamecenter@nyu.edu‘ with the subject line “Master Class Student Code” from a .edu email address and you will be sent a discount code.

This discount code can then be applied at the online store here: http://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9121245

General Public – $300

To purchase at this price, please visit the online store here: http://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9121245

Group Discount – $250

To purchase at this price, purchase 3 or more tickets and use the discount code ‘GAMEGROUP’ at the online store: http://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9121245

The big game news of the day (in the US) is that the supreme court has ruled against the state of California’s attempt at restricting violent video games.

The ruling is surprisingly clear, well-written and sensible:

“California correctly acknowledges that video games qualify for First Amendment protection. The Free Speech Clause exists principally to protect discourse on public matters, but we have long recognized that it is difficult to distinguish politics from entertainment, and dangerous to try. “Everyone is familiar with instances of propaganda through fiction. What is one man’s amusement, teaches another’s doctrine.” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948). Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas—and even social messages—through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”

And there it is. A court ruling stating that video games communicate ideas.

More write-ups here, here, here.

I am speaking at the Storyworlds Across Media conference in Mainz on June 30th-July 2nd.

This conference takes me back to some of the disciplines and thoughts I originally came from: story, fiction, etc… I will be speaking on “The Paradox of Interactive Tragedy: Can a Video Game have an Unhappy Ending?”

The answer to the question is yes (though I said otherwise in Half-Real), but I am placing that within the broader complex of tragedy:

Abstract: It has long been argued that we behave paradoxically when we willingly seek out art – such as tragedies – that give us emotions that we otherwise find unpleasant. In such cases we may root for the protagonist, and we may on some level hope for a happier ending in which the protagonist survives, the sick get well, and so on, but we also accept that a tragedy must end tragically. Bad things happen, but they are beyond our control.

If we consider how this question plays out in video games, the paradox is doubled: how could a video game have a tragic ending? Why would we spend effort bringing about events that that we would prefer not to come about? It is clear that a player of video games does not need to condone the goals of the game protagonist, but games still tend to ask players to work for outcomes that are considered positive from the point of view of the same protagonist. Several theorists have made the argument that this renders video game tragedy impossible: who would want to play the role of Anna Karenina, struggling to make her commit suicide in order to complete the game?

In this talk I will argue that recent developments in video games show that the interactive nature of video games does not make tragedy impossible, but rather presents an entirely new type of tragedy.

 

I must admit that I want games to make people smarter, but I have to concede that the data is not quite clear.

Good news everyone! A new study provides more support for the claim that the n-back task will improve fluid intelligence in some people, not all. Are you one of them?

N-back involves being subjected a series of stimuli (sounds, words, colors), and then pressing a button whenever the new sound/word/letter is the same as was shown, say, 3 steps before.

OK, but is it that great a game? Here is an online version. I find n-back to be grueling and dull, but then perhaps I am not one of the people whose intelligence is improved by it.

(Via Ars Technica.)