Why do people Play Games..

It has been put forth that the main difference between man and animal, is that man is better at adapting to his environment and that man strives to make sense of his actions in some greater context other than himself. There are many studies under the heading of sociology, philosophy, and psychology that help define personal and cultural needs in the desire to understand the meaning and context of mans actions. There are more works on this subject than can fill several libraries. One important set of works are the studies by Carl Jung that despite culture, there are a handful of universal archetypes that prevail across cultural barriers that manifest themselves in literature, lore and religion. Another aspect of this puzzle rests in the fact that there are underlying needs that people have that are filled by actively or passively engaging in recreational activity of this nature.

These needs can be broken down into several distinct categories and are the same measures to determine behavior in the workplace. These needs interrelate among themselves and those activities which promote the widest breadth of these factors have the widest appeal to the consumer market.

Achievement: This axis relates to the recognition of work and awards for performance. The rewards and recognition are almost always intrinsic.

Power: This axis relates to the ability to be safe. Power is power over your environment and with that power, the ability to meet challenges that threaten safety.

Acceptance: This axis relates to the ability to socialize with other people and gain a measure of acceptance and a sense of self worth.

People learn and adapt either by their own actions or by watching others perform actions. Literature in the form of books, plays, stage, television and films offer a passive approach to gaining experience. We all watch these forms of entertainment and gain insight into how other people under interesting situations cope and deal with problems. I am not diminishing the artistic aspects of these endeavors, just brining up the underlying psychological needs that are being played upon when we engage in such activity.

Many of these forms of entertainment are social in nature, watched or consumed with a group of friends or peers together or individually. After the event, we often engage in behaviors that reinforce the perceptions from the experience. This re-living of the events are highly social in nature In western culture the social aspects of these shared experiences are widely embraced by females of our society. The social aspect of entertainment and shared activity is on the whole, generally more important to females than the power or achievement aspects.

Western Men on the other hand, are generally more interested in western culture for either the power or achievement aspects. The younger the male, the more power is of importance as the need to “Prove” oneself is a forefront of thought.

These observations should be understood to be group averages and behavior, and not necessarily applied as a hard and fast rule to a single individual. Every aspect at one time or another will play an important role for a single person. Also regardless of gender or culture, there will be people who outside of the norm. There will be young males who are more interested in the social aspects of play, and there will be females who will exhibit the need for achievement or power over the social aspects. Many of these concepts have been brought forth and discussed in minute detail by academic thought leaders in this field. Please reference http://terranova.blogs.com/. For much more detailed analysis of this topic.

Now, this has been an interesting diatribe in academic understanding. How does that translate to designs and how does it solve our problems?

In short, we play for the experience. When the experience becomes redundant, repetitive, and “Been there done that”, we lose interest. In other words killing 3rd level Rats is the same as killing 30th level Desert Rats, we cease learning. There is no “Unanswered Question” or alternative method or information to gain. However, there is a big BUT. If we have made social contacts in the virtual world, and those social contacts provide us value then we will find ways to stay with the simulation until such time as the value for the social interaction falls below the threshold of acceptance. In other words, the boredom of doing the same things over and over again exceeds the value we gain from the interaction with the social group.

I believe that we can keep the virtual world from becoming boring or redundant, and at the same time strengthen the social bonds that exist.

The question again is: How?

The first part is accomplished with a true dynamic game environment. Imagine a virtual world where what we encounter and deal with is determined in part or in whole by the actions of other players against the simulation. It changes and creates it own content as part of the simulation. It never stays the same, and morphs constantly providing new challenges and new situations. I will say now that this has already been done in test environments just to put the nay sayers who believe that the technology does not exist for this concept, at east. I will get to this in great detail in future posts.

The second part is accomplished by taking the “clan” or “Guild” ie.. the player run organization and plant it deeply into the game simulation itself. Expand this where the player run organization is part of the game. Think of this as a shared character class. Imagine a Fantasy type virtual world, where the guild created by the players have special abilities and game bonuses that are given to the players who are members. Imagine then that these abilities are purchased or created by various players based upon actions that are relevant for their individual level. For example, imagine that we accumulate “Guild Points” for lack of a better term, by fulfilling quests or defeating NPC’s (MOBS). One point for a single similar leveled character. If a character defeats a NPC of lower or greater than 2 levels, then nothing is gained. Thus a 3rd level character can generate the same amount of “Guild points” as an elite 80th level character. The contribution to the Guild to purchase and maintain it’s bonuses are the same.

Suddenly, we now have parity between the casual gamer and the hard core gamer, where they can become relevant to each other. This strengthens the bonds and social ties as everyone is now working towards a greater goal that helps everyone in the guild directly.

This also now does something very interesting. It creates a true Multi-player experience, instead of a single player experience set against a static setting with other single players.

Next post will expand upon this concept greatly.

The Problems to be solved.

You may be wondering what all this history, and perspective has to do with solving the problems of the MMORPG’s. Well, to be blunt, unless you are ready to ask the right questions, the answer is meaningless and will create more confusion in the already noise ridden confusion of this industry. We must set the basis of understanding and bring forth all the factors that play into the formation of the question. Please bear with my dialogue, and in the end it will be worth your time.

So, to some meat: What are the problems?

Actually it is one problem, and what follows is a dissection and inspection of the same problem from a variety of viewpoints.

The problem is from four perspectives

Investor Problem Statement: How can I invest in a game company, get stellar return on investment, and reduce substantially the risks associated with these types of ventures.

Producer Problem Statement: How can we create an entertainment offering that will keep millions of customers paying every month to participate for a period of many years, in a cost effective method that does not tie up full development teams and associated costs?

Designer Problem Statement: How can I design a game that will keep players playing?

Customer Problem Statement: Where can I go to play a great game, never get tired of it, provide constant challenge, and that does not adversely affect my real life in terms of personal relationships and responsibilities.

Historical Perspective

Those who do not learn from History are doomed to repeat it.

Today’s “Gaming” has deeper roots that most individuals realize. To deny those roots and underlying cultural and psychological factors is to akin to painting a life-like painting with two colors. Astonishingly enough, that is exactly what most game designs and products have attempted to accomplish in recent memory.

The origins of “Gaming” are well documented and well ignored. The origins date back to ancient times of Kings and Pharos, princes and generals who used miniature representations of armies and leaders to better understand impending battles. This pastime was educational, very expensive and only in the hands of the elite of society.

In more modern times, this pastime, termed “Wargaming” was a hobby in England and Europe and people simulated historical battles using hundreds and sometimes thousands of painted miniatures and a set of rules that simulated conditions to properly recreate these conflicts and battles. Interestingly enough, it was H.G. Wells who was exposed to this form of entertainment and brought it to the United States in early part of last century. These miniatures were in several sizes, the most popular being 15mm and 25mm, with the latter being both more expensive, easier to paint and vastly more popular. In the 1960’s the idea had morphed into two distinct forms of “Gaming”. The original form of miniatures were pleasing to the eye, held great appeal, but were very expensive and extremely time consuming to research and paint. The second was a new form of “Gaming” which was the “battle in a box”. Two companies “The Avalon Game Company” and “SPI” put out hundreds of boxed titles using cardboard boxes, graphically pleasing game boards and die cut counters to represent armies, leaders, units or airplanes depending upon the simulation. These two companies had great success and their dollar performance vastly exceeded the companies who created the miniatures and rules.

The big breakthrough however was in 1972 when a very small company in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin added a unique “supplement” to a set of rules for medieval combat called “Chainmail”. This supplement added the possibility for recreating fantasy combat based upon the literary work “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien. This “afterthought” rules addendum provoked such a positive response that shortly thereafter the two founders Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson of this small company “Tactical Studies Rules” created a new product. In 1973 three booklets were published that expanded upon this original idea and “Dungeons and Dragons” was born. The phenomenon of this work is extremely important to understand. Initially the idea was to add a fantasy element to an existing methodology for recreation of historical battles or in this case, battles that only were the results of fantasy literature. What followed in the next decade was not at all what was intended. This work bridged two different worlds. It brought together, military simulation with storytelling. Not just any storytelling, fantasy/mythological storytelling. It was a bridge between the world of literature and mathematics. Rule sets evolved, and in the next 10 years an explosion of expression of this hybrid form of literature evolved.

At the same time unique things were happening in other mediums, such as books, comics, and movies: An explosion of Fantasy authors and books, the rise of the Marvel universe in comic-books, and the release of the science fiction movies Star Trek and Star Wars. All of these fed the imaginations of gamers and launched millions of hours of interactive story-telling around such rules sets as Traveler, Gammaworld, Dungeons and Dragons, Champions, the Auruin Grimoire, Chivalry and Sorcery and Empire of the Petal Throne to name just a few. Supplements came from companies like the Judges Guild, and TSR that started us down a path of “Canned Adventures” that we find heavily influencing game design and the games produced today.

This new form of expression slightly predated the evolution of technology into household forms such as the home computer. The introduction of affordable technology accelerated the interest of this expression by adding yet another discipline into the mix, that of art.

In the 1980s several dominant forms of this expression began to take shape, interrelate, interconnect and expand. There existed the tabletop miniature market, the role playing market, the boxed game market, the play-by-mail market and finally with the addition of technology, with the added artistic expression, the computer game market that crossed all of these aforementioned low technology markets.

The roleplaying market expanded with an emphasis upon storytelling and evolution of game-worlds, plotlines and characters framed by elaborate rule sets designed to simulate heroic archetypes. The original introduction of Dungeons and Dragons spawned hundreds of rules sets, thousands of published works, the vast majority of which did not survive the marketing strength of the main competitors. It is of note that the survivors of this time period did not necessarily have better rules or products, but better marketing machines. A lesson still not learned by most technology companies today.

The miniature market expanded with the focus of fantasy and science fiction elements and expansion of rules sets to simulate such imaginary battles.

The Play-by-mail market, born in 1975 and thrived until the late 1990’s, was a combination form of entertainment that allowed multiple players to compete/play with and against one another using turn based systems encapsulating all of the low tech markets of role-playing, military simulation and adding political and economic simulations as well.

The boxed set market was still led by the Avalon Hill Game company in the 1980’s slowly began to dwindle in the pure military simulation sense. Later in the 1990’s picked up again by primarily German companies and designs using more abstract and innovative game mechanics to become a popular method of entertainment today.

Technologic Innovation:

We know well the impact of technology on our day-to-day lives, and at no time in our history has an event so changed world society in such a way. For our purposes we need to look at several factors of technology and how it has modified entertainment and to a lesser degree, the impact this has on the lives of those who engage actively or passively in technologic entertainment.

From low technology origins, the computer game market exploded in the 1980’s and over the last 25 years has become a very popular and lucrative form of entertainment. Initially computer games were limited in scope and power to engage the player in manual dexterity and coordination simulations. As power of the computers expanded, so did the complexity and artwork of these products. The operative word being product. Initially we had point of sale computer game products designed primarily for a single person to engage a computer in some form of simulation or story. New products enticed players with better graphics or artwork designed to appeal at the point of purchase and by and large the game play aspects were secondary considerations. In fact, under this business model, the only way to survive was to create a steady stream of products that eclipsed previous products, which historically have been at the point of purchase. In other words, the key innovations have revolved around the realistic expression of artwork and eye candy to entice a consumer to purchase a new product.

Technology has also played a key role in other forms of literature and art. Stage and theatre have been eclipsed with technological breakthroughs that have given us new forms of expression namely television, and film. Advances in artwork, special effects, computer aided graphics and simulation have given birth to forms of expression never before possible in our history.

Which brings us to the current day.

What we see today is the macro trend of the slow convergence of literary forms into a single technologic powered form of entertainment that can be both passive and active in nature. Today few computer games are created that does not support some sort of multi-player option and interactive cable-TV is being developed and released to target markets.

The form of gaming that has been termed “On-Line gaming”, provides a very unique opportunity to cross many fields of entertainment. The most current term used to describe this genre is Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game or MMORPG. Like the computer game market did to the low tech gaming markets, this form of entertainment has the unrealized potential to cut across many existing game genres and other non-technologic entertainment fields.

I touched on many things here.. and will elaborate further shortly.
.
.

Topics of Discussion

I wanted to create a list, perhaps more for me than for you, of intended topics that I want to cover.
These are not in a particular order and if anyone wants me to address a topic, please suggest it.

Historical Perspective of MMORPG's - Why they developed the way they did.
Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

The big problems that need to be addressed -
Content Stream - How to keep players engaged cost effectively.
It is not about eye candy - it is about the game system.
Hard core gamers vrs the Casual gamer.. how to design for both.

How to solve the big problems -
Multiplayer or Many people playing a single player game together?
Solving the Casual vrs hardcore gamer problem.
How to create a dynamic environment.
Solving the content stream.

Effective Business Models.
Service vrs Product orientation.

Design elements-
Story line vrs Chaos Theory
Expressions of creativity
Psychological Hooks

The optimal solution-
A vision of the future and what the ultimate offering would look like.
The problems to solve or this will never come to pass.

Market Trends -
Rise of the new breed of offerings - the socially conscious games.
Browser based games -
The Entertainment Convergence - Look up in the Sky! Is it a play, a movie, a book? It's a Game!

Game reviews -

Peace out..

Introduction

What is this Blog about? Why is it here? What do you get out of it?

Should you waste your time with an old fart?

Generally the answer to all of these questions is to "Move along. This is not the blog you are looking for."

However, if you like MMORPG's, are a designer, games programmer, producer, investor, or an avid game hobbyist, then these ramblings that follow will arm your mind with a rare perspective in dealing with the entertainment convergence, and MMORPG game design.

Who am I? My name is Jim Landes. You can look up my history on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Landes.

Why am I doing this? Because I have spent many years of my life trying to bring profound ideas and designs to gamers around the world. I have not succeeded to the level I would wish. Many of these ideas and perspective are bigger than I am, and larger than I can execute upon. In short, I do not want what I have spent 20+ years working on to die with me. There is immense knowledge locked in my head. It is my sincere hope that someone can pick up nuggets of value from what will follow in this soliloquy.

All I ask, is that somewhere and somehow you reference me if these ideas and perpectives have helped you in some manner.

Thanks and enjoy....
.
.