The primary concept with both videos that I take issue with stems from the viewpoint that the consumer should be the driving force in games development. The idea is something that John frequently stresses. And for the most part that I agree the consumer of any given medium should be treated with respect, that does not mean that it should be the situation of "Having it your way" as the slogan goes.
Since gaming became an industry rather than a medium of artistic passion, we have seen the rise of the bland triple A release. Too often, games seem to lose focus, and include trends that are hot in the medium at that point. Whether that be adding a tower defence game within Assassin's Creed to cramming the idea of crafting in just about every single game regardless of logic, it showcases the major flaw in his arguments on both issues. As the Game Theorist's Matthew Patrick said, "[gamers] don't know what [they] want."
In a video he created some time ago, Mat lays out the hard truth that gamers buy familiar concepts over testing the waters in games that break with the established formulas. This is evidenced by the popularity of not only the modern shooter, but even as far back as Super Mario games for the original Nintendo, and likely even beyond that. While John himself complains about seeing endless 2D pixel-style platformers coming out, he subsequently states that the consumer should get what they want. And what they want, Mat shows in a later video, is to belong. And to belong means to have a shared experience.
That's truly why Let's Play channels have found success. It's not that games can be fully experienced by watching another play them. True, you can witness the story, but more often it's being on the journey with that player whose video you are watching that is more important. You're seeing the view from their perspective and with their insight, as well as sharing those "you had to be there" moments that can happen during gaming.
Taking all this into account, let's tackle the actual arguments from both videos.
From his first video, he talks about the advantage of skipping content in a game to give you a way to experience it in an on-demand way. He then conflates early cheats with being intentionally added for that purpose. Ironically, he states that people should know their gaming history, yet doesn't realize he's not understanding the origin of the cheat code.
Cheats, initially, were not intended to be used by the consumer. When games were made in the early days, they were coded in a language from the ground up, then would need to be run through another program known as a compiler. The compiler took that written code, translated it into instructions a computer would use ( as well as pulling in functions from libraries of functions that were included in those instructions), and generated a file that could be run by whatever operating system it was made for. This creates a fundamental issue when testing a game: How do you test later levels without having to complete every single level you've made up to that point.
Enter the concept of cheat codes. A developer would embed functions that, while accessible, were hidden in a way that most players would be unaware of. The Konami Code, therefore, was not made specifically for gamers. It was made by Konami employees to be shorthand to access a specific boost in the game for testing purposes. Eventually, as gamers discovered these cheats, programmers started to use them not only as a method to test games without rebuilding them, but as Easter eggs for gamers to find and share. However, not all game developers subscribed to this idea. They would either remove these cheats in the final build, or just not have a method for cheats that could be accessed by the consumer at all.
Enter the concept of the Game Genie, and later other cheat devices like the Game Shark. These were created by third party companies who either had access to developer kits, or to those who reversed engineered the systems themselves. They would intercept the data from the game, and then apply changes to values dependent on codes entered by the user. This could do nothing, or could cause the game to become utterly inoperable. However, in the middle ground of those two polar opposites lay the potential to alter any variable, including health, number of lives, and strength of attacks.
With the rise of game development engines such as Unreal, the concept of the cheat code faded away as developers now had a test bed they could use in the early development. And once out of that stage, it was no less difficult to give access to beta testers in a similar fashion, meaning no lengthy compiling either. They could just adjust what slice of the game was live to test and move from there. So while John is right that cheat codes existed, their rise and disappearance has more to do with the industry moving from home-brewed solutions to large-scale mass production tools.
The reason cheats returned in the realm of microtransactions is the same reason why DLC is created: Player demand. The idea of making cheats in today's market is now a cost versus reward equation, a line on a spread sheet. Since most cheat codes no longer have a need to exist, they'd have to be specifically made. Since that takes someone's valuable time to add and test, much like added content would, big business saw it as a way to pass on the cost of that to the consumer. Since most gamers, like John, don't realize the shift development has taken, they immediately react with outrage about paying for what was once free.
And that is what lies at the heart of the false ideas John is defending. At one point, he states that valuable metrics could be gathered by seeing what sections players skip. It's talk like that which hurts the industry, and takes us further from good games. Upper management loves numbers. Quantitative data is easily compared and contrasted. Qualitative, subjective data is so much harder both to grasp and to convey. It's why saying a controls "feel" off is so hard to convey to a non-gamer, but stating that the size of a controller is too large would not be. It's why call centers tend to use metrics-focused concepts like handle times and script adherence rather than listening to how the caller reacts to their treatment. It's easier to hand your boss a spread sheet that showcases a 20% reduction in handle time versus a stack of positive feedback comments that need to be read over to be understood.
So, if the data starts showing that the focus for the game isn't gameplay, but rather cutscenes, you will see budgets reshifted to prioritize that work over the work on the combat. If you doubt this, look no further than the rise of the pre-order scheme. When pre-orders started, they were for games that were not likely to have a large number of copies. I myself pre-ordered almost all the FFXI expansions as the store nearest to us usually only stocked 2 copies at a time. However, when these numbers were shown to publishers, they saw a vector for increasing sales. Using the concept of the the comic book speculator market, and the perceived value addition of cosmetic items, they started selling more copies. This rolled into a larger investment in that aspect, and more elaborate pre-order bonuses. These pre-orders are meant to help back those spread sheets upper management likes look great far before the game comes out in order to greenlight more projects like DLC packs. It's the concept of games as a consumer product rather than game content made for the sake of it existing.
Once a sales vector is found, that will be leapt upon, and you will will see games development shift accordingly within the triple A market. And once that has been done, metrics will be needed in order to evaluate the success of that. So, let us take the level skipping function. John stated that it could end up showcasing where levels are weak. The problem becomes conveying that to those who hold the purse strings. Often, upper management for publishers are brought in from outside the games market, though that is changing. I recall that some even came from the packaged foods realm, something I find humorous as Mat uses the concept of developing spaghetti sauce as a reason for why some games become popular. More on that later, but staying on point, if the feedback received is to the effect that some levels aren't interesting, that could be good. But what if the feedback is that they are too hard?
The reason why games have typically gated content behind proficiency is because of how games ramp up to their climax. Unlike storyline elements, gameplay advances based on challenging the player. Each level, if well designed, should be introducing new ideas and concepts to the player until the entire amount of gameplay options are laid out. Then, as the game reaches its finale, these skills should be tested to their limits, in essence a final exam based on your skills and preparation for all the events leading to this point. This results in the idea of the game as a journey, rather than a destination. John himself states that he carries the badge of honour of completing Godhand. Why would you do that if you did not value it?
The reason you do is because the game was crafted to make you feel accomplished by the end. It's why when you cheat to achieve goals in a game, you take less pride in them. You've gutted the experience that was intended by the designer in favour of hopping to the end. It cheapens the victory and invalidates the work put into crafting the experience itself. Much like ordering a five course meal, then skipping to a dessert that ruins your appetite for the rest, you've wasted the experience you could have had.
The idea to start at the beginning, and travelling the road laid out for you is the same idea in books or movies. But since games demand more of you, it's understandable that some would rather convert the experience into one of lowered effort. Many just want to see the ending, but those who fail to understand the value of the struggle are dooming the medium to mediocrity. There is a reason legendarily hard games like Dark Souls become phenomenons. It's because once you cross the threshold from failure to success in them, your brain rewards you with all those feelings of accomplishment, and now you belong to another tier of gamer. Again, we go back to the concept of tribalism, of elitist ideology. But in reality, who doesn't want that feeling of being one of the few to finish the greatest gaming challenges?
The easy answer to that is the casual gamer. I would even call myself that at this point. My Steam library, along with my physical media one, has a wealth of unfinished, dense content games I will likely never see all of. So you would think that, like John, I'd be a proponent of cheats and skips to get my money's worth from them. But that's where I differ. I want these games remaining in the form the designer made them for the fact that I'm there not to experience my world, but theirs. I play games to lose myself in the mentality of others, to see how they lay out choices and challenges for me to overcome. I see no value in giving consumers the choice to jump to the end and call it a day. Ultimately, you are sending the messages to publishers to stop making content-rich games, and instead focus even more heavily on flashy cutscenes and voice acting to sell to a market of people with no time for games.
We've already reached critical mass in the realm of game budgets. With shareholders and investors combing over the books, every sub 10 million sales market is seen as blasphemy, as a lost investment of time. It's why a game like Bayonetta needed to be saved from extinction by a console manufacturer who was in dire need of exclusives. It's why so many games turn to crowd funding; why even big name publishers now turn there. No one wants to risk games not being only decent on the sales charts.
I've been in the gaming scene since the days of Atari. I was born in time to see the console murdered by the concept of consumer-first pandering. I watched as arcades rose to replace them, only to see their greed be undercut by the home console market. Now that same greed threatens to turn games even more into a manufactured product than they've already become. There's a reason I don't buy most games new now. There's a reason I rarely get on the hype train. And, in part, it's because of people like you, John.
You, and critics like you, have done their best to advice us to be smart consumers of the medium. You call yourself a taste maker. And you're not far off. In Mat's video where he talks about the spaghetti sauce, he reveals the psychological reason people like yourself have influenced the market as a whole. Hell, not long ago I bought Renowned Explorers based on your video. You help to give us perspective on the games we love, and help to show us others we might have missed. But you also have the ability to shape habits of consumers.
And that's why this statement worries me.
Your artistic vision is not the priority of the consumer.
I understand. You are a consumer-focused channel, offering more a buyer's guide to games. But, you are both utterly right on this and horribly wrong for promoting it. The vision of the designers should be paramount among the concerns of a gamer who loves this medium. Games like Thomas Was Alone, The Stanley Parable, and even your most beloved Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons would not exist save for the vision of a designer. It is their passion, their devotion to realize an idea, a concept, and share that with us that makes for the most compelling games we've ever played.
Too often, we consume games like fast food. We don't care how they were made, or even if they were any good. We just care that a need was met. A box was ticked off. And that's what the publisher feels as well. So long as their boxes all go ticked, and they hit their marks, then there's no need to change. No need to abolish toxic pre-order bonuses, nauseating microtransactions in full retail priced games, or season pass gouging for content that likely should not be charged for. It's the same reason the mobile market is awash with casual experiences instead of innovation.
You blame the limitations of the devices that these experiences live on, yet I recall a time when portable games had a D-Pad and two buttons, and could deliver truly amazing gameplay in that context. Innovation, risk, is never cheap. But innovation in a market that rewards, consistently, the mediocre, the mundane, and the recycled is foolhardy beyond the scope of imagination. There could be a future in mobile for better, more rich experiences, but they are likely never to be found as long as the idea that the "customer is always right" is upheld.
The metrics of mobile games scream to never make a full-priced, well realized game that challenges what the platform can do. Instead, it screams to churn out well test, well worn, consumable products. The mobile market, John, is the future you see in games. On demand, ever accessible, and with all the options handed to the customer... for a fee. And that's the reality. That's gaming as a consumer medium. Mobile is where creativity goes to die. Any mildly original idea will have a hundred clones before the month's out, and each will be laden with monetization schemes laid out based on metrics gathered from previous profitable ventures. It's a market glutted with so many titles that you don't just have 10 options for any one extremely specific type of game variation, you have literally hundreds. sometimes thousands.
The poison that lives in mobile has seeped into the console and PC markets, and you decry it. You hate pay-to-win and pay-to-skip ideology, yet listening to your advice would lead every publisher down that path. Publishers want bankable returns, and the best way to do that is to hone in on what players want, and place them over a barrel to get a cash return. Again, look to DLC and pre-order bonuses for examples of that.
Ultimately, defending the concept of consumer choice is a fine idea. A consumer has the right to be respected, and their time and money treated fairly when being offered a product. However, placing that at the highest priority will not result in what you expect. It will not end filler, but instead will simply drive development down the path that will provide the biggest hype while minimizing other expenses. You would think, given your experience with how the industry has corrupted the value in other concepts that could have been helpful to consumers would have made you more aware of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment