The Xbox documentary on TV tonight--Part I

[Gadfly2317]

I have no idea how new, or how many times this show has been on, but on Discovery-Times channel they're running an "Inside Microsoft" about the attempt to get the X-box to succeed. It was an authorized inside look at game development at Xbox, very pro-slanted, with lots of interviews with development teams, and with VP Ed Fries. They covered in depth the development on 3 games: Halo II (2004), Oddworld Inhabitants (2004) and Crimson Skies (2003.) I found the footage of the games beautiful and compelling.

These games looked freaking amazing, especially all the Halo footage, but especially all the Oddworld footage.

At the same time, I think a clear view into why Microsoft games so often lack "the fun factor" was unintentionally put on full display. The developers, and Ed Fries, kept talking about trying to make the games fun. But they kept focusing on key things they felt made the games fun. Crimson Skies was the one they were having the most trouble with, including the play testing where gamers were turned off to the dull and repetitive nature of the game. After consumer feedback, the team sought to improve the game by making sure gamers where "engaged in the STORY" and that it provided a "visceral experience." One developer said "If we want to be more engaging the STORY will have to change."

discussing Halo they used the word "looks" repeatedly, and discussed how they pulled out all the technical tricks, with texture, specular masks, and bump mapping. Someone actually said "There's nothing there without the bump mapping."

And finally, the amazing looking "first person western" Oddworld Inhabitants: "Now we can start thinking STORY FIRST because of the technology."

The term "interactive entertainment" was thrown around, and that is important, because a "game" and "interactive entertainment" are very different things. Finally, the show closed with a statement of Microsoft's objective: that games are only the first step to owning our homes: that microsoft seeks a central solution to interactive entertainment in the home.

[Gadfly2317]

It is clear that Microsoft is overlooking the key elements of game design: what makes a game fun. Why do we have FUN when we PLAY a GAME? Fun is a by product of play. And play is something that most mammal species engage in. Monkeys, tiger cubs, bear cubs, human children. Play is an evolutionary function that facilitates learning and discovery, and fun is the emotional payoff that keeps us playing. I am not talking about learning in some dry educational sense, but in the sense of discovery, growth and understanding. There is a true reward when play yields a discovery or we achieve a new level of mastery or skill set. This is why chess stays fun for your whole life: there are always new levels of mastery. And this is why so many "interactive-entertainment" style "games" grow boring quickly--there's nothing to master that you haven't done in a dozen other genre clones. After you get over the "wow" of the new graphics there's nothing left.

In PLAY it is the Player who has complete control over the actions. Think of the difference between a movie, and a pure game like Tetris. A movie is a passive form of entertainment, and less engaging, less fun, than an active pure, simple game like Tetris. The type of enjoyment you are deriving is entirely different. So when Microsoft focuses, as VP Ed Fries does, on “Thinking of Story first” we are placing the narrative priorities over the priorities of play and control. The narrative, the story, the cut scenes are all control that comes from the programmer rather than control that comes with the player, and this reduces the level of fun.

The type of enjoyment derived from the typical MS/Xbox game is more like a drug than a game experience. It is “interactive entertainment” as Ed Fries calls it, and all the graphical effects, sounds, story, explosions and action create a huge rush of adrenalin. This is a valid enjoyable experience. I enjoy this type of entertainment, but it doesn’t really qualify as the essence of the FUN of PLAYING GAMES.

A Game is the imposition of a rules on play. Take your typical FPS, or even a good one like Halo. This is a story narrative mixed with lots of running around shooting things. Barely a rule structure or a game in the true sense of the word, but an “interactive experience” designed to produce an adrenalin rush. Digital drugs.

And this is where I think Nintendo excels over Microsoft, is in its understanding of game theory and the fundamentals of what makes a fun GAME.

Next up: Specific examples.

[Gadfly2317]

First up is Metroid vs. Halo. In designing a compelling game/play experience, everything must be in service of the gameplay. Graphics, sound, level design, story, all must serve the game play. Look at Metroid; no extended cut scenes. There is nothing in fact, to ever break you out of the game play experience. The story is embedded and discovered in the course of PLAYING. And Playing is not centered around endless blasting things to death, but around exploration, memory, and puzzle solving. Metroid, like all good action/fighting games, provides big adrenalin rushes too, but they are not continious and draining, but periodic and well placed, creating a paced system of accomplishment/payoff. Metroid is more like a game, Halo is more like interactive entertainment. As a gamer, I am biased towards games over interactive entertainment.

Second, and most importantly, Animal Crossing Vs. Everything. Many people here have dissed this game, yet the detractors have never bothered to discuss why on earth so many people found this game to be so highly addictive (i.e. virtually every single editor at Gamespot eventually, against their will, became addicted to this game.) While someone might not relate to this game or the experience it provides, you must answer the question, why was it so addictive to many people? What is it about the design of the Game, Fun and Play?

Animal Crossing is Play in its purest form. Yet it is still a game because there are rules. However, they aren’t externally imposed rules like most games. To play most games, like Chess, dominos, or Tetris, you need to know the rules, or the GOAL. In that sense, the game designer is still imposing an external control on the player. The rules in Animal Crossing are embedded and have to be discovered. What kind of fish appear in what season? What if I try to get KK to give me more than one song? What will happen if I try to plant something from the island on the mainland? What if I bury my shovel? What if I chop down all the trees? What if whack another character over and over with my bug net? What happens at midnight? What happens if I put nothing but Gyroids in a room? All the “rules” in Animal Crossing are embedded and waiting to be discovered, they are part of the programming, they are part of the “natural order” of this artificial universe. In all mammalian species; the evolutionary point of play is to discover the “rules” or “how things work” or “the natural order of the world.” FUN is what we experience through the act of play and discovery. FUN is why we keep doing it. Animal Crossing is unstructured play—it appears not to be a game, but because it is man made, with man made rules, it is a game. But because it mimics pure, unsrestricted and unstructured play—you can do anything—it taps into our sense of fun and play at the most primal, animal level.

Of course, if you are a bitter old poop who has forgotten how to play and have fun, and your only psychological payoff is the drug-addict like masturbatory pleasure of adrenalin inducing explosion fests of interactive-movies masquerading as games, well then, you probably wouldn’t enjoy Animal Crossing.

[Fragmastar]

Seriously.....What point are you trying to prove? And a better question would be, besides you, who cares?

[Tappy_Tibbons]

You think we care Gad? You think that your endless rantings of opinionation can change my mind? I think not!

[Gadfly2317]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Seriously.....What point are you trying to prove? And a better question would be, besides you, who cares?</div>

Besides me, who cares? Probably no one. I knew that when I made the post. .

What point am I trying to prove? I'm not trying to prove a point. Thing is though, at system wars we've endlessly debated things like what GAMES are the most FUN to PLAY, yet never defined the terms. So nothing is ever accomplished, because no one is talking about the same thing. Every one just goes on about what they like, and there's very little discussion about what INNOVATIVE means, or why games are fun, or even what a GAME is. Why do people (and other mammals) PLAY at all? I

I chose to sum this up in Animal Crossing because it has been thrashed and praised to each extreme more than anything, and because it is one of the best examples of true play that I've ever seen. Those that love it seem unable to explain why it grabbed their imagination, and those that hate it seem to be unable to comprehend or explain why anyone likes it, or why anyone should hate it. At the core, it seems like there is a rift in the game development community between entertainment that is structured like a game, and entertainment that is structured like interactive story telling. I wanted to explore those topics because I was interested. If anyone else is too, then good. If not, at least I got it off my chest so I can move on to more releveant topics, like how I can't believe I didn't barf from motion sickness after the last two hours playing F-Zero.

If I had any point at all, it is that developers are so caught up in being movie directors, story tellers, and in pushing graphical limits, that they've forgetten what the core principals are that underly Games, Play, and Fun. All good games are at there core very simple things. Tetris, Chess, Pac-Man, Mancala, Monkey Ball. I'm not opposed to mixing stories and games---but the game is more important than story or graphics. And in terms of Systems Wars, I was hinting that Nintendo--which is a company with over 50 years experience designing games(they were making games before electronic games existed) has a better grasp of the principles of what constitutes fun gameplay than does Microsoft, a company best known for business software, and whose foray into gaming seems more about becoming our main portal to multi-media entertainment than it does about delivering original and compelling game experiences.