Recently I was talking with a friend about the New Super Mario Bros Wii title. It seems that this new opus of the legendary plumber caused quite a stir in my little world. My last blog post was about that particular game andpeople aroundme have diverging opinions about it. Some like it, some hate it, but all seem to agree that it’s not the best Mario created. One little detail to precise here: all those people are over 25 years old. Of course, I wanted to know more about the development process behind NSMBWand found this interview on Nintendo’s Wii official website. It seems that the great game designer Shigeru Miyamoto went into enormous lengths to make sure everyone could play and finish the game. He wanted to have a high difficulty level but didn’t want players to feel frustrated enough to quit. It reminded me of a BBC show I watched a few months ago. Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe (links can be found at the bottom of this post) was a nice, entertaining overview of the world of modern video games. During the show, the host as well as a guest player, mentions that video games are the only entertainment form where you must work to have the full content of what you bought. The entirety of the product you just acquired is locked by your own skills: if you can’t get past a level, you can never see what’s next. Also, as a game designer, it’s been clear to me for years that the industry is doing all it can to look friendly and sweet to bring in new blood in order to broaden the market. The phenomenon of “hand-holding”, a design direction that consists of giving tons of hints to the player as well as a multitude of tutorials for all actions available in the game, can be found in the majority of triple A titles, even those who are targeted at the seasoned players. Heck! The entire Wii console screams gentleness and passiveness to make sure all the members of the family can enjoy a good, clean, aseptic game environment. The numbers don’t lie: the Wii is the best selling console on the market. Still, something bothers me with this direction. Something doesn’t feel quite right.
I’d love to ski one day. I have friends who slide down slopes every weekendstarting the second there’s enough snow on the ground. It looks fun, really. But it’ll never happened. I tried it a few times, five times to be precise, and each time, I failed miserably. I can’t seem to do anything when I’m strap on those damn two-by-fours. I can’t get any balance and when I fall down, I’m stuck and I have to remove the skis to get up. As far as I remember, no one ever came to me, held me up and went down the slope with me. Even the instructors didn’t do that. I had to learn how to stand on skis by myself. Which I didn’t. I quit. Skiing wasn’t my thing after all. Does that make me less of a human being? No. Does that mean that I could no longer play any kind of sports of enjoy any other form of entertainment? Nope. I just selected other sports that required other skills. I’m not perfect, I can’t do it all. To me, video games are the same thing. It’s the designer’s job to make a game as intuitive as possible, as well-balanced and fun as it possibly can. But as a participant, it’s also the player’s job to learn the game and decide whether he or she wants to play it. It’s okay not to like all games. It’s okay not to play them all. It’s okay to be bad at some and good at others. That’s how life works everywhere else. I’m sick of this “Everyone is a winner” malaise that cripples the design teams. To me, it feels as if the modern video game designers are shaping up the current generation like a worldwide special class. Y’know, those with those kids in it. Everybody is a winner. Everybody is great. Everybody is happy and nothing bad ever happens. I didn’t complain and get a refund because I didn’t spend the whole day skiing. I didn’t complain about the equipment I had to rent nor the gas I had to pay to get there or the food I ate there. I paid for something and never got to see the end of it. Huh, what’s that? Wasn’t that sentence familiar? Why yes! You are right. Video games aren’t the only form of entertainment that requires you to show some skills to fully see its content.
Game aren’t books, movies, paintings or tv shows. they are games. Even if they do bare a striking ressemblance with them, they are different. Video games are also very close to sports. I’ve always felt like most games created to this day have more traits in common with a sport than with a movie. You have the basic rules, a play area, an referee who rules out what passes and what doesn’t (usually that role is played by the computer, making it a quite rational referee) and the players strive to reach a given goal while following and sometimes bending and breaking the rules. The player’s motor skills are as important as his mental ones. So, when you’ll sit down to design your next game, please, stop trying to make the perfect sugar-coated candyland for your player. Just be honest and create the game you feel is the best. Just make sure that your goal is clear and that you say it clearly to the player. You’re not helping them if you are always giving the answer. The game industry is young but it is not a baby anymore. To me, I see the game industry as a pre-teen. It’s not old enough to be fully independentbut it’s old enough to understand how thing works. So let go the hand of the player. Let them do mistakes, let them fail. In the early days, games were sadistic spiked balls. Today, they are pink-colored sugar lollipops. Can’t we just have something in between? Something mature, something bold, something that feels solid yet not dangerous? Can’t we have a good, mature game where “mature” isn’t about excessive red splattered on the screen or pixelated bimbos? There are some games that I must say that are going the right way, in my opinion. A game like Portal is setting a good example. Simple, solid, entertaining, funny yet moody, deep and tough. Accessible yet not too conciliatory. It’s not perfect but at least it’s moving forward as opposed to big budget titles that only aim to empty the player’s pockets so the game becomes profitable and not a money pit.
Well, I could go on, but as of now I feel like I could loose myself in my on thoughts. I guess all I wanted to say is that, as designers, if we want to shape up the next generation of players like we were shaped up, we’ll need to stand up for ourselves. We know what’s fun, we know what we want the player to feel during the experience we create. We are the designers. Not some focus group. You can’t please everyone in this world. Let’s just be honest with ourselves and make good games like we enjoy them.
Links
Gameswipe Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5and Part 6
Tags: Culture, game design, Game Life, Culture, opinion
Hey there I’m curious if I can use this post on one of my blogs if I link back to you? Thanks