[Monday Musings] Gameplay Isn’t Everything?

[Denis Dyack said recently that "gameplay isn't everything". This week's post explores that topic in detail, and attempts to clarify some ambiguities in game design terminology that I believe have contributed to some confusion over what Dyack is actually advocating.]

“Gameplay Isn’t Everything”

A few days ago, Gamasutra reported on comments by Denis Dyack (of Eternal Darkness and Too Human fame… or infamy, depending on your perspective) with respect to the relationship between gameplay and narrative:

“Gameplay is not everything,” said Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness) founder and president Denis Dyack. “If you look at the most popular games today, they are far more narrative-focused. If games are to follow the trajectory of films, then the dominance of gameplay will diminish in place of an increased focus and importance on gaming’s stories and the ways in which they are told.”

I take issue with the suggestion that games ought to follow the trajectory of films, but I’ll reserve the industry’s film envy for a later post. Today I want to talk about this “gameplay isn’t everything” business. The first problem to address, however, is a semantic one: what exactly is meant by “gameplay”?

What Is Gameplay?

On some level, we all kind of “just know” what gameplay is. We know it when we experience it. But it’s a bit harder to really nail down, concretely, what defines it, what differentiates “gameplay” from “not gameplay”.

For purposes of this argument, I’ve chosen to define “competition” as the prime differentiator. If you have competition, you have gameplay; if not, you don’t. More specifically, the presence of competition distinguishes “games” from “experiences”.

Unfortunately, this creates another tricky clash of terms. We tend to use “game” colloquially to describe an entire spectrum of interactive experiences, from the abstract to the concrete, from the authored to the emergent. From here on out, I’ll use the term “video game” explicitly, to refer to any product of our medium. Within that spectrum, “game” describes a product which is built around competition, while “experience” describes a product which is not.

So then, why competition? For starters, note that I’m not exclusively referring to multiplayer. There exists a wealth of single-player games that are built around competition, usually (but not always) in the form of AI opponents. In any case, I started developing this line of reasoning after reading Jason Rohrer’s excellent article in The Escapist last August, Testing the Limits of Single-Player:

“The discussion of AI highlights that the human factor is not what allows simple game mechanics to blossom. It’s not what humans bring to the game, but what two competing players – human or not – bring that allows the beautiful complexity and subtlety to emerge… Go’s depth exists separate from the personalities that play it, like a property of the universe just waiting to be discovered whenever two entities sit down, in opposition, to explore it.”

In most cases, the opponent is concrete: the opposing players in Unreal Tournament, or the other civs in Civilization. Sometimes, the opponent is abstract: the obstacle-laden level designs of Portal, or the abandoned puzzle fixtures of Myst. In all cases, the opponent’s role is to prevent the player from winning the game. Player and opponent struggle against one another, forming a ludic narrative that lasts until victory or defeat is finally realized. This is the essence of gameplay.

What Isn’t Gameplay?

The defining characteristic of video games is interactivity. The defining characteristic of a “game” — in its specific definition as just described — is competition. But competition is not a prerequisite of interactivity, so it stands to reason that another kind of video game must exist, one in which competition is absent. I call this type of video game an “experience”.

Experiences, under this specific definition, do not have gameplay. But that doesn’t mean they’re not video games. Again, the defining characteristic of video games is interactivity, and experiences are fully interactive.

Experiences replace “competition” with “facilitation”. The game doesn’t work against the player, but rather works with the player to facilitate a particular experience. This might be the exploration of a fully-realized, authored storyline, or it might be an abstract realization of an emotional state or progression of states, or it might be anywhere in between.

Examples of experiences are somewhat rare. The Half Life 2 mod Dear Esther presents a linear progression through an environment coupled with a fractured progression through a narrated story, but with no challenge gates whatsoever. There is no opponent, either concrete or abstract. Independent developer Tale of Tales has focused on this kind of work: The Path is all about exploring an area in search of interesting tokens, but can in fact be “completed” by simply walking a straight line, unchallenged; The Graveyard is similar, involving the exploration of place and memory absent any opposition.

Is This All Just A Big Misunderstanding?

To return to Dyack’s assertion that “gameplay isn’t everything”: I’ve seen responses from the game design community run the gamut from enthusiastic agreement to vehement denial. My impression so far is that the response tends more toward the latter, and I’ll admit that was my knee-jerk reaction when I first read the article.

Further reflection, however, led me to differentiate “games” and “experiences” and to realize that both are fundamentally “video games”, as both share interactivity. And that, I think, cuts to the heart of Dyack’s point.

In my interpretation, Dyack is not advocating for experiences to replace games; he’s advocating for experiences to be recognized as being as valid as games. Pure experiences are rare right now, but they’re by no means unfulfilling. (Personally, Dear Esther is one of the most memorable video games I’ve played recently.)

So in the end, I agree with Denis Dyack, but with one little caveat. Gameplay isn’t everything… unless you’re making games.

(Also, our terms suck. We need more of this, please!)

Cultural Accuracy Is Not Racism

The ever-watchful GamePolitics drew my attention to an article posted Tuesday on the Houston Chronicle’s Game Hacks blog, in which the author asserts that, among other things, Left 4 Dead 2, Resident Evil 5, and Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood are racist video games.

I’m all for escaping reality in video games. I love turning into a Spartan, cruising space as Commander Shepard in “Mass Effect” and have fun as Niko in “Grand Theft Auto IV.” However, I am disturbed by the growing trend of racist undertones that are cropping up in video games.

One of the games that comes to mind is “Left 4 Dead 2.” Though the game isn’t out yet, it’s already causing an uproar. Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies – with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath… Another game, “Resident Evil 5,” puts gamers into the heart of Africa, blasting zombies. I bet you’ll never guess what color they are. [...]

The game that really inspired this blog entry was Ubisoft’s “Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood.” The game starts out with players assuming the role of Ray, a Confederate officer, working to save his brother, Thomas, who’s pinned down by Union soldiers. I nearly dropped the controller. I have so much respect for President Lincoln — he wanted to preserve the Union and ended up freeing the slaves — and have just as much respect for the Union Army.

However, the Confederacy, as far as I am concerned, wanted to keep their cheap slave labor and the like. I can not stand the Confederate flag — I resist the urge to burn every last one that I see.

Our concept of what is and isn’t racism has gotten way out of control. Not just because of this article: this is just one example in a sea of incidents.

Racism is a targeted expression of hate based solely on the victim’s ethnicity. The above-mentioned depictions of and references to race are clearly not expressions of hate. Left 4 Dead 2 has a lot of black zombies because it’s set in and around New Orleans, which just happens to have a sizable black population. Resident Evil 5 similarly features black zombies because, yeah, there’s black people in Africa too. (God, I can’t believe I even have to explicitly state this.) These two examples are no more racist than a WWII game’s depiction of white guys shooting at each other on Omaha Beach.

The Call of Juarez assertion is a little different, but at least as puzzling. The game’s story casts the player — for at least part of the time — in the role of a Confederate officer. And this is, apparently, a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad thing. Because… the author hates the Confederacy? Sounds pretty irrational to me, frankly. Again, this is a story set in a place and time where the Confederacy was active. It only makes sense that a Confederate soldier would be depicted as part of that story. What, are we supposed to just scrub out bits of history and pretend they never happened, just because someone might not like them?

It seems to me that it would be more insulting if we simply erased an entire ethnicity or social group from an area and/or time period in some misguided attempt to avoid offending them. As if their heritage is somehow not comfortable enough for us to talk about, that their stories are somehow not valid parts of our cultural discourse, so much so that to even refer to them is to cross a line.

Cultural accuracy is not racism. And if we ever want to expand the games industry beyond space marines and aliens and steel bikinis and adolescent white male power fantasies, we’re going to need to come to terms with that.

(P.S. The author asserts that Left 4 Dead 2 “is already causing an uproar”. Did I miss the uproar train? ‘Cause as far as I can tell, this is an uproar of one.)

[Monday Musings] Syndicating Games

[Last week I discussed how pricing flexibility and responsiveness can lead to dramatic revenue increases for games. Today I’ll examine another effective business method that’s just beginning to take its first steps: video game syndication.]

The Long Tail

The “long tail” refers to the period of time during which a game continues to generate revenue after the initial interest in its release dies off; depending on the game, this might begin anywhere from a few weeks to a few months after the release date. Historically, games haven’t had a very long tail. A typical game’s life cycle begins with a two-to-three week rush of interest — during which most of the game’s revenue is realized — followed by a couple months during which the price is reduced, marketing is all but ceased, and the revenue coming in is held at a mere trickle compared to launch. After that, the luckiest games are relegated to the bargain bin, and everything else is abandoned entirely.

Other media do it better. Movies have an incredibly long tail; it’s not all that hard, for example, to purchase a new copy of a DVD from 1995. Finding a factory-sealed game from 1995, on the other hand, is all but impossible. And not only that, but movies also tap the market more frequently and more deeply than games.

When a movie comes out, you get:

• Theatrical release (6-8 weeks)
• DVD release (a few months later)
• Pay-per-view release (e.g. premium TV providers)
• TV syndication (ad-supported)
• Rental contracts (e.g. Netflix, Blockbuster)
• Other partnerships (e.g. airlines’ in-flight movies, etc.)

When a game comes out, you get:

• Initial release (2-3 weeks)
• Price reduction/bargain bin (2-3 months)
• Rental contracts (e.g. Gamefly)

Obviously there are some missed opportunities there. The big one I want to tackle today is syndication.

What Is Syndication?

From the Museum of Broadcast Communications, with respect to television syndication:

Syndication is the practice of selling rights to the presentation of television programs, especially to more than one customer such as a television station, a cable channel, or a programming service such as a national broadcasting system. The syndication of television programs is a fundamental financial component of television industries.

In other words, syndication is the selling of broadcast rights to service providers other than a program’s original producer. This generates revenue for the content producer both directly (via the sale of rights) and indirectly (via access to the broadcasting partner’s audience); meanwhile, the broadcasting partner makes money via ad sales whose value increases as a result of the acquisition of more desirable content.

There is evidence of gamers’ desire for syndication in the abandonware community, on sites like Home of the Underdogs and Abandonia. As described by Home of the Underdogs:

The term abandonware was coined sometime in 1997 by classic game enthusiasts to refer to any game, regardless of age, that has been discontinued by its publishers. Due to the natural lack of organization in such fringe area of the law, the concept has, over time, been unfortunately misused to refer to any game that is 5 years or older (or 3, in some cases) regardless of whether or not it has in fact been discontinued. We believe that the definition of abandonware as it was first conceived is the only viable definition that draws a clear and only line between abandonware and “warez”: abandonware has been discontinued by the developers, while warez have not. While both are illegal, the motives and principles behind each are miles apart.

Unfortunately, the exchange of abandonware is legally indistinguishable from out-and-out software piracy. According to the U.S. Copyright Office (PDF), copyrights on most video games — insofar as most video games can be considered “work for hire” (the standard developer/publisher relationship) — generally last 95 years from the date of first publication:

For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works (unless the author’s identity is revealed in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.

However, the abandonware community is distinct from the more general pirate community in that abandonware proponents aren’t just cheap thieves; the community exists solely to provide access to games that are otherwise unavailable for purchase. (In fact, Home of the Underdogs hosts many game pages which, instead of linking to a free download of the game, link to a publisher’s online store where that game can be purchased; sadly, such cases are rare because many publishers are unwilling to continue supporting decade-old titles.)

The abandonware community fills an obvious market need — access to non-current, even vintage, games — which could be addressed in a legal and profitable way with a syndication model adapted to the video game industry.

That said, we do have a few legitimate portals through which some old games — a severe minority, but some nevertheless — can be legally purchased. GOG.com (Good Old Games) is one of the most recent and prominent of these. Steam has also been picking up some older stuff of late (several entries in LucasArts’ back catalog recently appeared, though sadly, Full Throttle remains absent…) In both cases, the portal is a different company than the original content producer/publisher; this looks quite a bit like a classic TV syndication model already, with the only problem being that only a very tiny percentage of old games are currently represented here.

Offsetting Production Risks

With portals like GOG.com and Steam starting to bring a form of syndication to the video game industry, it would seem like the problem’s already been solved. And to a certain extent, aside from the sparseness of the available catalogs, it has. But there’s another benefit to syndication that hasn’t yet been exercised in our industry:

Historically, syndication, whether domestic or international, served to underwrite the risky process of producing for American network television. From the late 1960s through the mid-1990s special regulations (the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules) governed relations between television networks and independent production companies. Under these rules ownership of the rights to the programs reverted to the producer/production company after a specified number of network runs. Profits from any other sales, including syndication, generally benefited the production community. For this reason many production companies were willing to produce original programs at a loss, betting on the enormous income that might rise from successful syndication. Many “failed” programs could be created with the profits from one or two successfully syndicated shows.

And from Wikipedia:

Just as syndication is a source of profit for TV producers and radio producers, it also functions to maximize profit for Internet content producers. As the Internet has increased in size it has become increasingly difficult for content producers to aggregate a sufficiently large audience to support the creation of high-quality content. Syndication enables content creators to amortize the cost of producing content by licensing it across multiple publishers or by maximizing distribution of advertising-supported content.

One of the most common phrases associated with the video game industry in recent years seems to be “skyrocketing production costs”. If it was a problem in the PS2/Xbox generation, it’s a catastrophe now. There’s been much talk of how we’re a “hit driven” industry, and much lament of the associated “sequelitis”. Long-time gamers complain that developers and publishers don’t take creative risks any more, that games are becoming cookie-cutter and dumbed-down. We’re stuck in a rut of risk-aversion… could a video game syndication model be the cure?

[Monday Musings] Flexibility Adds Value

[This week, I take a look at a couple of recent stories of game pricing flexibility adding value for consumers and resulting in big wins for publishers.]

Exhibit A – Left 4 Dead

Analysis firm DFC Intelligence recently released a study, covered by Gamasutra, which shows user activity for the PC version of Left 4 Dead outpacing user activity for the Xbox 360 version over time, with the greatest divergence happening directly after each of three key marketing events: the game’s 50% off sale on Steam in February, the release of the Survival Pack in April, and the subsequent free-play weekend on Steam, also in April. From the article:

DFC’s main takeaway from the study is that the flexible, quickly-adaptable nature of online distribution services like Steam allow for developers to use a broad variety of promotions and incentives to keep their game communities fresh; individual promotions like the Survival Pack had a positive effect on both platforms, but it was the one-two punch of that DLC plus the followup free weekend through Steam that had the most meaningful impact on the game at any point on either platform.

Perhaps obviously, the study bears out that lower prices attract players in waves. But more importantly in this case, the flexibility of Steam allowed Valve to make the most of temporary price drops as a means of generating interest precisely when it’s most needed, as indicated by sales and activity trends.

Exhibit B – Peggle

A few weeks ago, Peggle on the iPhone was selling for just $1. Kotaku carried a story explaining the sale, and its dramatic results:

As any iPhone owner will know, the device’s App Store charts are skewed heavily towards cheap, disposable apps; you’ll often see $1 games clogging them up while better, more expensive games (with lower sales) languish unseen.

Case in point: before the sale, Peggle was sitting at around #60 on the App Store game charts. And after the sale? Peggle was sitting pretty at #1, having sold “nearly as many units in those four days as they had in the 3 weeks afters [sic] the game’s launch”.

Here we have a similar situation, with the added wrinkle of gaming the App Store’s ranking system. Again, the combination of a lower price, and the flexibility to reduce that price at a time when it most makes sense to do so, resulted in a significant uptick in sales.

The Argument, Once Again

If you read Third Helix regularly, you’ll be sick of hearing about this by now, because I harp on the ridiculous cost of games on a regular basis. I did it back in February, in response to the aforementioned 50% off sale for Left 4 Dead:

The argument that game pricing has gone up to keep up with the increased cost of development is, in my opinion, arguing for the wrong solution. As Valve’s numbers clearly demonstrate, lowering the price increases the revenue dramatically, making it far easier to offset development costs than the standard price jump from $49.99 to $59.99 back at the start of this console generation.

Last August, I touched on the issue in response to Cliff Harris’s article, Talking to Pirates:

At $50-$60, games are currently an investment, and too often you’re not provided enough information to make an educated purchasing decision. (Ironically, the market with the best-developed demo program, Xbox Live Arcade, also hosts many of the industry’s lowest-priced titles.)

I was on this issue as far back as November of 2006:

So… I’m an advocate of lowering the core price-point of video games from the current $60 to something more DVD-like: $20-$25. If games were closer to $20-$25 apiece, more people would be willing to buy games. The way things are going now, games are becoming an *investment*. At a $20 price point, they could become impulse buys, just like movies. Then, not only would people buy [and play] *more* games, they would also be willing to take the [lower] financial risk on more *obscure* games. That would make the marketplace more friendly to those niche titles, those true works of art that stay with you forever, and would (should?) be the first step to combating the rampant sequelitis tearing through this industry.

…and as recently as May of this year:

However, even if such a ubiquity came to pass, games are still seen as a financial investment, due to the unconscionable $59.99 standard price point. The most common argument given by publishers at the beginning of the 360/PS3 generation for the price increase was that “next-generation” games were more difficult and, critically, more expensive to develop. While it is true that game development budgets increased significantly from the PS2/Xbox generation to the 360/PS3 generation, they are still, with the exception of a very few outliers, far below the average budget of a feature film. The key difference, as I have argued previously, is the difference in audience size. $10 DVDs sell to tens of millions of consumers and make a handy profit on $100 million dollar films. If a game sold to tens of millions of consumers, it wouldn’t need to be priced at $60 to make a profit on its measly (by comparison) $20 million development budget. And if you’re wondering where we find those extra customers, all you have to do is lower your price point.

But for the sake of argument, let’s indulge these publishers’ assertion that higher prices are necessitated specifically by higher development costs. Short-form games have dramatically lower development costs than long-form ones; notable short-form indie titles like Braid and World of Goo were done in their entirety for under $200,000. Such lower development costs should make reduced game pricing a non-issue, and as Valve’s data shows, reduced game pricing is highly likely to result in dramatic increases in net revenue… and that’s before we even factor in the short-form game’s superior focus, consistency, and ludo-narrative coherence, and the subsequent word-of-mouth and goodwill boost it’s all but guaranteed to receive!

As you can see, my past arguments have focused pretty much exclusively on the game’s price point. Today, I’m adding pricing flexibility to the mix. The DFC study and the Peggle experiment, while supporting the value of lower-priced games, also show that the ability to strategically reduce a game’s price — even temporarily — in rapid response to market conditions is an incredibly powerful driver of sales and long-term growth. This in turn seems to support the movement toward “games as services”, whether it’s via portals like Steam, Xbox Live, or the App Store, or other arrangements yet to be unveiled. Arrangements like syndication… but I’ll leave that topic for next week’s post.