How Can Game Developers Improve Gamer Involvement? 29
TimCrider asks: "TeamXBOX is running an editorial about how console game developers can get the gaming communities more involved in the games themselves. Does anyone have any suggestions on how console developers can help build a gaming community?"
In a word: Don't. (Score:4, Insightful)
Did Bungie set out to create a community of people that are so dedicated to their games that they are willing to subject themselves to bizzare alternative reality role playing games about a game?
Did Kos say "I want to rally the teeming masses of ignorant college kids and soccer moms against the unjust white male bourgeois pigs!"
My point is really this: Community forms where they will, and trying to get gamers to build a community around your product is a stupid and condescending idea. How about this: If you build it, they will come. That'll work a whole lot better than corporate-sponsored video game fan club #232131.
They can't (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at Ratchet and Clank, you choose your weapon in each situation, no weapon is always great so it's fun, You choose which mission, what problem and so on to tackle. Same with Sly Cooper and to an extent Jak.
The whole idea now is that you need to make the consumer feel like they have a choice in the game, Morrowind really got a lot of leverage because the game developes around the character even before mods are put in, then you factor in mods and each game feels tailor made.
The whole point I'm making is that you need a game where the user feels like he has a say. Notice, NOT A choice such as buying a different version, those piss off people because your forcing a decision. A "say" is "whether I go to Azeroth now or in a couple hours after I check out this other new dungeon."
At least that's what I think will allow you to have a community, making each game a unique experience should go a long way with creating a community.
Re:Give people things to talk about .. (Score:2, Insightful)
Good idea, but there should be limits (Score:3, Insightful)
While none of these are necessarialy bad things, these features would tend to alienate a much larger market segment, casual gamers. Furthermore, there will always be complaints about certain issues from the hardcore segment. For example, I knew many people who were upset that the weapons, especially the rocket launcher, in Quake II were balanced far better than the original Quake; keep in mind that the rocket launcher in Quake I was by far the most powerful weapon in the game and that deathmatches frequently were rocket launcher races. Of course, these players were unhappy because they were forced to deal with something novel; they wanted the same deathmatch gameplay they had always had. Most of them warmed up to Quake II's multiplayer over the course of a month or so, acknowledging that better weapon balance actually made the game more fun, but if Id had asked them their opinions after a few hours with the game they would have loudly complained about the "worthless" rocket launcher.
The lesson here is not that community involvement is always a bad thing. However, when dealing with the hardcore gaming crowd, there will be a lot of people who want exactly the same thing they had before, with prettier graphics. This would lead to an industry devoid of innovation, alienating its games farther from the casual market with each iteration.
Now, this doesn't mean that games shouldn't be easily moddable. In fact, that's an important way to keep people happy - not satisfied with a certain weapon? With a good mod system, you can change it to the way you and your friends like it. Moreover, there are also some incredible user-created mods, too - Counterstrike got its start as a Half-Life mod. A good mod system makes sense, both in appealing to a community and as a business decision; a good mod can certainly prolong the life of a game. It's important to allow a creative outlet for people to modify your game, but it's not a good idea to base the entire thing on the input of a small crowd of hardcore gamers - the people a "community involvement" system would almost certainly attract.
Re:Tecmo: How not to encourage a fan community (Score:3, Insightful)
You can blame upper management for that.
You give someone a weapon and tell them "you may need this one day".
Some people will put the weapon in the closet, clean it once in a while, and carrying on with their lives. They will use it only when they really have to.
Others will go find something to shoot.
DMCA: The weapon of choice for more entertainment companies.
Microsoft - Community? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In a word: Don't. (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder if this won't have a negative impact. It surged out in wonder and dilivered absolutly nothing. It was like hyping a rock under a blanket.
Sure, when you take off the blanket there is an extremely strange rock under it, but nobody cares because there are exremely strange rocks all over the place. Nobody understands the rock. The rock is supposed to help you understand another rock, but it doesn't do this. It merely sits there making you wonder what this rock could possibly have to do with anything. Then you forget about it a few hours later until some poster brings it up. Then you get angry about the rock and with the rock wasn't there. You get angry and you start to hate the people that put the rock there. But, again you forget, and the rock doesn't matter any longer. There never was a rock.
Don't rely on them. (Score:3, Insightful)
NEVER rely on the fans, make a great game on your own with fan added content is the max you should do... Never rely on the gamer to make the game.
The important note here, is What Star Wars Galaxies has taught gamers. Basically when Star wars galaxies came out it relied on a name... (star wars) so people bought in, but there was NOTHING to do, all the beta people really didn't help, most people were given a site into it and they yawned.
So when the game came out it did poorly. What did the people who made the game say? That it was the fault of the PLAYERS! Honestly this is the exact reason they sited for the mmorpg's failing. This of course pissed off what fans they had and almost ended the game.
The biggest thing you must do as someone else meantioned? Don't piss off the fans, don't attack them, don't tell them not to do stuff. If you want a fan community, you need to realize you're going to have to give up some "rights" if people hack your game to change minor things, and they enjoy it, congradulate them. As long as they buy your game you should be happy with anyone who takes an interest in your game.
Another example I will give is World of Warcraft, now there's a "plague" apparently going on, sounds like it sucks, but when I saw that I was like "wait a second, SWEET!" they were letting a major glitch go because it acted like something else, and people enjoyed it. The major towns were screwed, but you know just by seeing that it made me interested, because the GMs and programmers were make a positive out of a negative, and giving everyone a good time as it goes. That alone is possibly the best thing you can do. Yes people died (but if you play WoW you know you don't lose much for death) but people probably had fun with it. Made the world a little less friendly but also made people enjoy it, and changed the dynamics of the game accidently. Overall I can't imagine anything they could have done any better when it's a glitch.
Basically three rules
Don't rely on your fans.
Don't take yourself too seriously. It will ruin your company straight out if in the game everything must be Serious. Even if it's a serious game, relax a bit sometimes.
NEVER attack your fans with laws.
How about games that are fun? (Score:2, Insightful)
Platform games should be banded. Jumping from platform to platform should not be part of a game formula or even an obstacle.
How about controls that I can set up myself. I like all my PC FPS games set up the same so why can't I do this with a console? How about not having to unlock every item, just to be able to even see it.
There must be years of work put into games which I will never see.
Here are some more points for corporate people.
Ideas and implementation of that idea is where the fun is. Items 1-6 can't fix a bad or a badly implemented idea. *(Point 5 becomes fun because the modders put better ideas in, which some middle manager didn't change at a whim)
This might not help answer the question, after all, I'm sure its people just like me and you who love to play bad games. I know I enjoy maddening "quirks" and substandard set out controls.
And lastly. Take the designer of Return of the King out and shooting him dead. Then get the person from marketing who decided that we would not be able to skip cut sences and torture him to death. I've never played such a frustrating game.
Gauntlet had less graphics and sound; but it was more fun than this game.