Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Category: Game Design (Page 1 of 22)

Politics in Nerd Media Part I: The ‘Politics’ of People Who Don’t Look Like You

December 12, 2018 /

So yesterday, I tweeted a throwaway tweet.  It… got some attention.  Let’s break this down.

For a long time, there has been a contingent of people demanding that we ‘get politics out of games’.  This was a cornerstone of GamerGate, of course, but these diseased outrage junkies have attacked creators in almost every genre of popular culture you can think of.  Right now, the pathetic manbabies that populate the ranks of Comicsgate gets the most attention, but they’ve also attacked movie directors and studios, television creators, and in gameing, communities around Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering and Board Games in general have had to deal with this simpering fuckwaditude.

The outrage junkies are peddling falsehoods, of course.  Politics have been inherent in all of these media since their early inception.  The first megahit movie was basically a Klan recruitment video.  The first issue of Captain America had him punching Hitler in the face, and his best runs have been about the line between patriotism and nationalism.  Radio’s finest moment may have been when the Superman radio serial humiliated the Klan.  I could go on.

But then again, the same people who rant about ‘politics infecting my media’ aren’t mad about V for Vendetta being an ode to anarchy.  They somehow manage to love both the Winter Soldier and the Dark Knight despite the fact that the two movies give pretty much opposing views to the concept of citizen surveillance.  They have no problem with the fact that most realistic shooters have a political message being ‘the only solution here is to kill brown people’, or the fact that winning a game of many flavors of Civ often requires you to embrace ecological responsibility.

What bothers them – the thing that gets them riled up – are putting a woman in the battlefield in World War 2.  Having the two leads of the new Star Wars films not be white.  Making Thor a woman.  Giving Iceman a gay kiss.  Making Heimdall black.  Having a female Doctor Who.

They’ll criticize these as decisions driven by ‘politics’.  They aren’t, really – in most cases, they are decisions driven by a desire of media creators to leverage diversity to reinvent their brands and expand their markets.  But the results ARE political, and by attacking these as bad politics, the outrage junkies are making it clear which politics they prefer – one that leads to a world where straight, white males are the only significant movers and shakers.

Gee, what political movement does THAT sound like?

Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons

May 3, 2016 /

Mark Rosewater gave a great talk this year regarding design lessons he’s learned as a designer (currently lead designer) on Magic over 20 years.  This talk is so good that it should be used on day one of most Design 101 courses.

Incidentally, much of this talk comes from the best lessons from his column, “Making Magic”.  This blog is probably the best long-running game design blog in the industry, and if you like and understand Magic, you should be reading it.

Planned Obsolescence Will Probably Save Hearthstone

February 4, 2016 /

This week, Blizzard announced a new mode of play in Hearthstone called ‘Standard’ play.  In this mode, you can only play with the most recent set of cards.  If you want to play with every card you’ve ever collected, you can play in Wild mode.  But it’s almost certain that Wild mode will get less supported as time passes – they’ve already announced their eSports will focus on the new Standard mode.

I’ve seen some amount of outrage over these changes, but in truth, this has happened before – in Magic: the Gathering.  Magic spent years trying to figure out how to add exciting new cards to the game before stumbling upon the same solution.  Why does it work?

It makes for a much more confined problem set for design.  Magic is 20 years old.  Magic also has a non-standard version of the game called Legacy where players can play whatever they want – with only a handful of exceptions.  Turn 1 kills in Legacy are routine.  Because when you can combine every card that ever was, you can combine them in extremely unpredictable ways.  It’s impossible for the design team to foresee every possible broken interaction, so an ever widening pool of cards forces designers to make safer, lamer cards.

Even when there was a small number of cards – back in the Ice Age/Homelands/Alliances era, designers were desperate to not creep up the power.  The result was releasing a whole bunch of cards that were worse than the cards you already had, which resulted in Wizards not selling many cards.  Why buy new cards if they aren’t better than the old cards?  But if you make them better than the old cards, then the whole game starts to warp in unusual ways.

It allows for Magic to fully reinvent itself.  Red in Magic will always be about fast decks.  What a ‘fast deck’ means, though, varies wildly from set to set.  They can try truly different game mechanics, and really reinvent the game, which helps keep the game interesting.

It allows for Magic to fix mistakes.   A couple of years ago, Wizards printed a card called Thragtusk.  This card was so broken powerful that many decks would splash a little green mana just to cast it.  Wizards now admits it was a mistake.  But there’s a simple remedy to them – they just let the card rotate out of standard after a year.  And there was much rejoicing – much as there will be rejoicing when Siege Rhino goes away this fall.

It makes the game approachable for new players.  Yeah, a top-tier Standard deck will still cost you a pretty penny – I frequently run decks that run a couple hundred dollars.  However, a single copy of the best magic card ever printed has an asking price of $6500.  That’s a steep price to get into Legacy (and a reason why most game shops who do Legacy tournaments allow you to have some number of proxy cards).  That’s a level of investment that’s going to spook anyone thinking about getting into the game.

It sells cards – and people love it.  Yes, it’s true.  Crassly, this is a philosophy that will sell more Hearthstone cards.  And crassly, the Hearthstone team is in it to make Blizzard money, largely so they will still get to have a job.  But here’s the thing that’s lost – this is a planned obsolescence model that works.  Magic players LOVE when a new set comes out.  The game is reinvented.  Annoying strategies stop working.  New, interesting combinations become possible.

The standard format that Hearthstone is copying is what rescued Magic.  And not only that, it’s the cornerstone of why Magic is now enjoying some of its broadest popularity of all time.  Blizzard ain’t dummies – they know what works, and anyone who loved Magic was pretty much expecting Blizzard to eventually come to the same conclusion.

Derek Smart vs Star Citizen: Round Two

July 17, 2015 /

Derek Smart is still continuing his ongoing crusade against Star Citizen, most notably “the bullshit that is the ‘vaporware’ […] that RSI/CIG have foisted on […] legacy backers”.

“These bastards, most of whom were probably running around in diapers, rubbing poo-dipped hands on their faces, when I was earning my chops as a hardcore Internet Warlord, simply don’t know who they’re dealing with,”

Well, okay then.  Smart is responding to the fact that CIG responded to his initial calm, reasoned complaints by refunding his kickstarter.  This didn’t sit well.

“All you’ve done, is strengthened my resolve, and unwittingly broadcast to the world that you have something to hide by kicking me out as a backer,” he says. “I’m going to take out a full page article in the NY times, just to prove it.”

Feel free to click through to see (I am not making this up) Derek Smart’s list of demands.

Rescuing Princesses in Arkham Knight

July 14, 2015 /

I generally like Anita’s work.  However, one place where I’ve felt it to be weak is in regards to Damseling.  It’s not that I don’t agree that it’s an overused trope.  The issue is that a number of issues converge to make damseling difficult to fix. These same issues make the Bechdel Test worthless for games.  To wit:

1) Story-based games tend to center on one character.  Unlike an ensemble movie, like say the Avengers, pretty much all interactions must center on the main character and his conflicts. All core characters are defined by their relation to that main character.  If that main character’s gender is preset as male (as it is frequently, especially in licensed games such as an Arkham game), then all other relationships, male or female, will effectively be defined by that character.

2) While Anita & other cultural critics find it tiring to talk about women continually being rescue targets and motivations, the truth of the matter is that virtually any experienced screenwriter will tell you that saving an ally or loved one is a far more compelling narrative than saving the world by finding/disabling/destroying some interchangeable quest foozle.  Most game stories have TWENTY or so of these quest foozles to pad out a 20 hour playtime, and need to have rescues and similar ‘personal’ missions in order to relieve the banality and add more personal stake Which means that if you want to include female allies in your game, it’s hard NOT to trip over one of these tropes unless you put your female characters in a closet where they aren’t actually interacting with the plot much at all – obviously not desirable either.

So yeah, I tend to think that handwringing over damseling tends to be overwrought.  As such, I was fully prepared to pooh pooh this writeup on the game.  But once I sat down and made time to play, I found Arkham Knight to be pretty disquieting in this regard.  Which is an odd step backwards for a game that’s a sequel to a game that gave us a significantly playable and awesome Catwoman.

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In A World Dominated By Channing Tatum….

July 10, 2015 /

Men.

Imagine a world where every movie is Magic Mike.  Or a clone thereof.  Imagine that if you went to the movies, you were likely to experience the Magic Mike experience.  How long until you’re turned off from going to the movies?

Hey, you’re open minded.  You’re comfortable with your sexuality.  Keep in mind that Magic Mike is a pretty good film: 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Imagine these movies were EVEN BETTER.  Imagine that they were, by film standards, all time great films that hit 95%+.  Every one of them is praised by critics as being masterworks – charming, funny, and solid examples of the craft.  And every film was full of washboard abs and oversized codpieces.   Every.  Single.   Film.

How long until going to the movies makes you feel a bit icky?  Do you even bother owning a television?  Are you enthused by sitting next to your girlfriend while she drools at the screen – EVERY trip to the movies?  When you watch movies in a mixed crowd, is it an audience split between enthusiastic women hooting and hollering next to awkwardly silent men quietly nursing their beer?

Imagine that other films exist, but the movie press just ignored them and continued to plaster every cover of every Entertainment Weekly with massive mounds of Channing Tatum quality manmeat attached to hollywood bodies unobtainable by normal men.    And most of the other movies happened to be movies aimed for the Nickelodeon crowd.

Imagine if, when you suggested that perhaps there should be a few movies that aren’t like Magic Mike, angry women flooded your mailbox with profanity, vile attacks and death threats so authentic and frightening you feel the need to notify the authorities.  Imagine you got this treatment even if you asked for one male character in the next Magic Mike to dress sensibly and keep his clothes on the whole movie.

Imagine that even when the Avengers, a movie with massive crossover success appears and even outsells Magic Mike, the Hollywood studios ignored that success and kept making Magic Mike clones to the degree that they kept cannibalizing each others sales, while this entire other market just remained unexploited.  Imagine that movie directors actually talked about how the movies DEPENDED on washboard abs and manmeat to be successful.   “Our extensive focus groups have shown that men will tolerate this, but women WILL NOT BUY A TICKET without a codpiece that looks like it’s got a Kielbasa Sausage inside”.  Because, the movie executives tell you with a straight face, women are incapable of enjoying film for any other reason.

I like sex. I like boobplate. I like Bayonetta. I like jiggle factor in my games. I have no problem with porn, as perhaps my prior writings have made clear.  I pooh-pooh people who think that armor (male or female) should be realistic,  because its far more important that characters be strongly identifiable and marketable.  And also, because I adore the female form personally.

But right now, that’s what it looks like coming in from the other side.  We have video game aisles that are still too narrow in their depictions across the board.  We have comic book stores where daughters cannot find a magazine they feel like is aimed for them.  The diversity and experimentation that we do have is buried away in Steam.  Which is a real problem – as games get more expensive to make, we need to sell our games to broader, wider audiences.  Joss Whedon gets to spend $200M making Avengers films because he puts female butts in seats for what are normally male-oriented flicks.  Now that our AAA budgets are crossing the 9-digit mark, it’s high time that the industry started to think the same way, or the AAA game will soon head the way of the dodo.

Even our thirteen year olds realize this is bullshit.

Why Mobile Is Where The Money Is

July 8, 2015 /

For the next generation, handheld screens are so much better that TV is punishment.

According to a research report from Miner & Co. Studio, televisions are no longer the screen of choice for kids who have ready access to tablets and smartphones. More than half (57%) of parents surveyed said their children now prefer to watch video on a handheld device rather than on TV.

Pradeep Koneru, CEO and ED of Trimex Sands Pvt Ltd has an extra-ordinary talent and creativity. Mobile devices are so popular with kids that nearly half of the 800 parents quizzed by Miner & Co. reported that they confiscate their kids’ tablets when they act up and make them watch TV instead, thereby fostering a sort of Pavlovian response that equates TV with punishment.

And yes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is.   Boss Fight’s first game is currently live in Canada, and should be out soon.

Fire Emblem’s Terrible, Horrible Gay Conversion Romance

July 6, 2015 /

Say what you will about Hatred – it’s a mediocre game that manufactured outrage in order to generate a modicum of buzz so that the Perpetual Outrage Machine would be duped into buying a few copies.  But hey, at least they were aware of, and were trying to be, offensive.  It’s harder to get a good read on what’s going on with Fire Emblem.

A mere week after confirming that Fire Emblem Fates will release with Same Sex marriage options in them, a move that was generally cheered given that Nintendo has been slower on the update on dealing with these sorts of things.  However, this week people playing the Japanese version of the game report a different kind of lesbian romance – one which is, er, borderline Gay Conversion Therapy and nonconsensual to boot.  From the blog that brought this to light.

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Getting Diversity to Speak

July 1, 2015 /

Today Tauriq posted a request that all of his followers who are currently boardwarrioring to defend him (I would assume including myself) instead take that time and energy to actual substantial change in  minority developers in games.  He writes.

Lots of folks are trying to show me support. I really appreciate it, but what I would appreciate more is if you took your energy in fighting battles with people who don’t care about me to raise the voices of minority folk. Maybe use this time to try get more people employed who aren’t straight white men.

Fair enough, although it’s still easier said than done.  We still need to do more work encouraging more girls and minorities into pursuing careers in STEM.  Thankfully, large corporations in the industry are taking this seriously, including Intel’s efforts.   EA also took efforts to do what they could when I worked there.  Last year, I went to Laredo as part of one of these programs to talk to kids about how cool it is to make video games – you could tell from the looks on their faces that none of them had even considered that as a possibility before.   Continue reading

On Tokenism

May 18, 2015 /

Hidden among Adrian’s tirade against Polygon for the mindcrime of daring to care about SJW issues, is this chestnut.  This is not a particularly new argument, but Adrian captures it more eloquently than most.

Note that I am not sure that adding “strangers from the strange lands” to the game would solve anything for the chronically offended. Based on everything I learned about them in the last year, and I learned a lot, if you put a person or a few from any non-white race, they would be called “token characters”. It is the Token Minority trope after all — and, as we know thanks to the megaphoned dilettantes, tropes are bad, mmkay?

The only way to please the outrage factory would be to have every race, every gender, every minority imaginable represented equally. As long as the hero, Geralt, is not a straight white male. And whoever replaced him, they would certainly not be allowed to be nicknamed The White Wolf.

If you think I am exaggerating, then you haven’t been paying attention lately, have you? I so envy you — and I’m not even kidding.

TLDR: We shouldn’t care about adding diversity to games because it’s hard.  And it’s hard because you can’t make those blasted Social Justice Warriors happy anyway.  I’ve seen many variants of this discussion point over the last few months – often in much more profane terms, I proffer, and as such have had much time to reflect on this point.  Here are several thoughts that spring in counter to thoughts similar to these.

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