Hi, sorry for the updates, folks, but I’m on vacation this week so things’ll be a bit light.
However, something happened today that I got to participate in which got me thinking that in multiplayer gaming we need to not only award first place, but “award” last place, as well.
My family has this annual golf competition, one that I finally was able to participate in. For lack of a better name, it’s called “The Deer Ass Cup.” We use standard tournament rules: you can’t score more than a triple bogey on any hole, play the ball where it lies (no improving your lie by kicking your ball over six inches), count every drop, etc. But there’s one special rule that turns the entire game on its head:
The loser gets a deer ass driver head cover. They have to keep it and use it the entire year ’till the next Deer Ass Cup.
It seems inconsequential, but it seriously changes how we play the game. Because let’s face it: nobody wants to go home with the deer ass.
So what happens is that the guys who are in last place, and even the guys who are close to last place can’t give up. They play to win, every hole, right down to the final. Even the guys who are ahead keep playing well, because of a fear of failure. Not only do you not want to be in last place, but you don’t even want to be anywhere near last. You want as many bodies between you and last place as possible. It’s partly insurance, but it’s also partly pride. The battle for first place wasn’t even remotely as interesting, because it was like watching someone win a footrace compared to gladitorial combat where the loser is killed. The battle for not last place became the most interesting part of the game.
This got me to thinking: A lot of games (Halo, Battlefield for starters) give out medals or achievements that track like stats for coming in first place (or even 2nd or 3rd). But what if they gave out deer ass achievements? What if they started handing out loser medals?
Players wouldn’t just leave a server and drop out of a game if their team started losing, because their stats would continue to track on the server ’till the game ended, and if someone else eclipsed them for more points, they’d get a deer ass award. People would stop giving up and saying that it doesn’t matter anymore when they’re down, because instead of just getting a loss in the win/loss column, they’d get another deer ass for being the guy who couldn’t cowboy up and crawl out of last place.
Let’s make this happen, developers. Instead of just awarding winners, let’s start giving out no-prizes to losers that track with all of their other stats. Instead of bragging about how many gold medals they got (and let’s face it, anyone can farm that if they want these days), thered’ be new bragging turf: no deer asses.
And just for the record, I didn’t “win” the deer ass this year.
I tied for second to last.
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8 responses so far ↓
1 Vit Peyr // Jun 24, 2008 at 9:04 pm
I think you would have to be careful how you approach this. It could be very easy to make the Deer Ass appealing to some people in an online game context. Also I think it would matter less in games with less community, and if you don’t care that you have the Deer Ass, there’s still no incentive to not get it.
2 kormyen // Jun 25, 2008 at 5:03 am
Hehe I like that idea, would be cool to see how it fairs in game
`kormyen
3 realityfighter // Jun 26, 2008 at 4:20 am
Hey, this is the way most reality game shows structure their rewards! They give prizes for winning challenges, but the biggest motivating factor is always the threat of elimination. Judging from the intensity of play in those games, I’d say it definitely makes the game more interesting. (Of course, there’s also a big reward at the end of the show, but the disincentive of elimination is always more immediate.)
4 Lefty Redbeard // Jun 26, 2008 at 7:55 am
At first glance this seems like a good idea… but wont it scare away people that maybe aren’t that good at multiplayer but would like to give it a go? (like me!). I like to play online but for recreation and I think twice about firing up a game where I know I’m just going to get owned. I’m going to think thrice about firing up that game if I think I’m going to get owned AND get a black mark by my name.
Can’t we think of a way to generate more players by awarding them for PLAYING and not just for WINNING?
]:8)
5 Skye // Jun 26, 2008 at 8:43 am
Interesting take, but I could see people actually taking pride collecting deer-asses in a virtual environment. Part of the motivation that keeps people playing strong through the tourney is the humility that goes with finishing last. Humility lies in wait for the poorest finisher since they have actually use and publicly show the deer ass everytime they head to the links and most likely have to explain it and relive their failure.
For this to be effective in a virtual environment there has to be some similar mechanism that a player would want to avoid. In addition, there would have to be an understanding that this award is meant in good natured fun and not being down right cruel. With your family it is the sense of familiarity with these people that allows this award to exist and be fun even if you were awarded it.
With the “detached” interaction with other virtual players that exists in most multiplayers it could become a very contentious issue.
Very interesting idea, but there would be a lot of socialogical obstacles to be worked out. It would make for a very unique set of data if it was tested out.
6 Adam // Jun 26, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I am completely for this idea. It is not a sense of further rewarding winning but keeping people from giving up.
I can’t count the number of times that I will be playing a racing game and if someone crashes/spins out/messes up they will go in reverse and try to crash into other players.
Having a slight penalty placed on coming in last will keep people from intentionally doing poorly because they know they won’t get the gold.
MAKE IT HAPPEN!
7 Making Tiger Perfect // Sep 15, 2008 at 12:12 am
[...] you won’t even know it, because the camera’s rendering it invisible. I got my first Deer Ass prize (a 0gs Achievement called Lost the Plot which means you exceeded the shot limit for a hole) [...]
8 Mats N // Sep 15, 2008 at 4:37 am
Don’t some games have this already? I know Battlefield 2 on the PC has a medal for getting killed 15 times in a row in a single match (or something similar), which NO ONE wants. Yes, I have one :).
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