Selling an Experience

September 22nd, 2008 · 11 Comments

For awhile I’ve been struggling to find a way to describe what I feel has changed about game design in recent years. My own appreciation of games has been changing, and for awhile I thought it was just me. I’ve been finding games like F.E.A.R. or HAZE or the idea behind Fracture as tired cliches. Some call them “FPS with a Gimmick,” but I think a better description of them might just simply be “last-gen design.”

A lot of times game designs wind up coming from the “brainchildren” of folks who have no business designing games. You’ll get the “this is Doom meets GTA” type brainstorm sessions, where they’re really just taking two separate concepts and forcing them together with band-aids and tape. Sure, they might work, but the problem with them is that they have no vision. They rely on the backbones of previous experiences that players have had, and are trying to tell the player “we’re like this other game you like,” and the reason why it’s done so much still today is that this worked to great success in previous generations.

When you get right down to the brass tacks, there isn’t a whole lot of separation between games like Doom, or Marathon, Dark Forces or even Duke Nukem. And yet, I played them all, every one of them, to completion. I couldn’t get enough of the First Person Shooter concept. The idea was enthralling, and anyone who gave even a competent stab at the genre got my money. They sold me an experience. Yes, yes, before someone jumps down my throat in the comments, their universes are fairly different, but in the end, I got to play the part of “Guy With The Gun,” and back then, that’s really all I needed. Their roles didn’t really extend much beyond that description. It was Guy With the Gun meets Star Wars or Guy With the Gun meets 80′s Action Movie.

But nowadays it just isn’t enough. You can’t sell me a game that’s “FPS with terrain editing.” I don’t want to play “FPS with Adrenaline.” I’m not even remotely interested in “FPS with a Horror Flair.”

I want to be poured into a role. Give me an environment so compelling I can’t resist it. I no longer care if it’s FPS or 3rdPS or even 2ndPS if you can figure out how to make that convincing. Let me experience something I could never hope to experience in real life, or at the very least something I haven’t experienced in a game before. This is where I think design is heading, at least successful design is heading insofar as games are concerned for the future generation.

Games like Mirror’s Edge, where you are a rooftop parkour courier. Sure, you can argue it’s “FPS with parkour,” but you’d be undersimplifying the example. It’s not really even an FPS since it’s not meant to be a shooter. It’s really more of an FPP (First Person Parkourer). Honestly, I’m not really all that sure I’m going to buy the game (I’m a jaded game designer who sees Mirror’s Edge as a Parkour level puzzler that doesn’t seem as engaging or complex as Portal, and my play time is limited), but I’m excited that the designers aren’t phoning it in and just making it an FPS that has environment interaction in it. They’re really pushing the idea that you’re a Parkour expert first, and the shooting comes second, if you even choose to shoot at all, as it’s not a core requirement for beating the game.

Rock Band, while it seems obvious, sells you the fantasy of performing in your very own rock band. It took the core concept of being a Guitar Hero and elevated it to an entirely new level, incorporating friends in a way that transcends the idea of co-op, making each friend you were playing with a sort of medic with shock paddles whose job it is to rescue the weakest player of the group. It incorporates team gameplay in a way that’s so hidden most people don’t even realize they’re still playing a game, the experience of rocking out is that compelling.

Even Assassin’s Creed, which I’ve criticized heavily in the past, succeeds where other games haven’t previously, in attempting to give you the experience of being an assassin in the medieval era. It doesn’t attempt to be a 3rdPS with stealth, or even a 3rd Person Brawler with stealth. It defines its role as an escape artist with a knife on a mission. Combat is possibly intentionally difficult, because they are truly attempting to reward hiding in crowds, and avoiding public exposure/capture. The game plays at its best when you’re stalking down guards and killing them silently amongst thirty or more people in a busy city street, and no one’s the wiser that an assassin just slipped a knife through a man’s ribs right there, a foot away from them.

Bioshock, while lacking in innovating gameplay, sells you the experience of being in an underwater city trapped in the past. It’s not just the first person cutscenes and the passive acceptance of the larger story through the cassette decks. From the opening scene you are thrust into what is possibly the most believeable yet impossibly fictional world ever created. We believed that we were in an underwater city, as much as any media could convince us, and I think most of us kept playing it just so we could see what came next. I still can see the suitcases falling down through the water, the windows slowly leaking in sea-water.

It seems that the more successful the experience is, the more successful the game’s sales are. Even games like Madden have transformed from a 2D sprite on a football field to an experience that rivals watching an NFL game on your TV. From the playcalling, to the coach simulation, to even the UI signage which matches the ESPN look, you are in control of your NFL fantasy experience.

So it was with a weary heart that I realized why, exactly, that I no longer care about the idea of a game like Duke Nukem Forever coming to light. From the limited amount of video that I’ve seen of it, and the core foundation of what Duke Nukem is (FPS with Campy 80′s Action Hero Overtones). It’s a last-gen game concept attempting to live in a next-gen world of design. I would no sooner be excited to play it than I would peg my jeans or wear a Member’s Only jacket.

I’ve already experienced those things, and I want to enjoy new experiences.

As designers, could we all agree to eschew the idea of “Genre with a _____?” I think the consumer has spoken through their wallet that they’re not really that interested in those concepts anymore.

Let’s no longer think in terms of selling them a game. Let’s instead think of selling them an experience.

Tags: design

11 responses so far ↓

1 conn // Sep 22, 2008 at 11:55 pm

I’m curious as to why this is considered “last-gen” design. For that matter, what -is- “current-gen” or “next-gen” design? What exactly is “current/next-gen” about Mirror’s Edge- I mean, you could boil it down to Breakdown meets Tomb Raider or something along those lines.

In fact, Bioshock being immersive and convincing due to first-person cutscenes was done with Half-Life nearly a decade prior… why is this “current/next-gen” design?

I’m not disagreeing with your main point- that games should try to be more immersive and -convincing- in their theme and aesthetic, rather than feeling like a new coat of paint- but I’m having trouble understanding what you mean by this.
2 Logan Thomas // Sep 23, 2008 at 1:42 am

I read this post and immediately knew that I wanted to comment on it in some way, but I’m having trouble fishing for the right words. This is a topic worthy of a book and it’s hard to condense it into a couple paragraphs.

You have to look at it this way: two artists paint a picture. Both pictures are of the same scene with the same elements. However, one picture is vastly superior to the other. Why? Quality. Polish. Technique. Theory. Any number of factors make that painting better, and it’s no different for video games.

Developers are always cooking up concepts–new, old, or a new take on the old–and the main difference between a good game with an old concept and a bad game with an old concept is vision. Vision doesn’t necessarily mean “new”, and BioShock is virtually the de facto example of that. It brings very little to the table, but instead paints a gorgeous work of art atop the rubble that is a tired genre.

Admittedly, had they taken the time to build a better foundation (that is, gameplay) to paint their masterpiece on, BioShock could quite possibly have been the most brilliant game -and- artistic statement in recent memory (for me).

Of course, the ending(s) were incredibly, -incredibly- lacking given the gargantuan scope of the story preceding them and I can’t overlook that, nevermind the tired formula they used for the final boss. However, BioShock’s flaws are neither here nor there.
3 Gerard // Sep 23, 2008 at 2:22 am

I will trawl out a game that fits this mould surely as any other example: Shadow of the Colossus (and I am glad it continues to pop up in various blogs surrounding game design). It sold me on the experience of facing each Colossus. The anticipation of the search and the excitement of the battle all worked perfectly. I had friends of mine that blew it off as a Zelda clone and whilst its core gameplay elements were nothing original it did sell me on its experience.

I have just started enjoying Multiwinia. It is an interesting example of where simplicity and focused design go alot further than making my hardware cry and I am having a blast

I think we are on the verge of a leap into a new style of game design where the experience is key. The shooting games from a first person perspective that will stand out in peoples minds will be the ones that have all the elements done well but have a vision and a way of connecting with the player on something more than a basic narrative based protagonist level.
4 Sean Beanland // Sep 23, 2008 at 8:25 am

Man, at the time it came out, I thought FEAR was the best shooter I had played since Half-Life 2. I thought they really got the experience down of a gloriously bloody cinematic action game. Throwing a grenade into a room of cubicles, going into slow-mo, seeing the shockwave of the explosion blow cloned soldiers apart, turning the survivors into puffy red clouds with my laser gun, then stopping to survey the dust, papers, and other bits of carnage fall slowly to the floor never got old.

However, I think you’ve nailed for me why I’m not one of those people who pick up every shooter that comes out like some people I know. I won Battlefield: Bad Company in a raffle and played through the single player campaign. The writing was funny, but actually playing it was a chore. There was nothing interesting about the shooting or the enemies I killed. I never would have bought the game myself. I’ll never touch Frontlines, Soldier of Fortune, or any of the other second tier shooters for this very same reason. Honestly, even Halo feels boring for this reason. At least the environments are varied and interesting, but as good and balanced as the gameplay supposedly is, it’s never really captured my loyalty like it has everyone else.
5 Amauriel // Sep 23, 2008 at 10:31 am

Although I generally am not the kind of gamer that enjoys FPS games, I felt the need to comment.

I hate Halo. There, I’ve said it. I have told the guys that I work with for years that Halo is a mediocre shooter at best, and if they want us to play an FPS we might as well play Quake or Unreal, as they have made few improvements on the feeling of the game for me since then. I think that you hit the nail on the head for me when you said it was about the experience. I don’t think Halo created an experience for me that was any different than shooters I had previously played, and because I am not a huge fan of the genre it was cast to the side for me.

I did love Bioshock. I was drawn in, and forgot for a bit that I was playing a shooter. I loved Portal as well, and have enjoyed the Half-Life games. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Valve I would have played a lot less FPS games.

The comments above work for much more than FPSes though. I was immediately reminded of World of Warcraft when reading the original post. Why has that game succeeded so monumentally farther than other MMORPGs? I originally thought it was the name, as I am an RTS fan and thought everyone else knew Blizzard as quality products as well. That is most definitely not the case. So many people that I know that are WoW heads become so without ever experiencing Warcraft III or StarCraft. Is WoW creating an experience that previous MMOs have not?
6 Jonty // Sep 23, 2008 at 3:12 pm

If you’d have been a bit snappier with this then you could have had yourself a New Games Designism on your hands. Your point is much the same, I think – there are well-established, hackneyed methods that experienced audiences have grown bored of, and they crave the stuff that inspires an emotional reaction.

I’d also suggest it’s also slightly off the mark for the same reason – people are still buying achingly derivative games and reading witless copy. I’m one of many who’d love for developers to stop churning out cookie-cutter dreck that does nothing to advance the form, but we’re outnumbered by the hordes who would buy Medal of Honor tomorrow no matter what.
7 Infovore » links for September 23rd // Sep 23, 2008 at 6:01 pm

[...] Selling an Experience "Let’s no longer think in terms of selling them a game. Let’s instead think of selling them an experience." A nice article on the changing shape of game design, particularly when it comes to narrative and participatory hooks. (tags: design experience games narrative participation genre ) [...]
8 Digital Sextant :: Gaming Experiences // Sep 25, 2008 at 12:28 pm

[...] Let’s no longer think in terms of selling them a game. Let’s instead think of selling them an experience. (link) [...]
9 Mrop // Sep 26, 2008 at 8:08 am

I do not know what you mean by “current-”, “last-” and “next”-generation design. To me it is just the game developers wanting to minimise risk by going for a derivative product, while adding something extra as a selling point. Proven developers can take more risks, and hopefully they will design without thinking about what genre to fit into. After all, “First Person” is just a camera position, and “Shooter” is just launching some form of projectile.
10 Sande Chen // Sep 28, 2008 at 8:44 am

A lot of folks are talking about ‘experience design’ and I elaborate a bit more about it in my Gamasutra article, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3736/towards_more_meaningful_games_a_.php
11 XAM » Blog Archive » Czytelnia // Nov 1, 2008 at 1:33 am

[...] Selling an Experience – Interesujący tekst napisany przez człowieka z branży, który wskazuje na ogromną schematyczność i pewne nieprzystosowanie deweloperów do sytuacji obecnej. Nie dotyczy to oczywiście wszystkich, ale znaczna część nie może się odnaleźć i nie potrafi wyjść poza sztywne ramy wzoru “nazwa gatunku + trochę… “. Widać to szczególnie teraz, w okresie przedświątecznym, gdy podobnych, zrobionych na jedno kopyto gier wydaje się masę. I trudno nie poprzeć autora – odnoszę wrażenie, że poczułem to samo co on w podobnym momencie. Copyright © 2008 Polygamia. Ten wpis pochodzi ze strony http://polygamia.pl. Jeżeli nie czytasz go w swoim agregacie RSS, oznacza to, że ktoś kradnie nasze materiały. Prosimy o kontakt na adres kontakt@polygamia.pl, jeżeli zauważysz taką sytuację. Z góry dziękujemy.Plugin by Taragana [...]

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