Game Geek Speak

Every now and then I allow myself to play some MMOs. In between breathless marathons of developing my own game, I need to decompress and go somewhere else for a while.

So I played the WoW (World of Warcraft) 10 day trial first. It’s a fun game. I like the cartoony style of it. The shininess of it is amazing. That’s what I noticed the most: all the polish and details that make it such a pleasure to navigate. Well, I didn’t realize this until I started playing another MMO.

Now I’m playing the LotRO (Lord of the Rings Online) 10 day trial. I’ve wanted to try this ever since it came out. The detailed intro quests were a great change from the lame quests of WoW, and I’m enjoying all the little game design details (eat food for temporary stat boosts–great idea!) not found in WoW.

But I have to say, WoW really kicks LotRO’s butt in the polish department. LotRO feels like a rickety free to play MMO from Korea (hey, I love a couple of those, but they almost uniformly lack polish).

There are three major aspects that I’m noticing: interface art, fonts, and audio.

LotRO’s music is, to be blunt, bad. Sound effects are competent, but not thumping. Audio is at least 50% of the experience! Don’t freakin’ skimp on the sound and music, people.

In WoW, music is great, sound is great quality and there’s a lot of it. If you gather in WoW, you hear some nice “shuffly” sounds and interface feedback. In LotRO, it’s totally silent which makes it feel anemic and thin. Again, this kind of subtle feedback is the very definition of polish.

The fonts, while meant to be elegant, perhaps, are not good choices for an interface. The glyphs are too thin and read poorly at lower resolutions. And some of them are chigger-small.

The interface art, like the fonts and the audio, seems wiry and meager. WoW’s interface has a heft and weight to it that makes it very pleasing to use. LotRO’s interface makes me think the game is about to crash from poor workmanship. That’s my perception, and, though that perception may be far from the truth, I dare say perception trumps truth in an experiential product like a game when it comes to matters of enjoyment.

I think also, overall, there’s a lot less color in LotRO’s visual design. WoW is maybe too fruity/intensely colored, but LotRO is too drab and monochrome for my tastes.

So, while there is a lot to like about LotRO (and I might even subscribe if my wife likes it enough–until the new Star Wars MMO comes out), it could be exponentially a more engaging experience with some very minor additions (and a new music soundtrack, maybe with real instruments this time–I mean, for heaven’s sake, listen to the movie soundtrack and at least aim for something in that ballpark).

Lesson: don’t ignore the subtle effects of audio and visuals! This stuff isn’t just eye/ear candy. There’s a very tangible difference in quality of the experience.

Lots of folks are talking about how over-hyped social games are, how they are not at all social, how they’re just a fad, etc. But I think there’s something being missed in these rants.

The interesting thing to me about social games is the distribution platforms (ie, the social networks). Despite what anyone thinks about the hype, social sites as a gaming platform really is something new in that regard. Reach. I once marveled about the reach achievable through Mochi Media and Flash games, but that is dwarfed by the 400 million+ users of Facebook. That’s new, and it’s remarkable.

Never before has it been so easy to invite a friend to check out a game. No need to fire up an email client or even type. Your friend receives the message right on the site where the game will be played. No need to run another app or go to a different site (one you might not trust or that might crash your computer with too much bling).

Never before has the process/interface been so standardized (ie, very low friction) in between the friend getting the invite and getting into or out of the game. Everyone knows how to add or remove a game/app.

Never before have people felt so comfortable “installing” a game/app because they know the platform gives them control (unlike mailing lists, etc) over what communications they receive (or not) and when (if at all).

This converges with the growing power and ubiquity of Flash and other web browser technologies, giving rise to a huge number of highly accessible games (not all of them “casual”). These have existed before, but not on a platform like Facebook that brings so many other crucial factors into play, like reduced interface friction, user comfort, and low barriers to entry.

It’s still an uphill battle to get attention (and revenues), but it’s easier than out in the frontiers of the web, alone.

“Social games” seems to be the new black these days. And, yet, the social mechanics seem to boil down to nothing more than “collecting” as many “friends” as you can in order to unlock content. (Please imagine me using quote fingers dramatically when you see those quotes.)

For instance, some games have “quests” (in most games, that means one click).

These jobs sometimes require you to have a certain amount of friends in your “crew” or group or neighbors before you can access it. That really just means inviting players into the game and forgetting about them since they become a number.

Interestingly, this gives rise to “add me trains,” where a huge comment thread consists of players asking other players to add them as friends to increase their in-game friend count.

Or, you give a friend a gift to entice him or her to play the game. Gifting can be very fulfilling, but in this case it’s entirely in the service of marketing the game with sleight of hand. It’s not actually “social” in the way you expect when you say the word.

But…

…is this fun?! The answer depends on who you ask, but it’s not much fun to me. These games are certainly engaging because of the behavioral psychology behind their design, but I’m not sure that is the same as being fun.

There’s no meaningful interaction in most current “social” games. Your social graph is nothing but a marketing data mine for the developers. I don’t have a big problem with that on its own, because you do opt in. You don’t have to invite your friends. But the motivating factor is not the quality of the game, and I would wager that you won’t need to force your players to tell friends if the game is good enough.

I love the idea of shared worlds.

As I define it, a shared world game is where the gameplay alters the world state, and the world state alters the gameplay in a fun feedback loop. It’s really fascinating to think about the potential when players’ actions can change the world in which they play, and then that, in turn, can affect what players do next. It sounds like a blast to me.

It also happens to dovetail nicely with social games. I mean, here’s a chance to make them actually social! I don’t mean like “talky ha-ha” social. I mean like “negotiating with each other” or “participating in simple forms of governance within a game world” social. You know, the kind of social where you interact with other people and fun things happen as a result.

To be clear, these things don’t have to happen in synchronous, full-on MMO style. But it also doesn’t have to be a game as vacuous as most of what we see on Facebook today.

The time is ripe for a new kind of social game that is more than hollow mouse clicks on a plastic harvest. And I hope to make one soon.

Whoa. Unity really is going to be omni-platform!

I can’t wait to have a chance to make a web game that I then port to iPhone, Android, and XBox Live Arcade. This kind of thing can’t really be understated for small developers because the best way to maximize your revenue per game is to release it on as many platforms as possible.

Some highlights from the press release:

…major updates to Unity’s rendering capabilities, its physics features and significant optimizations to its core systems… [I hope this means PhysX and Mono upgrades!! Confirmed! Mono 2.6.x!]

Illuminate Lab’s Beast lighting software provides Unity developers with a complete global illumination solution for photorealistic scene lighting.

[Unity iPhone has] a very fast 2D sprite engine…

Global illumination and occlusion culling might be Pro-only features, but it’s still really exciting.

Set for release this Summer. Bring it on!!

Creating passionate users is NOT about finding ways to make everyone like you. It’s about finding ways to use your own passion to inspire passion in others.
via The Creating Passionate Users blog

Applies just as much with games as anything else.

Zynga has some massive MAU and DAU numbers, but I think you have to be pretty “middle ground” to be that main stream. I also think that’s why social games have a lower ARPU than “core” MMOs and the like.

It’s the hardcore players that will pay. You can certainly get some revenue out of the rest with ads, but I think it would be interesting to try to aim squarely at a specific audience and ignore the allure of being able to state that you have a zillion monthly active users. I’d love to know the ARPPU on that “mediocre” audience versus a passionate audience of 500,000.

“$40 for lips couch, selling like hotcakes.”
–Sebastien de Halleux, PlayFish, speaking about Pet Society

Whoa. I would *never* have priced a virtual couch at $40. Not because I think virtual goods are not worth money, but because my personal sense of value tells me that it’s not worth that price. But there are a lot of factors in play on that decision: my sense of what is fun, my desire to “show off” to other players, my personal income, and so on.

The big lesson here is, as someone famous said, “Value is what it’s worth to a customer; price is what you charge for it.”

We simply can’t comprehend what our players might be willing to pay or do based on our own judgment. I think, especially as indie developers who might not have as much business experience, it’s really hard for us to imagine the value of our products and then price accordingly. I see this a lot in downloadable games with prices like $3 or $5 or $9. If players love your game enough to pay even $1 for it, they probably will pay a lot more (price wars not withstanding).

Online games such as MMOs and social games implementing a virtual goods business model have a similar obstacle. When pricing virtual goods, pick a price that you think nobody would ever pay, then double it. Heck, I’d probably have to quadruple it! I would find it hard to image someone paying $10 for a couch in Pet Society. But to hear that it sells like hotcakes for $40 shows that I could be losing a lot of revenue.

So, start with a high price. You can always come down. Nobody complains about a price drop. You can also test price points with analytics to find the sweet spot.

I was kind of shocked to hear that Project Darkstar has been shut down, and its staff laid off. My online multiplayer technology strategy was hinging on Darkstar. Major downer!

But I also learned that a couple of the original Darkstar team members, led by Owen Kellett, has forked the code and is trying to keep it alive as RedDwarf. So, that’s a very cool thing. I hope that it does thrive, because Darkstar is a pretty amazing server technology despite the fact that it’s not finished.

I hope all of Darkstar’s users will migrate to the new project and support it. Anyone can contribute code (though there is a sensible review process), so please go make your mark, and save this great server solution from the trash bin of history!

A company has to sell products or it can’t continue to create more. To sell, you have to be able to reach people so that they know you exist. I’d rather interact in a useful way with a company about its products than endure more traditional “talk at me” marketing. So I think social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is a pretty cool way to achieve that because it’s very consumer friendly. If you don’t like what you hear, you just stop the interactions (unless it’s an email list you can’t get off of–grrr).

Particularly, I like Facebook’s way of doing things, where you can fan something easily and remove yourself just as easily if it gets spammy. I feel like I am in control, not the marketer, and that makes me more open to hear what’s being offered.

Interesting to those of us who make games and market them, I came across a great post about framing just what a “social media” strategy is and some thoughts on how such a beast ideally works. There was a list of questions to consider when planning, but also some good additions in the comments. So, I’ve gathered them here and integrated them (hopefully!) logically.

• Do you have something to sell in the end that you can deliver or communicate about? This is the starting point.
• What types of people do we want to talk to?
• Where do we find them?
• What are they talking about already?
• Is it appropriate for us to join that conversation and, if so, when? (Focus on the conversations that matter and that are relevant and impactful to your brand.)
• When is it not appropriate to join the conversation. What are the criteria?
• Who do we empower within the organization to serve as our conversationalists?
• How do we inject usefulness into the conversation without being overly promotional?
• What value can we provide in terms of knowledge, opinion or content?
• How can we earn their trust?
• When we do earn their trust, how can we best ask for their input into our product or service?
• Under what circumstances can we point the conversation toward considering our product?
• Can we say or do something that invites someone else to point the conversation toward considering our product?
• How do we leverage this vehicle of social media to create brand evangelists?
• How shall we apologize and regroup if we overstep their comfort level or accuse us of violating their trust?
• What do we do if people “call us out” and react adversely to our social media presence in a given network?
• If those unfortunate interactions take place, what can we do to offset said negative interaction from ranking well in search results?
• What are you learning from their adverse reactions to your product or service?
• Are you OK with social networks not being OK with everything you do?
• What is our strategy for true brand opposition?
• Continue traditional marketing and sales. Social media enhances it, it doesn’t replace it.
• Don’t expect a sudden influx in orders. It takes about 6 months of hard work and time to get the results coming through.

Very entertaining video about how drab following formulas can make things.

Now, there is something to be said about conventions. In games, specifically, many conventions are necessary and good: control schemes, for example, should be common between games because it’s less for a new player to learn (and thus less reasons to be frustrated and quit). Visual interface elements are often useful when shared across games (or computer applications, generally), such as X for “close this window” or a musical note icon for audio options.

The types of conventions I’m thinking of, though, are more along the lines of gameplay mechanics (shoot everything that moves for points) or story lines (save the princess) or visual style (photo-realism). These conventions really can make your game less than great if used carelessly.

The solution? Pick one thing, one feature or one facet of your game, and push it so far over the top that it grabs people right away. The key is balance: don’t overdo it. Too much change, and people will be left confused–and quit your game.

This is a fantastic, heartfelt indie tale. Helps keep you grounded in the experience and the product–not the business plan, monetization, or demographics. Those things are important (critical!), but if you lose your vision tending to them, they don’t matter anymore. A unique game is nothing without its soul.

Please allow me to tell you – merely from my humble perspective – the unbelievable but true story about us, Avaloop, the team that created Papermint. It’s a story about friendship and independence, about how to lose a multi-million lottery ticket, about the really unique thing we created and about hope.

When I came back from the countryside to that cinema in Vienna I was welcomed with so much warmth and enthusiasm. It was just wonderful. I knew that nothing could ever blow us off our little indie feet… whatever the future will bring. With or without Mister Big.

Suddenly we felt this spirit of freedom again! The spirit we were lacking while being drunk of that strange hope for money or fame or security… whatever it was… it had tamed us. Papermint had not grown the natural way during the “PowerPoint”-times… it was endangered to be squeezed into a shape that was not its true shape… it was a marketing/PR/get more users/blah blah/demographic needs-shape we had not consciously cared for in our original plan.

But somehow we were able to stop that deformation in our minds and went back to the original plan.

Inspiring stuff! Read more, and check out the game.