The Perilous Adventures of Shampoo and Conditioner

While coming out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, I saw a billboard for Valve’s Left 4 Dead, a zombie apocalypse shooter, and ads for Bethesda’s Fallout 3 on the side of 3 buses. People probably think these are big-budget, high-profile games, which they are and in the latter game’s case, one of the voice actors is Liam Neeson.

Games have become an interactive Hollywood, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; bigger pushes for storytelling, bigger pushes for cinematic flair to go with high-production polish. And while I enjoy games taking the flashy elements of the movies, they should take the opportunity to borrow something else like manipulation and conditioning.

To an extent games already do these; players open treasure chests for loot yet also expect the occasional booby trap; players have learned to look before jumping over chasms because getting struck in midair usually results in falling into the darkness. These are universal. But what if game designers used these normative behaviors against the player? What if you the player were told to “come by after closing so I can give you your reward,” and when you return, you get robbed of all your possessions? What if you spotted a lone tower on the plains, and after fighting your way to the top, you find nothing of value?

The thing with most game conditioning is if players know they have to work hard for something, then they expect rewards. If we were to break this conditioning, introduce a new one that greatly increased consequence, then players will apply more thought into their decisions. “I could attack this fort, but what if I use up more resources than I replenish?”

Most games treat dilemmas like they treat their ethical binaries: both paths have different but equally valuable rewards.

Something to Think about: Conditioning doesn’t have to be isolated to gameplay. Like movies, think about how game designers could manipulate the players through the narrative.

Gun it, grandma

Take a look at the two game videos below. The one on top is from Rock Band 2 - specifically the song A Jagged Gorgeous Winter played on expert drums with a 100% hit rate. The bottom is from Ikaruga, a shmup where you change the polarity of your ship between black and white while you absorb enemy shots of similar color. Both games are chaotic, display different kinds of hells (one of bullets and the other of notes and chords). These games do not recognize grazes; you have to be precise with your hits and misses.

Yet only Rock Band has had any impact on our culture, and it’s not difficult to see why. The majority of the game’s concept can be understood through the title alone. But what is an Ikaruga? Is it a verb? A type of sushi roll? Look at the game description in the previous paragraph. That’s the first barrier to entry. Setting is the other. Music has a much broader appeal than controlling a spaceship that has to weave through curtains and curtains of fire. Put people in a game setting that makes sense and they will most likely become repeat customers.

But is it fair of me to compare these two games even though they are not of the same genre? Is this just an exercise in being reductive? I guess my point is not about what makes a game a cultural impact but how the chaos and acceleration components of a so-called hardcore game can be instilled in one that has mainstream appeal.

"I play video games better than everybody."

A couple months ago, Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan released a PSN game called The Last Guy. From Gamespot: “In the wake of a global catastrophe, you run through stages built from satellite images of notable real-world locations, from Trafalgar Square in London to the National Mall in Washington, DC.” Every other preview of the game mentioned its “Google-esque Maps” style.

Even though this Sony game doesn’t utilize Googlie Maps, the idea of using other apps to generate data for your game is an interesting approach; for one, real-life values don’t feel as cold and sterile as randomly calculated numbers. Let’s take a look at a couple of other turn-an-everyday-app-into-a-game possibilities:

”MIA on AIM”
The -esque: instant messengers
What’s It About: A text adventure game that plays in an IM window. you take the role of a private investigator who has been asked to look for a missing girl. And the person who sent you the message - the missing girl! Ooh, the suspense, it’s killing me…no really, it’s trying to break down my door. Help.
Why Should I Bother: you’re already on IM at work, so why not use IM while using IM to play a game while at work. That’s like killing one bird with two stones - heavy, boulder-sized stones.

make sure your replies are in the correct window.

”This Country Is Going Down The YouTubes”
The -esque: Youtube, embedded Youtubery
What’s It About: An epic high-fantasy game, its world map the Internet. You play a troll who must start fires in Youtube or any comment section that has an embedded Youtube vid in its post.
Why Should I Bother: Trolls are always depicted as the baddies. But not this time, because you are the troll, and since you are the player, that means you are the Hero. So go out into the Internet and become the most heroic troll there ever was.

can you bear being a flaming troll? *troll not shown

Hey, I know you.

Back in August, I posted about Capcom’s promotional piece for their upcoming virtual console game, Mega Man 9. For those unfamiliar, Mega Man 9 is a game created with the limitations of the 1980’s Nintendo console in mind. 9 is a nod to old-school gameplay and its roots - Mega Man, as a series, has spawned across many consoles and generations.

The image above is another attraction piece, created with as much care as the tee print. The game itself is a download, which is why the package in that image is a limited edition. The retail version of this game comes on a CD, which is encased in an NES cartridge, which comes in an NES box. It started out as a press kit, but the demand from fans became so loud that Capcom decided to run a limited number for the public.

You should clap clap for Capcom, but not because they listened to Mega Man fans and offered to mass-produce what was supposed to be swag, since all this was one giant madeleine calculated from the word hell-yeah-let’s-go-make-this-game. They knew the audience, and they knew what had to be done to pull them in. When you not only make the eighth sequel to a series that started back in the late eighties but make it in the image of its predecessors, you aren’t banking on a new audience. If they did want a new generation of Mega Man players, putting “9” in the title probably wouldn’t be the way to go - Capcom has rebooted the series more than once.

And from a financial perspective, all this talk of nostalgia and knowing the audience means Capcom doesn’t have to spend nearly as much on development as they do with a game made for current consoles. Look at the screens for 9 - does that game look like it had a 150-200 person team, with a 10 million dollar budget?

Change in Facebook Metrics for "Longer-Term Engagement"

I’m actively following all the discussion about new metrics for Facebook widgets. I’m fascinated by apps that are supposedly “wildly popular” but seem really shallow to me. Facebook metrics went from number of installs (something that could easily be manipulated) to daily usage (something that encourages flashy content and fleeting engagement). Which is why the latest move to tracking monthly active users for apps is a smart move on Facebook’s part. It forces app developers to think about how to sustain interest and engagement over time.

Thinking about my own Facebook usage recently. I was a near addict to the game Pack Rat. I spent hours playing on a daily basis for nearly 2 months. But now, I’m done with it. I’ll probably never go back.

And then there’s GoodReads (it’s also my favorite social network). I never spend a lot time on it but I come back throughout the month to update what I’m reading and rate the books that I recently finished.

Which use is viewed as more successful to developers in my case? We’ll let the ever-evolving metrics to decide.

Ranking and Monthly Active Users on both apps from developerAnalytics:
PackRat #223, 81,261 MAU
Goodreads #879, 30,040 MAU