Social network games

So you probably read by now that Hasbro has officially shut down Scrabulous on FaceBook. While I don't have an official opinion between Scrabulous and the Official Hasbro-EA Scrabble, I do think that social network gaming is an interesting game medium that can only get better.

Facebook's goal obviously is to get you to log on as often as possible and games like Scrabulous keep players logging in. Now that Scrabulous is gone what do you do? Even Hasbro admits that Scrabble is still in a testing phase. How about going classic and playing some FaceBook Chess? Or maybe oldschool is the way to go and compete for top score on Tetris Friends? You could always just play Hold 'Em.

There are some other games that I think would be interesting. Hangman? Monopoly? There are a ton of turn based games that would work.

Interesting though is how to get your piece of the pie as the game developer. Helping FaceBook become more dominant with an addicting app that keeps users logging back in is great, but what do you do with all those users?

When fun steps aside

My one pet peeve against game reviewers is the fact that they will review a game taking every aspect into consideration except for the aspect that matters most: fun. I don't understand reviews that focus on games that are visually stunning or really took a chance on creating a different kind of world. Those things are all great and I respect developers that are willing to evolve the video game genre, but sometimes I feel that they sacrifice fun to do it. When did that not become the the one reason most people play games?

I'd hate to bash on BioShock, because it is an extremely stunning game. The first time I crawled onto land and looked up at a golden statue, I had chills. The opening sequence was immersive, I wanted to find out what happens next. Then I realized the game was exactly like System Shock 2. The looting system took me out of the flow of things, the enemies are surprisingly dull after a few Big Daddies, and I just wasn't having a pleasurable time while fighting my way to the next chunk of story.

Then there are games like Rez, which nobody cared to play when it came out in in 2002, but it gets released on Xbox Live Arcade in HD and suddenly it is a cult classic that everyone who knows games should have played six years ago and must pick up again now. For anyone who doesn't know what the game is, it's basically Panzer Dragoon with techno/dance music. You add to the soundtrack when you kill enemies, but the sound effects don't seem to make any sense. It's not particularly rewarding to go into a rhythm. It's not to say i'm not a fan of music games, I think Lumines (by the same creator, but 5 years later) is a great example of a game that rewards you for playing well both in terms of the music and also in your score/advancement.

So what makes a game fun? Well, I'm sure there will be plenty of opinions, but here are some things I look for:

• Intuitive, easy to learn, but rewarding for being good (The whole Othello mentality)
• The pacing of the game is steady and can be hastened or slowed by the player's skill, not force by the gameplay or environment
• Responsive controls that let a player do what he is thinking (this is a combination of intuitive gameplay and pacing)
• Short levels/checkpoints/missions/travel so that a player can feel rewarded for his efforts at regular intervals.
  

Think back to the truly classic games like pacman, donkey kong, or tetris. They all had these elements.

Virtually Sniping

Sniping in multiplayer shooters has gotten a pretty bad rap in gaming culture. Some of the comments I read: If you like pointing and clicking so much, play your windows desktop. Every sniper in the game just cares about their kill-to-death ratio. Snipers have no skill.

Sniping in a shooter can be rewarding though. My favorite thing to do is what I call "offensive" sniping. Basically, following the assault troops in and picking off dangerous targets as they are identified, leaving the easier and more accessible targets to the run-and-gunners.

So the good and the bad stated above have an underlying commonality though. Real-world sniping is not easy. One should not be able to run with a sniper rifle and take a fully accurate shot on the fly. One also should not be able to spot a target and execute a flawless shot with a flick of the wrist.

There are some attempts to simulate realism (or at least simulate difficulty). The Call of Duty series uses holding your breath, which is a realistic tactic for sniping. Games like Team Fortress 2 have a power meter build in to simulate how snipers have to wait for a shot. The execution is still flawed though, since a headshot is an instant kill. It sort of encourages twitch gaming.

Why aren' t games like real-world sniping? I'm not asking for snipers to be prone the whole time and wait for someone to walk past the reticle. How about zeroing the scope? It would be interesting if snipers had to calibrate the reticle and distance actually matters. This would force a sniper to pick a zero point and allow them to choose to fire at a target further away by aiming slightly below the crosshairs. This forces snipers to think about their shot and puts some guesswork (or experience) into sniping.

How about gradually building accuracy for remaining still? Sniping should reward calm, collected and carefully chosen shots rather than firing re-actively to the first target that comes into view. Sniping should also be dangerous where one should have to decide between remaining in a known position to take a shot or moving to a better/safer location and having to set up again.

Well, before this post becomes a wall of text, I'm just going to end here. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasonable ideas, but as it stands, sniping is an experience that can be even more challenging and rewarding for those who enjoy it. It can also be a role that commands respect.

It's almost like a movie

Just some food for thought. Grand Theft Auto 4 had a budget of around $100 million. It sold 3.6 million copies on its first day and sold around 9 million in a one month period. The numbers add up to about $500 million on GTA4's first week.

In comparison, The Dark Knight grossed $155 million on opening weekend with a budget of around $180 million.

I understand that a movie's revenue stream doesn't just end at the box office, there's DVD sales and digital rentals to consider but that can be countered with downloadable content and expansion packs on the video game side. Anyway, I just wanted to lay this info out for consideration.

With game studios getting bigger budgets every year backed up with staggering numbers like this coupled with more sophisticated online capabilities, who knows what the game industry will be like in ten years.

Real-time Strategy games to look forward to

Many of you have probably kept track of StarCraft2, which will undoubtedly be a game that will sell millions of copies globally. But any RTS fan should really remember Red Alert. This fall, EA will be countering with Red Alert 3.



Why Red Alert 3? How about base building on water, a heavy focus on naval combat (dare I say complete maps that are water only?) and a troop carrier that has an aptly named weapon: The Man Cannon.

Not to be outdone, developer Relic and publisher THQ will also be shipping Dawn of War 2 this year. There is still relatively little information available, but this is the latest released gameplay trailer and cinematic trailer.





Any fans of the Warhammer 40k world can speculate whether the Orks, Space Marines and Eldar will be joined by Chaos or Tyranids. If Relic does choose to include Tyranids, it will be an interesting choice, as they will be egging on Blizzard's Zerg counterpart.

Don't worry though, there need not be any mudslinging on which game is ripping off the other's alien hive. They both are ripping off the original Starship Troopers.

The games are also completely different styles of gamplay. While SC2 will focus on the classic RTS gameplay of base building and micromanaging resources with single units, DoW2's focus will be on small tactical armies with very little base building or resource management.

All three games will be very interesting and worth playing for any fan of RTS. I think the three games have very distinct qualities that will appeal to different audiences or those who appreciate just having three separate games to play.

Will gaming on the iPhone be successful?

It's a good sign when Apple stores are on record as not having 3g iPhones in stocked. Well, ok, that has very little indication as to how gaming will be like on the iPhone. It does, though, show that there is a high demand, and high demand means lots of users. A developer really wants to target as many users as possible and it should be no different that game developers will only invest in developing software for a product that has the most number of users.

And Apple is setting up the proper environment. Since you can download apps directly from itunes, it makes things really easy. To go along with this, Pinch Media's been aggregating data on both top 100 paid and free applications. Not surprising to me, as of this post, the top five iphone paid applications are all games. If we expand out a bit, seven of the top ten paid applications are games.

But it's not just small publishers that are trying to make a quick buck. Big publishers like EA are releasing versions of AAA titled games on the iphone. Like Spore:



And LucasArts with Star Wars: Force Unleashed



Anti-iPhoners and those who don't see a reason to combine their lame Nintendo DS with a mobile device have been voicing their opinions on how gaming would not work very well since their are no buttons for input feedback. I think the videos above show the pioneering effort in not trying to make the old classic game interfaces work, but really trying to do something different. Games for the iPhone are still in its infant stages. There is potential here.

And if you're not a gamer, you could always just turn it into a light saber.

Oh how horrible!

The title probably doesn't work as well as I want but I am horribly addicted to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. This wonderful epic web series featuring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day is truly going to change the way web shows are looked at. The webisodes are being premiered for free until July 20th and afterward will be available to download for a few bucks each.

As Joss Whedon says in his open letter on the Dr. Horrible site, it's not about making money, but more about paying the crew that invested lots of time and effort into bringing something fresh to the internet.

I'm hoping that it will spark something new. Professional high quality shows made directly for the internet and digitally sold and distributed? Uh oh! What will all those television and movie studios do?

Define game?

I came across this gameproducers.net article challenging readers to define 'game'. Since I'm not registered, I couldn't reply, and thought it would be better to define it on my own blog. What how would one define a game?

The gameproducers is about video games, my definition is simple and applies to almost everything on the internet: Any activity where one can define a goal, achieve it and redefine the goal with higher requirements.

Life is a game, and as one commenter on gameproducers noted, it just "doesn't have a reset button". Everyone has goals that they set themselves and challenges that they put forth. Some would say games have rules and the rules for life are those defined by the laws of physics and the laws of the government.

The internet is equally a game and this is not a new concept. It was in fact, a big theme at E-Tech in 2007. Jane Mcgonical had a keynote about game design in technology, so did Raph Koster, and Amy Jo Kim on making apps more fun. The idea is that every website is really a game. Forums have post counts and users try to increase their post counts. Maybe they get feedback for the quality of their posts, so they spend time being as relevant as possible. Social networks are huge sites for games -- Number of friends, number of replies, number of tagged pictures, best looking layout, best choice of music.

The rate of return users and frequency of use is a result of the site itself being a game. Users would never stay at a site that wasn't fun or entertaining. The goals are simple in this case: "Can I increase my forum post number by X today?", "What do I have to do to gain X friends in a week?", "Can I beat user Y who has a very similar layout to mine in feedback?". Achieving these goals are satisfying and fun. Being able to redefine the goal is up to the user, they system itself doesn't have to provide goals.

Not have defined goals laid out for you is already prevalent in video games. Grand Theft Auto 4 (and 3) is an open sandbox world, as are numerous others. MMO's have the same thing. Though there are missions, for the most part, once those are done, it's up to the user to create their own challenge.

Anyway, I think this simple definition is something that if tucked in every developer's head, will create some very interesting games, websites and applications. Can you create something that will cultivate users to define their own goals and keep them coming back?