Or I could have just titled this article, don’t be dumb. I’m not talking Palin dumb here, I’m just talking making blanket statements like your game must follow these 10 rules or your game sins if it breaks these seven rules. Why do I say it’s silly? Because if you look at either of those lists, I can name great games that break those rules. Yeah, that’s right, even the ever awesome Soren Johnson’s list.
The RPS list for instance does say should in their title, but I still can’t say I agree with everything they’ve posted. Lets take some examples:
2. Use standardised install and savegame folders
Everything goes in Program Files by default, please (and, just as importantly, there needs to be an option to install anywhere the player would rather). Don’t have your game install itself into the root of C:\ or an obscure sub-folder, and when you do put it in Program Files don’t stick it inside [Publisher name]\[Developer name] – just stick a folder directly in there under the game’s name. Gamers want to be able to find their game files easily, not have to Google for everyone involved in its creation just so they can work out what folder it’s in.
This is doubly true of savegames.
Why do I care? Sure, it might be nice, but I don’t even like where Vista and XP have my saved games if developers followed the rules. You know where I want saved games? In a sub directory of where I chose install the game (I’m OCD about that. Games go to c:\games, demos to c:\gamedemos. That way I can track them down later). That isn’t hard and it should be a simple thing to follow.
The rest of the suggestions aren’t all bad, but they aren’t all necessary either. I have spent of long hours playing games like Company of Heroes and Starcraft that break that escape means pause rule. It took me three seconds to catch on and I didn’t think about it again. I’m not saying games shouldn’t go for that rule, but it’s not really a priority.
On to Soren’s seven sins… On the one hand, I just want to agree with everything Soren says since I’ve liked the game he’s worked on so much. On the other hand, he’s being a bit stubborn in some parts…
1. Too much scripting
Strategy games have a direct lineage from board games, and the fun of playing the latter comes from understanding the rules and mechanics of the game world and then making decisions that have consequence within that world. Computerized strategy games allow a single player to experience this same world on his or her own. At some point, however, strategy developers began to create lengthy, scripted scenarios as the single-player portion of their games. (In fact, the recent World in Conflict shipped without a single-player skirmish mode altogether.) These scenarios have a peculiar feeling – they use some of the same rules as the core game while often violating others.[...]
Yes, too much scripting is bad. But not all scripting is bad. Just like anything, the time and place and moderation matter. Really, I’m in agreement for the most part. But I get the impression Soren wants to get rid of scripting in all games… And I just can’t agree with that. Take a look at things like Alpha Centauri… It was was mostly unscripted, but at certain points, events happened (depending on time or research, etc) and it made the player feel more involved, not less so. I’ll definitely go with his point for games like Company of Heroes. OMG. I played through that single player when I was bored. It was bad. Not even half fun bad, just bad.They just throw out all of the rules of the skirmish or multiplayer games and lock entire missions down until you do X exactly right. Weak.
7. Putting story in the wrong places
Story and games have a checkered history. Too many have suffered from boring cut-scenes, stereotyped characters, and plots that take control away from the player. Especially problematic are games which don’t let the player fast-forwarding through cringe-worthy dialogue. The worst offense, however, is when a story gets stuck somewhere it really doesn’t belong. Like in a strategy game. After all, strategy games are the original games. Humans first discovered gameplay with backgammon and chess and go; it’s a noble tradition. The “story” in a strategy game is the game itself. Picking a specific example, how much better of a game would Rise of Legends have been if Big Huge Games had given up on creating a story-based campaign and instead iterated on the excellent turn-based Conquer the World strategy layer from Rise of Nations?[...]
I agree and disagree. Yes, the story in Rise of Legends (his example) actually got in the way of the gameplay and the fun. Agreed completely. But, what if instead of the story being in the missions and was instead based on what countries you captured and how long it took you to do so? That would have been less invasive and not ruined the fun part of the game, the gameplay. My point being that story can coexist with a good single player campaign. So I think I agree with him here, kind of. Just because people haven’t managed story well in the past is not a reason to throw it out all together.
In Other News:
EA actually does realize that piracy isn’t what they normally claim it is:
"Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale," she (Mariam Sughayer of EA’s corporate communication center) tells Gamasutra.
Wait a second… so they put in this annoying DRM bullshit and now they say that bit torrent downloads aren’t actually related to lost sales? So why in the fuck are they putting DRM in the game in the first place? I didn’t purchase Spore, one of the reasons being the game didn’t seem awesome enough to deal with putting the extra bullshit software on my system. If the DRM didn’t exist, I may very well of bought it. I didn’t pirate it either, but that’s because I’m patient and I’ll either play it after it’s really cheap and the DRM is easily stripped out or when EA patches the DRM to not exist.
The overall point being though… Why include it in the first place if it isn’t actually helping sales? It probably has nothing to do with purely business reasons and making themselves and investors feel better about it rather than actual usefulness of it. Nothing at all.
And in absolutely stunning news, Epic still doesn’t want to make PC games:
Do you see the Xbox 360 as the main platform as opposed to the PC? During the whole Unreal time it was very much PC focused.
The PC right now is a fair amount different to what it was back in the day, with all the badly integrated video chips. Here’s the problem right now; the person who is savvy enough to want to have a good PC to upgrade their video card, is a person who is savvy enough to know bit torrent to know all the elements so they can pirate software. Therefore, high-end videogames are suffering very much on the PC.
So piracy was a main point for you…
Right now, it makes sense for us to focus on Xbox 360 for a number of reasons. Not least PCs with multiple configurations and piracy.
But when the dust has settled, is there any possibility of Gears 2 on PC?
No.
Definitely not?
No.
Hmmm… I love that they blamed piracy for their lack of game sales. I absolutely love it. I mean, sure, other games aren’t selling millions of copies on the PC (even Crysis sold over a million world wide). Oh, and the part about the people that know how to configure their systems are also the people that are going to pirate it. Awesome.
I don’t want to get started on PC game piracy again, but long story short, they are partially right and Unreal 3 was not a very good game (good engine, not a great game). If you base your withdrawal from the PC market on that, you’re dumb. That is all.
What Would Matt Do: First, quit making generlizations. Second, quit being dumb. These things alone should help a lot of people.
Update: Looks like either I didn’t read his posts correctly or Soren wasn’t clear. Either way, we are in complete agreement after this post.