I had written about it before in my topic "There's a war out there."
It got locked and I got issued a warning.
In my thread I had descripted a future analog to the french revolution, in wich developers/publishers would exploit the consumers "lack of awareness" to the limit. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and each one discretelly grabs a bigger piece noticing no repercussions the next time they go for a bigger piece, eventually they are rushing for it, indiscriminatelly, no rules, no moral, or ethics.
Its like ZT Online on east and Farmville here on west. It takes someone greedy enough to go for such a big piece of the pie that everyone else think "ok, thats enough, it was all fine when we all got our share, but, this way is not manageable anymore, this way we will self destruct".
Do we want something that is interesting enough to attract us?
or
Do we want to be given an out of game incentive to play?
Real world issues will always have some impact on what we play. The money a game costs can be an important factor in which we choose out of the bunch especially for adults who are practiced in constantly monitoring their expenditure and managing the budgets.
But, what this article is saying to me is much deeper than this. Games are a non-essential purchase. They are not food or clothing or something that we must have in order to live.
Thus, money is important but our personal interest level is much more important simply because we choose to play games rather than have to. So out-of-game incentives to play, whether real or artificial, are nowhere near as important as a game being good in its own right.
In the dark ages of computer gaming, games like JetSet Willy, Jet Pack, Lemmings all broke the mould cast by Pong, the ubiquitous tennis game at the start.
MUD thru EverQuest thru WoW to today's MMO have extended that sort of ground breaking expansion from simple to intriguing & complex by introducing the most dynamic factor of all .. People!
Every time games have evolved, they have not become simpler, they have become more complex. Sure, yes: better graphics, nicer sound, more helpful & easier to use clients. But the actual evolution has always been along the lines of deeper, more profound, more puzzling, more intriguing, more immersive gameplay.
We play games .. all games, in one way or another, for whatever particular aspect we personally prefer, to stimulate out minds.
The real problem with intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic (which stupid jargon I rephrased with my post title) is whether or not the game developers will recognise that ..
We have a need for games that is motivated by our desire to learn!
"Intrinsic versus Extrinsic?" is, at the base of it, the question of the short sighted accountant focussing only on the profit line. You have to pay attention to that profit line or your game will fail financially.
The problem is, that if you focus on money forgetting the real issue, that a game must satisfy our real desire for interesting games to play, then eventually you will lose your customer because you will lose their attention.
This is what has been happening in the MMO market for the last 5 to 10 years. Developers, admittedly forced to pay heed to the real concern of making a financially viable game, have been losing sight of our, the players', need to have variety, depth, puzzle and innovation in the games we play.
With the success of WoW, the plaguiaristic copy cat of the MMO world, game developers have seem to have lost their motivation to design and write interesting, exciting and evolving games.
The game industry has stuck to the standard formulae and is boring us to death.
What? You are not bored of your game yet? Well .. you will be.
Sooner or later you will want a different game to play, or a better game to play.
Sooner or later, the same game with different graphics will not be enough for you!
I've never enjoyed Farmville, or any game in that same vein. I find them boring and repetative at best. Sure, there are things in "world-y" MMOs, that some people could say the same thing about. However, I think the differentiating element here is that a "true" MMO provides you with a more encapsilating experience. That is that you are part of a larger world, and going even further into the hardcore/sandbox genre, you can infludence it. This is escapism, what I believe most MMO fans are seeking, and that is something that Farmville and it's ilk will never be able to do.
TJKazmar in the first page of this thread stated, "...these player-watchers may come to want more than games like Farmville have to offer. They may seek out the world that we know and love, and it will be the task of developers to model games that bring the 'new' generation of gamers up to par with what we are used to."
However, I would add that if developers, in seeking new revenues from these "player-watchers" dumb down the MMOs we've all come to play and love it could damage this entire genre of gaming for quite some time, if not all gaming.
Personally, I think a person should be able to play whatever game they want, but I also believe that Farmville and "World-y" MMOs can never be combined into something that both sides will enjoy. I think they cater to two completely different groups of people, and trying to combine them into one wholistic model is folly.
Comments
I had written about it before in my topic "There's a war out there."
It got locked and I got issued a warning.
In my thread I had descripted a future analog to the french revolution, in wich developers/publishers would exploit the consumers "lack of awareness" to the limit. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and each one discretelly grabs a bigger piece noticing no repercussions the next time they go for a bigger piece, eventually they are rushing for it, indiscriminatelly, no rules, no moral, or ethics.
Its like ZT Online on east and Farmville here on west. It takes someone greedy enough to go for such a big piece of the pie that everyone else think "ok, thats enough, it was all fine when we all got our share, but, this way is not manageable anymore, this way we will self destruct".
Do we want something that is interesting enough to attract us?
or
Do we want to be given an out of game incentive to play?
Real world issues will always have some impact on what we play. The money a game costs can be an important factor in which we choose out of the bunch especially for adults who are practiced in constantly monitoring their expenditure and managing the budgets.
But, what this article is saying to me is much deeper than this. Games are a non-essential purchase. They are not food or clothing or something that we must have in order to live.
Thus, money is important but our personal interest level is much more important simply because we choose to play games rather than have to. So out-of-game incentives to play, whether real or artificial, are nowhere near as important as a game being good in its own right.
In the dark ages of computer gaming, games like JetSet Willy, Jet Pack, Lemmings all broke the mould cast by Pong, the ubiquitous tennis game at the start.
MUD thru EverQuest thru WoW to today's MMO have extended that sort of ground breaking expansion from simple to intriguing & complex by introducing the most dynamic factor of all .. People!
Every time games have evolved, they have not become simpler, they have become more complex. Sure, yes: better graphics, nicer sound, more helpful & easier to use clients. But the actual evolution has always been along the lines of deeper, more profound, more puzzling, more intriguing, more immersive gameplay.
We play games .. all games, in one way or another, for whatever particular aspect we personally prefer, to stimulate out minds.
The real problem with intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic (which stupid jargon I rephrased with my post title) is whether or not the game developers will recognise that ..
We have a need for games that is motivated by our desire to learn!
"Intrinsic versus Extrinsic?" is, at the base of it, the question of the short sighted accountant focussing only on the profit line. You have to pay attention to that profit line or your game will fail financially.
The problem is, that if you focus on money forgetting the real issue, that a game must satisfy our real desire for interesting games to play, then eventually you will lose your customer because you will lose their attention.
This is what has been happening in the MMO market for the last 5 to 10 years. Developers, admittedly forced to pay heed to the real concern of making a financially viable game, have been losing sight of our, the players', need to have variety, depth, puzzle and innovation in the games we play.
With the success of WoW, the plaguiaristic copy cat of the MMO world, game developers have seem to have lost their motivation to design and write interesting, exciting and evolving games.
The game industry has stuck to the standard formulae and is boring us to death.
What? You are not bored of your game yet? Well .. you will be.
Sooner or later you will want a different game to play, or a better game to play.
Sooner or later, the same game with different graphics will not be enough for you!
i dont play farmville, i shouldn't be posting here. most of my friends play..hmm...maybe i should try it out now to see what so great about it..
Which FF Character Are You?
I've never enjoyed Farmville, or any game in that same vein. I find them boring and repetative at best. Sure, there are things in "world-y" MMOs, that some people could say the same thing about. However, I think the differentiating element here is that a "true" MMO provides you with a more encapsilating experience. That is that you are part of a larger world, and going even further into the hardcore/sandbox genre, you can infludence it. This is escapism, what I believe most MMO fans are seeking, and that is something that Farmville and it's ilk will never be able to do.
TJKazmar in the first page of this thread stated, "...these player-watchers may come to want more than games like Farmville have to offer. They may seek out the world that we know and love, and it will be the task of developers to model games that bring the 'new' generation of gamers up to par with what we are used to."
However, I would add that if developers, in seeking new revenues from these "player-watchers" dumb down the MMOs we've all come to play and love it could damage this entire genre of gaming for quite some time, if not all gaming.
Personally, I think a person should be able to play whatever game they want, but I also believe that Farmville and "World-y" MMOs can never be combined into something that both sides will enjoy. I think they cater to two completely different groups of people, and trying to combine them into one wholistic model is folly.