We had a record 576 votes on the latest SVGL poll -- thank you to all who participated. Yes, even those who whined about the absence of a more moderate option. I think obviously everyone understands that no single input solution is likely to supplant all others, and which you prefer depends on the kind of game it is and blah blah blah -- the poll was intended to find out what general attitude toward control schemes you most closely align with.
As much attention as was paid to Sony and Microsoft's gesture-based motion control reveals at E3, those of you who are super-duper gung-ho about them are in a surprisingly distinct minority. Only 5 percent of you are ready to ditch your controllers.
About a third of you, or 33 percent, like the idea of motion control, but want to keep something in hand. There's been a lot of suspicion on whether gameplay can maintain the same level of depth as we're used to without a button of some kind. Perhaps the tactile aspect of gaming is important to us on an abstract level, too (expect more on this from me soon).
Given how widely successful Nintendo is in the current generation, it's also surprising that nearly half of you still want very little to do with waggle. The opinion that motion control is a "gimmick" or fad that will pass on our way back to more traditional schemes is a popular one, but I didn't realize how much so -- 45 percent of you are sick of waving your arms around and just want to push buttons.
15 percent of you don't care about control innovations or lack thereof. I am not in that 15 percent -- I've been fascinated lately by ideas of accessibility and the concept of controller-as-entry-point to the gaming world. The shape that entry point takes will have major and wide-ranging reverberations in the social, cultural -- and, of course, business landscape -- of the gaming world, in terms of who the audience is and what kind of games are being developed for that audience.
We've already seen it happen with the Wii -- Nintendo's power of change has been pretty absolute so far. I actually wonder if that's entirely a good thing, and my latest Gamaustra editorial analyzes that question in the context of Miyamoto's newly-patented "automated walkthrough" code that Nintendo will start implementing starting with New Super Mario Bros.
What I find most puzzling about it is that Miyamoto has noticed that current design schemes aren't compelling enough to help players solve problems in games nor to encourage them to persist and complete games -- and the father of modern game design's response is to implement a mechanic that skips design solutions altogether.
Just... let the game play itself? Rubs me the wrong way. Give my article a read and then let me know what you think: Can Nintendo take accessibility too far?
And a new poll is up! This time, I want to gauge your nostalgia level. Did you find you were more emotional about games as a child, when everything was simpler? Or are you able to connect more deeply now that the medium -- and you -- have grown up? Have you maintained the same attachment level over the years? Or maybe you think "caring" about games or feeling attached to 'em is silly. Vote, vote vote in the sidebar!
22 comments:
I was in that 15% that simply didn't care...
I don't doubt the technology and it's relevance/potential are inevitable evolutions, but I've honestly not seen one thing (even from the Wii) that has truly made me appreciate it just yet.
How expansive are those gamer-sociological experiments though? I personally stand by the idea that variety is a necessity, far more than accessibility right now. I'm concerned about the type of game at the moment, as it seems to equate to a "skipped fundamental". Even games I have no interest or desire to ever play should be in the works (or even out at this point). Perhaps that's unrealistic on my part (though it kind of exists already) considering the times we live in, but I know that's what I want.
I'll respectfully resolve to see what Shiggy's thoughts evolve to, but times have changed. As gamers, he's one of our "funny uncles" who raised us. Now I'm grown up (kind of) and I'm going question everything he does from this point on. I consider that a duty on my part.
~sLs~
I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that Miyamoto's system skips solutions; I would say that about the game-skipping feature in Alone in the Dark, where you actually skip the game and just start at a later area.
But this seems different. I was skeptical at first, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a good idea. I'm not sure how applicable it is to all genres, but I imagine a non-gamer playing the New Mario Bros. game. They run into a problem; maybe they can't get past a nasty group of Hammer Bros.
They keep dying and dying and finally frustration sets in. Normally, this might be where a person quits the game, throws their controller, and ends up feeling bad.
Instead, they press the auto-play button, and they can see how the game chooses to take care of the challenge. I think the key difference is that in this case, they aren't skipping the game. Just like Miyamoto has said in past interviews, it is like having your dad come in and play a hard part for you...and the key difference is that you can learn from watching the game play itself.
Maybe the game runs Mario under the Hammer Bros at the right time; the player can realize that's a possible solution, and maybe next time they'll be able to do it by themselves!
I'm eager to see how it works out.
My thoughts when I read about Miyamoto's new initiative were very similar to yours: instead of coming up with new ways to make challenges compelling enough to modern gamers, he's taking away the experience by letting them "fast-forward" through.
Now I suppose you could argue that the gamer is not forced to use this feature and that it's simply a matter of choice, but as a developer and a designer it feels like a very patch-work solution to a much larger problem.
On the subject of new control schemes, I'm actually very excited. Like most gamers I'm not ready to ditch my controller, but I'm definitely ready to augment my experience with something like Sony's controls or Natal. Definitely excited to get my hands on the dev kits. ;)
Also on Nintendo's show-help system:
I think that the efficacy of the concept depends on small details, like for how long and how much a game shows you a solution, its relationship with optional content and exploration, and if it interrupts the player's feeling of flow. I have a feeling that these will be the factors that decide if this idea will fail or succeed—not just in Nintendo's games, but in future games from other developers.
All these things interact with players in such chaotic ways, that it's pretty difficult to see how the concept will turn out. Since this is completely new territory, I think that they're definitely going to need to play test the concept to the hilt, Valve-style.
You know, I think that a game could subvert this mechanic. It's a contract between player and game that this system, presenting "solutions" and "hints", is truthful. But a game could take advantage of this in a devious way.
The Natal promo video shows someone wafting their arm through the air to cycle through a display of their available movies. This little moment of the video makes me think it's going to be hard to get things right with motion controls. It actually feels like we've gone back in time to the days when we had to stand up and walk to the TV to change the channel instead of just lazily clicking a little button on the remote. This is one of my main problems with the Sony EyeToy: by the time I've waved my arm all over the place trying to navigate through windows and entire profile information, I get to the screen where the game is finally ready to begin and I'm suddenly ready for a nap.
Videogames, for most people, are a physically lazy recreational activity... something where we have high adventure and excitement with little applied effort. Once you require more movement from a player, it starts to become more of a sport than a videogame, and if I'm going to exert that level of energy into a game I want real sunlight and fields, not virtually generated ones. When I first played a Wii, I played the bowling game and thought it was really cool technology, but then maybe 5 minutes had passed and I felt like the experience really paled in comparison to an actual bowling alley.
Nevertheless, I love the idea of exergaming. And judging from Wii Fit and EA Active sales, I'm not alone. But I think there is tremendous room for growth here. There are two main reasons I would use a videogame for exercise: to make exercise a more unique and fun experience, and to have a computer track my progress and provide feedback. Every motion-control game so far, fails in one category or the other. Games like Wii Fit, EA active, and My Fitness Coach (aka Yourself!Fitness) all bring you a virtual gym experience. I hate gyms. They are functional but ugly. I like that these games smartly target different muscles areas and track my progress, but the presentation is ultimately kind of lame and not high on fun.
The motion control games that are fun don't try to imitate something I could do elsewhere like bowling. They give me a unique experience, like flying a hoverboard in AntiGrav. These games, however, don't track any physical progress I'm making because they don't marked themselves as exercise even though they are.
What someone needs to do is to create a program that tracks your physical progress across all of the games you play that require heavy physical activity. Different games could advertise how their control schemes work different muscle categories and your centralized program could like at your inventory of games and recommend different play schedules to provide you a balanced workout, all the while tracking your physical progress across all of the games you play.
This kind of system could then be integrated into gym-arcades that make games that use exercise equipment for controllers for exergames. You just plug in your memory card and continue to track your progress so that you can cross from home to gym and have it all count. Link these systems to the internet and you could compete in exergames with people in arcade-gyms across the country or with a workout buddy in the gym with you. They could even develop pedometers and heart rate monitors that accept your memory card to continue tracking your progress when you go out running or hiking.
Anyway, I'm rambling. But I've been thinking about this kind of thing for years. I feel like there is potential for motion controls, but you've got to give people credit for the workout it requires. And the games have to be a different kind of game. Not games that demand a long gaming session, but where you feel you have accomplished something in the story in 15-60 minutes while getting a good, uninterrupted workout for yourself.
My main feeling is that motion controls will never replace "traditional" control in any absolute sense simply because for some genres, as I see it, it would become a hindrance more than a gateway to accessibility.
I enjoy strategy games and RPGs, among others; the idea of playing something like 60+ hours of Dragon Quest by having to gesture wildly at the screen every time I want to attack a slime seems completely unappealing. I think motion controls will lead to interesting experiences in their own right, but not to the point of supplanting good old-fashioned buttons.
As for the Miyamoto System, I take the pragamatic view shared by others that the only people who are going to use it are those who would normally end up quitting instead, so the net change in my enjoyment of a game remains unaffected. From a design standpoint, I could even see making the argument that it could allow games to become more challenging than they have been as of late, since the "lower threshold" of gamers will have the system there to help them if needed. Perhaps that is too rosy a scenario...
Great article, Leigh!
My feelings on this subject waver between indifference and outrage. My first reaction to hearing about Nintendo's new feature was "well, that's dumb." But then I quickly forgot about it because it's not something that's likely to affect me, at least not directly. I can't imagine a scenario in which I would be tempted to use it. But since my default state of being tends to be indignation, I quickly convinced myself that this really pisses me off.
The problem with throwing my hat into this discussion is that I have a hard time being objective about it. As someone who has appreciated video games since their infancy (which more or less coincided with my own), I generally bristle at the idea of games needing to become more accessible. In my mind, it isn't games that need to change in order to gain a larger audience, but people who need to change their minds about games. Of course, I am able to take a step back long enough to see that this is an unrealistic ideal, at least from a business standpoint.
Regarding the poll: for those whose emotional reaction has changed, I'm curious whether they credit the "change" to the games, to themselves, or both.
@ Justin
I don't know how you could possibly expect people to change in order to like videogames, instead of videogames changing to fit their tastes. People can spend their time however they want. They are not mandated to play videogames.
What Nintendo's success with the Wii has shown is that there is a substantial market out there that had not been tapped into before. I'm not even sure that motion control was what led to that success. I think the motion controls were an attention getter, but the Miis are probably just as important to Nintendo's current mainstream success. Miis are non-threatening little characters that parents don't have to worry about leaving their children alone with. Miis aren't going to curse and swear. Miis aren't going to go on drug runs through Liberty City. Miis aren't going to decapitate anyone.
Also, the Wii Fit also showed people that games could be used to do something else productive.
The controller is a barricade that prevents some people from gaming, but it's not the only barricade. Ultraviolence and other virtually performed "unethical" behavior is another barricade. The feeling of gaming just being "a waste of time" is another barrier.
Nintendo has crashed through a lot of these barriers, maybe a little clumsily, but Sony and Microsoft weren't doing much to address these barriers at all because they were appealing to the "hardcore" market that isn't bothered by these things.
The next step will be to try to appeal to both the new casual market and the traditional hardcore market. I'm not sure its possible within the context of a single game, but it is through multiple product lines within a system. The future should be interesting.
@beeporama
I'm one of the people who said they changed. I voted that games don't have the same emotional impact on me as they used to.
This is largely due to me changing. I've seen so many movies, read so many books, and played so many games that many elements now seem cliche. When I voted, I was thinking about how moved I was by the ending of the NES Ninja Gaiden when I was a kid. I loved the love story between Ryu and Irene and thought it was a powerful moment when Ryu said his payment for his work was her "standing right in front of him" before they kissed. Now it seems cliche and corny.
However, I almost voted that I more fully appreciate games now because I've developed as an adult. I think my adult self enjoys The Shadow of the Colossus more than my child self would have, and I can be intrigued by a game like The Path as an adult, but I would have absolutely hated it as a kid.
I think some games are just better experienced in childhood, and some are better experienced in adulthood.
@JT
Woah! Back up a little bit, man. I think maybe you missed my point. I don't actually expect all people to change their minds about video games, nor would I have it mandated that every person on the planet spend their leisure time playing video games. I was merely making the point that from my own perspective, the things that make a lot of games inaccessible to a broader audience, are the very traits that have always attracted me to them. Thus, I have a difficult time being objective about what might make games more accessible.
Project Natal completely bypassed the gamer side of me, which is cynical about what real effect it will have on the way we play games, and appealed directly to the gadget geek in me. If it's really as precise as they make it look, I definitely want to hook that thing up to a PC and start hacking with it. Imagine using that hardware as a full-featured mocap studio for indie game developers on the cheap.
As an interface, it all comes down to how well it works. I don't so much like the motion detectors in the Wii controller, but I love the pointer - it is so much easier to enter text and get around menus with that thing than with a joystick. For Natal, if it only picks up on general motions for navigating around, like flicking your hand to pick a movie, it could be really annoying; but if it is able to read really precise movements, using both hands at once, pointing at a specific spot on the screen, etc., then it could be really quick and easy. Think Minority Report.
On an interesting side note, I was visiting my Mom this last weekend, who does not play video games at all, and she saw some footage of Natal on TV. She immediately said to me, "That's stupid. Doesn't the whole fun of games come from playing with the controller?" It seemed very odd to me that a complete non-gamer would have the same immediate reaction as most hardcore gamers I've seen, and yet when I saw it my first thought was simply "Hey, cool!" I think I may be too easily blinded by nifty tech to think right away about whether it's useful or not.
I think motion control needs time.
This E3 has clearly revealed it to be the next major step in console gaming. Whenever console gaming advances like this though, it usually takes a couple hardware generations to really get it right.
If you look back at the first popular 3D games on the PS1 and N64, they were rudimentary by today's standards and most of the 2D games of that era looked more polished. It really wasn't until the PS2 that 3D game design became refined.
You could also say the same thing for online gaming, which didn't truly catch on for consoles until the current generation - years after it was introduced.
I think that if anything, it won't be until the next console generation that motion control game design will come into its own and start to feel as refined as what we're playing now. When it becomes a standard on every machine, developers will eventually learn how to design around it.
I totally agree that part of a game's charm is the difficulty.... but I wonder...
I've seen my sister play Super Mario Bros. and Ocarina of Time and she seems to sometimes need an example to follow. What I saw was that she didn't have those completely videogame-filled afternoons to practice.
So maybe Miyamoto's idea isn't to play the game for you, but to show you how to play so you can solve the next challenge by yourself. I can easily pick almost any game and play it without problem... but not my sister. I had years of training that she didn't. So... thit isn't about playing the game for you, but instead of helping you to learn how to play just like my older cousins did when I discovered Super Mario Bros. 3.
I think that's where it is headed.
I might be grossly misinformed, but I understood that Nintendo's Kind Code mechanic would not allow players to save their progress if they choose to play the game on autopilot. If that's true, then the player would need to finish the entire affair in one sitting if they played under this mode exclusively.
Assuming that my grasp of the patent is accurate and considering the likelihood of Kind Code being optional, I really don't see what the big deal is here. The inability to save during "autoplay" mode would provide both incentive & preparation to engage the game normally. Even if I'm incorrect about the way Kind Code works, the optionality of it alone should preclude any cries of, "Horrors! Horrors! The sky is falling!"
Of course, Leigh does not pose her questions with such excitability in her Gamasutra piece, but what I find most contentious in the article is this presumed degradation of a medium in its movement to reach ever wider audiences, and that this gradual process may apply to videogames.
Every piece of expression is, to at least some degree, a unique experience to the person consuming it. Some mediums lack a uniform framework, often leaving more room for individual interpretation, such as art and music. Other mediums which have relatively fixed structures, like films and novels, tend to elicit dominant interpretations from their audiences.
However, while 100 people can look at almost any modern art painting and have 100 different experiences, even movies can still have great leeway. Take Terminator 2, for example. Interpretations of that film run the gamut from a coming of age-story, to a healing of maternal bonds, to a scrutiny of the zeal behind technological advancement, and it goes on & on.
Similarly in music, a far more elastic medium in terms of its basic composition, you have John Lennon's Sometime in New York City. Very few people, if any, will debate the conclusion that the songs in that album were almost entirely a protest against American social injustices.
Videogames, by their underlying technology, have perhaps the most immense flexibility to be personalized experiences. Be it options, difficulty settings, modes, add-ons, cheats, hints, or whatever, there can exist a suitable method of engagement for nearly any gamer or any type of gamer. How is my experience playing The Last Guardian going to be any different simply because someone else might be cruising through Super Mario Galaxy 2 on autoplay?
Irrespective of the larger concept of "film", all that matters to me is the movie itself as I watch it. I view videogames in the same light. The game you are playing along with the experience generated by that play is what's real & alive.
In summary, I just don't see how gaming will somehow become empty if everyone is happily doing their own thing.
To throw my two cents into the whole Wii/motion control topic: The Wiimote is not my cup of tea. I do not despise it or regard it as a gimmick; I simply prefer a traditional controller. I recently sold my Wii and all the games I owned for it. If someone else is truly enjoying that Wii now, good for them. I'm very much into Psychonauts on my PS2 right now (never played it before).
As an aside, there were a few Colossi in Shadow of The Colossus that I couldn't slay without watching video playthroughs on YouTube. This did not at all diminish my desire to beat the troublemaker colossi on my own nor did it in any away detract from the overall experience. Interestingly, I never finished Super Mario Galaxy. I ran into frustrating difficulty in the last stage and stopped playing after numerous deaths.
I would've liked Kind Code in that situation, and this is coming from a man who first gamed on a ColecoVision.
Well I think there are less games that i feel emotional about now, but that doesn;t mean I don't feel it every once in a while. As a kid I'd feel "touched" by 90% of the games I would play whereas now it might be 5%. But that 5% doesn't mean I feel it any less as powerful. it just means I experience it less often...a lot less often. :(
What's ironic about your post title and image is that all these new motion control schemes should, theoretically, make video games less accessible to a handicapped population. I am not in this category, but I have seen pretty cool controller rigs for gamers who are paraplegic, for example.
It's for this reason and others like it, that I think, and perhaps just idly hope, that the traditional controller never completely dies. But like many of the other commenters, I am excited about the possibility that Natal, Eye Toy, and Motion Plus could augment my game experiences.
I don't think I'll ever use any form of "Kind Code" unless there is some (probably work related) reason why I absolutely need to finish a game quickly.
As far as motion controls go, specifically Natal, I just haven't seen anything yet to convince me that this is the directions video games should take. Someone said, recently -- some analyst, I think -- in reference to Natal, that it was a solution without a problem, and I think that sums it up nicely. I just don't see it as something that is needed for games to be able to reach the next level, whatever that means. But maybe it's like JT says, and once we see games that are built from the ground up with controllerless functionality in mind, and which allow the player to do things that can't be done with a traditional controller, then we'll see the true value of this product.
I'm just having a hard time imagining what those games might be, and I don't think Microsoft did a very good job of illustrating it.
One of the demonstrations of Natal that I read about involved its use as a steering interface in a racing game. We are meant to marvel at how the player can place his hands in the virtual space of where the steering wheel would be, and his gestures will steer the car. Well, that's neat and all, but wouldn't it be even cooler if you could hold an actual steering wheel, with some sort of vibrational feedback that mimics the feel of handling a racecar? I don't know, call me crazy, but it seems to me that that would be much more immersive. Now why doesn't somebody invent some sort of steering wheel peripheral that you could use with racing games? That would be cool.
But seriously, I get that the technology is brand new, and I also get that when first unveiling a completely new way of interacting with video games, it's somewhat necessary to show something that is familiar, or they would run the risk of people just not getting it. But still, a racing game? People who are really into racing games don't want less tactile involvement, they want more. I know somebody who is so fanatical about racing that he built a PC gaming rig with a full cockpit built around it. He installed a genuine racecar seat. Natal certainly isn't going to appeal to people like that guy. And for the rest of us, who aren't quite so obsessed with racing, using an analog stick to control the cars works just fine.
I guess I'm just not yet seeing where this technology can take gaming that will make it more compelling to me.
Leigh,
i want to say a couple of things about your editorial:
1) "There must exist an absolute point beyond which greater accessibility means less engagement. Making a game so easy it can play itself for you at the push of a button just might be that point."
Maybe, but i think that you're defining this line subjectively. I think we all have an idea where the line between active/passive sits in our brains (hell, I felt guilty as hell looking up a video of how one person chose to beat the last boss in valkyria chronicles when i was stuck...even though I edited his strategy after viewing it). The point is that I don't think you can draw that line for other people, and it feels like you're trying to here (if you're not, my apologies). As long as the option is disable-able, I don't see the problem one bit.
2) I remember when I was a kid, I played Zelda 2, and the bane of my existence was Ironknuckle. Do you remember him? I tried strategizing a lot of different ways and ended up getting so frustrated that I found the best solution was to mash buttons at random and hope for the best. It was insanely frustrating and it never got much better.
Trouble is that the game would keep throwing Ironknuckle at me. Over and over. Multiple times a dungeon, resulting in frustration that makes me never want to even look at that game again.
For me, Ironknuckle was an example of a broken challenge, a flaw in design in a game I otherwise enjoyed. Given the choice between random button mashing and Miyamoto's code, I would've preferred the latter... and i fail to see how one is more or less legit than the other.
If a player struggles with a very specific type of challenge that a game presents, but enjoys the rest of the game, could you see the value of this, then?
Jackson, the short answer to your question -- using the Ironknuckle example -- is I'm wondering why the solution is "let the player skip Ironknuckle" instead of "train the player better" or even "design a better enemy."
I would say that Ironknuckle, at least according to my memory of him, is a fairly bad example of the context the Kind Code should be used in because yes, Iron Knuckle is a "poorly-designed" enemy. His behavior is fairly random, and hence you can't really teach a person to beat him except to say "Keep trying while focusing on defense and eventually you'll get lucky." The Kind Code offers no benefit to the player if it just skips poorly-designed content.
However, with a better enemy, such as the Iron Knuckles in Wind Waker - which are predictable - I see the Kind Code as being beneficial. They can watch the "AI Link" fight against the Iron Knuckles successfully, and presumably learn from it; humans are astounding in their ability to mimic what they have seen.
At the same time, I don't think it's bad to just skip some parts of a game. You can design a great game and have parts of that game be confusing or difficult. Here's an example:
When I originally played Metal Gear Solid, I was loving the game; the stealth was so fun, the boss fights were great, and I loved exploring the base. Then I got to the vertical winding stairwell that forces you to be detected and fight through an army of enemies on your way up these stairs (a camera detects you, and chaff is mysteriously unable to disable it...)
I was unable to get up this stair case without dying; I was very frustrated, partially because I felt that the game was supposed to be a stealth game and not a "kill-all-these-guys" game, and partly because the game wasn't even playing by its own rules by rendering my chaff inexplicably useless. In retrospect, I don't feel like the game had trained me to really fight guards without stealth.
I wanted to finish the game, but couldn't get past this part; eventually a friend of mine beat it for me and I was able to continue.
Now, Metal Gear Solid is a phenomenal game - everyone agrees. But we have to accept one of two (if not both) facts that my inability to complete this sequence implies:
1. the game sequence is flawed
2. I was good enough to play the rest of the game, but not good enough to finish this one sequence
Now, it doesn't matter where the fault lies; the mere fact that the fault exists (or even that it CAN exist) indicates to me that no matter how great a game is, there will be parts that people have trouble with.
We are all different people, and our minds work in different ways. Certain people will be trained easily, and others will miss what some might feel are obvious hints or cues. There is no universal, right way to make a game or tutorial, because what works for some people won't work for others; which is to say: there is no perfect game that everyone can play.
Maybe that's why I see the benefit in this Kind Code system - a system that levels the playing field in situations that a player doesn't have the ability or desire to overcome.
I think that as gamers, as people who have played games for enough of our lives to be interested in Leigh's blog, we have a sort of "gamer's intuition" that we've built up. We know how games work, and we know how to experiment using the scientific method to find out how to tackle certain challenges. We take this ability for granted.
I don't like the idea of saying, "Well, I guess this game is just too hard for you...get better if you want to play it." I also don't like the idea of telling a developer, "Your game is too hard; you need to make it easier." I see the Kind Code as an opportunity, as the first step towards providing any gamer with universal access to all games without restricting a developer's ideas or creativity.
Anyway, the above is a bit of a stream-of-conscious ramble, but I'm sure there are some points to be found within. :)
Note that titling the patent "Kind Code" is incorrect -- the writer who first discovered it later realized that "Kind Code" is standard on all patents of that type as part of a text field that indicates what "kind" of "code" it is.
In other words, that's not what it's called.
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