Blips: Free 2 Disagree

Source: Game Design: The Medium is the Message
Author: Jonathan Blow
Site: Creative Mornings

This video is a few weeks old, but worth checking out if you missed it the first time around. Game designer Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) breaks down why free-to-play games are a regressive movement away from the medium as one of artistic expression. For the most part, I'm on board here. The convincing analogy Blow sets up is one with hour-long TV dramas in the 70s and 80s. These shows were formed around the commercial breaks and the promise of syndication. Acknowledging that every medium has creative constraints that need to be worked within, these old TV shows felt much more constrained than modern hour-long dramas on cable networks. There are games that do F2P in an ethical way, but regardless, it changes the form that the game takes and the relationship between developer and player.

I'm about to start playing Gran Turismo 6, and have just learned that it contains microtranactions for cars. This has shifted my desire to play the game as one of excitement, to one of "I hope it isn't gross." From what I've seen of Forza this year, I'm not super confident. And that's a real shame. I haven't played a Gran Turismo game since 3, back when I was in high school, and have been greatly anticipated jumping back in with GT6 ever since it was announced for PS3. Having played DiRT 3 earlier this year, I've seen how commercial intrusion can put a damper on what otherwise feels like a pretty fantastic experience. In DiRT 3, you could not earn gold medals on certain events without purchasing additional courses and races. The extra gameplay isn't "extra" when it interferes with what I've already paid for; it creates an artificial gate (made worse by being in a game that costs $60 upfront). I've got my fingers crossed that GT6's microtransactions are truly extra features that will only appeal to people who care way more about cars than I do.

I just hate playing games that feel like the real challenge isn't the puzzles or the enemies, but in figuring out how to get the most satisfaction for the least amount of money. Unfortunately, this is the mentality that F2P perpetuates, and it's very popular.

Blips: Talking It Out

Source: Talking to the Player: How Cultural Currents Shape and Level Design
Author: Matthias Worch
Site: You Got Red On You

The influence of film on games has been a recurring discussion point for years, so I really appreciate designer Matthias Worch's 2013 GDC talk that steps back and looks through a wider lens at game design as it relates to oral tradition and print culture. There is a lot of nuance to Worch's presentation, so if this topic seems interesting, I highly recommend watching the whole thing above, but I'll do my best to break down some of the ideas I found most intriguing.

Principally, Worch describes video game playing as a conversation between the player and the game (the code). He describes what he sees as certain flaws in commercial (for entertainment) game design by drawing parallels to conversations between people. Imagine you're talking with someone, having an engaging exchange of ideas over a certain amount of time, and then after you make a great point, the other person totally ignores what you said and begins speaking about a different topic altogether. You try to interrupt and put the conversation back on track, but it's like talking to a wall, and no matter how hard you try, you've lost all agency in the dialogue. Worch says that this is like when a video game unexpectedly takes certain expected player inputs away, more or less breaking the social contract that you felt had been established. I know I've definitely played games where a non-interactive cutscene was triggered when I would have loved to play that part of the game instead. Whether or not these moments "work" or not is all in the transitions: how the conversation shifts from one topic to the next. No one likes to be interrupted.

Worch also boils down certain game design traits as rooted in oral tradition, and others in print culture, with his two primary examples being Skyrim and Final Fantasy XIII respectively. The points of comparison have to do with how much a game elicits stories unique to a player's experience with the game or if it elicits stories about how the game was written and sequences that all players got to see. These categories should be used as guideposts, not exclusive labels though, since every game has elements derived from both oral tradition and print culture. In fact, the ensuing dialogue between when a game is more open and when it is more prescribed is what gives a game's gameplay it's unique feel. Increasingly, the genre categorizations of print culture seem to loose relevance in favor of classifying games by "type of play." This is something I'm going to try and keep in mind as I write more and more reviews.