More MUD-Dev
The "Reasons for play" thread has been a great debate, so far. Reading it and other threads, a few generalized debating points keep springing to mind. I'm pointing to this particular thread and more specifically this particular post because it contains so many of the points I'd like to make. I'm certainly not picking on Sean, Damien, or Mike. All of you have made excellent points and counter points and I really like most of what you three guys have to say, especially when you disagree with each other;-)
In particular, my appologies to Mike, up front, as I'll be quoting him - though many of you guys tend to make the same points from time to time.
>Single-point anecdote explains nothing. Look at the population;
>look at what they buy. You can't generalize from what one person
>likes.
You MUST generalize from what one person likes....otherwise, where would any ideas begin? One person had to like "something" before another person could figure out that, "hey, maybe more people like that something and will pay me to provide it".
Single-point anecdotes DO explain some things. They may not be indicative of the largest population, but they point to smaller markets. Some people do very well selling to a niche.
>There's an image problem, sure -- but it's caused by the kinds of games we
>produce!
I just don't think that's true. This is one of those single-point anecdotes, so take it for what it's worth.
I have single-handedly brought "gaming" to my place of business. I've gotten 5 different people in my company to start playing MORPGs and a couple to start playing shooters like TFC. Currently, I'm trying to get my boss into playing TFC. I know he'd love it if he tried it, but his problem is getting past the hardware barrier and understanding that the game isn't as complicated as it looks. He's watched me play it a couple times, but isn't sure about installing it on his own and blundering through the controls.
Point? He's almost 40, much higher on the socio-economic ladder than me, yet his interest is piqued by a game played mostly by teens and 20-somethings that involves slaughtering your friends on-line. His reluctance has nothing to do with image, and everything to do with just being "old and out of the loop" when it comes to "doing that on-line stuff". That's a technology/confidence problem, not a game-image problem.
>Frankly, that you don't seem to see the significance of the gender
>issue here is an exemplar of the blindness endemic in many game
>developers.
This is a personal pet-peeve. As my high-school German teacher always said, "Words have gender, people have sex." See? It's very easy to remember. When speaking about the difference between men and women, it is inappropriate to use the word gender. Just because some knee-jerk ninnies have made it popular, doesn't make it right. You can use the word sex. We're all big kids. We can handle it. Thanks.
>I've worked with people in the past who discounted
>women's general distaste for games as coming from anything in the
>games or the industry itself.
Totally agree. Too many devs are content to "blame the players" instead of focusing on the real problem; the devs.
>It couldn't possibly be because our games are made by, for, and with
>a young white unmarried male world view, could it?
SUPER big pet-peeve of mine. Please explain what my world view is, since you seem to have the handle on it? I'm married though, so does my world view differ significantly from unmarried, white males? When people who use phraseology such as that speak, they sound sexist, racist, and socialist.
I'm willing to bet money that black men are pretty much excited by the same game elements as white men. Maybe what you meant to say was "rich, white, unmarried men who grew up and live in the suburbs"? Because then maybe those kind of men aren't turned on by the same things that "poor, black unmarried men who grew up and live in the inner-city" are turned on by. Or maybe they are. Either way, it makes my skin crawl to hear someone who's probably a young, white unmarried man talk about a "world view" as if he can speak for everyone else.
>There is abundant data that men and women vary
>neurologically from the gross anatomical to molecular scale, in
>structures ranging from the cortical sulci to the amygdaloid nucleus
>in the limbic system to the corpus callosum and cortical neuronal
>density. There are significant gender differences in attention,
>reaction, verbal and spatial reasoning, bilateral activation, and
>memory formation, among other areas.
I'm surprised Sean wasn't already more aware of just that. You can hardly watch the Discovery channel or pick up a copy of Scientific American without seeing information to this effect. I thought everyone was already on-board with these concepts. The fact that Mike points out the social injustices tied to the research is just an annoyance. For one, I don't care. For two, I'm sick of hearing it. For three "social injustices" just aren't that un-just and have already faded in American society for most reasonable people.
Men and women are very different. They can still have the same personality types, but those categorizations are typically broader definitions of human behavior. I think it's important to examine both sides of how the sexes are alike and different in their emotional/psychological responses to games.
>I wasn't aware we were in the business of creating gamers.
In fact, I'm quite sure you are aware, Mike. You DON'T want more people to start playing games? I thought that was the sole purpose of the corporate angle on gaming. The more people who game, the more money your companies make. If your companies AREN'T in the business of drawing in more clients, then they ought to be.
>More to the point, I think we're better off creating games that *people*
>will play, rather than trying to create new kinds of people.
Oh....I see....more of that mentality. Ugh.
You can't categorize *people* because that dehumanizes them, or something? What do you think you've been doing already, Mike? Leave the politics and ideology out of the discussion. Your logic starts to wane when you attack the problem from this perspective and it just sounds like wishy-washy hippie-talk.
>Drive the game to the people, don't try to make the people conform to the
>game.
See what I mean? "Don't label me, man."
What I think you're trying to say is "devs shouldn't want the player to be a better player for the game they create, they should want to make the game cater to the player they're trying to draw in", or something like that. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. I just want to drag the conversation back into the realm where red-staters like me won't turn off as soon as we read your posts.
>The 'low-end machine' thing is interesting -- EA execs were
>concerned that its graphics looked dated when it was released. And
>yet, it went strong for several years, eclipsing hundreds of games
>with "killer graphics" but same-old same-old gameplay.
Interesting in that we've already heard a lot of this already. Graphics and immersion don't seem to be as important as content, or mechanics.
I think Sean's real point was that the game sold big partly becuase it ran well on cheaper and older machines, regardless of whether that was because the graphics didn't require the hardware. Memory and speed don't always get eaten up with graphics.
Maybe there are really TWO very good points here.
>I was at Maxis when The Sims was released, and I can tell you, it's nothing like
>what you assume (and interestingly, at the time the studio had more
>women in senior positions than any other major game studio I know
>of).
I don't have an opinion on that part of the discussion, except to say that what you point out about women in senior positions just helps to underscore my points above regarding sex and social justice. No matter how "just" or "equal" our society becomes (or vice versa), human beings will still make bad/good decisions.
Those are the points I wanted to make. I hope I was able to draw the line and succesfully seperate the politics from the philosophical points. We can keep the discussions theoretical without getting "liberal".
In particular, my appologies to Mike, up front, as I'll be quoting him - though many of you guys tend to make the same points from time to time.
>Single-point anecdote explains nothing. Look at the population;
>look at what they buy. You can't generalize from what one person
>likes.
You MUST generalize from what one person likes....otherwise, where would any ideas begin? One person had to like "something" before another person could figure out that, "hey, maybe more people like that something and will pay me to provide it".
Single-point anecdotes DO explain some things. They may not be indicative of the largest population, but they point to smaller markets. Some people do very well selling to a niche.
>There's an image problem, sure -- but it's caused by the kinds of games we
>produce!
I just don't think that's true. This is one of those single-point anecdotes, so take it for what it's worth.
I have single-handedly brought "gaming" to my place of business. I've gotten 5 different people in my company to start playing MORPGs and a couple to start playing shooters like TFC. Currently, I'm trying to get my boss into playing TFC. I know he'd love it if he tried it, but his problem is getting past the hardware barrier and understanding that the game isn't as complicated as it looks. He's watched me play it a couple times, but isn't sure about installing it on his own and blundering through the controls.
Point? He's almost 40, much higher on the socio-economic ladder than me, yet his interest is piqued by a game played mostly by teens and 20-somethings that involves slaughtering your friends on-line. His reluctance has nothing to do with image, and everything to do with just being "old and out of the loop" when it comes to "doing that on-line stuff". That's a technology/confidence problem, not a game-image problem.
>Frankly, that you don't seem to see the significance of the gender
>issue here is an exemplar of the blindness endemic in many game
>developers.
This is a personal pet-peeve. As my high-school German teacher always said, "Words have gender, people have sex." See? It's very easy to remember. When speaking about the difference between men and women, it is inappropriate to use the word gender. Just because some knee-jerk ninnies have made it popular, doesn't make it right. You can use the word sex. We're all big kids. We can handle it. Thanks.
>I've worked with people in the past who discounted
>women's general distaste for games as coming from anything in the
>games or the industry itself.
Totally agree. Too many devs are content to "blame the players" instead of focusing on the real problem; the devs.
>It couldn't possibly be because our games are made by, for, and with
>a young white unmarried male world view, could it?
SUPER big pet-peeve of mine. Please explain what my world view is, since you seem to have the handle on it? I'm married though, so does my world view differ significantly from unmarried, white males? When people who use phraseology such as that speak, they sound sexist, racist, and socialist.
I'm willing to bet money that black men are pretty much excited by the same game elements as white men. Maybe what you meant to say was "rich, white, unmarried men who grew up and live in the suburbs"? Because then maybe those kind of men aren't turned on by the same things that "poor, black unmarried men who grew up and live in the inner-city" are turned on by. Or maybe they are. Either way, it makes my skin crawl to hear someone who's probably a young, white unmarried man talk about a "world view" as if he can speak for everyone else.
>There is abundant data that men and women vary
>neurologically from the gross anatomical to molecular scale, in
>structures ranging from the cortical sulci to the amygdaloid nucleus
>in the limbic system to the corpus callosum and cortical neuronal
>density. There are significant gender differences in attention,
>reaction, verbal and spatial reasoning, bilateral activation, and
>memory formation, among other areas.
I'm surprised Sean wasn't already more aware of just that. You can hardly watch the Discovery channel or pick up a copy of Scientific American without seeing information to this effect. I thought everyone was already on-board with these concepts. The fact that Mike points out the social injustices tied to the research is just an annoyance. For one, I don't care. For two, I'm sick of hearing it. For three "social injustices" just aren't that un-just and have already faded in American society for most reasonable people.
Men and women are very different. They can still have the same personality types, but those categorizations are typically broader definitions of human behavior. I think it's important to examine both sides of how the sexes are alike and different in their emotional/psychological responses to games.
>I wasn't aware we were in the business of creating gamers.
In fact, I'm quite sure you are aware, Mike. You DON'T want more people to start playing games? I thought that was the sole purpose of the corporate angle on gaming. The more people who game, the more money your companies make. If your companies AREN'T in the business of drawing in more clients, then they ought to be.
>More to the point, I think we're better off creating games that *people*
>will play, rather than trying to create new kinds of people.
Oh....I see....more of that mentality. Ugh.
You can't categorize *people* because that dehumanizes them, or something? What do you think you've been doing already, Mike? Leave the politics and ideology out of the discussion. Your logic starts to wane when you attack the problem from this perspective and it just sounds like wishy-washy hippie-talk.
>Drive the game to the people, don't try to make the people conform to the
>game.
See what I mean? "Don't label me, man."
What I think you're trying to say is "devs shouldn't want the player to be a better player for the game they create, they should want to make the game cater to the player they're trying to draw in", or something like that. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. I just want to drag the conversation back into the realm where red-staters like me won't turn off as soon as we read your posts.
>The 'low-end machine' thing is interesting -- EA execs were
>concerned that its graphics looked dated when it was released. And
>yet, it went strong for several years, eclipsing hundreds of games
>with "killer graphics" but same-old same-old gameplay.
Interesting in that we've already heard a lot of this already. Graphics and immersion don't seem to be as important as content, or mechanics.
I think Sean's real point was that the game sold big partly becuase it ran well on cheaper and older machines, regardless of whether that was because the graphics didn't require the hardware. Memory and speed don't always get eaten up with graphics.
Maybe there are really TWO very good points here.
>I was at Maxis when The Sims was released, and I can tell you, it's nothing like
>what you assume (and interestingly, at the time the studio had more
>women in senior positions than any other major game studio I know
>of).
I don't have an opinion on that part of the discussion, except to say that what you point out about women in senior positions just helps to underscore my points above regarding sex and social justice. No matter how "just" or "equal" our society becomes (or vice versa), human beings will still make bad/good decisions.
Those are the points I wanted to make. I hope I was able to draw the line and succesfully seperate the politics from the philosophical points. We can keep the discussions theoretical without getting "liberal".
posted by Jaycen Rigger at 1:55 PM
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