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Getting Mom to play

August 15th, 2006 (Visited 3778 times) Tags:

I think all developers should read this article, despite the painful layout with ads overlapping the text. It’s a great insight into the gap between gamers and non-gamers: difficulty with controls the gamer considers “easy,” where the different aesthetic emphasis is placed in terms of what visuals appeal, and so on.

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Pixel Love wrote on October 24th, 2006 at 4:25 pm:

But then again, as the gap widens between those who know what “we’re” talking about and those who can’t make heads nor tails of games and virtual worlds, an independent and user-friendly guide to the options may be a great introduction.

Faith wrote on August 15th, 2006 at 5:21 pm:

[...] Comments [...]

Virtual world travel agency opens (digital) doors from Guardian Unlimited: Gamesblog wrote on October 24th, 2006 at 8:23 am:

[...] They offer tours of over 20 worlds, from Guild Wars to There, specialising their destination guides according to the topographical and social slant of each space.From their website (reg. req’d):Synthravels is the first organization to offer a complete guide service to all the people who want to make a tour in virtual worlds without knowing these new realities, even if they have never put their feet in these strange, synthetic grounds. Gaming for the terminally lazy and/or the tourist? This could revolutionise the MMOG platform faster than a hawker can set up a holy water stall next to an apparition site. Witness the throngs of business people setting up “My Grandmother went to Azeroth and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt” stands! Be amazed at the flocks wide open to avatar muggers (pdf)! Watch in disbelief as the prices of virtual property shoot through the roof near newly decreed “places” of interest, and plummet in areas without tourist attractions.How absolutely fascinating.Then again, it’s not a new idea. As Raph writes, there were tour operators in action in Ultima Online back in 1997, and treasure hunts have been used in virtual worlds for several years to initiate newbies when they first arrive.But then again, as the gap widens between those who know what “we’re” talking about and those who can’t make heads nor tails of games and virtual worlds, an independent and user-friendly guide to the options may be a great introduction. [...]

Reader Comments

Morgan Ramsay said on August 15th, 2006 at 11:56 am:
Not exactly a scientific case study, considering the psychological differences between men and women. While males have superior visuospatial abilities, females have balanced visuospatial and verbal abilities. Both abilities degenerate with age.

The author of the article is unfair in his opinions regarding the games because there is no doubt that he is younger than his mother and, of course, of a different sex. To be fair, the author needs to examine a male of the same age with a similar background. A more comprehensive study might encompass testing a younger female and a younger male, and comparing the four results using a matrix.
Raph said on August 15th, 2006 at 12:36 pm:

It’s not scientific at all. But it is illustrative of the gap between gamers and everyone else, I think. Note the phrase “real games” used to reference games on disc as opposed to the Live Arcade titles, for example, and the fact that even the allegedly “casual” games were tricky to master, particularly when involving 3d camera controls.
Morgan Ramsay said on August 15th, 2006 at 1:44 pm:
Alex: To begin, if you didn’t have an XBOX 360 already in your home, would you buy one?

Mrs. P: Honestly, no. … While I have come to appreciate games a great deal more after doing this article, personally, I’d rather go to an indie film or read a compelling book than sit down and play through a videogame.

The article suggests earlier generation nongamers are not likely to become regular gamers; however, one (or a few) of the studies I sent you, Raph, indicates that males more regularly engage in computer and video game use than females. This may relate to the focus of marketing and design activities, the degree of women in the games workforce, or this may relate to the psychological differences as described above. Males are likely more attracted to computer and video games that are visuopatially demanding; however, games that are less demanding visuospatially may more strongly appeal to females. Mrs. P seemed to be attracted to the verbs and direction of Condemned, as Alex noted that she was not initially capable visuospatially. I wonder what long-term effect would be produced if females were regularly playing strongly visuospatial games…
Steven Davis said on August 15th, 2006 at 3:17 pm:
Grimwell Online had this article a while back on teaching a newbie to play an MMO…. well worth reading.
Tess said on August 15th, 2006 at 4:00 pm:
Mrs. P seemed to be attracted to the verbs and direction of Condemned, as Alex noted that she was not initially capable visuospatially. I wonder what long-term effect would be produced if females were regularly playing strongly visuospatial games…

Her problem wasn’t visuospatial at all. Everybody hears “woman” and thinks “bad spatial skills.” She was an Art and Design major, and works in the Fashion Industry. Her visuospatial skills are probably exceptional. Her problem was with the controls. Hell, I’ve been gaming since I was about 5, and I still can’t steer a console shooter without careening into walls.

I flat-out abhor console control systems. I find both the hardware controllers and the software interfaces difficult to use. Also, the controllers hurt my hands. I have yet to use an XBOX 360, but if this article is any indication, it’s not going to revolutionize my experience. It doesn’t surprise me that the interviewee doesn’t think she’d buy an XBOX. I’m not feeling particularly compelled to buy one, either.
Morgan Ramsay said on August 15th, 2006 at 4:10 pm:
As Tess points out, there’s usually more factors involved.
dsutton said on August 15th, 2006 at 10:11 pm:
I didn’t read the article, I’m just too tired. I’ve been writing a paper all damn night about why certain games were more popular then others and Tess kinda highlights my position on Pac Man:

Her problem wasn’t visuospatial at all. Everybody hears “woman” and thinks “bad spatial skills.” She was an Art and Design major, and works in the Fashion Industry. Her visuospatial skills are probably exceptional. Her problem was with the controls. Hell, I’ve been gaming since I was about 5, and I still can’t steer a console shooter without careening into walls.

So, if I may: When I was very young, my mom used to take me to the arcade so that I could play Asteroids and she could play pinball. We used to try to play the games together, but I was too young to understand the physics of pinball and she couldn’t control the ship in Asteroids. When Pac Man emerged, we found a synergy! Gameplay that was simple enough for a seven year old with an interface simple enough for someone who was used to only using left and right.

Mom used to kick ass at Pac Man, but I held my own. I really have nothing to add to the overall conversation, just relating a personal story that I think about when writing about games.
Prokofy Neva said on August 15th, 2006 at 10:55 pm:
I totally agreed with her point about the game designers “picking for you” and “pushing you toward choices” and “hurrying you along”. I think some of the tropes and rituals of games that you all take so much for granted just don’t make sense to *anybody* outside your loop, male or female.
Craig T Dalrymple said on August 16th, 2006 at 5:43 pm:
Interesting read, plenty of meat to chew on and think over. Good stuff really. My only issue with it at all was that ‘Mom’ seemed way too comfortable with gaming ligo. I have a mother on the top end of that same age range, and while she never, ever played a single game with me on the game systems I forced her to buy in my youth (woot!) she has tried to play with her grandchildren (now that’s love).

She didn’t pick up the verbiage in any way, shape, or form. Yet ‘Mom’ in the aricle did. I know, I don’t have anything other than my experience and opinion… but my inner editor’s ear just didn’t buy the voice mom was writing in, or the words she chose.

I’ll chalk it up to my own faults and inability to overcome bias.
Raph said on August 16th, 2006 at 5:53 pm:

I think I would chalk it up to the fact that, per the article, she really did play for weeks and weeks — I meant, she BEAT Condemned, didn’t she?
Craig T Dalrymple said on August 17th, 2006 at 5:26 am:
Well… if the voice is doubted in authenticity — so does the person behind it… Now we have OGHC proving that you can’t stereotype things, but in this one case it nagged at me while I read it.
Impossible said on August 17th, 2006 at 11:33 am:
My only issue with it at all was that ‘Mom’ seemed way too comfortable with gaming ligo. I have a mother on the top end of that same age range, and while she never, ever played a single game with me on the game systems I forced her to buy in my youth (woot!) she has tried to play with her grandchildren (now that’s love).

There is a difference between grandma playing games with her young kids for fun and a mother playing games for an article written by her game journalist son. The terms she used were closer to the way academics and some game designers and journalists talk about games, not how your average Xbox 360 gamer talks about things. If she had some experience with media studies or art critique it seems like she could pick up a few game specific terms and apply them. It probably also helps that she has an editor (I’m assuming…) and input from her son (and perhaps others) about how to express her thoughts about gaming.
Dranore said on August 17th, 2006 at 1:24 pm:
Interesting article and comments. Always a naysayer on the internet. Do note that she references him telling her what things are called. I assume he was present for much of her playing and probably was the one teaching her terminology.

I will say she seems exceptionally open to the idea. I think that important with older generations. At least part of the problem is unwillingness to learn or be open to an experience or learning. It is definintely more difficult to learn at that stage – but sometimes that difficulty becomes a conceptual wall to new ideas. That’s a hardone to overcome and really can only be overcome by positive experience. Her generation will not buy video games or hardware without an insanely unpredictable word of mouth revolution. My mom BARELY even comfortable with her television and DVD player – not because she is stupid, but because the interface isn’t very elegant and she simply things it’s too complicated to learn. Digital cameras are very much in the same arena. May older people simple are unwilling to learn because ‘it’s too hard’. A great deal of handholding is nessecery to get them through that – which infers someone is going to do that. With a product like video games that rely on voluntary purchase – that’s a hard sell. Where as for electronics – with the right store and sales person – they can often provide all the explanation needed to feel more comfortable with the product. There’s really no arena for ‘helping mom to learn about video games’. Nintendo could open an oportunity there if they found the right environment to do it. Nintendo has the best position to move on new markets with the DS and the Wii when it releases. A mini-high end retail establishment geared towards women could be an interesting experiment.
Tess said on August 18th, 2006 at 11:58 am:
As a side-note, this all reminds me of the time I was walking through the rec room in my parents’ house, and saw my mom playing… a shooter. My jaw dropped. She doesn’t like violent games. We couldn’t even get her to try out the Final Fantasy games, because she said they were too violent. I asked her what on earth she was doing, and she said, “I’m killing demons!”

Shortly thereafter, she told me that she didn’t feel very good, and needed to lie down. (That wasn’t surprising. She had garden variety VR sickness, because she wasn’t used to playing fast 3D games.)

See, what was funny about it all is that she knew so little about gaming that she didn’t even know that what she was playing was an extremely unlikely genre for her. She completely lacked any preconceived notions about who played shooters.
Paul Schwanz said on August 18th, 2006 at 3:57 pm:
Thinking back on my own experiences learning how to play video games, I’m struck by just how simple the controls were for the first games I learned to play. Back then, such simple controls were probably the result of largely technical concerns, but a single joystick and a single button were the norm.

When I hand an X-box controller to my wife (let alone my mother), she tends to hold it awkwardly and is visibly overwhelmed by all of the joysticks, buttons, and triggers. Part of the reason that she doesn’t enjoy games is that the exercise is more about wrestling with the controls than about playing the game.

Contrast this to Pac-Man, or even to Joust. In these classics, getting to the point where you are thinking game thoughts and not about the physical process of pressing buttons or moving a joystick takes seconds, not days or weeks. Only once that happens can you be a munching character eating dots and running from ghosts instead of a person moving a joystick and pressing buttons, and it is that feeling of being inside the game that is the real magic.

Nowadays, when we talk about intuitive controls, we are often referring to controls that will be second-nature to someone who has years of experience using a complicated controller and playing games with a similar interface. Again, contrast this to Joust, where slapping the button almost feels like flapping. (This is the sort of thing I think Raph is shooting for with his Andean Bird game.) For me, if you want moms or anyone else who isn’t a gamer (and doesn’t feel any particular incentive to expend a lot of effort becoming one) to be able to enjoy your game, this is where you should start.

It’s a tough nut to crack, though, because I think it is possible that someone who has been a gamer for years is actually looking for a more challenging game that requires mastering a more complex controller. This harkens back somewhat to A Theory of Fun, where once the simpler pattern is learned, a more challenging pattern is required to keep the player from getting bored. Do more complex patterns require more complex controls? In some cases, at least, I think the answer is that it does. For instance, in something like FIFA soccer, I enjoy having more control over the soccer players so that I can use different types of passes, dribbling, shooting, running, tackling, etc. based on the game situation. I’m having a difficult time imagining how you would do this with one joystick and one button.

So, it seems to me that creating a game that gamers will enjoy is pretty solvable and creating a game that mom will enjoy is only slightly less solvable. But creating a game that both will enjoy is going to take something special.

–Paul Schwanz

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