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Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com

April 11th, 2007 (Visited 3490 times) Tags:

This article has an awful lot to say about why games are the way they are — especially the go-go-go level-up-madly sorts of virtual worlds.

Specifically, I’d call back to these two posts of mine:

Is it even possible to design a game where people stop to admire the beauty? And if so, how?

(via Kim)

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33 Responses to “Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com”

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External News wrote on April 11th, 2007 at 3:20 pm:

[...] Pearls Before Breakfast - washingtonpost.com [...]

Timbre of Tempests wrote on April 12th, 2007 at 7:00 am:

Damned Brightcove; I can’t play the videos. So no, I haven’t heard him. =/ [edit:] 37s: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/364-subway-stradivarius (incl. piano version of Chaconne, which I am listening to right now; 15 minutes) Raph Koster: http://www.raphkoster.com/2007/04/11/pearls-before-breakfast-washingtonpostcom/

Tale of Tales» Blog Archive » Realtime beauty wrote on April 12th, 2007 at 2:26 pm:

[...] is a thought that I wanted to elaborate on later but a recent post on Raph Koster’s blog prompted me to talk about it now. The post is about that really good [...]

TinkerX » The Box: Part 2, The Frame wrote on April 15th, 2007 at 7:41 am:

[...] to a post at Raph’s blog, I found an article/story at the Washington Post that can be summarized pretty quickly for [...]

Chris Glein's Blog wrote on April 18th, 2007 at 5:27 pm:

blog, of all places) describing an experiment they did to essentially see if people would inconvenience themselves for something unexpected and beautiful. They took a world renowned violinist and plopped him down as a street musician in a commuter packed

Reader Comments

Talaen said on April 11th, 2007 at 2:48 pm:
THAT is a great article.

I think the problem here is goals. People tend to focus on goals to te exclusion of other things. In games, if people view advancement as a goal, they won’t really notice the other parts of the game unless those parts get in the way. They won’t stop to appreciate the detail in the setting unless they need to in order to achieve their goal. They won’t take the time to learn the lore and the backstory unless it helps them to achieve their goal. They’ll pass it by and never notice. And later, when it’s mentioned to them, they’ll say “Oh, I never realized that.”

The parallel is pretty obvious. It was rush hour and everyone was hurrying through their normal, daily routine. They were focused. They might have registered briefly that there was a musician there, but it wasn’t part of what they were focused on, and it wasn’t preventing them from reaching their goal (getting to work), and so they didn’t really notice.

To design a game that doesn’t have this problem would require fundamental changes in the way most games approach things like progression, advancement, loot, and other systems. You could still have a structure of goals and achievements in the game, but these things would need to be meta-goals or meta-achievements, that come about through the combined effort of many other activities or people, and are so big that they’re impossible to focus in on, even while you’re working towards them. You’d have to give people time to stop and enjoy the journey by making their destination so vast and broad and perhaps nebulous that the journey becomes what matters to the individual, even as the group pursues the destination.

I think it’s possible to do and some games have come closer than others already, but to really do it is also to admit that there might be a lot of potential players out there who just don’t “get” your game, who would find it boring and confusing at first. As a commercial enterprise, this would probably force you to compromise slightly, and include systems that allow players to focus more readily, at the expense of them missing the world you’ve created.
Joel Martinez said on April 11th, 2007 at 2:51 pm:
I’ve never played it, but have been following some of the blogs of the developers for a while. Check out the endless forest
chocorisu said on April 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm:
The scenery has to be exceptionally beautiful, and so far even in the best games the landscapes are usually merely shiny. You want that feeling where the kingdom/planet/wilderness is stretched out before you, full of possibility. Pay attention to those moments where the player steps out of the cave in the side of the mountain, or climbs the top of the hill in the enchanted forest. Make it a special moment, somewhere they’d feel like going back to even though they don’t have to. Heck, make it romantic so they bring their partner and watch the sun set–I’ve seen plenty of pics of couples in WoW sitting by the ocean.

The last thing you want to do is force it. People complain about all the sailing in Zelda: Windwaker, and all the horse riding in Shadow of the Colossus, even when it’s sort of the whole point. Personally I loved it, but perhaps that’s only because I chose to take my time and not rush ahead to the next thing.

Maybe what’s needed is an incentive to explore? Hide interesting stuff in out-of-the-way places and keep changing it so you never know what you’ll find. Give the player a blank map that they can fill in themselves as they wander around.

In the end it boils down to aesthetics. Some places have to really stand out as special.
James Wallis said on April 11th, 2007 at 3:30 pm:
Back around the European launch of the PS2, there was a TV commercial featuring a racing game–I forget which–that ended with 1P’s car coasting to a stop at the side of the road, facing a nicely rendered sunset. Here, it seemed to be saying, is something worth looking at.

In a racing game.

Sigh.
Adele said on April 11th, 2007 at 8:36 pm:
Guildwars is one game that when I first played it I ohhed and ahhed over the graphics and how beautiful everything looked. I think I spent more time taking screenshots than playing. In other games I take screens often but not like I did there. I think it is very true that it has to be something really worth looking at for most players to notice. It has to have that magic and sparkle not just the shine.
joshlee said on April 11th, 2007 at 8:58 pm:
What a coincidence; just today at work, I was trying to come up with a way to get players to stop and smell the roses — in a racing game. Sometimes you just have to put up a big sign that says “ROSES HERE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SMELL THEM,” and even then, most people will pass them by.

Lots of games allow you take screenshots or capture replays; some even incorporate a camera into the gameplay itself (e.g., Beyond Good and Evil). The real trick is to make exploration and appreciation an internally motivated activity, rather than just another externally motivated work-reward mechanic. YouTube and the various fan video sites may end up doing a lot to make game tourism something that players want to engage in for its own sake.
n.n said on April 11th, 2007 at 9:41 pm:
James, I’ve actually done that in Gran Turismo 4 (PS2). Drove a classic sports car around this Mediterranean town in trial mode (no opposing cars), just taking in the scenery, and saved the data. It’s actually eating up quite a bit of my memory card. In WoW, I’ve taken a couple of screenshots when the mood struck me.

I think the important thing is to have an easy way to share this stuff, because it’s partly social. Give players a “photo album” and let them show the pics off. Even if it’s just to their friends, there’s some real value there. Better yet, give them a way to easily bring people to the place itself.

Another thing is to make those places “gather-able”. In WoW, there’s a significant peacenik faction on some RP servers which is in favour of holding communal gatherings, but there are few spots in the gameworld which support that. Cities are out because of city guards, except for the neutral cities which are pretty much out of bounds to (non-suicidal) lowbies. I’ve noticed people worrying about finding an attractive spot for such a gathering, since wandering mobs can typically disrupt things even though there will usually be enough high-level players around to smack them down quickly.

As for “the journey is the reward”, well, part of the journey is smacking bad guys too, isn’t it? If the smacking is enjoyable as opposed to merely “rewarding” - if the core mechanic is something which continually challenges the players beyond “click on mob, press skill button, watch mob croak” - then the journey is indeed part of the reward. I suspect Tabula Rasa was trying to do this, but of course nobody knows whether it’s actually going to work (or be published, for that matter ;).
Patrick said on April 11th, 2007 at 10:18 pm:
There are some subtle details in Cuttlecandy that you have to stop to notice, like the way choral pulses. I don’t think most people will register it, but I know some moms out there are going to soak it up and appreciate it. It has a lot to do with audience (hardcore males tend to be bottom line oriented) and the associated design patterns (ludus et al. but we’ve been over that before.
Wilfried said on April 11th, 2007 at 10:51 pm:
I would say best examples for games where about everyone playing admires the beauty from time to time are building type games, like Transport Tycoon Deluxe and Theme Park. Who didn’t ever stop in or after a level to just watch and enjoy what he created for quite some time?

Though it’s for sure not because of the overwhelming special effects or the perfect graphics of these games.
Jessica Mulligan said on April 11th, 2007 at 11:10 pm:
I think players do appreciate the beauty of the scenery, puzzles, story, what-have-you, when it exists and when they aren’t immediately involved in a specific goal.

In AC2, for example, the mountain cliff that became ‘elegant death dive central’ was originally found by one player just exploring the mountain. It hadn’t been put there for any purpose; he was just climbing the mountain and found it. He then took screen shots of the scenery from that perch and posted them. Other people went up to see for themselves and, as players will, created their own means of getting down off the mountain fast. They made such a game of it that we provided a diving board.

I tend to agree with n.n; we do need to provide easier ways to display and share pics, journal entries, stories and the like, within the context of the world. It is one of those ‘polish things’ that the industry rarely takes the time to do.
Moses Moore said on April 12th, 2007 at 6:43 am:
My first reaction to the article, and Raph’s comment, is “well, what incentivecan you build to get people to sightsee?” This is a business people (MMO owner / investor / shareholder) way of thinking, and I believe it’s really the wrong approach. Many games, especially subscription based, tend to be used like Skinner boxes: stimulus -> response. Hit monster -> candy comes out. … and we’re trained to want more candy/money/power as we grow up.

The majesty of a sunset, whether over Knossos or Stranglethorn Vale, is an emergent property of a well-designed system. “ROSES HERE, PLEASE SMELL” signs adds another scripted event to the experience. I believe wonder and awe necessarily come from incongruous events.

The best way to get unexpected, unanticipated and suprisingly delightful events is to give players build access in your virtual world. Some will use it to try to get more candy (q.v.: the endless empty shopping malls in 2nd Life), but a few will use their build access to make things worth witnessing.

Will those few be enough? I don’t know.
Wade said on April 12th, 2007 at 9:21 am:
How much of soaking in the worlds beauty could be enhanced by interactivity with said world? See a tree? Climb it. Find a cliff or rock wall? Scale it (with appropriate animations). Spot an exceptionally beautiful tree or bush? Find a ‘baby’ version of it and plant it your ‘yard’.

I think that most players need a reason to stop and stare at a landscape, other than to just look at it. Some sort of mini-reward, much like the passerbys that actually took a moment to listen to Bell. They took something away from it on the inside. You would need a mechanism in place that gives the ‘viewer’ some sort of emotional attachment; perhaps a wolf stalking a deer in the distance. Hell, even a pack of wolves stalking and preying on a doe. Something to evoke an emotional reaction to the scene/scenery being played out in front of them.
Tholal said on April 12th, 2007 at 10:43 am:
Simple. Don’t give players the ‘ding’. When the game is centered on advancement, including flashing lights, angelic music and a text message telling you that your dozen stats have all gone up by a few points, then that’s what the players will be focused on. Tear up the railroad tracks and make the world an interesting place in of itself rather than just a vehicle for simulated self-accomplishment.

Of course, you have to fill your world with all sorts of interesting things; Non-repetitive interesting things.

To tie in with the article, say you had a street musician in your game that played a song from one of Joshua Bell’s performances. You might be wowed by it the first few times you pass by, even stopping to listen on occassion. But, if he’s still playing that same damn song every single time you pass by to visit the bank, it quickly grows old.
jbrandt said on April 12th, 2007 at 1:01 pm:
You know, I can think of a couple of games right now where I’ve stopped to look around, even knowing there was some kind of excitement waiting for me. “Shadow of the Colossus” is the most obvious example– the landscape is such a presence in the game that it almost becomes a character in itself. I may be unusual here, though, since I’ve said this to people and had them say “What? But it was just along the way to what turned out to be nothing but a bunch of boss battles.”

In the commentary on “Half-Life 2: Episode 1,” they talk about “vistas,” which are used to reward the player after something particularly difficult. That’s one way to make it obvious– put the pretty stuff in a place where the pacing of the game encourages the player to stop for a moment and take a deep breath before moving on to the next goal.

The suggestion somebody made about emotional attachment is a good one, too. I’ve been playing “Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl” and I’ll stop every so often to watch packs of dogs harrying boars off in the distance, and take in the ominous landscape while they’re at it. I also like urban decay, and so I’ve spent a lot of time getting to the tops of things so I can look out at the landscape around them. I did that in the Thief games, too– once I’d mastered a level, I would find places where I could get a good view and just sit and watch the city for a while. It was much more primitive than “Stalker,” but still a satisfying experience to sit on top of a tower and watch people going about their business.

I think that the whole stopping-to-smell-the-flowers experience appeals to certain types of players more than others, but if you build beauty or that sort of experience into the world, there _will_ be players who notice it and take the time to find the extraordinary places.

The person who suggested interactivity is right– if you show me a tower, let me climb it and look around. The huge towers in Oblivion were a terrible disappointment. From the moment I saw it, I wanted to sneak up through that giant white spire until I could climb through a trapdoor and be, for a few minutes, on top of the world looking out over EVERYTHING. Leaving that out (and, in fact, making most of the insides of that tower accessible only during one quest) was a terrible oversight and one of the biggest disappointments of the game for me.
Michael Samyn said on April 12th, 2007 at 1:17 pm:
What’s so bad about requiring that people sit down on a comfy warm seat to listen to music? Why should beauty only be worthwhile if it jumps in your face and pulls you by the hairs? Appreciating beauty is as much of an artform as creating it.
Allen Sligar said on April 12th, 2007 at 2:31 pm:
As someone stated previously it is about incentive, but I think its also about player type (explorer, socializer, etc) so the incentive to “stop and smell the roses” has to appeal to the player type.

Lots of examples in my personal experiance in MMOG’s as a player, of players “taking down time” to provide content, but usually for a reason, collecting, rare items, museums, zoo’s, exploring.

FInding the ocassional cave, abandoned mine, crashed ship, dead volcano filled with wierd plants….all good stuff.

The beauty of the world and “vistas”, these little things, have an unspoken message to players that adds to thier play experiance. Its a message from the developers “We love this game so much we created this for you to see, for no reason, except that one day a player would stumble upon it and love it just as much” worlds created without this attention, and that do not convey this message are dead, content and quests can be great, but, they are mechanistic, but a world without a message is the worst kind of MMOG.
Bajeezus said on April 12th, 2007 at 3:29 pm:
Is it that people are unable to recognize or to slow down long enough to appreciate beauty, or is it that the form of beauty being offered needs to connect to the audience more viscerally? The beauty of masterpiece music failed to connect with people rushing to work in the morning. What about the beauty of a pizza prepared and cooked to perfection? I betcha you could have gotten a lot more people to stop and appreciate a beautiful pizza. How about a Jessica Alba modelling the newest collection of swimwear? You might have a taker or two there.
Amaranthar said on April 12th, 2007 at 6:47 pm:
That experiment, to me, seems a little out of place. Those people were on their way to work. They had that single minded goal to get to work, to follow their morning routine, and not let anything detour them. It’s little wonder most of them walked by. But put the same people in a park on a Sunday afternoon, and I’m sure many of them would stop and listen. It’s not a question of stopping to smell the roses, it’s a question of getting to work and being prepared to perform, or the consequences for failing to do that.

It’s not a question of if they have a minute or five. Of course they do. But people condition their minds to not be curious, to not be waylayed, because then their routine can get messed up. It’s like not making it through that green light and having to stop. Now are you going to get caught by the next red light? And the next? It’s mental conditioning.

And there’s an important thing here. In MMO’s, players have been conditioned, mentally adapted, to single minded goals in the same way. Getting to the job on time is replaced with getting to the next level. We don’t have time to be side tracked.

Yet, many do. As has already been shown here but largely ignored by studies, players do stop and sniff around. Just as people at the park on Sunday afternoons will stop to listen to musicians, or just hang around the area doing whatever they are doing instead of going by. People even go out of their way to appreciate things, just as people go to this guys concerts, or to run to that MMO mountain top to view the sights or jump off the top. But it isn’t noted that people do in fact “stop to smell the roses” by spending an evening at the concert, what is noted is that they don’t do it at a time when they are busy otherwise. This rings false to me.
n.n said on April 12th, 2007 at 7:52 pm:
I think Wade’s idea is great, too, although we need to be careful about how that’s handled. Once the landscape becomes instrumental (e.g. if you could level mountain-climbing skill by climbing mountains), players have a tendency to reach a “Matrix Threshold” (I should copyright that where all those pretty textures just devolve into a whole mass of scrolling green text.

In other words, the interactivity should be largely non-instrumental IMO, or the scene becomes a symbol rather than an object.
Michael Chui said on April 13th, 2007 at 2:47 am:
People might be interested in Seth Godin’s take
Amaranthar said on April 13th, 2007 at 8:42 am:
In other words, the interactivity should be largely non-instrumental IMO, or the scene becomes a symbol rather than an object.

Oh, I disagree. But I’ll go half way with you and say “sometimes”.
But I’m a skill system lover, and gaining by doing is something I believe in and desire.
I think there are loads of ways a game can make “stopping to smell the roses” practical and useful without hurting the smelling part. In fact, I think it can enhance it quite a bit.
If you find something new, lets say a statue of great antiquity and beauty, wouldn’t that discovery be enhanced if you suspected that it had meaning in the game? Suppose that this statue is not only beautiful, but also represents a hint to something that’s important to the game world, and to you as a player?
The Pyramids and the Sphinx are wonderous sights. But suppose that they were hints to discovering the ancient art of levitation (I know this is stretching it to breaking point in RL, but in an MMORPG it’s not) and only requires one more discovery amid the ruins of the ancient world?

The real world is full of lore that might someday be proven out, and by doing so might make someone rich in gold and artifacts. Atlantis, El Dorado, the Holy Grail, the treasure of the Knights Templar, Blackbeards Treasure, and so much more. Why can’t this kind of thing be added to MMORPGs, to protect each players God given right to win all things? Would it lessen the “smell the roses” factor or enhance it?
Michael Samyn said on April 13th, 2007 at 3:05 pm:
If you find something new, lets say a statue of great antiquity and beauty, wouldn’t that discovery be enhanced if you suspected that it had meaning in the game?

I’m sorry but there is not a single gameplay feature that can compete with the majestic beauty of an ancient culture. The Sphinx is a lot more powerful when it remains mysterious and silent than when it suddenly starts meaning something trivial.
I think it is possible to design “games” that help us experience the deep beauty of certain objects and sights. It’s not a matter of stopping to smell the roses, it’s a matter of standing still. Our job, a designers, is not to make players stop. It’s to make them enjoy standing still.
Let’s design a chair instead of a car, for once.
Anne said on April 13th, 2007 at 8:58 pm:
Gamers do come in different varieties. Achievers will absolutely love the leveling, goal-oriented system, and many games seem to be designed for them. What would make an achiever smell the flowers? If he got phat lewt for smelling them. An explorer, however, may well smell the flowers regardless. If there were badges for smelling enough flowers, you might get the collectors as well. If you could grow your own flowers, you’d get the architects. If the flowers are a big meeting place, you’ll get the socializers, etc. etc.

Why work on getting the achievers to smell the flowers when they’re already the most catered to segment of the gaming population? Why not let the achievers go off and be goal-oriented, and let the explorers have their own fun?
Andy Havens said on April 15th, 2007 at 9:09 am:
Thanks for the link, Raph. I just blogged on this (see trackback). Not about games, specifically. I found the Post’s take to be pretty smarmy.

From a gaming perspective, I would ask… what features or functions of the game involve “smelling the flowers?” There are times when I have been truly floored by great art and (less frequently) great music in a game, but I have never bought a game specifically for its “artistic” value.

Then again, though I occasionally play with my food, I have never purchased a meal based on its playability.

We admire fine craft all the time in good games, I think. “Great graphics” are a mark of fine craft. But art? A few mentions here have been made of titles like “Shadow of Colossus,” etc. They are art-y in the tradition sense of “pretty” and “with some kind of metaphoric meaning beyond the surface requirements.” OK… Here’s my 2nd question: Why would we want art in games? I ain’t being hypothetical or ironic. I’m asking.

Art, for art’s sake, has many different purposes. Most often cited is a quest or journey for meaning, beauty or some kind of satori. These things often require a commitment of time, psychic energy, and a yielding of ego. What are the purposes of games? Relaxation, entertainment, amusement and diversion. One might argue that these purposes are at loggerheads with the purposes of art. Maybe even diametrically opposed.

That art, and its pursuit, in a game-y game, would be, frankly, a distraction.

Is there a way to bridge that gap? If it is a gap, and not just the nature of the beast? The literary form of the novel was thought, by many critics in the 16th and 17th century, to be inappropriate to “art.” Feh. Novels. Just so much pedestrian crap. Now? Well… I think a few English majors like me and Raph might disagree

So… how to incorporate the values of art as game values? How to assign “theories of fun” to meanings in a different land. Interesting.
Amaranthar said on April 15th, 2007 at 10:32 am:
I’m sorry but there is not a single gameplay feature that can compete with the majestic beauty of an ancient culture. The Sphinx is a lot more powerful when it remains mysterious and silent than when it suddenly starts meaning something trivial.

Who said anything about “trivial”? I think you’re only thinking within the box here because you have an interest in the beauty as opposed to any other play involved. Please don’t assume that I only want a quest reward for any and all who see a Sphinx in a game. I’m suggesting something much deeper than that.

But I do agree with you that sometimes you want players to just enjoy the beauty, to just sit and appreciate. I say, just not every time. There are other forms of playing, and a good game should try to incorporate all styles of game play to make their world well rounded and meaningful in many ways.
Xanthippe said on April 15th, 2007 at 6:03 pm:
Lord of the Rings Online has a feature called “Deeds,” some of which are achieved through exploring and finding certain areas. The reward for a deed could be a title that one can display or a trait that one can acquire.

Any game that is beautiful will be admired, whether people stop to admire it or just admire it while playing through, in the same way the commuters in the article probably appreciated the violinist (counting change left in the box is not a good way to measure appreciation, and can’t be compared to buying a concert ticket - after all, people were on their way to work).
John Scott Tynes said on April 16th, 2007 at 10:40 am:
Viva Pinata is the first game to make me feel joy — real joy, a sort of effervescent uplifting of the spirit. It’s my happy space, rendered and actualized. There are moments, not uncommon moments, where the pastoral morning music kicks in, and my garden is alive with rabbits and foxes and squirrels bounding around, and I’m no longer playing a game. I’m back in Eden.
Julie H said on April 16th, 2007 at 2:03 pm:
Is it even possible to design a game where people stop to admire the beauty? And if so, how?

I’ve got to say, in the last year or two there have been a few games that I have just had to stop and enjoy the beauty of them. The first is Oblivion. I’ve not finished the game, heck, I haven’t even come close, but the wandering around in the world, and picking flowers, and discovering is just so amazing, I keep going back to that and ignoring the fact that demons are about to come through the portals. Especially with one of the quests in the oil painting.

Another is LoroRoco. Everytime I’m feeling down I just play a level or two to get my happy on! That is the most joyful game I’ve played.