[...] Lum says it, does it have more weight than my articles?  Maybe Raph Koster?  I hope so, but whatever the case, the corporate beancounters will have to pull their head out of [...]

[...] think Raph is on to something when he suggests here that the gaming industry is in trouble because its too focused on hard core gamers. I think all [...]

One thing that’s important to remember is that a lot of us older core gamers were originally raised on games that would be considered “casual,” by modern standards. Nintendo hasn’t abandoned the core gamer so much as they have rediscovered their roots.

Many of us don’t even realize the fact that we’re casual gamers. In fact, I’m going to be a little radical here, and suggest that CounterStrike is a casual game.

What?

No, seriously, it’s easy to pick up, can be played in short sessions, and has relatively simple rules. It’s the kind of game you can play over your lunch break at work. Don’t be fooled by the 3D engine: By the time the updated Source version came around, you could easily run the original Half Life engine on sub-$600 machines from Walmart. Really, the only thing that kept CS from being a full blown casual game was the fact that you needed to own a copy of Half Life to play it.

I don’t fit a good demographic for being a core gamer but have played games all my life, diving into computer games back when I got my Commodore 64 – think I was like 28 (I’m female by the way – yes really and no I’m not going to send you a picture). I remember losing myself in Sierra’s Imagination Network, Sim City, Civilization etc. I don’t particularly like RPGs but do love MMOs – the difference to me is the chance for what I call social strategy gaming. Currently playing Sims 2, Sim City Societies, POTBS, and Horizons.

My dream game is one where I don’t have to kill anything (except of course when I go brain dead from crafting – amazing what killing a few rats or Lord Nyak followers can do to calm you down), allows me to build a house and fill it with whatever I want including furniture my avatar can actually use, and help build up my community infrastructure. This is combining major play elements from a ton of games into one, and gets further complicated when I explain that I hate gathering resources and it’s not fair if I can’t get them easily and have to rely on other players for my fun. I guess my point is that it will be the rare game that has all the elements I love. That doesn’t stop me from spending money trying to find it:)

Secondly, thanks to those of you that understood my anger wasn’t for them and are truly thinking about how to support further development in my “niche” (which is huge, trust me). Even a simple mention of it in your next meeting or a bit of guidance to new developers is all I can hope for at this point.

Thirdly, I don’t understand this thread. The jargon is way above my head. None of you have addressed me directly here but if you want to discuss you can email my yahoo address at ccp6867. I’ve pretty much said my peace, though, and despite the rude description of “Mom” I appreciate the post and the opportunity to speak.

-PurpleCar

What is the “typical” microtransaction concept, anyway?

Microtransactions are usually constrained as “transactions that are smaller than efficiently processed by credit systems” (as offered by Wikipedia.) For example, mobile telephony and long-distance calling services are paid for with microtransactions; however, these microtransactions are typically processed at the end of either a billing or usage period.

I choose to construe microtransactions, in a broader context, as line-item payments made in pursuit of a larger transaction, such as fulfillment of the needs particular to an interactive experience. This is why to me most exchanges, from grocery shopping to real commerce in virtual worlds, we consider transactions are actually micro- in nature, or rather, in spirit.

The edge of the magic circle is much sharper here than with an arcade game because the core RPG experience requires the establishment and preservation of a constructed reality beyond rules-based gameplay.

Today’s MMORPGs are built as virtual theme parks, not virtual worlds and certainly not as truly immersive experiences. Maintaining suspension of disbelief as a user is near impossible when you consider that most virtual knights say “bro”; just about everything is quantified and visualized in a numerical format; strategy guides, walkthroughs, and item databases are constantly accessed prior to, during, and following play; and misspellings and other defects are rampant. But that’s not all…

The real world is constantly penetrating your “magic circle” (e.g., dogs barking, phones ringing, instant messages stealing focus, Internet connections dropping, keyboards and mice sticking) to the extent that your magic circle is merely idealism, and that actually trying to maintain the so-called integrity of that magic circle is just not practical.

I’d hope that this is so; I just haven’t seen it discussed much at all.

These issues have been, and are always being, discussed. Whether you recognize those discussions as such is another matter.

[...] and in fact if you look back you’ll find some on social gaming in various guises already. The following comment by PurpleCar caught my interest: I am the Mom. I have a lot to say about this. In fact, I could go on for hours [...]

[...] A recent post on Raph Koster’s blog describes a tectonic shift in the games industry—particularly the console segment—towards a repositioning of target audiences to the casual crowd… or at least more casual than in previous generations. “Away from the core gamers” is the salient detail, at any rate. Core gamers, it seems, are upset by this. Some seem to feel that the niche markets are being abandoned, and the games they grew up on will become fewer and more scarce in a steady downward spiral until they virtually cease to exist by any mainstream consideration. [...]

Todd, I take your point, but with a couple of reservations. First, I question whether your suggested revenue model is the one that most developers are thinking of when they think, “Hey, let’s consider microtransactions.” I’m not suggesting that $0.25 for 24 hours couldn’t work (it would actually be less than half the cost of $15/month); I’m just asking whether it’s a realistic assumption about what gamers can actually expect to see from the typical microtransaction-based game.

What is the “typical” microtransaction concept, anyway? Does such a thing exist yet? If a consensus is ever established, what might it look like? Is it likely to involve in-game sales using out-of-game money or not?

Secondly, and more to my original point, I’d suggest that there’s a meaningful difference between most arcade games and most MMORPGs. Namely, arcade games generally don’t try to simulate worlds (including especially the dynamic social aspect of worlds), while MMORPGs do.

When I play PacMan there’s never any question that I’m just playing a game. I don’t mind feeding quarters into the box; doing so doesn’t break any magic circle because there’s virtually no circle there to break — it’s a game, not a world.

But for a world like the typical big MMORPG — and I suspect this holds true whether the game-y part of the system is casual or hardcore — a significant portion of the entertainment value for some players comes from the literary experience, from the willing suspension of disbelief that allows one to enjoy pretending to be another person in another place. The edge of the magic circle is much sharper here than with an arcade game because the core RPG experience requires the establishment and preservation of a constructed reality beyond rules-based gameplay.

Which is why, if I assume that the typical microtransaction system is both more frequent and more in-game than a subscription model (and I’m still open to being shown how that’s a bad assumption on my part), I can’t help but perceive it as more intrusive. For a gamer whose goal is not so much “play in” as “live in,” having to make choices while inside the magic circle about things outside that magic circle (like how much real money to spend) can’t help but interrupt the “live in” experience that they’re paying for.

I suppose what I’m really asking is whether the experts feel that there are ways to implement the kinds of microtransactional revenue models that developers/publishers are currently interested in that will enhance, rather than detract from, the “live in” play experience. I’d hope that this is so; I just haven’t seen it discussed much at all.

(Of course, I’m also assuming here that developers care to court the gamers whose main interest is to “live in” an alternate world. If that group is actually of much less business interest to developers, then the kinds of concerns I’ve tried to describe here are probably not worth more discussion.)