Fantastic interview of Jon Blow
Totilo strikes again, witha great interview of Jonathan Blow.
…I feel like unearned rewards are false and meaningless, yet so many people spend their lives chasing easy/unearned rewards. So there is a very conscious decision that you only get collectibles in “Braid” when you solve a puzzle, and you only get one per puzzle. Some of the puzzles are easy, some are hard; but you did something very explicit to get the reward. It’s not like “Mario” and every other game since then, when there are gold coins sprinkled everywhere, and you get them just by walking along a path or jumping up to some blocks, and that satisfies your reward-seeking reflex for now and pacifies you into continuing to play the game. I actually think that Skinnerian reward scheduling in general (which you see in most modern game design, MMOs being the canonical example) is unethical and games should not do it…
That is a fantastic interview. I think there’s lots of people who agree. I don’t think that the term “escapism” shouldn’t include mind games to take your mind off of daily routine though. So making an argument over that point seems a little strong to me. I mean, escapism doesn’t have to mean going blank.
The main point is the real issue. I and many other gamers want to think, to be challenged. Not to just sit there and go along for a ride. Even in MMO(RPG)s, where content is deemed to be required accessable to all the masses. I totally dissagree with that though. If content is only accessed by one player, but is heard about by all, and talked about by all, then it has served all the players. This is why I think MMORPGs should have one of a kind, great and difficult puzzle quests. Things that anyone can seek the answers to, but only one will win the (race). If these once only quests also link to the lore of the game world, and fill in blanks, then they are of interest beyond their basic function too. And then the game is much more interesting.
Yes, very good interview. I strongly agree with his anti-Skinner rant, and also with the idea that games are important because people can learn things through direct experience in a game that are hard to learn in other ways. His propaganda example was a good one too.
“If content is only accessed by one player, but is heard about by all, and talked about by all, then it has served all the players.”
I disagree; and any game that tries to pass off someone else’s play as content for me won’t get me or keep me as a customer.
You’re missing the picture, JuJutsu, and assuming it would end there. But I’m tired of this………..games won’t change untill gamers do, and they are…… reluctant.
“There’s nothing to see here, go on home.”
In practice, it DOES end there for most players. I think JuJutsu is right. We don’t want to read a forum post about whatever awesome thing happened to a couple dozen players. We want to experience it directly for ourselves.
MMOs have a fundamental problem in that “everyone wants to be special” and be the hero of the story or whatever, and its pretty hard to create that illusion for people while they are surrounded by hundreds of OTHER people who are experiencing the exact same content.
Hmm, isn’t that what all head-to-head games do? 🙂
Ok, let me explain because people don’t seem to get this.
Taking a real life example to illustrate this, and then making it playable to an MMO(RPG, which part I think is gasping it’s last).
The Rosetta Stone was discovered by chance. From it came the discovery, the deciphering, of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. From that came other discoveries, once people could read the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians on ancient items and among their ruins.
In game terms, this Rosetta Stone doesn’t have to be portable, it can be fixed. (nor does it have to be a stone at all.) This would be one discovery, and it can come from a puzzle. It’s in the game, but yes, it could be shown and available through a web site. So what, as long as there’s more to do, something “next”. Does “game play” have to be in game always? Besides, there could be other clues, related clues, at the site in-game, to lead you on to the next part.
The “next part” in the real life example was the deciphering of the other two languages on the stone from the Greek (hieroglyphics and demotic). It can be something like that in a game too, or it can be a map puzzle, or anything else, as long as it’s “next”.
And from there an infinite number of puzzle quests can follow.
Now, it would be possible that all of it might be viewed by other players on web sites, but if there’s game play to be had, then there is whether it’s actually in-game or not. But subtle means can be used to entice players to go visit the discovery sites in-game. As I said, other clues can be one means of this. Also, any discovery in game might be used as a testing lab of sorts for other things in the game. There are no limits other than the imaginations of the game makers.
Now, to explain further, a game with this kind of game play would want to do lots of discovery types of things, many very simple, to allow players to understand that a)it’s in the game, and b)to think, to use their heads, and to get outside the box a little.
I’m wondering though, after 472 reads, if anyone is going to revisit this topic and if I’m getting anywhere at all.