Friday, October 12, 2012

Dawn

Autumn has come in truth and with it the rain. The horrible weather does in part reflect on the mind when the intoxicating joy of summer is a thing of the past. Now is a time to look ahead and prepare for a long and dark winter, only stockpiling ideas and plans rather than foodstuffs.
For a long time I have wanted to take a closer look at multiplayer games based on competition and challenge. I feel the need to explore these competitive aspects of gaming as it is the realm of this industry that I personally am most interested and invested in, speaking as both a player and a designer. I believe it is one of the major areas of gaming that is yet to be explored beyond the surface and taken advantage of.
My examination of it would most likely be delivered in the format of a research paper of some kind, though with the aim to be of as much use as possible in live design with a commercial product-focus. In short, it should be useful when creating an actual game targeting a competitive audience. To my knowledge there is a lack of work being done in this area, as it is only recently that titles are made with competition as priority and not as an adaptation of the single player experience (fighting-games are an exception, as well as a few first-person shooter titles).
There is of course a very real risk that the nature of what makes a successful competitive title is far too elusive to properly express in pure game design without major research in to other areas of science such as psychology or behavior analysis. This would leave me with pointers on how to encourage competitiveness in games through design but without the necessary knowledge of how and why that, while still quite useful, is perhaps not the result I would have wished for.


Fighting games have a long tradition of competitive play.

Were I to do this I am sure it would make me more valuable in the area of game design I am aiming towards, as I have mentioned previously. The range of different kinds of game design (if not available positions) is large enough that specialization would help greatly when looking for interesting opportunities. It would also let me further develop my personal toolbox, as the specific knowledge/content gained would be focused towards competitive games while the method should translate to be useful in general game design.
We have very clear methods and models of development when it comes to the big movie-inspired story-driven game titles focused on delivering a set experience in a very linear fashion. Series such as Gears of War, Uncharted and Assassins Creed are prime examples. Games like these are linear developments with heavy promotion at release, much like movies; they are fire-and-forget products if you will.
However, interest in competitive nature as the driving reason for a games existence is rising enormously, with examples such as League of Legends, DotA 2 and Starcraft 2. These kinds of games require a wholly different approach in many areas of development, from production-layout to the continuous iterative design-changes and updates needed post-release as the player base is vocal and demanding. This kind of ongoing product support is becoming more allowed and enabled by the fact that the financial model is moving away from one-time purchases to a system based on free-to-play games using micro-transactions as the main source of income. A system that works well with the dedicated audience often connected to competitive titles.


Competitive games can engage the target audience in areas outside the act of playing the game themselves.

A month ago Valve held The International Dota 2 championships. Two weeks ago Blizzard along with Dreamhack held the Starcraft 2 World Championship Series in the Ericsson Globe Arena. Last weekend Riot Games held their League of Legends World Championship playoffs with finals happening tomorrow. These are the heavy hitters at this point in time, with many more companies coming in looking to challenge the market for player shares. The competition between them will not be decided by the measuring criteria of traditional games. It will all come down to who can bring the best competitive spirit.

Now is the winter of our discontent; Made glorious summer by this sun of York.

Simply replace “this sun of York” with “game developers and publishers discovering the promising return of investment huge competitive multiplayer titles can bring, both inside and outside the actual sale of a single unit of the game“. Catchy!

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