Why We Play

Everyone has different reasons for playing video games. Some of use it in our professional lives and careers while others just use it to pass the time or have fun with friends. But aside from personal motivators there are also several aspects of games that make them appeal to a deeper part of us. A good friend of mine brought up a particular article (attempting to find it) that discussed how video games satisfy a set of needs that often are not met in someone's professional career.

Diving deeper into that thought of games having the ability to satisfy needs that otherwise remain unmet; a point that my friend Travis made was that games provide a certain level of creative freedom that other activities may not. This applies to everything from playing games to making them. People definitely seem to desire a degree of autonomy and creative variance in their lives which in turn fuels other creative habits.

I resonated with this idea of games satisfying needs since it pretty accurately reflects my motivation for writing about and playing many of my favorite games. I specifically love games that permit me to create my own characters and allow myself to have access to the larger-than-life scenarios that games often hold. This often alleviates the more mundane tasks presented in day to day life. It really isn't limited to games either, this desire for adventure and exploration is the same reason I'd watch a movie or read a book.

As I grow older I feel this need for experience deepen and thankfully I can say that my particular habit of playing games is one that will continue to expand and cater to my desire for these larger-than-life experiences.

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A Spectator Sport

When I was growing up I would occasionally find myself watching one of my friends play a video game for brief periods of time if it wasn't a multi-player game or just didn't interest me that much but I never really went out of my way to sit down and watch someone else play a game. More often than not I'd vastly prefer to play the game myself rather than just watch someone else do it for me. However, nowadays we have seen a massive surge in the popularity of spectating games of all kinds; anything from multi-player games like Starcraft 2 or League of Legends to single player hits such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Why would anyone want to watch these things? Well I find myself particularly attracted to watching certain "Lets Plays" by various people on YouTube, my personal favorite is Cry. I find these interesting simply because they aren't games I would normally play. I also enjoy the commentary on these videos as they add to the experience.

The recent surge in "Lets Plays" on YouTube has also created careers for the more successful channels, the most popular one reaching upwards of two million subscribers (Tobuscus/PewDiePie). More popular YouTube channels can enter into a partnership with YouTube that allows them to profit off of their videos and they are quite profitable when each video can hit over several hundred thousand views.

In addition to YouTube there are also sites like Twitch.tv that allow gamers to stream their gaming sessions live to large groups of people. This format is much more common for multi-player games as the appeal is wider.

Another point of interest is the developing world of e-sports which offers some hefty prizes (The World Championship prize for League of Legends was three million dollars). These kinds of games are extremely competitive and other players watch and follow specific gaming teams in the same way one might follow a sports team.

I'm interested to see where things go from here as we move forward with competitive gaming. With new games coming out so frequently there will continue to be an increase in content for people to spectate and enjoy. 

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Video Games as a Medium for Storytelling

I've always loved games. Ever since I started playing Mario for the first time on my cousin's SNES as a tiny child I have adored them. I count myself lucky to have lived in a time where games have gone from something so simple a concept as Pong or Pacman to something as complex as any number of current generation games. But it's not the fancy graphics or game mechanics that fed my love for gaming all these years...it was the stories they told.

Story has always been a central concept in every form of media entertainment and that goes two-fold for video games as it opens up a dimension that is typically untouched in things like movies or music. That dimension is player interaction and input. If I go to a movie or read a book I'm bearing witness to a story that is playing out on that particular form of media. With a game however, I'm often taking up a role in those stories, sometimes changing and sculpting them into my own story.

This is why I love games and also why I love the idea of game development. Every time I pick up the controller I know that I'm stepping into someone else's world, their story, it's quite daunting at times but I know that this was crafted in the hope that a player will experience the story the creators were trying to tell.

Some of the things that really encouraged me to continue gaming were things as simple as a game having multiple endings or side stories, things that I could change of my own volition. How many books or movies end differently based on the audience's input? The opportunity to really live out a story is what made games so gripping for me.

All that being said, I do have to admit that recent games just haven't satisfied me in the same way as the games of my youth. I could have become jaded at some point and that spark have been lost in the shuffle somewhere in my adolescent years but I still reflect back on those older games and wonder what they did so well that current games don't.

I've thought about the effect that our ultra realistic graphics are having on storytelling and I feel like there could possibly be a connection. Back when games like Legaia, Dragoon, Symphonia, and the obviously relevant Final Fantasy series were rather popular (FF still is) there was far less technology to work with when designing these games.

This leads my to believe (and this is my opinion) that perhaps all those innovative game mechanics and shiny graphics take something away from the importance of story. Don't get me wrong, there are still some fantastic games with solid stories out there, Skyrim was one of those games for me (Side Quests!) as anyone could guess from the plethora of guides that exist on this blog but I digress.

I find myself enjoying more games that would fall under the category of "indie" rather than the bigger launches. I find that these games are made by people who are absolutely dying to tell their story and that's what really clicks with me.

I found that this humorous take on the "retro" games vs. the new games was an accurate judge of how other gamers feel about the subject. From just looking at the like/dislike ratio it's plain to see that I'm not the first person to have these kinds of thoughts.

Credit to freddiew and Rocketjump for the video!

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Shifting Focus: A Look at Free to Play Online Gaming. Blog Assignment #3

As an avid MMO player I have found that in recent times a vast quantity of fairly large MMOs have made the switch from a subscription model to a free to play model. In this post I'll mainly be focusing on AION, as it is a perfect example of a game I actively play that has fully transitioned from a monthly subscription to a truly free model.

Aion is one of the more popular MMOs on the market right now with most of its player-base residing in Asia, and more specifically, South Korea. Since Aion is a Korean game we've received a "westernized" version of the game that has specific things tweaked to fit a western gamer's play-style. Typically this is done to make games easier as the Asian MMO market is characterized by its extremely time consuming "grind" up to the maximum level.

One of the more important aspects of the western version of Aion is that it has become completely free. Aion used to have the same subscription prices of most other MMOs, 15 dollars a month. Due to numerous circumstances which included a dwindling player base and a drop in profitability led NCsoft, the producers of Aion, decided to shift the game into a free to play model.

This may seem like an awesome thing for the players and I'm not going to lie, my wallet and my gaming budget were thankful when I no longer had to pay for Aion. However, free to play models aren't without their flaws.

There is one annoyance that comes in tandem with any free to play MMO...cash shops. These are online stores in which players can use real money to exchange for some form of in-game reward. Typically any AAA game will try to stay away from selling any crucial game changing items in the shop that can't be obtained by other methods but there is always the danger of a game slipping into the dreaded "pay to win" situation.

The frustrating part of free to play is that we, as players, know that the game has to generate some form of revenue and that the things that will generate the most money will also cause us the most distress. Managing this type of situation is one of the most delicate processes and more often than not is handled improperly, resulting in a mass exodus of players. Aion has definitely been going through some bumpy times with their cash shop as players struggle to accept new additions to the shop as time goes on. As the primary revenue generator the cash shop receives frequent updates which is incredibly difficult to do without stepping on some toes.

The thing I feel like free to play MMOs need to keep in mind is that, while player satisfaction is always a priority no matter what business model you use, you have to listen to your players. At the end of the day the players know exactly what they want and if developers would take a moment to slow down and really listen it becomes clear what players desire.

For Aion in particular, people take advantage of the extremely deep character customization system to create their perfect character, often taking extreme care in selecting and managing various details of how their character dresses/looks. This involvement in the player's character is an easily profitable aspect of Aion that hasn't been fully realized.

In the end I feel like free to play is a great shift for AAA MMO's but they have to be handled with extreme care as players are more fickle than ever. Despite free MMO's having existed from the start this is still a very young business method for AAA games and as expected, there are problems that are still being worked out. I'm thankful that NCsoft has begun to show signs that player input is becoming a driving force in their future plans.

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Direct Downloads: The Future of Gaming? Blog Assignment #2

This is a topic I've liked talking about for a while now as I am a huge proponent of games shifting into a direct download style of distribution as opposed to the typical physical disc. Why? Because it's healthy for the game studios/companies that are putting years of time and effort into making these games for us. Stores like Gamestop tend to make most of their money by offering gamers minuscule sums of store credit for their used games. This may seem like a benign practice but it takes a chunk out of the profits made by the game creators and hands it over to the store.

In this Forbes article a former Gamestop employee spoke out on the franchise's used game "racket" even going so far as to say it'd be illegal if our government regulated the sales of used video games. This may be an extreme example but it adequately depicts an ongoing business issue for the game industry as 100% of used game sales profits go to the store rather than the game studio that created it.

Essentially what happens is Gamestop, as one of the primary game distributors, orders "x" amount of copies of an upcoming game to satisfy the pre-order/launch demands. After the launch rush is over, most of the future sales of that particular game will be used purchases as opposed to new, giving Gamestop a huge portion of the profits and leaving the people who put years of work into making it in the dust.

As far as digital distribution goes you have distributors such as Valve's Steam interface, a wholly digital means of purchasing and playing a plethora of both mainstream and indie games. What often comes along with this method of distribution is decreased prices for new games, sometimes to the tune of a full 10 dollars less than a physical copy.

In addition to the obvious ease of access and the fair prices Steam also fronts a line of impressive packaged deals that feature numerous games from specific studios. These value packs often help rejuvenate even the oldest of games and profit the developers even more.

But hey, business practices aside, digital distribution's appeal is pointed at us, the gamers! It profits the developers and whatnot which is great for us long-term but the push for digital distribution is fueled by our desires as well. Nobody likes pre-ordering through Gamestop, if they're being honest. Trying to pre-order through them is like giving yourself a 75% chance of getting the game you desired and a 25% chance of having them try to tell you it doesn't come out on the day it came out (My experience with Gamestop on multiple occasions). You're far better off picking up the PC game off Steam/Origin and knowing you're supporting the developers and knowing you've got your game. Hint: Devs like digital distribution and more often than not that method of purchase usually comes with some perks! Especially for MMOs!

The next step in the digital distribution process is liberating the console gamers as there is no nice way to get new releases like we can on the PC through Steam, they're forced to use Gamestop in the same way the game companies are forced to work with them to reach core gaming audiences. With any luck the game industry can provide direct download services at some point in the near future and put businesses like Gamestop back in their place.

Can you tell I don't like Gamestop?

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Virtual Reality: A Step Forward? Blog Assignment #1

Alright so one of the things I looked into/tried out at PAX Prime was the virtual reality headset they had up for demo. I was pretty excited going in as it was my first time trying something like this. That initial excitement died fairly quickly as I realized that first off, the game was pretty "meh" and the headset was rather clunky, among other things.

The headset itself was connected to something else through a fairly thick set of cords that were anchored to the back of the headset. What this meant was the person running this booth was constantly trying to adjust this cable so that I wouldn't wrap myself up in it or trip over it. It proved to be a constant annoyance as I was trying to move freely in the game.

I used to see VR as a step forward for gaming but my experiences at PAX felt a tad bit gimmick-y and extremely disorienting (I had to sit down for a bit afterwards to avoid puking). This entire thing seemed a tad premature and I found myself wishing that they had chosen a different game to demo this tech on along with a host who knew what he was doing.

The gentleman hosting this booth was knowledgeable enough about the headset itself but not about the game I was using it for so I spent most of my time wandering around aimlessly which involved a lot of spinning around (which actually required me to physically spin around, thus the disorientation). Needless to say...things could have been better.

Basically what this headset did was disable the right stick (was playing on a 360) so that all camera movement was directed by where I was trying to physically look. This part was pretty cool but it's also quite a bit more difficult than just using the controller which just begs the question, is VR even worth it?

I could see myself using this type of tech for games like Skyrim or other aesthetically pleasing games that I really want to experience on a deeper level. However, the demo I tried at PAX was for a shooter which proved to be a little too hectic at times for me to deal with while trying to aim precisely with the headset. The whole experience was a bit of a turn off but it also may have just been the specific circumstances that led to that feeling.

So! I'd like to know if anyone else has thoughts on VR tech and especially if you've given it a test yourself. But feel free to comment even if you haven't!

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