CSCE 552 Spring 2009

Understand Games

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Game Development 2009

Game History

Game History

First game: William Higinbotham 1958 Analog computer An isolated incident

Inpsiration: Steve “Slug” Russell 1961 as a student in MIT DEC PDP-1 (18 bit) $120,000

Tennis for two (1958)

Spacewar (1961)

Game for the Masses Ralph Baer (left) and Nolan Bushnell (right)

Magnavox Odyssey (1972)

1967-1968, Ralph Baer Light gun and shooting Brown Box, the first home video game

console Sold to Magnavox

Light Gun and Odyssey

Nolan Bushnell and Atari (1972)

Computer Space machines Atari company Arcade games Pong: first popular video game

Pong and Arcade

Computer Space

Cartridge-based Console (1977) Atari 2600, 1977 Able to support many games

NES (90% market)

NES

Gameboy

Mario

contra

Playstation

Playstation I Sony (1994-1995) CD form

Playstation II (2000) DVD Strong third party support

Playstation III (2006)

Playstation I

Final Fantasy

Grand Theft Auto

Playstation III

Final Fantasy XIII

Grand Theft Auto IV

Xbox

Microsoft has been in game for long Flight simulator Age of Empires

Microsoft (2001) PC architecture Xbox Live Xbox 360 (2006)

MS Games

Designers

Will Wright SimCity The Sims

Sid Meier Pirates! Railroad Tycoon Civilization

Ken & Roberta Williams Adventure games: Quest half-Life

Richard Garriott RPG games Ultima

Old Legendary Games

Pac-Man Tetris Final Fantasy Pokémon Doom …

Studios

MS (flight simulator, AE) Electronic Arts (publisher, C&C) Interplay LucasArts Blizzard (Warcraft) Id Software (DOOM)

Types

Adventure (text-based/graphical) Action (shooting, combat sim)

First-person shooting Combat sim Action adventure Platformer (Mario) Fighting Real-time strategy (RTS) Survival Horror

Types

Role Playing Game (RPG) Stealth Simulation

SimCity Flight Simulator Train Simulator

Racing Sports

Types

Rhythm Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)

Puzzle Tetris

Education Typing NSF funds many such games

Languages

Assembly C/C++ VB Java Flash Script

Types of Players (from wiki)

Casual gamer: A person who enjoys playing games with simple rules or which do not require large blocks of time to play, may even not consider him/herself as a gamer

Hardcore gamer: spends much of their leisure time playing games. Competitive gamer: plays games for the enjoyment of competing

with other players. Retrogamer: enjoys playing or collecting vintage video games fro

m earlier eras. Glitcher: enjoys finding flaws in a game or finding ways to exploit

unintentional features. Professional Gamer: plays games for money

Game tournament Receive prizes Cyberathlete Professional League

E-Sports

ESA

Entertainment Software Association www.theesa.com Some facts

$9.5-billion software sale in US, more than tripled from 1996, up 14% from 2007

65% US households play games Average age is 35 with 13 years of playing 63% parents believe that games are postive for t

heir children

Comparison

Ave. age: 29 Game buyer: 36 Women: 39% Online: 22% Women online: 40%

Ave. age: 33 (12+) Game buyer: 40 Women: 38% Online: 44% Women online: 42%

2003 2005

Ave. age: 35 (14+) Game buyer: 40 Women: 40% Online: 44% Women online: 44%

2008

Who and what

From ESA

Platform info

For Computer Gamers... 30% of most frequent game players are <18 26% of most frequent game players are 18-35 44% of most frequent game players are >35

For Console Gamers... 40% of most frequent game players are <18 35% of most frequent game players are 18-35 25% of most frequent game players are >35

Genre info

From ESA

Online game

From ESA

How to Interpret the Data

Pro-data: Do as data suggests Why: the failure of targeting pre-teen female

market Anti-data:

Explore un-charted territory Target older audience on Xbox? Real Time Strategy on Xbox? Shooting game for moms?

ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board Self-regulated rating board

From ESA

Why Rating? Example: Conker

Animated Violence, Mature Sexual Themes, Strong Language

Age 17+ Seven different worlds with 60+ sub-

chapters to explore Massive multiplayer mode Easy to confuse parents and buy for

young kids

Conker Screens

New Conker on Xbox

Controversial Games (photos removed)

Sega’s Night Trap (1992)

DOOM

School shooting----Doom?

Flight Simulator

Flight Simulator Again

Grand Theft Auto

Teaching how to hi-jack?

Game and Violence

Study from National Institute on Media and the Family

Concerns Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a

character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator.

Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation.

Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.

Rewards increase learning, and video games are based on a reward system.

Concerns Warranted?

Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal  

Exposure to violent games increases aggressive thoughts

Exposure to violent games increases aggressive emotions

Exposure to violent games increases aggressive actions

Exposure to violent games decreases positive prosocial (i.e., helping) actions

Results on 9th Grader

By David Walsh

Culture Issues

Culture acceptance is hard to predict Stereotypes

may backfire but also may pay-off, should we avoid?

Foreign policies Try to understand other cultures Have some sensitivities

Culture acceptance is hard to predict

Requirements of Our Projects

We will mimic ESRB and rate your games

Vote from the class Please do some research about your

games: culture issue, violence? IP? Avoid controversies

MMORPG

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

World of Warcraft (8M worldwide, 2M North America, 1.5M Europe, 3.5M China)

NavyField MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) Counter Strike: online first person shooter ga

me (>200K simultaneously) EverQuest Second Life (virtual world)

Examples

Society Issues with Online Games

Improve society and provide fun Some people make a living through adding s

tuff to online games Bad things can happen

Play too much, mess real life or cannot separate real from virtual

Security problems, cheating, hacking Deindividuation In-game regulatory tools

What is a game

A game is a form of art in which participants, called players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal. (Greg Costikyan)

A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. (Salen and Zimmerman)

Game Design

Early game design practices resemble the authoring of folk tales: The game elements and rules evolve over time by the effo

rt of countless nameless “designers” Game design has developed towards systematic pr

actices, games designed on purpose Craft vs. Design

Characteristics of a craft product: combination of the methods and materials available as well as the situations in which the product has been used over a longer period of time

Characteristics of a designed product: the result of a trying to reach a design goal by using methods and materials available

From The Book’s slides

Factors (Crawford)

Crawford: The Art of Computer Game Design (1984)

Identifies four common factors between all games: Representation Interaction Conflict Safety

Features (Costikyan)

“I Have No Words & I Must Design” (1994) Identifies design choices that have to be ma

de when games are designed And the main features necessary for games:

Decision making Goals Opposition Managing resources Game tokens Information

MDA (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek )

Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics Three main components:

Mechanics that describe the parts of a game at the level of data representation and algorithms

Dynamics that describe the run-time behavior of the game Aesthetics that describe desirable emotional responses evoked in the pla

yer during gameplay Sensation, game as sensory pleasure Fantasy, game as make-believe Narrative, game as drama Challenge, game as obstacle course Fellowship, game as social framework Discovery, game as uncharted territory Expression, game as self-discovery Submission, game as pastime

Provide a framework to span game design, development, game criticism and research

400 Projects (Rules)

The rules consist of five parts An imperative statement of the rule A description of the domain of the rule Rules which take precedence over the rule Rules that the rule takes precedence over A description of examples and counter-examples

The rules are meant to be tools which can be used in different phases of the design process

Areas and Challeges (Adams, Rollings)

Three different areas Core mechanics Interactivity Storytelling Narrative

Categorizing different types of challenges: Pure challanges (logic and inference, lateral-thin

king, memory, intelligence-based, knowledge-based, pattern-recognition, etc.)

Applied challenges (races, puzzles, exploration, conflict, economies and conceptual challenges)

Basic Elements (Game Design Workshop)

Identify eight basic formal elements: Players Objective Procedures Rules Resources Conflicts Boundaries Outcomes

The design method is to use the formal elements to describe the current design and make sure that all aspects of a game design are taken into consideration

CSCE 552 Spring 2009

Understanding Fun

What is Fun?

Game is all about fun Dictionary: Enjoyment, a source of am

usement It is important to consider underlying re

asons Funativity – thinking about fun in terms

of measurable cause and effect

Why fun?

It’s deep in our evolution root, and we must look to our ancestors (200 yrs of tech advancement haven’t changed our instinct)

Cats, dogs, etc play to learn basic survival skills (physical and social)

Games are organized play Human entertainment is also at its heart

about learning how to survive Social rules are also critical to us

Surviving

Life is all either work, rest, or fun To survive, we must work

Our ancestors were those who survive The survive skills are passed down

Who is more likely to survive?

People working too hard?

People resting too much?

We must play to gain skills

Learning is fun

Fun is about practicing or learning new survival skills in a relatively safe setting

People who didn’t enjoy that practice were less likely to survive to become our ancestors

Hunting and Gathering

Basic skills are hunting and gathering Current popular games reflect this It’s a good start point to design games Shooters, wargames = hunting Powerups, resources = gathering Sims, MMO = social, tribal interaction

Gathering and hunting

Natural Funativity Theory

All funs are derived from practicing survival and social skills Key skills relate to early human context Often in modern guise: play chess, football,

dance, etc Three overlapping categories

Physical Social Mental

Physical Fun

Sports Enhance our strength, stamina, coordination

skills Winning is also a mental fun

Exploration Knowledge of surrounding areas Explore unknown

Hand/eye coordination and tool use are often parts of fun activities – crafts

Physical aspect to gathering “stuff”

Social Fun

Storytelling is a social activity First virtual reality Learn important lessons from others

Gossip, sharing info Flirting Showing off

Social funs

Mental Fun

Humans have large brains Abstract reasoning practice Pattern matching and generation

Music Art Puzzles

Gathering also has mental aspect, categorizing and identifying patterns

Gambling

Multipurpose Fun

Many fun activities have physical, social and mental aspects in combination

Games that mix these aspects tend to be very popular

Incorporate ways to practice these skills to increase the popularity of games