2010 online games trends →
Moderately sized article. I was less interested in the actual predictions than I was about the efficient summation of what’s been happening.
Why We Play Games, And Why We Grumble About Them →
Simplified examples, but general idea is worth keeping in mind.
Behaviourist Game Design →
It doesn’t strike me as ethical to train a player to want to do something that they wouldn’t want to do in the absence of an external reward.
One particular example that always sticks with me is how closely the reward system of item drops in most modern roguelike games closely mirrors psychological research on the most effective methods to encourage repeated human (and animal) behaviour. By which I mean they could train mice to hit buttons over and over again by rewarding them in a certain way for this behaviour, even though the mouse would never normally perform that action.
External Rewards and Jesse Schell's Amazing Lecture →
[Schnell] rightly points out that actual game designers have the power and skill to make sure the future external reward systems that will permeate our lives will actually improve our lives also. These systems could cause us to read more and better books, to brush our teeth as much as we should, and so on. Yes, that could happen. DanC of lostgarden.com made that exact point as well, and we’ve already seen the benefits of it in exercise games like Wii Fit.
I’m with Schell every step of the way in his lecture, except for that last bit though. While it’s true that skilled designers could use all this for good once sensors and points take over our real lives, it seems almost certain that they generally won’t. If Facebook is any indication, they will simply create the most effective mental viruses that drive whatever commercial behavior they want, with little regard to the victims (consumers).
Absolutely incredible and brilliant talk. There is something for everyone in it. Reserve half an hour of your day to watch it… you really will not regret it. Some of my notes and reactions below.
“And then you combine that with the psychological idea that… the rationalizion: anything you spend time on, you start to believe “this must be worthwhile. Why? Because I’ve spent time on it. And therefore it must be worth me kicking in twenty bucks, because look at the time I’ve spent on it. And now that I’ve kicked in twenty bucks, it MUST be valuable, because only an idiot would kick in twenty bucks if it wasn’t!” … what the hell! This is so simple, but it explains so much!
Achievement system: the modern version of the old trophy shelf/room/collection. This is not something Schnell says explicitly, but it’s what occurred to me. It’s not the actual physical object that is important, it’s the symbol that represents your completion of it. Which makes virtual ones better, really, because they take up less space. >_>
World is insane for “reality”. Avatar the film is about using technology to get back to nature/reality.
Technologies diverge, not converge. But pockets turn the law of divergence inside out! Examples: Swiss army knife, iPhone. “This is why everyone hates the iPad”, because it’s a giant swiss army knife. x_x
“And if anyone has the new Ford hybrid car… What are those leaves? What the hell is that? The more gas you save, the more the plant grows. THEY PUT A VIRTUAL PET IN YOUR CAR, and it changes the way people drive.”
“Lee Sheldon … is teaching at University of Indiana now. ‘You know this grading system kind of sucks.’ Cause school’s a game, right? … ‘I’m gonna do this better.’ He doesn’t give out grades for each assignment, he gives experience points. And you level up through the class. And so class attendance is up, class participation is up, homework is turned in often and better, because it’s a better structure. It’s a better system.” (OH %&#$ YES. I WANT TO DO THIS AT ATDP THIS YEAR.)
Disposable technology: furbies have more technology in them than they used to put a man on the moon.
Powered by the I Could Live In Hope Tumblr theme by Nonimage.
