255: The Player and the Pusher-Man

[Sjakie]

But what about kids, teenagers and young adults who, more often then not, lack this self-knowledge?

That's why parents and schools were invented.

The next logical solution to this 'protect the children' argument would be greater oversight, control and dare I say it -- censorship -- over the games industry, so that evil corporate giants do not turn our children into raging nerds who never emerge from their mums' basements.

Seriously.

And we haven't even sorted out the role that violent video games played, if there is indeed one, in the school shootings. Remember Columbine?

Since you only picked this out i guess you agree with everything else.
To tell you the truth i dont really care about the kids that is, as you say, the parents job (but really, most parents with gaming children ) I am all for some education in school about gaming habbits or better parenting about this subject, it would solve most, if not all, problems. And it certainly beats giving more power to the ESRB or some other censhorship organisation. The ESRB does a fairly good job as it is. But handing out age restrictions is all it should do.
Ofcourse considering the industry and government are 10 years behind the facts as you also see, it will be up to us to make sure it wont happen to our kids, by the time there is some kind of restriction system set up by the government we will be laughing at our grandchildren who are ragequiting anyway. Because of this i am also for the idea that gaming companies should take a better look at these design choices!

But to get back at the core question: do all these reward/achievement systems detract from the basic fun and could you consider them addictive? I think that is the case, especially the former. I dont consider it that much fun to hunt down achievements in games. It does not add anything for me personally, but it does for some who still care about their E-penis i guess.

It does not become a real problem until this stuff finds it's way into subsciption based games (allready happend ofcourse) where gaming companies keep adding stuff like this to keep people playing and paying. Some would say it's adding to the fun, but really, if you play MMO's and do groupstuff and then someone wanders off to get some achievement while your in some dungeon or FPS map...some think of it as fun, i think of it as a hassle that spoils my fun.
I also think this kind of behavior feeds the basement dwelling rage kids and it should get toned down because i dont want to deal with those kind of fuckers anymore then you do while im having fun killing a dungeon boss or camping the little turds that do hunt achievents (just to easy targets to pass up) and then start whinening and yelling in the chat.

 

[copycatalyst]

I think the mountain climbing comparison at the end doesn't apply to the reward systems of never-ending games. Sure, a climber might feel a rush as they reach each plateau along the way, but the reward they're getting out of it is from the sense of accomplishment upon completion.

I had a discussion with a friend while I was crunching my way through N (later released as N+). He couldn't get why I would keep playing a game that needs so many deaths and retries to eventually make headway. For him, enjoyment of the game was just in proceeding through. For me, it was also about rising with the challenge and surpassing it. Moment to frustrating moment, was I having "fun;" restarting the same levels so many times? Maybe not. But I don't regret it, and I have another addition to my gaming accomplishments.

This kind of manipulation requires the game to be fun for me to want to see it through. Sometimes I feel the lure of level-grinding, loot-amassing, progression based manipulation. But if (like Torchlight, for example) it doesn't seem fun, I quickly lose interest in grinding.

 

[Grahav]

Best article of this week. Every gamer and person prone to addiction should really read about this.

And it is a scary image you put to illustrate the article. So it is perfect for it.

 

[Spendrik]

I had a discussion with a friend while I was crunching my way through N (later released as N+). He couldn't get why I would keep playing a game that needs so many deaths and retries to eventually make headway. For him, enjoyment of the game was just in proceeding through. For me, it was also about rising with the challenge and surpassing it. Moment to frustrating moment, was I having "fun;" restarting the same levels so many times? Maybe not. But I don't regret it, and I have another addition to my gaming accomplishments.

This kind of manipulation requires the game to be fun for me to want to see it through. Sometimes I feel the lure of level-grinding, loot-amassing, progression based manipulation. But if (like Torchlight, for example) it doesn't seem fun, I quickly lose interest in grinding.

This reinforces my point about the definition of 'fun': it's not the same for everyone.

For some, it's about conquering challenges or seeing the story unfold, for others it's accumulating badges and achievements.

When you don't like a game, or don't find it fun, it isn't necessarily a reward system designed to Jedi-mindtrick your friends into playing and actually enjoying it.

Conversely, your favourite game that you've just spent weeks playing could very well be the 'psychologically manipulative aka unfun' reward system, according to the author of this article.

Who decides what's fun and what's not? You!

Instead of equating 'unfun' games to reward systems and blaming game designers for creating them, how about recognising that some games *are* designed to be addictive, and make your game-buying or playing decisions accordingly?

As a discerning gamer and consumer, vote with your wallet and your time! Don't let any game designer or magazine columnist tell you what is fun and what is not.

And certainly don't let any government panel decide what games you shouldn't play, because of your personal lack of discipline.

 

[ultrachicken]

I think this explains why I'm a big fan of solo-games rather than multiplayer ones.

 

[Spendrik]

Best article of this week. Every gamer and person prone to addiction should really read about this.

And it is a scary image you put to illustrate the article. So it is perfect for it.

And it is just reinforcing the stereotype of gamers: unshaven, unwashed, overweight, addicted.

To me, the article seems to be saying:

"Hey game designers, make games that *I* like, stop making games that other people play because they [insert Psychology 101 babble]"

 

[ranger19]

Lots of good points have been made here - especially with Call of Duty. I'm playing MW2 right now, and it is just carrot after addictive little carrot, right down to the way you get shiny +100s, the weapon prints (fall, tiger, etc) that give you so many things to work for. It is really satisfying and fun... but let's just say thank God I can consider myself done after level 70 (I prestieged once to see the "veteran" challenges, but no more for me after that).

Anyway, I just want to narrow in on a tiny part:

"[Nintendo has] gone to great lengths to make the game playable by a variety of difficulty levels but also to make it so that, really, lives do not matter. And you can just keep playing the game until you win it," he explains. "But there's still this huge Byzantine structure around lives ... to maintain this kind of fiction that lives matter, even though, when you play them, it's clear that they don't. They totally don't matter. And why is there all that structure in there still? It's because it's providing the reward system. And it's a reward system that's actually lying to the player in a way, because none of this is really important. But it's pushing that little 'reward button' in the player's mind every time they pick up a little gold coin and get a one-up."

So, I really do think Mario would be fun without lives, coins, etc, and actually I think it would be an interesting experiment. But the rewards that are key, at least to me, are the stars. Man, I love getting those bright, shiny stars. And yet, I feel like I'm not doing it just for the stars but for the experience too. In that way mario seems perfect, on some level, to me.

 

[copycatalyst]

This reinforces my point about the definition of 'fun': it's not the same for everyone.

For some, it's about conquering challenges or seeing the story unfold, for others it's accumulating badges and achievements.

When you don't like a game, or don't find it fun, it isn't necessarily a reward system designed to Jedi-mindtrick your friends into playing and actually enjoying it.

Conversely, your favourite game that you've just spent weeks playing could very well be the 'psychologically manipulative aka unfun' reward system, according to the author of this article.

Who decides what's fun and what's not? You!

Instead of equating 'unfun' games to reward systems and blaming game designers for creating them, how about recognising that some games *are* designed to be addictive, and make your game-buying or playing decisions accordingly?

As a discerning gamer and consumer, vote with your wallet and your time! Don't let any game designer or magazine columnist tell you what is fun and what is not.

And certainly don't let any government panel decide what games you shouldn't play, because of your personal lack of discipline.

Good points, all. There is one problem though, which is that people may not actually be the best judge of when they are having fun. Our perception of how much fun we are having as we experience it differs from our perception of how much fun we had when recalling it. (Same thing goes for perceptions of happiness and pain, by the way). So although each person is free to decide for themselves what they think is fun, all people can be manipulated by psychological tricks.

 

[ThisNewGuy]

OMFG, This article is very brave. It criticized Mario on the Escapist!

I tried that once, I said that I personally did not find Super Mario Galaxy to be fun, and I was bombarded with people saying that my opinions are wrong, and that the game is actually amazing, it's just that I am at fault for not liking it.

I pass over the flame shield, and bid the author good luck.