Context, Challenge and Gratification

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Most illuminating indeed. This encapsulates the gaming experience very well. I've been puzzling about such categories for a while now, and this seems to do it beautifully.

ALSO: In before people taking his one Halo Reach compliment out of context and using it as "proof" that he was wrong to ever dare bash their beloved game!

Interesting, I was about to say in before people not letting a compliment towards a popular game slide without having one last chance to be prematurely judgmental about anyone who liked it just because they didn't (assuming they weren't too judgmental to not even give the game a chance either), like it's the only way they can feel important or something.

What other people like and don't like in their games is of no concern to me (one wonders why it should be to anyone), but if I recall back in Yahtzee's review of Reach he didn't exactly 'bash' it. Granted, he found and laboured on its faults (he is Yahtzee after all), but the overall consensus seemed to be 'Not great, but a lot better than I was expecting'.

Mind you, I am speaking to someone with an avatar depicting Gordon Freeman decapitating Master Chief, so maybe I'm just as much of a fool for even trying to initiate a reasoned debate...

OT: I very much like the idea of three categories, and scoring each of them independently. That way, you'll be able to tell not just what the reviewer's opinion of the game was with more clarity, but also how that opinion might tally with yours based on what you tend to care about most in games.

 

[Something Amyss]

The concept of a triangular chart is a little funny. Wasn't that one of the customisation changes he hated in SR3?

 

[U2K]

I don't think he is right on this one. Seems to me that things like intrigue, immersion and gratification would flow naturally from a game which is well endowed in the 'challenge' and 'context' departments. I my humble opinion, too many games are all about instant gratification (hell games like Bulletstorm and SR3 are built around that concept) and too games are directly attempting to be thought provoking (unless its some PC indie nobody gives a toss about).

In short, no thanks Yahtzee we don't need a added focus on gratification in videogaming, we have plenty.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Of course what I would definitely not do then is combine the three scores into some kind of "overall" value, because that's totally fucking meaningless.
That's OK. Taking your hard work and turning it into something meaningless is what Metacritic is there for.

 

[weirdee]

You know, I have a long-standing grudge against the concept of awarding review scores to games, because I think it represents everything that's wrong about videogame reporting by treating every given game like some kind of kitchen appliance whose chopping blades have been slightly rearranged since the last generation and are now therefore precisely 1 point more efficient at dicing sweet potatoes.

I could say the same thing about you as well Yahtzee. I have nothing against your theory of Context, Challenge and Gratification when judging a game but here's the thing, you expect EVERYTHING to do this and it's really makes you look pretentious to have such high standards. Especially when it comes to a certain company. Not everyone goes that same mile.

Look, all I'm saying is, just because a game can balance Context, Challenge and Gratification doesn't mean all of them should. If they can pull that off, great. I applaud them for being able to do so. But how many times have we played games where developers intentionally try to aim for such a thing and fail miserably at it? I know I've played quite a few.

I think you're taking it out of context here. He was disappointed with Saints Row 3 cause it couldn't be better than Saints Row 2, and if it were instead presented as Saints Row: Wacky Gameshow Spinoff, it would probably be more representative of what they would be trying to do with the series. He's not applying this standard to ALL GAMES.

Of course, a different criticism would be that these numbers in themselves don't really mean anything other than if not having particularly high marks in any of the fields would make the game pretty much pointless.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I tried to read the article, but I kept trying to imagine Extra Punctuation presented as an XKCD comic and my brain short circuited from an overload of awesome.

 

[Alterego-X]

Fair enough idea.

Here's another one though - the ideal is wherever you, as a specific kind of player, decide it is.

This. Otherwise, we would be forced to call entire genres, like Visual Novels, or arcade games, inherently bad, because they don't fit this rule.

I previously also tried my own "elements of gaming" breakdown. I came up with the four main definitions of "play": playing football, playing the violin, playing with a toy, and playing a record: In essence, Compete in something, Create something, Amuse oneself, and Experience something.

I would expect that with time, all of these will separate from the monolithic phenomena of "gaming". If current trends continue, only a smaller center of gaming-as-we-know-it will remain, but cybersports, interactive fiction, arcade fun-having games, and creative games (Sims, Minecraft), will completely split off as mediums. After all, all of them have their separate fandoms, and it only leads to conflicts when someone feels obliged to review one from the other corner, "because they are also games, and I'm a gamer".

Nowadays when everything is digital, still insisting that all software entertainment must follow one set of values, makes as little sense as discussing newspapers, novels, comic books, manga, and pop-up books in the "printed media", as if they would be the same basic type of art, in any meaningful way.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Spoiler: snippage

Agreed completely on where Saints Row 2 and Saints Row The Third would lie on this triangle graph. Saints Row 2 was the perfect balance of everything. Then Saints Row The Third comes along, and they focused on just one of the things people liked about the game (wacky crazy fun) and just pumped that up while sacrificing other things. I missed the kind of character interaction and development Saints Row 2 had. I felt SRTT was really disappointing in that department.

Spoiler: Saints Row The Third spoilers

One confrontation with Phillipe, and then you kill him pretty early on without any further face-to-face confrontation with him despite the fact that this fucker killed Johnny Gat, the best character in the franchise. You drop a giant decoration on him, which is pretty awesome in the "wacky crazy" department, but compared to the stuff that happens in SR2, it just seems to come up short.

And then what happens after that? The Saints recruit a bunch of new people into their gang, and then between the four (later on, five) new members and the two you brought along from Stilwater (Pierce and Shaundi), none of them really get any kind of meaningful screen time or development. No memorable scenes. I think there was that time Kinzie was hiding under a booth in a diner, oh and Oleg and Pierce sure played a lot of chess. That Angel guy and his mask or something? That's about it I guess.

And for the other gang, WTF. Killbane kills one of the twins for you, and the other one defects so you don't get to kill her either despite both of them also playing a part in the previously mentioned killing of the best character in the franchise. You let Matt Miller fucking live because he offers you a few discounts at some shops. WTF is that?! At least you get some good confrontations with Killbane, but of course you have to let Shaundi get blown up to finish him off.

So yeah. SR3 is really fun when it comes to "holy shit look at Professor Genki" or just running around the street beating people with a giant floppy dildo, but it sadly lacks in other areas where SR2 had previously shined.

I also agree on everything at the end about the review scores. Review scores are generally nonsensical garbage.

Here's hoping Randall (xkcd author) sees this article and makes that triangle chart thing for us.

The thing I'm having some issue with here is that context can be highly subjective. People more will to forgive the game will apply more context, or at least justify what context there is (which I will totally do in a few lines), whereas others will point to the small amount of context and say that it's lacking.

Spoiler: Saints Row the Third spoilers inside

One can get quite a lot of context from the little scenes. There's a scene where you're driving around with Pierce, and the two characters are talking about Johnny, and you get some insight into all three as a result. While they definitely could have been more flushed out, the new characters you pick up at the beginning of Act 2 get little snippets of character at a time, which is enough to know who they are, but, sadly, not enough for them to feel fully realized. Angel requires a bit of understanding of Luchadores, Zimos is...well, as deep as the trope of a pimp, and Kinzie is a paranoid hacker who's got her kinks. These are silhouettes, recognizable, but still blurry. But from these you can project your own knowledge of people similar onto them.

While I'm still not sure I approve of the binary choices, the game does kind of play with the idea of creating a character throughout, at least. Are you hell-bent on revenge, no matter what, accepting the deaths of your friends as just more of the Syndicate's casualties? Or are you about your homies first, and getting revenge as long as you're all safe? Do you blow up a building to make a statement about how the Saints will topple the syndicate, or do you keep it for a swank new symbol of the Saints and their power?

Though, it would have been better had they given the option of killing Matt or getting his discounts. It would have stood up to the other in-game choices. Still, though, while gratification was higher, context was significantly less here. Nothing will match up to the scenes with Carlos's mercy kill and Aisha's funeral from the second. Those are some of the heaviest moments in gaming.

 

[PlasticTree]

I understand where you're coming from, and both challenge and context would appropriately fit in that xkcd comic, but gratification is just way, way too broad. Your description of 'gratification' basically comes down to everything that's fun or in any other way fulfilling. So, since gratification is the consequence of both context and personal characteristics (and some other things of course, but this is a post on a gaming website, not a master thesis), it can vary immensely.
Also, gratification can come from smacking people with dildos, which doesn't fall in either the 'gameplay' or 'challenge' category, but many other forms of gratification do. So you are basically describing gratification as some kind of Pavlov-ish x-factor, needed in case challenge and context are not enough. And even though this factor is essential, both the suggestions that (1) it is autonomous of context and challenge and that (2) it is on the same level as these two (instead of being a ?deeper? characteristic that can be attained from multiple perspectives are just..well, wrong.

..Ah, the delicious gratification of telling someone on the internet about his wrongness! xkcd has it all wrong as well in that respect. It's not a duty, it?s a privilege!

 

[cross_breed]

This sounds like an interesting way to review. As a proponent, of making things into graphs, I say go for it. Also, props for the shout-out to XKCD.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

A very good column this week Yahtzee. I can't see any immediate flaws in your Triangle.

 

[Waffle_Man]

I would say that what you've come up with is a really solid and concise version of a classic trichotomy (that I forget the name of) that has long been used to define why people play games, being simulation/mechanics(challenge), presentation/games-as-art(context), and gratification/awesomeness(gratification). If I had one critique, it would be that Challenge would be better described as Flow, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)] because challenge is only appreciated in the context of being able to meet that challenge.

Of course, each of these elements themselves have a delicate balance unto themselves. Context=[familiarity±novelty]; Flow(Challenge)=[Difficulty±Ability]; Gratification=[feedback±effort]. Of course, bear in mind that all of these are purely qualitative in nature.

 

[Bluecho]

This hypothetical style of scoring intrigues me. It eliminates the ambiguity of a single score by rating multiple aspects of the title separately instead of just averaging them. It makes score inflation across the board of games harder to accomplish because the reviewers would have to actually think about how effective the games are in multiple, unrelated ways. And the fanboys would have less (legitimate) cause to ***** and moan because even if a game gets a low value in one catagory they can be content with a higher one in another.

I of course qualify that last statement with "legitimate" because no matter what, fanboys will find something to complain about. Even if it's just them swearing and making impotent and immature accusations about the critic's sexual habits and those of their progenitors. All while poorly spelled.

 

[Fenris Frost]

Dear Mr. Yahtzee, what you would thus be rewarding is not quality but balance. That is to say, a very shitty game would sit dead centre as would a stellar one. Furthermore, if you for example, opted to make the dot translucent based on quality each individual element would still be evaluated together, resulting in your hated overall score. I'm not sure this one has legs, but a sterling effort at something new, if a tad mathematical for my taste. Toodles.

 

[Dfskelleton]

This is actually really useful. I can easily put this to many games I like to see why I like them, as well as why I don't like a few.
For example, RAGE. There's no reason I should have anything wrong with the authority. In fact, they never even gave a crap about me until someone ordered me to storm one of their outposts and murder everyone inside. What is my reward, my Gratification for doing these things for these ridiculously dressed people? Nothing. You get a bit of money I suppose, but it really just says "Hey, thanks for risking your life, here's 3 dollars and a pack of chewing gum." There isn't a whole lot of challenge in RAGE either. Maybe it's because I pre-ordered the game, so I got some ridiculously overpowered armor and a ridiculously overpowered weapon, but I only remember dying about 7 times in RAGE, and 4 of those times were because I didn't know my car would explode for driving where I was apparently not supposed to go.

 

[bakana]

While I see the usefulness of the scheme, I think it's better suited to classifying games than rating them - like Scott McCloud's similar symbolic/realistic/abstract classification triangle for comic art styles.

Balancing the three categories doesn't necessarily make for a good game, and in many cases, will just result in a generic solid blockbuster-type experience. And some amazing games could be way off-center. Tetris is one of the most successful, well-designed, and widely-played games in the history of the medium - it would be stupid to dock it points on some value system for not having "context" it obviously doesn't need. It would be like criticizing a Rothko painting for not having realistic trees.

But placing Tetris at the appropriate place on the triangle, so you can map its relationship to other games, and people can use that to judge whether they might like it, could be a useful visual tool for assessing/caterogrizing without arbitrary numerical ranking.

 

[NoPants2win]

Dear Mr. Yahtzee, what you would thus be rewarding is not quality but balance. That is to say, a very shitty game would sit dead centre as would a stellar one. Furthermore, if you for example, opted to make the dot translucent based on quality each individual element would still be evaluated together, resulting in your hated overall score. I'm not sure this one has legs, but a sterling effort at something new, if a tad mathematical for my taste. Toodles.

There is a way around this problem that won't break the model. Instead of placing a dot within the triangle, make the side length of the triangle proportional to its score. Obviously then, bad games will end up with a very small triangle, and games like Tetris would end up with a large, skewed triangle. Great games would end up with a large equilateral triangle. Make a minimum side length of one to prevent just drawing a line.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Well the triangle graph is a pretty shitty illustration because it assumes that the three values are mutually exclusive and you can't have great context and great gratification and great challenge which is totally possible. I know that because I've played that game: it's called The Void and I recommend it.

Also gratification is much too subjective to work as an in any way accurate measure of a game's quality. A lot of people roll their eyes at smacking people in the face with a giant dildo. To them Saints Row the Third has very little gratification. You have said before that you have no love of strategy games because the distance from the action removes any visceral thrill. Some people stand in stark opposition to you and draw amazing gratification from the proper execution of one of their grand strategies.

I guess columns like this one are the inevitable result of being forced to turn out a new column every bloody week despite often having nothing of worth to say.

 

[Andronicus]

You know, it occurs to me that Yahtzee could have saved himself the time of writing a big article about reviewing games if he'd just drawn an XKCD-style triangle with "context, challange and gratification" at each point of the shape, and then throw in a few games to prove the point. I think most people here would get the idea pretty quickly.

 

[Yopaz]

This is an interesting idea- its quite similar to the petrochemographic diagrams we've been looking at in Metamorphic petrology. Problem is, if a game with the perfect blend of context, gameplay and gratification sits in the centre of the chart, how do you differentiate between a game that is scores a fantastic level in all three areas, or a terrible one? For example, Saints Row 2 sits in the middle, but where do you put a game like the Transformers official movie game? That one was equally execrable in every possible area? You can't give it three seperate points, and you can't give it, lets say, a position near the context because it sucked a bit less in that area than it did in the others, and have it sitting somewhere near Mass Effect or a similarly story-based game.

Why do you need to differentiate them? In order to rank them? Ranking games is just as pointless as normal review scores because we can't compare every game to each other. I can't compare Professor Layton, Need For Speed or Saints Row because they are very different. It would be like comparing a great steak with a great mousse.