Mechanics of the New Millenium

[S.R. Kilvan]

Since 2000, we have seen many new changes and releases. Fist fulls of new platforms, technology developments at every turn, and more innovations and exercises in creativity than you can wave your controller at.

Some of these innovations have been market-changing, others have made you wonder if your the last sane person on earth. Of these innovations, game play mechanics, what would you say has had the greatest affect on the gaming industry as a whole?

In my own personal opinion, the advent of popular MMORPG's with team-based objective game play has made game developers look differently on things. Not just the marketability of a product, but the way the game is truly played.

The reason for this is simple: people (different sociological argument that won't be breached here) as a whole, don't really get along very well. Forcing people to work together to complete an objective that they would not otherwise be unable to accomplish is in itself, a very notable accomplishment. This idea has forged communities of great number, and has affected our society drastically with everything from Marriage [http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/30/content_429246.htm] being inspired by these communities and their in-game actions.

I also like the advances in rendered tits. Nerds have needs too.

 

[stevesan]

I'd agree with MMO's. It's probably the most high-order innovation the industry has seen in a while.

It also brought about business innovations with the subscription model, which pushes the design of MMO's in a pretty unique direction. Much like how the coin-op model lead to very difficult games (so players would have to pump in many quarters to beat the game), successful MMO's make sure that players are vested in their characters for the long-term. They also make sure to not make things too difficult so people won't give up and cancel their subscription (if, for example, character death is punished too harshly). Recently, Jonathan Blow criticized MMO design techniques for being the video game equivalent of cigarettes and McDonald's, exploiting addiction as a business. We'll see how the industry deals with this, if at all.

You could also argue that the rest of leisure-technology has been affected by MMO-thinking. The whole Web 2.0 era is full of MMO-like ideas. You can see Facebook as an MMO of sorts, where people log-on daily to check up on their friends and do social activities, such as writing on walls and uploading pictures (as opposed to, slaying monsters and leveling up). Social news sites, like Reddit, also employ concepts such as "karma," which is earned by sustained activity on the site. These don't have the visual fidelity of WoW, but they certainly create a virtual social world for people to participate in. And let's not forget Second Life either.