Poll: Reward for suffering?

[Yassen]

I recently read that Jonathan Blow, creator of the indie game Braid, made a comment at the Australian Free Play conference concerning 'Reward for suffering.' He cited World of Warcraft being the biggest exploiter of this mechanic saying that by rewarding all the pain and time the players put into the game, it keeps them coming back for more.

This makes a lot of sense to me but this raises the big question, is this ethical?

You could say yes it is, because at least they're rewarding players and giving them a sense of accomplishment.

Or you could say no, because why should gamers suffer through a game for a reward. After all, games are meant to be fun to play through, not torturing yourself through it to reach the end and then have nothing to do.

I'd like to hear the thoughts of the Escapist community on this topic. Also, I would like to remind everyone this is not a world of warcraft flame war, this mechanic can apply to any game that makes players torture themselves for a reward at the end.

Please keep it civil.

 

[xitel]

Well there are people that enjoy the suffering for the sake of being able to say "I beat it, did you?" I think that some gamers decide not to think of it as suffering, but rather as a challenge to overcome. Like me and Ninja Gaiden.

 

[fletch_talon]

The moment a game becomes suffering for me I stop playing it. That's kinda common sense right there. I play WoW and enjoy fighting things and gaining levels, finding items, doing quests (and actually reading the story behind them) but the moment I get on the computer and see how far that XP bar has to go and groan, is the same moment I turn the game off and come back when I get the urge to start again.

In saying that I'm not part of a very close social community on that game, if I was I'd probably level up ASAP just to keep up with friends

 

[tiredinnuendo]

MMO's don't really fit the common mold that other games do, they're a completely different breed of animal.

The thing to understand is that your average modern MMO will *require* that at least a quarter of a million people continually play for several years just to turn a profit, because most MMO's start off very, very far in the red. Therefore, they have a different set of goals than your average single player game. With most games (ideally) you'd want fun to be the main theme, or maybe realism, or something like that. With MMO's, the trump card is addictive. They'd rather make it addictive than clever, or unique, or even fun. If it means you keep on playing it, they win.

The most addictive form of the risk/reward scenario is random chance. In other words, it's far more addictive to have a chance at winning a thousand dollars every time you put a dollar in the slot machine than it is to be sure you'll make a thousand dollars after a week's worth of work. Thus, most MMO's are built around random drops of escalating difficulty to get to, like a tiered casino. It ensures continued subscription, and that's just the nature of the beast.

- J

 

[orifice]

It's the suffering and hard work that creates the sense of achievement. Rewards that are easy to come by don't really feel very 'rewarding'.

 

[goater24]

It is completely ethical, no one is forcing these games on us, we play them for personal enjoyment.

My thoughts echoed, its more glutten for punishment then unethical if you ask me. If there WAs a WOW booth that forces players at gunpoin tot grind for little or no rewrd then you'd have my vote.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The question is hardly one of ethics. People play games for some sort of reward. If you fail to deliver something that they appreciate you have utterly failed at making a game someone would want to play. What would be the point of WoW if grinding mobs netted neither cash, equipment or better character skills? Why would people play a game that does nothing but frustrate and annoy at every turn?

Ethics has no place in this question. Really, the question is simply, what reward best suits the suffering. In an MMO the continual suffering is the ultimate key to the game's long term financial success (and the key to continued employment of the developers). If the rewards are too substantial, the game can quickly become boring to players. If the rewards are too limited, again most players will leave. Somewhere in there is a happy medium, and WoW appears to sit perfectly within this magic space.

 

[mark_n_b]

The better question would be "is it unethical?"

The manufacturers of any game have an obligation to their business to design games that people want to play and return to. Further, there is an obligation to the consumer that they sell them an experience that the consumer desires.

Ideally this is by making the experience enjoyable, in the case of a majority of MMO's (WoW being the example here) the game-play is massive and therefore it inevitably becomes repetitive which is intrinsically unenjoyable (hence the term grind). The designers offset this flaw with the concept of player reward. In this case, the act of grinding becomes about discovery and creation (what do I get at the next level, can I build my character's armor to look cool and survive the next dungeon?). WoW has done a wonderful job of managing grind, but I think the next big move in MMO's is to create a game that does not involve grind, instead of using a RPG model, I think a Zelda like action/adventure model is the way to move with this.

The unethical point comes in constructing an addictive system. Which isn't ethical at all. However, things like WoW are not doing that. WoW (and the like) are not addictive per se. Of course obsessive personality traits might lead to unhealthy prioritizing of these games. But no one thinks that a director who tries to make a film that people will see multiple times is unethical. And, just like video game developers: restaurateurs, film and television producers, snack food companies, automobile manufacturers, etc. ask how they can ensure that people will come back to their products as often as is possible.

Basically, systems of player reward that encourage people to keep playing are not unethical by a societal measure, because it is the exact standard by which every business operates.

At least that is what I would suggest.

 

[LaxLuster]

Nobody's making anybody suffer. It's a choice to play the game, so there's nothing ethical or unethical about it. Somebody invented soccer/football. I'm not going to blame the inventor every time I play and my legs get tired.

I'm one of the people who doesn't play MMOs because I don't feel like I get anything out of it. Sure if I grind long enough I can get cool armor, but all of that time spent doing that I could probably invest in some scrap material and make my own armor.... then run around on nature bike trails and look like a raving idiot.

...That would be awesome...

 

[Doggabone]

Ethical, yes.

Is it interesting? Is it the sole working mechanic for an MMO? For me, those are the real questions. There's a lot of stuff in WoW I passed on solely because I felt that they overworked the grind out to gear up mechanic. I think it's a cheap way to sustain interest, but it may be the only way. I understand that there's only so much that they can do with written content, and I couldn't come up with a long term game design that doesn't resort to this kind of thing. I think that it can often be more interesting or challenging than what they resort to. EQ's dungeons, for example, were fairly grind-y but not as dull as killing thousands of undead for cloth to trade in for faction.

 

[geldonyetich]

We're talking about deliberately forcing people to suffer through pointless monotony in order to get to the "good" part of a game. I would argue that it is an ethical question, just like any other kind of torture to forward one's personal agenda.

Little wonder it's the Braid guy in support of this. He's the fellow who thought it would be a great idea to force players into a situation where they need to choose between two identical doors. Pick the wrong door? You lose, start over from scratch.

 

[KungFuMaster]

Aren't all games "reward for torture"? Remember trying to get through that thrice-damned "maze" in the original Zelda game? Remember how you screamed and cried and threw the controller around? Remember how good you felt when you finally got it?

As a footnote, did anybody else poo themselves a little when they brought it back in Phantom Hourglass? A severely abridged version, yes, but for about five seconds I was eight years old again and very, very worried.

 

[Xojins]

Of course it's ethical. Some people find endless grinding fun, some don't.

 

[MrBrightside919]

I'm really getting tired of hearing Jon Blow's opinions on things...

Games don't make people suffer, the gamers do. It's their own personal choice for how long they play at a time. If they want to ruin relationships, lose jobs, etc because they want to play a game for long periods of time, that's their decision. You shouldn't be able to blaim a game for the choice a person makes.

 

[Aardvark]

Ethics is another abstract concept created by man to make other men conform to a behavioral pattern. Ethics, morals, honour, legalities, they're all systems that we've created to try and reign in some more of the primal characteristics of humanity. Thusly, they only apply if you let them.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

It is completely ethical, no one is forcing these games on us, we play them for personal enjoyment.

Ditto.

An easy parallel can be drawn between this and a BDSM enthusiast. People should have as much freedom as possible as long as it doesn't infringe on the freedoms of others or cause harm to others.

 

[Ace of Spades]

The players are not forced to play. As to why they keep playing, I have no idea.

 

[Yassen]

Now while it is ethical to let gamers start playing these games, some might argue that by setting up a system designed to get players obsessed (I won't say addicted) this itself is unethical the same way illegal drugs are unethical, due to their addictive nature.

Before you start bashing my heard in for making the comparison between games and drugs just remember I'm only comparing the obsessive nature of the two, not saying they are completely identical.

 

[rossatdi]

Just because something is work doesn't automatically make it suffering or negative.

The mechanic they mean is work & reward. Sometimes the work is more repetitive than other times but its just work.

 

[Z4N5H1N]

As many have already stated, it's completely unreasonable to say anything that people partake of voluntarily is "unethical" on the part of the provider. No one is making you play WoW and grind through hours of boring crap, you are choosing to do so because for whatever reason you think it's worth it. If people buy games that make you "suffer", developers will make them. Welcome to free market capitalism.