[MUD-Dev] Re: Fun vs Realism [ Was: OT: Sid Meier ]

[Brandon J. Rickman]

On Thu, 30 Jul 1998, Koster, Raph wrote:
> > It works perhaps better than television as a kind of pointless
> > stimulation, but one thing that concerns me is that there is little
> > attempt to make this game appeal to a more mature market.  
> > How about an
> > RPG with a range of skill levels, with a sense of narrative, and a
> > remappable keyboard? :)
> 
> For several years now, the consensus in the industry was that such would
> never fly. RPGs were regarded as a dying breed. Lists of the top ten
> RPGs of the year had only four names on them because only four RPGs were
> released. Diablo (over a million seller) changed all that, with some
> subsidiary help from Fallout (over 200k units).

I think "industry wisdom" is something of an oxymoron - if everyone is in
consensus about something this only makes it a kind of sacred truth; it
still won't keep them from getting their asses kicked by the next big
thing (tm).  RPGs were seen as dying because of ridiculous development
times and who knows what economic reasons.  There were always plenty of
long-awaited titles (some of which mutated into some other genre
entirely).  RPG fans are so happy with what they get I wonder why
companies don't churn out variations using the same game engine. 
[Probably because there is no fan loyalty and game companies get screwed
by the retailers.]

> Hence the dual trend now: some people are going back to "real CRPGs"
> (Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate) and others are attempting hybrids they hope
> can reach a wider market (Rage of Mages is crossed with real-time
> strategy games, Hexplore is voxel-based, Diablo 2 is adding more RPG
> into its original formula, and then there's Ultima: Ascension, which
> there's plenty of controversy over). There's also the people from the
> first-person shooter world trying to graft a plot onto Quake:
> Anachronox, Daikatana, Deus Ex.

"Graft"-ing is certainly the best word.  These are all still twitch games,
and the RPG (or adventure) element will be of the primitive "take item A
from location X to person B at location Y" variety.  Some of these are
being promoted to designers as having a "powerful behavior engine". Really
it isn't more than a geeky Object Oriented 3d engine, the "behaviors" were
easy to implement.  There are an overwhelming number of tools for
building 3D worlds, but very few good tools for building plot and
character interaction.  And that is what the industry thinks is of more
value to the current gaming audience.  To which I say: Bleh.

> Part of the mechanic driving this is that the game industry is
> hit-driven. 90% of the money is made by the top ten products of the
> year. Just about all the rest don't turn a profit. The industry is also
> strongly seasonal, partly because of the public companies now involved
> that must have pretty numbers at the end of fiscal quarters. This means
> that accepted wisdom is that making a product for a mature sophisticated
> audience isn't worth it: it will lose money. Everyone right now is
> chasing after the "casual gamer" who isn't really up for a mature
> sophisticated product (so goes the theory anyway). Hence the Deer Hunter
> and Frogger and You Don't Know Jack games. Which, it should be noted,
> are hitting top ten. (Deer Hunter was actually commissioned by WalMart,
> which knows its target audience a lot better than a computer game
> company does. They were dead-on, and everyone made big bucks.)

I didn't intend "mature" to be anything like "college educated, reads
Joyce in the bath".  (I wasn't really trying to talk about the audience;
my main concern is that there isn't much of a "game" in some games -
someone forgot to put in the fun.)  I heartily approve of things like Deer
Hunter and Strip Poker (which never seems to make the top 10 even though
it has been popular for over a decade).  If getting a consumer market to
purchase a computer or game console is what the market needs to sell games
- sophisticated or not - then all companies should be happy about Deer
Hunter.

Anyway, a mature game, in particular a mature RPG with a variety of play
strategies and ample rewards... not a priority for Eidos?  All they really
want is a game that won't run on a Pentium machine.

- Brandon