[MUD-Dev] SOC: MUD-Dev, Developers, and DGN: Reasons for play, blah-bity-blah-bity-blah...

[Michael Sellers]

Jaycen Rigger wrote:

> I'm certainly not picking on Sean, Damien, or Mike.  All of you
> have made excellent points and counter points and I really like
> most of what you three guys have to say, especially when you
> disagree with each other;-)

> In particular, my appologies to Mike, up front, as I'll be quoting
> him - though many of you guys tend to make the same points from
> time to time.

No problem, Jaycen. :)

>> Single-point anecdote explains nothing.  Look at the population;
>> look at what they buy.  You can't generalize from what one person
>> likes.

> You MUST generalize from what one person likes....otherwise, where
> would any ideas begin?  One person had to like "something" before
> another person could figure out that, "hey, maybe more people like
> that something and will pay me to provide it".

You're confusing two parts of the process.  Seeing an interesting
event or having an idea that *might* work is the first part.  But
just because my wife likes a certain kind of game may or may not
indicate anything at all in the larger population.  You have to look
at trends in what people are buying and not buying, and what you can
figure out about their motivations.

Not that this is an exact science.  There's a saying I'm fond of
from the medical field. Doctors are told to "listen to what your
patient is telling you, listen to what they're not telling you, and
listen to what they *can't* tell you." The same holds true for
looking at demographic trends for commercial products.  Once you
think you've spotted what might be a trend or gap worth exploring,
then individual stories can illustrate that -- but they are all but
useless for actually defining these.  You inevitably end up having
to reason inductively from a sample, but samples of 1 are among the
most dangerous.

In many user-centered design efforts, user anecdotes are bundled
together into 'personas' -- e.g., the hapless newbie or the old
hand.  Taken by themselves they don't define anything, but in the
aggregate (once you have aggregate info to draw from) they can be
useful touchstones.

> ...  His reluctance has nothing to do with image, and everything
> to do with just being "old and out of the loop" when it comes to
> "doing that on-line stuff".  That's a technology/confidence
> problem, not a game-image problem.

I think those are two different ways of looking at the same thing.
"Image issues" with game span the activities in the games
themselves, hardware issues (perceived or real), user interface
intimidation, peer-views (do my friends do this?), and cultural
issues of whether this kind of activity is seen as a valid use of
time.

That a game may involve bloodily killing others is likely to add to
these other issues, but all of them are operative.

>> Frankly, that you don't seem to see the significance of the
>> gender issue here is an exemplar of the blindness endemic in many
>> game developers.

> This is a personal pet-peeve.  As my high-school German teacher
> always said, "Words have gender, people have sex."  See?  It's
> very easy to remember.

Very easy, pedantic, and wrong.  In English anyway.  Gender is often
used interchangeably or preferentially to terms like sex or sexual
identity.  You may disagree, but there is a large corpus of "Gender
Studies" literature that has nothing to do with linguistics.  When
speaking of differences between men and women, we don't often talk
about "sex-based differences" unless specifically speaking of
physical, biological differences.  When talking about psychological
or cultural differences, it's more common to talk about gender
differences and gender issues.

>> It couldn't possibly be because our games are made by, for, and
>> with a young white unmarried male world view, could it?

> SUPER big pet-peeve of mine.  Please explain what my world view
> is, since you seem to have the handle on it?  I'm married though,
> so does my world view differ significantly from unmarried, white
> males?  When people who use phraseology such as that speak, they
> sound sexist, racist, and socialist.

The games industry is overwhelmingly populated by young (under-30,
though we are aging), white, unmarried men from middle- to
upper-middle-class backgrounds.  This is reflected in how we depict
women, race (how many non-white heros are there?), relationships,
sexuality, violence, economics, and a host of other areas.  Consider
how often women are portrayed in skin-tight V-crotch outfits,
vs. men being portrayed along the lines of SNL's "ambiguously gay
duo."  The make-up of the industry is further reflected in the
*kinds* of ideas we represent: commercial games tend toward muscled,
lone heroes focused on a narrowly defined task; large faceless
armies or small elite groups; direct often aggressive conflict
definition and resolution; overt task- and economic basis for
action, etc.  Underplayed are nuanced interpersonal relationships,
women valued for their views and intelligence over their physical
figure, issues or gameplay related to personal growth or the family,
indirect or non-acquisitive conflict, and non-violent problem
definition or resolution.  There are exceptions, but this is pretty
clearly the overall direction of the games industry.

I know that some will shrug and say, "that's just the way it is" or
"that's what's fun."  And that's my point: that's what's fun for
those who come from a particular demographic background, and who are
largely selling to others from a similar background.

Earlier I referenced Nisbett's "The Geography of Thought," which
describes in some detail how Westerners and Asians literally think
differently in many ways.  The same holds true for men and women in
Western culture, though the differences occur within the same
cultural context.  Again, there are always exceptions, but these
don't eliminate the real differences between the sexes or between
cultures.

>> I wasn't aware we were in the business of creating gamers.

> In fact, I'm quite sure you are aware, Mike.  You DON'T want more
> people to start playing games?  I thought that was the sole
> purpose of the corporate angle on gaming.  The more people who
> game, the more money your companies make.  If your companies
> AREN'T in the business of drawing in more clients, then they ought
> to be.

It's a difference in philosophy.  You can try to get more people to
buy the product you're making ("creating more gamers") or you can
make products that more people will want to buy ("creating different
games").

For several years I worked in user-centered design.  The same
divergence in philosophy occurred there: product developers wanted
to educate people on why they should use some new product.  We tried
to get devs to create products that people would actually want to
use instead, and it was often an uphill battle (this divergence can
be found in diverse product areas including personal copiers, CT
scanners, mouse design, and mechanical CAD systems, in my experience
-- and I'm sure in many others).

>> Drive the game to the people, don't try to make the people
>> conform to the game.

> See what I mean?  "Don't label me, man."

You don't seem to want to acknowledge that people do have
discernable motivations, desires, and anxieties about adopting a new
product, and that these can be grouped in various significant ways.
Dismiss it as hippie-talk if you want, it doesn't change anything.
But this lack of understanding contributes heavily to why we as an
industry have such a difficult time growing our market.

Mike Sellers
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