What keeps us coming back for more?
Earlier in the year, an article appeared in Game Developer’s Magazine entitled Staying Power: Rethinking Feedback to Keep Players in the Game by Bruce Phillips, Microsoft Game Studios research expert. The article was reprinted on Gamastura and is available here. The article was primarily directed at single player and multiplayer games, but author Bruce Phillips presents some interesting lessons that can serve as the starting point for change in mmo game mechanics. The focus was on two areas: feedback given to the player upon failure of some task, and goals met by a gamer – the second of the two being the more relevant in the case of mmos. As the author points out, early on in the article:
“Most games are challenging by design. Winning every time isn’t fun, but neither is losing…the goal is to strike the right balance between difficulty and playability, thereby always keeping the player within arm’s reach of a new achievement.” – Bruce Phillips
We all expect that initial influx of players that first month of “free play” since more than a few players seem willing to view the cost of the game as the price of playing with the newest toy on the shelf. The problem is not only retention of an annuity but the fact that, as was pointed out, if someone quits the gamer also has become a “detractor.” To put it in other words, someone who has a good experience is likely to tell a few people but someone who has a bad experience (even just a perceived one) will shout it from the roof tops.
One of the more interesting points that was made was where author points out that “most designers spend very little, if any, time considering what the player experience should be in the 10 seconds between a failure event and when the play resumes. This is an area where mmo gamers have it a bit better than console players; after all, when we die in a game we don’t get the degrading “game over” message. When a task is failed, such as a wipe in a raid, it is usually a matter of simply running back to your body as a ghost, or respawning someplace else. Never having played Team Fortress 2, I was unaware that when a player dies, the game points out how you did relative to previous attempts. It seems that implementing such a system in an mmo would be a monumental task to say the least. The reasoning behind it is sound however, and that being given as players who believe that success is merely a matter of “learning the ropes” are more likely to continue playing than those who believe failure a matter of a lack of their innate ability.
Where the article is the most thought provoking is when it discusses performance goals versus learning goals. This all works, of course, toward the same points we discussed earlier in “Endgame”. There are, of course, many external factors that work toward driving away potential long term players…lack of “replayability” for instance. Aion online is likely to have this problem down the road as both their starting areas are very much alike, as are both paths to the “pvp level” (level 25). Some factors are simply beyond the control of the developers – there is little anyone can do about a game that becomes an “asshat” magnet.
Considering what Mr. Phillips has to say it leaves me wondering what would happen if that end game carrot that was dangled in front of us all was not some performance orientated goal. What if the goal were not simply being able to get the best mount, or the flashiest armor? What if, instead, the goals were learning goals?
“While performance goals focus on ability, learning goals focus on effort. It’s not so much about doing as it is about trying. Improvement and progress toward the goal is as important as the success.” – Bruce Phillips.
What if those same developers, who busily accumulate data on the players, used some of it to tell players how they have improved at playing the game? What if, after some defeat in a raid or battleground the system told the player how much they have improved and how they could improve still further? If CCP, for example, had taken this approach to the “missions” that players run in pve I might still be playing the game. There are, of course, a myriad of reasons to be accounted for when trying to retain players. I have to agree with Mr. Phillips that these two areas are too often overlooked.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
They WILL take a parsec!
Give a bureaucrat an inch and they will take a parsec. The FCC has released a “notice of inquiry” seeking comments “to discuss whether the Commission has the statutory authority to take any proposed actions and whether those actions would be consistent with the First Amendment.” Let the FCC get their grubby little mits on game content and they will have their fingers in the ESRB faster than you can say “Left 4 dead 2 still won’t get a rating” (which authorities in Australia’s Office of Film and Literature Classification board has refused to do). Give a bureaucrat a chance to regulate game content and all you will see when they are finished is “My Little Pony Online”.