Minmaxing Life

Extremely well dressed Nick Fortugno (of Diner Dash fame) gave a talk entitled “How to Innovate in the Land of Clones”, based on the starting point that there’s a crisis of cloning in the social games industry.

Why do we innovate ?

- Because First comers own their space. At least recognized first comers.
- Markets evolve as users get sophisticated and jaded.

Nick shows the evolution of game genres over time from 2003 on real Arcade.
By 2007, in only four years, all the dominants genre of 2003 were completely replaced by new genres that didn’t exist at the time.

When the games form becomes stagnant the audience moves. Which is why innovation is important for everybody.

Some advice for innovating:

- Point 1: Start from known places.
Example Luxor. When it came out Zuma and Ricochet where really popular. It took the two key mechanics of both games and combined them: a casual hit is born!

- Point 2: Be inspired by other game media
Example Plant vs Zombies. Start with a very successful game type (Desktop Tower defense) and bring it to the casual audience by making enemy movement simpler, making the end condition more comprehensible, make units more knowable, change narrative + polish, polish, polish.

- Point 3: build new mechanics around proven desires.
Example Restaurant City. Slow growth models (because they work) + restaurant are fun places + Pet Society + friends (like all Facebook games)

- Point 4: Go big or go home
…if you’re small and want to innovate. Anything easy to make is easy to steal. The big guys have much more money than you to market the game. Make something so far crazy that you’re going to be hard to catch up with. So do something hard that will be difficult to replicate : complex mechanics under the hood, high production values, Next level technology.

- Point 5: Don’t assume your audience is solved.
Example from movies: District9 , Paranormal activities…
The movie industry is older, has more money and know their audience better and they still get it wrong regularly. So don’t assume we know better in the games industry. Try things out: testing should be your guide.

Right after Nick, Kenny Shea Dinkin gave a fantastic talk which went way too fast for me to take notes other than the money quote: “Emotional connection breeds irrational loyalty”. Point well taken!

Started the day by going surfing with Jason and Mike, ended it sharing Intrige (one of my favorite board games).
This has got to be the best GDC kickoff ever! ^-^

The Art History of Games symposium’s days 2 and 3 were extremely interesting. Full of insightful and interesting commentary on games. It was really impossible to transcribe the talks with fidelity. So I didn’t try, just soaked it up and took the time to digest it all. Now that the dust has settled a bit in my mind, here’s what I’m left with:

- Just like nobody agrees on a universal definition of art, nobody can agree on a universal definition of games. But a lot of people pretend otherwise…

- On one side you have those arguing for “purity” as Jesper Juul would say. People focusing on the gameplay, the system, the rules. People who passionately believe the soul of games resides in their systemic heart, on the processing side, and that all the other elements attached to it are negligible, uninteresting fluff. Jason Rohrer is a good representative of people trying to define games this way (check out his latest manifesto in my previous post!), but really most of the indies fall in this camp. This explains why their games all look and sound like crap, stuck in 8 bit land (with the occasional exception): because to them it’s not interesting, it’s not what games are about. Fantastic gameplay, poor aesthetics. All substance, no form.

- On the other side you have people defending a formalist view of games. People mainly concerned about the aesthetics of games in a broad sense (visuals and sounds but also theme or story) and what happens there. Ideally, they would like to rid video games of their “gameness”, hoping to find something new if only they could manage to free them of the tyranny of rules. Tale of Tales (ToT) are the perfect representatives for this side of the argument. It’s a very minority view in the landscape but an interesting one as it’s the polar opposite of the first one. All about the form, not the substance.

- In the middle, you have the folks working on the big AAA blockbusters (or enjoying them) who don’t really seem to be questioning what they are doing: no deep reflection on substance (as to them it’s simply about entertainment) and mostly a “more is better” approach to form. Since that’s what has been working in the marketplace and raking in the money, it’s good enough for them.

- So all these people are coming up with definitions of games that fit their beliefs and they often aggressively attack people not working from the same set of assumptions. For proof, just look at the flack ToT or Jason are receiving from some quarters…

- There also seems to be a lot of confusion from everyone between two conversations: “what is a game” and “what tends to make a *good* game”.

- Of course both the “games as substance” and the “games as form” sides are wrong, or rather, they are both right. You cannot separate a game from its form: even something as abstract as “The Marriage” has a form (if only its title), and that form builds meaning for the player just like the system does. You also cannot separate a game from its rules, even if these rules are minimalistic or changing. And the interaction with those rules is really what makes games unique. However, the aesthetics are really what hooks most people in and what they respond to on an emotional level: by now one would think that the AAA industry has amply proven this point…

So in conclusion, I will argue that the focus of games should be the subjective experience they induce in the player and that many things contribute to that experience: the system *and* its form (which are inseparable), the player’s subjectivity, the (optional) other player’s actions, the context in which they approach the game…
Which is why I can’t agree with games being defined as objects excluding the player.
Which is why I can only come up with a very loose definition of games and I think that’s okay.

There’s a lot of dogmatism going around right now and we seem to be short on tolerance. Let’s just hope this situation reverts itself soon so we can go back to exploring the full range of what games could be. Peacefully and without prejudice.

I am at the Art History of Games (#AHoG on Twitter) symposium in Atlanta.

It all starts with Jason Rohrer handing me his “New Gamist Manifesto” February 3, 2010. It goes like this:

1- Games do not have spoilers.
2- Games cannot be finished.
3- Games do not have characters, except for the characters who play them.
4- Games do not have stories, except for the stories that players tell through them.
5-Playing a new game is less like reading a new story, hearing a new song, or seeing a new film.
6- Playing a new game is more like learning a new language.
7- Games are interfaces, not between minds and content, but between minds.

John Sharp, Ian Bogost, and Michael Nitsche then open the conference by asking a number of questions:

- Is the art of games found in the visual elements?
Colecovision, Boxing ; 2K Boston Bioshock ; Tale of Tales, The Path ; That Game Company, Flower

- Is the art of games in their worlds?
Otto Brückwald, Bayreuth Theater ; Square Enix, Final Fantasy IX ; Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto IV ; Valve, Counter Strike

- Is the art of games found in the creative exploitation of technology?
Id, Doom ; Julian Olivier ioq3apaint ; Natal ; David Crane, Grand Prix

- Is the art of games found in the game design?
Nintendo, Wii Sports Tennis ; NCAA basketball court specifications ; Jason Rohrer Gravitation ; Rod Humble, The Marriage

- Is the art of games found in player activity?
Namco, Pac-Man ; Ali-Frazier ; Robbie Cooper, “Gamer Faces” ; Ubisoft Montreal, Far Cry 2

Then they looked at the issues related to the historical response to games:

- How are games treated as historical artifacts?
Lewis Chess set ; Senet (the ancient egyptian game which no ones know how to play anymore) ; Katsushika Oi, Operating on Guanyu’s Arm

- How do Games as digital Artifacts fit into the traditional art world? (hint bad)
Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, Flywrench ; Brenda Brathwaite, Train ; The E.T / Superman cartridge graveyard

- What problems does the marketplace create for games as art?
Ian Bogost, Guru Meditation ; Cory Arcangel, Super Mario Clouds ; Mark Essen, The thrill of Combat ; Number None, Inc, Braid ; Jason Rohrer, Passage

John Romero’s then takes the stage for his talk: Masters Among Us (italics are mine)

“We unfortunately have only 10% of Mozart’s output. Imagine if Mozart was alive now and we could talk to him. In the games industry, our masters walk among us…

Nasir Gebelli: he was instrumental in Gorgon, Space Eggs and Phantoms Five. At the time, he had to keep the entire game in his head: no source code, written directly in assembly. The slowness of the machine dictated that you had to come up with a lots of tricks to make your games. Then he became the only programmer on Final Fantasy 1, 2 and 3 and then went on to make Secret of Mana. But now he’s gone, left the Games industry.

Bill Budge: originally he played around with early 3D programming but more importantly created pinball construction set in 1982. He now works at Sony in San Mateo and works mainly on tools.

Mark Turmell: Started on the Apple II, then to Atari 2600 than to Midway where he did NBA Jam, Total Carnage, and then created the franchise Ballers. Last year Midway went over after 30 years and Mark had worked there for 20.

But some of our legends and masters have already passed on:

Dan Bunten: The creator of M.U.L.E – which was the refinement of 3 of his earlier game.

James Nitchals: early Apple II programmer. Brilliant sound programmer Bug Attack and Micro Wave and Zany Golf. (I loved Zany Golf as a kid!)

Bill Williams: Great game designer that made games for synapse. Alley Cat, Necromancer, Pioneer Plague…

Gunpei Yokoi: Was the inspiration for Shigeru Miyamoto. The Game & Watch. The D-pad. His theory of design was that great games don’t have to come from the technology they have to come from the design. What have we learned from his philosophy? Farmville, Wii Fit…

Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson: creators of D&D in 1974

Sid Sackson: very prolific board game designer. Made Acquire! His family didn’t recognize his genius and auctioned all of his designs & prototypes. They belonged in museums but now they’re lost.

Then there’s the hardware.

The Atari 2600 was made for Combat & Pong. Originally it was made for nothing else. And from the little tweaks the engineers found, they built the foundations of the games industry.

The Apple II had to be programmed in assembly, it had a lot of limitation but people found ways to break through them.

Today’s designers are far more constrained now than we were 20 years ago because at the time we had complete access to the hardware. Not only did we have the wide open frame buffer but we had the arcades to show us so many design patterns. Dig Dug, Robotron, Pac man…

First there was an incredible diversity of design and then there was Genre-ification.
Wolfenstein, with its gun in front of the screen, was what ignited the FPS genre. Then Doom. Then everything caught fire and lots of clones where being made. Then Quake with full 3D and internet multiplayer. When Quake came out, it was like a nuke and suddenly everything was 3D. The entire game industry turned to 3D. So we created a genre but it became stifling. And that’s not just for FPS but also true for RPGs, MMOs, Tycoons, RTS… If you don’t have a design that fit the genres, it’s not going to get funded. Genre explodes and replicate: just like Farmville is exploding and replicating.

Another limitation we have now is APIs. APIs save you plenty of time because there’s lots you don’t have to do. But they also limit you in your expression. They come with their own limitations.

So Priority number 1 is to go back to the founders of our industry, talk to them and ask them where their ideas came from. Not just interviews but graduate student thesis. We need to go back to the beginning.

We are much more constrained today than we were before. By Technology, by genre-ification, etc… We need to go back to our masters who found ways to innovate and inspire us. Who tackled every subject. Who worried more about play than polygons. And we need to do it before this knowledge is lost.

We don’t want what happened to Mozart to happen to our masters.

My design decisions. When I think about them, I ask myself what would the masters decide? What would they do next?”

This past weekend, we once again did the Global Game Jam and I ran the Paris event with the help of my friends from the ISART video game school. In just a year, the GGJ has grown massively with 4349 jammers in 39 countries and 138 sites producing 927 games! We pulled our own weight in Paris, going from 11 participants last year to 40 this year who produced 7 games.

The global constraint was “Deception” to which I added “Seduction” for Paris as – in France – one never goes without the other! ;)

On top of this global constraint there was a time zone constraint. For GMT+1 it was: “Each game has to contain at least one of these items: a Key, a Monkey, or a Donkey.” All of which led to much perplexity from the jammers as evidenced by this sketch:

But in the end, after lots of pizza munching and coffe guzzling and not so much sleep, we got a batch of hilarious games involving princesses, donkey and monkeys (of course):

- Princess Kun Kun Pecho Pecho

A horny tiny prince in his tighty whities (don’t ask why…) wants to kiss all the princesses.But he must do so in the back of the other jealous princesses or they will turn into furious little donkeys and trample him!

- ^V><

You are a “space peasant” hidden among space princes trying to seduce the Monkey Princess. But you don’t know the right choreography for the love dance and need to guess it from watching the other princes dance. Watch for their mistakes and be the last space monkey standing!

- Parisian Moon Sheep

Up to four players race to the top of a stylized Paris to conquer the love of their She-sheep (moutonesse in french).

- Give Me Your Skin

A Ninja Princess seduces an army of ninja creatures (including monkey & donkeys of course) and steals their skin to make her way up to her prince’s throne room.

- ShiFuNanny’s Sausage

An old hag trying to take her donkey to the slaughterhouse. The donkey trying to reverse the situation. Use a sort of reflex ShiFuMi to decide the outcome…

- Meet Me at the Banana Disco

How to pick-up in a noisy environment. Get as many phone numbers as you can… and find out who exactly you’ve hit on! A great demonstration of how to create very diverse moods with little effort (but a lot of creativity).

- Kawaii Maximum Overkill

You’re the Devil. You hate the cute, fluffy, Kawaiis. Disguise yourself as one of their own to better seduce them and bring them in your deadly trap.

As expected this year’s GGJ was full of pressure, full of laughter and full of fun – as is clear from the event’s pictures… Games were made, friendships were tied and I can’t wait to do it all over again!

Last month I spent an extended weekend on the tiny island of Naoshima, in the Seto inland sea. Naoshima became a well known cultural spot in Japan after the Benesse corporation (owner of the Berlitz language schools) had Tadao Ando design and build two museums for contemporary art. I usually dislike museums because they feel more like mausoleums than anything else. However the Benesse House – as the first one is called – is an interesting place not just for the art it holds but because you can sleep there: the museum also serves as a small hotel. Art pieces are on display everywhere, from your bedside to the surrounding outdoors and even on the beach. Art becomes part of your messy life, as it should be – it isn’t sterilized and sanctified ready-for-worship. Getting out of your room late at night and wandering through the deserted museum is quite an experience! I would go so far as to say it completely changes your relation to the pieces. Now, if only they would let me sleep in le Louvre…

As always, Project Horseshoe was tons of fun.

This year was unusually special for me as I came in with a heavy heart: I felt the market pressures shaping long form social games posed an ethical dilemma, forcing me to face the possibility of having to exit the video game industry at some point. Fortunately, working with the smart people at PH got me thinking along different lines to the point where I can now imagine a different future. With some hope restored, how could I not indulge in a wacky game of “Chubby Bunny” (smack in the middle of a game of Citadelles)!

Thanks to everyone for sharing your collective optimism, letting me tap your brains and showing me all sorts of cool games. Special thanks to my fellow Armani Straitjackets for giving me reasons to believe. Super special thanks to Linda, Theresa and George for organizing such a kick ass event. See y’all next year, YEEE-HAW!

For some reason, Essen this year was a little lackluster. Hard to explain why, maybe it’s just me… I haven’t tried the 20+ games I brought back – so no qualified opinion yet – but at first glance there was a couple of standouts:

- Cyclades (by Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc) is to board games what AAA is to video games: amazing production values!

- Pony Express (by Bruno Faidutti and Antoine Bauza) is the second game out of Funforge, my friend Philippe Nouhra’s company. A fast and fun little game with lots of character.

Also, lots of buzz around Vlaada Chvátil’s  Dungeon Lords and, as usual, the latest Lamont brothers – Savannah Tails – looked super weird.

Le 27 juillet dernier j’ai reçu une invitation très formelle du Club Galilée pour le 21 septembre qui disait :

“Créé en 2006, le Club Galilée est un « Think Tank » européen regroupant plus de 300 professionnels de toutes générations et de tous médias, publics et privés, ainsi que des télécoms, qui propose une nouvelle approche indépendante et ouverte des enjeux de ce secteur d’activités. Il est hébergé par le Centre d’Analyse Stratégique, ex Commissariat Général au Plan. La présentation que vous pourriez nous proposer devrait durer une dizaine de minutes, et vous permettre de nous donner votre point de vue sur les évolutions actuelles et futures des contenus spécifiques conçus au croisement de l’audiovisuel, du jeu vidéo et d’Internet. Elle sera l’occasion pour vous de nous présenter votre jeu Soul Bubbles.”

Voici donc mon intervention de lundi soir  (merci à Tatiana pour la vidéo !) :

J’étais accompagné de Nicolas Gaume et Eric Viennot qui ont enchaîné avec des démonstrations de leurs nouveaux (et très impressionnants) projets.

How do you say Soul Bubbles in Japanese?

Awatama, of course!

Thanks to all the good people at Interchannel who truly did an amazing job publishing Soul Bubbles in Japan. The booklet is gorgeous and the box art is great (not just from comparing with the awful western version!). We changed the main character because the western one didn’t quite cut it for the locals (something I had personally observed many times). Apparently baldness is un-kawaii or something. (^-^)

Needless to say, after being raised on Japanese video games, I feel incredibly honored and proud to have our little bubbles floating around in Nintendo land.