Play and Culture Paul Taylor 2010

Last Week Continued...

Rules of Gamer Communities...

#7 Make players Dependant on Each other (WoW?) If players can finish the game on their own, the incentive to team up is greatly diminished Be wary of drop outs and over-dependence (WoW) pg

#8 Manage your Community Community Gardening You are also gardening! Plant Seeds Grow Flowers Use Pesticide on Weeds! poster/0806/wow-addiction-demotivational- poster jpg

#9 Obligation and Commitment People generally feel bad when they commit to something and don’t do it. This effect drives WoW. Players are committed to their guild and will let the guild down if they miss a raid, loosing social status with their friends. The Pax guild attempts to overrule this inherent dependence in WoW mmunity%20Events/3/imgMed/Community_Events_- _SLC_Farmers__Market__2_.jpg

#10 Create Community Events No WoW Dance Parties Really NO! These form part of your interest curve Possible highlights in the interest curve! Possibly lowlights too (see above)

Weeding your Garden The weeds are the players who enjoy torturing other players. They are absorbed in their power over others, and use it to spoil their experience. Play Halo in the n00b servers to experience this Play Counter-Strike ounded.jpg

What types of garden do weeds grow in most easily? PvP Combat Stealing – Money, Inventory, Kills Trading – If players can misrepresent items the weeds will grow Obscenities – Fanboys are #1 at this – Smart filtering can remove heaps of chat abuse. – Voice communications are a lot trickier, these need to be policed and the weeds crippled in a fashion.

The Problems with Weeds... Path Blocking – Make doors over 2 players wide, or allow players to push each other around Loopholes & sploits – You need to watch for these and fix them as possible. The quicker you fix things the less damage the weeds will do. – If you run an MMO perhaps charge players based on server-CPU usage. This would only cost ridiculous players a heap (Gold Miners)

An IBM Patent (2009): _patent_applications_of_2009/

Back to Culture culture-clash.gif

mpster.jpg artoonists/haa/lowres/haan46l.jpg

Why does culture matter? Games are a representation of a world Our world is big mash up of culture

Space Representation & Game Culture Mark J. P. Wolf: Text A Single Screen – + Wrap-around Scrolling – Single Axis – Multiple Axis Adjacent Spaces Limited 3D Space (Rail-Shooters) Split Screen Full 3D Spaces

Common Types of Culture – John H. Bodley Cultures which form based on topics or categories e.g.: Social, Religious, Economy Topical

Mental Culture from a complex of ideas, and learned habits, which inhibit impulses and override natural behaviours

Historical This culture is known as tradition Y5qWO8bVFloM: cannon.jpg&t=1

Functional The culture formed from the way we sole the problems and conflicts of adapting to the environment and living together

Behavioural A shared, leaned behaviour A way of life

Structural A culture comprising of patterned and interrelated ideas, symbols, and ideas

Normative Culture formed on the ideals, values, and rules for living

Symbolic Culture based on arbitrary meanings that are shared by the group

Australia = Poor Taste Comedy /08/ / jackson-jive-on-hey- hey-it-039-s-saturday.jpg America = Public Outrage a3860a96650c603d76b9/connick_wideweb__ 470x279,0.jpg

Cultural Rhetorics Games can be reflective of values and beliefs Monopoly is a rhetoric of Capitalism

Types of Rhetoric (BS Smith) Play as Progress Play as a way of turning children into adults. (Growing people) – Educates – Develops

Types of Rhetoric Play as Fate – Destiny approach Play controlled by: – Fate – Gods – Atoms – Luck NOT free will

Types of Rhetoric Play as Power Play as a form of conflict Reinforces the status of those who control the play Creates heros

Types of Rhetoric Play as Identity Play confirms, maintains, or advances the identity of a community of players

Types of Rhetoric Play as the Imaginary Play based on – Imagination – Creativity – Flexibility Synonymous with innovation

Types of Rhetoric Play as a rhetoric of Self(player) Evolves self Experiences of – Pleasure – Relaxation – Escape Either through play itself or the aesthetic satisfaction of performance

Types of Rhetoric Play as Frivolity Oppositional Parodic Revolutionar y Opposes the ‘work ethic’ with play that is deemed as a useless activity

Wolves eat my Sheep! 252/alkarma11/Karma4/guinea_pig_calendar_01.jpg&t=1 39/1024x jpg

Game Design as a Culture LBP ittlebigplanet-used-to-create-1600-part- calculator-video.ars Where does the world of play stop? content/uploads/lbp4.jpg

Cultural Resistance (Viva La Résistance) Players who find the limits of your game’s context Jenny and Pimp Daddy (UO) Hot Coffee Mod Texture Patches (Tomb Raider, Doom, Quake,...,...) Gameplay Patches (HL2 NPCs, Doom Torches) guinea-pig.jpg

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Cultural Extension:- EpicWin content/uploads/2010/07/EpicWin.jpg content/uploads/2010/08/iPhone-to-do-list- RPG-game-Make-Your-Life-an-EPIC-WIN.jpg

Playtesting Games s/halo_3_ghost_town_heatmap.jpg Update/DeathsHeatmapValhallaBlack.jpg

Playtesting The Four types of testing you should know: Focus Groups – Research (To be effective they must be well run) QA Testing – Bug Hunting Usability Testing – Is your interface as intuitive as you believe? Playtesting – This is the BIG one for games, bringing people in to play your game and see if it engages and immerses players.

Playtesting Isn’t Fun You are inviting people to rip apart your game. After surviving your T-Rex and the Executivasaurus, your little baby idea was ready to walk, till a bunch of kids come in and rip it a new one.

Playtesting Is Important You are not perfect, and you will screw up sometimes. If your team doesn’t figure it out, then hopefully the playtesters will. If they don’t your mistake will be torn MUCH harder by the community, and consequentially your bosses! (Dikatana??) games1.jpg

Playtesting and Prototyping (Why Test) A Playtest is a prototype of your game experience The questions you ask your playtesters need to evaluate the experience There is no list of questions you must ask, by this stage, you’ll know what to ask :-s Another important aspect of Playtesting is finding out who is enjoying the game and who isn't!

Playtesting (Who) Your Developers Friends Expert Gamers Tissue Testers (Kleenex) – Fresh Meat – You can only use them once

Playtesting (Where) In your Studio In a Playtesting Lab In a public place At the playtester’s house Over the internet

Playtesting (What) How are you going to get players to answer your questions? Are you going to remove parts of the game irrelevant to the test? Watch for surprises, these could be your most valuable feedback (things you didn’t think of) what.jpg

What!!!!

Playtesting (How) With everything in place, you need to get your data Cameras One way mirrors Player faces Controller Inputs Surveys Interviews content/uploads/2006/09/WindowsLiveWriter /ProBloggersHowto.Contest_C6B3/how%20to %5B3%5D.gif /37%20How%20The%20F%20Did%20This%20 Happen.jpg

Experiences Transform People

Good Games Transform Players Are Games good for you? Yes No Kind-of

Positive Game Effect #1 Emotional Maintenance Games can control a players mood and emotional state They can make you happy Allow the player to vent anger / frustration Give the player space from the real world Build a persons confidence Relax and Unwind

Positive Game Effect #2 Connecting... Games can make it easy for people to connect – Remove some social boundaries speech for mute people Remove body image from conversations

Positive Game Effect #3 Exercise Yes Exercise No one can argue it. Games can give you a mental workout. Some games such as wii ARGs, and project natal promise level of physical exercise too

Positive Game Effect #4 Education, the terrible E word. My teachers never figured out that education and fun can happen at the same time. How does the format of a game compare to the format of a year at High School?

Can Your education be a game? Players Goals Achievements Time Limits Scores Feedback Challenges Bosses High Scores

Can Your education be a game? Players Goals Achievements Time Limits Scores Challenges Bosses High Scores Students Assignments Handing in Assignments Due Dates, Class Times Grades Assignments Exams ENTER Scores

Why not just games then? Time variations Pacing Oldies Development Quality vs. Time What have YOU learnt from games?

Positive Game Effect #5 Problem Solving All games teach this to an extent Just remember a game is a problem solving activity approached playfully Given the rise in gaming, how much better is our world going to get at problem solving?

Positive Game Effect #6 – New Insights You can experience events from different viewpoints and perspectives

Positive Game Effect #7 - Curiosity Curiosity is our natural learning ability. Games support this fantastically (Not as good as the internet, but sometimes a lot more fun) wright-computer-cat-demotivational-poster jpg

Negative Effects Violence exposure.jpg

Desensitization ke.jpg ntWorryImDesensitizedToViolence.jpg

Addiction Is self-destructive gaming new?

Experiences What do you do with bad experiences? Trash-Talking In the real world violence is a form of communication, typically a last resort 5D.png?imgmax=800 haunted/2007/ghostours/images/ghost-tours- of-saint-august.jpg

Responsibility g

Designers (you) have Responsibilities Lawyers will make your published game legal, but you must make it responsible Especially in games where players interact, you should have ways of dealing with excessive bullying ah3000/Responsibility.png

Legal Woes - Stage 1: bans.asp

Legal Woes – Stage 2: /blizzard-suing-creators-of-starcraft-ii-hacks/ “Blizzard are claiming that copying elements of the game into your computer’s RAM is copyright violation.”

The Hype Cycle

The Hype Cycle

The End: References Rules of Play TAOGD