Game Design Crisis (II)

Computer games have already proved to be very successful with more abstract titles. They have come in the forms of Tetris, Bejewled, Zuma (ant the other Pop-cap games), Gish, etc.

These are much smaller games keeping them in the scope of very small teams. They are also of a size, complexity and price point that they do not warrent shelf space at EB. They thrive on the net however.

I think one of the biggest limiters will always be the market that exists for games of this type. Joe Public wants simulation based computer games (Halo, and Madden), just as he wants roll and move board games (Monopoly). The biggest obstacle is education and mindshare.

Here's my prediction:

I think we will see some true innovation in computer gaming in the coming years. Just as Tetris was Gameboy's killer app I think we will see something huge on the new generation of handheld platforms. It will leverage their wireless networking capability, and be an adictive train or bus ride distraction that network strangers in drop-in drop-out fluid local network.

A computer has the advantage of having memory and a processor. So you could make a board game on a computer with many informations rembered in memory except of usingtokens and allows the computer to make the calculations instead of using dices and tables.

For example, if you take sole old KOEI strategy game on PC and console ( Ex: romance of the 3 kingdom), it works like a board game but you cannot remeber how much food, gold, soldiers each province has and where are all the generals. Another example, Conflict or advance war is a table top type game. But trying to remeber the fuel of each unit in a board game is impossible. So a video game can lead to an enhanced board game which could work. Now, all koei games are semi-action strategy games ( ex: kessen, dynasty warriors ) since the new generation of gamers does not want the old style anymore.

The problems is that the public does not want this because the market can offer more that this. They want impressive, beautifull, and sensassional games. The problem is that there is simply no way to make competition with an video board game. You cannot even make competition on the price since the video game price are already too much low. If for example, an electronic board game was sold around 20-30$ and and a video game around 80$-100$, well the client could say, "I`ll buy a non-transgressive game for one third of the price".

The multi player things is another problem. Board games allows the player to have some social interactions. In Video game, there is some social interaction if you play in the same room ( ex: mario party ) but as soon as you get on the internet, it`s you and the computer. The only difference is that there is a human instead of an AI. Still the social interaction is not the same.

Another idea that comes into my mind is the play time. Todays video game have an enormous play time.

In the old game, you could play a game for 1/2 an hour to 2 hour and then do something else. If allowed you to fill easily a 1 hour hole in your schedule.

Now, most video games requires at least 30 to 50 hours of game plays. There is no quick game anymore except for sports game or other specific type of games. If you do not design a video game that does not actually have this play time, well the critics will argue that your game does not worth it`s money.

But some times, you do not want to start a long quest or continue a long quest. You just want to shoot some people for a certain time and that`s it. So I think that people takes more time to play video games these days simply because the designers makes the game longer.

Board games are generally always short, and replaying the same game is always interesting. While most video games are played only once and then put them to the garbage and play something else.