CSCE 590E Spring 2007 Understand Games By Jijun Tang

Announcements We will meet in 1D11 on Wednesday, 4:00pm I will go through basic Visual C++ programming to create a skeleton mine sweeper game Finalize your group this week Slides will be posted on class web site Age <=17 please leave

Homework Due Today Type in word, print it and turn it in Question 1: List some games you have played, briefly describe them (or providing screen shots) and catalog each Question 2: Compare Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360, using public available data (price, RAM, architecture, features, etc)

Types Adventure (text-based/graphical) Action (shooting, combat sim)  First-person shooting  Combat sim  Action adventure  Fighting  Real-time strategy (RTS) Role Playing Game (RPG) Simulation Racing Sports Rhythm Puzzle Education

Languages Assembly C/C++ VB Java Flash Script

Types of Players (from wiki) Casual gamer: A person who enjoys playing games with simple rules or which do not require large blocks of time to play, may even not consider him/herself as a gamer Hardcore gamer: spends much of their leisure time playing games.  Competitive gamer: plays games for the enjoyment of competing with other players.  Retrogamer: enjoys playing or collecting vintage video games from earlier eras.  Glitcher: enjoys finding flaws in a game or finding ways to exploit unintentional features. Professional Gamer: plays games for money  Game tournament  Receive prizes  Cyberathlete Professional League

E-Sports

ESA Entertainment Software Association Facts: $7-billion software sale in US, more than doubled from % age 50+ play video game 87% <18 seek permission from parents

Sales From ESA

Windows Game Market $695M 1995 $2.0B $2.35B 2004 Sources: NPD Data, DFC Intelligence and Themis Group $6.86B 2009 $2.3B Worldwide Retail Revenue Worldwide Online Revenue WW retail revenues for Windows games tripled in a decade The online Windows gaming market has exploded Projections put total WW Windows games revenue over $9B in 2009 From Microsoft Conference on Game

Comparison Ave. age: 29 Game buyer: 36 Women: 39% Online: 22% Women online: 40% All American: 50% Ave. age: 33 (12+) Game buyer: 40 Women: 38% Online: 44% Women online: 42% Head of household: 67% ~ hrs/week

Who and what Who creates games for female? Female heroes in games? From ESA

Platform info For Computer Gamers...  30% of most frequent game players are <18  26% of most frequent game players are  44% of most frequent game players are >35 For Console Gamers...  40% of most frequent game players are <18  35% of most frequent game players are  25% of most frequent game players are >35

Genre info From ESA

Online game From ESA

How to Interpret the Data Pro-data:  Do as data suggests  Why: the failure of targeting pre-teen female market Anti-data:  Explore un-charted territory  Target older audience on Xbox?  Real Time Strategy on Xbox?  Shooting game for moms?

ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board Self-regulated rating board From ESA

Why Rating? Example: Conker Animated Violence, Mature Sexual Themes, Strong Language Age 17+ Seven different worlds with 60+ sub- chapters to explore Massive multiplayer mode Easy to confuse parents and buy for young kids

Conker Screens

New Conker on Xbox

Controversial Games (photos removed) Sega’s Night Trap (1992)

DOOM School shooting----Doom?

Flight Simulator

Flight Simulator Again

Grand Theft Auto Teaching how to hi-jack?

Hot Coffee Mod Hidden sexual mini-game in Grand Auto Theft San Andreas Can be unlocked by changing one bit in the main.scm file Who created the scene? Senator Clinton suggested new regulations Re-rating and recall, lost $300M, numerous lawsuits. Who’s responsibility? Rockstar? Modifier? End users?

The Mini-Game (photo removed)

Game and Violence Study from National Institute on Media and the Family Concerns  Children are more likely to imitate the actions of a character with whom they identify. In violent video games the player is often required to take the point of view of the shooter or perpetrator.  Video games by their very nature require active participation rather than passive observation.  Repetition increases learning. Video games involve a great deal of repetition. If the games are violent, then the effect is a behavioral rehearsal for violent activity.  Rewards increase learning, and video games are based on a reward system.

Concerns Warranted? Exposure to violent games increases physiological arousal Exposure to violent games increases aggressive thoughts Exposure to violent games increases aggressive emotions Exposure to violent games increases aggressive actions Exposure to violent games decreases positive prosocial (i.e., helping) actions

Results on 9 th Grader By David Walsh

Culture Issues Culture acceptance is hard to predict Stereotypes  may backfire  but also may pay-off, should we avoid? Foreign policies  Try to understand other cultures  Have some sensitivities Culture acceptance is hard to predict

Requirements of Our Projects We will mimic ESRB and rate your games Vote from the class Please do some research about your games: culture issue, violence? IP? Avoid controversies

MMORPG Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game World of Warcraft (8M worldwide, 2M North America, 1.5M Europe, 3.5M China) NavyField MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) Counter Strike: online first person shooter game (>200K simultaneously) EverQuest Second Life (virtual world)

Examples

Society Issues with Online Games Improve society and provide fun Some people make a living through adding stuff to online games Bad things can happen  Play too much, mess real life or cannot separate real from virtual  Security problems, cheating, hacking Deindividuation In-game regulatory tools

What is a game A game is a form of art in which participants, called players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal. (Greg Costikyan) A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. (Salen and Zimmerman)

Game Design Early game design practices resemble the authoring of folk tales:  The game elements and rules evolve over time by the effort of countless nameless “ designers ” Game design has developed towards systematic practices, games designed on purpose Craft vs. Design  Characteristics of a craft product: combination of the methods and materials available as well as the situations in which the product has been used over a longer period of time  Characteristics of a designed product: the result of a trying to reach a design goal by using methods and materials available From The Book’s slides

Factors (Crawford) Crawford: The Art of Computer Game Design (1984) Identifies four common factors between all games:  Representation  Interaction  Conflict  Safety

Features (Costikyan) “ I Have No Words & I Must Design ” (1994) Identifies design choices that have to be made when games are designed And the main features necessary for games:  Decision making  Goals  Opposition  Managing resources  Game tokens  Information

MDA (Hunicke, LeBlanc, Zubek ) Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics Three main components:  Mechanics that describe the parts of a game at the level of data representation and algorithms  Dynamics that describe the run-time behavior of the game  Aesthetics that describe desirable emotional responses evoked in the player during gameplay Sensation, game as sensory pleasure Fantasy, game as make-believe Narrative, game as drama Challenge, game as obstacle course Fellowship, game as social framework Discovery, game as uncharted territory Expression, game as self-discovery Submission, game as pastime Provide a framework to span game design, development, game criticism and research

400 Projects (Rules) The rules consist of five parts  An imperative statement of the rule  A description of the domain of the rule  Rules which take precedence over the rule  Rules that the rule takes precedence over  A description of examples and counter- examples The rules are meant to be tools which can be used in different phases of the design process

Areas and Challeges (Adams, Rollings) Three different areas  Core mechanics  Interactivity  Storytelling  Narrative Categorizing different types of challenges:  Pure challanges (logic and inference, lateral- thinking, memory, intelligence-based, knowledge-based, pattern-recognition, etc.)  Applied challenges (races, puzzles, exploration, conflict, economies and conceptual challenges)

Basic Elements (Game Design Workshop) Identify eight basic formal elements:  Players  Objective  Procedures  Rules  Resources  Conflicts  Boundaries  Outcomes The design method is to use the formal elements to describe the current design and make sure that all aspects of a game design are taken into consideration