An article I found, and by found I mean was on the front page of Kotaku.
It basically talks about how "loot" and "unlockables" are used as incentives and make a game "better".
[quote]Initially, what motivates people to play a game is novelty. Story, gameplay, or even visuals seem novel the first time the player encounters them. Discovering new things in the game, experimenting, seeing new locales and seeing the continuation of the game’s story are all motivators for the average gamer.
If we lived in a developer’s paradise, these factors would endlessly motivate gamers. Unfortunately, we don’t, and so they do not. After a while, the novelty starts to wear off, the beautiful visuals peel away, and the gamer is left with the core game.
For the majority of gamers, once the novelty is gone, they move on. To keep players interested, rewards are required. Depending on the game, rewards can be different: unlockable characters, new levels, or new items. While most action games don’t utilize loot theory to its fullest, RPGs have been doing just that for years.
[URL]http://hdrlying.com/2008/09/03/loot-theory-the-tale-of-the-donkey-and-the-carrot/[/URL]
Frankly, this is the most retarded and poisonous thing I've ever read on game design, it's sickening that so many game designers actually think like this. It's not game design, it's increasing your kleptomania by unfairly prodding that part of your brain that makes you want more stuff, regardless of whether you're actually having fun or not.
Hell, the analogy should be obvious enough, the carrot and stick analogy describes how to persuade a donkey to do something he otherwise wouldn't want to do.
You mean like doing pointless things for Achievements? It doesn't bother me. I'm a rational person and I know doing collecting-whatever things are optional.
I only do it for the payout. Most games give you a reward for doing everything 100%.
It's more like making the game about these artificial rewards. It's not really like achievements, it's like how WoW makes you wade through s[COLOR=lightgreen]h[/COLOR]it for higher numbers and a new graphic and tells you to your face that it's a "reward".
Man, I dunno why anyone would play WoW for PVP. It's like an insanely mediocre , unbalanced action game combined with calculus and grinding. Might as well play something else teambased...
...like Team Fortress 2!
Team Fortress 2 was awesome. We should create a DA team. Dibs on the Medic!
But the "loot theory" works best in RPG's and fighting games and the like, I'd say.
Loot makes a good game better as a kind of track holder, as in to see how far you progressed, but it does jack **** to a game that isn't fun. At that point, if the game isn't fun, I'm all to aware of my time early on and would want to quit immediately before getting too involved of trying to unlock/collect/raise something in a ****ty game. Any game designers that start off with "well, you'll be collecting ****" as their first premise should die.
Iron Koala said what I had in mind. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having rewards that entice the Player to keep playing, but the key is to have whatever the Player does to obtain such rewards be rewarding in itself.
If the game is fun, then is that a reward in itself? Yes. However, if the game is fun and if the Player gets rewards (items, levels, etc.) periodically? Even better.
("Kelptomania"? Too much abdn reading?)
I can usually tell the difference between when collection/achievements in games are fun and when they're a chore. And even if something like that makes me spend more time on a relatively bad game, who cares? I still paid the same amount for it, and I still can say it was a relatively bad game.
For MMORPG's, well, that's a different story because they're making it even more of a time sink than it already is when they're making money for every month you're still playing. FFXI is a fair amount better about it than WoW, which is why I prefer it... still not perfect, but in my case, it's hard to complain when your mom insists on paying your subscription!
EDIT - the final thing I intended to say and somehow got too distracted to spit out is that giving real direction to a game, such as with an engaging story mode that's both long and fulfilling, is greatly preferred, but achievements are forgivable. They won't ruin a game (hell, I suppose they might even rescue a rushed or delayed project), and they won't save it if the gameplay sucks anyway.
If you ask me, Dead Rising did a pretty good job when it came to rewarding people. Now, Saint and Zombie Genocider might've been a tad bit frustrating/long, respectively, but still!
[quote=Big Boss;883154][FONT=trebuchet ms][COLOR=yellowgreen] ("Kelptomania"? Too much abdn reading?)[/COLOR][/FONT]
I've always been bothered by certain games causing that itch in the back of my brain that makes me want to dig a hole in every tile in Zelda or investigate every trashcan in an RPG, kleptomania is a great way of putting it so I'm adopting it.
I seriously question how much of a reward something is when it's literally just a thing there for the sole purpose of being a reward. For example, WoW will make you do a terrifying, almost insulting amount of work for an in-game object that is nothing more than a new graphic and a higher number. Ikaruga is a game that rewards you from practicing, practice enough in the normal mode and you might reach the second level, which unlocks the second level in the level select. This allows you to skip the first level and practise on the second, so you might reach the third level in a normal game.
The difference being that the Ikaruga reward is a symbol of having gotten better, and you are rewarded with an oppertunity to get even better still. In WoW the reward is a symbol of having done work, it is hollow and you do not get to bite the carrot. As soon as you receive it it disappears and another appears even further away. The next oppertunity is, for the most part, an oppertunity to do more work.
This has bizarre consequences, WoW is full of players who literally play JUST for the artificial reward because the game is telling them that's what they are playing for. So when it comes to learning how to best use a new technique, figuring out a new spec or learning the boss strategies these players will just use a walkthrough. For them the game becomes an obstacle between them and their bigger number rather than the sole purpose for playing.
The major problem I have with that is the disasterous conequences it has, it imposes obsessive compulsive disorder upon people. At best it will become your number one topic of conversation all the time (speaking from first and second hand experience here), at it's worst it causes certain people to get so obsessed that they neglect their kids because they're playing so much. Sure we hear about awful consequences of video games all the time and don't pay them any mind, but what was the last game you heard about people getting so into that it causes that kind of neglect? I really can't believe it's because the game is just that fun.
I honestly don't see the problem. If people enjoy looking through every trashcan then there you go. But usually all these things are completely optional. They don't have to collect it and they're not forced to. Good example would be Call of Duty 4 and the prestige levels. They do nothing but give you a new icon, and personally I don't bother with that stuff. But some people honestly enjoy leveling up to prestige 10 even though there's no benefit. Nothing wrong with that as long as you're given the choice and have fun. That's what games are all about!
I mean, personally, I try and collect everything if given the choice. Why? Because I enjoy it. I don't see it as persuading me to do something I wouldn't want to do, but rather something I wouldn't do otherwise. In Orange Box I wouldn't bother carrying a gnome from beginning to end if I didn't get a little graphic pop-up, but I did it and I had fun, even if the reward was incredibly minimal for the amount of time I put it.
There's nothing wrong with it, nothing sickening or unfair. I can't remember ever doing something in a game I didn't want to do unless the story forced me to do it. It's when you're forced it becomes horribly lame. Example? Wind Waker and having to collect all the triforce pieces. I can't recall anyone honestly enjoying that, and I know I didn't, because I was forced which is completely different that collectibles like heart pieces which were insanely fun for me to collect in every Zelda title. It's the distinction that's key, forced and unforced, and loot in general is a choice. Thus, nothing reprehensible about it.
Oh, and don't forget that life in general is based on rewards. Incentives drive us as a people, so why should it be any different for games?
[quote=Speedfreak;883212]
The major problem I have with that is the disasterous conequences it has, it imposes obsessive compulsive disorder upon people. At best it will become your number one topic of conversation all the time (speaking from first and second hand experience here), at it's worst it causes certain people to get so obsessed that they neglect their kids because they're playing so much. Sure we hear about awful consequences of video games all the time and don't pay them any mind, but what was the last game you heard about people getting so into that it causes that kind of neglect? I really can't believe it's because the game is just that fun.
What you see as fun isn't what's fun for everyone.
It's called competition, and for some people getting the higher number is incredibly important so that they can shove it in the faces of other people.
It's called false productivity, where a person wants to pretend they're doing something with their free time.
It's not because all of the people that play WoW or other games with supposedly ****ty incentives are slaves to bad game design (Lol good one), it's other **** in their lives. It has to be, because clearly a lot of people know a ****ty game when they see it even with loot incentives.
And I'll be ****ed to blame Video games for ****ty parenting, or for people just wasting their lives on online games. People neglect their lives because they don't take responsibility to get **** done, or are too cheap to pay 15 bucks for a month without playing.
They fixed that though. Turns out people don't like that ****. WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT
:eek:
But do you realize how many man hours Square saved by using that fix? It probably took 20 freaking minutes to put in, leaving plenty of staff to keep working on Final Fantasy 14, 15, and 16. BUSINESS GENIUS!!!
I dunno guys. Banjo-Kazooie was hella fun, and its entire premise was about hoarding jigsaw pieces, musical notes, magic creatures and silver skulls.
too much collecting.
Funny, when Donkey Kong 64 came out, a game that had a focus on collecting crap more than any other game in existance, people suddenly noticed how annoying it was. I just don't believe it's a sliding scale, I think it's a question of how much you're willing to tolerate. I believe the way you finish a level in Super Mario Bros 1, 2, 3, World, Yoshi's Island etc is inherently better than collecting shiny objects in Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy.
[quote=Iron Koala;883360]What you see as fun isn't what's fun for everyone.
It's called competition, and for some people getting the higher number is incredibly important so that they can shove it in the faces of other people.
It's called false productivity, where a person wants to pretend they're doing something with their free time.
It's not because all of the people that play WoW or other games with supposedly ****ty incentives are slaves to bad game design (Lol good one), it's other **** in their lives. It has to be, because clearly a lot of people know a ****ty game when they see it even with loot incentives.
And I'll be ****ed to blame Video games for ****ty parenting, or for people just wasting their lives on online games. People neglect their lives because they don't take responsibility to get **** done, or are too cheap to pay 15 bucks for a month without playing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying WoW is an unstoppable force of evil. I just think it's kind of telling that you never hear about this kind of behaviour with any other kind of game. Obviously people should take responsibility for their actions, I'm just using those extreme circumstances as evidence for what's happening in a more subtle way inside the brains of most of the players (again, speaking from first and second hand experience). It's psychological manipulation VS psychological stimulation.
What I don't get is this article, which states that more games should have this brain-itching hoard mechanic. If your game can't sustain your player's attention on it's own then maybe it's just not interesting enough. If your game can hold them for scores of hours on its own...maybe you're just demanding far too much attention from them. It's a band aid for a problem that isn't really even a problem.
You're reading too much into this. Just play games and play them how you want. That's all there is to it. :/
Some people are crazy about numbers and collections, but most people aren't and those are the only ones that matter.
What's to read into? It's a fairly simple arguement. He's suggesting that more games have artificial rewards in order to keep players playing it for longer. I'm saying that the reason that it keeps them playing is rather less savoury than the natural reason to keep playing.
Some people don't realise they're being manipulated, some people fully realise it and keep doing it anyway. I'm not going to explain away their bizarre behaviour, but should I ever get the oppertunity to design anything in a commercial video game I sure as hell won't have it on my conscience.
Collection rewards are often easier to implement, aren't they? I don't think designers are at fault for wanting to increase the level of impact ("longevity") it has on people. Some people will play a "six-hour" game in just that time (apparently Dead Rising is one of those "six-hour" games, which is complete BULL****), and others will play it for a hell of a lot longer just because there is more to do in the world that the gamer played through and liked. Those crappy rewards are part of the game that the player actively seeks out. Anyone who does it because they are compelled to do so because of a disorder have more problems than worrying about collecting things in a video game. The argument that people are "trained" to do so is really reading into things, because if you've ever played a video game you know that in order to progress to the "highest level" or to "beat the boss" with the greatest of ease, you need to "get everything" and "unlock stuff" by smashing every stupid pot and cutting down every bush. I don't go around looking for **** if I don't need it, in real life or in video games. That argument applies to idiots.
I was going to comment on Banjo Kazooie/DK64/etc earlier in the thread, but I didn't since the thread's more about collecting/hoarding/etc as a reward, and not a necessity.
That being said, I totally agree that it's a great idea to throw in all kinds of collectible crap that one can get after beating the game. Personally? I don't do it that much, but I love when it's there. I seriously haven't gotten 100% in any Zelda game, despite me being the biggest fan of it I've ever met (In real life, at least). Why? Because there comes a point where I'm done with the game, where I've been satisfied enough to move onto the next. With titles such as Majora's Mask, I'll play it, beat the main quest, get a bunch of crap afterwards, but I'll pretty much always stop before getting everything. Had the game not had things afterwards to collect, Id've been disappointed from the lack thereof. Had it had too much, who cares? I could play it for years to come.
But then, there's a title like Donkey Kong 64. UGH. Surface level, I like the game. It had fun, unique gameplay, fleshed out levels, and selection of five characters. But ultimately, it was TOO MUCH. I always try to replay DK64, and I ALWAYS stop once I get to Gloomy Galleon (water level lol). It's the fact that the game imposed collecting on you. Not only with one character, but with five. The game demanded 50 golden bananas per level, 500 regular bananas, 5 blueprints, coins, switches, gawd, it just became swamping. That being said, I've only completed DK64 once to this day.
Do I agree with games having collectables? Absolutely. If I were ever to become sick, there's at least 15-20 titles in my library that I could play for hours each just getting everything. Heck, I got fscking Big Boss rank on MGS4 when I never have on any other MGS game. Why? Because I was rewarded. I can always check my emblems and say "I'M AWESOME LOL", and then prance around guards, making them die in fear (literally) by wearing my BB facecamo that I earned for beating the game. Any other MGS game? You get Big Boss, and...that's it. You would never ever know again past the final ranking screen. Collectables and rewards are good. Very good.
[QUOTE=S
Going with what Maian said, It usually takes someone or something to cross a line to know where the line is at. DK64 basically did it with flying colors. Ignoring the game play differences, DK64 took everything I hated in Banjo and multiplied it by 10. To this day I have trouble picking up bananas in real life because of that game. Maaan what a sad note to end on for the Donkey Kong platform series.
[quote]I seriously question how much of a reward something is when it's literally just a thing there for the sole purpose of being a reward. For example, WoW will make you do a terrifying, almost insulting amount of work for an in-game object that is nothing more than a new graphic and a higher number. Ikaruga is a game that rewards you from practicing, practice enough in the normal mode and you might reach the second level, which unlocks the second level in the level select. This allows you to skip the first level and practise on the second, so you might reach the third level in a normal game.
So wow is bad because it lets you practice things to get to the next level, but ikaruga is good because it lets you practice things to get to the next level.
Wait, wut?
I guess the difference between Zelda and Donkey 64 is in Zelda the collectables not only serve as brief challenges on your knowledge of the game mechanics, but they're dotted throughout the game and aren't the main focus. They are like pennies, you pick them up when you see them, they are not the main event. That's why running around specifically looking for heart peices in hyrule once you're done isn't quite as satisfying as picking them up naturally, searching for them starts to piss you off. WoW is a game that makes you chase those pennies forever.
I have yet to chase pennies.
You play WoW for PVP for fuck's sake, you're willing to dive in front of a bus for the damn things.
Speedfreak doesn't like anything game related these days. Confirmed.
2D SHOOT EM UP WHERE YOU ABSORB BLACK SHOTS... BUT... GET THIS... YOU CAN ALSO ABSORB WHITE SHOTS TOO!!! BECAUSE YOU... CAN... FLIP. THE. SHIP. = BEST PIECE OF VIDEO GAME DESIGN... EVER
a year from now he'll be complaining about that too and how it's stupidly designed and the exact problem with current video games.
If after 20 developers copy it and write articles in Kotaku saying "this = good game", then naturally Speedy will hate it. Speedy doesn't trust/like anything that has a lot of publicity inwhich it narrows videogames to specific genres or game play mechanisms That's my guess, anyways.
Explains why Speedy would be ****ed off at a statement like: "FPS FTW! YAY! WHAT'S THAT SPEEDY? WHAT? MEH, THAT'S ****! MOAR SHOOTEN!!!"
You guys sound quite worried about me!
And with that remark, I take back what I said and replace it with
"he's just a bitter N-fag who now hates video games a lot".
I DON'T WORRY!!!
[quote=Iron Koala;883778]And with that remark, I take back what I said and replace it with
"he's just a bitter N-fag who now hates video games a lot".
I DON'T WORRY!!!
That's pretty much exactly what you just said, except now I'm gay! Is that why you're worried?
[COLOR="Yellow"]I've played the demo of Ikaruga. All you do in that game is shoot. Shoot and flip. That's it. It's as repetitive, repetitive, repetitive formula; so how is that good while grinding in WoW is bad?
Hell, two different games, two different genres, two different forms of gameplay. You can't praise one in order to criticize the other.[/COLOR]
Just to throw it out there, I actually liked Donkey Kong 64 and played it through several times. I was bothered that the highest point I ever got was to 97%. Disappointing. :(
I actually enjoyed DK64 as well. I don't think it's a bad game by any means, but the raw amount of collecting usually stifles further playthroughs with me. =/
IT'S THAT BLASTED GLOOMY GALLEON
Well, I didn't like it. DK 64 was just collecting collecting collecting and HEY! you forgot one!. I rate it about as good as StarFox Adventures... BUUUURN.
That being said, Lanky Kong was bearable enough to beat the game with.
I just remember that it took me almost twice as long to save for because it was more expensive than an average game. ****ing expansion pak.
[quote=Aioros;883817][COLOR=Yellow]I've played the demo of Ikaruga. All you do in that game is shoot. Shoot and flip. That's it. It's as repetitive, repetitive, repetitive formula; so how is that good while grinding in WoW is bad?
Hell, two different games, two different genres, two different forms of gameplay. You can't praise one in order to criticize the other.[/COLOR]
Not that my problem with WoW (at least this time!) is with the grinding, but if you seriously can't see the difference between grinding and Ikaruga then I fear for your children.
But I think you can and you're just trying to make a point. I actually said in another thread that all games are repetitive by nature, and repitition isn't necessarily a bad thing. Point well made, nonetheless!
Oh, and I rather enjoyed DK64 too! But it did take the piss, didn't it?
You know what has good collecting? Metroid games.
Which moves to Megaman X games.
Metroid Prime does have good collecting, this is true!