I’m Canadian, so by definition, I play hockey. Thinking about sports as a whole and how today gaming is somewhat parallel to the mass appeal of sports 20+ years ago.  While sports always have an elite level, only recently has it been as much about the psychological aspect as the physical.  This paradigm shift is also seen in gaming.  Games today are much more complex systems than simple muscle memory.  You need to see 12 different things at once and act accordingly.

Professional sports are an interesting read on people.  Single player sports, as games, focus on muscle memory and repetition.  The psychological aspect is personal, self confidence and learning to achieve greatness.  You can see this in tennis and golf fairly easily.

Group sports are different, as are games.  People have roles to fill and the demands of any given role are vastly different based on the sport.  Baseball is pitcher vs batter, with the fielders as a backup.  They only play if something goes wrong.  Hockey, soccer and basketball are group games where you need to pay attention to everyone on the field at all times.  Individual skill is still important but the ability to read a play makes champions.  Football (and rugby) is the outlier.  It’s the only professional sport that the average person cannot play past 30.  Each role has a different task and other than the quarterback and linebackers, no one really needs to read the play.  They simply follow instructions to the letter and success comes.  New Orleans is a great example of how not having instructions (as they have no coach this year) leads to failure even if you have a solid set of players.

Transfer that thought to gaming now and team based e-sports.  FPS games are more akin to hockey, where situational awareness of both sides is key.  The best Halo players are certainly individually solid but the team only wins if everyone plays as a team and looks out for each other.  PvP group games are more like football.  Players in EvE have specific roles to fill and if you try to fill another one, you will likely fail.  The success is based on the leader’s planning.

PvE groups, raids for most games, are a hybrid of both models depending on the game and difficulty.  The simplest of raids are like football, follow the plan and you win.  The harder ones (like Heroic Raids and Challenge Modes from WoW are a good example) require not only solid planning but great situational awareness.  Each game uses it’s own metric for this and gamers tend to flock to the one that best suits their need, baring social connections.

I will keep this thought in my pocket for future posts.  There’s definitely some more to be said on the topic.

I have young daughters and a wife who love Disney movies (long live the USB drive).  Watching the Little Mermaid made me think of how that story line was included in Kingdom Hearts and the sequel.

The first game was a rough take on action RPG with a decent challenge level.  The systems worked well, if not very well integrated.  The mermaid sequence was 100% 3d combat, which was (and is) pretty cool.

The second game went a different route, a fanboy route.  That version’s Ariel was a sing along.

So where the first game took a middle path for difficulty and content (enough challenge), the second one bifurcated.  Half the game was a cakewalk, the other half an exercise in frustration.  Gummy ships, Ariel, the tutorial and a few other spots could have been played by a 4 year old.  Most XIII bosses and the Pride Lands (to me) were frustration builders, even for someone who at the time played a lot of games.

I understand why they did it, some parts were to appeal to other player types.  What happened was that the people expecting the easy game reached bosses they simply could not kill, while the people expecting a hard game found very boring spots.  Those expecting the challenge of the first game, well they were simply out of luck.

To top it off, the game sold like hotcakes. I would guess only a fraction ever finished the game.  Probably why game companies are still using the business model of appealing to multiple player types.  Who cares if they finish it or not, as long as they pay you right?

Blizz reports that they sold 2.7 million Mists of Pandaria copies.  We know that about 700K of them are boxes, so the rest are digital.  The rest are obviously digital.  They also state that they are back above 10 million players, a 1 million boost from the last quarter.  This is strange for a few reasons.

First, this can only include non-asian sales as the game only came out on Oct 4th over there.  Second, if the game increased their player base by 1 million, that means that only 1.7 million existing players bought the expansion.  That’s about 20% of players.

So of the 8 million existing players that don’t have the expansion a few things can be surmised.  A big chunk must be in Asai.  A massive chunk. Also, a fair amount of accounts are likely part of the 1 year buy in for Diablo 3 and haven’t played WoW in a while.  Finally, some people simply are not interested in MoP.

Overall, I would say the number isn’t disappointing or spectacular.  Just odd.

Rob Pardo, head of Blizzard, has a neat interview with Game Industry, where he describes his path along the gaming front.  It’s an interesting read since he’s been around for a long time and seen things that would make most people’s hair turn white.

He has interesting ideas in regards to business models (F2P vs Subs vs Single Player) and the design trends.  Of note:

Definitely. I’m personally a big fan of game designers being involved in the monetization design, because that’s what will ultimately make for the best game. A lot of times I think those become very disconnected in the industry. Someone that’s more business-oriented or production-oriented will graft a business model onto a game because that’s what they think is going to drive the most revenue, but the game doesn’t really support it. That’s one of the things you’ve seen a lot with the subscription-based business model. I personally think subscription-based business models can still work, but you can’t over-value your game. There’s been some games in the past where they’ve put the subscription model on it because they thought they could get away with it. The reality is if you’re going to do a subscription model you need to deliver an immense amount of premium content over time, because people are going to be looking at as ‘If I’m going to be $10 or $15 per month, what am I getting month after month?’ If I’m not spending enough hours in your product, it’s just not going to make sense as a value proposition.

 

I bolded the part I think is relevant.  Some games have a business model before a single piece of code is written, others have it tacked on at the end.  This is part of the problem games have with converting to a F2P model.  The D3 link here is that the game was designed primarily around the RMAH.  Sadly, the entire game was a pay to win scenario at launch.  It sure does make it hard to find balance though.  If the gear is too good, RMAH runs everything.  Gear is too crappy, no one uses RMAH.

A worthy read nonetheless, just to see how an old school Blizz employee sees how the path of gaming is going.

Syncaine has used the past few logical points to try and push EvE as a market success.  Let’s take a look at the argument, using his strategy.

First we’ll go back to the Player Success vs Company Success issue.  The former is a subjective criteria of success, based on the number of players who not only play but play for a long time.  The second is an objective criteria based on the length of life of a game and the quality of updates to it.  Since they each impact the other, they are related.  No players, then the game shuts down.  No game, then no players.

Simply, if a game makes it past the first year, it would be simple to state that it is a success.  This is caused primarily by the fact that the company sets a bar for the number of players needed to keep the game afloat.  The quality of that success however, remains to be seen.

For that, we can look at the quality of the updates.  I would argue that this is new mechanics and new content.  Simply adding new content (new raids, skins, items) is simple.  Adding new mechanics (new events, rebuilding combat, flying) requires a complex planning structure.  EQ 1&2 are more about content.  WoW has expansions of mechanics but patches of content (which is why people think Blizz takes too long on patches).  EvE has had a fair share of both.

Is EvE a success in these terms?  100%.  Is WoW?  Yup.  So is LOTRO, DDO, Rift and a half dozen others.  TOR, DCUO and a few others are not though.

The second portion of the argument is that EvE is a mass-market success.  I don’t think so.  You can’t even say that about WoW.

70% of the US plays video games.  Over 250 million people.  That’s excluding Europe, Canada, Australia and a pile of other countries.  EvE has 400K subs (the wide majority of whom play multiple accounts).  You’re talking about 0.1% of all gamers.  World of Tanks has 18 million registered players.  That’s not even the same ballpark.

The classic MMO game, with a persistent world and stat based gaming, is a niche.  A noticeable one.  The reason people even talk about EvE today is because WoW paved the road.

Is EvE a success?  Certainly.  Is EvE a mass market success?  Not even close.  Is it in the top 10 for subscription classic-MMOs in the west?  Yes.  Why isn’t that enough?

More on the whole Torchlight experience and how it compares to Diablo 3.  The main thing for me in a game is that the core mechanics have to be the same throughout but the consumed content has to differ.  This is a problem in some games, such as Deus Ex: Human Revolutions where the boss fights were  completely different game.  Other games keep the consistent toolset and slowly add to it, like the recent Batman games.  MMOs have a challenge here, where the end game has to resemble the leveling game.  GW2 does it (maybe too well), while TOR doesn’t do it at all.

Back on point.  Diablo 3’s core systems are the same up until Inferno’s wall.  The game changes from an open choice of skills to a narrow set, with specific requirements.  Torchlight 2 is different in that the difficulty curve is steady and the challenge at level 90 is very similar to level 20.   The variety in combat is there too, depending on your skill set and weapons.   Comparing the systems of D3 from 1-59 and Torchlight 2, they are pretty evenly matched, perhaps a bit in Diablo’s favor.

Content is a bit different though.  Both have linear quests with exploration throughout.  D3 has a mostly outdoor events with a half dozen dungeons that can randomly appear.  A second playthrough (of which you are forced to do 3 times to get to Inferno) is nearly identical to the first.  By the time you do hit Inferno, odds are you’ve seen all the content the game has to offer, minus a few outliers.

Torchlight 2 switches this up in 3 regards.  First, there are random events/dungeons on each map. I’m on my 3rd playthrough and each one has had new things to do along the main path.  Nearly every additional dungeon is a random one, making the run through a lot of fun.  Second, once you beat the last boss you open the mapworks.  Here, you can select from 20 or so different maps, each with special effects attached.  You could get more XP, more drops, do less damage, more hit points.  Same for enemies.  Each ends with a boss.  It’s like entering a random dungeon on the regular map but the entire thing, from game load, is done in 6 clicks.  That is crazy accessible.  Third are the Phase Beasts.  There’s a 50% chance per overland zone to spawn this beast.  Once killed, it opens a portal to a challenge room.  I’ve yet to see the same room twice.  The best one so far was trying to throw bombs into ever-spawning spider nests.

It gets you thinking about how much the randomizing (and pool) of content is important in a game.  The semblance that your 8th run through a game might be 50% different than every other run through makes it easier to try again.  I think it’s a great path for gaming.

Let’s get it out right now, Torchlight 2 is probably the best gaming purchase I’ve made this year.

Loot Explosions!

There’s just something to be said about your screen being filled up by loot.  Every corner seems to have a chest and even if it’s only money and 2 items, it showers the screen.  The entire point of the genre is the slot machine effect of getting loot.  Having this perpetual reward, well spaced mind you, is gratifying.

Distinct Characters

My first playthrough was with an Outlander.  I went pure strength, a few passives, dual pistols and rapid fire for the most part.  That got me to level 54 without any problem.  I could play again and use a bow, or a shotgun, or a cannon.   I could go for summons, or poison, or glaives, or pure defense.  All are viable.  Combine this with 3 other classes and you finally have true variety between players and actual replayability.  The fact that you can take the hardest difficulty from the start (instead of having to spend 40 hours on a character first) is amazing too.

Diverse Enemies

There are 3.5 acts and throughout each you’ll find some rather unique enemies.  Some have armor that must be destroyed, some teleport, some set you on fire, some poison, some run away.  All bosses have some sort of unique feature that keeps you on your toes. All of a sudden that dragon breath seems simple once he starts throwing giant rocks from the sky and summons 8 enemies to help him.  Enemies all look different too.  There are very few recycled skins and you never really spend long enough against a type to grow bored of them.  The best part though, is that there are no cheap shots.  No arcane sentries. No immune to all damage.  There’s challenge without walls.

Pure Fun

This is where the difference truly lies.  I have a smile on my face when I play Torchlight 2.  I don’t feel a grind when I’m on a quest or a new dungeon, I feel like I’m a hero.  I don’t need to kill 50 enemies on the screen at once to be strong, I can do it by killing 5-10 at a time, back to back to back.  I don’t have to worry about numbers so much to progress.  Certainly, getting better stats helps but we’re talking about a 5-10 point different in gear, not 100-200 and 5 stats per item.

There’s just so much of it to enjoy.