Games, Genres, and Why Independent Games are Vital

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Games, Genres, and Why Independent Games are Vital

• Greg Costikyan
• Texas Independent Games Conference
• 7/22/06

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What is a Genre?

• ...2. A category of artistic composition
  characterized by a particular style, form, or
  content (a fine introduction to twelve-tone music
  for those who have had little experience with the
  - Arthur Berger)
• --Websters Third Intl Dictionary

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The Nature of Genre Varies with Artform

• Novels Thematically (science fiction, romance,
  mystery, Western)
• Music By nature of sound (choral, emo, drum
  bass, Gangsta, the Blues)
• Film By the nature of the emotion evoked (drama,
  comedy, romantic comedy, horror)

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How Do We Think of Game Genres Today?
Reflexives Genre List
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How Do We Think of Game Genres Today?
How Gametap Does it
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How Do We Think of Game Genres Today?
...and Strategy First
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This is Braindead

• Style, Form or Content.
• Do these people actually play games?
• This isnt how we actually talk about games.
• We use terms like FPS, RTS, MMO, graphic
  adventure...

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Games Have been Implemented for Many Media
From the Neolithic. Tewa Kiva Altar at Hano
Showing Gaming Reeds Tewa Indians,
Arizona Games of the North American
Indians, Stewart Culin, Smithsonian
Institution, 1907
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To Modern Digital Media
Will Wrights Spore
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So The Medium Doesnt Define Genre

• Handheld isnt a genre.
• Neither is casual downloadable
• What is a game genre? Or does the term have any
  meaning for games?

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Parlett Divides All Classic Games By Shared
Mechanics

• Race games (tracks, victory by being first to
  the end)
• Games of Leaping Capture (take opposing pieces by
  jumpingCheckers)
• Games of Territorial Occupation (control the
  board by piece placementGo)

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The Terms We Use Also Characterize Games by
Shared Mechanics

• RTS resource extraction, building construction,
  real-time combat
• FPS first-person view, 1 character/player,
  power-ups, combat with ranged weapons
• Adventure game inventory, puzzles, unlockable
  areas, story exposed via play

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For Games, Genre Is Characterized

• By shared mechanics.
• As Parlett shows, this has been true since the
  earliest folk games...
• And as the way we instinctively talk and think
  about games today, it remains true.

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Heres Our List
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Game Genres

• Think of the potential space of all possible
  games.
• Most of that space is occupied by games that
  would not be interesting.
• There are local maxima of games that are (or
  would be) interesting.
• Established game genres exist where weve
  discovered local maxima.

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Understood Game Genres

• There are many boardgames of replacement capture
  (Chess), card games of combination (Poker), RTS
  (Warcraft), FPS (Quake), the trading card game
  (Magic)
• Most games are variations on an understood style

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Innovation is Driven by Discovering New Genres

• c. 2000BC Track game with blocking (Royal Game
  of Ur gt Backgammon)
• c. 800AD Game of Replacement Capture (Shaturanga
  gt Chess, Shogi)
• c. 1200AD Game of Leaping Capture (Alquerque gt
  Checkers)
• 1756 Thematic track game (A Journey Through
  Europe gt Candyland)

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New Game Styles (cont)

• c. 1850 Trivia Game (Grandmamas Game of Useful
  Knowledge gt Trivial Pursuit)
• 1856 Word Interpolation Game (Komikal
  Konversation Kards gt Mad Libs)
• c. 1890 Fishing Game (Fish Pond gt Operation)
• 1910 Military Miniatures (Little Wars gt
  Warhammer)
• 1953 Board Wargame (Tactics)

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New Game Styles (70s)

• 1972 Adventure Game (Colossal Cave)
• 1973 RPG (Dungeons Dragons)
• 1974 Vehicle Sim (Atari Tank)
• 1977 LARP (Dragohir)
• 1978 MUD
• 1979 Flight Sim (Sub-Logic Flight Simulator)

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New Game Styles (80s)

• 1981 Platformer (Donkey Kong)
• 1981 Computer RPG (Ultima 1)
• 1984 Graphic Adventure (Kings Quest)
• 1985 Dynamic Puzzle (Tetris)

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New Game Styles (90s)

• 1991 First MMOG (AOL Neverwinter Nights)
• 1992 RTS (Dune II)
• 1993 FPS (Doom)
• 1994 TCG (Magic The Gathering)
• 1996 Rhythm Game (Parappa the Rapper)

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New Game Styles (00s)

• 2001 Collectible Miniatures Game (Hero Clix)
• 2003 Big Urban Games (BUG gt ConQwest
• 2004 Alternative Reality Game (The Beast)
• ....NONE OUT OF OUR INDUSTRY SINCE 1996

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What Happened?

• Budgets too high to risk anything on an unproven
  game style.
• Ameliorate risk by sticking with licenses
  franchises
• No Stars means no talent with the clout to
  force originality through
• Will Wright the obvious and perhaps lone exception

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What Will Happen? (if nothing changes...)

• Budgets keep rising
• The range of genres that the industry can
  continue to offer will continue to narrow
• The market will ultimately decline as what was
  once the most fertile and innovative creative
  artform on the planet continues its trend toward
  sterility

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But Maybe ESD Changes the Game

• Break the constraints of the retail channel
• At least the possibility of distribution without
  an 8-figure budget
• Less sales compressionopportunity for
  word-of-mouth.
• Xbox Live Arena, Steam, Manifesto, etc., etc.

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How to Survive as an Independent?

• ...When your budget is two or more orders of
  magnitude smaller than the majors...
• ...And when consumers are trained to look for
  glitzy graphics?

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Go for the Blue Ocean

• That is, go where others dont.
• Racing games? RTS? FPS? You cannot compete.
• Do the things that EA dare not.

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The Publishers Need 1m Unit Sales

• ...To repay their bloated budgets.
• So they cant support MOST of the game styles
  that still have fanatic followings....
• Because you cant sell a million units.
• But we dont need to.

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Adventure Games
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Wargames
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Sim/Tycoon Games
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Shooters that ARENT FPSes
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Shmups
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4X
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Turn-Based Strategy
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Sports Management
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Look to the Past

• Who today is doing modern versions of the great
  games of yesterday?
• Where is....

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Balance of Power
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M.U.L.E.
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Seven Cities of Gold
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....Or... Look for New Genres!

• New genres grow the market...
• ... creates a new audience
• By contrast, games in existing styles mostly sell
  to existing fans of that genre.
• For the field to continue to grow, we need to
  continue to find new game styles

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Creating New Genres

• Hard to do, but, if you succeed....
• You will make a huge amount of money (id,
  Westwood, Wizards of the Coast...)
• And you will be as famous as Carmack Romero,
  Gygax Arneson, or Richard Garfield
• You will have materially advanced the state of
  the art

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How?

• Doubtless many ways to do it. As Kipling says,
  There are four and twenty ways of writing tribal
  lays, and every single one of them is right.
• Some historical examples

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Doom The FPS

• Attempts to do 3D even from early home computer
  days (e.g., wireframe dungeons in Ultima III)
• Plenty of 2D, third-person shooting games (e.g.,
  Castle Wolfenstein)
• Licensed by id for Wolfenstein 3Dessentially
  wireframe graphics with 2D textures...

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Doom (cont)

• Wolfenstein 3D opponents as 2D sprites, limited
  variety, choice of weapons, 1st person
  perspective...
• Doom nails it wide variety of opponents,
  textures give better illusion of truly being in a
  3D space (though still not true 3D)
• Often the case that it takes several tries to
  really find the sweet spot in terms of
  mechanics and gameplay.

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Doom (cont)

• Fundamentally, the FPS results from technical
  improvements with 286 machines, we finally have
  enough processing power to get decent-looking 3D
• Technical improvements often contribute to the
  establishment of new game styles e.g., color
  printing gt the commercial boardgame cheap
  die-cuttinng gt the board wargame

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Looking to Technology

• So one approach is to look at emerging technology
  and ask How can this be used to create
  interesting gameplay?
• Physics
• AI
• Social networking
• Cross-platform/mobility/ubiquity
• Procedurally-generated content

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SimCity

• Will Wright wanted todo a game about city
  planning
• Spent over a year doing research
• Mid-80s machines barely able to keep up with the
  necessary processing to provide the simulation
• Successful despite technical limitations.

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SimCity (cont)

• In other words, Wright looked to a subject matter
  no one else was addressing, and figured how to
  treat it in a game context
• And it turned out some the same techniques were
  applicable to other subjects (e.g., railroads,
  theme parks)

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Looking to Subject Material

• A difficult approach, because often the existing
  techniques dont work
• Can sometimes be commercially very
  successfule.g., Deer Hunter
• Poses a marketing challenge, too, as your
  prospective audience probably doesnt visit
  Gamespot or IGN

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Looking to Subject Material

• But there are scads of things no one is doing
• Macroeconomic simulations
• Social interactions
• Making roleplaying meaningful in digital games
• Games-as-theater
• Geopolitics
• The love story

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Magic The Gathering

• In the late 80s/early 90s, tabletop RPGs began to
  sell through comic stores as well as specialty
  game shops and book stores
• Collectible card sets are also often sold through
  comic shopsthe know how to stock and sell them.

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Magic (cont)

• Garfield reasoned that a game build on
  collectible cards would work through this
  distribution channel
• And that an exceptions game approach, whereby
  the base rules set is simple but extended by
  rules on other game components would work (an
  idea drawn from Cosmic Encounter)

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Magic (cont)

• Thus Magic was bornnot out of a technical
  advance or an approach to a themebut from a
  business idea
• Of course it helped that Garfield is a superb
  designer
• Deer Hunter another exampleWal-Mart figured they
  could sell a game that appealed to hunters (they
  sell a lot of guns) and went to Vivendi with the
  idea.

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Looking to a Business Channel

• Today, doing something innovative almost demands
  distribution not through the conventional channel
• What alternative channels can you find?
• Assume that you cannot simply force an existing
  game style down that channelthat it must be
  tailored to the specifics of that environment

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Business Channel (cont)

• What kind of game could you sell through music
  outlets? (A CD-ROM is packaged like a music CD.)
  What would get White Stripes fans excited?
• What game would get warbloggers excited?
• What about evangelicals?
• LL Bean Wilderness Explorer?

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Dune II

• Every element of Dune II exists in previous
  games.
• Building construction (Civilization)
• Real-time military combat (Patton vs. Rommel)
• Resource extraction (M.U.L.E.)
• Dune II combined them in a novel and appealing
  way to create the RTS

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Mix Match

• Study other games
• Learn about as many different mechanics as you
  can
• Try to figure out how to combine them in ways no
  one has seen before.
• Game Design Patterns (Björk Holopainen) may be
  a useful reference
• Prototype test

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EyeToy

• Webcams had beenaround for a while, and some PC
  peripheral manufacturers had tried offering games
  with a camera.
• And configuring a PC with drivers and such is
  difficult
• Ron Festajo at Sony in the UK wanted to make it
  as simple as possible

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EyeToy

• His insight was to view EyeToy as a UI input
  device, not a camera
• And devise a series of simple games built around
  different UI ideaswiping the screen, batting at
  objects, etc.

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Starting from UI

• In other words, the germ of the idea was in a
  different UI element
• A more elaborate example Journey into Wild
  Divine, controlled by heart rate and sweat
  sensors
• Of course, its expensive to bundle hardware with
  software

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Starting from UI

• But it isnt always necessary
• Katamari Damacy How do I use a PS controller to
  roll a ball.
• Oasis I have a limited number of clicks, and
  every click must count.
• Loop Use the mouse to circle moving objects

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Starting from UI

• One approach Imagine a novel gameplay activity,
  and figure out how to map it onto existing
  controls (Katamari Damacy)
• Another Figure out some way to use existing
  controls that games dont normally use (Loop)
• A third Provide a new input device (EyeToy)

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Other Possible Approaches?

• Evoke an emotion (Cloud)
• Take game design theory seriously and try to use
  it (Play with Fire, Crawfords conception of
  verbs)
• Find an interesting mathematical idea and try get
  a game out of it (Scram/non-linear equations)
• Take lots of drugs?

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We Know What Works

• or so publishers say.
• But the game is a highly plastic medium.
• So is software.
• Weve only skirted the coast of a vast virgin
  continent.
• 30 years of dynamic creativity must not come to
  an end.

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Whole cloth innovation is risky

• Most experiments will fail.
• The ones that work have the potential to be
  vastly more successful than the average game.
• And the designers we admire most are those who
  have pulled this offWill Wright, Richard
  Garriott, Richard Garfield, Gygax Arneson.

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Duty Now for the Future

• If you dont fail from time to time, youre not
  taking enough risks Woody Allen
• As an industry, we need to take more risks.
• The potential payoff is big.
• Go do something cool.