What Game Developers Must Remember and Must Forget from Software Developers

This post is not about technical stuff, but more of how things should be oriented in order to survive in the industry the product is. Many videogame developers and publishers have recently made a lot of excuses about why their games don’t sell, why they do not like the used game market, why customers don’t see value in their games, etc. As a software developer by “trade” (I am mostly an electronic engineer that learned software because I believe in integrated systems) and freelance consultant, I find these excuses laughable and proof of what these companies have forgotten what many software companies like the ones I worked in must consider every time a new project begins.

First of all, we must remember that Software is anything that is not hardware but is used with hardware, esp. audiovisual materials, as film, tapes, records, etc. In other terms, anything that has lines of code that “does something” when it is run in a hardware device is a software. Yes, even games. Before you start calling me Captain Obvious for that statement, think about the many developers and publishers that have forgotten this simple fact for the futile pursuit of a movie-type of business, and this have resulted in games that are really forgettable, if they are not a total waste of time, money and effort.

In the companies I worked in there was something very interesting that remains with me as a freelancer: any software can be called a “solution”, because the purpose is to solve the issues that users have when they want to get a job done. For example, a word processor makes writing documents easier and a point of sale software helps making sales faster and tracking inventory accurately. Your web browser is a solution too, to navigate through web pages and do stuff online. Like in real life, there are many solutions to an issue or problem and the people choose a solution that fits best for them; so the better the solution, the higher the chance to be chosen. When a software development company sees a constant increase of number of users for one of its products, it means that the solution has been accepted and customers are helping expanding the popularity of it. And if the software fails, it’s because other solutions are more appealing and the company needs to do improvements in order to make it attractive.

This brings to the whole point of the entire post.

What Game Developers Need to Remember (if not Learn):

• The game is also a solution: Yes, even games are solutions for customers. They serve a purpose and performs a job. So before even starting the development process a question must be asked: "what is the issue that needs to be solved?", "what is the real need to be satisfied?", "what job needs to be done in a better way?". Do not think of just "telling a story", because that's not what the customers want in a game, it may add value, but is not their main priority.
• The development tools are solutions too: The design tools, the game engine, the audio synthesizer, the physics library, etc. are all solutions to the developer. They help make the development of a game easier and according to goals. With those tools how can't a game be a solution?
• Customers are the ones to decide what solution is best: A game is a solution, period. It's up to customers to decide if the product really is of quality, that it performs the job they want to be done. Customers define the quality, not the developer, nor the journalists, nor the retail store.
• If a product fails, it's a developers fault: Why put the blame on the market, a platform, the economy, or much worse, the customer? If a game is of quality to customers, it becomes a hit; if not, a respectable developer must see what really went wrong in the development process, not outside the company.
• Visuals don't matter, just the job to be done: Focusing on the graphics alone will not make a solution better than the rest. A piece of crap that looks amazing is still a piece of crap. They can help add value to a game, but the game must first be of good quality in gameplay, content, and offering an experience to the user. polish the graphics later on, not at the beginning.

What Game Developers Need to Forget:

• Digital distribution: many games are being distributed electronically like the small, independent games (where the space is so small that does not justify even a CD). But full games should remain going to retails. Games offer entertainment to customers, and thus need to be distributed physically on order to be "treasured" by customers. There are many customers that sear online for software that does a job, but that same number do not necessarily search online for games. Many rather go to the retail store to see what's new.
• Patches and bug fixes: In software, it's almost impossible to have zero bugs, because there are particular conditions that make the application crash, but having a very good QA department reduces the need to do them. If there are many patches and bug fixes, the software can be considered of poor quality that should have been released to the market in the first place, and customers will think twice before buying another product from the company. Game developers must have an even more powerful QA to avoid the need to use patches, they should be considered out of the question. (This is not the case for updates that add content).
• Market segmentation: this works in software, because there are groups of people with different needs to be addressed and a company can charge for it in a more free manner (some tools can be worth $50.000+ O_o) because the customer have the resources to pay for them. But in games, when there is a limit in the retail price, segmentation does not work as many think. Some companies can get lucky but they lose the opportunity to get even more customers. Stop thinking of "games need to be more expensive" and think of "we need to get more customers" if a development company wants to be profitable.

I have seen many institutes that teaches about game development as a career. I don't know much about them since in my country there is no such thing. But my question to the readers that have heard of them or are studying in one.... Do they teach a bit about business? customers? market?

What's Wrong with The Legend of Zelda Part2 - Dungeons

Legend of Zelda games have another great feature: the dungeons. On each iteration of the series the dungeons are more detailed, varied, unique, and of course, jaw dropping. They clearly show the great artistic creativity and the excellence in level design. They have become essentials in every game of the franchise and with every new game we can only wonder what will await us in them. How can something be wrong with them?

Well, the issue comes not in the level design, nor the art or the puzzles that are in there (yes, I love the water temple in Ocarina of Time), but on the essence of the dungeons themselves. The majority (if not all) of the dungeons on the Zelda franchise revolves on five main items:

The dungeon map

The Compass

The Boss Key

The Dungeon Item like:

As much as I like the dungeons, I have seen a pattern that has not evolved much and is starting to take away the experience. The first problem I see is that the latest dungeons have become more linear and more predictable in essence. This is due of a pattern that needs to change and here are some points of that pattern with no particular order:

• Defeat the Dungeon Boss with the item acquired in that same Dungeon: This does not apply in a very few but a majority. Doesn't sound strange that the evil one will be so ignorant that the key to defeat the monster he placed inside the dungeon lies in the same dungeon? and in a treasure chest? Gannon doesn't sound smart now. The player knows that the way to defeat the boss is related to the item that lies within, this kills the element of surprise and makes the boss fights less entertaining and scary because it takes away the need to explore other possibilities.
  
• The Dungeon Boss behind the door with a huge lock: Why would the evil ones leave the strongest monster in the dungeon locked and restrained when it could be of so much help if he could pursue link? Bosses don't have to he huge and monumental that the only room they can be in is the one behind the huge door; one that can give surprise attacks like Nemesis on Resident Evil 3 and only one room in the entire dungeon has the key to defeat it. other could be that the dungeon is the imprisonment of the monster that has awakened and walls have to be cleared on order to release it and then defeat it. There are so many variations to make the boss fights remarkable. And, if the room where the boss id being held is locked, why the key has to be in that same dungeon?
  
• Map and Compass inside the dungeon and work for that dungeon only: If you were the evil one, wouldn't be a smart move to locate these two items and destroy them so the hero would get lost? It takes away realism that these items have to be inside a dungeon. They could be sold in a nearby village or given to the hero by someone that knows the dungeon in some way.
• The items inside the dungeon are relatively easy to find: OK. if the items must be in that dungeon, why making them so obvious and easy to locate? There are a few dungeons that are an exception to the rule in one way or another but the rest are very guilty of this. If the Zelda series has adventure, part of the adventure is to try a it harder to find these items. To gieva sensation that the evil ones are as smart as the player

Besides the pattern that revolves around the items there are two additional observations. one is the order on which we have to clear the dungeons. Why we cannot clear them the way we choose? I can see that they are too tied with the course of the game's story, but they are becoming too tied taking away freedom from the player. The other observation is that the dungeons remain the same with every replay. The dungeons don't need to change the structure of them, but the item and enemy placement can be relocated to give more replay value to the game.

Dungeons are good elements in the Zelda franchise and are the key to demonstrate how strong the hero has become by clearing them. They need to evolve as much as the series to increase the overall experience

What's Wrong with The Legend of Zelda? Part1 - Overworld

The Legend of Zelda is one of the most well known franchises among gamers and has been a series of powerful flagships for Nintendo. Since the first game on the NES, the series has caught the imaginations of players as they impersonate the silent hero Link to save Hyrule. Ocarina of Time has remained as the best game of all time in many lists and Twilight Princess has become a huge icon in America. The theme is one of the most well known across the world and has inspires developers into game development.

Yes, many things can be said for this franchise from fans like myself. However, I am going to get off the fan shoes and look at the series from the outside. With an open mind and an analytical perspective to how the series has evolved, starting from the overall game and then dissecting it piece by piece for a closer look.... And I found that the series, even though it has released consistently good games, is starting to become stagnant and very soon it will require a re imagining or it will slowly wither and die as the fans' eyes and jaws are wide open in disbelief.

Before the pikes and torches are risen against me, I suggest to just look at the console games starting with A Link to the Past to Twilight Princess. BE more objective and you see that while things has been improved in some fronts. Others have remain still and are beginning to hurt the overall value and are desperate for a change. I am going to post my analysis on the series and show what I believe it's wrong with the series and needs focus from the developers

Huge, but Rather Empty, Overworld

It started with Ocarina of Time, but it has become more and more apparent as they reached Twilight Princess. The overworld is big, giving you a strong feeling on how huge Hyrule is, with Lake Hylia, Death Mountain, Zora's Domain, among others... But...

WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

The problem here is in two fronts. The first one is the enemy encounters. In most cases it's very little or almost non existent. Of course, many of you will mention places with a number of enemies indicating that is populated.... yeah right. But don't you notice something out of place? You are clearing dungeons, getting stronger, with more hearts and items... but the enemies in these places are the same, the number remains the same, the type of enemies are the same or just change once. I mean, is the evil one so dumb to underestimate the hero's deeds, come on!.

Also, there was one thing I liked in Wind waker that was not present In twilight princess, there there NPC's traveling the world and I was expecting something similar in Twilight princess, but there was no such thing. Even in dark times, there should be caravans the transport goods or something, this could add some side quest and stuff to keep people playing.

The series has shown small glimpses of this, but it has not been exploited properly to add more realism to the game and it does not require a graphical overhaul.

Interesting fragment of an interview

source: http://thewiire.com/editorials/post/6023-producer-q-and-a-grand-slam-tennis-and-motionplus

The Wiire: To start, what are some key differences in developing games for the MotionPlus peripheral compared to standard Wii controls?

Cyrus Irani: The Wii MotionPlus offers more sensitivity and control, and with that, design decisions become harder because we have to manage what the user intends to do with what their action motion is. This can be good and bad, depending on the context. It can make it more accurate and engaging for the user but if not careful it can make it more accurate and frustrating.

The more advanced the motion controls are, the harder is to make the game really intuitive and to cover all possible actions from the user. Add HD to this and you may have a nightmare in your hands. Technology for the sake of being the most advanced does not apply in gaming

Motion Controls + HD = Nightmare?

Hello there!

The analysis about the digital distribution models will arrive later. I decided to post this to give you an insight with hopes to opening your eyes of a problem that seems to be invisible thanks to the previous E3’s buzz, PR and many other things to get you hyped and in most cases, seriously blind.

Developing games follow a similar process to developing software applications. From the concept to the actual final release, they both go through the same stages in order to be successful. As a software developer (and independent game programmer that has long ways to go) I have been involved in many of these steps to guarantee the correct functionality of a product and this will be useful when I start developing games in the future(my dream). Thanks to this I started to imagine myself developing a game for each of the three consoles using their motion control mechanism using gathered data from sites, playing motion controlled games, and reading comments from third party game companies that developed for all of them no matter the current control mechanism. What I found is the potential…………of a big development nightmare.

One of the most important features or any software, including games, is the interface. Interface is what connects two independent systems, which in games and common desktop software is what connects the user to the machine, we call them user interfaces. When you develop software, the input is considered to me pretty much straightforward (keyboard and mouse) and other things can be taken for granted or of little importance like audio, so the resources can be focused in the graphical user interface (also known as GUI) because is what the user sees when he or she runs the software. On games, the story is way different; you have other user interfaces to take into consideration or the game will not be appealing like the audio (is pretty much taken care of because of the vast number of libraries and the lessons that can be learned from the movie industry about sound/visual effects and soundtrack) and of course, the controller.

OH!! The controller!!

Yeah….. The controller. Before the Nintendo Wii, controllers haven’t had huge leaps in advancements in over 20 years: from joystick to d-pad, shoulder buttons, analog joysticks and rumble feedback. This allowed many game developers to adapt relatively easy despite the limited number of buttons compared to the usual computer interface that is the keyboard and mouse. But unlike many people think, that adaptation didn’t come without some of the worst results in control mechanics that humanity has ever seen. You can learn many of these bad examples through history thanks to the Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN). He showed that many game developers had problems with the controllers even with a very simple one that is the NES controller. The main reason is that game testing was not taken into consideration to see the flaws that the programmers ignore. After all, a developer makes games for the customer and has to think always on the customer’s behavior... right? And don’t think that the problem has been solved because all game developers have their own testing and debugging procedures to stop this issue because I can give you examples of PS3 and Xbox360 games that have seriously broken controls (Wii is not here, for the motion controls goes in another paragraph so no fanboyism please) with an interface that has not changed since last generation. The reason, while many of these companies have testers and debuggers, they do not give them the importance they deserve because they take game controls for granted. “If it worked on GTA or Halo, of course it will work here”, this is what I believe they think about control mechanisms as they increase the focus on graphics and audio.

Now, with this past E3, motion controls has arrived to become the new standard control mechanism for games. And while many are awed and drooling as they imagine all the possibilities with the game franchises or genres they love, I took my time to think carefully as a developer to see how they can be implemented in my games... Oooooooh my god!! With the motion controls, the player has more freedom and wants to make movements that he or she considers natural (or unnatural, not in a perverted sense) hoping for the game to respond accordingly. This means that the developer has to consider ALL possibilities and send them to the testing department to see what it might be missing, and the testers must act like the customers and play in every possible way a single level from start to finish over and over and over again…. on all levels in the game. This means that developers have two options: hire more people to keep on schedule, or delay the game until all tests are successful. Both options will have the same consequence, more costs.
Now, before you counter my argument by saying that developers that worked on the Wii will have little to no problem to make games for the PS3 and Xbox360 with motion controls, think well about the games they released on Nintendo’s console. Thanks to the market perception, Wii games are commonly classified into four categories:

• Good games
• Wagglefest
• Casual wagglefest
• Broken controlled games

Then separate the games released on Wii into these four categories and you will see that the majority of games have fallen into the last three because the developers have not paid the required attention on how to make it properly, they didn’t bother to actually learn good experience in making games for them. They were focused on the HD graphics and great audio that has proven to be successful for them. Now because of the Sony’s purple wand and Natal, many Xbox360 and PS3 gamers want to have motion controls for their games (how nice of them!) just for the sake to prove that the Wii was a failure from the start. So the experience the developers denied themselves to have back then must now be gained in a much faster pace them before, and will be worst IF Sony and Microsoft require that the games have the motion controls as the optional (or main) control system. Very fewgames can be consireder good core games and the majority comes from Nintendo. This is why many developers think that only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo systems, because they want to hide their inexperience and lack of will to actually focus on making good games for the console.

Motion controls require changes in many of the development stages from design to testing, debugging and releasing in order to make a very good game. These changes can have huge impact on the development costs because resources cannot be shifted from the audio and graphics department. They raised the bar in those departments on PS3 and Xbox360 that the gamers demand that this bar shall not be lowered. So many developers will have these six main options:

• Keep the same staff capacity and delay the release of the core game: this means more money because time has a value and means the increase of the development costs, the highest retail price might have to be reconsidered (some angry customers may arise).
• Hire more people to keep the schedule and release the game on time: again, huge development costs and the price might have to be reconsidered (some angry customers may arise).
• Shift Resources from other departments: on this there are two possibilities, reduce the resources from other departments like the graphical and audio in which might result in a “lower quality” product from the core gamer on the HD systems. Or develop a less number of games in which will become a huge financial risk in these economical times.
• Make the motion controls secondary and just optional: this will allow them to focus on the game as the gamers want and give little importance to motion controls (as they have done before). This will make the motion control devices from Sony and Microsoft irrelevant, and that’s what these companies don’t want to.
• Limit the motion controls to a small set of “controlled” movements: This can make you think that all the power and potential of the motion technology is wasted and reduced drastically the value (not the price) of the device. It could get the same result with cheaper, more limited(aka crappier) technology.
• Make a “casual” game to steal the Wii’s audience: yeah, as if was THAT easy. Nintendo Wii is not on top because of the motion controls alone (as the birdmen described by Sean Malstrom think) but because the focus is on the customers. The customers think of the Wii as a valuable high quality product (quality not in terms of technology) with a great customer service from Nintendo that they can always trust, it has the content they want to have, among many other reasons.

And last, before you readers tell me about the tech demos showcased on E3 by Sony and Microsoft. Tech demos are NOT full games. A tech demo is just something that proves that the technology works in controlled scenarios, and full games show how well the technology works no matter the input from the user in all scenarios thought by the developer and the user… And oh my, the user has a lot more imagination than the developer when it comes to input. And a downloadable demo from the developers won't work unless they want to risk by letting know how inexperienced they are with motion controls (no matter the console)

Nintendo made a very smart choice by not having HD on the Wii console and keeping the architecture similar to the Gamecube’s. This will help reduce the development costs on graphics and audio keeping the quality (time and experience can make things easier and cheaper when the system has not a huge hardware change) and shift them into focusing on the motion controls, the testing, the feedback, the content, etc…. The Wii is trully something

Digital Distribution of Games: Disruptive?

After this year's E3, there has been a huge buzz about the digital distribution of games. Press here and there talking a lot about it and the many, many systems or platforms that are supporting it (from cellphones to consoles to computers) and telling how disruptive this thing is. They even compare the systems to say which is ahead and which is behind and how good and bad it can be for the companies that makes those systems. I've seen the PSP Go, the IPhone, DSi and others that have the digital distribution, as it they were trying to get ahead and be part of this "disruption" movement or they feel they will be left behind..... Phew! yeah, it has become huge news that is really really hard to keep up.

However, with my limited knowledge about disruption and my experience in electronics and software developer (hopefully one day I will make games) I wondered how disruptive it could be.

So first we start with the digital distribution itself. In a few words, it's just the electronic distribution of data to everyone that requests it and is available for downloading. Pictures, documents, music, movies, software and games can be distributed to any person that wants to have it and the main requirement is internet connection. So as internet connection becomes faster and more accesible to consumers, the higher the chances for a person to get what he or she wants electronically.

Hmmm... no wonder many say that it is disruptive because in the future there will be no need to release games in discs or any other physical form. However, when you think about it just a bit deeper, it's not entirely true.

With the increase of the number of people online and the increasinf speeds of internet connection, the digital distribution is just a natural evolution and can become a way for publishers and developers to sell their games witout the cost of putting them on disc, so it becomes more of an alternative distribution medium that might slow down the increasing piracy(but not stop it) and put a stop to the sells of used games between players. Besides, this will give the companies better control on how many "copies"they sell and protect their business more. To the gamers, it saves physical space to put the game packages on and you may download them again if you had to format your computer

...... Where's the disruption in that??!!

THe biggest issue I see here is that in disruption you look for the overseeing customers and non customers. I do not see in the very concept of digital distribution that in embraces people that does not have online or does not plan to, the ones that are so scared of paying online for enything and they prefer to the things personally, and the people that just cannot get online.

This brings me many other questions:

• how does this help to bring more people to play games?
• how does this guarantee that the small developers won't get squashed by the "big ones"?
• how does this invite people to put their systems online to get their games?
• how does this makes gaming itself better?
  

After many spins in my head, I stopped and realized that digital distribution is just an opportunity for a disruptive business strategy that is gaming oriented. So it's up to the companies to make their move and develop a good strategy that uses the digital distribution in a smart way and dirsrupt the market and the competition.

In my future posts I will evaluate some of the strategies I have seen and read about with my amateur analysis skills,... see ya

My take on the three motion technologies shown at E3

I checked all three evolutions of controllers and even though they were impressive, WM+ is by far the better of the three. In sony's Eye camera with the wand and on NATAL I found many problems in terms of game design and gaming experience

NATAL:

Microsoft made one step forward and three steps back with this technology, and even though it's impressive, it fails to be a competent input device on it's own for gaming. The step forward it took was with the camera technology and it's capabilities to track different movements by different people and reacts accordigly, this step in technology is forward by reuniting different people to play a game with just one input device for the console: the camera itself.

The first step back is that by removing the controller from the player's hands, it actually disconnects from the game more than with a standard controller, because thhe number of outputs from the system to the player is reduced to just audio and video. With a standard controller, when you crash in a racing game, your controller shakes and the amplitude of that motion depends on the force of the impact, you know, besides seeing the OMG scene and hearing the sounds of metal becoming scrap, you feel how hard that hit was. With Natal, you only see and hear, not feel.

A simple solution will be having peripherals that will deliver that rumble feedback to the player, these peripherals will differ depending on the game in otder to feel more immersive to the game (racket for tennis, wheel for racing, etc). However, by having these extension, the concept of hand-free playing is nullified, and will seem much more similar to Sony's solution for motion, only with cheaper peripherals and a more expensive camera. This is the second step back. Now, if this peripheral is made (i.e. a glove --put power glove joke here--), what should give the rumble commands to the feedback devive? The Camera, it will increase it's cost; so the solution will be the console, and that means you have two devices: one that serves as input and one as output. That's the third step back

Under this analysis, even thought the technology is the most advanced of the three it comes last place as a capable gaming input device

PS EYE + MOTION CONTROLLERS

I watched the demos during the conference and it impressed me with the real time 1:1 response that is faster than WM+. the augmented reality to add a virtual add-on to the controller is also interesting. A step in the right direction far better than Microsoft, however, they have a very long way to go, because it's the technology that is way behind Natal. They did the right thing by keeping a controller in the gamer's hands, that way a feedback can be given to the pleyer in the form of rumble -and audio if they manage to copy from the wii remote- when an action is performed.

The first issue I see is that the "ball" in the controller (will be replaced in the future) acts as a reference to the camera to locate the controller's position in space, so in that you can tell that the accelerometer technology is behind SIXAXIS to have it cheap and it's just used to detect the controller's rotation whle the position is detected by the camera itself, so you can hide the refenrence to the camera and the controller is as good as a plastic stick.

The solution will mean to have gyroscopes, accelerometers or ultra sonic sensors to pintpoit the location of the controller besides the camera, that could be in the same controller on in the extension that it will have. However, this will rener the camera useless and relegated only as a simple expensive eye toy with augmented reality and the controller will look very similar to the Wii remote+nunchuck. This is the problem I see that Sony needs to resolve, contradictions and paradoxes, and that takes more time that the development of the technology.

Besides, as it is now, you have two input devices and one serves in extra feedback to the player, is not integrated

Wii MOTION+

The Wii sensor bar is not an putput device, it only receives energy from the console. So you can replace it woth two candles or any sensor bar with infrared emmiters and batteries. and games like Mario Kart does not use the IR in a race. The technology resides entirelly on the Wii-remote.

With the Wii remote you have one input device that delivers feedback to the player in rumble and the added speaker that deliver sounds that are not in your TV or audio system. The nunchuck and the WiiMotion+ are just extension that makes the remote a fully integrated input device that to the Wii it's still one and one only.

WM+ adds not just more presition to the movement, but more responsiveness and more accurate position placement that reduces the sensor bar to just a reference to point at the tv screen.

CONCLUSION:

Even though in sense of technology NATAL>PSEYE + MOTION CONTROLS>WM+ in actual gaming applications as integrated systems

1. WM+ => done right and ready for production on almost any kind of game

2. PSEye + Motion => good concepts but with many, many roadblocks

3. NATAL => It will be far more successful in PC applicactions than in actual gaming