May 19, 2010
GAMES
Why games?
 Sixty-eight percent of American heads of
households play computer and video games.
 How old do you think the average gamer is?
Digital games
 Average game player is 35 years old and has
been playing games for 12 years.
 Average age of the most frequent game
buyer is 39 years old.
Digital Games
 Sixty-three percent of parents believe that
games are a positive part of their children’s
lives.
 Eighty-four percent of all games sold in 2008
were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or
"E10+" for Everyone 10+.
 How many gamers do you think are women?
Digital Games
 Forty percent of all game players are women.
 Women over the age of 18 represent
a significantly greater portion of the gameplaying population (34%) than boys age 17 or
younger (18%).
Digital Games
 In 2009, 25 percent of Americans over the age of
50 played video games, an increase from nine
percent in 1999.
 Forty-nine percent of game players say they play
games online one or more hours per week.
 Thirty-seven percent of heads of households
play games on a wireless device, such as a cell
phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.
Games
 26 — Number of months it took Activision's “Guitar
Hero” franchise to generate more than $1 billion in
North American retail sales.
Games
 7 million -- Number of units sold of Rock Band
and Rock Band 2 video games across all varieties
of consoles.
Games in Education
 100 to 135 — Number of Global Fortune 500
companies that will have adopted by 2012
gaming for learning purposes, according to
The Apply Group.
 4 million — Number of people to play Food
Force in the game's first year, according to
the United Nations World Food
Programme.
Games
 As of today, 503 educational institutions
worldwide were listed on
www.gamecareerguide.com as having video
game design and development courses
available.
Games and Health
 765 — Number of West
Virginia schools
installing the Dance
Dance Revolution
game as part of the
state's physical
education curriculum.
Games and Workplace
 According to a study by the Entertainment
Software Association, 70 percent of major
employers utilize interactive software and
games to train employees.
Games and Workplace
 In 2008, the Hilton Garden
Inn introduced the first
interactive training game
for the hospitality industry.
Ultimate Team Play places
employees in a virtual hotel
interfacing with customers
and fielding typical guest
requests.
Games and Advertising
 1 billion — Expected market, in dollars, for ingame advertising by end of 2010, according to
Nielsen Media Research.
Games and Advertising
 The presidential campaign
of Barack Obama used ingame advertising by
purchasing virtual
billboards in the game
Burnout Paradise.
 The Obama campaign was
the first in American
politics to utilize
advertising within a video
game.
Games and Play
 Games as a subset of
play
 Play as a subset of
games
What is play?
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Play doesn’t come just from the
game itself, but from the way that
players interact with the game in
order to play it.

“[Play is] a free activity standing
quite consciously outside “ordinary
life” as being “not serious,” but at
the same time absorbing the player
intensely and utterly. It is an activity
connected with no material interest,
and no profit can be gained by it. It
proceeds within its own proper
boundaries of time and space
according to fixed rules and in an
orderly manner. It promotes the
formation of social groupings, which
tend to surround themselves with
secrecy and to stress their
difference from the common world
by disguise or other means.”
Huizinga.
Play
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But this doesn’t differentiate between
games and play. Doesn’t ask what are their
differences.
We will come back to play as a dramatic
element on Friday.
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“Game designers do not directly design
play. They only design the structures and
contexts in which play takes place,
indirectly shaping the actions of the
player.” Salen and Zimmerman.
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Chris Crawford, author of “The Art of
Computer Game Design” identified four
elements of play:
Representation – games are closed formal
systems that subjectively represent a
subset of reality. Game is complete and
self-sufficient as a structure.
Interaction – Audience can explore, interact
with system.
Conflict – All games have conflict. Arises
naturally from interaction with game.
Obstacle prevent player from easily
achieving goals.
Safety – Games provide psychological
experience of conflict and danger but
player is not really exposed to these things
in the physical world. A safe way to
experience reality.
So … what is a game?
 What are some
features of games?
Games
 Closed or open, formal systems
 Represents subset of reality – 3d objects that
look like people are meant to represent
people, for example. Rules mimic real life
possibilities.
 Contest/outcome
Games
• Zimmerman/Salen:
• “A game is a system in which players
engage in an artificial conflict, defined by
rules, that results in a quantifiable
outcome.
Exceptions?
• Role playing games
• Puzzles
Is this a game?
How about this?
Text Rain
How about this?
PacManhattan
Games
• By formal, we mean:
– Has a structure made of rules, procedures, etc.
Formal System
•
•
•
•
Objects
Attributes
Relationships
Environment
System: Chess
Open vs. Closed
Open vs. closed
• Three schema for looking at games
• Rules (Formal) – closed
• Play (experiential) – open and closed
• Culture (contextual) - open
Lusory Attitude
WHAT IS IT?
The Magic Circle
• What is it?
• Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens
Traits of Digital Games
• Immediate but narrow interactivity
• (Limitations help shape space of
possibility)
• Information manipulation (can learn rules
as you go!)
• Automated complex systems (black box
syndrome)
• Networked communication
ROLE OF THE GAME DESIGNER
Player Experience
 As a game designer, you are the architect of the
players’ experience. You make the game
playable. You create the interactivity.
 Games as “Carefully constructed piece of
theater” – Beck and Wade
 “It’s about building a potential experience,
setting all the pieces in place so that everything’s
ready to unfold when the players begin to
participate.” - Fullerton
Potential Experience Choice
 Scribblenauts
Rand Miller on Design
 www.riven.com (9:21).
 Myst:
 Robyn and Rand Miller began work in 1991, and
released Myst in Sept. 1993.
 Was the best-selling PC game of all time until The
Sims in 2002.
 Its sequel, Riven, was released in 1997.
 Uru was released in 2003.
Player Experience
 Design process
 First, Set player experience goals.
 “Players will have the freedom to pursue the goals of the
game in any order they choose.”
 “Players must complete tasks for which they have no
instructions”
 Forget the features. What do you want your player to go
running into the next room about?
 Five Minutes to Kill Yourself
Create Concepts and
Prototypes
 Another key component is to deliver to the
player an experience he or she can use and will
like.
 You can’t give the player what he or she wants if
you don’t ask what he or she wants
 You need to playtest your game. Player feedback
allows you to see the interactivity in action,
judge what is working and what is not working.
You made the game. Of course you know how to
use it. But does everyone else?
Iteration
 Iteration simply means you will design, test,
and evaluate over and over again.
You iterate before you reiterate.
Anatomy of a choice
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Anatomy of a choice:
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What happened before the player was given the choice (internal event)
Addresses the state at which point a choice must be made. Addresses
the context in which a choice is made.
How is the possibility of choice conveyed to the player? (external event)
Are there buttons? Empty spaces? How does the user know he or she
can make a choice, and what that choice could be?
How did the player make the choice? (internal event) Mechanism.
Button? Enters text?
What is the result of the choice? How will it affect future choices?
(internal event) How does the action influence outcome immediately
and later in the game?
How is the result of the choice conveyed to the player? (external event)
Does something blow up? Is a space now filled and can’t be used later?
Provides context for the next choice that needs to be made.
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