Repetitive Gameplay and the Nostalgia Factor

This is a small addon to “This is the Best Game Ever”. In that feature I wrote about my disappointment with Rogue Leader. I felt there was just something missing from it that the first game, Rogue Squadron, had. Well, I think there are two other reasons you can be disappointed with a game: repetitive gameplay and nostalgia. Sometimes you play a great sequel, well deserving of all the high marks and praise it gets, but it just does not keep your interest like previous games in the series.

You see a game series can only do so much to change up the gameplay. The fans of the series expect a certain type of gameplay, so developers tend to be conservative about any changes to the formula they make. Usually, the first sequel makes a lot of changes to the gameplay. The second sequel has smaller changes, and so on. This means there is less “new” with each new game. A large part of the fun you get from games is from the freshness of the gameplay.

The fourth or fifth sequel is more polished and solid than the original, but the gameplay has been refined so much that you do not get that newness feeling. There is nothing really wrong with the gameplay. You have just played too much of it. The thing is that same old gameplay can feel fresh again with time. Our brains only have a limited memory that fades over time. If you played Mario Bros. for a month straight you would be pretty bored and might even say you never want to play it again. Give yourself a five year break though, and you might have fun with Mario Bros. again.

This is something that developers need to watch out for. Releasing new sequels every year or even every other year is a surefire way to get players bored with your game series no matter how solid the gameplay is. Players (and game critics) need breaks; too many sequels will cause them to rate the games poorly. At the time time, sequels should not be too sparse either. I would guess the majority of fans are ready for a sequel within three to five years. This means companies like Blizzard and Valve are probably not catering the best to fans with their ten year times between sequels.

Nostalgia also factors into this. Usually when you think about a franchise, your most fond memories are the earliest games in the series. These were your first experiences with the gameplay and you loved how fresh it was, but what is also common is to lump all the sequels in with these first experiences. A game might have A, B, and C in the original, and D, E, and F game mechanics are added in sequels. However, nostalgia paints the original game as having everything from the beginning; your memory props it up to be better than it was.

This nostalgia can cause you to be disappointed with a sequel. You may think “The first game had A, B, C, D, E, F. Everything about it was fresh. The sequel only adds G, so it is too much of the same old thing.” I think it is important for anyone that analyzes and critiques games to factor in this nostalgia. It can really change your opinions on a game. Do not rely on memory. Check the history of the games in a series to see what each one offered. Only then can you really compare a new game to previous games.

2011 Year-in-Review

This year was probably one of the best for quality video games. No matter what type of games you liked, there was probably a big release for you to be excited about. It was not all good though. There were quite a few delayed games and disappointments as well, and let us not forget about the Sony hacking scandal either.

2011: Year of Disappointments

Crysis 2 – The game mechanics were simplified compared to Crysis 1. The PC version also had the glaring mistake “Press Start to Begin” on the title screen despite PCs not having a Start button. Crysis 1 was seen as the epitome of what it meant to be a PC gamer: amazing graphics only a PC could achieve and good gameplay depth console games usually lack. Crysis 2, on the other hand, was a full-on console port. That little mistake on the title screen really set off the PC community with “consolization” discussions being tossed around a lot (PC exclusives transforming into multiplatform titles).  Crysis 2 was also the first high profile game to be removed from Steam after EA released DLC exclusively on EA’s Origin. (Steam’s rules do not allow exclusive, non-Steam DLC.)

Dragon Age 2 – The first game in the series was also on consoles, but was an inferior experience compared to the PC version. An isometric, tactical RPG just did not work that well on a console. Bioware (and their Electronic Arts overlords) eager to tap into the big console sales decided to move the sequel in a different direction. They abandoned that top-down view in exchange for a third-person view similar to Mass Effect. They also changed combat to be more fast-paced in exchange for less tactical. This led the PC community to discussions of dumbing down for consoles, but the real problem was the lack of content. Almost the whole game played out in one city with many recycled areas. It was clearly a rushed game. The game sold well on launch day, but the bad word-of-mouth meant Dragon Age: Origins ultimately sold far more copies than Dragon Age 2. It was also removed from Steam for similar reasons as Crysis 2.

Designing Games to be Replaced

Grandpas always like to say “In my day…” about how it was better when they were growing up. Well I do think certain aspects of games were better in the old days. In the early days of gaming, there really was not much money to make. The people making games were not doing it for money. They were doing out of passion. They loved playing games, and they wanted others to experience that addictive fun. Their dreams were to make a game so good it created a legacy in the gaming world. Think Super Mario Bros. or Final Fantasy even. These games were so much better than the other games at the time, they became instant classics.

Eventually, of course, gaming became more popular. More popular meant more money. For a while developers resisted this by staying as independent as they could, but just like music and movies the big businesses and their money eventually won out. Most of the creative developers were bought out. Developers had money to do more risky games that might end up legendary. For some time that worked out great, resulting in the golden gaming era of the mid to late 1990s. Once the big businesses saw how much money could be made, they through all that out the window.

Why spend so much money on risky ideas and games that could last for years when they could just re-release the same game with a few small changes every year?

Skyrim Mod Tools Delayed to January

Bethesda Softworks announced yesterday the mod tools for Skyrim, called the Creation Kit, are not coming out until early January. No specific release date was given. On launch day, they had previously said the tools were not ready. Many players were expecting them in just a few weeks. For the time being, players will have to be satisfied with current mods which are limited to graphical changes (textures, models, effects).

• There is some good news, though. When the tools release, Bethesda will create a Creation Kit wiki with modding tutorial videos. The wiki will start with just a basic skeleton, but modder’s will be able to add their findings to it. This should ultimately become the definitive resource for Creation Kit modding.
• Bethesda will also be integrating Steam’s “Workshop” into Skyrim. This means players will be able to upload mods to the Steam cloud, and players can download from inside the game. You can still get your mods from an external website and manually install them, but the Workshop will make things a lot easier for the average player.

I really like the workshop idea. Blizzard has a similar system for Starcraft 2 custom maps, and I think it is the future. Unlike Starcraft 2, though, Skyrim mods will always be free of charge. Bethesda will not be allowing anyone to charge for their mods.

One downside to this is that mods from the Workshop have to be “approved”. This means no nude mods or other questionable content will be available from the Workshop. Another downside is that the Workshop will probably have filesize limits for mods. This means large mods like Qarl’s Texture Pack (mods that overhaul the graphics) will most likely be too big to put on the Workshop. These downsides are actually good for the external sites though.  Skyrim Nexus, SkyrimForge,Planet Elder Scrolls (Fileplanet), and all the other Skyrim mod sites are bound to be popular for mods that can not go on the Workshop.