Just got back from this year's Game Summit in Montreal. I gave a talk there based upon my recent edited book: Game Usability: Advice from the Experts for Advancing the Player Experience, and also hosted a roundtable on the theme of usability and games. The conference was well attended and there were some terrific talks--Jason Della Rocca has photos and a bit of a summary up on his website.
During some downtime in the speakers lounge, I ended up talking with a fellow speaker, a notable game developer who I guess I'll protect by not naming, and we were discussing how fun it would be to play a game in which you could pit sumo wrestlers against one another who had the personalities and fighting styles of large corporations. You know, a head-to-head of say, Disney versus Verizon? Or maybe Microsoft versus Google? Where each is a personified, bouncing, ducking and weaving, maybe even 'diaper' wearing character. It could be cathartic to win an epic battle against a company who has frustrated you day in and day out. And fun to see the qualities that you've experienced in the corporate atmosphere of a place where you work, wrought into human form.
Maybe I should try to convince Ian Bogost to mock such a thing up. Who knows, maybe he already has?
I guess this is the opposite of empathy, in a way, but it certainly speaks to strong emotional experience through characters.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Videogames and your soul
Now that I'm settled in at NYU-Poly, I'm going to renew my efforts to post regularly on this blog. At the moment I've been doing a lot of reading about games and learning, because I'm part of the newly formed NYU Games for Learning Institute (visit here for a description by the Institute's funders, Microsoft).
So far my favorite book about the topic, is James Gee's book Why Video Games are Good for your Soul. It came out in 2005. In it he really is able to put his finger on what makes gaming such a compelling experience for the player. I particularly like how he brings empathy into the picture. He talks about how physicists and other specialists learn to project themselves bodily into a complex model or system, in order to really get a feel for it and make progress in their ideas. He calls this 'embodied empathy for a complex system'. He feels that fusing with a game character through playing that character, is the same kind of process. He points out that good games always do this for players, and often end up teaching them complex things as a result (e.g. he has a rant on Deus Ex: Invisible War and how it allows the player to explore what it might mean to have a world in which abilities can be purchased systemically--e.g. parents buying smarts for their kids).
Gee does a great job expressing the general feel of this kind of empathy, and its power, through tracking on several particular games and examples from them.
I'm excited to use this book to ground some of my own design-based explorations of how specific choices impact player experience and empathy!
So far my favorite book about the topic, is James Gee's book Why Video Games are Good for your Soul. It came out in 2005. In it he really is able to put his finger on what makes gaming such a compelling experience for the player. I particularly like how he brings empathy into the picture. He talks about how physicists and other specialists learn to project themselves bodily into a complex model or system, in order to really get a feel for it and make progress in their ideas. He calls this 'embodied empathy for a complex system'. He feels that fusing with a game character through playing that character, is the same kind of process. He points out that good games always do this for players, and often end up teaching them complex things as a result (e.g. he has a rant on Deus Ex: Invisible War and how it allows the player to explore what it might mean to have a world in which abilities can be purchased systemically--e.g. parents buying smarts for their kids).
Gee does a great job expressing the general feel of this kind of empathy, and its power, through tracking on several particular games and examples from them.
I'm excited to use this book to ground some of my own design-based explorations of how specific choices impact player experience and empathy!
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Real Story on Characters and Emotion: Taking it 'to the Streets'!
Our presentation at GDC 08 went well! I know a lot of people were interested in seeing the slides and poster again or even peeking at the data themselves, so I've put everything live.
We got some interesting feedback as well! I'll just summarize some of the top responses:
- Culture plays a big role in feedback. What makes the King of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy) an amusing character here isn't the same in Japan, where he's funny for other reasons. The culture in our survey was mostly American/Canadian/European, which means of course that we are overlooking a big part of the market.
- Almost all named responses were humans or humanoid characters. There were very few animals or pets, except in the favorite allies question where characters like pokemon and pikmin came up a few times. Expected, but an interesting analysis nonetheless.
- Someone during the session asked about heroes vs. antiheroes, and which players felt more of a relation to. Looking back through the data, it actually seems the ratio was about even. My speculation here is some liked heroes for their positive, idealistic qualities, while others found the antiheroes more complex and real. I didn't check to see if this correlated with any demographics (age, genre, etc)... but the good news is, the data will be live as soon as I make this post =)
Our next big topic of research is player-created avatars and player-generated stories. Check back with us soon for an overview and a survey link! =)
This is Corey, signing off.
We got some interesting feedback as well! I'll just summarize some of the top responses:
- Culture plays a big role in feedback. What makes the King of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy) an amusing character here isn't the same in Japan, where he's funny for other reasons. The culture in our survey was mostly American/Canadian/European, which means of course that we are overlooking a big part of the market.
- Almost all named responses were humans or humanoid characters. There were very few animals or pets, except in the favorite allies question where characters like pokemon and pikmin came up a few times. Expected, but an interesting analysis nonetheless.
- Someone during the session asked about heroes vs. antiheroes, and which players felt more of a relation to. Looking back through the data, it actually seems the ratio was about even. My speculation here is some liked heroes for their positive, idealistic qualities, while others found the antiheroes more complex and real. I didn't check to see if this correlated with any demographics (age, genre, etc)... but the good news is, the data will be live as soon as I make this post =)
Our next big topic of research is player-created avatars and player-generated stories. Check back with us soon for an overview and a survey link! =)
This is Corey, signing off.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Cultural differences and touch
Our family booked a train trip to see my husband's family in Bremen, and he was complaining about how crowded the train will be... this brought back memories for me of riding the trains in Japan. I remember one rush hour trip between Kyoto and Osaka where there really were men with white gloves shoving us all onto the train, similar to what you can see in this photo:
We were so densely packed that there was no way to hold a hand rail. Instead you were held up by other bodies all around you. You had to sort of wriggle your way to the train doors one stop ahead of where you needed to get off the train. The experience was extremely overwhelming to me, as someone used to US notions of how crowded in it's acceptable to be.
Wikipedia actually has an entry describing cultural differences in notions about how close we can get, which is termed 'spatial empathy'. The idea being that in some cultures there's a notion that a person 'owns' a certain amount of space around him/herself, and others should not enter it. It's quite shocking to suddenly be pressed against strangers in a train if one is operating under these notions!
Considering the space between people, and how it influences emotion, is hard enough when designing characters in a game for one cultural market. After all, there is a whole research field (proxemics) devoted to the understanding of interpersonal distance.
There are some games that have explored proxemics in interesting ways (remember Ico's hand-holding game mechanic?), but designers have barely scratched the surface of the possibility space.
When I'm supervising Ph.D. students, I tell them that the moment they realize how little they know and get a bit depressed is the moment when they've just started to become good at what they do. I think this may also be true for game designers hoping to create true empathy in games. There are so many facets to the experience to be mastered. It can feel overwhelming, but it is a worthy goal that is achievable...
We were so densely packed that there was no way to hold a hand rail. Instead you were held up by other bodies all around you. You had to sort of wriggle your way to the train doors one stop ahead of where you needed to get off the train. The experience was extremely overwhelming to me, as someone used to US notions of how crowded in it's acceptable to be.
Wikipedia actually has an entry describing cultural differences in notions about how close we can get, which is termed 'spatial empathy'. The idea being that in some cultures there's a notion that a person 'owns' a certain amount of space around him/herself, and others should not enter it. It's quite shocking to suddenly be pressed against strangers in a train if one is operating under these notions!
Considering the space between people, and how it influences emotion, is hard enough when designing characters in a game for one cultural market. After all, there is a whole research field (proxemics) devoted to the understanding of interpersonal distance.
There are some games that have explored proxemics in interesting ways (remember Ico's hand-holding game mechanic?), but designers have barely scratched the surface of the possibility space.
When I'm supervising Ph.D. students, I tell them that the moment they realize how little they know and get a bit depressed is the moment when they've just started to become good at what they do. I think this may also be true for game designers hoping to create true empathy in games. There are so many facets to the experience to be mastered. It can feel overwhelming, but it is a worthy goal that is achievable...
Friday, July 13, 2007
Building a canon of empathy examples
This week's entry is really a pointer over to Grand Text Auto, where Noah made a great post on the merits of Indigo Prophecy, a 2005 release for the Play Station 2.
Noah, and some of his respondents, discuss play mechanisms like the timed dialog choices and the forced switching of point of view between the murderer and the investigators, and the impact these design choices had upon their experience.
In my classes on character design, I have students play through games that are known to have really well executed characters. I gather these examples informally by asking developers and players what they've seen and appreciated. But I think it would be great to have a more systematic and broader collection of examples. Something like Indigo Prophecy had some issues, but also had some very interesting innovations. All too often all the pieces don't come together for a game and yet there are some valuable insights for designers.
We got at some of this at my round table at GDC this year, and hopefully Corey's survey (that I blogged about last week) will gather some additional helpful input. But a taxonomy of interesting techniques is yet another needed resource.
Anyone out there know of such a thing? If not, maybe I should create one here...
Noah, and some of his respondents, discuss play mechanisms like the timed dialog choices and the forced switching of point of view between the murderer and the investigators, and the impact these design choices had upon their experience.
In my classes on character design, I have students play through games that are known to have really well executed characters. I gather these examples informally by asking developers and players what they've seen and appreciated. But I think it would be great to have a more systematic and broader collection of examples. Something like Indigo Prophecy had some issues, but also had some very interesting innovations. All too often all the pieces don't come together for a game and yet there are some valuable insights for designers.
We got at some of this at my round table at GDC this year, and hopefully Corey's survey (that I blogged about last week) will gather some additional helpful input. But a taxonomy of interesting techniques is yet another needed resource.
Anyone out there know of such a thing? If not, maybe I should create one here...
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Answer a few good questions?
Corey (my undergraduate research assistant) and I have finally gotten together the survey that was discussed at GDC this year, about game characters and emotion. If you have a moment, would you answer a few good questions?
We'll share the results on this blog, so you'll be contributing helpful information to larger game development/research community.
And when you're done with that, you might find this recent NY Times article interesting--it's a meditation on how fashion and game avatar customization intersect. They quoted me as saying that competition could enhance men's fashion sense, which I'm not sure I really did say, or if I did, that I really did mean. But it is certainly interesting to consider how a player's identity and habits shift and meld with his or her in-game choices...
We'll share the results on this blog, so you'll be contributing helpful information to larger game development/research community.
And when you're done with that, you might find this recent NY Times article interesting--it's a meditation on how fashion and game avatar customization intersect. They quoted me as saying that competition could enhance men's fashion sense, which I'm not sure I really did say, or if I did, that I really did mean. But it is certainly interesting to consider how a player's identity and habits shift and meld with his or her in-game choices...
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Ich bin ein Berliner
This month and next I'm staying in Berlin, which, besides being a bustling, fascinating and very international city, also seems to have a stealthily growing games scene.
Last week I gave two talks here based upon my book--one at the Games Academy for the local chapter of the IGDA, and one at Yager Development, which was hosting the annual meeting of the German Game Developers Guild.
The Games Academy has been in business since 2000, and seems to be thriving. They recently added a new degree focus on Game Producing, something that RPI's panel of experts on our own undergraduate degree development spoke of as an educational gap, now that game projects are so huge and complex.
The IGDA talk was well attended, and the audience had many great questions and thoughts about game characters and emotions.
The next day's talk at the Game Developers Guild meeting was actually part of a 5-hour workshop among experienced designers/developers from all around Germany. After I spoke, the group discussed their own issues and insights around characters and emotion--from designing interesting and non-repetitive interactions with merchants in a big open-ended game world, to strategies for offering character customization in a classic RPG, to how to make a character feel alive and emotionally engaging in a point and click style adventure game while the player is mulling over what to do next. The common theme among all these dilemmas was how to handle limited resources to deliver emotional punch along with great game mechanics and all the other things that players expect. It seemed that everyone there benefited from the shared brainstorming, and I was impressed that the developer community here manages to find the time and to be open enough to share dilemmas and pool their insights.
Several people had traveled quite a distance to be there, and were happy when the meeting adjourned to a local cafe/pub on a floating dock in a canal near the studio. Before we left, Uwe Beneke, one of Yager's founders and my gracious host at both events, brandished a full-size mock-up of a weapon that his art director constructed for their new game. It was huge and heavy, and could even be reloaded, after a fashion. They are using it for mocap for one of their games, to add a level of realism to the movement of the characters. Yet another of all the myriad details that go into making a game feel emotionally real...
Last week I gave two talks here based upon my book--one at the Games Academy for the local chapter of the IGDA, and one at Yager Development, which was hosting the annual meeting of the German Game Developers Guild.
The Games Academy has been in business since 2000, and seems to be thriving. They recently added a new degree focus on Game Producing, something that RPI's panel of experts on our own undergraduate degree development spoke of as an educational gap, now that game projects are so huge and complex.
The IGDA talk was well attended, and the audience had many great questions and thoughts about game characters and emotions.
The next day's talk at the Game Developers Guild meeting was actually part of a 5-hour workshop among experienced designers/developers from all around Germany. After I spoke, the group discussed their own issues and insights around characters and emotion--from designing interesting and non-repetitive interactions with merchants in a big open-ended game world, to strategies for offering character customization in a classic RPG, to how to make a character feel alive and emotionally engaging in a point and click style adventure game while the player is mulling over what to do next. The common theme among all these dilemmas was how to handle limited resources to deliver emotional punch along with great game mechanics and all the other things that players expect. It seemed that everyone there benefited from the shared brainstorming, and I was impressed that the developer community here manages to find the time and to be open enough to share dilemmas and pool their insights.
Several people had traveled quite a distance to be there, and were happy when the meeting adjourned to a local cafe/pub on a floating dock in a canal near the studio. Before we left, Uwe Beneke, one of Yager's founders and my gracious host at both events, brandished a full-size mock-up of a weapon that his art director constructed for their new game. It was huge and heavy, and could even be reloaded, after a fashion. They are using it for mocap for one of their games, to add a level of realism to the movement of the characters. Yet another of all the myriad details that go into making a game feel emotionally real...
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