A long time ago (at least 350 internet years, which translates to around one year ago on October 2011), a writer at Bioware named Jennifer Hepler was the object of immense controversy. At the time of this incident, one statement is particular was brought to light that she had made six years ago: She had told interviewers that she wished that developers would more often include more “casual” difficulties for people like her that do not necessarily enjoy playing video games, but like to be engaged in a good story, in which the gameplay sections are skipped in order to go from dialogue to dialogue. Though at first I was in support of this “Hepler Mode,” in time I began to change my mind. This is not to say that I am against making easier difficulties for new players. In fact, quite the opposite is true in that regards. In the past, I have been vocal in my support of simplifying systems and allowing for adjustable difficulties to facilitate a variety of player skill levels. No, the problems with this “Story” mode are related to the underlying assumptions that are implied by the idea.

The fact that this has even come up in discussion is proof of a fundamentally poor design principal which is prevalent in the gaming industry (and honest probably has been for quite some time), which is that story and gameplay can and should be allowed to exist separately. This line of thinking is prevalent in video games of all types, from shooters like Call of Duty, to open-world games like inFamous, and even Western-style RPGs like Mass Effect, which have choice and consequence as major themes and mechanics. In many of these games, there is a clear divide between the moments where the player is engaged in the story and is advancing the plot and the other moments that consist of mostly shooting mooks or other gameplay elements. These sections where the game is nothing but intense combat seem to have no real impact on the outcome of the events and exist merely to extend the length of the game. Mass Effect is a clear example of this in action. In every Mass Effect game (and many other Bioware games if what I am told is true), despite the choices the player makes and the changes to the overall timeline as a result of these choices, the player will always play through the same levels with the same enemies. The only thing that the player can do to change up these encounters is to play as a different class and/or bring different squadmates along. The opposite of this phenomenon is also true. No matter what class the player chooses, who they bring on missions, and what they do during combat scenarios, the story will never be affected by it. Each of these two sections of the game exist, for all intent and purposes, independently of the other. This is not how games should be designed. The gameplay and the story should exist to supplement each other. They should be so entwined as to be nearly inseparable. Interaction and choice are the biggest strengths of the medium. In order to use it to most effective tell a tale, designers need to keep this in mind. Spec Ops: The Line is a fantastic example of that (which will be left vague because of spoilers).

The other error in the underlying assumptions of “Hepler Mode” is the question of who this kind of mode would be aiming for marketing-wise. What I mean by that is that Jennifer Hepler notes that one of the reasons this kind of mode of play would be needed is that there are people out there that do not like video games, yet are interested in a good story. Ignoring whatever opinion you may have of Hepler, why would a game developer or publisher even make an attempt to capture a market that literally has no interest in their products? What would be gained from that? Any interest this non-gamer market would have in video games would be superficial at best. This is not the same thing as attracting people who may have an interest in games, but are put off by the (admittedly high) barriers of entry like consoles/PCs, price of games, and complicated control schemes aimed at those familiar with other games. That makes sense. What does not make sense is marketing to people that literally have no interest in the medium at all. Doing so is a recipe for disaster and one of the easiest ways a developer can piss away the good will of its fans. If the target demographic has no interest in playing games, then the odds are that they will not even know the publisher is marketing to them, let alone have any interest in the games being marketed.

This problem with “Hepler Mode” is not that it is an unsound concept, but rather that it should not be. If the combat system wears down most players so much that the vast majority of them are asking to skip it entirely, then it may be a good idea to revamp the systems of the game to make it more entertaining. It is up to designers to make tough calls like editing, revising, and even removing features or parts of levels in order to improve the overall experience because that is what they are paid to do. The gameplay is just as much a part of the experience as the storyline. To give players the option to skip gameplay is to concede the video games are nothing more than movies with playable segments in between shots. That is not acceptable! It goes against the very strengths of the medium. Games are at their best when they embrace their nature as interactive media and utilized it to the fullest. While this is an old issue, it is still an important one nonetheless and I hope that lessons were learned from it.

It cannot be disputed that gaming has grown to become a legitimate form of expression and speech. Over the years, it has acquired a legitimacy previously in dispute and constantly vied for by developers and publishers. Now that the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered its ruling on the matter and sided with us, the gamers, this is no longer a matter up for debate. Despite the fact that we have reached this point, it seems that developers can still be susceptible to the pressures and influences of the media and major news outlets. It is not the norm for developers, but it does happen often enough and gamers can get caught in the crossfire when it does. This week’s article is dedicated to these instances and what is wrong with them. Instead of my usual format where I make a sweeping general statement and then support it with facts, I will do things in reverse. I will outline three different cases and then tie them together with my point in the end. Now, without further ado:

The first case will be talking about was somewhat controversial when it was announced: Six Days in Fallujah. Many of you many have heard of this game, developed by Atomic Games, a company that specializes in war games like the Close Combat and World At War series. The story behind the creation of this game is a very interesting one. One of the many divisions of Atomic Games was contracted to create a set of training tools of the Marine Corp of the United States. In order to do this, Marines from the Third Battalion, First Marines were assigned to them. In the midst of development, these Marines were deployed to the Battle of Fallujah. After returning to continue development, the Marines themselves requested that the developers make a game about their experiences during this conflict. From that request was born the desire to make a realistic and true-to-form tale of what the soldiers go through, based on actual testimony and experiences from returning US Marines, Military Officials, and other experts of combat in the modern age. While actual gameplay footage of Six Days of Fallujah, at least the footage I found, reveals very little about the game itself, Atomic describes it almost as survival horror game. Players were to assume the role of a company of soldiers in the Battle of Fallujah, going through the mission in a way that actual soldiers would go about it. This would entail constantly being on edge and being unable to predict what could come at the player next. The player would have gone up against tactics used by enemy insurgents and combatants in real world conflicts. It was to depict the physical and psychological toll that war takes on the people involved, similar in a sense to the more recent Spec Ops: The Line, although with an even stronger grounding in reality. This game was originally going to be published by Konami. However, on April 27, 2009, they backed down from the project when faced with pressure from media in the US. The outcry came mostly from the parents of soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict speaking out against it for fear that they would not treat the subject with respect. Because of all of this, the developer was left to fend for itself. Though the game has long since been finished, Atomic has yet to find someone willing to publish it. To this day, they have been reduced to a minimal crew of few people and are still trying to find someone to help them bring the game to the public.

Our next case was much luckier than Atomic, but it is still a very telling one. We are going to talk about the reemergenceof the Medal of Honor series, now published by EA and developed by Danger Close Games. Before the days of Call of Duty’s dominance, in the time of World War 2 shooters, Medal of Honor was one of the top dogs in the FPS genre. When it was going to be reawakened in 2010, people were naturally curious about the subject. However, one design decision in particular caused controversy. In the game’s multiplayer mode, instead of making one side a generic, nameless terrorist organization, the game was going to mirror real life warfare by making them the Taliban. The problem arose from the fact that this meant that many players would inevitably play as the Taliban’s forces against representations of soldiers from the United States and its allies. Faced with pressure from different groups, and with US military officials banning the sale of the game on their bases, Danger Close and EA folded, changing the name of the terrorist group in the game to the OpFor (Opposing Forces). Though the game did reasonably well, it was far from one of the top sellers. With the exception of the controversy surrounding it, there was nothing noteworthy about it and it quickly faded into obscurity until the sequel emerged.

This last case study differs greatly from the first two. Not only is this one not, strictly speaking, a war game, but it also did very well in many aspects. Nonetheless, it will follow the themes laid out in this article and needs to be discussed. One of my favorite games to discuss and criticize, this one will be an old hat to returning readers of my series: Mass Effect 3, published by EA and developed by Bioware. Now, given the circumstances behind the last two cases, I think all of you can guess what I will be discussing here. When Mass Effect 3 was released to the public earlier this year, it was highly praised for the most part. People were enjoying the final chapter of the franchise. Then, all of us reached the ending of the game. This caused people to… react… negatively. Rather than defend their work with logical, well thought out arguments, Bioware initially decided to hide behind the veil of something as obscure and meaningless as “artistic integrity.” Later on, they recanted their previous statements and released the Extended Cut version of the ending. This was not a change to the ending, but rather a revision of it. While this revision is generally a good one, combined with the response from Bioware to the response of the original ending, it called the developer’s practices into question. After the issues people had with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2, along with the Day 1, On-Disc DLC of Mass Effect 3, Bioware was on thin ice. The way they handled the ending of the franchise proper was not helping to smooth this over.

So what do these all have in common and what is this building up to? Well, it is pretty simple. While cases like these three are fairly rare, they do and will probably continue to happen, meaning they need to be called out now so that developers and publishers can learn from them. All of these games had controversy surrounding them and the developer and/or the publisher was responsible for mismanaging the controversy and doing for harm to the product and brand than they needed to. In the case of Six Days of Fallujah, Konami failed to address the naysayers and instead opted to sever ties with Atomic. They could have easily decided to stand by the game and addressed the critiques of the project. Going in, Konami had to have known that this kind of reaction was possible, they are not stupid. It would have been necessary to make a plan to address this. Since the developers seemed to have known what they were doing, it would have been easy. Spec Ops: The Line later proved that games can and should address the subject of war from an pessimistic and cynical point of view as opposed to the military bravado expressed in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. They did not support the statement this game would have made and decided to abandon it, washing their hands of the whole affair.

In the case of Medal of Honor, gamers stood up for EA and Danger Close. We as a whole felt that it was okay for them to make the move to have the Taliban as part of the multiplayer mode. When they decided to cave into the pressure and change the Taliban to the OpFor, they lost any support that they had. Once they no longer stood behind their product and their decisions, gamers could no longer do so either. They had felt betrayed that they had stood up for EA and were then left in the dust. This brought negative attention and spite to the Medal of Honor brand that it could never truly recover from, even if the game itself was not as mediocre as it was. The US Military still refused to stock the game in stores on their bases well after the developers made the change, meaning that it was for naught. All that Medal of Honor left it its wake was bitterness, and its okay sales reflected that.

As for Mass Effect 3, like I said, Bioware initially did their best to respond to the criticisms and stand behind the ending they created. However, instead of using logical and sound arguments to support the ending like the themes it was supposed to represent, the obvious lack of resources and time, etc., they chose to use “artistic integrity,” a useless phrase that has no meaning. Then, they released the Extended Cut as a way to “clarify” the ending, changing a few scenes and ret-conning the destruction of the Mass Relays. Neither one of these reactions was good and both brought the wrong kind of press to Bioware’s doors. By hiding behind “integrity,” Bioware opened itself to many criticisms and made itself look pretty weak all things considered. And then when they released the Extended Cut, they sent out another subtle message to their fans. By changing the ending, they show, perhaps unknowingly, that they did not fully endorse the product they were sending out initially. If this was indeed the case, then it should have never been released in the state it was in. Just like with the case of Medal of Honor, if Bioware cannot support the game they release, then how can they expect fans to do the same. One of two reactions could have helped to mitigate the damage. Bioware could have fervently and forcefully stood behind their ending. While, as a detractor of the ending, I would not have liked that reaction, I would have understood it, accepted it, and finally moved on after awhile had they supported it enough. The other possible reaction was to simply admit that they made a mistake. Telling the public that they took a risk and it did not pan out is not the most pleasant thing to do, but it would have reduced tensions. Gamers knew something was wrong with Mass Effect 3, they are not stupid. Saying that would lay many fears to rest, since the imagination can often times can be worse than the real thing.

The underlying moral behind all of these issues is that people involved were not willing to stand behind the work they did and caved in to pressure. In all of these cases, doing so led to a generally weaker position for each of these projects and negatively impacted them in some way. Let us all be honest here, making games is not a science: It is very much a creative endeavor. As such, it important to have courage when developing games. In much plainer language, if developers and publishers do not have the guts to stand behind what they make, then they have no business being in this industry and need to remove themselves before they grow bankrupt. Making safe bets and following the leader will not work here. It takes ambition, creativity, passion, and guts. Bowing to pressure is the biggest indicator that companies do not belong in the industry. This is something I feel strongly about, and I would hope you all do too.

It is no secret that video games have been in a constant state of evolution. Unlike books, movies, and music, our medium is still very much a young one. We are constantly pushing the limits of what interactivity with media can do. As gaming continues to push and grow, it has begun to demonstrate a very clear trend in recent years. Rather than strive complex, intricate systems that require a lot of patience and skill to master, most games have opted for simpler, easier to pick up and play systems. Many people lament this change. They feel that games are being “dumbed down” and think of it as a worsening of the medium as a whole. I disagree with this assessment. I believe that simplification is a good thing for our industry. In this week’s post, I will explain my reasoning.

The primary reason simplifying games is a good thing is that it leads to a bigger audience for them. Before you moan about all the “f***ing casuals” or “’hardcore’ Call of Duty players,” please take a moment to listen to my point. Bigger audiences allow developers to do more, since their sales are likely to be much higher. A degree of risk can be taken and further innovation can be made if sales of other projects can be virtually guaranteed. As much as we complain about the dullness of yearly release schedules for games like Call of Duty (and let’s be honest, the yearly release does negatively impact Call of Duty games), the profits on these games could be used to fund other projects that are more risky and may not be as well received. (They are not, usually, because of the way AAA companies work, but they could be.) Look at Valve for an good example of the positives of guaranteed profits. The near monopoly Valve has over PC gaming thanks to Steam virtually assures them that they will make profits no matter what they do with their money. Because of this, they are able to take (Valve) time to plan out, tweak, play-test, and re-tweak all of the parts of their games to ensure that they are of high quality. While people do bemoan the how simple modern games have become, they do help to attract these revenue streams that allow for more risky projects to be developed to advance the medium and cater to other tastes.

The other benefit of this extended audience, due to simplified systems, is that it brings in a more diverse and interesting set of viewpoints into the industry. This may seem something unimportant, but it is crucial to the advancement of the industry. Most people who have knowledge of the industry are aware that it is pretty much dominated by 20-30 something white men. While this should not be unexpected, it is detrimental to the industry. There is only so many ways 20-30 something white men can look upon a subject or topic. If we can bring in more demographics and people, each with their own perspectives, viewpoints, and biases, then we can broaden both the types of games that get released and their themes and topics. In any sort of entertainment industry, injecting new people and experiences will be a good thing. It helps to avoid stagnation and keeps things fresh and exciting for people. Different demographics are inherently going to have these new viewpoints due to the fact that they live different lives. Having a higher audience increases the number of people interested in games, which leads to more folks wanting to make a career out of it. This influx will invariably lead to more diverse people simply due to the law of averages. With that, we could see some much needed diversity in video games.

The second advantage to making systems simple and discarding complication is the way that it reduces tedium in game mechanics. This is something most people are at least aware of, even if they do not exactly know it, but it needs to be said anyway: Just because something is complex does not make it deep. On the other hand, just because something is simple to pick up and play does not make it make it shallow. Depth comes from the degree to which one can learn and master the systems at play. Though not, strictly speaking, a video game, Chess is the ultimate example of this. The game itself is simple to understand. There are only a limited number of rules one must need to know. However, everyone knows that chess is a game of intricacies and depth. There are hundreds of thousands of possible permutations of the game board and equally as many tactics to experiment with. While anyone can play to moderate success, someone who is an expert of the game will easily defeat a novice or intermediate player. We have seen video games with similarly simple, yet deep mechanics. Final Fantasy V is a good example with its job class system that has many different combinations. Another demonstration of this would be the recently released Dishonored. The game has a fairly limited tool-set that the player can use. However, the level design and game systems encourage experimentation and combination of these tools to efficiently and skillfully get passed a number of different situations. Like the other games in that fit this description, it falls into the category of “easy to learn, hard to master, ” which is something I whole-heartedly encourage. If developers keep mechanics simple, it forces them to use them in more creative and unique ways, rather than bloat their games with unnecessary filler.

While I support this trend of keeping games simple, I must confess that we must be careful with it. There is such a thing as over-simplification. Some games do benefit from a slight amount of complexity. It depends on the game in question. Other times, the mechanics are so simple and the level design is so mediocre that it makes for a generally bad experience. It is necessary to balance simple systems that any player can use with depth that allows others to go into the system and try to fully master it. Depth is what is most important, not complexity. Developers need to make deep experiences in order to attract people. We do not need excess complexity in games anymore. That is a thing of the past.

Out of all the genres of video games, few a more fascinating than the survival horror genre. It is one of the few existing genres that has the express purpose of eliciting a specific emotion. Because of this, the genre has tougher standards and is more of an evolved and practiced science than others. There are tricks and tactics developers can ascribe to that are tested and true. With the release of Resident Evil 6, which was very poorly received by the gaming press and public, the subject of horror has once again become relevant. This week, I want to talk more about the genre. I will discuss what is, in my humble opinion, the best way to invoke horror and why you will rarely see new horror games outside of the indie scene.

One of the first factors that horror developers must keep in mind is the concept of atmosphere. The tone and layout of the environment is a very key factor in this. Horror relies on the player feeling like the environment is out to get them. They need to feel weak and oppressed and the world needs to reflect that. To invoke this feeling of helplessness, a developer can do many things. One of the easiest things they can do is limit the resources a player has access to. By giving players limited resources, developers force them to use those resources as efficiently as possible. When confronted by a group of monsters, the player would need to decide whether it would be more beneficial to engage them, take the risk and try to run past them, or retreat hoping to find more resources and/or find an alternate path. Making a player decide this on the spot creates suspense and tension, creating an oppressive atmosphere conducive to the feeling of horror. Another strategy for building a scary atmosphere is to use unsettling set pieces to creep out the player. Now, when I say set pieces, I am NOT referring to the explosion-filled, Micheal Bay- like linear levels in a Call of Duty game. Instead, I am referring to the self-contained stories told via the environment similar to those common in Bethesda games. Using the environment to tell small stories regarding the people in an area is a powerful narrative tool, especially in a horror game. When it comes to scaring the player, their own mind is the most effective tool a developer can use against them. Knowing this crucial piece of information, a designer can implant details into a room and maybe include a note or audio file or two to draw a scene in the player’s head. While the designer will be able to create the general idea, the actual image will be generated by the player’s mind, which means that it will be custom tailored to frighten them. This further creates an unsettling and frightening atmosphere for the game.

Keeping with the idea of using making the player draft up details in their head, horror is often best achieved by showing as little as possible. Obfuscation is a very valid method for supporting the idea of horror in a video game. Many of the most successful horror games have worked well because they embraced their technical limitations and kept many details obscure. The most well-known example of this would be Silent Hill 2. Due to the limitations of the original Playstation system, Silent Hill 2 was not able to draw all the details of an area on screen at one time. In order to compensate, they blanketed the area just outside their draw limit with a dense fog that kept it out of view. This, combined with the unsettling atmosphere, had the beneficial side-effect of letting the players use their imaginations when traveling through the titular Silent Hill and added to the tension of what was going on in the game. The other way a designer can force the player to use their imagination is through keeping a minimalist mindset when designing the game. We humans are used to living in densely populated areas for the most part. Thus, we feel naturally freaked out when we see areas devoid of life. When a designer deliberately places few, spaced out lifeforms (friend OR foe) in an area, it invokes the Uncanny Valley effect. Seeing a familiar urban setting without the familiar urban population is close to what we are used to, but not quite close enough that we feel comfortable. This also calls forth a feeling of isolation. One man/woman, alone against overwhelming odds with barely any ability to fight back is inherently terrifying. A good example of this is in the free indie title, Slender. Though like any horror game, its effectiveness depends on the person playing, the developer of Slender was highly proficient at using few details in order to terrify the player. Trapped in a small, enclosed, wooded area with exactly one for, the Slenderman, players have no way to fight back and no one to support them. This is about as bare-bones as a horror game can be and, when it works, it works to great effect. When my friends and I played the game, one of them had to leave the room and go take a walk outside after playing in order to calm himself down. Another jumped the moment I moved the chair a few inches. This limited, but precise use of details and obfuscation was highly effective, yet it is also the reason AAA developers have such a hard time capturing the essence of horror. Games like Dead Space and the newer Resident Evil games are funded with multimillion dollar budgets and top of the line technology. Because there are few limits, they make highly detailed models for all of their monsters. With foes that well-rendered, it is far more tempting to throw them all into the limelight and force players to look at them than it is to keep them in the dark and let the players keep their imaginations and sense of tension active. This makes it hard for them to truly frighten the player beyond mere jump scares.

However, despite all of this, it is important to do one last thing when building horror games, and it is something that is critical to the art of fear. For prolonged, enduring play sessions, which many gamers can be prone to at times, being tense and on edge the entire time can be incredible taxing in a mental sense. In order to avoid depleting the player’s mental stamina, it is important to give them well planned and spaced-out areas of safety where they can take a breath and relax. This gives them time to rejuvenate themselves, manage their inventory, and plan out their next move without the overbearing weight of an oppressive atmosphere. Generally speaking, these are also places where the designer would offer the player the option to save their game. While allowing players a chance to relax is a good thing, rooms like these, where the player does not have to worry about confrontation, serve a duel purpose: They serve as a contrast from the oppressive atmosphere. If a player experiences nothing but horrors and nightmares, they will slowly build up a tolerance to them. When developers have these periods of rest, they expose the player to a different stimuli and vary the atmosphere a little bit. It serves to remind the player that there is an opposite to being under constant threat, which in turn makes the threat that much more terrifying. Done well, these areas can serve to make the player scared to leave them. The player will know that they are in a safe haven, but leaving will place them in a hostile environment again. This leads to some players procrastinating and waiting as long as possible to exit. While some designers may see this reluctance to move on as a sign of failure, the opposite is true for a horror game. If a player is too scared to leave a safe haven, then the developer knows he/she did their job properly. This contrast between the safety of an area of respite and the danger of the rest of the game is a strong asset that ought not be taken lightly.

Horror is a very fickle beast. It requires immense effort to uphold and maintain throughout an entire experience. Even when it is done well, it is all up to the individual players and their mindsets to be truly effective experiences and will rarely yield similar returns to that of a shooter with an equivalent budget and attention to detail. All of the factors that determine the likelihood of AAA doing it and getting it right work against it. When designing games that are designed to invoke fear, developers need to be extremely careful and use deliberate, well-thought out strategies for keeping players engrossed in the atmosphere of their game. This is easier said than done and is the main reason why many of the well-known titans of the genre, like Dead Space and Resident Evil, have begun to shift from horror to action. Even thought this is the case, fans of the genre should not lament it too much. Humanity will always have a place for horror in its heart and people will always be there to try to satisfy that demand. Given that many old genres like isometric RPGs have been seeing a resurgence of late, it is not implausible that even should the horror genre fade (which is highly unlikely), it too will return in due time.

It is no secret that there is a huge cultural divide between Western and Eastern styles of video game development. Due to the way each region of the world developed on similar, yet fundamentally different, lines over the centuries, the games developed by each regions cater to wildly different tastes and demographics. The most obvious divide we see is the one between Role Playing Games developed between the two regions of the world. Though both derive from the same RPG systems (like Dungeons and Dragons), they each took those systems in wildly different directions indicative of their cultures. We are all at least somewhat aware of this since we distinguish between Western style and Eastern Style RPGs, but what really separates the two? This week will be dedicated to answering that question.

The first key difference between the two styles of RPGs is that while Japanese RPGs generally tend to emphasize being part of a team, Western RPGs have a higher focus on the individual. We see this manifest in a variety of ways. In Eastern RPGs, like Final Fantasy, the player rarely takes the role of a single protagonist. Instead, they play as a group of people who are working together towards a common goal. While there is often a very clearly designated “lead character,” (Cecil in Final Fantasy IV or Cloud in Final Fantasy VII) they were always just the head of a group and not a significant figure that can do everything by themselves. Even in the later games of the Persona franchise, which borrows many tropes from Western RPGs, the player character is the team leader. Though exhibiting great power in their own right, they have party members and teammates to rely on. Their powers are even a direct result of connecting with others and forging bonds, still indicative of the team aspect of many Eastern RPGs. Compare this to RPGs developed in North America and Europe. In games like The Elder Scrolls or Mass Effect, the player is placed squarely in the center of the action. They are directly responsible for doing things. It is not a small team of individuals completing objectives and advances the plot, but rather one person. Even when the designers give the player squad-mates (like in Mass Effect) or companions (like in Skyrim or Fallout), the protagonist is clearly the driving force, the strongest character in the game, and the one who takes control at key story events. The lead character’s individual contribution to the plot is highly valued over the contribution of other characters.

Another way in which Eastern and Western RPG design are separate is in the way they allow players to interact with the plot of the game. In an Eastern RPG, developers generally have a very tight reign on the narrative. There is a plot to the game, yet the player has limited ability, if any, to influence it. When they are given agency, it is only with regards to minor details. A good example of this is the blitzball tournament near the beginning of Final Fantasy X. The player is technically able to win the tournament. However, if they do, they will only receive a slight reward for it. Otherwise, the plot advances as the same way regardless of whether the player won or lost, and it is never mentioned again past that point. This is not a criticism of the game, but merely an observation of what JRPG developers expect of their players. On the opposite side of the world, Western RPGs have a very strong focus on player choice and how that choice influences the narrative. Players are given a higher degree of freedom to poke and prod. Developers ask players to look around, gather information, and make decisions that will directly affect the game experience, if not the overall plot of the game. While absolute freedom is impossible, since games are just programs and thus have constraints, they try to loosen the reigns as much as possible. The ability to make choices that affect the events of the plot is best exemplified in some of Obsidian Entertainment’s latest works like Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol. These games force the player to choose between several factions, each with their own views on the events at hand, and pick sides. Another example of choice in games is the Mass Effect series, despite mycriticisms. The plot itself will generally remain generally the same, but the player can impact events and change many of the series’s key events in significant ways. Choices have consequences and the franchise forces the player to live with them. In essence, Eastern games took a few liberties with the concept of role playing while Western games tried to stay truer to the concept. Both are valid tactics, it all comes down to the designer’s preference.

The final point I will make with regards to the difference between Eastern and Western RPGs is the JRPGs tend to be of a generally slower pace than their Western counterparts. Though there are exceptions to the rule (like the Star Ocean franchise), JRPGs are usually turn-based or semi-turn-based. Battles focus on taking in all the relevant information and making good moment to moment decisions into order to win. The speed and flow of battle is intentionally slowed in order to give players time before committing to certain actions. Tactical thinking and good strategy is much more important in these games than speedy inputs or reflexes. The Final Fantasy series is very well-known for this. They pioneered the Active Time Battle system that has become a staple of the franchise and one of the most enduring examples of turn-based gameplay. For a while, the West used turned based systems as well. They worked well for the isometric RPGs of old (and still do). Though even back then, those turn-based games had a faster pace than their Eastern counterparts. Now that we have come to modern gaming, Western-style RPGs have become more action-oriented. Instead of being an outside force directing a group of people in a turn-based fight, games like The Elder Scrolls and Mass Effect have the player actually play as the main character in a three-dimensional space, moving around and engaging enemies directly instead of being some omnipresent overlord directing from over the shoulder. While they are not always as quick and visceral as shooters and action games, Western RPGs were always significantly faster and more direct than their Eastern equivalents: It has just become more pronounced now. It is the player themselves, as the Dovahkin or Commander Shepard, who goes through and defeats hundreds of enemies. However, it is worth noting that this one is even less of a hard and fast rule than my previous two points. It is more of general trend and there are multiple games that deviate from it.

I must once again stress that this is not meant to criticize the style of either region. Like my earlier comparison of Fallout 3 to Fallout: New Vegas, it is more of a compare/contrast between development styles. Depending on the goal of the video game, be it in mechanics, plot, etc., both of them have benefits and drawbacks inherent to their design. Though unlike the Fallout comparison, these two styles could effectively be considered separate genres entirely because they are that different from each other. It is fascinating that two groups can take the exact same inspirations and achieve different, yet equally viable results from them. This speaks to the cultural differences between us all. It is not a bad thing by any means. In fact, I think it is to be celebrated. That is why games are treated as forms of expression and speech. They speak to us and to our sensibilities. All these different people and philosophies brought together by a love of entertaining the masses. Truly, I can think of few things better than that. 🙂

Many of the people who read the things that I write have been playing games for a very long time. We have together poured tons of hours into exploring worlds, meeting people, and doing amazing things otherwise impossible in our regular lives. When you reflect back upon the games of previous eras, the odds are in favor of you looking back fondly, having pleasant memories of your experiences. However, the opposite is often said of modern gaming. When many of us think of modern games, we do not think highly of them. What is the reason for this? Is it because gaming actually has gotten worse over the years, or is there something else to it?

In all honesty, I do not believe that it is the former. There have been vast improvements in the way games play as the years have gone on. I know this from experience. Recently, I went back to replay a franchise from the Playstation 2 era, Jak and Daxter, because it had been re-released in the form of an HD Collection. When playing through, I realized something: Older games are much less fun than I remember. While I still enjoyed the series, I was also amazed at how much I tolerated when I played those old games as a child. I had forgotten about how aggravating it was to die at the very final part of a boss fight or a platforming segment and have to start over from the very beginning due to a lack of checkpoints. The frustration and tedium that is born from having to do many pointless, uninteresting, and arbitrary mini-games and challenges in order to unlock bonus content and extras seemed almost alien to me. This was the moment, for me personally, where I realized how far games have grown. Just like how PS2-era platformers grew out of the lives system of their predecessors (itself a hold over from the bygone arcade era), modern games in all genres have streamlined their mechanics and learned how to alleviate frustrations in order to make the experience more enjoyable. While I do not think modern games are perfect, I do not necessarily long for the “good old days” of gaming. So why do we get this feeling that old games were awesome and new games suck? This week, I will try to find the answers.

One of the most obvious reason for the nostalgia we have for previous generations is a combination of Sturgeon’s Law and human nature. For all of the two of you who frequent the internet, yet are completely unaware of Sturgeon’s Law, it is a rule discovered by science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon in 1951. When critics of the science-fiction genre said that the vast majority of its works were of poor quality, Sturgeon made the realization that, in fact, all genres and all forms of creative works are composed of mostly inferior, crappy productions with only a few real gems standing out. This rule has stood the test of time and has been condensed to “90% of everything is crap!” In that sense, works from this period in gaming are no different from previous eras. However, when we look back upon the games of old, we rarely remember all of the sub-par works. In fact, we mostly focus on the best works from prior generations simply because they are the ones that became more popular, widespread, and long lasting. These circumstances combined conspire to make us feel like we are surrounded by a pile of crap. While it is true, it is no less true than it was before.

But even with that in mind, we have not quite accounted for all of the nostalgia. No, there have to be other factors at work. I have a number of theories as to possible factors of this. My first theory is that the internet has made it much easier for dissenting opinions to become widespread. Think about it. In the old days, the only way we would be able to hear other people’s opinions of games is through gaming magazines and friends. Nowadays, we have ready access to the opinions of millions of people at our fingertips. Notable dissent like the Retake Mass Effect movement among other vocal elements of the gaming community were almost completely unheard of until recent history. This is a unique era in that respect. The prevalence of the internet has had an amplifying effect on the spread of information. Not only do we communicate faster, we form opinions and do critical thinking/analysis much more rapidly as well. Furthermore, negative opinions are much more likely to be spread online than positive ones, which results in an overall warped perception of gaming culture.

Another factor working to reinforce our nostalgia for the “good old days” are the increasingly intrusive business practices of gaming publishers. In the old days, publishers did not have much choice in what they did with their games. Since most consoles lacked reliable internet connections, they had to release the complete final product on the disk without the capability of altering it in any way. Back then, for better or worse, the product you bought was generally the product you got simply due to the technological limitations of the consoles at the time. This meant that it was necessary to do extensive bug testing and proofreading. Nowadays all consoles (except for those of the unfortunate group of people that live in rural areas) have access to stable internet connections, which means games can be patched and extended after the fact. Of course, since publicly owned corporations tend to value profit over all others, it was natural that they would try to milk these new innovations for all they were worth with things like On-Disc DLC, Day 1 DLC, cutting corners only to patch the game later, and DRM schemes. which I have discussed in the past. Make no mistake, this would have happened earlier if the capability to do so was more widespread in prior console generations. Nonetheless, this has caused a warped perception of the games themselves. It is difficult for us to divorce the qualities of the overall game with the practices of the publishers who help create it, so it should not come as a surprise that people have begun to hold this generation in contempt.

My final theory as to why this nostalgia is so widespread is a very simple one. Because of the high risk/ high reward nature of the industry today, such as it is, games have become increasingly homogenized over time. It takes many more resources and significantly more time to make a AAA game now than it did in the past, we are all painfully aware of this fact. This means that where in the past, publishers could produce several different and diverse projects and were almost guaranteed to profit off their combined sales (some would flop, some would so well, yet they would generally balance each other out), it is a different story altogether for the modern industry. They have to be more risk-adverse in order to ensure that they mitigate losses and profit at the end of the day. Unfortunately, “risk-adversity” tends to lead to publishers wanting to copy the thing that is most successful, even if they do not fully understand it. In other words, where we saw diverse games in the past that could cater to different player tastes and demographics, we now see a shooter, another shooter, a shooter/RPG hybrid, and still another shooter. These are not just all shooters, but they are all shooters with the same “gritty realistic” tone and bland color palette consisting of fifty shades of gray. There is less balancing these games than there was in the past. While the indie scene and Kickstarter are certainly doing their part to mitigate this homogenization, they simply are not large enough to cause a significant impact. Besides, most people think about the AAA side of gaming when the gaming industry comes to mind.

Again, modern day gaming is by and large much better than gaming of previous generations. However, there is much that contributes to a perception of lower-quality than previous generations. Unfortunately, in any entertainment industry, especially one as expensive, culturally pervasive, and profitable as the gaming industry, perception is everything. If people start to think that games are sucking, they will just go find something else to spend their money on. The industry is not like food or gas. It is a frivolous expense that can be easily cut. The AAA industry will need to clean up its image and stop its unsustainable business practices if they wish to remain in the top dogs in gaming. It is a sad fact of life, but it is true and we all know it.

Many of the people who watch the gaming industry look at the trends and patterns of it and foresee many problems plaguing it going forward. The stock prices and profit margins for the biggest publishers in the industry are doing very poorly. AAA gaming is given ridiculous and unnecessarily high budgets that transform mild successes in terms of units sold into amazing failures in terms of profit. Lastly, a lot of the innovative elements of the industry feel stifled by the increasing oppressive environment fueled (knowingly or otherwise) by large publishers. Many great ideas and developers have had difficulty getting funding in this climate for a variety of reasons like niche appeal and risky ambition. People were getting fed up. And then something interesting happened. Double Fine studios, headed by Tim Schafer, decided to make a bold and up-until-then unheard of move: They decided to use Kickstarter to crowd-fund the studio’s next project, allowing them to make the game of their dreams free of the influence of publishers. It made headlines and became very successful. This inspired other developers to place their own ideas on Kickstarter, including projects like Wasteland 2 and Ouya. Kickstarter campaigns have once again reached the headlines with Obsidian’s Project Eternity.

For those of you who do not follow the industry, allow me to explain the gist of Kickstarter and crowd-funding. Kickstarter is a website that allows people to post their ideas for “creative projects” in the hopes that people will take interest in it and donate money towards funding the project. (Note: This does apply exclusively to video games. It can be any creative project that has a definite end goal and results in the creation of something.) When a project is posted, the poster sets a goal for the amount of money received through donors and the time allotted to reach this goal, usually within the span of one month. During this time, people pledge money to the project. While the money never changes hands until the very end, backers promise, as specified in the Terms of Service, to keep enough money in their account to cover their pledge. At the end of the time period, if the money pledged to the project meets or exceeds the goal posted at the beginning, then the project poster takes the money, after Kickstarter deducts its fee for services rendered, and agrees to spend it on completing the project to the best of their abilities in a binding legal contract enforced by Kickstarter’s terms. If the project fails, then no money exchanges hands and the project goes unfunded. This means that the project has to set a goal high enough to theoretically cover the estimated costs of the project, but low enough to avoid falling short of its goals, providing an interesting competitive dynamic. For those with a creative mind, the concept of crowd funding can be extremely useful. Naturally, it would make sense to extend this to video game development, since it too is a creative endeavor. However, there are some unfortunate realities that we need to accept with Kickstarter.

The first thing we need to accept with Kickstarter is that successfully generating enough funds through the site is more difficult than most people would be led to believe. A successful Kickstarter campaign needs to be able to generate enough buzz and publicity to attract potential funders. This is easier said than done. The project in question would need to set itself apart from other projects by providing a unique gimmick, an interesting concept, or a pedigree that other projects would lack. We have seen this more than once. The Kickstarters that are most well known are from established developers and gaming personalities. Think of the campaigns I listed at the beginning of this article. Out of the four of them, three came from highly established brands and/or names in the industry. The last one, Ouya, was from a less established industry veteran and had the good fortune to be one of the gaming press’s darlings. All of them had a bigger claim to fame than most Kickstarter campaigns have and thus attracted a larger crowd, meaning they did not have to worry about the second half of the equation. They had enough publicity and reputation to gain funding. Should another campaign come along that attracts enough people, they need to then convince those people to agree to part with their money in the name of funding a project. To do that, they need to be convinced that the campaigner and their team have the ability to actually create the game. Writing up a design document alone will no longer cut it here. It would be necessary to have a working model of the game and either a gameplay footage reel or, preferably, a demo version available for play. Funding and/or time would be essential in making this a reality, so a layman making a game from start to finish using only Kickstarter funding is highly impractical. All of this combined results in less than halfof all gaming related Kickstarter campaigns earning enough to reach their goal. (Note: That statistic includes tabletop games as well as video games.)

Though that still leaves a number of campaigns that achieve the goal and get successfully funded. You may be tempted to believe that because they received money, they now have to build the game. There is a bit of a problem with that though, which leads me to my next point: We have no guarantee that a Kickstarter campaign intended to make a video game will actually result in the creation of a video game. Before anybody of my readers panic, let me make this perfectly clear, by the terms of service put forth by the folks that run Kickstarter, which all of the users agree to, all of the funding for a Kickstarter project MUST go towards that project. The person/company who ran the campaign will be held legally responsible if they take the money and instead go on a vacation in the Bahamas or do anything else with it that could not realistically benefit the project. In that sense, the contributors can feel secure in their investment. However, just like with investors and stock owners of major corporations, Kickstarter campaign donors are not guaranteed a return of investment: There is always a risk involved. While the money gained does have to go towards the project outlined on Kickstarter, they are not obligated to succeed and create what was specified. There are very good reasons (legal, practical, and moral) to not hold them responsible for the success of the project, but it is an important thing to make note of. Unlike AAA publishers who have the authority and responsibility to check-up on the project and oversee its development, possibly firing and directing staff on the project (for better or worse), Kickstarter donors have no form of oversight unless the campaigner chooses to give them one, thus the gamble is significantly higher. They are going on blind faith that the creator has the skill, knowledge, and time to complete the project. It is not a deal-breaker as donors acknowledge that they will make no profit beyond the rewards specified by campaigners and contributions are rarely high enough to cause people to worry if they made the right decision, but it is something we need to acknowledge regarding the crowd-funding model.

The last thing I wanted to point out with the trend of Kickstarter funding is that not every game would work as a Kickstarter campaign. In fact, the games that would potentially benefit from this method of acquiring funds cover a very narrow spectrum. An ideal Kickstarter game would have a budget out of reach for most people and small, start-up companies normally. However, they cannot be too big or they would never be able to acquire enough funding. This would mostly cover games along the lines of indie games, two-dimensional platformers, isometric Role Playing Games, and others along those lines. Games like that would only require a couple of thousands to one or two million dollars in funding. While many people would scoff at me for saying “only a few million dollars,” keep in mind that most games in the AAA market cost several tens of millions dollars or more. Even in the PS2 era, some games cost around ten million dollarsor more to produce. Getting that much money through a Kickstarter would be next to, if not outright, impossible. The only semi-reliable way to acquire that kind of cash is through the financial backing of large publishers like Ubisoft or EA. Rarely do we see a group of people or a business that has the savviness to remain independent while funding and making consistently good games. It is much more difficult than it sounds, which is why publishers are still around. As much as we dislike companies like Activision and EA, they do serve a purpose. I feel like this is common sense to a degree, yet I do find that people on the internet sometimes seem to forget this simple fact.

I applaud this use of Kickstarter to begin funding projects that might not otherwise see the light of day. However, we do have to acknowledge the limitations of crowd-funding. Our industry is one that is fundamentally fueled by high-risk, high-reward investments that consume tons of money. While we can debate the necessity of AAA budgets being as high as they are (I am very outspoken in my own opposition), they are a thing in this industry and fuel many of the gameplay advancements we have seen. Until a decent conversation can be had about the fundamental nature of the industry, such as it is, Kickstarter will be far from feasible as a suitable alternative to the current business model. Even after we reevaluate AAA gaming (considering the state of the industry, it is inevitable that somebody comes in and changes how it gets run), I remain unconvinced that Kickstarter could do very much beyond small start-up projects. It would simply require far more money trading hands than would be feasible through crowd-funding. So while I do praise this wave of innovation, I urge you to remain level headed regarding the use of Kickstarter and realize that it is not the great new way to fund video games that many people make it out to be.

Most people who read this regularly are aware of how much I love Role Playing Games. I love them for their emphasis on story and player interaction with the story through their mechanic. It is fun to play through these games and be truly immersed in a brand new world and its story. However, these games are far from flawless. Being video games, they can only do so much in terms of simulating a world. Since all games are just computer programs, they have to be represented in ways that a computer can easily process and display. In the old days, the limitations caused by the technology of the time inspired a number of RPG genre conventions. That was way back then. In the modern day, many of these technical limitations no longer exist because of the way technology constantly evolves. Developers are no longer bound by the technological limits of that past and are capable of doing much more with their games.

However, many of the old conventions and styles that were seen back then, once used to abstract many of the things that were (and sometimes still are) difficult to represent any other way, are still present in the RPGs being created in the here and now. A few days ago, I had a conversation on Twitter with escapistmagazine.comcontributor Grey Carterabout some of these mechanics that have withstood the test of time. Specifically, whether or not it is worth it to keep these mechanics around. In this week’s post, I will apply my analysis to the topic and see if video really did kill the radio star. Is it time we rethought RPGs and how they act in a mechanical sense?

As usual when writing an article like this, it helps to define what I am referring to so that we are all on the same page. When I refer to an RPG, I mean any story-focused game with a strong sense of character progression and/or customization. This can mean anything from the Final Fantasy games of old all the way to more modern games like Fallout: New Vegas or Mass Effect 3. I will be taking a look at how these games use old school mechanics and why they use them in the way that they do. Then, we will see if it is possible to do things differently now, either making the game either more immersive or improve them in terms of control, role-playing, or entertainment value.

One of the biggest conventions of the RPG genre is the use of skill points as a way to represent the player character’s proficiency with regards to certain disciplines, both in and out of combat. In a (semi-)turned based RPG, it makes sense for characters to have stats that represent their ability to perform certain actions successfully, be it firing a gun, casting a spell, swinging a sword, hacking a computer, or talking their way out a dangerous situation. Since it is difficult to have much in the way of player input in a turn-based game, skill levels are the only way to differentiate one player’s character and style from another player’s. The only way to show player progression in a turn based game is to increase their character’s stats and skills, which affect overall damage output and chance of success. Considering the technical and mechanical limitations of such games, implementing a system of stats and skills the determine how talented the player is makes total sense.

When we move into a three dimensional, action-oriented space, this quickly becomes irrelevant. In an action-RPG like the more recent installments in the Fallout franchise, shooting mechanics and player skill are now factors in the success of the player. However, in these games, there exists a system of stats and skills that influence the outcome of confrontations and events. Improving weapon skills increases the damage output and accuracy of weapons governed by it while doing the same to non-combat skills allows the player to do more with them via Speech checks and minigames. Sadly, I do not think any of this is necessary. Since we now have a fully realized world with combat comparable to (though not better than) many First Person Shooters and minigames that require player skill to execute properly, it makes less sense to abstract these elements. For RPGs like these, it may no longer make sense to even have skill levels and points for the character since the player’s own skill, which will improve over the course of the game, can be taken into account. This can even be extended to non-combat scenarios. Lockpicking and hacking can be done through minigames as demonstrated by recent titles like Fallout 3, whose lockpicking is widely regarded as one of the best infiltration minigames of all time, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which had a very interesting and enjoyable hacking minigame (sadly marred by a few questionable design decisions in the game) and the best conversation mechanic I have ever played with. Fallout 3 also had a hand in proving that skill points in these non-combat aspects of an RPG are completely arbitrary. In the game, it was impossible to even make an attempt to pick a lock unless the player had a high enough Lockpicking skill to do so. This makes even less sense upon realization that these higher level locks are genuinely tougher to pick. It is more logical either make the game more difficult, or a have a skill that governs what locks the player can pick. Having both is excessive. Though I understand that many would be wary of introducing player skill as an element of play, since it has the potential to leave some players out due to a lack of it, this is why modern games have adjustable difficulty as a way to equilize the imbalance between skilled and unskilled players. In the end, it is a design choice to be made by the creators of the game. I just believe it is worth thinking about this decision when going forward, since some games simply have no use for these mechanics.

The other common trope used in RPGs that I will be going over is the concept of vendor trash. By vendor trash, I mean items the take up inventory space, yet only serve the purpose of being sold to merchants for money. I can understand why developers do this even today. It makes no sense for the player to kill a wolf and have it drop five gold coins. To facilitate immersion, they would instead have a wolf drop a pelt that the player can then sell to vendors to make money. Though this concept is immersive and makes sense for a world, it is not exactly fun for the player to have to carry around tons of loot that takes up valuable inventory space which could be used to carry more useful items like weapons, armor, medical supplies and food. While I am a fan of forcing players to make meaningful choices, it is hardly meaningful to force players to choose between picking up a new sword or picking up a gold ingot that can be sold for money used to purchase a new sword.

In my opinion, vendor trash still has a place in RPGs, but it should be handled differently. Since vendor trash is effectively just gold waiting to be cashed out, it should be in a separate category and take up no space. While some may argue that it is not immersive to carry all sorts of vendor trash and not have it weigh the player down, I would argue contrary to that. When a designer forces the player to interact too much with the underlying systems of a game world, they start to lose their immersion. Thus, it is important to balance ease of use with simulation, which is far easier said than done. Also, by that logic, it would be unimmersive to allow the player to store tens of thousands of gold coins in their inventory without taking up space.

It is also possible to use vendor trash in other ways. For example, in Final Fantasy XII, which has the unlimited inventory space that many JRPGs do (as an interesting side note), did away with random animals dropping gold coins when they die (as an abstraction of taking their pelts) in favor of vendor trash. What they also did was introduce a new type of good in the vaious shops called Bazaar Goods. How it worked was that when the player sold cetain combinations of vendor trash to dealers, it would unlock certain items and item packs in the Bazaar. The game explained that selling vendor trash to various stores introduced these component items into the economy, allowing people to use those items in the construction of new ones to be put up for sale. This was an interesting way of making seemingly useless items have more purpose beyond just being gold in item form. After all, people would start making items with the goods that adventurers would gather and sell. Designers should put more thought into systems like this because RPG players will usually end up interacting with the economy very often. It is worth it to make this experience as painless, yet interesting, as possible.

To be fair, both of these mechanics were in place well before RPGs existed in video game form. Old RPGs, both from the West and from the East, take inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop games in that vein and are, as such, deeply entreched in the way people think about RPGs. Back then, they had use as a gameplay abstraction to otherwise realistic events. While a healthy respect for tradition is always a valuable thing to have, I feel like it is necessary to analyze old ways of thinking to see if they are still necessary in the modern era. When technology and game design evolve, some of the old ways of thinking no long apply. In the cases I outlined above, both mechanics still have merit in modern games, but they may need to be tweaked a little in order to make them more palatable. Though I am sure there are other examples of outdated mechanics presisting longer than they should have, I cannot think of any more that need discussion. Nonetheless, it is important to do an analysis like this if we want to improve this medium as a whole.

By now, people are well aware of the many failings of the third Mass Effect game: It had Day 1, On-Disc DLC that seemed far too integrated with the game to be anything but an obvious cash grab, most of the game failed to acknowledge the player’s choices from previous games and made them feel irrelevent, and the ending was a failure in more ways than one. However, there is one area of Mass Effect 3 that people tend to ignore, the cooperative multiplayer. I am not here to talk ill of the multiplayer mode in its entirety. In fact, I enjoyed my brief time with the mode. They used the core mechanics of the game in a very clever way to produce an enjoyable and coheasive experience. However, I have one big gripe with the cooperative mode. That would be its use of microtransactions and how they affect the overall experience.

Theoretically, I am not against the concept of microtransactions. It is fine for developers to charge for unlock codes to things players can get by just playing the game normally. From a business standpoint, it makes sense and is a good way to increase the income generated by the game. It also allows players with less free time to compete with players who play constantly by using money to gain the rewards normally obtained through gaining experience. Both parties, the creators and the consumers, stand to benefit from offering this option. Considering the state of the AAA industry, it makes sense for a publisher to try to make as much money as they can off an investment while maintaining the good will of the fanbase, and this is one of the best ways to do that.

It is not the fact that Mass Effect 3 had microtransactions that bothered me. What bothered me is the fact that they allowed microtransactions to negatively affect the design of how the game progresses in another obvious attempt and jarring cash grab. Allow me to explain. The way progression in Mass Effect 3’s cooperative mode works is that the when the player finishes a match, they gain experience towards the class they played as for that match as well as in-game credits which can be used to purchase weapons, characters, upgrades, and items. Here is where things get interesting. It is impossible to directly purchase the these items. Instead, the player must purchase packs which have a random chance of dropping the item wanted. As icing on the cake, the player does not need to use in-game credits to make these purchases. If they do not wish to go through match after match to build up credit to buy packs, they can always use real world money to purchase them. I can only assume that the reason they chose to handle microtransactions in this manner is to maximize profits. However, handling it in this manner ruined the player experience in a few ways.

The biggest way this ruins the experience is that it can potentially negate any advantage one might gain through microtransactions. The draw of using microtransactions, at least on the player’s end of the bargain, is that it allows a player to earn rewards for a small fee that would require time on their part to unlock normally. It is paying for expedience. This is lessened through the use of packs. The developer cannot guarentee that someone paying via microtransactions will receive the item they wish to buy, which defeats the purpose of having the option. (Again, from the consumer standpoint, not the standpoint of the publisher, whose goal is to make money.) Rather than give customers a guarenteed payoff for spending hard-earned money on the game, they give them the chance to waste their money by purchasing packs without getting anything of value out of it. The only reason I can see to use this model is to capitalize on people’s inability to gauge purcahsesand hope that they spend tons of money on the store before realizing exactly how much they spent. While part of me thinks that this is sheer genius on the part of EA, the other part sees nothing but a slimy and unrewarding business model surrounding an otherwise enjoyable game mode.

The other reason this negatively impacts the cooperative mode is the fact that it completely randomizes the reward system. A big problem with the system Mass Effect 3 has in place is that there is no way to reduce the pool from which you draw items from. The same list of items can drop from all of the packs in the game. The only difference between packs is the likelihood of obtaining rare items. Many players have bought hundreds of packs and only obtained a few items in the same category of equipment they will actually use. Countless stories on the internet exist where a player who mainly uses Generic Weapon Type X gets nothing but Type Y from the packs they are buying. This results in being unable to upgrade their equipment to more powerful weapons for several experience levels worth of matches, meaning that they are farther behind than other players who have been favored by the random number gods. When designing this system, they should have taken into account how it could and would affect the overall progression of the players of this cooperative mode.

Now, I have come down very harshly on the microtransaction system included in Mass Effect 3. However, I do believe it could have worked. There are alternatives the team at Bioware could have used to include microtransactions while preventing, or at least alleviating, the progression problem that belies the current method of inducing them. The first of my proposals involves scrapping the trading card game-like system we have now in favor of one of direct purchases using either in-game credits or cash. In this system, every weapon, character, and item is unlockable from the start. Each of them will be assigned a price in both cash and real world credits. To unlock an item, the player will need to either save up the credits through playing matches or by outright purchasing them with money. Upgrading weapons would also cost credits or money. Since we are no longer using random draw and are allowing people to pick out and save up for items, the prices would need to be elevated in order to compensate. I would advocate this system because it would place player progression more in their own control. This way, they do not feel like they are not getting anything out of playing the game or spending money because they know exactly what they are saving up for or buying. There is complete transparacy and no one will come out angry or disappointed. While I personally consider this to be the ideal, I can see why a publisher might not like it. It does reduce the ammount of money they can earn through microtransactions and it reduces the Skinner Box styleenjoyment a player might feel when buying packs.

With that in mind, I have another proposal. My next plan would be to shamelessly rip off the microtransaction/drop system for a very successful free-to-play game: Team Fortress 2. I am sure the vast majority of the ones reading this are already familiar with the system in place with Team Fortress 2, though I will do my best to explain it for those who are not familiar with it. In Team Fortress 2, the player is allowed to equip items that have positive and/or negative effects on the player character. These items are available for sale from the in-game store for real-world currency. However, players do not have to spend money to obtain these items. It is possible, through playing the game, to obtain these items through random item drops. They occur semi-randomly in the game and often enough that the player will obtain them at a steady rate. The positive of this system is that it keeps the Skinner Box manipulation of players, giving them the satisfaction of getting great items after enough tries, yet allows players who do not like this style of play to purchase the items they want directly. This provides an outlet for those who dislike random number generators while maintaining the option to just keep playing for a chance at getting the item. I would advocate more frequent drops then Team Fortress 2 has when going this route, as their drop rates are a little low for my tastes and doing so would make drop hunting less annoying. However, as an option in general, this style is very appealing.

But let us once again assume that EA is not sold on that style of handling microtransactions. Let us go further in our assumption by saying that they are insistant on using the trading card game-like booster pack system that takes both in-game credits and real world currency. It is possible to make a few minor tweaks to the system already in place in order to improve it. The biggest problem with the system is how it can give the player a really long run of bad luck by giving them weapons they have no desire to use. This is caused by the fact that every pack purchased draws from the collective pool of every item in the cooperative mode while only affecting the spawn rates of rarer items. What we can do to make this less luck-based is to divide packs into different categories. It should be possible to split up the weapons between packs so that there are dedicated packs for SMGs, Assasult Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, and Pistols. Doing this gives the player the ability to control the general type of the items dropped while maintaining the random element inherent in the system. It is similarly possible to do this with new characters by giving them a dedicated pack. Of course prices for these packs would need to be adjusted. If they wanted to, they could still have the option to buy those packs that can contain anything, but they would need to be cheap to encourage that pack’s purcahse over others. By giving players a slight control over drops (by affecting which type of item drops), the possibility that the player is negatively impacted by random draw is minimized, if not outright eliminated. It also preserves the Skinner Box that can encourage players to continuously play the game or spend money on it.

This addition to the Mass Effect franchise, the cooperative mode, is a fun extra added to the game. It has all of the ingredients of a good time. To me, it is good verging on being great. The mode was marred, however, by the way it handled microtransactions. They could have been done well and served as more than just another cheap attempt to make more money. (Though that would have always been a motive, there is no avoiding it.) It could have added to the accessibility of the game, but it has to be done in a more intelligent way. The system in place with Mass Effect 3 feels sloppily done and hamfisted into the mode, giving players the impression that they are being exploited by corporate. Since it seems like free-to-play is becoming a bigger part of the industry, it will be even more important going forward to master the inclusion of microtransactions and their affect on the game. Hopefully, developers and publishers alike can learn from this game’s failures and move forward.