User Generated Game Design
At GDC this year, Eskil Steenberg presented on the procedural tools he’s been developing, and they were quite amazing. He also said “fire your game designer” near the beginning of the session, and I think he’s dead wrong about that. Designers are absolutely necessary, because users lack insight and make bad decisions.
Elder Game have posted a pertinent example of this today: in a game that allows user generated missions, players submit easy missions with high rewards, and these get rated highly.
* Players subconsciously calculate the cost-to-benefit ratio of content when deciding if it’s fun. For most MMO players, more reward = more fun. (This is a bitch of a lesson to learn, too. “My custom-scripted quest was so incredibly cool! Why aren’t players doing the quest? Well, yes, the reward was a little sub-par, but so what? You’re telling me they aren’t playing it because of THAT? Players can’t be THAT shallow!” Ha ha, newb.)
* Players aren’t objective reviewers. If you ask them to grade content, they will grade more rewarding content higher than other content even if it isn’t as good by other metrics (like plot, writing, annoyance factor, or originality).
* Many players spend incredible amounts of time finding ways to min-max the system so they can get more power for less effort. That’s part of the fun for many players. So there are tens of thousands of people actively looking for mistakes, loopholes, and gray areas in your game. All the time.
UGC in game design does not fit well with the behavioural quirks of humans for a simple reason: We want sugar. The short term hit hit of something desirable is often chosen over a long term but ultimately more gratifying thing. Emotional and motivational systems are often designed to work in relation to short term goals, and to cater to ourselves long term often requires self-discipline. To put it another way, we are motivated creatures that tend to seek the cheapest, quickest path to anything we want. This is also why piracy flourishes online, especially if buying legitimately takes longer and is more difficult.
Giving players the ability to design missions presents a few quandaries over fairness, balance, and difficulty that a game designer is positioned and experienced to solve. If we’re faced with two identical missions and one has a bigger reward attached, we’ll pick the more rewarding one. If we’re faced with two identical rewards and one mission is easier than the other, most people will go for the easier mission. Players that can design missions will design and vote for these kind of missions, and well designed pieces of gameplay can easily sink without trace.
Ease, like cheating, gets boring, but the volume of anything using UGC means there’s a throughput of players who will try the same thing and get bored quickly. While they got what they wanted immediately, the game gives them nothing long term. While completely uncompromising game may drive people to frustration (for instance my current favorite Wipeout HD), beating it is so hard that it is something looked back on with pride. While we seem hardwired to value cheapness in the present, it tends to be triumph over the biggest struggles that we look back on fondly.
As a designer, you do (or should) understand more about your audience than they understand about your products.
(Image from a screenshot of Love)
