Designers Astray: All-Play Critic
Note: I always put a TLDR section at the bottom but everyone is free to complain.
I remember reading Eddie Dombrowers’ book on electronic entertainment; years ago now, the nicks and cuts in an almost autobiographic "how to" book explaining that he had established roles on his path to reaching the golden point of any Game Designer now Creative Director. To those who don’t know Mr. Dombrower he is probably single-handedly responsible for EA sports – but not through swift and agile executive level decision making but through designing games. It’s been a while since I read that book so I’ll stick to the point. Eddie points out many times that games designed by him had to have a technical detail that would be described by the user as fun, the technical detail albeit a singular thing is comprised of many smaller details, to keep this short even the transition screen is part of this technical detail. For each game this technical detail would change totally, even in sequels the direction of this “fun-factor” had to be changed a lot.
“The game was the same, but the reason why it was fun has to be totally different.”
Of course if I went through the general logic of each smaller detail of the much larger technical detail that quote would make much more sense however for those who read this book that quote should make total sense. The point here is that aside from just designing a game, which is no small task, the Game Designer must remember that they are designing a game.
- Eddie Dombrower’s: Art of Interactive Entertainment Design
“a) Bad management model= Producers run the projects. What's a producer? Someone who can't code, make art or design, therefore they're a producer. I would remove that model and give the game back to the Lead Designer and Lead Engineer.” – 3rd Poster
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20090
Programmers and Artists may eventually become Creative Directors, then pave the way for other Programmers and Artists by using the nicks and cuts acquired through this model to generate Mr. Dombrowers’ ratio on what a game should be to qualify as a game. That third poster claims that he worked within EA’s design structure and his responses were very negative, however regardless of credibility something is wrong when a publisher or designer whichever of the two decides to add the name All-Play to a version of their game to marginalize a demographic as a “this is what the market looks like” kind of move. (Bottle necking here.) In the article linked above EA’s CEO elaborates on his goal for EA and his ambition to see it happen. (Metacritic scores above average) EA intends to use All-Play to sustain the model described by Dombrower, by proposing the same game but with a new reason why it’s fun, the dilemma isn’t in the point of “All-Play” but what was actually done.
EA intended in raise their average based on Metacritic, but with All-Play they actually mixed a “good game” with an “expanded audience” game. (Up streaming?) But they aren’t making a dumbed down game, which they deserve some credit for. This lead me to wondering if maybe those Producers do have an idea of what they want, but the Creative Director may not know how to do it… or maybe it’s the other way around. But enough finger pointing; Madden All-Play did not receive rave reviews not because “Reviewers are hardcore!” or “That reviewer didn’t like the genre!” but because it wasn’t a good enough game to receive that level of acclaim.
I’m sure Eddie Dombrower would probably be scratching his head: Why isn’t every game a 10, why is a rating system installed? This isn’t a case for chickens and eggs as the proof is in the pudding; bad games do exist, the problem here isn’t with the industry itself, the problem is with perception. After all reviewers are people and so are the audience. Are games graded a “4” bad games compared to games graded an “8”; of course, the difference for reviews isn’t in funcanality but functionality. Games must establish themselves; and their job is to perform a certain task. How well it performs that task is what reviewers are grading.
(I’m copy righting “Funcanality” right now.)
It’s nothing new really as a game can’t be graded based on fun factor just things done by other games in the past that were fun which are each really just tasks the game attempts to do well, this would explain the high reviews for GTAIV and HALO 3 and SSB:B each game had established what was done in the past and did it again and well. However what was so different about what was fun in SSB:B to what was fun in SSB:M, well online play was added, level builder, demo’s, coin tossing mini-game that’s hell of addicting. These elements are mostly bare bones but not new in terms of funcanality (is it overused yet?)
In the end Brawl is actually in bare bones a fighter and fighters are no more than 2d plat formers, where other fighters evolved into more complicated and realistic moves SSB went for multiplayer so it’s safe to say then that it’s latest incarnation SSB:B should have a new way to make it fun in order to have Mario Kart Wii level sales. Brawl actually did have something but like a bad joke it didn’t go over well; Smash Balls were the new fun factor, and when playing the game you realize that when a Smash Ball appears the focus of the fight switches and the fun of the game overtly from no longer just dismissing your opponent from the field. (Dombrower would probably be proud.) However Smash Balls didn’t go over as well as Mario Kart Wii’s Wii Wheel and Trick additions but Brawl still receives much more acclaim and a higher review score… yet Mario Kart Wii has out paced it on sales. (This section has been omited due to loss of accuracy in context and not directly content.)
So what exactly did EA add to Madden All-Play that would have matched the Madden series like a tailored suit? New controls aren’t a new way to play the game if your doing the exact same thing but what about the Wii wheel? It’s not new at all if you consider that the point of the Wiimote is its motion detection, so what I’m saying is that the Wii wheel was as much a technical detail to that game as the Wiimote is to any game, I’ve already established that the technical detail must be unique even though your playing the same game, that applies to any game.
TLDR:
I’m not trying to write a guide on how to make a game; I’m just saying that reviewers and the audience reading their reviews should at least understand what is being critiqued. The reason for much of the ambiguity and claims that reviews for these games are retric is because someone understood something under general terms.
/rant
P.S. reviews suck anyway just go rent the game. ^_^
Oh and I’m not saying well received games will sell by de facto, I’m speaking strictly about perception.
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