Heros vs. Supporters

A work friend presented me with an interesting thought the other day:

"A great number of people don't want to play heros.

A lot of them just want to be useful supporters.

I think games that recognise that are more successful."

Which led him to suggest that this played a part in the appeal of MMORPGs.

Well, hmm, I'm not so sure about all that.

It seems like a pretty reasonable thought, one need only look at World of Warcraft's 10 million+ subscribers to get an idea of the potential these games have; these are not one off sales, but continual investments by that many individuals. As a transaction model this is pretty difficult to compare in terms of success to the traditional one-off boxed (or increasingly, downloadable) purchases. The revenue potential of these subscriptions is vastly higher, but 10 million+ individual players is certainly less the numbers met by other video games in history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_top_selling_video_games). 40.23 million for Super Mario Bros., the Pokemon games (unfair to compare collectively, but without doubt hugely successful), 17.5 million for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (all of which could be said to have heroes). You can hardly down-play WoW's success, and good marketing - among other things - can muddy the waters somewhat, but from these numbers it seems somewhat far-fetched to say that players enjoy playing as supporters _more_ than they enjoy playing as heroes.

But that's not what he said.

"A great number of people don't want to play heros.

A lot of them just want to be useful supporters.

I think games that recognise that are more successful."

What does it mean for a game to 'recognise' this? Do any existing games 'recognise' this? These questions are somewhat unclear. Does it mean that players have the choice to play as either heroes or supporters? Especially in the face of MMORPGs, I think we must question what exactly it means to be a 'hero' or a 'supporter'.

I will come out immediately and say that I have never played World of Warcraft or any other MMORPG (which is probably a good thing in terms of productivity), but I know that they support varying play styles; you'll get some players who like to become hugely powerful individually, you'll get some who like team-based play, and some who farm gold.

What does it mean to be a hero in an MMORPG? Let us look to a definition of hero provided by Wikipedia:

"Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice, that is, heroism, for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence."

Portrayals of heroism map nicely to narrative arcs, but this idea of heroism can map easily enough to sandbox games (which can have many miniature arcs) and MMORPGS aswell. Are those players whom become hugely powerful individually any more or less heroic than those who like team-based play?

Individuals certainly seem to fit this definition of heroes and heroines nicely. Can groups have heroes? It is natural (depending on the sizes of groups), for one or more members of a group to fulfill leadership roles; often competition arises amongst group members to take or usurp these leadership roles, maybe through martial prowess or some other valued quality(ies). Can these leaders be called heros? Do the group's successes in overcoming adversities fall directly to them? Are the other members of these groups just 'supporters'? Given the diversity of situations these groups engage in, the varying abilities of group members (some which may be more useful to the group in some situations than others), and the changing structure of groups themselves over time (values may change, etc.), we do seem to be in need of better terms.

We need to think about the different - and changing over time - motivations of these people to play in these groups. Some members may view themselves as heros, some may view themselves as supporters, but some may also view themselves as one necessary piece of a much larger whole. These people all value their positions for different reasons, just as people value different games for different reasons; much more than just whether the games 'recognise' their preference for hero vs. supporter. I think the valuable nugget in my friend's suggestion is that this is one of the many factors determining which games we enjoy.





P.S.

I just pre-ordered Metal Gear Solid 4 today, no doubt joining likely hundreds of thousands (millions?) of excited fans eagerly awaiting this very-much hyped triple-A game.

The Importance of Story

A recent, very worthwhile Gamasutra article puts forward the belief that "game designers are in the business of experience creation rather than that of storytelling. The story that is generated through gameplay is the player's personal story that has been mediated by the game systems." They are right on the money. One however shouldn't take this to downplay the importance of story and its composition; 'mediated' is the word to pay attention to here.

There is a very clear connection between this idea and Constructivist learning theory, where we gain the valuable analogy between movies and 'instructors as teachers' and between games and 'instructors as facilitators.' In Raph Koster's "Theory of Fun" book which I have already recommended, he mentions that the fun of games is derived from the skills we learn playing them, that the learning of skills triggers the release of endorphins (which in turn triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with the pleasure centre of the brain). Acting as facilitators for skill-development, we as game designers create context; systems of rules that players must abide by and a canvas for them to fill. A designer's ability to guide stories (by providing an environment for the player, and 'mechanics' to interact with that environment) is what divides great games from lesser games.

One particular quality of these contexts we create is flexibility - the degree to which its rules restrict what players can accomplish. This itself links back to the Whorfian hypothesis (which is widely disputed - but raises important issues to consider). The language that we speak, or the context that we play in, certainly predisposes us to certain thoughts, and leads us to view different details within that context, but it would be difficult to say that it precludes us from certain thoughts and actions. We may describe the flexibility of contexts in games along a continuum, from the very restrictive games (say, Super Mario Land), to the more open-ended (e.g., Grand Theft Auto), very open-ended (Automatically generated interactive narrative, and some multiplayer games - we can substitute the complexity of simulating people for just playing with others. We should also not forget the Sims, but many consider this a 'toy' rather than a game for its lack of goals), and entirely open-ended (mind-controlled game play, perhaps?).

The 'flexibility' of these games varies along more than one dimension - consider the dimension of narrative flow, and the dimension of player action availability (or game mechanics as a whole). Take for example Super Mario Land, a game very limited with respect to both narrative flow and player action availability. The player may only move forward throughout each level, and player actions are limited, the player may do things like run, duck, jump, etc. A game like GTA still retains slight linearity, an overarching linear theme (in San Andreas) of gaining more respect etc. through gameplay, and at a lower level offered the player flexibility in the missions they conduct, and how they conduct them.

Narrative flow and game mechanics certainly aren't mutually exclusive, players can acquire new abilities as a result of narrative flow (new weapons, new statistics, whatever). Whereas movies are limited to guiding character arcs using narrative flow, we game designers can guide character arcs through evolving game mechanics.

The problem with very open-ended games is that people aren't always good at creating their own stories. The difficult part of a game designer's job is striking the right balance between letting the player do as they please, and guiding them down a path.

Side thoughts

This site mentions a very interesting fact, that "Hemispheres of the brain that do not begin working together in a coordinated fashion until around age 8, can be stimulated to work more efficiently together through movement. When children are able to move as they learn or practice new tasks, it makes the learning more efficient."

A question I ask in response to this is, I know there is a positive correlation between frequent camera/object transitions and memory recall (advertisers certainly take advantage of it), but does the motion of a character in a game trigger some kind of mirror neuron reaction leading to improved skill-learning?