The industry don't have a problem, only him....

ahmeng

@Campster: I completely agree. The popularity of certain games proves that strategic elements in gameplay is far, far from a bad thing.

Sorry to double post... But just to add on, I can't tell what he's defining as "strategic gameplay." You can nitpick to high heaven what's strategy and what isn't; especially if he's whittling it down to "a series of interesting decicions."

So removing anything that fits that category, we're left with oldschool 2D sidescrollers that require twitch reflexes and nothing more, and rythm games. Wooo, hail to this mans future of the video games industrey. Point being, anything from fighters to survival horrors consist of some level of strategy.

Garro

He's right! Games shouldn't be a series of interesting decisions.

We need more tedious decisions people! Some one get one it NOW.

Spenze

I don't know if this thesis stands up to scrutiny. After all, if there were too many strategists spoiling the war, I doubt we'd have an abundance of non-strategy games, and the genre would probably not be relatively marginal.

Mister Adequate

Sometimes I'm just dumbfounded when I hear the things said about the games industrey.

So let me get this straight.

Strategy games (RTS, TBS, RTT) are bad, because they don't sell as well as GTA?

What... what is the point of saying that? There's obviousley a fanbase lare enough to support the genre, and I see no reason to quit making these sorts of games just because they aren't blockbusters. I mean what, if it isn't the best it's worth fuckall?

Furthermore, what's this nonsense about "influencing the game industrey"? Are their RTS tycoons sitting in large chairs by the firesplace smoking tobacco in old wooden pipes, wearing comfortable robes and discussing the future of video games with eloquent words and husky voices?

Honestly I have no idea what this guy is talking about. He didn't provide any examples of a video game that could do with "less strategy," or even an alternative to "strategic gameplay." If he's just looking at it as "a series of interesting deciscions," I say he's a pompous windbag who shouldn't speak on something if he won't bother to understand the appeal of strategy or tactics in a video game.

And if he's saying RTS games influence strategic gameplay in other genres, he has just blasted into the stratosphere of "wtflol."

Seriousley, what's this guy asking for? Talk about ambiguity.

Garro

@adaorardor: That's not what the article is really about. It's really about how some game designers tend to focus on strategic play, sort of like designing games to be like Chess, Go, etcetera, as opposed to trying to find what works for the audience.

Drake Lake: Formed from Arsenic and Old Lace

The Sims is a strategy game. The fact that Bateman has to mislabel The Sims as something else pretty much kills off any sort of thesis he may have.

endaround

I'm really, really creeped out by the insistence that a game be measured on a purely financial basis. That and the idea that market-driven game design is in any way a Good Thing.

Campster

i fail to really see how brain training, gta, guitar hero, and the sims aren't a series of interesting decisions. gta and the sims is obvious, but even brain training and guitar hero simply relocate the 'interesting decision' outside of what we might consider the 'core mechanic' of the game.

adaorardor

There's games for all tastes and situations. Yes, all different kind of strategy is applied. Also for a beat em up game like dead or alive or street fighter. Theres the fast reaction strategy games and the planning strategy game. :D

bubble-bee

A good game is something that sells well in the market, period. If developers are able to find people willing to give up their green to pay salaries, then they've succeeded. Everything outside of that is simply an op-ed that's about as valid as its opposing opinion - which is about as valid as the amount of people agreeing with either side.

Take the visual novel market in Japan (i.e. the galge sector). The majority of the genre subjects the player to answering "a series of interesting decisions". And yet, there are people that can play the game and then come to conclusion that "it was a great game".

Sqrfrk

It might just be bad phrasing but I stopped at the point where he said a niche title might not sell "more than a few million units at most." You could add together a few dozen truly niche titles and not end up with a few million units sold.

Nobuyuki

I can decide if I want to snipe the ten guys standing around an explosive barrel, or if I just want to fire a rocket at the barrel itself. I feel that is an interesting decision.

Drake Lake: Formed from Arsenic and Old Lace

It's really impossible to determine the chicken/egg relationship between strategy games and the video game demographic. Young men adopt technology the quickest, and their brains are structured to enjoy strategy games. So game makers responded to the incentive and sold the young men the strategy games they wanted.

Eventually, everyone adopts the technology and games are come to reflect that reality. The author is probably displeased with conservative forces (people who enjoyed the previous paradigm more, like developers and longtime gamers) that he feels are holding back the medium as a whole.

rateoforange

I'm also glad you used a picture of Civilization IV, as this little strategy 'niche' game seems to be doing just fine, what with 3 million copies sold.

Drake Lake: Formed from Arsenic and Old Lace

@Drake Lake: Formed from Arsenic and Old Lace: well, that's fine, but it also assumes that there is some other type of game that isn't based around 'interesting decisions' or strategy. while it may be splitting hairs a bit, i can't think of any game that doesn't involve "mastering complex game systems and problem solving, with a drive towards perfectionism."

and to split hairs even further, i can't think of anything at all, within a human conception of what constitutes life, that doesn't fit the above definition.

while the point of identifying the play needs of the target audience is perfectly fine, i don't see how any developer could possibly hope to succeed in doing that without understanding the role strategy plays in any game.

adaorardor

So product is niche if it doesn't sell more than few million copies? o_O That's some really fucked up thinking there. RTS titles have their fans, as have visual novels (since it was mentioned above) or flight simulators. None of those need to have the latest generation shaders and shit to be excellent specimen of it's genre and sell enough to cover production costs and maybe even gain a bit more. Gaming industry seems to divided so badly in half, there are the big hitter epic games with latest tech, voice acting, cinematics, etc. and then there are the arcade like mini-games. Very few title intentionally aims between, taking less shiny graphics and focusing on it's content or just trying out something completely different.

ara

@Campster: That's unfortunately how it works in a capitalist society. Though what I'm trying to say is that even "niche" games with a "modest" income can still pay a man's salary, enabling him to make more games in the future.

Thus, I reject the Bateman's notion on the basis that it's too narrow. Who's to say that the player's needs aren't EXACTLY a series of interesting decisions? If the game sells well to its SPECIFIED market, then the developers can go home and put food on the table.

Sqrfrk

@ahmeng: Oh believe me, the industry definitely "have problem." But most of those stem from our horrible business model and reluctance to adapt open standards on... pretty much anything. Minor design differences aren't really on the list of things I would fix first around here.

Campster

I would say that all good games ARE a series of interesting decisions, because all games are a series of decisions, by virtue of the fact that they're interactive. If they aren't, then they're not really games at all. And if the decisions aren't interesting, then the game is boring.

@Drake Lake: Formed from Arsenic and Old Lace:
Often the decisions are simple stuff like this, but that's still a decision, and it is a potentially interesting one.

Pantsman

Thing is, outside of Chutes and Ladders, all games everywhere have strategy elements.

endaround

It's NOT a series of interesting decisions. It's a series of tubes.

ShaggE

Games ARE a series of interesting decisions. Dude is wrong.

Sub

Sorry, but that was BS.

Since when are reflex-training or sandbox-games overrun by strategy? What is the point he's trying to make?

Also, in the end, reacting to the player's decision is the whole purpose of a game. Otherwise I could use non-interactive mediums like film, music or traditional storytelling.

Articles on gaming in general are so often unsatisfying and pointless. This is an example. Lame.

lumpi

This just needs to put "virtual worlds" in the title somewhere to be the most redundant read ever.

dowingba

In the other direction, it's been said (Wonder Boys) that writing is a series of decisions or choices. It's difficult to apply a statement like that to something like Brain Training as directly as a story-driven game, but you could argue that the interface is part of the writing process. Anything you do in a game (or read in a book, for that matter) must be scripted out. The player is unable to make any decisions that the writer has not, in some capacity, anticipated.

valuepack

The Sims is a game pretty much based on strategic choices, more so than "hardcore" titles such as GeOW and COD, Halo etc. And is certainly not niche...

The_nub_next_door

If it's not a series of interesting decisions, then it's either not a game, or it's a crappy, boring game. If this guy actually knew what he was talking about, then we would have heard of the games that he's worked on.

Placentasaurus

Hm.

You guys already said most of it, but I wanted to point out that games have been around since well before video games were invented. Board games, card games, tag. Now, lets look at what genres of games are represented, which ones have 'sold' the most. I daresay chess, a strategy game, has been pretty popular.

I do think there is one part of Mr. Bateman's statement that is both perceptive and accurate. Games that involve some form of strategy (or, y'know, active thought instead of just reflexes) are more common, and more commonly thought of when people think of games. I wonder why that is?

Well, if you ask me, the point of games is to challenge oneself (usually mentally) and through this challenge derive some pleasure, whether it's the clout of saying "I beat that guy!" or a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, or even just having successfully and painlessly wasted a certain amount of time in the most interesting or entertaining way possible. I think the inclusion of "Strategic decisions" is natural when one is trying to create a game that accomplishes these goals.

If someone is trying to make a fad that will sell like hotcakes, the priorities are somewhat different, and I consider that more of a problem. Suffice it to say I think Chris Bateman is not my kind of game developer.

ravelin

The best games, though are a series of interesting choices. Making the choice on how to approach a situation, whether or not to kill someone or sneak past them, deciding to take different vehicles, paths, weapons, say different things and seeing the resulting consequences is what makes defines games most from other media and makes good games better. There are some types of games that don't really give the player much choice, but, as Bateman points out, they're meant to be played either for different reasons or by a different audience.

Blah8

@The_nub_next_door: I'm not sure if I agree The Sims is about strategic choices in and of itself. You certainly can overlay a strategic game on top of what's there but the game doesn't really have an end goal that you can necessarily get five other people playing the exact same title to agree upon. If you take 20 people and get them to play The Sims for a couple weeks by the end that period you would have people doing very things and not just for the purposes of solving the same goal by different means.

It's the difference between running on a beach or running in a race from what I can see.

Maluvin

Wait: guh? I get what he's trying to say, and I partially agree, but it's all horribly, horribly worded.

Everything is a series of interesting decisions, including all that funky shit that parties on the quantum level. Life itself is a series of interesting decisions. And while it might seem counter-intuitive, generally passive forms of media are also a series of interesting decisions, both on the authorial and consumer level.

All media sparks a dialogue between the audience and the artifact; this dialogue is just much more heavily pronounced in games. For example: when we engage with a movie (as opposed to just staring blankly at the screen, daydreaming about that cute boy/girl sitting next to you), we are asking the author and ourselves a series of questions. We might be busy predicting what the protagonist might do next, based on our own experiences; we might wonder how the SFX were engineered; we might even be questioning the author's own intentions, motives and creative direction. A dialogue, by nature, implies nothing more than a series of interesting decisions that we enact in our own heads. This is how particularly gripping pieces of media can keep up so engrossed.

When we truly experience something, we're engaging with that experience; otherwise, we're not experiencing anything at all. This engagement implies that we ask questions about either the experience itself or our own relationship to the experience in question. Bateman's postulations border on the inane, revealing nothing more than the driveling thoughts of someone who has no grounding in both basic epistemology and ontology.

JustThisGuy

It's pretty obvious that a lot of you did not read the article or did not finish it or didn't really chew on just what his argument concerned. He is not saying strategy games are bad or that a strategic gameplay focus is bad in any manner. His definition of strategy stems from the Meier attributed misquote and if you don't follow through with understanding it and how it defines strategy the rest of the article can't really be debated.

The (mis)quote is "a game is a series of interesting decisions" and he's criticizing this as a too narrow view of what constitutes a game. He seems to be saying that "strategic game design" revolves around building a game that presents those decisions and then populating the game with methods and resources to make and resolve those decisions. Again, there's nothing wrong with this in and of itself because you can definitely make a good game following that design.

His issue is that in the larger realm of games (not just video games) a "game" doesn't always concern strategy and includes things like "play" and I'd include practice for practical actives given some of the examples he cites like spear throwing. His caution to game designers is don't limit yourselves to thinking about games that concern only decisions or get too locked into a particular design paradigm. The "play" aspect is really what we're going after as both designers and players.

Half of the fun in the GTA series has little or nothing to with solving problems or beating the game per se so much as just toying around. There's a lot of comparisons to be made between something like GTA and SimCity or Spore. There's a strategic element that you certainly can play and enjoy but there's more going on than just coming up with an ideal strategy.

Maluvin

@Maluvin: I can't speak for anyone else, but my issue with Bateman is that he's drawing a clear line of demarcation between play and decision-making, which I think is folly. I subscribe to the view that on some base level, everything reverts back to nothing more than a series of decisions. He would have been much better served if he stuck with the term strategic play instead of asserting within the first half of the article that a game like Guitar Hero requires no decision-making (as opposed to the term 'strategic play') at all. It kind of sinks his whole argument.

JustThisGuy

@JustThisGuy: If we're getting into deep philosophy at this point and moving out of game design your point is interesting although I'd disagree with the statement that everything is a set of interesting decisions. I mean just linguistically not everything is interesting so I'll just throw that out as a minor detail.

The major point of whether everything is a decision just strikes me as odd. I pick up a rock and drop it and it hits the ground. My manipulation of the rock involves choices but gravity operating on that rock is just fact and happenstance as far as the rock and earth is concerned. There's no decision for gravity to kick in. I know that's a trivial point for most of kotaku but I just think we need to pause before casually accepting overly broad definitions.

The important detail though is that there is no cake.

Maluvin

That's what interactivity is though. Decisions. Even something as mindless as Quake 3 will have you deciding whether to go for the red armour or the quad, to use the plasma rifle or the rocket launcher. But of course, that's not all there is to Q3. There's also the reflexes and just general battle sense of it.

GregoriusH

@JustThisGuy: By which I mean, one can argue that Guitar Hero requires no type of strategic play. But it's asinine to argue that Guitar Hero requires no decision-making at all.

@Maluvin: For your gravity example: there is a chance--an infinitesimally small chance, but a chance nonethelss--that gravity might decide to tell you to bugger off and launch that rock into the stratosphere. But we're nitpicking at this point.

We're basically at an impasse wherein we have to either choose to believe in triviality, or just accept that everything--on some level--is interesting, in some form or fashion. Since I think that the term 'interesting' (or 'value', if you prefer) is an irreconcilably subjective term, I have to subscribe to the view that everything (insert universal qualifier symbol here) is interesting to one degree or another. That's the short version of it, anyway; I don't think I want to bore anyone here with the long-ass version.

JustThisGuy

Is "a series of interesting decisions" the misquote or the corrected quote because I've always seen it written as "a series of meaningful choices". On the whole, I like "meaningful choices" much better regardless of whether it is the correct quote or not. An interesting decision is, "Do I choose Mage or Warrior as my class?" whereas a meaningful choice is, "How does being a Mage affect my gameplay experience?"

I also disagree with his assertion that this design philosophy caters to a niche market or strategy gamers. Take his example of Guitar Hero. We can all agree that it, and similar titles, have gone about a mass market as you can get. What I disagree with is his statement that players make no choices during the game. When I play Guitar Hero, I am constantly making choices, and those choices provide meaningful feedback to my play. For instance, when should I deploy star power? Should I purposely miss the next note so that I'll be sure to hit the star note after it?

Barring the crudest of games, I believe Chutes and Ladders has already been mentioned, all games, digital or otherwise, involve meaningful decisions. Yet no one complains that the designers of Baseball or Soccer didn't make the game mainstream enough. If you ask me, Mr Bateman needs to stop splitting semantic hairs in order to create straw targets. Wait, was that a mixed metaphor or just incomprehensible?

Ferrik

What civ game is that in the pic? Doesn't look like civ 4.

Shane86

He doesn't come out and say it, but he does imply, near the end, that decision making is not what the "new videogames market" wants. (whether or not that is intentional is irrelevant)

That's right.

Learn how to pander to the mass-market so videogames too, can have the same awesome/suck ratios as those of the film, or music industries.

Don't we already have non-challenging entertainment in place that doesn't require many "interesting decisions"? (beyond the initial decision to consume)

Oh yeah! It's called television. But hey, I guess if appealing to the mass market is all that counts then just try to program games that are closer to that model. Just with some obligitory button pressing every now and then. (oh, wait they already have tv remotes... Gee, I guess that market's already sewn up then...)

Anyway, it sounds awesome. I can't wait to play more decision-less games. Or at least games with fewer decisions. All that thinking makes my brain hurt.

Make room on the couch soccer moms! I'm goin' CASUAL!

nomadder

What Nomadder said ^

Also...

A game MUST be a series of interesting decisions - hence "interactive entertainment." Thinking about how to respond to something is, IMO, the deepest and most satisfying way of interacting with it. The more interesting decisions there are, the more you think about the game, the more you feel you are interacting with it. Remove thinking, and the "interactive" part becomes nothing more than automatic response, pushing buttons to see what comes next. In conclusion, if you remove decisions, you don't have a game anymore - you have something resembling a movie, but worse - a movie that requires you to push some damn buttons to keep the story advancing.

jmaster14656

The Sims is nothing BUT a strategy game. Maybe there just aren't that many people who actually play the _game_ rather than just playing dollhouse. I have and it's 100% strategy. Unfortunately it's also very easy to win.

stfufools

Wait wait wait.. his name is Bateman?!, HELL YES.

tehFluffz

this is the most perverse thing I've ever seen. If a game doesn't have strategy, then it is a 'game' in the sense that casino's fill aisle after aisle with 'games' that take your money and involve no decisions whatsoever.

I can't believe this position is getting defense. You can make interesting decisions in practically any environment and format, even if it's just exactly how much of some dead or alive model's cleavage to look at while you relentlessly counter. Non-decisive environments are the enemy. They already exist, and they're uniformly a way for some jackass to part you from your money.

deathbunny

@jmaster14656:

You just described Dragon's Lair, and that "game" made a boatload of money. Neither here nor there, but I'm saying it anyway. haha

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

(bah got cut off)

There is a social risk in the form of possible sensitivity to be considered in Bateman's argument. For gamers like most of us we kind of pride our game experience as having some sort of thought or skill component. That's the interesting decision part of the experience for us. Most of us don't like the idea that we're merely "playing" or doing something that is barely above some sort of Pavlovian "keep pressing the button for a treat" experience. Generally speaking good games do in fact rise above that kind of thing but even the suggestion tends to offend our sensibilities.

Don't get me wrong. I fully agree with what most posters in this thread have said about what a good game involves.

Maluvin

@JustThisGuy: I guess I find the notion that gravity decides anything as being a tad peculiar. I would think that decision requires at least some form of perceptive, conscious, or reactionary Being which I think rocks or gravity seem to be devoid of as far as I know unless you posit that all or most matter has a certain degree of active cognition or apperception. However, this takes us into very strange territory that is more suited for an epistemology or metaphysics class.

@deathbunny: I mean it's true there's always the decision whether to play or for how long or how much. To that degree I'm on board with the argument that all games involve meaningful decisions. From the perspective of the designer though, according to Bateman, there's a risk of thinking of designs with dilemmas that need and have solutions to move beyond status quo within the gameworld. Personally I agree that these really do tend to be the best or most fun games but

I also understand the attraction of games that are more sandbox types games without a specific goal or point to them. I'd put something like SimCity in that category. There's the whole "Let's try this and see what happens" aspect. The game doesn't create the decision or dilemma, the player does. The game does provide the means and opportunity for one though.

I do agree this is a tough conversation that requires careful use of language and being careful what everyone brings to the table and I'm sure I've made some imprecise use of terms myself but I still think there's a point to his argument even if I don't buy it 100%. I think one of the big things is that it really doesn't have too much to say to gamers. We either enjoy playing a game or we don't. It's more for designers.

There is a social risk in

Maluvin

@Maluvin: I'm glad you brought up "gamer Pride."

For people may age, this starts with justifying the time we spend playing video games to our mothers, then perhaps to our friends and significant others. I think it's important to realize that this need or desire runs deeper than that. Gamers want the experience of something interesting to do, and the "pride" extends to game designers too in that they want to make something that will be a worthwhile experience.

I disagree with the idea that sandbox games are a distinct breed of game with regard to this need to create or enjoy an interesting experience, from a design perspective. The beauty of a sandbox game is it's understanding of the human desire to create or experience interesting situations and make interesting decisions, and it is (or should be) built with this in mind.

But that isn't the type of game it sounds like Bateman is describing. Frankly, it sounds like he's describing shovel ware, and that's what we need more of. It seems like a pretty silly argument, so I'm inclined to believe he either doesn't understand what he's talking about, or he's terrible at articulating it.

As an interesting bonus, it may be worth your while to look at this guy's history. It seems most of what he's worked on is in the Strategy or RPG genres.

ravelin

Actually... umm.... game is a series of decisions if you look at applied mathematics.

I've played competitive strategy games (not crap American board games) since I was 12. While I enjoy some games for the narrative, others for the immersion in gameplay and the simple experience of it all, nothing makes my pride shine like a game with deep decision making. It challenges your mind.

Noris159

@Sqrfrk: I'm sorry sir, but I disagree!

The quality of a game is not the only factor that influences sales. You also have to take the standards of the buying audience, how well a game is marketed and other such things into account.

There are some great games which did not do so well in the marketplace, such as Psychonauts and Okami.

KafkaTamura

Great thread. Interesting to see some of the backgrounds and disciplines people bring to this subject. ;)

Maluvin

@Maluvin: While most of what I just babbled about is mostly bullshit philosophy, that bit about gravity was actually SCIENCE! Don't think of it as gravity making a conscious choice, more so than an observer collapsing the waveform during a moment when gravity decided to take a left instead of a right. It's a (really, really stretched) variation on the double-slit experiment; while we don't normally think of protons being able to choose, someone (some thing, some force, the proton itself) is "directing" (to borrow a terribly incorrect and anthropromorphic term) that proton to go through either the left or the right slit. Of course, that only if we buy the Copenhagen Interpretation, and discount the Everett-Wheeler MWT.

That all sounds like crazy-talk. Trust me, this makes much more sense in MATH! as opposed to ENGLISH!

JustThisGuy

@JustThisGuy: I have a science background and I'm familiar with what you mean. ;) Probably not the right understanding of decision to bring to this discussion though since it's probably not in the same sense that Meier, Bateman, or most of the posters were discussing here.

This thread has entertained me all day. :D

Maluvin