The Creator of "Leisure Suit Larry" Spoke at IGDA Seattle

I recently had the pleasure of joining the folks of IGDA Seattle (the local chapter of the International Game Developers Association) to listen to Al Lowe, creator of the hit game Leisure Suit Larry , talk about his experiences and thoughts on the industry.

Lowe is an interesting character. He is quite well known in the video game industry, and yet you wouldn't know it by listening to him speak. He is sagely and eminently approachable with a touch of humility and a dash of mischief. Listening to him talk about his experience working for Sierra and developing his games was akin to sitting by the fireplace and listening to one of my uncles describing some past youthful hijinks. The comfortable environment for the session (in this case, the lounge at Amazon's Van Vorst building) helped reinforce this feeling with its casual couches and bookshelves.

A good portion of the evening was spent as Q&A, with Lowe answering questions that covered the gamut from his early days as a game developer/designer to the recent successful Kickstarter project to do a remake of the original Leisure Suit Larry game. The Kickstarter project, according to Lowe, required much more planning and logistics than he had anticipated in order to handle all the variations of rewards for the project's backers.

I asked Lowe about his thoughts on freemium and its impact on modern games (a topic that is near and dear to my heart). To summarize and paraphrase his thoughts...he doesn't really like it. In fact, he prefers to pay upfront for games. He particularly doesn't like the 'spaminess' of some games that continually ask for money. While he does play some freemium games, he often will stop playing a game after getting hit with too many requests (or sometimes, the first request) for additional payment.

Interesting bit of trivia: some of the Sierra employees became the intellectual property of Sierra as a result of appearing as characters within the games. (Presumably, this only extends to the in-game likeness of the employees!)

Folks, this was a great opportunity to interact with an industry legend. If you happen to see Al Lowe around town, thank him for his contributions and buy him a cup of coffee.

Pay for Your Apps, Folks, or We All Suffer the Consequences

Gentlemen! , available on the iTunes App Store and Google Play, is the latest example of how tough the app development business can be. The app has received some very good reviews for its unique style and gameplay. According to Killian Bell at Cult of Android, the developers of Gentlemen! have noted that the game "has over 6,000 players on Android". Sounds great, right? 6,000 players is a nice number for the early days of an app. The problem is that of all those people that have played the game, only 50 people paid for it.

Let that sink in for a while. Fewer than 1% of the people who downloaded and played the game were paying customers. To put it another way, over 99% of the game's players were freeloaders.

As I've noted before, creating an app isn't necessarily the path to riches. However, this is ridiculous. The game is priced at roughly $3 in both stores, which isn't a large amount of money by any measure. There really isn't a good reason for this game to be pirated so much when the price is low and the quality is high. By not paying for the game, the message sent to the developers is that it either isn't worth their time to develop the game or that they must employ the sleazy techniques used in many freemium games.

Folks, we all want to play good games. The best way to ensure that new good games are created is to pay for them.

DuckTales, Ooh-woo-ooh

Kyle Orland, one lucky duck at Ars Technica:

I wondered: did Capcom actually send a working NES cartridge to promote their game? There was only one way to find out. I stuck the cartridge in the top-loading system sitting to the side of my work desk. Holy crap, it works!

The folks at Capcom are issuing an HD remake of the old Nintendo game, DuckTales Remastered, and have sent some members of the press some very, very, very cool promotional items. This would make a great collectible for fans of the game.

Concept Animation for a Legend of Zelda Movie

Shawn Depasquale, over at Nerdist:

The clip contains one minute and 37 seconds of pure, unadulterated, LoZ-filled goodness! In that short span, the animators managed to capture the mood, wonder and adventure of a Zelda game with slick animation that would put a smile on even old Zora’s fish-face.

The video (see the source link) is apparently a concept for a Legend of Zelda movie. The style of the characters and the animation flow is quite good for a concept video. The look and feel reminds me a bit of the look and feel of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series, but with a more 'anime' character design. I'm not convinced that a live-action Legend of Zelda movie could ever work, but this animation has me thinking of all the possibilities for an animated movie.

Usain Bolt Has Gone Temple Running

Tom Phillips, over at Eurogamer:

12 months have passed since the glory of London 2012. Jessica Ennis is now appearing in skin care ads. Olympic Park is being dismantled, and gold medallist Usain Bolt is now available to purchase as a playable character in endless runner Temple Run 2.

If you've ever had the desire to play as an Olympic gold medalist in Temple Run 2, then now's your chance. As for me, I remember having a lot of fun playing World Class Track Meet for the NES with my cousins.

'So You Want to be an Indie'

The fine folks that make the Penny Arcade - Extra Credits series have posted a video about what it means to become an independent game developer. If you are currently an 'indie' game dev, or are considering going that route (like yours truly), then check out the video. You might be surprised at what it takes to be an indie (hint: it's not just about programming video games)!

You Don't Have to Trick Users Into Buying In-App Purchases

I received some excellent feedback for my post on freemium's negative impact on video game design. Part of that post was about in-app purchases, and some folks had the impression that I was against in-app purchases as they relate to game design. That is not the case. I don't think that in-app purchases are bad per se, but I do recognize that they have been misused in recent years (especially in freemium games).

If freemium games are littered with examples of 'bad' in-app purchases, then what kinds of in-app purchases could be considered 'good'? 'Good' in-app purchases are the kind that add to the player's enjoyment without being detrimental to the player or to gameplay. To put it another way, game designers should always strive to make in-app purchases fun and fair .

Here are some examples of good in-app purchases. Please note that I am sometimes referring to a particular in-app purchase in isolation from other 'bad' in-app purchases.

Character Customization

The iOS game Punch Quest has a good example of in-app purchases related to customizing the player's character. By default, a player has a limited set of options to choose from (male/female and a few colors). If a player wants to use a different garment color, add a hat, or choose a different face then they can buy an in-app purchase for their character. Their character is not impacted by these selections in any meaningful way, thus maintaining balanced gameplay. People often want to customize their in-game avatar, and this is a good way for devs to fulfill that desire in a profitable way without resorting to tricks.

New Songs/Levels

Having in-app purchases that allow players to buy new songs or additional levels to play can be a good way to provide ongoing customer satisfaction. Magic Guitar comes with several songs preloaded, and users can purchase additional songs that they wish to play. These types of in-app purchases help keep players engaged in the game without going into addiction territory.

Unlocking Levels/Chapters

Another way to make use of in-app purchases is to let users unlock all of the levels/chapters in the game. Rock Runners, for example, normally requires users to complete levels in order to unlock new levels. There is an element of chance and choice to how its game map works when users unlock levels. An in-app purchase that lets the user unlock all levels is a good way to balance the needs of skillful players (who can earn their way to all the levels) and the needs of less skillful players (or players that don't have quite enough time to master the game). The latter can still gain access to all that the game has to offer, but without any significant sacrifice in game balance or fairness.

Folks, in-app purchases for games aren't all bad. In fact, some of them can be quite good for devs and players alike. Just remember to keep things fun and fair.

Freemium is Hurting Modern Video Game Design

If anything has hurt modern video game design over the past several years, it has been the rise of 'freemium'. It seems that it is rare to see a top app or game in the app stores that has a business model that is something other than the 'free-to-play with in-app purchases' model. It has been used as an excuse to make lazy, poorly designed games that are predicated on taking advantage of psychological triggers in its players, and will have negative long term consequences for the video game industry if kept unchecked.

Many freemium games are designed around the idea of conditioning players to become addicted to playing the game. Many game designers want their games to be heavily played, but in this case the freemium games are designed to trigger a 'reward' state in the player's brain in order to keep the player playing (and ultimately entice the user to make in-app purchases to continue playing). This type of conditioning is often referred to as a 'Skinner box', named after the psychologist that created laboratory boxes used to perform behavioral experiments on animals. The folks that create the Penny Arcade - Extra Credits series of videos have a good video describing the use of the Skinner box in video games that is recommended viewing on this topic. The use of this type of design is at best ethically questionable and at worst deplorable. It is one thing to create a game that is so fun that players don't want to stop playing, and another thing altogether to create a game that preys on its players using behavioral tricks.

Freemium games are often examples of some of the laziest and most poorly designed games. They usually include some sort of 'energy meter' that is designed to limit how much time the player can play the game before they either have to wait long periods of time until the meter recharges, or pay to continue playing immediately. This often results in nonsensical gameplay elements such as the player's character getting 'fatigued' without any in-game recourse other than plunking down cash to instantly recuperate. Similar to this design is in 'endless runner' games where the player can 'revive' their character after colliding with an obstacle (which would ordinarily end the run). Another troublesome freemium design is to encourage users to 'pay to win'. The player can simply purchase the most powerful weapon/item/whatever in the game rather than earning it via playing the game. This has implications on game balance in competitive games, and raises questions about whether players are actually playing a game if they can just convert money into victories. In all of these cases, the game is designed to keep the player from playing the game unless they open their wallets.

Freemium is currently having noticeable negative effects on the video game industry and will have negative effects on the industry in the future. Perhaps the biggest impact is that freemium skews the market's perspective on pricing. Users are becoming accustomed to app and game prices that are unsustainably low. It's depressing to see complaints about games being 'too expensive' when they are priced at five dollars or less. (Michael Jurewitz, by the way, has an excellent series of blog posts on app pricing and why low prices aren't the only way or even the best way to achieve profits.) Zynga's rise to prominence was partially based on its use of freemium design, and its fall can be blamed in part on an over-reliance on freemium. It simply isn't sustainable to have such low prices, and the result is that legitimate game dev shops go out of business while the sleazy game dev shops create games that aren't really games but instead elaborate psychological traps.

Folks, games should not be designed by spreadsheets. You can do your part to support good game design by paying for games that are truly fun. Don't get trapped in the Skinner box.

'Designing for a Touch Screen'

The Penny Arcade - Extra Credits series of videos on game design and game culture topics are generally quite excellent. This particular video covers some of the challenges and follies when designing games for a touch screen.

Perhaps the most interesting statement in the video is the idea that having a 'virtual joystick' on a touch device is an example of poor design. I have to say that, in general, I agree. I most often see this type of design in games that try to emulate the traditional platformer style (e.g. 'Mario' style games). This type of game doesn't really lend itself to a touch device since the virtual joystick is much more error-prone than what would be acceptable in a platformer. Typically, the best way to handle a platformer type of game is to create an 'endless runner' type of game where the controls are simplified to a single touch (such as in Rock Runners) or at most two different touch spots (such as in Punch Quest). Perhaps the only good example of a virtual joystick is in Zombiegal Kawaii, and I think that really only works because it is a shooting game (instead of a platformer) where the lack of precise controls isn't quite as apparent.

Folks, watch the video in the source link.

Third Party Developers Aren't Happy with the Nintendo WiiU

Chris Morris, in a post at GamesIndustry International:

Yves Guillemot, Chairman and CEO of Ubisoft, is typically one of the biggest proponents of new systems, but betting big on the Wii U didn't work out well for the company. ZombiU, one of the most popular launch titles for the system with players, was not profitable, he says. Not even close. As such, he says, there are no plans (or even desire) for a sequel.

Ouch.

As I've written about previously, the Nintendo WiiU isn't selling particularly well. It seems as though the poor console sales numbers have translated into poor sales numbers for games. In the article, Morris notes that EA does not currently have any games in development for the WiiU. When one of the largest videogame dev shops in the world doesn't have games in development for your platform, you're in a tough spot.

Folks, everyone is going to want to play Nintendo's first party software (e.g. Mario, Zelda, Metroid). That's a virtual certainty. Unfortunately, it's unclear if gamers and third party developers will stick around for the long haul.