Examination Board

1. Success on a small scale doesn't mean you have any chance of getting your game into major retailers, but a distributor can,
2. You don't have the capital to produce a truly large run and can't or don't want to take the risk of a loan, or
3. You want to design games for a living, not sell them.

Maybe I took your statement in a different way than you intended.

It sounded like you were saying our ideal goal should be to make games that appeal to the widest number of people at any cost (which usually means dumbing them down).

In the 80's, my favourite genre of video game was the 3D adventure. Back then, there were relatively few computer users and if a game sold 200,000 copies, it was a major it.

Today, that same number means a game is a major flop because the market is so much larger. The problem is most of the expansion is from the average couch-potato type person. The big hit games today have lots of eye-candy that appeals to a lot of people, so the games sell well but there's very little playability; sure it looks nice, but running around shooting anything that moves with a rocket launcher gets old in about 30 seconds.

The entire genre of 3D adventure doesn't exist anymore. There were a few attempts to make ones that appealed to the average gamer, but they just took the worst of both worlds and nobody bought them.

The point is that games that appeal to the mass market have to be dumbed down. Looks are more important than playability. If this happened in the board game industry, that would be bad for all of us.

What percentage of Monopoly players would enjoy sitting down for a game of Puerto Rico? If the success of PR were measured by comparing its sales to Monopoly we'd have to conclude that PR is a bad game because not many people want to play it.

What seems to be making a dent in Television's dominince is the internet and internet gaming. If this gets people to turn off everything else you mentioned, I think that's a better step than getting the people the play board games that they'll eventually find boring. For a target audience that likes glitter and eye-candy, boardgames can't compete with TV, but multi-player online games can. They also some of the social interaction, you talk (by instant message or voice chat) with your allies and competitors while playing).

Some of those are good games and I don't mean to say monopoly is a lot worse than they are (I have an older edition of monopoly and the millenium edition and I do play it about once a year), but every one of them (except scrabble) has an obvious specific strategy, and the lack of depth works against the goal of getting more people to become gamers.

The current trend for console or computer games is towards multi-player. I don't see why you're saying interacting over a board game is that much better than in a computer game.

If they'd have more fun playing Catan, but they play Life and decide that TV is more fun than Life, it will re-enforce that all board games are boring for them. The result is they won't play Life again and they won't try Catan at all. They'll just go back to watching TV. Hasbro will be happy though because they sold a game and they don't care if it's only played once.

Jason

I can appreciate paleogeoff's perspective that getting people to play any games is a step in the right direction, however, my personal take is that this does indeed go beyond the purview of our "obligation" as designers. I think that the one thing we as designers have in common is that we should be trying to design great games, period. (where "great" is in relation to some intended player experience, etc)

That said, I also agree that it's worth speculating about how to revolutionize the public as a whole to the point where games are valued as a form of social interaction and leisure time. I don't know if I would go so far as to advocate "any game is ok". That's not to say that people shouldn't play games that they enjoy, so much as to say that I'm not going to waste time I could be using designing my own games to go out and advocate people playing Monopoly. But I don't think that's necessarily what you're advocating.

Let's also be clear on a couple of things. First, "our games" (where by "our", I pretty much mean "sophisticated", "German-style" games, which seem to be what a lot of the "regulars" here are designing) are not failing to sell because people are playing Monopoly. Monopoly is not our most serious competition among adult gamers. If I was going to guess, in game terms, I'd say that games like Cranium, Pictionary, and Scrabble are the bigger competitors among adult gamers. And of these, I can't knock Scrabble -- it really is an awesome game design. But nevertheless, Scrabble notwithstanding, from a game standpoint, it's the kind of interaction that "our games" provide that isn't valued -- people like light, social, highly interactive games like Pictionary more than they like games that require "thinking".

Let's also observe that the problem we face in our hobby isn't even so much about competition from other forms of gaming, but with the inherent isolationism of society. In America, you can walk down your average street at 8pm, and guess what's going on in just about every house? People are sitting on their own couch, staring at a screen with moving pictures. This happens in my house, too, so I'm by no means on a high horse here. The point is, with the advent of TV, the internet, etc, people are becoming more isolated, and more anonomous. These run directly contrary to an atmosphere that is conducive to gaming. Moreover, this isolation is perpetuated even when opportunities for social interaction occur. Take, for example, a Thanksgiving get-together, a great time for some social interaction. Yet, in how many households does a game break out, and in how many do the people just sit around watching whatever is on TV?

And how many of us have had success getting our family members to play a game at such gatherings? In mine, it's like pulling teeth -- there's this inertia to playing a game, any game. I think it's in part due to a perception that the games I like are "complicated", yet even when I try to get a game like Clue off the ground, that everyone knows and likes, it's very difficult.

So, I agree with geoff, that there are cultural factors that are swamping the effect of people choosing other games. Yet, I also agree with Oracle, that "any game will do" is not a good attitude, precisely because some somewhat mediocre games can partially account for the apathy towards gaming in the first place. So, I will never design a game that is mass-marketable simply for the sake of it being mass-marketable. And I'll never advocate playing a "bad" game when an equally accessible and fun "good game" is available (because notice, I'm not advocating that everyone should play Puerto Rico. What I look for in a game isn't always deep thought, but it is, almost always, some interesting decisions. There are tons of light, easy, fun games that also feature decision making, and that's the crux of what I'm looking for in a game experience).

Let me also observe that the reason computer games are favored over board games is probably explicable in the same sense that TV is favored over reading. We've lost our necessity to imagine things, which isn't thinking in the same sense as "critical thinking", but it's still cerebral. With our instant-gratification, we-will-provide-all-the-details entertainment culture, there's no need, no possibility even, to look at the world with a sense of wonder, to "fill in the blanks" for yourself between the story or the game and the imagined reality behind it.

But, until you can get people to get over the inertia of turning off the TV, unplugging the computer, and valuing the social interaction that games provide, I don't see how this problem can be overcome.

I have no great solutions on how to do this, except to start with my own family and go from there. My 2 year old daughter already likes "games", not so much to actually play by the rules (which she isn't ready for), but to play with components, to go to "the gaming place" with Dada and be in an environment where games are being played. She sees that I like it, and she gravitates toward it as well.

That's why I think that any "change" will have to happen slowly and organically. As I said elsewhere, I'm not in favor of a rapid "gaming revolution" where suddenly everyone wants to play games. Better, I think, for society to be slowly and steadily "assimilated". I think that in the end, percentages of people who play games will grow, and this will be a good thing -- people will be more inclined to interact in our increasingly "isolationist" society, and people's thinking skills will grow. And of course, this will be good for us as designers, as we'll have ample opportunity to shape the landscape of gaming over the next bundle of years. This is a great time to be involved in this hobby!

-Jeff