Blog - On Marketing Interactive Fiction
Sunday, March 23, 2008As he'll be speaking at GDX this year, I decided I should actually finish reading Chris Crawford's book on interactive fiction that I started a while back. I had plenty of time to sit and read as long render-times on one of my projects kept me from using the computer all day anyway.
I'm not quite done with the book, and I admittedly skipped around a bit, but in the book's conclusion, Crawford predicts how interactive fiction is going to come about.
He argues against "true" interactive fiction coming out of the game industry, and fair enough. There's likely quite a bit of truth to that claim, although I certainly feel like the game industry is going to be involved in at least some degree. Even if games and interactive fiction (as Crawford defines them) are different animals, they are certainly similar enough that the developers of each can benefit from feeding off one another. Game developers have already well learned that story can help sell games, and anything to give the player more agency over not only the game play but the story as well is something they're going to drool over and invest in.
I'm fairly sure game developers will hijack story world engines and hack in game mechanics as soon as a suitable story world engine comes along, making hybrids between the two media. I don't think the line between them needs to be so starkly drawn if there even is one at all, much in the same way that there is not much use in the end to arguing over whether a software title is a "game" or a "software toy" like Sim City.
He later goes on to claim that interactive fiction titles can't be marketed in the same way games are. In many ways, I'll agree with his arguments there.
The typical channel of going through producer, distributor, and retailer doesn't seem likely. I'll certainly give him that.
I also agree he's definitely right that if interactive fiction titles appeared on the same shelves as video games, they'd wither out and die, as their market isn't necessarily anything like the market that typically goes to look at those shelves.
However, there's one problem I see with his argument here, and that he's forgetting about the non-hardcore gamers out there. He's forgetting the whole rest of the game industry that doesn't make first person shooters. Sticking with my theme of late: what about the casual game developers and their audience?
From what I gather, this is a much larger industry than the game industry as he defines it (and how many define it, in his defense...)
So what if the interactive fiction market would not define themselves as gamers? Neither do most of the people who play Bejeweled, and that's a hell of a lot of people. Is Bejeweled having a hard time selling, and having trouble finding its market? No.
Granted, Bejeweled is one of the casual titles that have actually made it onto real world store shelves, but the casual industry in general seems to be doing fine without going through traditional distribution chains.
Crawford claims the game industry has too narrowly defined its market, and in some ways, yes, it totally has.
But Crawford has also narrowed his view as to what the game industry is and who the people who play games are as well.
Games are, I believe, a bit more mass-market than people think.
No, we still haven't reached his vision of what games should be right now. That too, I can lament. That is why I was interested in his book and the work he's doing in interactive fiction. Because when the technology for interactive storytelling does arrive in a workable, acceptable form, and game developers adopt the technology in their own way, well that's a day I want to see.
So keep being a pioneer, Chris.
Even if I'd argue with every third thing you claim. ;)
Labels: casual, interactive fiction, writing
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 2:53 AM 0 Comments Links to this post
Blog - Virtual Pets
Friday, March 21, 2008In an earlier entry I talked about the conflict between having a game be suitably casual to attract a casual audience, yet have characters you could invest in.
I'm wondering right now about virtual pet software (again, I also have a big interest in Artificial Life thanks to the Creatures A-Life virtual pet series...)
A virtual pet seems like an interesting way to bridge this gap between powerful characters within casual gaming.
It may, in fact, have lead me to answer my question from earlier about how the Sims soars as a success despite asking the user to watch people brush their teeth and clean the dishes and other dull activities.
Your sims, after all, are basically virtual pets, just repackaged as living doll house dolls. Make no mistake, however: we keep them and play with them as pets.
In any case, back to the point of how virtual pets can bridge the gap between character depth and casual play. The entire "play" of virtual pet software is in getting invested in a character: the pet. And yet, most virtual pet programs seem pretty casual to me: you just load them up every now and then when you're bored to feed them, play with them a bit, etc.
Most are far more "casual" than owning a real pet. The norns from Creatures are frozen in suspended animation until I choose to acknowledge them by opening up the game. The same is true with my dog in Dogz.
If I don't feel like feeding them that day, I don't have to, as I can just chose not to open up the program. But if I have some time to kill while, say, waiting for the bus, I can load up my dog in Dogz on my mobile phone and have something to interact with for a bit.
Of course, my dog in Dogz isn't particularly that deep of a character, as its world is so static. It only interacts with me. I don't even get the sense that I can alter the dog's virtual 'soul' that much through my actions.
The norns of Creatures are a deeper than that, by a considerable degree, as is evidenced by the outcry against my friend who ran the website devoted to torturing them physically and emotionally.
That however, begs the question again of memory that I discussed in my above entry on characters in casual gaming.
Creatures has much more "history" in its virtual worlds.
Generations of virtual life pass through the user's fingertips, as the norns interact realistically with each other and their world.
This makes it almost like a little soap opera virtual world that the user can try to influence.
That, however, means it begs the user to remember all that has occurred, and who begat who.
Even so, I don't get the sense that necessarily the user is required to remember any of that information.
Life goes on in the virtual worlds of the Creatures just as it does in the real world, regardless of what the user does or doesn't do.
So, the game can still effectively function as a casual game experience: log in when you like to feed them, bounce the ball around with them for a bit, and maybe teach them something new...
...with the option of following the drama in their life if you so choose.
The Sims takes a very similar approach, and to its phenomenal success (despite my criticisms from earlier, which, mind you, also apply to the Creatures series.)
Casual, with the option of more depth and investment, seems like a powerful paradigm to shoot for. posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 11:47 PM 0 Comments Links to this post