Demarcation - An Objective Metric for Skills in Games

Whether you're hopping around throwing fireballs in Super Mario Bros or World of Warcraft, skills and abilities are at the core of gameplay. They define what we can do within the game, and how we do it.

Skills can take on a number of forms. Determining how successful they are is difficult, because the task is both subjective and case-sensitive. However, I believe that gameplay can be related to language. In a previous article, I suggest that since they are both forms of communication, they rely on clarity to be effective. This has led me to discover an objective metric which I believe is applicable to skills in most types of IDEs (Interactive Digital Entertainment): demarcation.

Demarcation: the clarity with which a skill's effects are separated from other elements of the game.

Good demarcation will increase the perceived effectiveness of a skill and make the gameplay far easier for the player to learn and master. As stated, this does not necessarily apply to every type of IDE or genre. For instance, the effects of "skills" in a simulation may not be immediately clear to the player if it will better resemble reality.

How to Achieve Clear Demarcation

There are primarily three qualities of a skill which determine its demarcation. They are time, multimedia feedback, and potency.

Time

Timing is a key factor of demarcation. For single action skills, this can be as simple as a clear point of execution.

Things become more complicated, however, when duration is introduced. Duration is typical of skills such as "buffs" and area of effect attacks. A single skill may include several phases. For instance, a spell that summons a meteor may have a warning phase in which the targeted ground pulses red, a point of impact which deals direct, area of effect damage, and a burning phase, during which the struck ground continues to burn, dealing damage to any units who pass over it. Regardless of the number of phases in a skill, each phase should have a clear beginning and end.

A skill does not need to be executed the moment the player selects to trigger it, but the time of its execution must be easily predictable. In other words, it must happen when the player expects it to happen. This will increase the perceived responsiveness of the skill.

A good way to bridge the gap between selection and activation is through a cadence or rhythm, which can be established by audio and visual cues.

Multimedia Feedback

Players need some sort of feedback to even realize they're playing a game. The simplest form is likely text. But every word, sound, image, and haptic cue within a game is capable of conveying information to the player.

In order for a skill's cue to work well, it must be easily distinguished from other sounds and images contained within the game. It must be clear and identifiable. But most importantly, it should coincide with the phase of the skill that it represents as closely as possible. Cues can accentuate good beginning and end points or mask fuzzy ones, as may be required when dealing with net code

In addition to a skill's execution, sounds and visual cues may also represent the results of a skill. For instance, whenever a player scores a headshot in an FPS, it can trigger a sound to let them know they've hit their mark. This is typically a higher pitched tone to separate it from the lower pitched noise of a gun.

For the purposes of demarcation, graphics serve primarily as a form of communication. Developing a symbolic language within a game is important. Generally, games will adhere to established paradigms within their genres. Perhaps the simplest example of this is the color-coding of elemental spells in an RPG. Players should not only be able to identify skills with which they are familiar, they should be able to decipher a great deal of information about newly encountered skills from the way they look and sound. This level of order is essential for demarcation to be achieved when things get cluttered in a busy game.

Potency

A skill can have a clear beginning and end with excellent cues to represent each of its phases, but what does it do? You can achieve clear demarcation with just timing and feedback. For instance, you can create a skill that displays the damage generated by the next attack in much larger, bolder numbers. Players know they've used the skill, and yet it may do nothing relevant to the gameplay. However, if the attack were also to do extra damage, it would be set even further apart from the normal flow of the game. Therefore, potency is also a quality of demarcation -- and one which becomes increasingly important as the capacity for audio and visual cues diminishes.

How much potency is sufficient? If a player has to check for a little icon by their name to make sure a buff is active, it's probably not potent enough. Or another classic example: Power Swing adds 5 points of damage to a player's next attack, but her normal attack damage can vary from 10 - 20. She swing once, deals 18 damage, and use Power Swing, and deals 12 + 5 = 17 damage. Unless the skill is backed by strong multimedia feedback, the timing could be flawless, yet the skill would have very poor demarcation. And yet if it is accompanied by loud sounds and flashy graphics while proving ineffectual, the iconography in the game loses credibility.

Perhaps it would be more effective to slow a player's attack by a percentage and ensure they deal maximum damage so that Power Swing will always deal more than their normal attacks. If done correctly, this wouldn't affect the mathematical potency of the skill, yet it could increase its perceived potency.

A Gray Area

Unfortunately, in order to determine the pure "potency" of a skill, it must be compared to other similar skills and effects within the context of the game. Trying to determine the potency of a skill without a point of reference is typically not possible. Even then, there is more to potency than big numbers, as not all abilities simply deal damage. The more complex the skill, the harder its effectiveness is to judge.

Often times, creating a successful skill can become a balancing act between applicability and uniqueness. A skill will stand out more if it is unlike any other in the game and/or is not used often. Yet the effectiveness of the skill will seem greater if it is applicable in nearly any situation. How potent is a skill that holds an opponent in place? It's powerful in a race, but it's useless if the opponent wasn't planning on moving. Not only is this subjective, it's extremely case-sensitive.

Other Facets of Successful Skills

Clearly there's more that goes into making a successful skill than just demarcation.

Applicability - How often is the skill useful?

Creating highly specific skills may give the player too much to worry about and insufficient exposure to their given abilities.

Expediency - Does the skill fit the game and is the reasoning behind it sound?

It may seem crazy that an Italian plumber is suddenly spitting fireballs, but it fits the tone of the game and introduces a new dimension to gameplay.

Uniqueness - Is the skill different enough to stand out from others, and how often is it used?

The uniqueness of a skill can enhance its demarcation, but often comes at the expense of applicability. Still, it is quite possible to have a commonly used skill that is unlike any other in the game, particularly if the game only features a small set of skills.

Balance - Is the skill proportionately useful in comparison to other skills in the game?

This is particularly important in competitive games, whether they be multiplayer or single-player. For all the work you may put into a game, it can be eclipsed by a single skill or strategy if it unequivocally proves the most fruitful, as players are forced to employ it in order to maximize their efficiency.

Synergy - How does the skill interact and affect other skills?

This is a crucial question for developing complex gameplay. The synergy between two skills doesn't have to be explicitly stated by the game. For instance, simply jumping and spitting a fireball in Super Mario Bros. can be considered a form of a combo-skill. Without the cooperation between these two abilities, it may have been impossible for players to defeat certain enemies over obstacles.

I find that these are all fine questions to ask when creating skills, but I always consider its demarcation. What approach do you take to guarantee the quality of skills in your games? Or by what criteria do you judge skills to be successful? I would love to gain insight into other people's processes.

Gambling - Gamer Style

Loot systems in games can be quite a gamble -- similar to slot machines in many ways. Players' efforts to overcome encounters for a chance at a reward are comparable to the coins required to operate a slot machine.

As the amount of effort required to achieve a chance at reward increases, so does the metaphorical bet. This system can introduce the addictiveness of the casino into the MMORPG, but its purpose goes beyond that.

Rollercoasters That Never Go Down Are No Fun

Chance in a reward system can help reset the psychological thresholds of expectation for players. In this way, it combats the bloating of the rewards required to sate players as they progress through a game. However, a fine balance must be maintained as adding too much chance in a loot system can result in too great a loss of predictability, which can diminish the effectiveness of rewards, making them less capable at reinforcing players' behaviors.

Remembering back to my experiences in Warhammer's beta, I found its public quest reward system very frustrating. When determining who was to be awarded at the end of the quest, player contribution was taken into account. But a random number was added to this contribution score before the tally was made, which meant that the highest contributor often went home empty-handed.

My Other Vehicle is an Epic Mount

If you are skeptical about how killing mobs is like playing slots, allow me to recount a sad period of my life. There was a time, albeit a short one, in which the epic flying mount that my character flew in WoW: The Burning Crusade was worth more than my car.

I was only able to afford it because I lucked out and found two purple items (epic quality) in one day, which I sold for a tidy sum -- in game currency worth about 400 US dollars. Meanwhile, a guildmate of mine was reduced to purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of gold to afford his epic flying mount. He had a job and could throw around that kind of cash. I on the other hand, was gleefully unemployed at the time and could spend many more hours on the game than he could.

In the end, we both put forth similar effort to achieve the same result, but mine, which was based exclusively in game, also involved a lot of luck.

Tearing into some Tinfoil

Another form of gambling that gamers crave can be found in the business model of booster packs for trading cards. There's an undeniable excitement when you're tearing into a new pack. The contents can be worth 50 cents or 50 dollars -- either way, you pay five. This thrill comes from a purely luck-based form of gambling. There is no skill involved in opening or selecting a pack, and yet it works.

The MMO industry can learn a lot from booster packs, particularly in how the thrill of chance can be introduced into the microtransaction model without flatly turning the game into a glorified casino. Other than peddling essential consumables, such as health potions, teleportation tokens, and item enchantments, there may be no better way to get players to pay several times for the same in-game items. Just make sure to keep purely luck-driven elements away from actual gameplay.

The Games of Chance Paradox

Ironically, most games of chance are about minimizing the effect of chance. Poker players will try using mathematics and psychology to gain the edge on an opponent, and a dungeons and dragons expert will rarely let his fate be determined by a single dice-roll.

MMOs should contain predictable chance in their loot systems, little if any chance in their actual gameplay, and can contain as much chance as good judgment will permit in supplemental income strategies.

The Players are the Artists: Games as Interactive and Performance Art

Much has been said on the topic of whether or not games are art. And yet many of these discussions neglect 50% of the equation: the player.

When avant-garde filmmaker, Maya Deren, questioned the medium of film, she asked herself what it was capable of doing that other mediums could not. Film may not have the narrative aptitude of a novel. It may not capture the qualities of an image as a painting can. And its musical qualities may fall short of orchestral performances. Yet capturing and manipulating motion in relation to time is something that is unique to the medium of film. Deren's conclusions may be controversial, but I believe her approach is sound.

In addition to what is exclusive to film, it enables creators to blend the elements of other art styles. The combination of all these facets is what ultimately results in the artistic power of film.

Games can do anything a film can do. They also involve the participation of a player. This has led games to be qualified as interactive art by some. And it is because of this interactivity that Roger Ebert has claimed that games "simply can’t compare to great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers" as those mediums require authorial control. In other words, game designers are unable to tell a story as eloquently as writers and directors because they must account for several contingencies in the plot, as it may be affected by players' actions.

When the artistic value of games is measured by the ideals and metrics of film, something very sad happens. The greatest quality of games, player interaction, is turned into its greatest obstacle.

What can the Game Industry Learn from Lionel Messi?

Some athletes elevate their sport to new heights. They possess an ability or genius that separates them from the crowd. FC Barcelona's Lionel Messi is arguably one of those athletes. His exploits have captivated audiences worldwide, and the interplay he shares with his teammates has been said to epitomize the "beautiful game."

Whether you are a fan of football (soccer) or not, it is important to point out that there is an ideal present in the sport which is regarded as "beautiful." This implies that a certain play style is more aesthetically pleasing than other strategies that are just as effective.

So is the game of football an art? You may say so if you watched Messi play, but you would not be so inclined if you were watching me trying to ineptly dribble my way up the field. What determines the artistic quality here is the performance of the athlete, not necessarily the sport itself. Just as Michael Jordan's aerial antics became an iconic logo, Messi's trademark plays are writing themselves into our cultural history.

Games as Performance Art

While games can limit themselves to interactive art, it is my belief that they can extend into the realm of performance art. This means that the influence of the designer is ultimately secondary to the actions of the player in the creation of art. But this also implies that the game must contain gameplay which is rich enough to give players the chance to express themselves in artistic ways.

But artistic expression does not need to be limited to the creation of dramatic images or sound. It can simply come as a result of skillful or inspired play. The primary limitation of art in games can then be said to come from the lack of complexity and nuance in the control the player has over the game.

The capacity for skill has to be accompanied by visual and audio cues that are clear enough to be appreciated by the audience, which in the case of games is often times the performer or other performers. The visceral rewards for skill cannot come as a result of scripted events, as their perceived worth would quickly devalue. They should be generated dynamically.

The FPS and Fighting Game genres have perhaps come the closest to achieving this sort of performance art, but still have a ways to go before any of their players will be likened to great musicians or athletes. They allow for sufficient skill, but typically lack enough emergent gameplay to allow for true creativity, which is essential for players to differentiate themselves from others.

Guitar Hero is not Performance Art

Despite the fact that Guitar Hero deals so closely with the performance art of music, it is not performance art itself. There's plenty of skill to be demonstrated, but next to no creativity while playing the game. The point is not to create music, but rather to insure that the music keeps playing properly.

It can, however, be argued that Guitar Hero is a good form of interactive art, as it brings participants closer to the music than simply listening to it in a passive medium. The difficulty associated with a particular song can give players a greater appreciation for the artists who composed and performed it.

Putting It All Together

While a player's performance should perhaps be central to the development of games as an art form, it should not preclude designers from incorporating the other facets of the medium. Combining the qualities of interactivity, film, communication, and performance will lead to what can be argued to be the greatest expression of art that mankind has ever known.

Gimme Five: The Branching Path of Future Games

Video media is separated into many distinct categories, such as films, TV shows, documentaries, and commercials. Yet no matter how varied they may be, games are very rarely separated into categories.

Each category of video has a different purposes and criteria by which it's judged. The industry benefits from these distinctions in that the ideals of one category will not necessarily restrict the other. For instance, a film does not need to teach, and a documentary does not need to entertain. Yet there will often be a lesson to learn in a movie, and documentaries can be riveting. This is because creators are free to combine several categories, while others push them further apart with their work.

The difference between the categories is essentially purpose, not format. Even the most similar categories, TV show and film have distinct intentions: a film generally tells a single, self-contained story, while a story-driven TV show typically recounts episodes or disjointed events that happen to a set of characters.

The Status Quo

Wikipedia divide games into three types: core, casual, and serious. The distinction between the two major types, core and casual, is made primarily by scope and accessibility. Small, simple games are thrown into the casual category, while more elaborate games are defined as core. I find this distinction inadequate for many reasons, but primarily because it doesn't deal with the game's intent.

By the current definition, challenging puzzle games like Tetris would be grouped with iPhone apps that hardly require more than a couple of taps from players. Fast paced games such as Call of Duty and Starcraft would find themselves grouped with a slew of RPGs, whose primary purpose is to involve the player in a storyline.

The only type listed on Wikipedia that considers a game's intent is Serious Games. However, this purpose is listed as "other reasons," basically encompassing any piece of software that is not exclusively entertainment.

What Should a Game Be?

As developers explore what a game truly is or what it should be, many varied opinions have been expressed. As opinions are subjective in nature, none are right or wrong. Yet people will zealously argue for or against their views. When Gamasutra posted an opinion piece by Lew Pulsipher suggesting that games should be more like interactive movies, it was met by much disapproval.

The problem here is not his opinion, but rather that he is making it of "games" in general. If he were to suggest the same things about "Immersive Entertainment," perhaps his critics would be more inclined to agree.

Games have reached a sufficient level of maturity to branch into various categories. I would argue that they already have, but we've yet to make the distinction formal. Think of the differences between a game on the iPhone that involves a cartoon cat batting at a roll of toilet paper as you drag your thumb across the touch screen versus a game like World of Warcraft. There are also games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare that feature non-stop, twitch-based action, games like Second Life that focus more on socialization, and games like Wii Sports that combine digital entertainment with physical activity. Yet we refer to all of these as games.

But just as no one would suggest putting an end to all sketch comedy shows because their format doesn't lend itself to film, no one should feel threatened by the emergence of new game styles or an adherence to the old. This is why I believe that the industry would benefit from the differentiation of the very generalized word: game.

Gimme Five

To this end I purpose a tentative list of five categories into which the word game can be divided. This list is by no means final, but my hope is that it will encourage discussion amongst the community, so that together we can determine what paths the future holds for our beloved industry.

IDE (Now with less programming!)

Before we get into the five partitions, let's create the root of the hierarchy. IDE, in this case stands for Interactive Digital Entertainment. This term, or hopefully a catchier one yet to come, should take the place of the current use of the word game.

Digital Toys

The purpose of Digital Toys, like their analog counterparts, is to entertain. Most casual games pertain to this category, but just because they are casual, does not mean they are simple or small.

Scribblenauts exemplifies this category. It can provide an interesting and fun experience, yet it's unlikely to produce professional gamers. Even difficult puzzle games can be categorized as Digital Toys, so long as the puzzles are comparable to physical riddles -- the sort that can be quickly and easily solved if the answer is known. The generation of these puzzles in this type of game is not dynamic, and usually involves having to open a door of sorts to progress to the next stage.

The depth of Digital Toys can vary significantly. They can be full length, triple-A games, or simple iPhone apps. The latter of which can arguably be attributed to a different category, which I like to call Finger-Flickers. Digital Toys of this type do little more than respond to a player's gesture in amusing ways. But by the same token it is unfair to assume that all iPhone apps or Flash apps should automatically be qualified as Digital Toys, as many are not.

Immersive Entertainment

The primary purpose of Immersive Entertainment is to involve players in a story. Presenting the player with any form of a challenge is secondary to this goal. Quick Time Events (QTE) are a common in this category. Roleplaying games can often be considered Immersive Entertainment, although many contain sufficient elements of strategy or twitch to qualify them as traditional games.

Another purpose of this type of IDE is to provide players with a unique experience that fits with the tone and story, even at the cost of gameplay. The Resident Evil series often employs camera angles to limit the player's vision or slower paced movement to restrict their mobility to compliment the horror setting and instill a feeling of increased helplessness.

Games

This is perhaps the broadest of the categories. The primary purpose of games is to present players with continued challenge. If you can get better at it, chances are it's a game. And while many core games fall under this category, some don't.

It's not just about games like Halo and Street Fighter. For instance, by my definition Tetris is a game. Strategy and twitch are the two pillars of skill in games. Most true games combine them in some way. In Tetris you must decide where to place the block and have the manual dexterity to get it there.

Even the players of strategy games are often rated according to their APM (actions per minute) which is essentially a measurement of twitch skill. In RPGs, character customization is a form of strategy, which makes that particular genre difficult to classify, often straddling between Immersive Entertainment and Games.

Social Games

Games such as Second Life or The Sims Online certainly possess some aspects of a traditional game, but demonstrate a greater focus on socialization. The goal of social games is to offer their users an interesting way to meet, communicate, and network with one another. This can involve unique settings or methods. The continued evolution of social networking sites is likely to further incorporate this category of IDE.

Practical Games

The purpose of this type is to in some way improve the player. It does include educational games, but can be taken far beyond the realm of Math Blaster and simple games for children. The amount of information assimilated by MMOG gamers can truly be astounding, and there is a lot of potential to change the way we teach and learn through the use of IDE.

This category of IDE is not just for information. Take for instance the recent development of simulation software by the US Military to train troops as well as deal with post traumatic stress. It can also include games that physically improve the player, such as with Wii Fitness.

I also look forward to seeing the emergence of documentary-style games, such as Pfiefer's project dealing with the social unrest during the recent Iranian elections.

The Practical Games category is perhaps the least refined of the list. Their intent is to improve those who play it, but the way they improve the player can be quite broad. There is also the question of whether or not games which help players actually produce something, similarly to Mario Paint, belong in this category, should be listed as digital toys, or are deserving of a label of their own. Regardless, I would like to stress that the basic requirements to be listed as an IDE are held within the name itself. The software must be interactive and entertaining, usually at the sacrifice of extra functionality. This is why Mario Paint should be considered a game, and Photoshop should likely not.