Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelochurch | Hacker News Reader

The electronic games field is currently flooded with a bunch of one-trick pranksters and bike-shedding assclowns and "gameification experts" who haven't designed a game and flat-out have no clue what they're talking about. I thought the domination of Corporate (post-3D) was the death of decency in electronic gaming, but this "social" dreck makes EArts at its worst look saintly.

If Zynga can reinvent itself as a company that gives a shit about game quality, then I'll cheer for their success. What they represent now is something of which I can whole-heartedly say that I'm glad to see any signs that it's starting to die.

In 1995, Chrono Trigger (a game built by a team of leading artists and designers, not based on "analytics" regarding how to sap the energy and attention of half-bored people) came out. It had a story, there was a sense of progress because the game kept evolving and the challenges got harder (imagine this!) and after 50 hours or so, the game was completed and you went the fuck outside and rode your bike or went swimming. You could New Game+ to beat Lavos at different points in the story and level up to 99 if you really cared, but that was pretty rare and even then, the game came to a close. Also, the game involved a lot more thought than the mindless click-here-click-there of these Games For Idiots like Shartville and Mafia Whores.

I'm a gamer too. I also value a well-thought-out game, but I posit that the Zynga game players on Facebook are after something different. I think Zynga, or at least their industry, is here to stay.

There seems to be far more room for 'content-free' tv, music, and movies than the ones with content. I'm not happy about it, but I can't deny it either.

IMO, the Farmvilles and Mafia Wars of the world are only problematic if they crowd out resources and attention available to produce higher quality games. I have yet to see any evidence to that effect. I'm not saying it's not out there; I'm simply saying that I haven't seen any. Farmville isn't preventing the next Chrono Trigger from getting made, as far as I can tell.

In fact, there's a reasonable, if counterintuitive, argument to be made that Zynga's success is helping the gaming industry as a whole -- by making video games more mainstream, and thereby reducing the stigma traditionally associated with them. In turn, more investment dollars flow into the gaming startup space, and this means that more games get made. So the gamer wins.

I'd love to see some analysis that counterbalances Zynga's effect on the size of the gaming industry vs. its effect on the quality of games being made. That would be an interesting study.

Is there a problem with having diversity in the market? Whilst I can always wish that every development studio were developing games to suit my needs and tastes; obviously it's far better that there are a range of studios producing a range of titles, a large number of which I won't like. I might not enjoy the games that Zynga produce, but it seems pretty clear that there are plenty of people out there that do enjoy them very much; and I'm not sure that more people "playing" generally is a bad thing.

More people playing more games from more companies is only ever going to be a good thing for the industry.

Right on.

I'm no fan of Zynga and their work (as a gamer), but they have many, many (many!) people who enjoy playing their games. That alone is reason enough that should exist.

Zynga have been a massive factor in the evolution of video games, for better or worse.

My feelings on this are hard to put into words -- Zynga is the equivalent of churning out crappy romance novels, soulless pop music, kitsch art, or even junk food (made to be addictive, incidentally "nutritious").

"Art" is undefinable, but one heuristic is something genuinely meant to evoke feelings in the audience and perhaps teach them something as a result.

For me, it comes down to intent. Zynga & friends are building "compulsion loops" which aren't meant to entertain, they're meant to addict. I don't have a problem with a diversity of games, everyone has different tastes, etc. but... some things just feel skeevy.

Amen to that!

Don't normal people who score within 1 or 2 standard deviations of mean IQ deserve some entertainment too?

Are you suggesting that people within 1 or 2 standard deviations of mean IQ are unable to be entertained by Chrono Trigger?

Chrono Trigger definitely does not require a 130+ IQ to enjoy. Maybe 100.

This isn't about IQ. There are very high IQ people playing Farmville right now. It's need-for-cognition (NFC); does a person desire intellectual stimulation or not? It's correlated with IQ but not absolute. There are people with high IQs who are happy to shoot beer cans and throw bugs in the bugzapper on summer nights, and likewise to play Mafia Wars.

High-NFC games tend to be engaging based on the quality of the game. Does it offer novel challenges and an interesting storyline? Slot machines and Farmville are the epitome of low-NFC games. The problem is that low-NFC games tend to rely on emotional manipulations (fear of "missing out" and social rejection, images of withering crops and dying animals) to get people "hooked" in the game. They're not having fun; they're now psychologically dependent. In extreme cases, people can develop agoraphobia and anxiety disorders.

These "addiction" problems can happen just as easily with high-NFC games (Warcraft, Magic: the Gathering) but there are two differences. First, people tend to graduate from high-NFC games into something else. They put away the Magic cards and start coding. They get tired of merely playing Minecraft and start building levels. Second, with high-NFC games the "addiction" problem is a very rare side effect. In low-NFC games, it's part of the design.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com