One thing I've been trying to do lately is look at future trends for online game development. What will the future bring? And, more importantly, how can game developers take advantage of it?

It's interesting to see your own predictions come to pass. I wrote about how the subscription fee is doomed almost 3 years ago, and now we're starting to see most of the industry start to use new business models. Most recently one vocal opponent of the item pay business model wrote how it's pretty much inevitable.

Of course, this wasn't my creation at all; others had been talking about these business models for a while, and some had even implemented highly profitable games that use other business models.

So, now it's your turn. What does the future hold for online games? What design concepts, business changes, or any other factor is going to become a driving force in the near future? How will this impact how we make games?

So, let's take a look at how you manage your reputation in the game industry.

Now, this isn't to say that reputation isn't important outside the industry as well. But, in a large industry, you can often escape a bad reputation by going to another company. The game industry, despite all our bragging about how much money we make, it still a very small industry. Given how the large companies treat employees, a lot of people don't last very long in the industry. As I've mentioned before, my decade of experience in game development is mostly just a "good start" in other industries, but it makes me a grizzled old veteran in this one because so few people stick with games this long.

One of the most important things to remember is that reputation isn't based entirely on logic. It's based on word of mouth, so you get some potential miscommunication as things go along. You can be a great worker that did everything to the best of your ability, but if the project is recognized as a tremendous flop, then that will potentially taint your reputation. Or, people may remember your loud arguments during the discussion phase of a project, but forget that you were one of the workers that buckled down and did things as ordered after the decisions were made.

You also have to do some self-promotion. If you've done awesome work but nobody knows about it, it won't affect your reputation. As a personal example, I'm known as being the "Meridian 59 guy", even though I've done expert work for law firms, programmed CS tools for an MMO company in England, and was even contract Lead Designer on a project for a German company. My midwestern upbringing means I don't brag about myself all that often, but people think I'm just some kook living in the past without knowledge of modern game development. I'm working on educating people that I do have a lot more experience beyond what little I do with M59 these days.

Of course, M59 has worked both ways for me. A lot of former M59 developers, like Damion Shubert, originally chatted with me because I did work on his old game. So, one element of your reputation can have both good and bad effects.

I've come to realize that a lot of what you want to do as a new person in the industry is to establish your good reputation. Even as someone looking to break in, your goal is to establish a good reputation: someone who is friendly, persistent, capable, smart, and/or helpful. If someone remembers you in a positive light, they are much more likely to contact you in the future or refer you to others.

In the end, you really do live or die by your reputation. Pissing off the wrong person means it could be harder to get people to work with you in the future. Of course, there's always the reality aspects where if someone with a poor reputation is hiring and you need a job, you might take it anyway. But, if that reputation is accurate, you might be looking for the next opportunity sooner rather than later.

I'm interested in hearing what other professional developers have to say. Have you noticed your reputation affecting your opportunities? Have you known anyone that has successfully recovered from a very poor reputation? As the industry grows, will reputation become less important?

It's a common problem in online games, and it takes up a lot of CS time and effort. So, a good system to reduce harassment issues would be a godsend.

So, what system would you design to deal with players harassing each other? A few thoughts after the jump.

The most common system to deal with this is the ignore list. This prevents the victim from seeing the harassing messages from someone they specify. The problem is that even if you're ignoring me, me saying nasty things about your mother on a public channel is still me saying nasty things about your mother. One extension to the ignore list idea is that it could block the use of my name by other people. So, if I'm ignoring you, then you can no longer use my name in your communication. This stops a lot more harassment, although there are c.o.m.m.o.n w.a.y.s around that problem. :P The other problem is that this could create a lot more server-side processing.

What are your thoughts on systems to combat harassment in games?

So, let's think about disaster-themed games and events this weekend.

The first thing that came to my mind when thinking of this topic was the disasters in SimCity. For some people, they enjoyed seeing a disaster (such as a giant Japanese monster) come through and throw a wrench in things. I, on the other hand, really didn't enjoy that aspect of the game. It's interesting to consider how you can introduce the concept of a disaster without making a player feel like he or she lost a lot of investment into the game.

What are your thoughts? What examples of disasters are in games or are part of events in games? How could you introduce the concept in a meaningful way?

So, let's think about this in terms of online games. How does anonymity affect gameplay and metagame issues?

One obvious problem is that people will do vicious things to other people with few fears of repercussions. Some people call this the "punch in the face effect", where you can say things that you would never say offline for fear of being punched in the face if said to another person. People who grief online aren't always the nicest people, but they can sometimes be surprisingly decent people offline. They just don't take online interactions seriously.

In Meridian 59, anonymity has caused a major problem. A common tactic was to roll a new character and try to get in good graces with the enemies of your guild. After gaining confidence, the mole could then take over guild halls and/or steal items from the target guild. This lead to a lot of heartache, but it was a mechanic designed into the game by the previous designers. A patch in the current incarnation of the game puts a special line of text in the description of a player that is truly new to the game. Re-rolling an old character means that you won't have that line and people can be more wary about your story of "just starting the game."

Consider, what kinds of gameplay could you design that take anonymity into consideration? Could you design interesting mechanics that take that into consideration? For example, a lot of text MUD designers talked about systems where you had to be introduced to a player before you even knew their name; before that, the player may appear to be like an NPC. This was intended to get people to interact more if they wanted to get to know others, or people could ignore others and remain segregated if that suited them.

What do you think? How can anonymity be dealt with in gameplay?

I'll try to post up a Weekend Design Challenge this weekend in between packing boxes and dreading loading up the moving truck.

Read on for a bit of background information and what positions I'm looking for. Even if you're not interested, referring an interested party can give you precious good Karma with me. ;)

If you read my blog regularly, you can probably figure out what the goals of the company will be. We want to build a series of smaller MMO type game that don't fit the mold. In other words, we're not going to be cloning WoW here. Our first game won't be high fantasy, even, but we may work on one in the future.

The company is currently defining our goals, organizing a pitch, and looking for funding. We're working with an experienced Silicon Valley entrepreneur, so we have access to a wide range of possibilities for funding beyond selling our souls to a publisher. Note that currently the company isn't funded and therefore isn't paying salaries; coming on gives you a greater influence on the project and other "company founder" type perks. If you are only interested in a paying position, note that when you send in your information.

We're going to be a small team, so the ability to work fast and well with others is needed. The company work on the project remotely, so relocation is not currently required. But, expect to do regular meetings over IM or voice chat to keep up with the rest of the team. Most of the current people have worked remotely before, so this shouldn't be an issue for most of us. But, if you're the type that can't keep yourself motivated, think carefully about this point.

Note that previous MMO experience is nice, but not strictly required. If you're highly competent in your field and willing to learn new things, that's good enough.

The positions we're looking for:

Tech Lead - Someone to take over the technology, with a focus on server-side. Currently I have a working Stackless Python server prototype. Our focus is to re-use the core technology, so someone who shares this personal goal would be great. This will be a very hands-on position, so expect to get your hands dirty with code while keeping people on task.

If you are an experienced (Stackless) Python developer, but don't think you're management material quite yet, feel free to send in your information as well. We may consider someone for this job if we can't find a qualified Lead.

Sample code, particularly in Python, would be appreciated.

Flash/ActionScript 3 - Someone to work on a Flash-based client. We have a working prototype version that needs a lot of work. You would be the resident expert on AS3, so someone very familiar with Flash is needed. Being able to teach others would be a large bonus.

If you are an expert at another web-based client technology (Shockwave, AJAX, etc), don't hesitate to contact us as well. If you can work quickly and efficiently to produce a client for our games, we'll consider you seriously. Flash/AS3 is just something we know a bit more about than anything else at this point, but we are willing to listen to a convincing tech demonstration.

Links to samples of your previous work are appreciated.

Designer - Initial focus will be on writing design documentation, then transitioning into content development. Python scripting is a bonus, as would ActionScript 3 experience. Being able to write effectively is a vital skill.

A sample of a document describing a game system would be appreciated.

Artist - We're looking for 2D artists willing to work on contract. If you're interested, send an email and sample images from your portfolio.

For any of these positions, send along your résumé and any appropriate samples mentioned above to psychochild@gmail.com. Share whatever information you think would be helpful with your email. If you have questions, send them along to the same email address.

It's also a perfect example of why I wanted to write and edit my book about business and legal issues. Here's a competent developer who obviously was able to create a successful game as he did previously at Blizzard, but where not doing the proper business planning lead to a business failure.

(Personal to Bill Roper: contact me if you want to write a chapter for the next edition of the book. ;)

No particular challenge this weekend, but do read that article. A few of my own thoughts after the jump.

From the interview, it looks like the major problem was a serious lack of business planning. They wanted add more content to the online part of the game, but they didn't have a solid plan for accomplishing this. I've commented before that the business model didn't make sense and really turned people off when it was announced rather late in the project.

It also shows the importance of having someone who does understand the business aspects. You can have a talented leader with a great team, but if your business aspects aren't taken care of then you can lose control very easily. It's easy to underestimate the situation and hope you can pull out a last-minute miracle.

The problem is, of course, that a lot of "biz guys" have bad reputations, sometimes with good reason. They have a reputation for being superficial, and focusing on the short term. They don't listen to the concerns of other people in the business, believing they know best. Some also think that they don't need to learn about the details of the game industry, because they've managed people before. And, even though they always want to stick their fingers into the "fun design" part of the job, they don't always appreciate it if you give your point of view on business issues. It's tough to find someone who will act as a good partner with everyone's best interests in mind, but it can make your business go a lot smoother.

It's also interesting to see a former Blizzard employee bitten by the one thing most developers point out as Blizzard's largest advantage: having nearly unlimited resources. It's a lot easier to make Blizzard-quality games when you have practically endless schedule and budget. But, as the article points out, if you try that trick in the "real world" the publisher will chuckle and ask you, "How are you going to pay for that? Not with my checkbook, you aren't." Even the best developers are hampered by the standard industry situations that cause all sorts of problems for everyone else.

In the end, I really feel sorry for the Flagship employees who lost control of their babies. It's hard to pour your creative efforts into something only to lose it. It sounds like Mr. Roper is going to take some time off, but hopefully he'll get back into things eventually and takes the lessons learned to make things work better the next time around.

Some food for thought since we deal with social activities in online games.

There is a lot in there that relates to MMO game development. Some of the discussions in this article are obvious to those paying attention in our industry.

It's interesting that "story" is difficult to define in scientific terms. The article says that some define story by what it is not; it involves more than just some related facts. Some claim that 'personal stories', or the stories people construct after a session, are the strongest stories in MMOs. But, are these really just exposition instead of story? This could be why the stereotype about the gaming geek boring other people with stories about his level 100 Paladin ring true: because it's often simply chronological exposition for people who have not experienced it themselves.

The issue of "narrative transport" is also something to note; the article mentions that people who are more familiar with the elements of the story are transported easier. Looking at genre, for example, this means that people familiar with the genre will be more likely to be transported. This why fantasy settings tend to be unfamiliar to people, but once they know the genre tropes it becomes comfortable to people. Also, people who have had shared experiences in a game will understand a story better than people who haven't been to that point. This is another reason why people who fall behind start feeling alienated; they don't have the same experiences and point of view to keep up with the conversations of friends that have raced ahead.

I found this paragraph particularly fascinating:

But what could be the evolutionary advantage of being so prone to fantasy? “One might have expected natural selection to have weeded out any inclination to engage in imaginary worlds rather than the real one,” writes Steven Pinker, a Harvard University evolutionary psychologist, in the April 2007 issue of Philosophy and Literature. Pinker goes on to argue against this claim, positing that stories are an important tool for learning and for developing relationships with others in one’s social group. And most scientists are starting to agree: stories have such a powerful and universal appeal that the neurological roots of both telling tales and enjoying them are probably tied to crucial parts of our social cognition.

So, storytelling is a large part of dealing with relationships, as the next paragraph goes on to say. The stories tell us how to interact with others, giving guidelines for what is important. On the other hand, this is cause for a bit of introspection: if the game is about warfare and killing, and the stories primarily cover those themes, what kind of community is going to form? Will it glorify warfare and killing? When supported by game mechanics that reward those same behaviors, we have to take a look at what types of communities we're forming. Since people learn to socialize through stories, we are perhaps missing a large opportunity to form the community through more interesting stories than we've been using in the past.

That aspect of using a fantasy word (or, more appropriately a virtual world) to refine social skills is something that resonates with me, personally. As I've mentioned before, I'm an introvert, and I think my experience with text MUDs in college helped me to learn to extrovert well. It was a way to interact with people on my own terms and learn what little social ability I have today.

The article also covers the power of stories. Since stories tend to involve instructions for living our lives, we tend to listen to them more, goes one theory. The article states that a list of facts makes people think more critically, but a narrative makes people more open to suggestion. It also points out that stories still have an impact on our daily life, as shown by the effect the movie Sideways had on sales of Merlot wine. So, how can we use stories in online games to the best effect?

Can we use our stories to encourage good behavior within the game? Can we use stories for a purpose beyond simple entertainment? What else can we do to make stories something beyond a wall of text that nobody reads? Some interesting issues to consider.

We have looked at culture issues in other cultures, too. I'd recommend taking a look at another culture in terms of gaming before trying to look at your own. You often lack the perspective to see what's right in front of your face if you don't take a look.

You can also take a look at this article about cultural issues with game design and cultural issues by Kelly Heckman. Here she explains how geography can make a huge difference in gameplay. A game that focuses on a very small area, such as a Korean game, can make certain design assumptions that aren't valid for other cultures.

One of the comments on the other cultural design challenge also shows some of the problems you have in taking a game from one market to another. The way a social atmosphere changes the game, such as being able to yell at each other or the social pressures to smoke, are interesting.

One of the big cultural issues in the U.S. that I have identified is that some U.S. consumers aren't very savvy when it comes to price. People looking at M59 say that the $10.95 price is "almost" the same price as they pay for other games. Even if you buy your time in 6 month chunks (so that it is only $2 more per month), this ignores the price of having to buy the original box and expansions in the store. Kelly's article above talks about this, too, when she mentions the "The Pen Problem":

Take this pen I have for sale. This pen is revolutionary. You will write to the best of your ability at all times when using this pen. It is so incredible that the feel of it in your hand will give you serotonin rushes. I have two price plans for you:

1. You can have this pen for free. It’s yours. But, it has very little ink. If you decide you like it, you can refill it at any time, with any available color for $1.00 per refill. You can buy multiple refills at once, swap out colors, or simply purchase one at a time when you run out. The pen refills could cost you as little as $1.00 for the entire year! Or as much as you want to spend…I mean, this pen makes you feel good!
2. You can have this pen in your pocket with refills in whatever colors are available (more to come out as time goes on) for $3.99 per month. However, if you stop paying the $3.99, I’m going to take the pen away. If you don’t use the pen, it will still cost $3.99. But, it will always be available to you.

The simple fact is that the North American consumer will more frequently pick option #2 because the amount is minimal in an overall budget and he/she will greatly overestimate the time the pen will be used.

Part of the problem here is that the customer has been used to paying for option 2, and option 1 is the scary new one. People feel safer budgeting something with a regular cost, even though they may not buy 4 ink refills per month to make up the cost. There's also an issue of self-control, where some people will be tempted to buy hundreds of ink refills (look at all the colors!) then regret it later. But, these are two major cultural issues in the North American market.

So, what are the issues in your home market (or whatever market you make games for)? How does that impact game design and development?