The Most Important Event in Video Gaming in 2007 (OLPC)

So, it is a close tie (for me at least) with the EA acquisition of Bioware/Pandemic, but the biggest news for video games in 2007 is the start of shipments of the XO Laptop -- the One Laptop Per Child initiative.



The OLPC is an education program wrapped in the engineering challenge of building, deploying and supporting a laptop that can handle ownership by children often in developing countries (and often in more rural areas than regular laptop owners) and costs only $100.

OLPC espouses five core principles:

1. Child ownership
2. Low ages. The hardware and software are designed for elementary school children aged 6-12.
3. Saturation
4. Connection
5. Free and open source

The first XO's started arriving at work this past week from the "give one, get one" program, and has elicited a lot of excitement. Why I think this is game worthy is to highlight 1) the effect large numbers of new entrants has had already on video games, and 2) the libraries already being developed for games for the XO.

Firstly, it's important to remember how MMO's changed, let alone video consoles in the late 80's, when games developed in Asia started being ported to the West. As the games moved, so did the players' interests and attitudes. In more recent years, the effect of Asian based players on MMO's like GuildWars and WoW has had a important stamp on the way MMO's are launched and developed. The semi-niche status of MMO's and even video games in the early 90's has long been over. Partly I think because of the success of cultures mixing and sharing a common interest.

So enter the XO, which is being sent to Haiti, Rwanda, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Mongolia. Mexico. Peru and the US are also being planned to have large numbers released. I like to speculate on what will happen with formerly uninterested or disadvantaged children and teens getting into computing. It will not solve all the world's ills, but it will hopefully help with education and community economic development long term. As far as games go, there are several initiatives underway to port games to the XO or to develop little apps specifically on the device.

If you reflect on this or if you were even around for the move from the Commodore 64 to the Apple ][ to the Mac and Win 3.2 you will realize how big this could be for gaming. Huge numbers of new players, developing for themselves and by other people games on a unique, ubiquitous platform should have some effect somewhere on the video game ecosystem. If you disagree, consider the novelty and popularity of the Nintendo DS and how many titles it has and how they have outsold so many generic PC titles. Just because it's an odd platform does not mean there can't be originality or innovation.

I think OLPC is a great education program, and I hope it will help the children and teens who receive the device. And while it may not seem an immediate commercial opportunity, I can see some companies developing titles or portals accessible by the OLPC (e.g. Dwarf Fortress). And maybe more realistically, I can see the kids building and sharing games for themselves. And that will an effect on gaming.

The XO Laptop. The new place to be.

Player Created Designs

I'm a very big fan of games of all types that take an atomic-like design, or what you might call a "mini game", and develop it into something more persistent and complex. In MMO's the classic example is quests, which started as small, simple tasks, like deliveries and bounties, and eventually have lead to more involved and dramatic story arcs, like in LotRO's hallmark quests. Quests still have that basic vending machine style of acting and fulfillment, but they created a bigger demand in players who pretty much now expect a deeper level to the content they are spoon fed. An other now classic example of developing a game design from experimentation or a small feature is Valve's Portal. I haven't played anything so fun and gripping in a long time, and it was developed originally by students in a freeware game called "Narbuncular Drop". These folks took the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, saw what they could do with it and modded HL2 to essentially prototype Portal (now an 89 on Metacritic). Le Brilliant.

I think the lesson is finding in your games small features which are cognitively simple to use, that are limited in power and effect, but are surprisingly popular and maybe are even used in an innovated way by players -- these are the things you want to seize on for future development. Those are in effect, player created designs. Your user base is frantically telling you to develop something with those small mini-games or features they are wasting time on. And if the feature is small and already supported you possibly have a much technically easier way of integrating it into your existing service or developing it into a new game on its own. You at the very least have a much easier way of introducing and teaching it to players, who already will be familiar with the intention, function, and context of the feature design. But woe to you if you screw it up, since you will be disappointing players in a double way.

This kind of iterative approach of experimenting in games is something really worth thinking about, but there's a bad side as well. The other side is the danger of exhaustion. You can take what was once a cherished, unique player created design and drive it into the ground. Sadly, I have to use SWG as an example. I say that with regret, because I don't think it's fair to kick that title any more than it has received already. However, it's made one mistake more or less recently worth noting.

I resubbed to SWG in June (along with UO) and I enjoyed a lot of of the expansions and fundamental changes. One problem I noticed immediately, however, was lack of inventory space. It's a funny design -- players need a capacity to collect things, and they accrue in power and complexity as player avatars the more stuff they hoard. In WoW and newer MMO's you can only unlock more inventory by progressing in level, but not so in the sandboxy SWG. The dilemma is that the game has increased in inventory challenge as much as it has simplified in character class and other mini-game (e.g. most sadly, the nerfing of crafting).

The collection mini-game in SWG is suffering from inflation both in virtual and in game design terms. The game could be argued to now be solely about collection. What was once a neat side game of collecting pieces to fit a final objective (just like WoW or EQ2 etc.). has now lead to an inflation such that the bonuses themselves are just inventory space. Let's recap. In SWG, the first example of collecting objects to make a rare item was the Firespray KSE blueprints (Boba Fett's starship) that Shipwrights could create. Then "crafting kits" were devised, which were rare drops that players ached for. These were ultimately only new pieces of furniture, but they were new, rare and so highly prized. With the NGE and the Trials of Obi-Wan, the whole expansion was designed around collection. Players could earn small items for buffing or furniture, while with end bosses in difficult instances they could gain great items. At any rate, this design has continued to now include socket crafting -- I think first introduced in DAoC circa 2000? post-Darkness Falls. So we now have in SWG the following item sets:

• Firespray KSE
• crafting kits
• Mustafar items
• socketing/bonus ability items ("Reverse Engineering")
  
• Treasure chests
• New chapter 7/8 items

This may not seem a big deal, but essentially every item in this game is either a part of a collection or something left over from a previous attempt at a collection (e.g. the items from Jabba's themepark). And it is interesting all the themeparks have been revamped to keep up with thise design. I think you can see the point: anything you pick up in SWG has a good chance of being worthless in itself.

I think the thesis at SOE was even if new, lowbie players pick up junk, the carrot of giving them a better item if they keep collecting would be an other motivator for them to keep playing. The problem is the game is overwhelming suffering from inflation. It's a very bad overuse of a neat and I think temporary design.

Games that evolve, that present small and unique designs which players cherish or react against badly often lead to very interesting options. Let's not forget, that is how PvP began. But when you take a good idea and repeat it without a thought of the impact and long term effect... well it's like open PvP -- there are things that have a tipping point which designers should respect. It may not be immediately evident, but it will come. Exhausting your designs, exhausts your players' goodwill. And no game needs to do that.

/out

I really wish I was on a treadmill now.