There’s an article recently posted on Game Pro (April 30th) called Too Big and Too Hard (no, it’s about games, not the writer John Davidson’s unfortunate seedy club bathroom experience with a guy named Bruno). The article talks about rethinking the way players approach games and the disconnect between game reviewers that praise games which add more content and complex systems and players who may not want games that complicated.

First, I’m glad someone said something like this. It’s something I’ve been considering for a long time, all the way back to the summer I spent playing Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowwind. The game is awesome and huge, but much of the content, rather than being strictly unique, is just copied and pasted locations and creatures. It wasn’t uncommon to hike all the way across the huge map to a “new” objective, only to get inside and say, “Oh, okay. This is cave design number three. Big deal.”

Add to that the trend of shorter games becoming fan favorites – Portal, Trine, the Uncharted games, and the Call of Duty Modern Warfare single player campaigns – and it seems as though some players tend to value a short, powerful, and memorable experience over another twenty hours of copy and pasted content. Gamers may indeed want more, but they don’t want more of the same.

If a fifty hour game was released that was full of dramatic set pieces or interesting puzzles all the way through, I’m sure gamers would praise that, but more often than not, all the good ideas are used up in the first ten hours and the other fifty hours are just a rehash. It’s no wonder most gamers only play for five hours before dropping a game. Quality will always trump quantity as long as the quantity is sufficient for an immersive experience. This is where games like Portal excelled and why no one will shut up about, even years after the game came out.

Single player games, if they have a corollary, would be more similar to films. They contain much more interactivity than films, certainly, but the focus should be placed on creating memorable moments and not overstaying their welcome. Even with the recent focus on sandbox games, action nodes (or whatever you want to call them) should be distinct and memorable. If you’ve done one bucket quest, one assassination mission, one steal this macguffin mission, taking those same three missions and multiplying each by ten (to get thirty missions) does not a good game make. I would rather play one awesome mission than five boringly similar missions. I’d rather play through ten unique levels than thirty similar levels. I’m cool with a shorter game if the shorter game is cool.

But this is probably true only of single player games and campaigns, however. Multiplayer games are a different breed, because in the multiplayer paradigm the drama is provided by players interacting with each other, not the game itself. “Did you see that headshot?” or “Man, I got pwned by the early-game rush!” or “Dude, we rocked the Lich King this time!” – these sentiments are something players provide to each other, though the game provides the playing field.

Multiplayer games are similar to professional sports – the rules may change over the years, but the drama of the experience is provided by the player hitting a ball out of the park or catching a Hail Mary pass to win the big game. With that as the focus, multiplayer games should focus on simple to learn, difficult to master ideal that has made things like baseball and football so successful. The focus of the game should be on providing players new and interesting arenas and methods to interact with each other.

There is one other thing I’d like to address – “achievements” and “item collection.” Okay, so that’s two things, but they go hand-in-hand. These two things artificially inflate the content of a single player game and players are wise to it now. They’ve collected items and satisfied achievements in enough games now that it’s seems as though these things are ceasing to the a driving factor in what’s needed to “complete” the game in the mind of the player.

Unfortunately, these things have become standard in most games now, and it seems that if your game does not include them they are missing a critical “content feature.” But really, what do these things add to the player aside from satisfying OCD? Completing an in-game Item collection or jumping 500 times in a row so as to unlock an “achievement” aren’t dramatic experiences. They aren’t memorable even a few months later, at least not as awesome. If anything, if they are remembered, they are remembered with horror.
So that’s that:

Single player games are films – they should focus on a rising learning curve, quality dramatic set pieces with memorable moments, and minimize repetitive action as much as possible in game systems, locations, plot, and locations. They should only be as long as maintaining awesome variety is possible.

Multiplayer games are sports – they should be easy to learn, hard to master, and focus on player interaction. They should allow for advanced strategies and skill, provide an interesting playing field, and support players for long after the game is released.