Drew’s Out of Office — The Power of Analysis Compels You — March 1st, 2024

With so much to explore, why not take the time to do so?

Games I’m Playing — Classic: Rebirth — The original Prince of Persia released on PC back in 1989 through Broaderbund Software (holy crap, I forgot they existed… I remember them from Will Wright’s first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay). PoP was a side-scrolling adventure game full of traps, combat, and the relentless pressure of time (a theme all the games share, in some way)

January 18th marked the release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, the 9th game in the series and first full game in 14 years. While the series has taken twists and turns going from side-scroller to full 3D, the latest release has returned to its roots with 2D side-scrolling glory + an extra .5D for good measure. The story places the player in the shoes of Sargon, a soldier in the elite Immortals of Persia. After repelling an invasion from another empire, he and his fellow Immortals, who are a band of few rather than an army of many, are thanked by the Queen and Prince. However, they are betrayed by a fellow Immortal, Anahita. She kidnaps the Prince and takes him to Mount Qaf. Sargon and co soon discover they are trapped and time is not what it seems. Undead NPCs, Immortal companions, and Anahita all seem to be moving through time at different rates with fading memories. As the empire is on the brink of collapse, Sargon and The Immortals must save the Prince of Persi… ah... I get it.

PoP:TLC is a standard Metroidvania setting, which means an expansive map with multiple places to explore, areas that are locked until certain tools/powers are acquired, and changing biomes that feel distinct from one another in tone (Sunken Harbor, Upper City, Tower of Silence, Depths (tip o’the hat Dark Souls)). It begs to be explored. The 2.5D is rendered beautifully with rich grounds both fore and back. The game has a cartoony, muted/cell-shaded style with dashes of bright colors. It’s stylistic and eye-catching, especially with the aforementioned 2.5D. The player will come across broken statues and the like which can be reformed by hitting certain points and rewinding time. It’s not complicated but feels good when done, even if it’s just FX. You’re also able to buy upgrades from merchants, maps and hints from a child, and weapons buffs from a Djinn (maybe… she’s def a goddess or demi-goddess. She’s like Karlach from BG3 but less cool and much bigger)

As for gameplay combat is fast, mostly melee, and strung in 3-hit combos with dual scimitars named Qas and Layla. You also get the Bow of Menolias which does what bows do, and finally the Chakram, which is a sort of disk that is thrown and returns to you. The weapons serve a dual purpose in both defeating foes and traversal, i.e. they’re used to activate or open pathways. The player is also able to slide and block which are both defensively advantageous. The slide allows one to move past most enemies and end up behind them while the block, when timed correctly, lets players parry and counter attack. At the Hero difficulty, which is harder than standard, there really hasn’t been any call for anything but the standard attacks of the 3 weapons and sliding… so much sliding. I think it’s a design oversight when mechanics are painstakingly tested and added to a game, but the game doesn’t require their use. There’s no need to parry so it feels worthless and they would have done well to make that more necessary (I could have an opposing opinion here that there’s some depth and that will allow additional playthroughs to feel rewarding). Frankly, I’ve kind of hated that timing stuff since the Bull Charge in Mike Tyson’s Punchout!

While extremely competent, the game doesn’t do anything new, and it suffers for it. The fast travel spots are too infrequent to be useful and would be better if there were more of them or none at all. The player can only run after sliding, which is a strange choice whose rationale has not yet revealed itself to me. Sitting at an 86 on Metacritic it has great reviews, however a few weeks after its release it had garnered only 300k copies sold. While this might lead some to think the genre is a problem or the game was lacking (which it certainly is, in this author’s opinion), there is a bigger issue. Ubisoft is selling the game for $49.99. That is too expensive for any game in this genre that isn’t named Metroid. When you have games like Cocoon selling for $24.99, it’s bonkers to think this should be 2x that price. Without knowing the game budget, the wrong lesson will likely be learned from this, which is, “We shouldn’t make games like this.” In reality, it should be, “let’s not be foolish about our pricing and have an understanding of how players value things.” They could have had a solid release with some solid sales numbers to even ⅓ or ½ of Metroid Dread or Hollow Knight which sold 3M+. I’m sure Skull and Bones will make up for it

Op-Ed — Big Mouth Strikes Again — In 2011, an upstart company in Sweden began a quest to make a name for itself in gaming. In 2013 this company bought much of the defunct THQ catalogue and changed its name to THQ Nordic (caution, meet wind). The company went public in 2016

In 2018 the company went on a spending spree buying companies like Deep Silver/Volition (through Koch Media), Coffee Stain Studios (Goat Simulator), and multiple startups. In 2019, they officially became Embracer Group. During the pandemic it saw the purchase of studios like Gearbox ($1.3B), Asmodee ($2.75B), Dark Horse Comics, Saber Interactive, Perfect World, and Square-Enix EU (Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, SQEX Montreal). In all it gobbled up ~75 companies in an effort to bigly itself (it peaked at 139 studios). But then trouble started. The market changed, interest rates rose and money was no longer cheap. The huge amounts of money thrown at studios weren’t generating hits

Embracer set itself up for failure through a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes good video games and good game companies (hint: it’s not endless amounts of money). Its goal was to “fill gaps in the (game) market.” There’s nothing wrong with that goal, though the bottom fell out of AA games in the late 2000s. In order to accomplish this the company went on the aforementioned supermarket sweep of studios. There seems to be a belief among some that dumping a bunch of money on studios will make a better game. That, unfortunately, isn’t how development works. More money is more likely to equal bad decisions. Instead, projects should be lean with a long planning cycle (Concept and Pre-production phases) and fast production. 95% of the game details need to be hammered out in those first 2 phases (with fewer people). Case in point: Saber Interactive, a studio that had primarily been doing work for hire, was bought in 2020 for $525M and is currently making a game I am extremely excited for, Space Marine 2: a game for nerds (not the actual subtitle). Despite my excitement for SM2, it’s worth noting Space Marine 1 sold 1.2M units in 2011 and was made by a seasoned dev, Relic. Those were decent sales at the time but in no way a breakout success. With ~2,700 employees at Saber, how can this game expect to make money (caveating I do not know how many developers are working on SM2 vs other projects)?

One of Embracer’s biggest purchases was Gearbox Software in 2021 for $1.3B. But as of recent reporting, they are close to a deal to sell Gearbox, which, while substantially better than shutting it down, is definitely not where the company wants to be. I imagine companies like Asmodee, the biggest board game maker, along with other studios will also be up for sale if things don’t turn around (spoilers: they won’t)

The consistent missteps of Embracer have resulted in the closing of 7 studios, including Volition and Free Radical, the canceling of many games both internal and external, and over 1,300 people laid off. Their inability to have a sound strategy prevented them from raising $2B, purportedly in Saudi Arabia venture money (apparently SAVVY is mashing that Prince of Persia slide dodge). In addition there is the apparent jettisoning of Saber Interactive. In a conversation I recently had, it was said, “Embracer will be the Infrogrames of tomorrow.” Whether you remember Infrogrames or not should tell you everything you need to know about Infrogrames. It’s apparently a business run like this (honestly, anyone who reads this should watch the entire clip)

NOTE: News was coming in hot as I was writing about Embracer… Seems like I waited for the right time

Game Dev — Design Works Part I — I spend a lot of time thinking about Game Design and I’ve been mulling over a dichotomy that I think permeates much of gaming: Compelling vs Compulsive. The goal is to define what each of these means, look at their implementations into games across platforms and genres, and examine the impact on modern gaming. Let’s also note that a full dissertation could be written on this topic so this is only a taste

Before we define Compelling v Compulsive let’s look at the types of gamers as defined by the Bartle Player Taxonomy: Achievers are looking for in game success/rewards; Explorers enjoy discovering new aspects of the game; Socializers want to play with others; Killers want to play with others and then beat said others. Basically, this is everything that motivates my toddler, save food. Obviously a gamer can exhibit more than one of these preferences, but it’s important to understand player motivations if we want to understand what makes compelling v compulsive design

Let’s start with compulsion, a feeling that drives me to clean dishes in the sink as soon as I see them (come on, leaving dishes isn’t just lazy, it’s gross). Compulsive gaming is what drives casino design. Its signals stimulate the brain into action through exploiting human behavioral psychology, like the flashing lights and bombastic sounds of the slot or pachinko machine or simply notifications on the phone. It’s games that use Loot Boxes with some sort of locking mechanism. Clash Royale did this with its timed chest opening, Valve with DotA2 International levels, and LoL with characters locked behind a paywall after a “free” rotation. In Clash Royale, which is a Real Time Strategy Game, players open chests that award them with random new cards of varying rarities and uses. The chests open on increasingly long timers, 1hr, 4hr, 8hr, etc, with each increase in length raising innate impatience and frustration. Players can spend actual money to open chests sooner, relieving the built up tension. Valve did similar things with DotA2, but using keys. Players would get locked chests after games and would need to buy keys for $2.49 to open them. The items within were only cosmetic, though, and had no effect on gameplay. Valve also incorporated a meta level system during The International, a DotA2 tournament, whereby players would go up levels that would allow them to spin a wheel for random prizes, get set items, get more chests, etc. Players could go up levels by playing the game or just spending money. Diablo IV does this through random loot drops, which are more insidious than loot boxes as their mechanisms are less obvious. It starts out generous, delivering weapons and armor with instant gratification only to have that grind to a halt when players are deeply invested, thereby introducing steeper prices. The fanfare around slot machine-like mechanics and random chance at rare items is compulsive

So what is compelling design? Compelling design is evocative. It’s well crafted gameplay and worlds. Nintendo is masterful at crafting compelling design. The Legend of Zelda (pick your iteration) compels players to explore its vast open worlds through the freedom of movement and desire to explore. Moreover, these games, specifically the newer ones, have a “If you see it, you can get to it” philosophy. In TLoZ: Breath of the Wild you can see Hyrule Castle from almost the outset of the game, and you can get there, if you want. GTA, Elder Scrolls, FROM SOFTWARE games all follow this same method. This allows the world design and points of interest to drive exploration and encourage players to go off on adventures. Metroid compels players to uncover the map by giving them visibility to areas they’ve visited and others they haven’t as well as clear visual language that indicates blocked paths that can be opened later. That makes running around the world all the more interesting, even when backtracking, if I could just find those High Jump Boots (Castlevania, Prince of Persia: TLC, etc follow this method). FROM SOFTWARE games compel players directly through gameplay. They build games based on challenge and present that in increasing difficulty to players. A player goes up against an insurmountable boss over and over only to finally defeat it and feel unparalleled elation (watch to the end if you want to see the struggle). Mastery of controls and of each opponent is what drives players (this is also why these games don’t have “easy” modes). Baldur’s Gate 3 stays true to the heart of DnD by saying “yes” to the player. If a player thinks of a way to approach a situation, they can absolutely try it (stealth, talking, magic, brute force, etc). Each player’s adventure becomes their own experience. Hell Divers 2 and Deep Rock Galactic set players in co-op parties with missions to accomplish. They are social with each other and focused on a common goal. The whimsical narrative encourages cooperation and fun. The Witness created a simple game mechanic in tracing a line on a square screen. This simple mechanic grew with organic teaching methods to immense complexity and made that game incredible (minus the pretentious narrative…). Any balanced competitive online game allow players to hone their skills and be better than live opponents, scratching the itch of competition

More often than not, games combine the two types of design in different ways. Civilization is a game that is compelling with the building of cities, technologies, exploration, and diplomacy. It’s so compelling that it leaves players with the not so unpleasant but nagging desire for “one more turn.” The gameplay in Clash Royale is quick, strategic, and generally fun. DotA2 is a highly skill based game that takes extreme mastery to even be competent. Diablo IV is… well it sucks, play Last Epoch instead. As game developers we have the ability to create worlds and tell stories. This comes with a responsibility to watch what we make and the types of gameplay that are put forward.. As game creators, we have an obligation to create compelling experiences for our players and leave compulsion to the casinos

(Two notes about the Valve method are: 1) Items were all cosmetic and had no effect on gameplay; 2) Much of the content was created by community members and Valve shared the profits with them)