The Rise of Performance in Games
This post written by Wright Bagwell, CEO Outpost Games
We are all gamers. Across all cultures, and since the dawn of civilization, humans have been playing games together to build mind and body.
In the presence of an audience, though, games become far more than a test of an individual’s mental or physical prowess: they become a performance and — in some cases — even the connective tissue that brings communities and societies together. Throughout history, exceptional performers have become the face of games they play so well. Michael Jordan became the face of basketball. Garry Kasparov became the face of chess. Pelé became the face of soccer. These individuals, their teams and their games have become cultural touchstones that create moments of shared experiences and brands of self-expression.
Early video games excelled at enabling performances. Players gathered around arcade cabinets to watch the action and cheer each other on. Often, players were pitted against each other, creating further incentive to put on a show. Leaderboards gave every player a shot at notoriety in their community. Like all great games, arcade games encouraged social interaction and performance.
Everything changed when video game consoles came into our homes. Without coin slots, developers and publishers needed a new strategy to create a steady and growing stream of revenue. The solution was simple, but profound: make games consumable. For the first time in history, we began saying things like “I beat that game!”, or “Can I borrow that game after you beat it?”
You can’t beat chess, football, poker, or Go. You certainly can’t finish the Olympics. As games became consumable, the industry focused on creating sequels that sold reliably, in greater numbers each year.
As a result, video games became less social. Players often found themselves playing alone, racing to complete games as quickly as possible. The element of performance disappeared, and the reverence that might have been bestowed upon highly skilled players disappeared along with it. In a short period of time, we began to understand gaming as a solitary, consumptive experience, and the term gamer became deeply associated with consumers of video game content. No longer did we all identify as gamers. Instead, we came to believe that gamers are a niche audience with a voracious appetite for consumption.
The re-emergence of performance and investment
Today, games as performance is re-emerging in video games — and it’s revolutionizing the entire media business.
eSport titles such as Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and PUBG are drawing record audiences. The popularity of Minecraft and GTAV RP on YouTube and Twitch continue to demonstrate that players are determined to shape the games they play through performance. Popular players are emerging as the face of these games, and viewers are consuming the performances that players create together.
As players shift their focus from consumption to performance, they’re investing heavily in tools that improve their performance. Not long ago, industry luminaries proclaimed that the PC was dead. Today, we see players investing in professional-grade microphones, green screens, high-end mice, keyboards, cameras, desks, chairs, and, of course, core computing hardware. Like a soccer player who invests in a great pair of shoes or guitar player who picks up that Gibson Les Paul they had their eye on, gamers are refining their ability to perform by investing in better equipment. This is an important shift in behavior: spending on content consumption is becoming overshadowed by investment in ability to perform.
However the method by which gamers and their audiences participate in, and get feedback from, these performances has severely lagged behind the growing demand. Where performers and live audiences enjoy the thrill of visceral crowd reactions in open fields and stadiums, online gaming is relegated to low-fidelity repurposed mechanisms like chat streams.
Our Vision of the Future
We formed Outpost Games with the mission to turn every player into a performer, and every game into a stage.
To do so, we first imagined what a game might look like if it was built from the beginning to be as fun to watch as it is to play. We know that when we attract viewers, our players will perform. That led to the idea of SOS: a survival game that’s formatted like a reality TV show. Each game of SOS begins with an introduction to each player, showing his or her reputation, and allowing them to introduce themselves to the audience. Players feel the presence of an audience built directly into the game. Your efforts are met with applause, your triumphs with cheers, your jokes with laughter, and your mis-steps with gasps. The larger the audience, the more thrilling it all becomes. Finally, SOS gives audiences the ability to interact directly with and influence the game.
SOS gives both players and audiences the experience of being part of a passionate, live, interactive audience. We call the technology that powers this experience Live Audience Dynamics.
Furthermore, we believe that the presence of a vocal audience can elevate any game. The tech that brings this presence to life extends far past SOS to its own platform.
It’s called Hero.
Hero’s goal is simple: to enable every game to implement Live Audience Dynamics and to turn every player in those games into a performer. We aim to ensure that developers have flexibility to integrate Hero functionality in the way they think is most appropriate for their game.
We can’t wait to see how an unprecedented range of new games and experiences come to life with Hero.
We’d love for you to experience all SOS and Hero have to offer. Head to www.sosgame.com to learn more about our upcoming beta (dates TBA), and be sure to visit Hero.tv to root for your favorite streamer.
