Project Horseshoe

This past weekend I was privileged to attend the first Project Horseshoe, a small, intense, focused gathering with the stated mission of “Solving Game Design's Toughest Problems.”  That’s aiming high, sure, but if we didn’t solve these problems we at least made a good – and most importantly, action-oriented – run at them.  This three-day event was organized by The Fatman, George Sanger, and his band of game ninja cowboys.  It was filled with vibrant, eclectic, accomplished, opinionated, talented people from across the game industry – mostly but not all game developers, but all with incisive views on where games are now and where they could be going in a year or two or five.

This gathering wasn’t focused on doing game design as much as identifying and offering workable solutions for what stops effective game design from happening.  It also wasn’t specifically aimed at online games or virtual worlds, though that subject was laced throughout the discussions I heard and participated in.  When it wasn’t directly present, the subject was never far away; everyone is keenly aware of the importance of the online experience, even for those focused on single-player experiences.  Virtual worlds have, as we all know, changed the landscape of games and entertainment irrevocably. 

After being killed by werewolves, reading our own obituaries, and listening to a brief quasi-spiritual orientation message by The Fatman, things really got rolling.  There were short punchy keynotes by Mark Terrano, Nicole Lazzaro, and Raph Koster, after which we coalesced our overall agenda, set by the group in an innovative bottom-up fashion.  It is notable to me that the keynotes were as insightful as you’d expect and would have been worthy of strong applause anywhere.  They received it here as well (each gave me something to chew on), but in this conference they were all but submerged in the strong brew of grounded, cogent discussion swirling everywhere around the clock.  In many ways this conference was for me a sort of “best of” – it was like being in the hallways of GDC and AGC having those discussions that leave you reeling (in a good way), but for three days straight. 

And then there was the food.  And the toys.  Both were there in abundance and both helped ratchet the level of discussion intensity higher and higher (it turns out that Nerf rocket launchers and silly string – lots and lots of silly string – are highly effective Creativity Tools).  Then there was the live music (hey, this was run by The Fatman), the board/card games, the beautiful site at the Canyon of the Eagles by Lake Buchanan, your favorite liquid refreshment at every turn, and even a few almost-successful pranks. We started early and ended late each day. I don’t think I’ve ever been as gratefully exhausted by a conference before. 

As for the working part of the conference (where we really did spend most of our time), we self-separated into four groups.  Each group focused on a different umbrella area of game design or development: business issues; games as a legitimate medium; online issues; and the future of game design. (I spent most of my time in the online group, but poked my head into the business group as well.) Each group dug in to what they saw as the most difficult problems facing their chosen area of game development today, and what the group members thought they could do about it in the next year or two.  Not abstract ideas like “teach the world to sing,” but more realistic solutions like “champion a more rational method of determining development milestones” or “foster more effective connections with academia” – in one’s company, on a blog, at a conference, etc.  We didn’t flinch from the problems we all saw, and people stepped up to offer what they could in the way of actual, specific paths toward a solution (mostly – we did have a group that also focused on high-falutin’ game design ideas, but this helped us all keep our eyes on the distant horizon). 

Near the close of the conference the groups each presented their results to the entire body using methods ranging from drawings to Powerpoint to limericks to skits (truly – it was a bit like the end of summer camp for creative demented adults).  Each group created a written report complete with action items which we will all be following up on throughout the next year (and which will be available in various forms online in the next few weeks). To me it is the groundedness provided by these action items, and the thought behind them, that made this more than just a really fun, creatively satisfying weekend. 

Will this bear fruit?  I think so.  But the proof is, as they say, in the pudding.  We’ll see how things roll out over the next few months.  But several days after the conference, I’m still astonished at the level of communication and commitment, and the opportunity this gathering represents to move our industry forward.  I’m excited to see where this goes and what effects it has on our industry. And what happens at next year’s Project Horseshoe.

In the meantime, I’d like to toss this open for discussion here. We had a limited amount of time and people at PH.  What sorts of things would you have wanted to discuss? What do you see as “game design’s toughest problems”?

Comments

[Celibit]

Just who were these "vibrant, eclectic, accomplished, opinionated, talented people from across the game industry", anyway?

[Verilazic]

One problem I see is it's reliance on technology. Or rather, on the advancing of technology. Obviously, there are a lot of good and creative and innovative games. But also, there are many that are little more than clones with better graphics.

I personally can't wait until technology reaches the point when games achieve photo-realism. Not because of how cool they will look, but because the industry will no longer be able to rely so much on better graphics as a central selling point. Once consumers can no longer tell any difference in visual quality between games, they will start focusing more on gameplay.

[Mike Rozak]

Verilazic wrote "I personally can't wait until technology reaches the point when games achieve photo-realism."

"Photorealism" is probably a misleading term. "Movie-realism" might be better, since animation (not the number of polygons) is the next big bit of eye candy. It has already started with physically simulated ponytails, falling rocks, facial animation, and leaves blowing in the trees. The latest games have shrubbery that moves aside as you walk though it, footprints in the sand, etc. Butterflies, birds, bees, caterpillars walking up individual grass stems, hoop skirts, rolling snowballs, and fallen leaves floating down streams will be next. There is no end to eye candy...

[Verilazic]

Good point.

[Raph]

I have posted my talk from Project Horseshoe, for the curious.

[Gareth Eckley]

"In the meantime, I’d like to toss this open for discussion here. We had a limited amount of time and people at PH. What sorts of things would you have wanted to discuss? What do you see as “game design’s toughest problems”?"

Nepotism.

Companies bankrolling their staff to attend events rather than making the game they are being paid to create. Poor planning and project management, leading to poor cost control.

Middle-class, middle of the road, mediocre individuals with a media degree populating the ranks of the "game design intelligentsia".

If you want a more solid definition of what prevents game design, I would imagine all the employees at the company you invest in being on a weekend long jolly to be pretty concrete.

Events like this are worthless. What have you done? Raised the awareness of "games design issues" amongst a group of "hip and aware" games designers?

This fits into the same category as political "fact finding" missions.

[Johnicholas]

Gareth Eckley may be overstating his case when he says "Events like this are worthless".

However, I would say that this post was mistimed. Post when the written reports you promise are available.

Game design's biggest problems? Maybe the lack of support from academic psychology - not that there isn't some support, but there could be a lot more, and it might be enormously helpful to both disciplines.

[Johnicholas]

Gareth Eckley may be overstating his case when he says "Events like this are worthless".

However, I would say that this post was mistimed. Post when the written reports you promise are available.

Game design's biggest problems? Maybe the lack of support from academic psychology - not that there isn't some support, but there could be a lot more, and it might be enormously helpful to both disciplines.

[ron meiners]

I dunno... certainly it's understandable to want to get together with one's pals and cronies and what have you (though I didn't get an invite, I wouldn't have had the time available, what with Multiverse going Open Beta last week and all).

Actually that sort of raises a side issue that came up at one of the recent Web 2.0 gatherings in SF, a discussion about the recent spate of conferences, gatherings, mash-ups, forums, etc. Haven't there been a lot lately?

Sort of a couple interesting things about this: how much we still value the face-to-face meetings is one. They provide such a much more rich information experience, much more data than is available online, much more of the experience of the other person(s).

And the second notion, that there's an interaction with the multi-tasking, multiple media streams phenomenon the kids are doing, especially (and Joi Ito). That is, that you need six streams of information to approximate a face to face meeting, and/or that our development of multi-tasking skills makes the information overload of a conference more managable, or even more desireable.

Actually too, I think it's worth mentioning that it's not just that we're developing a taste for conferences: quite possibly it's that our love for interaction with peers and coworkers is now being much easier to organize via online connection and organizational tools (yes, it all comes back to online community).

;-)

[ron meiners]

I dunno... certainly it's understandable to want to get together with one's pals and cronies and what have you (though I didn't get an invite, I wouldn't have had the time available, what with Multiverse going Open Beta last week and all).

Actually that sort of raises a side issue that came up at one of the recent Web 2.0 gatherings in SF, a discussion about the recent spate of conferences, gatherings, mash-ups, forums, etc. Haven't there been a lot lately?

Sort of a couple interesting things about this: how much we still value the face-to-face meetings is one. They provide such a much more rich information experience, much more data than is available online, much more of the experience of the other person(s).

And the second notion, that there's an interaction with the multi-tasking, multiple media streams phenomenon the kids are doing, especially (and Joi Ito). That is, that you need six streams of information to approximate a face to face meeting, and/or that our development of multi-tasking skills makes the information overload of a conference more managable, or even more desireable.

Actually too, I think it's worth mentioning that it's not just that we're developing a taste for conferences: quite possibly it's that our love for interaction with peers and coworkers is now being much easier to organize via online connection and organizational tools (yes, it all comes back to online community).

;-)

[ron meiners]

apologies for the double-post... what was I saying about the ease of use of online communication tools?

[EdMcGon]

Game design’s toughest problem is easy: Lack of innovation. All the design money is going to build the next Everquest/World of Warcraft. The saddest part is that even the small companies are trying to do this, even though they haven't got a prayer of matching the big companies.

Look at what Cryptic did with City of Heroes, and you see what true innovation is all about. Love or hate the game, they owned their niche. Now with their Marvel deal, you see what the payoff can be.

However, I think the true future in gaming design will come in companies like Multiverse. Give the public easy to use design tools and let them build the next great game, or even the next great niche game.

There will always be the big companies designing the mega-blockbuster games. But the small game design companies need to do what small companies do in other industries: be innovative.

[Matt Mihaly]

EdMcGon wrote:

Game design’s toughest problem is easy: Lack of innovation. All the design money is going to build the next Everquest/World of Warcraft.

Right. Because nobody's spending money on developing console titles? Hint: The money spent on developing console titles dwarfs the money being spent on making the next WoW.

Look at what Cryptic did with City of Heroes, and you see what true innovation is all about. Love or hate the game, they owned their niche. Now with their Marvel deal, you see what the payoff can be.

I loved it personally, but there is absolutely nothing CoH did that was innovative. It was an utterly derivative game with a superhero skin.

--matt

[Helen Cheng]

In the realm of online games, how about some attention on the issue of social responsibility? What I'm referring to here is the extremely well conceived and executed design of immersive online games that draw players further and further in, often to the point of forgetting everything else. Trust me, I'm just as guilty of 23-hour play sessions as the next person (yes yes I know, I'm a lightweight), but *should* there be any amount of responsibility on the designers' part to make games less addictive, or at least more productive?

This issue echoes past discussion of controversial content exposure through media outlets such as film and television. So should game designers have a moral obligation to make their games less......good? (Yeah, I'm scratching my head at that one!) Do they even care, since they're making the big bucks regardless of whether other peoples' real lives gets neglected?

I really don't know where I stand on this issue personally, and perhaps this question is much better avoided, but still...sometimes I wonder what the effect of the WoW generation will be 20 years from now...

Some other MMORPG related topics:
- developing better in-game tools that facilitate organization and leadership of small/large/temporary/permanent groups
- developing more interesting/challenging content rather than repetitive, time-consuming content to prolong subscription (which begs the question of whether the goal here is to make games as art, or make games for money)
- increased intelligent game response based on a user's personality profile, play choices, reaction time, or (gasp) scan of their computer/machine
- increased tie-ins to real world media, perhaps via augmented reality tools
- better tools for networking with other gamers (perhaps a Facebook for gamers?) with the goal of finding people for teams, guilds, or even jobs?

Also, this conference sounds cool...where do I sign up? :p

[Clem]

Heck, of the four areas of study “the future of gaming” (which is what group four should have been called) is by far the most fascinating. When I played “Might and Magic, Secret of the Inner Sanctum” on my Tandy 4.77 MHz two 5.25” floppy drives machine, I was enthralled and swept away. Never, back then, did I imagine, not in my wildest dreams, that someday I’d be playing a game like World of Warcraft.

So what’s next? And what’s after that?

Answers, dammit! I want answers!

[mjh]

Heh. I think Gareth couldn't be more wrong.

The biggest obstacle to game design isn't that the people doing it take breaks every now and then, it's the opposite: the sheer amount of repetitive labor that goes into actually making a game--debugging the same polygon-drawing routines and particle systems we've been using for a decade now, photoshopping up pictures of concrete 'til they're textureworthy, and hacking together ui elements that work almost but not exactly like the ones you get out of the box with your OS--takes away from work on the 5% of the game that innovation lives in.

Spending those breaks thinking about game design instead of playing WoW is a bonus.

[?]

"What do you see as “game design’s toughest problems”?"

Raph Koster gives an excellent answer indeed. (see comment at the top of this thread)

Start making games about "being" rather than games about (cynically) manipulating simulated "beings".

[tide]

staying relevant and innovative if games become truly disposable (and thus replaceable) artifacts

[Xilren]

Matt wrote
I loved it personally, but there is absolutely nothing CoH did that was innovative. It was an utterly derivative game with a superhero skin.

Odd then that it presented several experiences that i daresay most players had never seen before in a 3D MMORPG. Things like true 3D movement with a character avatar including the ability to do combat mid air (the travel powers), sidekicking, the huge costume options and ability to drasticly change your entire appearance, and lack of traditional loot and inventory.

Now, perhaps you're defining innovation differently than I am. Even if some/all of these design elements may have been done in other games before doesn't mean they weren't innovative if CoH finally breaks them into the general game players' public awareness. That's one reason I think innovation is the wrong focus anyway; it's highly subjective. What I think is the biggest challenge facing designersisn't even design at all.

It's Implementation. The best design doc in the world won't matter a whit if your implementation sucks.

[Furgustus]

If Gareth thinks Horseshoe was nepotistic, I wonder what he makes of the D7 outings? Probably wouldn't get invited there, either. :)

[Richard Bartle]

?>Start making games about "being" rather than games about (cynically) manipulating simulated "beings".

From my perspective, virtual worlds have always been about "being". It's their USP.

Richard

[Matt Mihaly]

Xilren wrote:

Even if some/all of these design elements may have been done in other games before doesn't mean they weren't innovative if CoH finally breaks them into the general game players' public awareness.

That's not innovation. It's marketing.

That's one reason I think innovation is the wrong focus anyway; it's highly subjective.

Totally agree. Innovation is a bit of a straw man.

--matt

[Michael Chui]

I love how so many are trying so hard to showcase their enlightenment on the One Big Problem, but no one presents a solution, undoubtedly because they don't know it themselves.

Verilazic says: One problem I see is it's reliance on technology. Or rather, on the advancing of technology.

Technological progress is the mechanism towards permitting further possibilities. Creative progress occurs when constraints are made simultaneously to larger goals. The most interesting thing is that technological progress appears to be operating under the law of diminishing returns: new technology does not appear to be opening as many doors as it used to, or perhaps we simply haven't found all those doors.

In any case, don't bash technology. I hate it when people do that. I'm sure you can find better things to accuse with more accuracy on blame.

[EdMcGon]

Right. Because nobody's spending money on developing console titles? Hint: The money spent on developing console titles dwarfs the money being spent on making the next WoW.

Matt,
Of course. But the problem with that statement is there is a lot more cost involved in manufacturing and marketing console games. There are few, if any, small independent designers who can compete in that market. They have to rely on cheaper distribution methods (i.e. download via the internet).

Also, using the dollars spent on game design is misleading, since the big game designers pour a LOT more money into each game than the small game designers. If you look at the games in development, and I am referring more to the MMORPG market, the majority of them are from smaller game designers (although there is a growing number on the American market from Asian game designers).

I loved it personally, but there is absolutely nothing CoH did that was innovative. It was an utterly derivative game with a superhero skin.

Even if you ignore Xilren's comments (which I agree with), innovation is in the eye of the beholder. If I took an existing popular fantasy game and merely changed the background and the game mechanics so that it was now a gangster game, would that be innovative? From a purely technical standpoint, not really. But from the player's roleplay perspective, it very well could be. The consumer decides whether something is innovative, NOT the designer.

For example, a game designer could add a new feature to their game which they think is wonderfully innovative. But if the game players never use the feature, or even dislike it, then how truly innovative is it?

It's Implementation. The best design doc in the world won't matter a whit if your implementation sucks.

Xilren,
But a bad idea doesn't get better with great implementation. ;)