If you’ve ever read any of my blogs, you know that I have a terrible computer. I played a lot of video games when I was young, then I developed them myself for years, until both of those basically became impossible.
I’m older now, and hopefully wiser. My personal computer is solely for work, and I know that video games are just not a viable income source right now, so I’m still not playing games there. But we have a shared computer in our home that is used for most entertainment, and so I’ve slowly been playing video games again the past year or so.
And I was … disappointed.
The Issue
I kept scrolling through games on Steam (by far the largest video game marketplace in the world) and finding absolutely nothing I’d want to play. I tried the “New”, the “Top Sellers”, the “Highest Rated”, specific tags and subgenres that I used to play years ago, but … nothing. I tried again some time later, when I was getting sick of just playing Rocket League and nothing else, but my search came up empty once more. This continued again and again, until I decided to write this article.
Games are in a bad place commercially, yes, but in probably the best place ever creatively. The games industry is massive. More solo developers, independent studios, and awesome ideas pop up than ever before. Anyone—with a decent computer—can make a game for free now. Even the completely free game engine I used many years ago, and complained about a lot, has grown since then and is now incredibly solid and powerful. And, of course, still free—you could get started making your dream game right now, in 5 minutes.
So why does nothing interest me? Why can’t I be bothered to try these games? Not even the ones that are free? Not even the ones that look beautiful?
This summary of my feelings popped into my head: “Looks Good, Not Fun”
The past few decades has seen a shift in game development. What used to be a niche field with only a few working in it, has become the largest entertainment sector in the world (by far). This meant that games become more and more expensive. Companies stepped in. Larger and larger companies. It became “professional”, it became an “industry”, it became … routine work.
Many of the games released this year look great. They clearly poured a lot of effort and money into the look. The marketing, the designs, the models, flashy animations and particles, the whole thing. And I shall admit that this nice thumbnail is the thing that gets me to click on a game in the first place. I, like everyone, judge books by their covers and then some.
Many of the games released this year are polished and professional. I just mentioned their art. But these games also include the ever-growing list of “expected features”, such as streamer support, accessibility options, a solid roadmap/plan for updates and community and expansions for years to come. It’s all very “complete”. People worked very hard to check all these boxes, to finish the list of corporate demands, and make the marketing department earn their money.
Clues of Funlessness
Unfortunately, what matters most for a game is that it’s fun. And the people creating these games seem to forget that.
They pour their heart and soul (and skill, and money) into making the game work and look good and tick all the boxes. But they forgot to check if it’s actually fun.
Most people can quickly see this or judge this, I feel. Even non-gamers. But as a game developer myself, it’s even more apparent to me.
I look at the screenshots, and they’re pretty and full of stuff to click and do. Then my brain automatically thinks one step ahead—what do you actually do, and why, and will that be/stay fun—and it comes up short. I just don’t feel like what I’m seeing will lead to fun.
I instantly notice their focus on minor details in the description (“30 settings to change! 60 shirts your character can put on!”), instead of the major gameplay aspect that should cause excitement!
I notice all the screenshots looking different, yes, but boiling down to doing the exact same thing in the exact same way. It’s just a few changed colors and flashy animations. You’re still the same character. You still have the same list of basic options, in all stages of the game. And so I know this game will not have much depth and not be very replayable.
I notice the game is structured around things to unlock, and get, and collect. Barely a word about what you do, only about how many places you can visit and rare items you can cobble together (if you only invested loads of time and money). The typical cheap tricks to get people grinding it, even if they actively hate the game or find it boring, because they desperately want to see/have/collect/not miss everything. Instead, if a game should have people addicted to it, it’s because of the gameplay that they enjoy over and over.
And so I think again: “Looks Good, Not Fun”
Looks like many talented people worked very hard to create a polished product. Playing it will likely not be fun (for me).
Looks like some great artists picked a coherent art style and applied it well. Looks like they put tons of stuff into the game and plan to support it for years. Playing it will likely be boring, the same as a million games before it, and not rewarding in its own right.
I’m Guilty Too
I was guilty of this too. It’s another reason I quite developing video games for a while. To get out of that whirlwind of never-ending work, take a step back, and find a better ptah forwards. The few games I 100% finished and sold for serious money, were overstuffed with content I thought had to be there. Too many puzzles, or worlds, or options, or random ideas thrown into the game. Trying too hard to make it look good and get a wide range of marketing screenshots … which meant far too little time applied to improving the actual gameplay.
One game—which I eventually finished and will publish someday—had 60+ unique things that could appear on the randomly generated map. Yeah, that’s where I put in the effort. All those things had their own sprite, name, place in the settings, code for how it functioned, and all of that work was done. But, you know, actual gameplay issues that could annoy players every 5 seconds went unresolved. Because I was busy just adding more content. I didn’t want to change something because it would make the game look worse again, and we couldn’t have that! We need the pretty colorful screenshots!
Maybe that’s why I notice it so easily. I see the flaws that cost me so much time and effort, and eventually lead to a game that looked somewhat polished and professional but just wasn’t fun to play. I see the kind of thinking, the checkboxes to tick, that leads to polished turds that look great in a gallery or portfolio—but nobody actually likes playing.
And then I remember a game like Overcooked. The first game was made by a small team. Its art direction was okay, but nothing stellar, as they just didn’t have the people or budget. To this day, that game lacks a lot of “expected features and settings”. It barely received any expansions or updates, and all of those weren’t really planned. They licensed existing songs. (You can hear the Overcooked “theme” in cooking shows on TV sometimes :p)
But the gameplay is amazing. That’s where their attention went. The art, the music, the “content”, the marketing, all the extra stuff was indeed treated as extra stuff. Sure, it’s nice if it looks even better, but it’s not essential. Sure, having a custom dedicated soundtrack is great, but is that really important? No, gameplay is important. Overcooked is a very small and unassuming game, that barely ticks any checkboxes, and I played it for hours and hours with my little sister.
So I guess I write this article to also remind myself never to fall into that trap again. The thought “The game doesn’t play great, but if I just make it look shinier it’s going to be fine” is just wrong. The thought “Gameplay is not that interesting or varied, so I can just make it more replayable by throwing in 10 different maps to play, right?” is equally wrong.
It’s not about content. It’s about fun gameplay.
So, What Do You Play?
I started this article by explaining I couldn’t find any worthy games. Everything triggered the “Looks Good, Not Fun” reaction. This is not hyperbole: our shared computers does not even have Steam installed because we own/play no game from Steam at all. Many games looked beautiful, or interesting, or well-made. Nothing looked fun.
And so, in the end, I also write this article to perhaps motivate other developers to go for fun again. To hopefully, in a year or so, suddenly find a really solid game that becomes my favorite from that day onwards. Because the one making it read my article and set their priorities straight ;)
And so I only play games that I’ve played for a while. Games from my past that stuck with me.
I’ll give some examples below of games I have ended up playing a lot in my life. And why.
My most-played game the past 10 years, close to my only-played game, is Rocket League.
There is absolutely nothing to achieve in Rocket League, at least for me. I play with the standard car you get when you first install it. There is nothing to unlock, I have no clue how many experience points/items I’ve randomly received, nobody else I know plays the game. There isn’t a goal I’m working towards, like being a specific rank or top 100. I just like playing the video game that gets closest to a real sport—at the rare moments I can’t or don’t want to go outside and play the actual sport—and getting better at its core gameplay.
For those interested, I’m a low Champ. It’s not so much my teammates’ fault that I can’t get further, though they sure like to bump me and own goal, but my spotty Wi-Fi. I basically have to predict what will happen a second in advance, sometimes five seconds, and you can see how that leads to issues in such a fast-paced game with precise touches :p Also, I used to have a cheap broken controller too before I bought two proper ones for the family, so driving/flipping/tilting backwards was, erm, impossible.
The other video game I played a ton as a kid—when computers were still as large as refrigerators—was Age of Empires 1. I have tried and tried, but was never able to get into any of the later installments.
For example, a modern and recent release is Age of Empires 4. It looks far better than AoE 1 ever did, of course. It has a bigger campaign, more cultures to choose from, online play, the “expected default features”. What it does not have, after decades of time creating sequels and learning from mistakes, is actually different gameplay. Sure, there are some new troops. Some new animations. The numbers (defense stat, offense stat, range stat, etc) have all shifted a bit. But that’s content and minor tweaking.
As a kid, I dreamed of an AoE game with massive gameplay changes. I even typed an entire “game design document” for it in Word at the time. I came up with a sort of spy/intelligence system, which should slot in neatly with the part of the game about “exploring and discovering enemies”. And what if it actually mattered that resources were close to the thing needing the resources? What if it was far harder to train new units, so you had to be REALLY careful when sending them into battle? What if there were proper flying units or underwater units, making the battles truly three-dimensional?
But they never did any of that. The gameplay was never seriously improved or changed. So I must say I haven’t played an AoE game in 10 years and, even though the newest one looks great and polished, have no interest in actually playing it.
Conclusion
Ironically, I also finished writing another article today about “The XY problem”. In the article I mention that it’s good to always aim for the root problem you’re trying to solve, the why of what you’re doing. And how hyperactive people are naturally inclined to focus on that a lot.
Anyway, I believe this plays into it. I simply do not care for all the superficial things, and I know many people are like me. I don’t care about the bells and whistles. I don’t care how great your community is, or your marketing plan, or how many extra settings and content you put into your game. I care about the core gameplay. The why of playing, the root of the fun, the specific thing your game allows me to do over and over.
And, in the current market, that is a darn impossible mind-set to have while looking for any game to play.
This is true for both video games and board games, by the way. But board games obviously have a physical limit to how much “content” they can put into it. And they have to create very simple rules that are so fun that you put in the effort to learn them, so the issue is less pronounced. Still, I’m baffled by how incredibly pretty half the board games nowadays look, as they sell for 100 euros a box and look like playing them would just be … homework.
This is, again, no hyperbole! I’ve played some of those games (and read the rules/reviews of others): just setting them up nearly takes longer than playing it, and the gameplay almost always boils down to “grab more cubes, and then more cubes, then count all your cubes at the end”. Just with a different coat of paint.
I want new and exciting gameplay! Crazy ideas and experiments, executed with care! I’d be FINE if from now on, every single game released had the exact same theme and look, if that meant much more effort put into fun! Release a thousand dino-themed games next year, if you want, so long as you’re playing the dinos in one, playing dino hunters in another, cultivating the jurassic climate in another, steering the asteroid to kill as many dinos as possible in another, cooperating to save the dinos in another, and so forth.
Here’s to hoping people start making games again that look fun, not just polished to an acceptable level.
Tiamo