GDC 2011: Strategy Games - the next move

[alexman]

In the GDC 2011 panel titled "Strategy Games: The Next Move," strategy game veterans Tom Chick, Soren Johnson, Dustin Browder, Ian Fischer, and Jon Shafer discussed the challenges facing the genre, and what future titles need to do to refine their mechanics and find economic success.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...Challenges.php

A quote from the designer of Civ5:

"I don't think it makes financial sense to make great AI - budgets can be more efficiently allocated to other areas of development"

[Dark_Jedi06]

Originally Posted by alexman

A quote from the designer of Civ5:

"I don't think it makes financial sense to make great AI - budgets can be more efficiently allocated to other areas of development"

Well...just, well...not sure what to say to that one.

Love playing Civ5, but that just blows me away.

[Supr49er]

He tries to defend his statement in a post, blaming it on the company:

"To clarify... I didn't disagree with Tom, and it's not that I don't want to see better AI in strategy games. It's just that as long as a company's goal is to make the most money possible, it's very rarely financially sound to pour a LOT of time or money into AI. If I had all the cash in the world and was making games only for fun it would be one of the biggest areas I'd focus on - but it wouldn't be because I thought I'd sell more copies that way."

Not hard to see why the AI is the way it is.

[Becephalus]

Before anyone blames Jon or Firaxis for that attitude, they need to examine their own habits. Games are the feature bloated messes they are because that is what gamers ask for.

A lot of people claim to care only about gameplay, and don't mind sup-par graphics, and don't mind a limited feature set if they are all functional and balanced. And maybe people do care about those things...

But most people BUY games based on how many shiny bells and whistles a game promises on its box or they hear about in reviews. They want more more more, not better better better. Even the best designers generally release games these days that have many more features than make sense, so they are unbalanced buggy, and have horrible AI (the more things there are to do the harder time the AI has). We have all seen so many games with 200 75% completed and 10% balanced features, when 100 100% completed and 75% balanced features would make for a much better product.

Paradox screws this up, Stardock screws this up, Creative Assembly screws this up, Firaxis screws this up. All of them do. They end up with worse games but higher initial sales, and since they are businesses and businesses are under a lot of pressure to focus on the short term, they are rewarded for this behavior.

I honestly would pay $200 for a Civ game with half the features, but balanced and thought out perfectly, but I am a tiny portion of the video game market so I don't matter.

Most buyers want spies, or nukes, or death robots, or the ability to trade technologies, or the option to raise and lower spending as frequently as they like, or 15 other things, and they just look for the sparkly shiny things they like and don't think about how it all hangs together until after they have bought it and played it. Then they feel betrayed and pissed off even though they never really valued a playable good game in the first place. Even game reviewers tend to do this, both because they are not good at their jobs and because they are in the industry's pocket.

Anyway some designers I have met would love to make better games, but people are not interested in paying for these games, they would much rather buy half broken monstrosities with huge marketing budgets that never get fully patched.

[Becephalus]

Originally Posted by Dark_Jedi06

Well...just, well...not sure what to say to that one.

Love playing Civ5, but that just blows me away.

Very few people buy a game based on the quality of the AI or long term re-playability. Most of them buy it after browsing some hack PC Gamer review, seeing an interesting box on a shelf, or reading about how you can totally explode someone's head in it.

Jon Shafer's job isn't to make good games. It is to make games which sell a lot of copies.

[Trystero]

I also enjoyed this quote:

Another issue facing the genre is the steep learning curve that deters new and inexperienced players. Stardock's Jon Shafer, known for his work as lead designer of Civilization 5, said that until players no longer need to find strategies on YouTube other outside sources, strategy games will continue to appeal only to the most dedicated players.

So, the problem is that strategy games involve too much... strategy?

[Hail]

Originally Posted by alexman

A quote from the designer of Civ5:

"I don't think it makes financial sense to make great AI - budgets can be more efficiently allocated to other areas of development"

what he meant is that pouring money into animated leader scenes (or nice combat animations) will generate more profit than pouring money into AI.

i completely agree with him. it's the way the gaming industry is. sad, but true

Originally Posted by Becephalus

Games are the feature bloated messes they are because that is what gamers ask for.

who asks?
show me a thread with demands to release feature bloated, bugged, unpolished(not balanced) games.

Originally Posted by Becephalus

Most buyers want spies, or nukes, or death robots, or the ability to trade technologies, or the option to raise and lower spending as frequently as they like, or 15 other things, and they just look for the sparkly shiny things they like and don't think about how it all hangs together until after they have bought it and played it.

[...]

Anyway some designers I have met would love to make better games, but people are not interested in paying for these games, they would much rather buy half broken monstrosities with huge marketing budgets that never get fully patched.

first spies do not equal "sparkly shiny things"

second feature bloat and/or inability to tie all the game mechanics together in one interconnected system is a game design fail

Originally Posted by Becephalus

Jon Shafer's job isn't to make good games. It is to make games which sell a lot of copies.

Jon Shafer's job isn't to make games. his job is to generate a profit for his employer(s).
the bigger the profit, the more Jon is worth on the job market. the catch is that how Jon makes this profit is mostly irrelevant to the employer(s).

Originally Posted by Trystero

So, the problem is that strategy games involve too much... strategy?

exactly!

personally i think that the strategy game sector is doomed.

a good strategy game has a somewhat steep learning curve and lots of replayability. from the prospective of "making money" both points are bad.
why a steep learning curve is bad is obvious, but the replayability point is more subtle. basically the idea is that instead of playing one game for a year, one can buy and play a game a month. so use the same engine with different textures(reskin the NPCs) and sell them as different games -> PROFIT!

actually firaxis could should have done the same with civ, but alas!
their level of competence leaves a lot to be desired

[Calouste]

If strategy gamers were interested in a balanced, unbloated, bugfree game with an extremely challenging AI and the best possible price, they'd download the Houdini Chess Engine for free and that would be it.

[The_J]

...and at the other hand there'd be the persons who'd be satisfied with a graphics demo.
Extreme cases don't make any sense here.

Originally Posted by alexman

A quote from the designer of Civ5:

"I don't think it makes financial sense to make great AI - budgets can be more efficiently allocated to other areas of development"

lolwut?
Yeah, QA would probably be such an area ^^.

[Clammo]

Originally Posted by alexman

A quote from the designer of Civ5:

"I don't think it makes financial sense to make great AI - budgets can be more efficiently allocated to other areas of development"

Jesus Christ, that genuinely made me choke on my coffeee laughing! Seriously lmao! No (insert the obvious expletive) Jon!

[ThERat]

That's what you get when you put a young chap in charge of one of the biggest franchises of strategy games ever and add a team of incompetent people who don't even understand their own game.

Once they screwed up the game, they will use lousy excuses as the one stated here to justify their incompetence.

Or do you think Shafer would make the same statement if Civ5 had at least a half decent AI.

Besides, it's not only the AI that's messed up in this game. As many people stated, they didn't even understand their own design.

[ThERat]

And before the defenders of the game come in again. Just have a look at one of civfanatics most prolific parts, the succession games.

It's a shame and wants to make me cry. There has never been any flurry of activities there and now it is plain dead. There are more SG's for Civ 3 running than Civ 5.

Great job, really...but we understand...who cares about AI and strategic depth of you can make money with hyped reviews, some pretty graphics and DLC.

[SpearMan153]

first the context of the discussion is the need to reduce the unit cost of strategy games from the $50 range to something less or loose the genre

second the cost of truly great ai would add another 0 on the end of the development cost for any given game

The sad reality is that it is not economically viable given the standard strategy game business model - vanilla game, expansion 1, expansion 2. to justify the x10 cost increase in development costs for exceptional ai for relatively little gains to in additional sales. Good luck getting that budget approved.

So what we get instead in any strategy game is ai that is developed to the minimum required level for an ok game for an average player. More advanced players can be kept interested a little longer by giving the ai a bunch of handicaps (ie. deity level) but for any long term challenge there is no option but to play against real live humans.

So taken in context not only is Shafer's statement reasonable (particularly given the stated need to reduce unit costs) it also happens to be the industry standard approach.

Now whether civ5 meets that magical minimum level of ai development yet is another question - my view is almost but not quite.

[Nares]

Originally Posted by Supr49er

Not hard to see why the AI is the way it is.

Or why he'll continue to be hired, despite lacking the skills necessary to make a great game.

Originally Posted by SpearMan153

The sad reality is that it is not economically viable given the standard strategy game business model - vanilla game, expansion 1, expansion 2. to justify the x10 cost increase in development costs for exceptional ai for relatively little gains to in additional sales.

They do it with relation to graphics all the time, CiV included.

[ThERat]

If you know you don't have the resources or determination to design a decent AI, at least make sure the game design camouflages this shortfall.

1upt isn't exactly the right way to do that...

[Drawmeus]

Originally Posted by ThERat

If you know you don't have the resources or determination to design a decent AI, at least make sure the game design camouflages this shortfall.

1upt isn't exactly the right way to do that...

Are you sure? Remember that Civ V was financially a slam dunk.

Honestly? Shafer is right, in the context he's talking about. Given finite resources and the mandate to make as much money as possible, a strong AI is a waste of money.

Given the mandate to make the best game possible for relatively hardcore players (say, the kind of players who end up on a website talking about the game), it is definitely NOT a waste of money. But, well, we see how important it is financially... Civ V was a financial success.

[Becephalus]

Originally Posted by Drawmeus

Are you sure? Remember that Civ V was financially a slam dunk.

Honestly? Shafer is right, in the context he's talking about. Given finite resources and the mandate to make as much money as possible, a strong AI is a waste of money.

Given the mandate to make the best game possible for relatively hardcore players (say, the kind of players who end up on a website talking about the game), it is definitely NOT a waste of money. But, well, we see how important it is financially... Civ V was a financial success.

Exactly. Hopefully some day we can start up some strategy gaming non-profits.

[ThERat]

So you people are trying to convince me that I should be happy with a piss poor AI since Firaxis made a ton of money?

I would understand that if we are all casual gamers, but this is civfanatics and I surely want to see a game better than Civ 5.

Btw, Civ 4 and Civ 3 were financially lucrative as well as did not disappoint as much. In fact Civ 4 was pretty cleverly designed. At least I didn't hear people complaining about an incompetent AI the way we hear it for Civ 5.

[AttilaTheHun]

Civ V was a sales success because of the goodwill and reputation generated by previous versions, most notably Civ IV.

Civ V is an example of changing too many things in the core game design at once and the dangers of trying to satisfy everyone in the community. This is how you end up with a mishmash of untested features that do not fit together well and an AI that has no clue about how to play the game.

The goodwill built up by Civs I-IV has been lost for many longtime Civ players. Firaxis better hope that there will be enough new players who never played Civ to buy Civ VI, because I and I suspect many other players will not be preordering it, no matter how much it will be hyped.

On the AI weakness of Empire Total War, I am not buying Shogun 2 until I see what the community has to say about it.

I wish more people would see that the direction the gaming industry is taking is exactly what Shafer is saying and would vote with their wallet. Loss of sales is the only thing the game companies understand.

[Save_Ferris]

@OP: What's the purpose of a company? Honestly, game makers aren't necessarily rich, and I wouldn't like to see 2k go out of business. There's competition.