Yahtzee reveals critical weakness in gaming.

[CaptHawkeye]

So I was watching ZP's Red Dead Redemption review right? I got to the part where Yahtzee was doing all his usual irrelevant game play references, pretending to be a legitimate journalist and such. Then he got a to a really interesting part of interview where he started describing RDR's mini games right?

Well, his complaint was their are no rewards for the mini games, you play them for the sake of playing them....his basic line of thought is that this was a bad thing.

Wait a second, wait a fucking second. Playing the game because I want to play the game is a foreign concept?

Now don't get me wrong, RDR isn't the strongest game around and it's certainly over rated as it could possibly be. But he is seriously saying here that unless their is some kind of overt reward for every task you do in the game, their is no point to playing.

So you're telling me, basically, is that unless the game is an OBVIOUS FUCKING SKINNER BOX...it's shit and people won't play it. Wait, what if their are guys out there who really DO want to play the mini games because they like em? RDR's mini games may be easy and shit but that's not the point. The point is they are there to be played, and Yahtzee pointed out that it felt weird.

I know you might say "well that's just Yahtzee" but he's got a following of people who keep listening to him and who apparently agree with him. Besides that, look at the structure of FPS games, based totally and completely around POINTS and useless scoreboards that mean nothing. There's a correlation here. It turns out gamers don't actually want to play a game per se, they want to play a Skinner Box.

I suppose you could say we've all been thinking it he just said it, the reality is though that gamers WANT to be treating like lab rats. With an attitude like this, it's no wonder games like MW2 get so popular for being complete shit. Gamers are totally obsessed with meaningless in game scoring and stat collecting. This might not be nothing new to many of us, but I'm really starting to feel like the obsession is more wide spread than I thought. I mean, for Yahtzee of all people to say "playing Poker in RDR is totally stupid because all you do is play Poker" makes me realize that even for supposedly "smart" guys like Yahtzee, gaming isn't about playing the game anymore, it's about REWARDS. Useless, non existent rewards that mean nothing in the real world.

[Srelex]

Well, I always considered it human nature to expect some sort of a reward for any particular task, no matter how intangible, so yeah. That being said, I think you're putting a bit too much thought into something I always thought wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, apart from a bunch of morons who always have everything fly over their heads.

[Stark]

In the RDR example it's a fair complaint, because the games are poor and uninteresting (like much of the rest of the game).

Rewards etc shape gameplay in most games with persistent characters; it's not unusal for people to play a certain way to get a reward or benefit and then stop.

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah, but I guess i'm out of the standard then. The rewards in most games have always been secondary to actually playing the game for me. I don't care so much about what I get as much as I care about what I do. I'm not saying all rewards are uninteresting. Gameplay unlocks are all well and good. I guess you could say the bigger problem is that lots of gamers play for getting what can't really be considered a "reward" at all. IE: First place on a post match score sheet. Congratulations for being the sad little king of a sad little hill?

[Darth Fanboy]

fucking mini games. The only ones I like were in the original Fable and even then only because they were ludicrously simple enough that I didn't have to waste much time on them.

[Ghost Rider]

Usually minigames are the worst part of games. They take you out of the main game to squirrel you into some personal universe that is unchanged by the outside, are rarely tested, and usually the rewards are the only reason you play it because some idiot programmer thought it would be cool to have it be the ONLY way to access something that is usally beyond the context of that part of the game.

As for the part of rewards in any context? Gamers want to min-max, in almost any way shape or form. Just playing the game to get some "CONGRATULATIONS!" is nothing more then putting the name into Youtube and wondering why did you spend $5-80 for just that.

[adam_grif]

I know you might say "well that's just Yahtzee" but he's got a following of people who keep listening to him and who apparently agree with him.

None of them critics or people with any real influence. Does it really matter if there is a sub-set of gamers who want rewards in order to play minimgames? Especially if the minigames are otherwise uninteresting?

[Artemas]

It might dilute the pool of achievement whores?

[adam_grif]

It might dilute the pool of achievement whores?

Like pissing into an ocean of piss.

[Oskuro]

No reward minigames is the description of most Wii games out there. Have you played them? I had some time with Wii Sports and Wii Fit some time back, and they are fun to play now and then, but once you beat the high scores and get all the achievements, they start to feel pointless.

That's why even the most basic games have a scoring system, people are motivated by the effort/reward dynamic, it's built in our genetic code after all.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Liar's Dice and Poker were both fun distractions in RDR. I played them for the hell of it, not for achievements or whatever.

[Lord Relvenous]

Wow, that review did not seem helpful at all. I've played RDR and I didn't have a problem with a lot of what he was bitching about. Including mini games.

[Stofsk]

I don't mind minigames. For me, they actually aid immersion. I remember in older games, where so long as you had skill in 'lockpicking' or whatever, or had a thief/rogue/scoundrel type character in your party, you could almost always pick a lock. These days, you actually need to do it yourself, and the difference between picking a lock and not is your own skill as a player, and I like it more for that. Sure, some of these minigames are a bit pants, but that's not proof against the concept, but against that particular execution.

[RedImperator]

I don't think the analogy to first person shooters holds. The entire point of playing multiplayer in FPS isn't the high score in and of itself--the high score is just proof that you were the best player in the arena. It's not that different from Donkey Kong or Pac-Man, where the goal of the game is to survive as long as possible, which is also measured by the high score. People go into games like that with a certain expectation of what the reward for playing is going to be.

In something like Red Dead Redemption, it's a different matter. I haven't played RDR, but I assume it's roughly similar to Grand Theft Auto, where the goal is to complete the story line. A minigame with no reward there, or a weak reward, is a waste of time. Incidentally, GTA:SA had several minigames. Some of them, like the schools, rewarded you by unlocking rare vehicles, and I hammered away at them over and over until I perfected them, because I wanted the cars (and because I enjoyed the challenge of trying to beat them). Others, like the table games in the casinos, rewarded you with money, which by that point in the game was practically worthless. The funny thing is, I love blackjack and will actually play at online casinos' practice tables, where the "reward" is just a high score. But in San Andreas, I got bored with blackjack after a few minutes, even when I was making million dollar bets just so there was some actual risk I could go broke.

[Stark]

I don't know about that: for sandbox games, the story is a distraction in itself. RDR is dead boring for the same reason GTA4 was - an emphasis on a boring morality tale of lameness. The minigames are still irrelevant, but that's really a combination of their extremely poor quality (the poker game is arguably worse than a browser game) and the worthlessness of it as a means to produce money (which is a side effect of the stupid way the gameworld is set up). I think the real failure is expecting anyone to do things for no reason at all.

Of course, some people like the games because they like that sort of thing, and they'll play it.

Maybe I'm not qualified, however, because I found EVERYTHING in RDR irrelevant, meaningless and boring.

And Stofsk, even old games had lockpicking minigames. It's just these days they suck.

[Coalition]

What I'd try for the minigames (or sidequests) is where they actually affect the main storyline in a small way. I.e. you divert to help a school shuttle in Mass Effect, and later on one of the shopkeepers has his daughter in, and she recognizes you. He offers you ~10,000 worth of store credit for getting items at half off (or higher than the resale value, so it isn't a source of free credits). So you still need to spend 10,000 credits at the store, but without doing the sidequest you would have had to spend 20,000 credits for the same stuff.

Or the Quarians need help with a crashed ship, you clean it out, and they ask you to give the ship a name (from a pre-chosen list). That ship later shows up in the Quarian fleet, and if you go aboard it, the layout is identical, and the people on board are more likely to help you.

Small permanent changes like that would add to the game, to me.

[Stark]

Talking about plot flexibility is totally irrelevant; we're talking about minigames that have either weak or no reward and how this means many people don't bother to play them.

You want plot flexibility, go play Alpha Protocol.

[CaptHawkeye]

As for the part of rewards in any context? Gamers want to min-max, in almost any way shape or form. Just playing the game to get some "CONGRATULATIONS!" is nothing more then putting the name into Youtube and wondering why did you spend $5-80 for just that.

A problem is that most gamers in action min-max their weapons completely. In a lot of those games, since "Health" is the only value of damage, it makes sense that only the weapons which deal the great damage per second are welcome to these players. Most developers don't seem to bother trying to create legitimately good reasons to use other weapons.

I mean, in Call of Duty Stopping Power has literally become the ONLY perk to use anymore because it buffs the damage output of all the weapons. It never used to be so obnoxious when Juggernaut was around, now it's out of control. People usually pair it with already high-damage weapons like the SCAR or M-16 to drive the advantage home. Why wouldn't they after all? Damage is the only output that matters.

[Andrew J.]

I've noticed that about Yahtzee before, too;"I can, but why would I want to" is a line he's used to talk about this kind of thing before.

It's not something I personally agree with, but I can see where he's coming from, and I don't think it's part of some larger "problem" with players generally. It's probably a preference of Yahtzee's, a side effect of having to play and review a new game every week and not having the time to just sit down and enjoy a game as much as he otherwise might, or a combination of both.

[Medic]

As for the part of rewards in any context? Gamers want to min-max, in almost any way shape or form. Just playing the game to get some "CONGRATULATIONS!" is nothing more then putting the name into Youtube and wondering why did you spend $5-80 for just that.

A problem is that most gamers in action min-max their weapons completely. In a lot of those games, since "Health" is the only value of damage, it makes sense that only the weapons which deal the great damage per second are welcome to these players. Most developers don't seem to bother trying to create legitimately good reasons to use other weapons.

I mean, in Call of Duty Stopping Power has literally become the ONLY perk to use anymore because it buffs the damage output of all the weapons. It never used to be so obnoxious when Juggernaut was around, now it's out of control. People usually pair it with already high-damage weapons like the SCAR or M-16 to drive the advantage home. Why wouldn't they after all? Damage is the only output that matters.

Two simple fixes would fix most of CoD's balance issue: weapon recoil and more varied accuracy. Once upon a time, these existed. (try full-autoing down the sights with an MP44 in CoD... also, try doing it on a vehicle-sized map) Now? Well in CoD4, full-auto down the sights with an AK-47 is not only doable, it's routine, to get some huge percentage of your bullets even at moderate range, hitting a guy. (2-4 is lethal, 1-3 with stopping power or an already injured opponent) Also, if Juggernaut was "Body Armor," with a speed penalty and no extra health to your HEAD, it wouldn't be so broke. No healthperk should make your face more impervious to a pistol round...

They appealed to the lowest common denominator and ever-more instant gratification and all that entailed. In short, it worked and people suck, pick your order.

[Oskuro]

I don't know, I'm actually a "play because I enjoy playing" kind of gamer, but I'd say the great majority of players need a carrot waved in front of them to complete tasks in games (not necessarily enjoy them, but to get to do them). Most people play a game so they can "win" it, and that often means earning some sort of reward, be it an ending cinematic, a powerup, a new weapon, a high score, an achievement badge, or a naked lady.

I think what Yatzhee rants about is how a lack of motivation for players to complete minigames and sidequests eventually leads to those being overlooked or ignored as not worth the effort (gee, how many reward-giving sidequests are ignored in so many games just because the reward is not worth it? Blizzard had to add the achievements system so players played through a lot of content ), wich in turn means effort has been put in content that will be overlooked, while some major hangups remain unsolved.


Now, about Yatzhee, it is true that as a reviewer he is not a typical player, but that's something I like about internet reviewers, they have a schedule, and are way more demanding of the material being reviewed than most people, wich brings out some flaws that I would normally forgive, thus giving a different take on them. Also, having internet reviewers disagree with my opinion is a good exercise for my anti-herd-behaviour mental muscles
And also, not to be Stark-like, but it is true that Yatzhee is a comedy writer, and will poke fun at the games he's reviewing, like the AVGN does. Heck, the way he trolled people by claiming Fantasy World Dizzy was the greatest game ever madetm was pure art.

[Starglider]

No reward minigames is the description of most Wii games out there. Have you played them? I had some time with Wii Sports and Wii Fit some time back, and they are fun to play now and then, but once you beat the high scores and get all the achievements, they start to feel pointless.

Those games are ok (not that I like Wii Sports, but the Raving Rabbids games were fine) because they consist entirely of minigames. You load the game because you want to play some random unconnected simplistic games. Minigames tucked away in obscure corners of open-world games, e.g. the arcade games in San Andreas are also fine as you actually have to go looking for them if you want to play them. However I agree with Yahtzee here that minigames in normal single player games should be integrated into the rest of the game world. I like the additional game mechanics they add in Mass Effect 2, Bioshock, Fallout 3 etc, but if they didn't accomplish anything then they'd be a distraction from the main game experience. It doesn't matter how good the mini games might be, forcing you to stop playing the game you want to play and do something irrelevant and unconnected for a few minutes is always going to suck.

[Stark]

He's not talking about lockpick minigames so the comparison doesn't work. The planet scanning (sans meaningful loot) would be a better comparison. No Bioware game is flexible enough to have games people play which are actual in-game games that provide little or no benefit outside just playing them.

[Starglider]

He's not talking about lockpick minigames so the comparison doesn't work. The planet scanning (sans meaningful loot) would be a better comparison.

Yes I know. The planet scanning sucks because it's just badly designed, but if it didn't give you anything useful it would suck even if the mechanic was engaging.

No Bioware game is flexible enough to have games people play which are actual in-game games that provide little or no benefit outside just playing them.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'flexible'. Mass Effect could easily have included futuristic arcade game terminals in the mission hubs, they didn't do it because the designers didn't think it was a good use of programmer time, not because of any technical limitation. System Shock 2 did this quite well, there were several irrelevant mini games you could play on your PDA, but they were semi-hidden and completely optional. Unfortunately the hacking minigame that was integral to gameplay wasn't as well executed. Dead Space's zero-g basketball and shooting gallery minigames would have been fine even if they didn't have ammo/money rewards, as they were also off the main path and completely optional. I admit that stuff would be a problem if it starts to be a major fraction of the game's content.

[Covenant]

It's nearly always gambling stuff. Cards or dice or other randomizers, and I think it may be worth noting that playing a single-player version of poker versus an AI may just not be that exciting to most people. If they worked on adding minigames that weren't bland, pointless, and compulsory you might have less of a knee-jerk negative reaction to any minigame you see. What minigames are actually fun on their own?

I enjoy lockpicking minigames, and even in Oblivion (where it was not a very good one) I'd lockpick any goddamn door I could find because I had a perverse love of unlocking doors and chests. It wasn't even for the rewards, though I loved sneaking around to see what I could find as well.

The towers-of-hanoi hacking puzzle in the first mass effect was kinda clever. And if some of the other points in the game had interesting puzzles you could call them minigames. And having them have a reward would be nice, but it's not essential if it's fun already. But minigames that take you out of the game entirely, like a game of cards, can be a bit lame, especially if the minigame itself is lame. I don't really like card games or dice games that much, so for me those are always bad minigames to have.