Humans have an inherent need to justify spending resources on things. People want to know that the time, money, emotion, empathy, or any other personal resource they spent on something is not wasted, even when it is. A good example of this is our time and money investment in leisure activities. There are thousands of comics and baseball cards in circulation, but only a handful of them are worth more than the paper they're printed on. Only a handful of people care who has the world's highest score at pac-man or pinball. Some things can end up being somewhat worthwhile, such as being a professional Magic: The Gathering player, or a professional Starcraft player. These are, of course, few and far between. The ratio of grand master chess players to regular chess player is extremely small, just like not everyone can be Kobe Bryant or Tiger Woods.

What does this have to do with games? Well, in games that save your state, it starts becoming important. The entire genre of MMORPG is all based on ascribing value to something where there really inherently isn't any. I've never seen another specific genre of game take this to such an extreme, and I wanted to spend a bit of time analyzing it.

( Ok, so analyze already )

So very recently, I picked up and started playing Street Fighter 4 like about 2 million others. If you know me, you probably know that I follow the game fairly well. I really like it, because it has a bunch of stuff that I think is really good for games: A great intuitive control scheme, low barrier to entry, and a good way for skillful players to differentiate themselves in ways that aren't (usually) cheating. This got me thinking about games, and when I think about games I tend to come up with something to blog about. This is no different. When last we talked about accesibility, it was mostly about designing content. This time it's a bit different. The discussion is still about things like how much of a game can be played by people, but content isn't quite the right word to describe it. I'll explain after the jump.

( Yes, now you've gotten me all confused. )

So, as stated before, we've got iconic imagery, and iconic motion. When you combine the two, you have something that becomes instantly recognizable to players viewing it as "cool". Here's a good example of that:



Bayonetta is an upcoming 3rd person action game from Sega. Despite being a totally new IP and without much knowledge of how the game plays, just by watching the short video you get a good idea of who the main character is, and what her modus operandi is. She's essentially a sexy warrior who fires guns in every direction, reveling in her own strength and ability to kick ass. Her movements are lithe and graceful, she moves liberally in all 3 dimensions, and her combination of skin tight clothing and sexualized demeanor all contribute to this. Nobody would ever confuse her for a blushing bride or somebody who just wants to be normal. The confidence with which she speaks and moves is apparent, even in such a short amount of time.

But what happens when this sort of thing works against you?

( I think you're going to have to show me. )

So, in the second of a series (probably of 3), we're discussing iconography. Specifically, what it means to make something recognizable. Last time, we went over how a picture is worth a thousand words. That isn't sufficient though; a picture is a picture. A large part of this is because of the whole Uncanny Valley effect. When a human sees a still image, that person will be more forgiving of certain abnormalities than seeing the object in motion. Most of this has to do with subconscious acceptance of flaws.

( So what does this have to do with iconography? )

Apologies for the lack of updates. I'll try to be better about it.

A lot of people seem to think that there's really a sliding scale between realism and not realism. On one end, you'll see something like Gran Turismo, and on the other you'll see Mario Kart Wii, and you'll declare those two the opposite ends of the scale. But I don't really think that's how it goes. It's actually fully possible to just replace the cars, karts, sprites, models etc. with abstract shapes and such. Sometimes things get weird like that, but what it does is change the way you view things. What most people are thinking of isn't that things aren't realistic, but that they are iconic.

( Iconic? )

In today's post, we're talking about controllers and controller input. Somebody asked me a question about controllers, and why they keep getting more complicated. Further, will they continue to get even more complicated as time continues to pass?

( Are you a control freak? )