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19 May 2005
by Mike Rozak
In my continuing quest to find alterative genres for virtual worlds, I recently had a bit of an epiphany... or at least came up with a different way of looking at the problem...
Genre = what makes it fun
Don't define genre by the code functionality, as I did in The game with a thousand faces, but define genre by what makes the virtual world fun.
Wielding this definition, I came up with the following genres:
Primal
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The virtual world allows players to fulfil their primate and animal urges that aren't met in real life. Virtual worlds are particularly good at fulfilling socialisation urges/needs, such as friendship, belonging to a tribe, gossip, rivalries, child rearing, and being the alpha (fe)male.
Worlds: Traditional PvP and PvE worlds rely heavily on generating fun from primal desires.
Games: Single-player games do not do well at fulfilling primal urges. Some do make an attempt, such as virtual pets substituting for child rearing.
TV: Soap operas and (melo)dramas such as "Sex in the City" fulfil primal urges.
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Reptilian
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Primates evolved from reptiles, which have even more basic drives. An occasional hit of adrenaline and violence is fun. Food and sex could also be included.
Worlds: Violence is standard fare. Adrenaline is difficult due to Internet latency.
Games: First person shooters, sports games, racing games, and combat flight-simulators
TV: Horror films, some sports broadcasts
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Comedy
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Comedies do very well on TV and at the movies. Comedy doesn't seem to translate well into games or virtual worlds though.
Worlds: Is this possible?
Games: There have been a few attempts (mainly as adventure games), but nothing too memorable.
TV: Sitcoms, comedy shows, romantic comedies
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Inductive
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These worlds require that players do the same thing over and over again, with variations on a theme. The repetitive action keeps the player in familiar/safe territory, and the variations require just enough mental energy to make the game interesting. In many ways, this type of activity is similar to what humans have been doing since the beginning of time, hunting and gathering... which is the main sub-game in most MMORPGs.
Worlds: Traditional MUD/MMORPG
Games: Most computer games
TV: Sports broadcasts, formula children's shows like Power Rangers
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Cool new stuff
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Movies have an unofficial (and critically derided) genre, the "Special effects movie". For the most part, people see SFX movies because they're visually (or acoustically) new. I don't know if this rates as a virtual world genre, but it might.
Worlds: Any world with the latest eye candy.
Games: Any game with the latest eye candy, such as the Myst series.
TV: Special effects movies, especially science fiction like Star Trek and Star Wars
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Creation
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Players enjoy creating their own objects, or otherwise changing the world.
Worlds: Second Life
Games: 3D rendering packages, mod editors, machinima
TV: Home-improvement shows
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Deductive
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Fun comes from encountering entirely new sub-games and learning how they work. Each sub-game requires a different solution.
Worlds: Uru Live (now deceased)
Games: Adventure games like Myst
TV: Mystery shows
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Experience (and exploration?)
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The world tries to portray an authentic experience for the player to partake in.
Flight Simulator (not a virtual world) is an excellent example. The "fun" of Flight Simulator is having all the real-life controls of Cessna or Boeing 747 in front of you, and flying the simulated air plane. This is different from the "fun" of a combat flight simulator, where the game doesn't try to be realistic, just adrenaline packed.
Worlds: Role-playing worlds and historically accurate worlds.
Games: Flight simulator
TV: Some science fiction like 2001, some period dramas, nature shows
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I ordered the list according to my best guess at the genre's market size, for TV, games, or virtual worlds. For example: Commercial television is loaded with shows from the top of the list, but has relatively few mysteries (the current being CSI, which is part "cool new stuff") and very few period dramas.
Some popular TV/movie genres are conglomerations of other genres; Cop shows, for example, are often dramas (primal) with some deductive and experience elements. Some genres don't seem to translate to virtual worlds at all; News broadcasts are informative, which removes the interactivity from virtual worlds. Changing the information into experience might work though.
Of course, most virtual worlds can be categorised into a few different genres, and include minor elements of all genres. Everquest II is primal, reptilian, cool new stuff, and inductive. Second Life emphases primal and creation.
Genres or player types?
To demonstrate why genre (using this definition) is important, let me give an example. Lets say you introduce a new feature: Sailing ships and the ability for one player to be captain while other players act as crew.
You need to ask yourself, "Why does the player wish to be captain?" and "How does that motivation affect the implementation of the captain sub-game?"
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The player likes to lord over his crew (primal) - The sub-game would need to give the captain powers to censure, punish, and kick off his crew. Alternatively, the player may wish to be a fatherly captain.
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Ships have cannons, and cannons shoot things (reptilian) - The important features of the game would involve combat.
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You hear a lot of funny anecdotes when you're captain (comedy) - I have no idea how to implement this one.
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The player likes the stable and predictable life of hauling freight (inductive) - Emphasise a routine that changes slightly over time or with each different port of call, such as subtle variations in trading regulations.
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Cool! A ship! I've never captained one before (cool new stuff) - Make the sub-game easy to get into, and easy to get out of. Include lots of spectacular special effects.
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Being a captain lets you influence the course of history (creation) - Maybe trade can be used to bring peace, bypass sieges and help one side, etc. Or maybe the rumors that a captain distributes affects the world at large.
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Captains are always given a variety of problems to solve (deductive) - Things keep happening that need to be dealt with: the hull springs a leak, a sail tears, weevils get into the grain supply, the ship gets beached, etc. It's up to the captain to come up with a solution.
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The player wants to know what it's really like to captain a ship (experience) - Make the player use charts. Make them arrange for stores of food and other supplies, worry about scurvy, deal with bills, etc.
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The player wants to be captain of a ship to achieve another goal - Make the captain sub-game as short as possible.
Described this way, my genres look an awful lot like player types, although they differ from Richard Bartle's killers, socialisers, explorers, and achievers, or Nick Yee's facets. (In this document, I actually lump killers, socialisers, and some achievers into the "primal" category.)
If you try to create a world that caters to all genres, then my genres ultimately turn into player types. But, to create a world that caters to all genres (player types), you have to do one of the following:
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Design some sub-games to cater to one player type, while other sub-games cater to another. Unfortunately, this means that players won't like half the sub-games in the world because they don't cater to their expected genre. Example: Captaining a ship could be designed to only be an "experience". Players that like "deduction" wouldn't take on the role of captain; instead, they'd become an in-game detective.
If a virtual world were a restaurant, the world would offer one beef dish, one chicken dish, and one vegetarian dish. This approach works well for tourist restaurants, but doesn't encourage repeat visits because beef-eaters will have already tried everything on the menu after their first visit.
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All sub-games cater to all genres, more or less equally. If you're a captain, you can lord over other players, shoot things, trade, etc.
The counter argument to this is that if the design tries to be everything to all people, it will turn into a very bland design (like McFood).
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The sub-game adjusts itself to the player. If the captain likes solving problems, their ship suddenly springs lots of leaks. If they like fighting, they suddenly encounter lots of pirates.
This approach might work, but it's like a restaurant with an enormous menu; the customers might like the variety, but the chefs have a difficult time, and end up producing Mexican food that's not as good as a real Mexican restaurant, and Italian food that's not as good as an Italian restaurant.
Of course, there is one other option:
All four of these solutions are viable, but they all have tradeoffs. If the restaurant business is any guide...
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The largest virtual worlds will produce McFood (for casual players), or at least enormous menus (for less-casual players). The smallest will specialise in a few genres.
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The largest virtual worlds will produce the most popular genres (like primal and inductive), and shy away from the exotic ones (deductive and experience).
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Families (or groups of friends) will tend to play at McFood or enormous-menu worlds so that everyone can find something they like (or at least don't dislike). Couples (and singles) will be more likely to visit specialist worlds since two people can usually agree on at least one genre. (You might want to look at Intertwined relationships.)
The other problem...
Virtual worlds are not entirely like restaurants; restaurants (almost) never get in the situation where a dish is in limited supply and only a small percentage of the customers that want to order it are allowed to get it.
Inevitably, if a world has 100 players, 20 of them will wish to captain their own ship, but there will only be 5 slots. (You could create more captain slots, but then the world wouldn't have enough players to be crew.)
How does the world decide who gets to be captain? (Copied from The parlour, the lobby, and the sand box.)
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A lottery determines who gets to be captain.
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The player that's the best at being captain (or the best at another sub-game) claims the role.
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He who has swabbed the most decks gets to be captain.
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The captain is voted in by his crew.
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Everyone takes turns at being captain.
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The player that pays the VW company the most real-life money gets the ship.
Designers have the same problems here as with genre coverage. A world can allow "all of the above" as ways to be captain, or it can specialise in certain types of players.
Does that mean that the criteria used to determine which players get power ends up producing another dimension to the genre?
Conclusion
It seems like genre can't be defined by codebase, or what player types a world caters to, or how power is distributed. There are too many degrees of freedom:
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Setting - Medieval, science fiction, cartoon, etc.
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Player types catered to - Primal, reptilian, deductive, etc.
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Way that power is distributed - Luck, hard work, player skill, etc.
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Something else - ???
I suspect that "genre" will fall out of the choices as more worlds become available. Single-player games and MMORPGs already have some associations forming. For example:
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First person shooters are usually in a contemporary or futuristic setting, emphasising adrenaline and killing (reptilian). You could have a medieval FPS with bows, but they're not too common.
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Standard MMORPGs are based on a fantasy setting, that is primal and inductive, and which rewards players for hard work (the grind).
Undoubtedly, more genres and sub-genres will follow.
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