Game Theory

It's been almost a year now since I joined the games industry, and to say that my viewpoint on games has changed is an understatement.

More and more I read blogs or articles I would otherwise not have read about developing games, publishing games and the actual process of designing games which shed a lot of light on things I didn't know anything about before. And of course I hear and see things at work. Those are the 'real' eye-openers.

Things like the interaction between publishers and developers, or as I like to call it 'The Money and the Beast'. We're 'The Beast': Wild, untamed, full of energy and ideas and ready to burst out onto the world. But for that to happen you need money, and money is scarce. So it all boils down to the fact that The Money pulls the strings and as a developer you have to dance to their tune.

Nothing new really. I could have realised that sitting at home playing games. The quality of some of them really indicates that no 'real' thought has gone into the development and only into the money.

But luckily there are more constructive things out there: Raph Koster's website is one of those. His latest post, the one about Buying your way to the Top, Again, is one of those that opens up your eyes to things you took for granted but actually are different to what you thought they meant. I'm not talking about the way people actually buy advantages in games, but for me the article showed me more that what we think is 'the game' of a game we play mostly is just the top layer of a more complex (or simpler, to be difficult) game.

It's more about rewards than anything else. Or at least on MMOs it is. How do we get rewarded? Do we get personal rewards and feel good, or do we want 'respect' or 'bragging rights'?

There's more in games than we think. Read the article and you'll know what I'm talking about.