There is a topic that I encountered in my business education that I think applies well to games and that I would like to see incorporated in games is the concept of Comfort, Challenge, and Crisis...
There is a topic that I encountered in my business education that I think applies well to games and that I would like to see incorporated in games is the concept of Comfort, Challenge, and Crisis Zones. This is based on concepts developed by Tom Senninger, who is a specialist in "adventure learning" and experiential learning.
Essentially, in the comfort zone, winning is easy and expected. Single-player games too often fall into this area, where winning is more a matter of when, rather than if. The challenge zone is really where we want to spend our time, and is the area where most people learn and grow, and also have the most fun. Winning isn't a given in this zone, but it is a realistic possibility. When we work or play in this zone, we have enough domain knowledge (as discussed in the video with regard to the From Software games) to assess what it is we did wrong and go back and try again. The optimal challenge zone experience is one where you're just on the knife-edge between success and failure AND have the emotional support framework that failure isn't a complete tragedy. The crisis zone can occur when the challenge presented is completely beyond your skills, the problem space is not intelligible (in other words, you can't even understand why you lost or what you did wrong), or the emotional support framework isn't in place to allow you to properly contextualize failure (i.e. life and death circumstances for those of us who aren't samurai).
With particular respect to games, I think the social aspect has adversely affected us. Being embarrassed in public is a pretty serious and traumatic consequence for most people. The presence of media like Twitch exacerbates this (imagine some toxic jackhole with a million viewers embarrassing you in such a way where you're not anonymous) and even things like public profiles can take the fun out of games. Similarly, designing games where the learning curve is so steep that the game becomes unintelligible to less proficient players can have the same effect (this is where I am with MOBA type games, for instance).
One area where we can potentially really improve games, and a challenge for AI developers in the future, is developing adaptive AI that can really pinpoint when the player is in that challenge zone and keep them there.
I agree with the general sentiment expressed in this video but "In games today we put a huge emphasis on winning" doesn't really strike me as being true. Multiplayer competitive games with a pure...
I agree with the general sentiment expressed in this video but "In games today we put a huge emphasis on winning" doesn't really strike me as being true. Multiplayer competitive games with a pure focus on winning aren't new, nor is people getting frustrated when they lose. I still remember in the QuakeWorld Team Fortress days people being total dickheads when our team lost. This isn't some new phenomena. The only difference is that back then they could only be dickheads via text chat and not voice comms.
I don't think these things are new, but I do wish they would get on my soapbox of choice and talk about how it's gotten worse and how games and gaming culture seem to almost encourage this kind of...
I don't think these things are new, but I do wish they would get on my soapbox of choice and talk about how it's gotten worse and how games and gaming culture seem to almost encourage this kind of behavior.
I think the prevalence of ladders, ranking, Elo points and such are a big part of what's different here. They were always around, but only the mega nerds were playing there anyway. If you were the normal kind of nerd playing CS, the only thing that a win or loss meant is that you won...or you lost. Nothing really carried over as far as the game was concerned, but now the default way to play many games flashes in your face what changed and you have a number telling you if your day of playing was worthwhile or entirely wasted.
I also want to blame competitive matchmaking itself, but I've gone on that rant too many times here. I could also blame YouTube and Twitch culture for making screaming, angry, and otherwise toxic people into idols, it definitely seems to be part of the problem. Of course, whoever can should take this advice. No matter how casual or competitive you want to be, this is the way to go. In fact, a big part of breaking the "scrub mentality" is learning to roll with the punches and find your motivation in learning from losses.
I just don't think we can entirely place this on the individual player, and a lot of sources outside of that individual are pushing them away from a good attitude. It's always been a problem and it always will be, but there are still things making it much worse and into the default position.
As a pretty hardcore PC gamer for well over 20 years now I just don't buy that. Toxic assholes have always made up a significant portion of competitive gaming culture. IMO the only thing that has...
As a pretty hardcore PC gamer for well over 20 years now I just don't buy that. Toxic assholes have always made up a significant portion of competitive gaming culture. IMO the only thing that has changed is that games are far more accessible now than they used to be, so there are simply way more toxic assholes out there in total... but I suspect they're probably around the same percentage of the player base as they always were.
Now, that's not to say things shouldn't or can't be improved but I just don't believe the "it's gotten worse over time" argument. If anything I think that recently it's actually starting to get better than it ever used to be thanks to many major developers actually starting to take addressing toxicity in their communities seriously.
Well I pretty severely disagree, at the very least because there used to be ways to get away from toxic assholes. You can't make an asshole-less space when the people you play with are just...
Well I pretty severely disagree, at the very least because there used to be ways to get away from toxic assholes. You can't make an asshole-less space when the people you play with are just whoever the game decides to give you, with no meaningful moderation tools. I don't mean to romanticize the past too much, but developers used to give us the options to get away from the bad things, which you just can't do anymore unless you don't play their game at all. It has always been there and it has always been prominent, but I see it spiraling out of control and being encouraged / glorified in a way that wasn't really around as much before.
The rest I don't really know how to argue. We certainly have different limits for what we consider toxic, have played different games, and have ran into different crowds while playing them. In my experience, there has been a clear downward trend that especially took off around the time Twitch took off. It's anecdotal, of course, but my personal experiences there show such a clear trend that there isn't really even a doubt in my head that this is what's happening. I don't mean to be too closed off, but my personal experience is true even if it's not as broadly applicable as I might think right now.
Yeah, having dedicated servers with decent admins certainly helped if you wanted to isolate yourself from toxic players, but those toxic players were always lurking there in those communities, and...
Yeah, having dedicated servers with decent admins certainly helped if you wanted to isolate yourself from toxic players, but those toxic players were always lurking there in those communities, and server admins couldn't always be around 24/7.
p.s. I very much doubt we have different limits for what we consider toxic. I just long ago resigned myself to having to be around the occasional dickheads calling me "faggot" if I wanted to keep playing the games I love. :/
There is a topic that I encountered in my business education that I think applies well to games and that I would like to see incorporated in games is the concept of Comfort, Challenge, and Crisis Zones. This is based on concepts developed by Tom Senninger, who is a specialist in "adventure learning" and experiential learning.
Essentially, in the comfort zone, winning is easy and expected. Single-player games too often fall into this area, where winning is more a matter of when, rather than if. The challenge zone is really where we want to spend our time, and is the area where most people learn and grow, and also have the most fun. Winning isn't a given in this zone, but it is a realistic possibility. When we work or play in this zone, we have enough domain knowledge (as discussed in the video with regard to the From Software games) to assess what it is we did wrong and go back and try again. The optimal challenge zone experience is one where you're just on the knife-edge between success and failure AND have the emotional support framework that failure isn't a complete tragedy. The crisis zone can occur when the challenge presented is completely beyond your skills, the problem space is not intelligible (in other words, you can't even understand why you lost or what you did wrong), or the emotional support framework isn't in place to allow you to properly contextualize failure (i.e. life and death circumstances for those of us who aren't samurai).
With particular respect to games, I think the social aspect has adversely affected us. Being embarrassed in public is a pretty serious and traumatic consequence for most people. The presence of media like Twitch exacerbates this (imagine some toxic jackhole with a million viewers embarrassing you in such a way where you're not anonymous) and even things like public profiles can take the fun out of games. Similarly, designing games where the learning curve is so steep that the game becomes unintelligible to less proficient players can have the same effect (this is where I am with MOBA type games, for instance).
One area where we can potentially really improve games, and a challenge for AI developers in the future, is developing adaptive AI that can really pinpoint when the player is in that challenge zone and keep them there.
I agree with the general sentiment expressed in this video but "In games today we put a huge emphasis on winning" doesn't really strike me as being true. Multiplayer competitive games with a pure focus on winning aren't new, nor is people getting frustrated when they lose. I still remember in the QuakeWorld Team Fortress days people being total dickheads when our team lost. This isn't some new phenomena. The only difference is that back then they could only be dickheads via text chat and not voice comms.
I don't think these things are new, but I do wish they would get on my soapbox of choice and talk about how it's gotten worse and how games and gaming culture seem to almost encourage this kind of behavior.
I think the prevalence of ladders, ranking, Elo points and such are a big part of what's different here. They were always around, but only the mega nerds were playing there anyway. If you were the normal kind of nerd playing CS, the only thing that a win or loss meant is that you won...or you lost. Nothing really carried over as far as the game was concerned, but now the default way to play many games flashes in your face what changed and you have a number telling you if your day of playing was worthwhile or entirely wasted.
I also want to blame competitive matchmaking itself, but I've gone on that rant too many times here. I could also blame YouTube and Twitch culture for making screaming, angry, and otherwise toxic people into idols, it definitely seems to be part of the problem. Of course, whoever can should take this advice. No matter how casual or competitive you want to be, this is the way to go. In fact, a big part of breaking the "scrub mentality" is learning to roll with the punches and find your motivation in learning from losses.
I just don't think we can entirely place this on the individual player, and a lot of sources outside of that individual are pushing them away from a good attitude. It's always been a problem and it always will be, but there are still things making it much worse and into the default position.
As a pretty hardcore PC gamer for well over 20 years now I just don't buy that. Toxic assholes have always made up a significant portion of competitive gaming culture. IMO the only thing that has changed is that games are far more accessible now than they used to be, so there are simply way more toxic assholes out there in total... but I suspect they're probably around the same percentage of the player base as they always were.
Now, that's not to say things shouldn't or can't be improved but I just don't believe the "it's gotten worse over time" argument. If anything I think that recently it's actually starting to get better than it ever used to be thanks to many major developers actually starting to take addressing toxicity in their communities seriously.
Well I pretty severely disagree, at the very least because there used to be ways to get away from toxic assholes. You can't make an asshole-less space when the people you play with are just whoever the game decides to give you, with no meaningful moderation tools. I don't mean to romanticize the past too much, but developers used to give us the options to get away from the bad things, which you just can't do anymore unless you don't play their game at all. It has always been there and it has always been prominent, but I see it spiraling out of control and being encouraged / glorified in a way that wasn't really around as much before.
The rest I don't really know how to argue. We certainly have different limits for what we consider toxic, have played different games, and have ran into different crowds while playing them. In my experience, there has been a clear downward trend that especially took off around the time Twitch took off. It's anecdotal, of course, but my personal experiences there show such a clear trend that there isn't really even a doubt in my head that this is what's happening. I don't mean to be too closed off, but my personal experience is true even if it's not as broadly applicable as I might think right now.
Yeah, having dedicated servers with decent admins certainly helped if you wanted to isolate yourself from toxic players, but those toxic players were always lurking there in those communities, and server admins couldn't always be around 24/7.
p.s. I very much doubt we have different limits for what we consider toxic. I just long ago resigned myself to having to be around the occasional dickheads calling me "faggot" if I wanted to keep playing the games I love. :/