BEYOND GAME DESIGN: NINE STEPS TOWARD CREATING BETTER VIDEOGAMES RICHARD BARTLE, CHRIS BATEMAN, NOAH FALSTEIN, MICHELLE HINN, KATHERINE ISBISTER, NICOLE LAZZARO, SHERI GRAINER RAY, AND JOSEPH SAULTER EDITED BY CHRIS BATEMAN Charles River Media A part of Course Technology, Cengage Learning Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States Beyond Game Design: Nine Steps Toward © 2009 Course Technology, a part of Cengage Learning. Creating Better Videogames ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 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For your lifelong learning solutions, visit courseptr.com Visit our corporate website at cengage.com Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 12 11 10 09 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to extend their grateful thanks to Marvin Androni- cus, Hal Barwood, Ashley Beitel, Chris Bennett, Eric Bethke, Jane Booth, Darryl Brock, Chip Bruce, Al Chang, Kevin Clark, Ben Cowley, Peter Crowther, Lydia and Barry Dobyns, Lura Dolas, Corvus Elrod, Judith Savina Falstein, Bill Fulton, Lee Gilmore, Russ Glaser, Brian “Psychochild” Green, Joe Greenstein, Joe Hewitt, the members of International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA) Game Accessibility Special Interest Group (especially Mark Barlet, Kasey Bryant, Kevin Bierre, Barrie Ellis, Eelke Folmer, Giannis Georgalis, Reid Kimball, Richard Van Tol, Stephanie Walker, and Thomas Westin), Kevin Jones, Kevin Keeker, Shiela Kim, Raph Koster, Jeremy Liew, Becca Lowenhaupt, Ron Meiners, Steve Meretzky, Jerry Michalski, Rand Miller, Cliff Nass, Patricia Pizer, Jeff Pobst, Kent Quirk, Ben Rattray, Brian Robbins, Noah Schaffer, Charlene Saulter, Christopher Schoenherr, Michael Sellers, Jenny Singleton, Ann Smulka, Michael Steele, Mark Terrano, Gordon Walton, Richard A. Watson, Elisabeth Watson, Roderick Woodruff, Will Wright, and Adria Smiley. The editors would also like to offer grateful thanks to Moby Games (http://mobygames.com/) for their invaluable record of videogame details, the Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.org/) for similar information, and the Killer List of Videogames (http://klov.com/), for their comprehensive list of arcade games, which were used extensively in referencing videogame titles in this book. Finally, the authors would like to offer eternal thanks to game de- velopers everywhere without whom a book like this would be utterly meaningless. ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS ABOUT THE EDITOR Chris Bateman is Managing Director of International Hobo, a specialist company in the field of market-oriented game design and narrative, and a noted game designer, writer, and “semi-professional” philosopher. Games he has written and designed include Ghost Master, Discworld Noir, Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition and Attack on Pearl Harbor. In 2007, he received the IGDA’s prestigious Most Valuable Player award for his contributions to the game development community. He is the co-author of 21st Century Game Design, and editor of the award-nominated Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames. International Hobo’s website, where Chris and other industry veterans blog about videogames, can be found at ihobo.com. ABOUT THE CHAPTER AUTHORS Each of the authors of this book is renowned for his or her contribution to the field of videogame development, gameplay research, or audience diversity. Dr. Richard A. Bartle is considered one of the foremost voices in virtual world development. He co-wrote the very first virtual world, MUD, in 1978 and thus has been at the forefront of the MMO industry from its inception. He divides his time equally between being an industry consultant and an academic (Professor of Computer Game Design at the University of Essex, UK). His 2003 book, Designing Virtual Worlds, is the standard text on the subject, and he is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design and development. About the Editors and Authors v Noah Falstein is the President of The Inspiracy (www.theinspiracy. com), a consulting firm specializing in game design and production. Designing and managing entertainment and educational software since 1980 for companies such as Williams Electronics, LucasArts Entertain- ment, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive, Falstein has worked on everything from toys to CD-ROM games to edutainment to location-based entertainment. Some of his better-known titles include Sinistar, PHM Pegasus, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and Hungry Red Planet. Falstein is currently a leader in the emerging serious games field, having designed corporate training simulations and health-based games. Michelle Hinn is the chair of the IGDA’s Game Accessibility Spe- cial Interest Group, an advocacy group for creating mainstream games accessible to gamers with disabilities. Hinn’s experience includes work at Microsoft Game Studios, where she piloted usability tests for Xbox multiplayer games and ran playtests for Xbox games such as Halo: Com- bat Evolved, Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee, Fusion Frenzy, and Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding. In 2006, she was named one of Next Generation maga- zine’s “100 Most Influential Women in Gaming” for her work in game accessibility, and won a prestigious Most Valuable Player award from the IGDA. For more information about game accessibility, please contact IGDA SIG via email at [email protected] or visit the website at http://www.igda.org/accessibility. Katherine Isbister is Director (and founder) of the Games Research Lab at Rensselaer (RPI). Before joining RPI’s faculty, she developed and taught a course at Stanford on the Design of Characters for Games. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford, with a focus on using ideas from social psychology to design better, more effective interactive characters. Katherine’s book—Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach—was nominated for a Frontline Award. She has published in a wide variety of venues, and given invited talks at research and academic venues, including Sony research labs in Japan, Banff Centre in Canada, IBM, Electronic Arts, the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and others. In 1999, Isbister was chosen as one of MIT Technology Re- view’s Young Innovators, for her work on trans-cultural interface agents. More information about her work is available at www.friendlymedia.org. vi About the Editors and Authors Nicole Lazzaro is the leading expert of emotions in videogames. Founder and President of XEODesign, Inc., Nicole is an award-winning interface designer and an authority on emotion and the player experi- ence. A frequent speaker at industry events, she writes extensively on games and why people play them. She has spent more than 16 years designing successful experiences for all levels of players and users, from novice to expert, in many game genres. She integrates her adventures living