posted 11-05-2000 08:50 PM               

Some may be wondering why this site about game design includes a section on playing competitive games. Here you go:

One cannot hope to design a hugely successful competitive game if one is ignorant of how such games are played at the highest level.

It’s that simple.

Multiplayer games are played for “fun,” sure. Playing for “fun” and playing to win are wildly different pursuits. Edward Lasker begins the second half of his book Chess for Fun & Chess For Blood:

“In the preceding pages, we have looked only at the pleasant side of chess—the kind played among amateurs for the excitement of a battle without bloodshed, in which the supreme command is in their hands, but the outcome of which is of no grave consequence to either player.

“There is another side to chess, however, which is quite different—tournament and match games played by masters or those striving to become masters, whose standing, if not livelihood, may be seriously affected by the outcome.

“Such games are no fun, even for the winner. They are the hardest work imaginable. You play for blood! You avoid the lure of beautiful combinations unless you see clearly that they do not endanger your chance to draw the game at least, if you cannot win it. For it is not the beauty of a combination which wins a tournament, but the number of points you make—a whole point for a win, a half a point for a draw, and an “egg” for a loss.”

Well said. But surely most players of any hit competitive game do not play with the seriousness Lasker alludes to. They don’t. And accordingly, the game must be fun at low levels of skill. Players who play for the momentary amusement must have an exciting experience. Every element—the sound effects, music, user interface, mood, theme, feel, everything—must contribute to that experience. But that is not enough.

Actually, I suppose it is enough if you are not after making something really great, or if for other reasons beyond the scope of the game design the game is doomed from the start. It’s also enough for a game like Ready 2 Rumble, where the game’s success had to do with the marketing, the characters, and being a launch title for a new system. Its gameplay—which suffered horribly, and worse, needlessly from slippery slope—was almost incidental and didn’t have to be solid.

If those things are enough for you, then just get out of here now. Go on. This site isn’t for you.

Ok, those of you still here…your game will need to attract the hardcore players who play at an insanely high level. They’re your opinion leaders. If a game can stand up to the rigors of tournament play—which is orders of magnitude more rigorous than you might believe—then it will be able to hold their attention. As players get better, they will get more into your game, not less into it. The hardcore players, as opinion leaders, influence a big part of the casual market.

Just look at the examples: Street Fighter, Starcraft, and Quake. All three games have some problems at tournament level play, but on the whole, they hold together surprisingly well. They can withstand the harsh extremes of expert players trying to eke out every possible advantage…even after years of play. If these games couldn’t do that, they certainly wouldn’t have been the hits they are. There would have been no tournament scenes. Interest would have died away. They would not be perceived as THE standards of competition that they are.

Lots of people are qualified to make a game fun for beginners. The real trick is making it still be a game at all once the ridiculously clever top players get a hold of it. That’s the trick, as well as the brass ring, for that’s what the market rewards via the bandwagon effect.

I think one (of many) reasons there are such few games that succeed on this level is that being a top player and being articulate and logical enough to explain exactly why you’re a top player are skill sets that generally do not go hand in hand. As a result, there just aren’t that many people with both the knowledge and ability to design tournament games.

All I can say is to jump in the pool and see how it really is, if you haven't already. Play to win.