Forced to play

Yesterday I increased my MMORPG vocabulary by learning what a "catass" is. A catass player is somebody playing so much, that he forgets his real life duties, like emptying the cats litter box (thus making his place smell like a cat ass). The term has a certain overlap with "powergamer", but is more negative, describing only the time spent in game, not the success had with that. But both terms are somehow opposite to "casual gamer".

Myself, I'm falling somewhere in the middle between those. I don't neglect my job or family, so I'm definitely not a catass player. But I don't have children, and I don't have any other major hobby than games, so I still have up to 40 hours per week (5 evenings of 4 hours plus the weekend) for playing the MMORPG of my choice, which is significantly more than the average casual player. But by acknowledging that other things in my life are more important than games, I sometimes run into the same problem as casual gamers. And one of the major problems there is how the games try to dictate to you when and how long you should play.

Part of this is just peer pressure. Before City of Heroes invented the sidekick system, keeping up with your friends levels was really important, and still is in many games. But by playing with friends that play similar hours as you, and some juggling with alts, one can usually get around the social aspects forcing you to play.

Much worse is if the game design itself forces you to play. In many games you have a house or other structure which requires an upkeep. Go on a summer holiday, and you house in Ultima Online crumbled to dust, your sheep and camel in A Tale in the Desert starved, and you got evicted from your shop in Puzzle Pirates. In SWG, if you don't check your harvesters regularly, they will stop working, because they are either full of resources, empty of energy or maintenance money, or the resources under them moved. All of this makes you think: "I need to log on, otherwise something bad will happen to my virtual property", while at the same time resenting to be forced to play, instead of playing voluntarily. And of course, once you log on, you don't do what you want to do, you do what it takes to keep your virtual house standing, or your virtual sheep fed, or your virtual harvesters running.

A related big problem for the casual gamer is lack of control over the length of his play session. When real life intrudes, like lunch being ready, games often do not make it easy for you to log off. Again there is some social pressure. It took an hour to set up this group, so leaving after 15 minutes is frowned upon. But again real friends will be understanding of the importance of real life. And it is the game play consequences that you are starting do dread.

In many games most of the area isn't safe. If you log out in the middle of nowhere, you might well log back in directly in front of a monster that is stronger than you are, and start your gaming session by dieing. In other games, logging of prematurely means that you don't reach the goal you were currently pursueing, and wasted the time you already spent. For example if you camp a monster for some special loot in Everquest, if you log off, somebody else will take your place, and all the waiting was for nothing. In Puzzle Pirates, if you log of in the middle of an extended pirating tour, all the money you plundered gets buried on the next lonely island, and you will need to do the same tour again to just get the money back. And in all the group oriented games , logging off means you are out of the group, and will spend considerable time finding a new group when you log back in.

All of this means that classical MMORPG require a certain dedication from their players, both in how often they log on, and in how long they stay once they logged on. But the holy grail of game marketing is not just to attract the few hardcore gamer, but to attract the far bigger number of casual gamers. And we can see the consequences in some of the new games.

Prime example being City of Heroes. If you don't log into CoH, nothing bad happens. Your friends might gain levels on you, but who cares? It doesn't prevent you from playing with them, they can always sidekick you. Setting up a group in CoH is fast, as no special character classes are absolutely required. Playing missions divides your game session in reasonably sized chunks of between 15 and 75 minutes, so there is ample opportunity to get out of the game again. And if real life forces you out of the game, you haven't lost all that much time. And if you know your play session will be short, you can always solo, nobody is forcing you to group.

And from all what I read, World of Warcraft will be similar in game flow, having lots of missions dividing your play time into chapters, thus offering natural exit points. And again making a game soloable makes it attractive to casual gamers.

Nevertheless I hope that not all games will be going down that route of having the content easily available for solo players, and sized in small chunks. Because having a game which requires people to band together in groups, and stay together for some larger amount of time, also has its advantages. You can achieve larger goals, which feel a lot more epic. Raids with 50 and more players are immensely popular in EQ. The game forcing you into groups and guilds is both negative and positive: You lose personal freedom, but you gain a much closer bonded community.

The MMORPG market becoming bigger, there is room for both, hardcore and casual games. But even if you prefer the hardcore end, do yourself a favor and don't neglect real life too much. No game is worth losing your job or wife for, caused by your neglect. And change that cat litter box sometimes.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:05 AM Permanent Link