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Editorial BioWare want to connect with you emotionally

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,357
Tags: BioWare; Mass Effect

Jos Hendriks of BioWare is the <a href="http://blog.bioware.com/2009/01/21/making-an-emotional-investment/">latest to be given the keys to the company blog</a>. Here's what he said:
<br>
<blockquote>Perhaps this only grew on me recently, or perhaps it has been present ever since I started playing videogames. Quite possibly this is different for each and every person out there who enjoys to pick up the occasional game, but I recently became consciously aware that games have slowly become harder for me to enjoy.
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[...]
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The main reason I play games these days is to establish some sort of emotional connection with them. Games have evolved a lot over the years and simply sitting down with an arcade shooter is something that I did a lot about 10 years ago, but is gradually fading from my gaming pattern. I have asked myself why this is, and time and time again I refer to the games that I do very much enjoy these days and compare them to the games that I should be liking, but somehow cannot find a connection with. What I discovered from these comparisons is that my personal taste for games is shifting. This is true for any gamer if they play games long enough, but I found the most singular and powerful reason for this shift to be that I want to be part of the games I played and I want to be able to care about what happens in the game.
<br>
[...]
<br>
For instance, this last weekend I finally wrapped up playing through Fable 2, a game that kept me hooked for the last few weeks. I found it amazing how I found myself caring when my lovable little dog (Brutus) got himself hurt in combat and I had to heal him. [...] For that same reason I picked up Mass Effect again over the holidays. I really wanted to see the renegade part of the game [...]</blockquote>
<br>
Et tu Brutus. I guess that means more lovable dogs are on their way.
<br>
<br>
Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPGWatch</a>
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
You tell good stories and make good characters, and the empathy comes naturally.

If you try too hard to construct situations that MAKE people care, that's only going to work with a particular type of audience...

Like the ones who liked Gaider's carth fanfic.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"You tell good stories and make good characters, and the empathy comes naturally.

If you try too hard to construct situations that MAKE people care, that's only going to work with a particular type of audience...

Like the ones who liked Gaider's carth fanfic."

Tool.
 

Rhalle

Magister
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
2,192
The thing about Bioware games is that they already don't give you enough space; there are constant designs on the player: Bioware is relentless in manipulating player emotion.

If they want connection proper, they need to create characters interesting in themselves and then back off. A literary type might call such a thing the pathos of distance.

DarkUnderlord said:
I guess that means more lovable dogs are on their way.

It's called a Mabari Warhound, and it's coming to your PC March 23rd.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Rhalle said:
The thing about Bioware games is that they already don't give you enough space; there are constant designs on the player: Bioware is relentless in manipulating player emotion.

If they want connection proper, they need to create characters interesting in themselves and then back off. A literary type might call such a thing the pathos of distance.

That's true for a lot of devs of late actually. They push so hard to create "emotional bonding" with the player that it becomes simply irritating. I wouldn't blame BioWare on this one though, it seems to be a general industry trend at the moment.

Of course, the whole "We will evoke emotions!" babblespeak is rather silly. Games did that before as well, and there'd never been a need to stress it out. Is this done in order to spread out to the new market segments? To justify gaming as a mature medium that's not merely entertainment for fun? I'm not quite sure; however, the "emotion emotion experience experience" nonsense the hype machine spews for any game these days is damn irritating.
 

Rhalle

Magister
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
2,192
Angthoron said:
Games did that before as well, and there'd never been a need to stress it out. Is this done in order to spread out to the new market segments? To justify gaming as a mature medium that's not merely entertainment for fun?

It sounds to me like it's marketing talking to themselves.

It's the echo chamber of the suits and moneyholders who study a product they don't really understand; who commodify it into bite-sized ideas and phrases; who retroactively pretend they initiated the stuff they've buzzworded to their satisfaction; and who then spit it back out.

And the devs (who know who signs the checks) regurgitate this regurgitation-- and use this superfluous feedback loop as a heuristic for promotion and design.
 

Lurkar

Scholar
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
791
I get more of an emotional connection from Japanese porn games. No, really, some of those Japanese porn games have fucking mastered making horribly depressing stories that make you start to connect to characters, only to mock you as they all die due to your ineptness.
 

Lurkar

Scholar
Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
791
kingcomrade said:
Die? What kind of porn are you in to?

There's a whole seperate type of those visual novel games dedicated to 1) giving you tits, and then 2) making everyone in the game die, then detailing to you how your screw ups made them all die, or how inevitable their slow and painful deaths were that you could've prevented, but didn't.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,409
Location
Flowery Land
Then quit with

1.the get up after battle shit.
2.bland personalitys

A memorable personality and the player having a role in the death (as opposed to the death being solely the fault of the developer).
It works in Fire Emblem and Jagged Alliance, (the only 2 series I acctualy care about the characters of).
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"If they want connection proper"

The problem with your assessment is that BIo's mehtod has obviously worked considering the popualrity of their characters. But, yeah, I know, those people are dumb. L0L
 

winterraptor

Cipher
Joined
Dec 13, 2008
Messages
408
Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera
Bioware just doesn't understand me or my needs. I mean, it won't help me around the house AT ALL, not even to take the three day old stinking garbage out...it just shows me how little it cares about me...like, the other day I was trying to talk to it and it just sat there like a log(o) like it didn't even hear me...I can't take it anymore, it just won't get off its lazy ass for ANYTHING! How am I supposed to connect to it?! It doesn't even KNOW me! Or want to...

I mean, where are the choices and consequences? GAWD!
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Rhalle said:
It sounds to me like it's marketing talking to themselves.

It's the echo chamber of the suits and moneyholders who study a product they don't really understand; who commodify it into bite-sized ideas and phrases; who retroactively pretend they initiated the stuff they've buzzworded to their satisfaction; and who then spit it back out.

And the devs (who know who signs the checks) regurgitate this regurgitation-- and use this superfluous feedback loop as a heuristic for promotion and design.

Unfortunately that's exactly how it seems to be. A pity corporations have given such power to the marketing departments - though it's amusing how they're being force-fed nonsense through their nose by the very things they've nurtured.

winterraptor said:
Bioware just doesn't understand me or my needs. I mean, it won't help me around the house AT ALL, not even to take the three day old stinking garbage out...it just shows me how little it cares about me...like, the other day I was trying to talk to it and it just sat there like a log(o) like it didn't even hear me...I can't take it anymore, it just won't get off its lazy ass for ANYTHING! How am I supposed to connect to it?! It doesn't even KNOW me! Or want to...

I mean, where are the choices and consequences? GAWD!

Take it to the marriage counsellor, there's your choices, the consequence of that will be you and Bioware having a pillow fight in front of a quack.
 

Hümmelgümpf

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 17, 2007
Messages
2,949
Location
St. Petersburg, Russia
Lurkar said:
kingcomrade said:
Die? What kind of porn are you in to?

There's a whole seperate type of those visual novel games dedicated to 1) giving you tits, and then 2) making everyone in the game die, then detailing to you how your screw ups made them all die, or how inevitable their slow and painful deaths were that you could've prevented, but didn't.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Utsuge
Looks like a C&C galore. Quickly, somebody make an LP!
 

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