All is Fair in Love and War… And Video Games

Video games can be tough. Video games can make you so frustrated that you may have found yourself punching a wall, or breaking a controller at one time or another. But still, the challenge is precisely why we keep coming back to it. That is the fun. And yet, there are people out there who decry fundamental and essential gameplay at the slightest difficulty or inconvenience they may pose. Particularly in multilayer games, difference in notion of what is fair can quickly turn a joyous activity amongst friends into bitter warfare.

Item Grinding Died With Diablo II

Why would I want to level my character 100 more levels!?!

A week ago, Blizzard released patch 1.04 for Diablo III in an attempt to revive their newest game which was hugely successful during launch but bled huge numbers of players only a few weeks after. This may sound normal for many games where players quite after finishing the story, but Diablo III comes from a prestigious linage of games (and developer) where its predecessor, Diablo II, is still being play today despite being released 12 years ago. After building all five available classes to their max levels with good gear, I too felt no incentive to continue playing. Though I definitely got my money’s worth, Diablo III left me disappointed as the sequel to a game that I spent years and many more hours playing. Then it dawned on me. The game genre of item grinding is dead.

Item grinding as its best

When Diablo II was released in 2000, it was unlike anything else on the PC or home console with an addictive click-based gameplay revolved around upgrading your character’s gear through killing the same things over and over again in hopes of a better item dropping (i.e. item grinding). The lore, the characters, the items, everything about the game was innovative during a time when video game releases, particularly RPGs, were less frequent than they are today. For gamers, it was one of greats that you chose and stuck with for it required a large investment of time, but rewarded you with great challenging gameplay and no comparable games were coming out soon.

Flash forward to 2012, Diablo III is released in a completely different gaming environment with MMOs, free-to-play, and mobile game released on a weekly basis (not to mention TV shows, movies, online videos, etc.) You beat a game? Great, 20 others have just been released for you to try out. Even the most hardcore gamers today would find difficulty in playing all the great games that are released. So despite Diablo III coming out with the same magical recipe that made Diablo II a success and then some, the item grind reward system cannot compete with the short attention span a typical gamer will devote to any single title. Do I want to spend another 100+ hours to max my ‘Paragon’ levels on a single character killing the same monsters with the same skills I’ve been using for the last 30+ hours or try a new game that many are raving about (like Guild Wars 2 that just came out)? It’s clear most have chosen the latter.

This is the reality that all game developers, not just Blizzard, face today for basic gameplay systems like item grinding is no longer sustainable. Blizzard, call me when you release the D3 expansion. 😀

The Grapevine: Virtual Reality?

We have all seen the idea of virtual reality being implemented in movies and TV shows, but will we ever see it in the real world?  Imagine it, a world like Tron, where you could interact with a digital world like you would with the real world, but only with your mind.  However recently virtual reality technology seems to be coming back to video games and they are very reminiscence of the not-so-successful Virtual Boy in 1995.

Oculus Rift VR Headset

The Oculus Rift VR Headset was demoed recently at Gamescom with Doom 3.  Tilting your head left or right with the headset will allow you to see in that direction within the game.  However, it is limited, when you reach the limit of your head-turn you will need to use the controller to see the directions beyond that.

Now, some students at the Imperial College of London have created a controller that lets player play games with just their eyes.  They demoed their prototype with a game of Pong.  What’s even more impressive is that the cost of the prototype is just under $40.

While I understand that we are far from the virtual reality that we see in movies I can’t see this as any big steps towards virtual reality in gaming.  The Oculus Rift VR Headset just seems like a more modern Virtual Boy and the eyeball controller seems like a device more suitable for other more important issues.  For example, a paralyze person can use the device to operate electronic equipment.  I guess it’s good that people are paying attention to virtual reality technology again, but I don’t think we will see ourselves controlling our digital avatars with our minds anytime soon.