E3 2014

Last week, I visited the famous Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. The fair is well known as one of the biggest videogame events in the world, and every year the trends and launchings of such market are presented in this mega fair.



The experience of two days fully immersed in new games, videogames, game accessories, gaming conferences, and gamers was too complex to synthetize in a small post, so I decided to create a list of highlights of the fair, divided by subject:

1) Games, games and more games: this year great games were announced in the event, like Little Big Planet 3, The Order 1886, Alien: isolation, Evolve, Super Smash Bros WiiU, the new Halo and Batman: Arkham Knight, only to name a few blockbusters. The experimental games also gained terrain and titles like Entwined, Abzû (I felt mesmerized by this one, check the trailer below) and No Man’s Sky had good space at E3.



2) Sony’s press conference: I watched the exclusive presentation about the future of the PlayStation platform. The company said that, for 2014/2015, the focus would be on more free content and in exploring the videogame as an entertainment central. Sony intends to launch each TV of the brand with PlayStation Network embedded in its interface, so it will be possible to play some of the games without a PS console. Another great revelation from Sony is the PlayStation TV, a U$ 99,00 device with access to exclusive content (animations, movies, documentaries etc.) created exclusively for PS network, the first production will be an animation of the comic book POWERS (created by Brain Bendis). You can watch the full conference in the video below:


3) Nintendo: the brand bets on classic characters but showed nothing relevant to the public.

4) Microsoft: the Halo franchising was the great highlight of Microsoft’s stand. The Xbox One with new Kinect interactions generated good experiences for the public. Microsoft bets on a perfect balance between the casual and the hardcore player.

5) Accessories: loads of equipment were displayed at the fair, like joysticks, screens and special chairs, but the true highlight was the VR devices like Oculus and the Virtuix Omni (check the video).



6) Final thoughts and some pics: staying in touch with the experience of E3 is something unique. The fair is a place to see how the next year will be in the gaming market, to anticipate the future and make good networking. I came back to Brazil full of ideas (and souvenirs from the stands) and I want to work hard to put some projects in practice as soon as possible (a new book among them). And check some images from this great event.



Go gamers!

The delicate balance between challenges, narrative and rules

At this moment I’m playing again ALAN WAKE (Xbox 360, Remedy Entertainment /Microsoft Game Studios, 2010). The game is a third person psychological horror thriller about novelist Alan Wake, as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his wife's disappearance, during a vacation in the small fictional town of Bright Falls. During the game, Alan is transported to a kind of dark dimension where stories from his horror books become real.

The game is one of my favourites and it offers an awesome experience to the player with a perfect blend between the puzzles/challenges/enemies, the narrative and the rules/mechanics.



In ALAN WAKE the ammo is limited, the creatures are in great number and, frequently, you need to run instead of fight. The game dynamics creates an atmosphere of tension all the time and in the end of each chapter you can relax a little bit enjoying the game's good soundtrack (‘Up Jumped the Devil’ by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is included). The transition between the chapters is very creative and uses a language of TV show to create immersion for the player.

ALAN WAKE’s experience offers to the players a very special way to enjoy a good narrative inside a game. But it is important to remember that this experience is commanded by rules that create bounds in the game’s universe.



Jesper Jull (2005, p.5), in his book ‘Half-Real’, says, “the rules of a game provide the player with challenges that the player cannot trivially overcome. It is basic paradox of games that while the rules themselves are generally definite, unambiguous, and easy to use, the enjoyment of a game depends on these easy-to-use rules presenting challenges that cannot be easily overcome. Playing a game is an activity of improving skills in order to overcome these challenges, and playing a game is therefore fundamentally a learning experience.”

And this ‘learning experience’ is fundamental in games like ALAN WAKE because it generates the process of immersion required in good horror stories like this one.

On the other hand, Linda Hughes (1999, p.94) says that “Game rules can be interpreted and reinterpreted toward preferred meanings and purposes, selectively invoked or ignored, challenged or defended, changed or enforced to suit the collective goals or different groups of players. In short, players can take the same game and collectively make of it strikingly different experiences”

One thing is certain: to create balance between challenges, narrative and rules, a lot of time* is necessary for beta testing sessions. Patience and deep research are the pillars for good game design.

Check the game trailer below:


*ALAN WAKE took five years to be produced.

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References:

HUGHES, Linda A. Children’s games and gaming. IN: SUTTON-SMITH, Brian; MECHLING Jay; JOHNSON, Thomas; MCMAHON, Felicia. Children’s Folklore. Utah: Utah University Press, 1999. (93-119)

JUUL, Jesper. Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. USA: MIT Press, 2005.

Advergaming with Doritos

Doritos launched a few years ago one fictitious Hollywood studio named Snack Strong Productions. The main idea of the studio is to promote the brand with some ludic interfaces like Internet games, interactive stories on YouTube, video games and viral campaigns.

A successful case of the fictitious studio is the game named Doritos Crash Course (Wanako Games, 2010). The game is a 2.5D side scrolling plat-forming advergame developed for the Xbox 360's Live Arcade service. It is free for download and has an awesome and intuitive interface.

Crash Course has two good features to highlight: first of all, the game is an experience sponsored by Doritos and the brand appears in the beginning of each stage. The second important feature is the in-game advertising possibility inside some floating outdoors in the game interface. As you can see in the image below, the outdoor is displaying an ad for Crash Course 2 (the second game of the franchise) and it supports many kinds of advertising.



The social strategy is very important here and players with an Xbox Live membership may compare records with friends or play head-to-head against online opponents.

Doritos is investing heavily in business strategies with entertainment. Definitely, the brand seems to have understood how to adapt itself to the ludic context that permeates our contemporary world.