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My designs on games
Posted by Mike Sugarbaker at 2:28 pm on 10/13/2005
If all goes well, I will be giving a short talk on game design at the monthly regional Mensa gathering in November. I’m thinking the other speakers will talk about the nuts-and-bolts process of tabletop game design, as well as the opportunity for small video games in a field dominated by big ones. That leaves me with a lot of possible subjects, but I’m leaning towards the changes now happening in the unplugged-gaming industry that are making it more diverse, free, and interesting – and which may soon make it no longer an industry.
My friend who got me this speaking gig sent out an announcement email which bills me as a “game designer.” My first reaction to that was I should send him a correction, because I’m not, really. I’m a fake journalist and definite enthusiast, but I can’t lay claim to “game designer” as a professional descriptor. Then I thought, well, is that all the term “game designer” is – a professional descriptor? Do I have some right to the term even if my engagement in the activity is occasional and not very deep? Are you still a painter if you only paint once a week for your own pleasure?
I think you are. Still, I have to admit that for almost as long as I’ve been thinking about game design, I’ve been thinking about (eventually, possibly, someday) doing a product for real. Back when they were first achieving success with Magic: the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast’s then-CEO Peter Adkison made a big point of saying he wanted to make games as big as the movies. That inspired me. Of course, video games are as big as the movies, by some metrics. But games that engage brains a bit, that offer variety in gameplay and subject matter, those aren’t so big yet. The part of me that wants to make a living in games doesn’t just want to chunk out products for cash. I want everyone to be playing good games, games that bring us closer to one another and happier as individuals. If you want everybody to be playing good games, you can either address the problem of how few people are playing good ones, or try and address how bad the popular ones are.
A lot of people make tabletop games because they’re easier than electronic games to build up to the point where you can play them. But they are actually harder, and more expensive, to get out into the world than PC games are. I know people who’d laugh at that latter statement; those people haven’t read this, this, or this. (Summary: putting boxes on shelves at EB Games is a mug’s game, and there is plenty of money – likely more – in doing small, innovative games and distributing them online.) It’s also very, very difficult to purposefully make a tabletop game that will get in front of anyone who doesn’t play them already. Making them free online might do it, slowly, and making a quality tabletop experience that way is more possible than it’s ever been, which is fantastic. But, well, my crack above about a part of the industry going away? Yeah. The RPG publishing business is gradually dying even as the RPG art form is thriving. What that all means for the RPG hobby remains to be seen.
As you all know, when it comes to my making-things life, I am obsessed with power – where power is defined as the balance between my abilities, desires, diligence, and the environmental factors for success, all cut (in a positive way!) with my fundamental laziness. Power is the ability to do something meaningful easily enough. Going back to the everyone-playing-good-games problem, I used to think the best deal for me, in terms of power, was to make tabletop games more popular… somehow. It is starting to look like a better deal to make the popular games – electronic games – better. Keep an eye out for an announcement from me.