Balance and Meritocracies - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 147

Balance drives design decisions in video games, as developers seek a
proper balance for the game and players seek to gain any marginal advan-
tage they can fi nd. Balance is an organizing principle of video games that
can be dated back to Trubshaw and Bartle's attempts to develop a meritoc-
racy. Although balance may feel like an intrinsic part of video games, some-
thing that is just part of a good game, the emphasis on balance is particular
to video games, as many other games are structured by other ideographs
and approaches. Recognizing just how important balance is to video games
requires a deeper look at situations where games fell out of balance and the
consequences of the resultant imbalances.
WHEN BALANCE GOES BAD: BREAKING GAMES
Identifying that balance is an ideograph and tracing the conditions sur-
rounding its use and introduction to video games demonstrates that the
term is important and notable, but does not illustrate the stakes of careful
thinking about the importance of balance and why it matters. The political
and social implication of balance can best be seen by applying wordplay
to look across a variety of dif erent games, with a particular focus on how
debates about balance structure elements of the discourse of video games.
Debates about balance can be seen in games ranging from Team Fortress 2
to Forza Motorsport , with the MMOGs that are more directly descended
from MUD providing a recurrent source for examples of how balance is a
key part of the words about the design and play of video games.
In many ways Team Fortress 2 ( TF2 ) is a remarkable game. A shooter
that was originally released as part of a package called The Orange Box by
Valve Software, the game has had a long life smattered with a number of
free patches and free promotional weekends of play to draw in new players.
The game features a variety of player classes within a shooter, so properly
balancing player abilities is a key part of the game's design and execu-
tion. 18 However, in the fourth quarter of 2010, Team Fortress 2 shifted its
business model, integrating virtual item sales into the game. Realizing that
this was a substantial change to the game, the announcement was made in
a contrasting style to much of the developer communication about TF2 .
Instead of the typical style of “being as vague as possible,” the addition of
item sales was announced in a FAQ format that sought to “lay out precisely
what we're doing and what this update is about.” 19 Promising that the addi-
tion of a virtual item store was “simply an alternative way of obtaining
items that other players can earn during gameplay,” players were informed
that they would not need to spend money to “remain competitive” and that
their existing hard won items were “even rarer, because they're limited edi-
tions now.” 20
Shortly after the announcement, the game's forums “predictably lit up
with debate and continue to smolder. Some argued that items like these