Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
you need balance is that every player will act in self-interest, seeking the
path of least resistance or greatest maximization. This is the apologia for
balance, that it is needed because every player is intensely self-interested.
More aggressive responses also followed, including,
This is a horrible, horrible article. In any PvP game you need to make
sure each class at least has a chance of killing any of the others. PvP
should be decided by skill, not by whoever has the most unbalanced
class. Everyone has their own style, it's wrong to make them feel bad
about the one they identify with. These are video games meant for
entertainment, not the real world which is so used to crushing dreams
and breaking hearts. No victory should be granted, each should be sav-
agely earned in a fair but intense contest. The smallest delay or misstep
should be the determining factor.
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Contending that there should be both freedom of choice and equality of
opportunity, this response exhibits a dif erent aspect of the Bartle quota-
tion. Video games are portrayed as an escape from a world that is not
fair, so why would one construct something that is just as harsh? Players
should be able to retain their own approach to the game, while trusting the
development team to ensure that each approach is equally valid. Combat
should be fi erce and fair, not chaotic and based on a granted entitlement
from choosing a more powerful class. The original post and commentary in
response to it go a long way in illustrating the ideological stakes of the pres-
ence of balance as an ideograph. Claiming salad, chaos, and womanhood,
on one side, the original poster questioned the practical and theoretical
obsession with balance. Commentators responded by stressing the self-
interest of players and the desire for an escape from the cold, cruel world.
This backdrop of ers an opportunity to look more deeply at why the stakes
matter and how discourse could be reconstructed by looking at dif erent
ways of conceptualizing how balance can work in video games.
A starting point for understanding the ideological implications of bal-
ance is to look at the larger forces within the games industry, most notably
the structural changes that alter the ways in which games are designed. The
growth of the market in selling virtual goods within games for 'real' money
shakes the foundations of typical game design, as players with ol ine wealth
can become more powerful online. Although real-world trade in online
items has existed for years, the legitimacy gained by item sales that are now
integrated into games has led to the growth of a multi-billion dollar world-
design. Zynga-style games, like
Farmville
and
Frontierville
, are normalizing
game worlds with two currency structures, where one is earned within the
game and the other, generally more powerful currency can be gained much
constitutes balance, as players can buy their way to a more sophisticated,
