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PROFESSOR: All right, so this weekend's reading
was met because be giving a YouTube presentation.
Actually it was a Google presentation
that was recorded onto YouTube.
And he's the designer of Pandemic,
he also made the game Forbidden Island,
and I think he also did--
Desert.
I'm assuming that he did Forbidden Desert.
That's my guess because they're not that different of games.
I mean, these are cooperative games, for the most part.
How many of you have played one of these games?
Forbidden Island, Pandemic--
Pandemic the board game, specifically.
Yeah, OK.
Pandemic the computer game is a completely different game.
Huh?
AUDIENCE: Pandemic Two, the online game?
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
The one where you shut off Madagascar.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PROFESSOR: OK, that one is a different game.
It's same title, same concept, right.
I mean, it sort of made sense that they would have
[INAUDIBLE].
I mean, there's probably more of a similarity
of civilization of board game than civilization
of computer games.
Although the civilization that you play as a board game
nowadays was not the same civilization
the board game that existed when the computer game [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: The computer game aside, you can play the--
how many of you basically played a game
where it just turned into one person
telling you to do everything?
That's my [INAUDIBLE].
How many of you had the same thing
happen with either Forbidden Island or Forbidden Desert?
It happened with you two?
Or were you the one telling people [INAUDIBLE]?
[LAUGHER]
PROFESSOR: So it seems--
actually, how many people play Forbidden Island or Desert?
OK, only one.
OK.
AUDIENCE: So 100%.
PROFESSOR: So maybe it happens a lot more often.
I don't know.
If find it happens a little bit less often with Island,
but it happens to me every time I play Pandemic.
On one hand I'm usually the one receiving orders,
and I don't mind because I'm not that invested in it.
But on the other hand, I'm not that invested in it.
It kind of like takes me out.
When someone starts telling me, this is what you should do,
clearly this is the optimal move.
This is the thing that you should do.
It's like, that's fine.
I'll do it.
I don't care about this game anymore because I
don't have any [INAUDIBLE].
But I don't know.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: So in my experience it's always
been each of the players is doing that.
PROFESSOR: Everybody else is telling you to do something?
AUDIENCE: Every single person is telling
every single other person exactly what to do,
and every person ends up making a decision for themselves.
Just at the end being like, OK guys, here's
what I'm actually doing because I think that [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: That sounds reasonably interactive
and you still have a decision to make anyway.
AUDIENCE: It's fun because you actually get to like--
people actually listen--
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: --on one hand because when you bring up a good point
they'll be like, oh yeah, that's a good point.
But on the other hand, no one-- it's
not one person playing the game.
PROFESSOR: It's like a board of directors giving you advice,
and then you've got to figure out
what's the right thing to do.
AUDIENCE: Except as you're done you start giving advice.
PROFESSOR: And everyone switches roles.
AUDIENCE: I don't know if you're saying
it's a negative, necessarily.
PROFESSOR: I'm not necessarily saying that.
AUDIENCE: But I feel like that might have very well been
what he was going for.
Like in the video he was all talking about his wife,
and like, he wanted to be able to play with his wife, right?
So this is kind of a serious gamer
can play it with someone that's not as invested
is kind of what you're saying a little bit.
PROFESSOR: Yeah, I mean, as a result
I've played many games of Pandemic,
which is a good thing.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Sometimes I think, like, [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Right.
Like deliberately sabotaging.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Also, there's a game that [INAUDIBLE] being play
tested basically.
Called [INAUDIBLE], it's like, really pretty tactical.
There's like a [INAUDIBLE] strategic components and you
have teams of players [INAUDIBLE], but there's huge--
there are large player [INAUDIBLE],
but at the same time it's really hard for one player
to go help someone else on their team
and do everything else components
of two minutes for your turn.
And so it happens [INAUDIBLE] someone is, where like,
someone steps in and tries to help someone else,
and they end up screwing it up even worse
because they didn't realize that they [INAUDIBLE] everything
that was going on and didn't have the time
to analyze it properly.
PROFESSOR: I think that's like an example of what
you're describing as well as like here.
In the realm of [INAUDIBLE] co-op games or games with
a very strong [INAUDIBLE] component, you got--
there is an assumption, at least in games like Pandemic,
that it's not so much that something
is out there strategizing to beat you
and you're trying to over come it-- like a different player,
for instance, who is trying to achieve victory at your cost.
It's more about, can you get your affairs
and your communication and your decision making lined up
[INAUDIBLE] so that you can actually
overcome the odds that the designer has set up for you?
So I think in the case of the [INAUDIBLE] games, there's
actually somebody out there who's actively
playing the game who's actively trying to win
at the expense of your victory.
So one way that I certainly see is the [? timing, ?] right
is it's OK to cooperate as much as you want in a minute.
And that just leads to, like, confusion and bad judgment
calls and sometimes hilarity and [INAUDIBLE] Space Alert,
which is maybe a game which you should [INAUDIBLE]
because it's--
for those people who don't remember me describing it
in previous classes, you're all members of a starship.
You all pretty much aren't sure what
you're supposed to be doing.
You're playing the game in real time
because events happen as you play an audio track that
just runs nonstop.
It never pauses until the game is over.
And you all have to be very, very coordinated
to get anything done.
Just like firing a single gun requires you to charge up
that gun, turning on a shield so that you can block enemy fire
needs to be on at the moment the enemy fire is about to hit you,
I think-- as I recall [INAUDIBLE].
But [INAUDIBLE] it just [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] and also because there's so
many threats [INAUDIBLE] it's very easy to,
like, accidentally run out of energy or to do things
where they [INAUDIBLE] or miss if you don't [INAUDIBLE] one
of the [INAUDIBLE] things is obviously,
like, [INAUDIBLE] fires their gun at like some threat,
but they fired it a turn before it appears [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Which is like [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah, because [INAUDIBLE] has a range,
if I recall, right?
An effective range.
So, you're all trying to achieve simultaneous victory.
You're all trying to not die in that game.
But because you have so little time
to be able to figure out what the right thing is
to do, you just [INAUDIBLE].
That's not the case, I believe, in Desert Island and Pandemic.
You have about as much time as you
like to make a group decision.
But it's fairly [INAUDIBLE] these sort
of competing cooperative games, where your only opponent
is the game system the designers really created for you.
You can of course set difficulty levels in a lot of these games.
If you're learning it for the first time,
you play it on kind of the easy set up.
And if you're [INAUDIBLE] with all the mechanics of the game,
you can sort of crank up the difficulty
by starting the game at a point of [INAUDIBLE].
But I think-- anything else that anyone
noticed from his thoughts about the design
of cooperative games?
AUDIENCE: You mentioned--
I think it might have been in the video or something else
[INAUDIBLE] the rule that said that you couldn't show anybody
else--
PROFESSOR: Your hand?
AUDIENCE: Your hand.
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Because that was a very important component of
[INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah, yeah.
AUDIENCE: I didn't understand the [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: It's kind of giving you still something to do.
Because you have information that no one else has until you
share it, there's still the thing
that you can do, which is share the information that you got,
even though it's not necessarily information that you probably--
in a game like "Pandemic," it's not
information you want to hide.
You want everyone else to know this information
So there's still a decision to be made even though there's
activity to be done.
But in a game where time is limited,
then yes, there becomes a decision of,
do I want to share this piece of information?
Because it's taking away time from doing something else.
I worked on a game with the Education Arcade,
which is a research group here based in [INAUDIBLE].
And a long time ago, we made a game
where it was a location based game.
So everyone's walking around with GPS
[INAUDIBLE] smart devices.
And everyone is trying to investigate the ground water
contamination, basically, but everyone also
was one of three different classes
and they would get different information
based on which class they were.
Some of them were, like, [INAUDIBLE] some of them were
more--
I'm trying to remember what-- some of them were biologists.
Some of them were geologists.
I think one of one was, like, construction engineer
or something like that.
So you knew things about how things
were built but you didn't necessarily
know much about what type of animals
will be affected by [INAUDIBLE]
And so in the game, information that you got were private,
but it was the kind of thing that you want to share.
Now, in a location based game, sharing information
becomes tough because everyone is physically
spread out over an area.
This was a game that was played over the entire MIT campus.
Everyone had walkie talkies.
But the nice thing about walkie talkies
is that only one person can talk at a time.
Otherwise, no one really can make sense of everything.
And it's still kind of the case as you
try to play the game with cell phones
because you can only talk to one person at a time
unless you, like, set up some crazy network.
Even if you try to do text messaging, that's [INAUDIBLE],
right?
So that's one way that you can get people involved
and feel like they're contributing, which is just,
give everybody little fragments of information that they need
and then get them to--
and then the game becomes more about how do you
go about sharing this information rather than what
decision you make with the information.
[INAUDIBLE] once you got all the information,
there is a decision to be made.
And in some cases, it feels like a board room
where everyone's got different ideas
and trying to encourage you to do it in certain ways.
And that's great, because [INAUDIBLE]
is weighing the pros and cons of every possible option.
But in some cases, it's just, like, one person just
decides to be the decider and is going
to tell everybody else the decisions and then everyone
else [INAUDIBLE].
Has anyone played, like, sort of cooperative live action-type
games?
[INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: Oh, cooperative live action type games.
I played [INAUDIBLE] where there was, like--
I mean, a lot of [INAUDIBLE] to do when you're [INAUDIBLE] make
sure that--
you need to get everyone's [INAUDIBLE]
because that will make people communicate and work
[INAUDIBLE].
And oftentimes-- so, for [INAUDIBLE] like,
I remember [INAUDIBLE] in particular,
there was [INAUDIBLE]
You would need, like, [INAUDIBLE] components, which
you can [INAUDIBLE] on your own.
You can gather the resources and stuff.
And then you needed to successfully [INAUDIBLE]
in the blank, Hangman or Pictionary or something
that's describing [INAUDIBLE]
And it was nice to have this cooperation [INAUDIBLE]
cooperation is like, did someone want
to, like, [INAUDIBLE] trying to describe [INAUDIBLE]
face to someone.
And it was also [INAUDIBLE] like,
share a little bit about them.
It also was interesting is that oftentimes, someone
says, does anyone want to, like, when
you're doing Pictionary, trying to describe the word
destruction.
It's like [INAUDIBLE] people talk about your research
after that.
PROFESSOR: Right, right.
Of course, yeah.
Yeah.
So I think what you're describing
is, like, the live action role playing [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah, live action [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
But a lot of live action role playing games,
even though you may be cooperative on that one
activity, you don't know what the motive
of every single person in that room is.
Whereas in non-LARP type games but that are played out in live
action--
say, training simulations, for instance--
often, everyone's actually on the same team.
Everyone is very, very clear [INAUDIBLE]
working toward a common goal, just given different roles.
So, [INAUDIBLE] I trained a couple of years in the Army
and we had a lot of live action training simulations
where, yeah, everyone's on the same team
and there are instructors out there
trying to make your life difficult, sure.
But everybody that you're actually working with
is communicating and trying to do the best job that they
can towards the common goal.
Has anyone gone through anything like a sort
of simulated exercise or anything--
either an evaluation or-- you know, like an emergency
evacuation?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE] fire drills.
PROFESSOR: We have fire drills.
All right, that's a great insight.
Everybody wants to get out of the building
alive without falling all over, sure.
And that's a great example, yes.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] in a lot of the, like, scenarios
that [INAUDIBLE] you and your team [INAUDIBLE] even a company
trying to design this product and you
had all these challenges.
And it was primarily intended to be cooperative [INAUDIBLE]
an element of, like, [INAUDIBLE] other team [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Do you-- so you compete with the other teams
for the--
do you feel like you're in competition
with the other teams while you are basing your decisions?
Or is it really just like right at the end
when you present everything?
AUDIENCE: Mostly right at the end,
but there were certaion ones where, you know,
you had like a shop and there were
pieces you could get while you were waiting in line to get
different pieces.
Like, you were kind of looking at what
all the other groups are doing.
PROFESSOR: OK
AUDIENCE: And part of it was because it was the same groups
all semester.
Even if there wasn't any [INAUDIBLE] competition
between groups at first, but because
over the entire semester, you were
working with the same team.
You kind of develop a [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Yes, yes, I've been in similar exercises,
mostly in school as well.
AUDIENCE: Could this go as simple as just playing
Lava when you're, like, three years old
and you can't thouch the ground, and you
get from one end of the room to the other
without ever touching the ground, jump
pillar to pillar or something?
PROFESSOR: Well, let me see.
I guess [INAUDIBLE] cooperative, I guess.
There's player versus gravity, pretty much.
And yeah, I mean, it depends on whether your goal
is to be the last person standing, in which it
does become a competitive game.
AUDIENCE: Sure, but it was one where you're just
trying to get from one side of the room
to the other, something like that.
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: And you're working together.
PROFESSOR: Yeah, if you're all working together,
I would say that is a fairly cooperative game
and the rules are fairly simple.
Just don't fall off pillows which are unstable.
And that's very different from having different roles.
Everybody has the same role.
Everybody is just put in a situation where
they can't accomplish much on their own
but you can do quite a lot if they pull--
AUDIENCE: I always played with my sister,
and we kind of had different roles, because I
was three years older than her.
When we were five years old, I could jump [INAUDIBLE]
further than her, right?
PROFESSOR: OK.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] put up different roles
there a little bit.
PROFESSOR: I mean, she also has a lower center of gravity,
I'm suggesting then?
AUDIENCE: Sure, she could also barely walk.
PROFESSOR: So you're playing with your sister.
So, it's kind of interesting.
I don't actually like a lot of creativity competitions
where they put teams against each other.
I understand that it does get people enthusiastic and engaged
and [INAUDIBLE] they want to be able to do the best.
But it discourages a lot of information sharing,
which could actually be better for learning in the process.
So when we were [INAUDIBLE], for instance,
a lot of [INAUDIBLE] run by colleges will give out awards.
They'll quite simply have prizes for people
who win maximum applause or something like that.
I think we do give verbal [INAUDIBLE].
Has anybody ever done, like, [INAUDIBLE] awards?
AUDIENCE: No, I've never done any awards.
When We're doing [INAUDIBLE] the joy of engagement
is being able to share [INAUDIBLE]
and making sure people share throughout [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: And those are usually the shout outs that give
[INAUDIBLE].
These are the people who really helped
as a team, the people who were clearly a benefit to more
than just one project.
We will do those kind of shout outs
because in learning situations [INAUDIBLE]
For competitive situations where you
don't expect to have a lot of information sharing--
say, a school versus a school competition.
It could be math.
It could be sports.
It could be-- we're working on one right now, which
is a [INAUDIBLE] competition, a satellite programming thing.
Some of you might have seen the email
about that, where a lot of the schools that
are working together are geographically
separated by different countries,
probably speaking different languages.
So there may not be terribly much information
sharing to begin with.
So it makes sense that they won't be sharing information
with people that are geographically close to them.
So it's OK to sort of put them in competition
with each other while expecting they're going to cooperate
entirely within their own team.
But there's a deep wrinkle to that one, which
is when it gets to the final rounds,
three schools are put together and one school
is always geographically separated from the other one.
And that gives students an experience
of what it's like to actually work on the state, right?
Because you are working with different companies which
are writing code to all run on the same machine.
But-- and all trying to accomplish different
[INAUDIBLE] problems that they're given [INAUDIBLE]
so difficult that one school--
one school could probably do a mediocre job on it,
but you need the resources of three schools
and all the kids in three schools
to be able to solve this particular space problem.
So you need to communicate and you need to share.
And that's an interesting [INAUDIBLE] of the game
where, again, it's all about what are
the limits of communication?
We talk about time.
We talk about physical distance being a limit of communication.
What about things like language?
About things like time zones?
All right, so any of the games that you are making,
cooperative games, I think are also competitive in a way?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] the end goal is [INAUDIBLE] I mean--
PROFESSOR: Yeah, it's--
AUDIENCE: In the end, it's like a competitive thing,
but to achieve the most you can, it would be be cooperative.
PROFESSOR: OK, is this the base [INAUDIBLE] one?
No.
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: No.
Well, yes.
I was going to say, we're definitely cooperative.
[INAUDIBLE] well, two teams, I guess.
AUDIENCE: Two versus one [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
PROFESSOR: Oh, it's two competitive teams.
AUDIENCE: Yes.
PROFESSOR: So you have cooperation
within the team and competition between teams.
And which game was the one that [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: The ship captain one.
PROFESSOR: The ship captain one, right, right,
where [INAUDIBLE] trying to [INAUDIBLE]
put all of this information together, right.
So, is there anything from Matt's presentation
that you might want to try out in a game?
AUDIENCE: I really like the idea small leveling, kind of.
So you said he had three-- he gave the flow chart,
which I really like.
PROFESSOR: Right, right, right.
AUDIENCE: Right?
So you want to make it balanced between players'
skill and [INAUDIBLE].
And if there's too much [INAUDIBLE] players' skills,
you have anxiety.
And if there's too much player skill
and too little [INAUDIBLE], you get boredom.
So we have like a basic version that you can just start with.
And then if you're a really good gamer,
you might move onto the normal version or the advanced version
really quickly.
And first, I was like, oh, this is really complicated, right?
Three versions of the game.
Then, you play [INAUDIBLE] and you just add one [INAUDIBLE]
to that.
And that's [INAUDIBLE] changes [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: And that's another--
in Forbidden Island, I believe the only change in difficulty
is that you start--
the way [INAUDIBLE] works is that you
are on an island that's slowly sinking into the water.
And [? there's a ?] water level marker.
So by increasing difficulty, I believe
you just start at a higher level of water.
And more stuff is submerged at the beginning of the game.
But the rules don't change.
And if you're going to try to do something
like that in your game, I would certainly
encourage you to think of difficulty levels in that way.
Don't give us, like, here are the simple set
of rules for simple players and the advanced
set of rules for players.
Those don't change things like just the starting conditions
so that I--
I wouldn't encourage you to change, like,
individual variables in your game
because that might be too complicated to get across.
But things like setup--
that's, OK.
Once you've got the whole game set up
at the correct difficult level.
Don't have to worry about the differences between setup
for easy or setup for hard.
Giving people extra options, for instance,
by giving them extra cards or something like that
could also be a good way to be able to [INAUDIBLE]
change the level of difficulty throughout the game.
That's a good idea.
[INAUDIBLE] there's something I was
talking about cooperative and competitive.
He just talks a lot about what it
was like to design his first board game.
I believe he said that that was his first board game.
[INAUDIBLE] his first published board game [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: First one was [INAUDIBLE] Fish and Chips.
PROFESSOR: Oh, yeah.
Oh right, Fish and Chips.
That's right.
AUDIENCE: Oh, wait.
I just got that joke.
Wow.
PROFESSOR: So-- but anyone observe or hear
anything interesting from that one?
From the [INAUDIBLE] talking outside
of the cooperative and competitive [INAUDIBLE]
cooperative game design?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] do you just mean something
interesting about the talk?
PROFESSOR: Yeah, anything else that was interesting.
I've been asking you questions specifically
on his thoughts on cooperative games like [INAUDIBLE].
But that's only part of the talk.
That's not his whole talk.
So I was just wondering if anyone
noticed anything interesting.
AUDIENCE: I think [INAUDIBLE] he mentioned
Ameritrash [INAUDIBLE] games.
PROFESSOR: Ah, yeah.
AUDIENCE: Something I haven't herad of.
And then when I looked online, it
seems to be either something that has made it [INAUDIBLE],
sort of?
PROFESSOR: It's one of those almost invented internet forum
arguments.
But it's one that--
I mean, it's like the [INAUDIBLE] of the [INAUDIBLE]
in game design.
That's another one where--
that's the sort of thing that you see now just
to make people roll [INAUDIBLE]
But back in the '90s, I guess, it was a bigger thing.
It was like, are games about the systems
or are games about the stories?
The whole thing was just that and it
was people sort of arguing past each other-- not actually
waiting to talk to each other, just wanted to shout
at each other about it.
And Ameritrash and Euro games are one of those things purely,
from the description of Ameritrash,
you can sort of expect that the people who like Euro games
gave it that term.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] argument, because the Ameritrash games
were--
the big problem with the Ameritrash games
were the Milton-Bradley Gamemakers games.
I think they were called Gamemakers or Game Masters
series in the mid '80s.
Like [INAUDIBLE]
There's another [INAUDIBLE] one.
But games with a board and lots of little plastic pieces
where there's a lot of, like, details
given to the [INAUDIBLE] molding on the pieces rather
than the system.
Like, that's where it was thought the money was spent.
Where a Euro game is, well, it's little wooden cubes, and not
much theme going on.
And so the system has more the amount
of attention and detail [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: There is a lower cost version
that is along those same lines, because Ameritrash
is a lot about presentation, right?
This is just-- so, a lot of--
I tried to think.
Munchkin?
Anyone play Munchkin?
Yeah, OK.
So, you know, this card game about sort
of dungeon crawling, being really bad role playing gamers.
And it's all about the art.
It's all about funny text that they've written.
It's not necessarily about cool-looking pieces,
but it's about cool looking cards that you can laugh with,
you know, while you're playing the game.
But a game [INAUDIBLE] itself, [INAUDIBLE] actually
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: I might call Magic Ameritrash.
PROFESSOR: And Magic-- the Gathering sort
of trades [INAUDIBLE] same sort of thing
as like [INAUDIBLE] layered complexity
on top of complexity [INAUDIBLE] very little elegance
to the [? system, ?] right?
But every once in a while, they sort it out
and then it becomes a pretty elegant system and they
then keep adding things on top of it.
That's because that's how their business model works.
AUDIENCE: So I guess a big question about [INAUDIBLE].
How is Ameritrash different from the theme games
like Monopoly [INAUDIBLE]?
PROFESSOR: Not that different.
It's a more derogatory term, but I
think when it comes to the stuff that's
really old like "Monopoly," there's
a limited level of presentation they could possibly achieve
with traditional manufacturing.
And by the time the [INAUDIBLE] term Ameritrash had shown up,
games like Monopoly and Clue and all that
had already been shrunk down into budget versions.
You know, it's like, you're no longer getting metal pieces.
You're getting little plastic pieces
that barely look like the dog or the hat they're supposed to be.
Games like "Battleship" where it's
like, the whole idea is that it's not really,
like, the "Battleship" kit looks nice.
It's just like this small part of [INAUDIBLE] manufacturing
and people grew up playing Battleship.
And those games are being sold on a completely different
premise.
Those games are primarily nostalgia games.
Those games are games that you bought because you played them
at one point in time.
But I think Ameritrash was mostly
used to brand a certain kind of game
that you'll be buying because you want
to play for the first time--
like "Munchkin" that you buy to play with a bunch of friends,
often published by companies that either had a war gaming
background or a role playing book
kind of background like Steve Jackson, for instance.
Because they're used-- actually I believe [INAUDIBLE].
Actually, I'm not so sure if this came up in class.
This is something that I remember hearing recently.
The idea of the game writer, you know--
what is [INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, Mack was talking about--
writer verses inventor versus designer.
PROFESSOR: Right, so the idea is that games were things
that you would write comes out from the role playing game
industry, where their primary product was books.
And sure, books included descriptions of systems,
but [INAUDIBLE] prose is your tool
to be able to get things across.
[INAUDIBLE] to try to use prose on the things that prose is
good at--
on things like creating atmosphere, giving you
exclusive detail about the setting
a whole world or characters, and things like that.
Whereas the Euro games, the Euro games
were originally designed for quite a different market
from the role playing.
Traditionally, role playing games
are designed for enthusiasts.
Euro games are designed for Christmas presents.
Very specifically, they're designed
to sell lots and lots and lots of copies at Christmas
to families.
So, not only had the systems have
to be simple enough for kids to be able to learn,
but also advanced enough for adults
to be able to want to play them and give them away
as gifts to other people.
And so that's a lot of attention paid to, like, simple rules,
very, very complex interactions.
And I don't know what the push towards the simplicity
of [INAUDIBLE], sort of the abstraction of, like,
cubes and circles and maybe [INAUDIBLE] like the are, like,
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: A lot of it is [INAUDIBLE] factory [INAUDIBLE]
the one factory that makes it all.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] one?
AUDIENCE: There's one factory in Germany that made most of them.
They don't make them in China, those games.
PROFESSOR: OK.
So that's economy of scale there, I guess.
[INAUDIBLE] easier to make than anything else?
AUDIENCE: So, when it comes to-- like I said,
Euro games are for families and Christmas presents and stuff?
That feels kind of weird to me because I'd
expect for children to care a lot about the presentation
of the game.
So, how would you reconcile that, I guess?
PROFESSOR: I don't know much about that social dynamics
of the Euro game family.
Who makes the call of what game they're going to play, right?
Is it the kids or is it the parents?
I certainly grew up in a family where the parents would say,
this is what we're playing now.
We are playing "Scrabble" because mom
likes "Scrabble" and mom will destroy all of us
at "Scrabble".
So I don't know if that's the same thing
in European families.
AUDIENCE: And so we had a professor
come in who talked about this a couple years ago
where one thing that happened, at least in Germany,
is there is a conference called [INAUDIBLE] Fair?
PROFESSOR: Trade Fair.
AUDIENCE: Trade Fair.
[INAUDIBLE] fair happened in Germany.
Thousands upon thousands of people in Germany
go to that fair to play the new games before they're published.
And [INAUDIBLE] fairs, they give this spiel [INAUDIBLE]
awards, the game of the year awards,
which then if you get that award,
they'll sell a [INAUDIBLE]
PROFESSOR: Because every newspaper will cover it.
AUDIENCE: All the newspapers are going to cover it.
But those families were going to go there, play those games.
The kids are going to be interested in those games.
Then, when Christmas time comes around, the game they get
is going to be the game that won the [INAUDIBLE] award,
not necessarily the game they played at the convention.
But that's the game that got the award.
Everybody bought it that year.
And the next year at flea markets,
that game is all over the place [INAUDIBLE] So
there's a little--
it's a very different kind of consumption economy going on
over there.
But here, it's a hobby market.
Here, it's the [INAUDIBLE] stores.
It's not necessarily family oriented
at all or family [INAUDIBLE] included in a particular kind
of family organization.
PROFESSOR: So they're like toy [INAUDIBLE] in the US,
then, like Tickle Me Elmo and Furby.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, the toy fairs are--
yeah, in the US, they're inventors, products from China
and again, one thing gets bought and one thing is sold
and everybody wants that one thing every single year.
PROFESSOR: But the majority of people who go to [INAUDIBLE]
are, in fact, families--
tourists, you know.
But a lot of them are probably tourists
from other parts of Germany [INAUDIBLE],
but also from Europe as a whole.
But of course, there's a small number
of people who are going to [INAUDIBLE] who
are the [INAUDIBLE] the people who are going
to decide what's [INAUDIBLE].
And they are looking at the families
They're trying to figure out what
is going to be that hot product this year
so they can get new [? orders ?] in.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
AUDIENCE: What time of year is it?
PROFESSOR: I think it's August.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, it's summer.
[INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
PROFESSOR: Yeah, so-- but I don't
know the extent to which the manufacturers need
to have lined up their pipelines before [INAUDIBLE] in order
to be able to capitalize on the [INAUDIBLE]
Because if you fail to miss your window-- if you get the award
and you can't actually put [INAUDIBLE] product down there,
then you can't make as much money as you [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: And the toy fairs in the US, are they mainly
consumers going to it or the industry, the professionals,
and they're sort of, like, rubbing shoulders?
PROFESSOR: Press.
Press go to toy fairs as well.
AUDIENCE: Yes, press, industry, Walmart, basically.
[INAUDIBLE] Walmart and a couple others.
AUDIENCE: So it's like, you're an inventor.
You're trying to get on Walmart's shelf.
So that's why you go?
PROFESSOR: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: You're trying to find, the next hot toy for Christmas.
And that's why they--
PROFESSOR: Well, I'm not so sure that the toy fairs in the US
are that inventor friendly.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, the inventors have already gotten
things [? off ?] by somebody.
So it's the publisher.
It's the maker who has already had
the stable of inventors they purchased the product form.
And they're making it to this place
to test it out, see [INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: But who are they testing it on?
AUDIENCE: The press and the people
who are going to sell it.
But-- [INAUDIBLE] Exactly.
AUDIENCE: Isn't [INAUDIBLE] backwards, though?
Because it's the consumer that's going
to be buying it, not the--
AUDIENCE: The consumer doesn't have a need for it
until they find out about it, though.
It's a very different process.
The consumer is like, when you look at toys,
just look at the US toy industry.
The customer just isn't involved.
AUDIENCE: It's just whatever the hype machine builds up?
AUDIENCE: Yep, whichever hype machine
has the most money behind it gets
the product on the shelves.
And these days, it's [INAUDIBLE] properties [INAUDIBLE]
trans media, but like, most media properties.
There's-- the game, the toy, the [INAUDIBLE], the comic,
everything around it.
AUDIENCE: Like a multi platform.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, yeah.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] because you
have multiple advertising campaigns pushing
each one of these threads.
But they're also sort of pushing the entire [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: If this is something of interest to you,
go to a Walgreens or a CVS.
Go to the toy area, and look at the toys that have really
poorly designed games on the back of them just
to kind of see, like, these are the things [INAUDIBLE].
Somebody made it.
It didn't get much press.
It didn't get that [INAUDIBLE] behind it.
And just, these are [INAUDIBLE] what
is the effort they put into that thing?
For the most part, it's just packaging.
The actual thing [? that's inside ?] of the
package.
PROFESSOR: I'm trying to think.
Where is the big toy fair in the US?
AUDIENCE: In New York.
PROFESSOR: In New York f Do you know when it is, ish?
The summer, I suppose?
AUDIENCE: I want to say summer because [INAUDIBLE]
Toys "R" Us.
Well, I helped [INAUDIBLE] Toys "R" Us [INAUDIBLE]
do this thing for a toy fair.
I want to say but I could be wrong.
PROFESSOR: Did you [INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: I didn't actually go.
I just shipped the product.
PROFESSOR: OK, so, my [INAUDIBLE]
You may see a [INAUDIBLE] collectors, in particular.
AUDIENCE: My customer was, like, they made
point of purchase displays.
They made point of purchase displays for retail outlets
and it was like a huge deal for them.
PROFESSOR: OK, so this is where they're selling things
to stores to sell things, not the actual product that
[INAUDIBLE].
Be caring sure.
[INAUDIBLE]
AUDIENCE: February.
PROFESSOR: February?
Gee.
AUDIENCE: Toy fair in New York--
2015, February 14 [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Oh good lord.
February-- OK.
I have a lot more to learn about the toy industry.
AUDIENCE: So I guess it's Valentine's Day,
after cards, then toys.
PROFESSOR: The other thing that I
thought was actually kind of interesting in the video that
was how he was talking with the folks at [INAUDIBLE].
And he was describing about embodying the player,
giving the player something that he can identify with either
on the board or if all else fails, somewhere
in the packaging, something that he can project himself into.
I'm not entirely sure if that is sort of universally accepted
across all publishers or even conventional wisdom
across the board game industry, but it's certainly
interesting to see it from the point of view
of one publisher saying, this is something
important about the games that we want to publish.
And we got a little bit of this from the [INAUDIBLE] gaming
[INAUDIBLE] the other day.
But it's [INAUDIBLE] I tend to go to the publisher
and try to say, this is a game that [? could be ?]
interesting, definitely try to do some research on not just
the kind of games that they make, but also how they present
those games to people, right?
You know, you can probably make a good game.
Like, the people who are at those companies
have seen enough good games to be
able to see past anything you may have missed.
But it might improve your pitch a little bit and say,
we've taken into account that you like--
I've taken into account that you like to position your games,
present your games a certain way.
And this is how you could do it with the game
that I'm pitching to you, even though what I'm showing
right now, the prototype.
They didn't have that.
Just being able to be able to speak to that means [INAUDIBLE]
you're aware of the company's strategy and how [INAUDIBLE].
So if you are talking to a publisher, which generally does
[INAUDIBLE] you know, I don't know
who publishes [INAUDIBLE] but someone does,
because I [INAUDIBLE].
But to say that this particular set of game mechanics
would be a great tie in for this particular property
or something that you already have.
Even though that may not be something that you want to do,
it's probably good for a publisher
to be able to realize that you understand
[INAUDIBLE] particular section of the business that you're in.
AUDIENCE: It's also some so Fantasy Flight,
don't want you to have IP attached to your games.
They're going to bring their IP to the games.
So they want mechanics.
They want rules.
They want how it's going to play,
but they don't care about--- the space travel game.
You might sell for them.
And they say, all right, it's a [INAUDIBLE] fantasy
game, the IP [INAUDIBLE] with us here.
PROFESSOR: Also, probably gives you
an idea of the kind of deal and contract
you can get out of them.
Because if you say you want to retain
absolute creative control on it and determine the art that's
going to go on the box or something like that,
you might even be able to get that contract from someone
like Fantasy Flight, but it's something
that might be negotiable for--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] there you would talk to them
about what Kickstarter campaign you're going to run.
That's what they're going to do-- a Kickstarter
campaign with the game that they're publishing with you.
PROFESSOR: So in other words, before you go and do a pitch
at the publisher, just don't go in with a [? generic ?] pitch.
[INAUDIBLE] go into something like a convention.
You know, there are games that just have different
[INAUDIBLE], for instance.
[INAUDIBLE] of EB Games.
There's one that's going to be right here on campus.
If you've got a prototype that you
want to let people know about and make--
I guess we don't get many publishers here,
but you might get--
AUDIENCE: That's probably going to change soon.
PROFESSOR: Yeah, Gathering of Friends
is one such group where you have inventors and publishers all
sitting at a big table.
You don't need to [INAUDIBLE] prepare something special
for publishers [INAUDIBLE] because they show you
to multiple publishers at once.
[INAUDIBLE] actually going to submit it
to Hasbro or something that.
You might just want to say this might make a great Transformers
game because parts connect to each other or object
[INAUDIBLE] mode, or something with that.
Yeah, that's what I want to say about that.
So, today is [INAUDIBLE] play test day.
It's almost 2:00.
We had all our parts up here.
So, how about we start play test at 3 o'clock?
That should probably give you enough time
to be able to get something playable by then, I'm hoping.
Figure out what you want to test,
how you're going to present it to people,
and what questions you need answered to [INAUDIBLE]