Ten Minutes to Win.

Onto a bit of theory! Oh, don't close the page, it's not that bad. As my last post for the week, I simply want to give you readers something to think about over the weekend - perhaps even begin a series of comments. With conversation, ideas are sparked! information exchanged! egos stroked! You see, I do enjoy feedback. I admit to being needy in this way.

But seriously, I do very much appreciate all of you who continue to read and enjoy my wordspam. My N7 ball cap off to you.

So I was cruising Gamasutra again as I do, and came across this little gem by Leanne C. Taylor. In short, does the 10-minute rule of movies apply to games? The idea here is that if a movie has not grabbed the viewer's attention in 10 minutes, it's very unlikely the viewer will enjoy, or even continue to watch said movie. I will term this a viewer's 'grace' period for simplicity. Leanne transfers this concept to game studies, and explores successful games and the amount of time it takes for them to establish an acceptable amount of information and game-play time for a player to determine if they like the game or not.

It is interesting to note that many successful games' opening cinematics tend to last no longer than three minutes, offering plenty of time for gameplay before the 10-minute mark. This is hardly an industry standard, however. Reviewer Kyle Orland over at Games for Lunch allows games a full hour to wow him with the bulk of its bells and whistles, while a few commentors of Leanne's article demand that solid games can take two or even three hours to reach their full pacing. My question, as always, is how narrative has an impact on this process.

Think of games you've played, and the approximate amount of time it took to explore the game's mechanics, determine your options, and discover how you can use those options. Obviously, story can be completely divorced from this process, and a game can exist without establishing plot elements (pong, tetris), but an important point is made in the comments to this article: A game wants - needs the player to perform certain actions for the cybernetic (man-machine) loop to complete, and for the game to continue. If narrative design can be understood as a marching forward of elements towards satisfaction (climax/goals), or whatever, than even this process has some suspiciously narrative elements. Janet Murray would be pleased.

Regardless, Leanne suggests that those games what do employ narrative in story form have a couple of different ways to grab reader attention, as follows:

1. What has happened? (History - Fast)
2. What's going to happen? (Story - Faster)
   
3. What's happening now? (Mystery - Fastest)

Note the progressing level of immediacy. If you're curious as to what games fit what categories, check out Leanne's article; she focuses mostly on Blizzard, Black Isle/Bioware, and Bethesda games. Hrm, but which one of these to pick: Does the player's grace period and patience allow for a huge storydump? How long can a player stand exposition in the face of not playing? (There's an interesting compromise in the Prince of Persia's exposition-through-voice-overs while the player still actually gets to run around).

The problems I see - and I'm glad Leanne mentions this, however briskly - are the varying motivations players bring to their game. Richard Bartle's discussion of the four sorts of players that populate MUDs is a good place to start, though it's now somewhat dated; the updated version is directed towards virtual/synthetic worlds and sports eight categories instead of four. However, if you're curious about how you rate with the original four, take this quick test.

The original four, succinctly summarized are:

1. Achievers - For Glory! (Acting on worlds).
   
2. Explorers - The Great Discovery. (Interacting with worlds).
   
3. Socializers - I'm Here To Talk. (Interacting with players).
   
4. Killers - Distress Is Best! (Acting on players).
   

This method is really reserved for interactive games; I really don't see Killers as having that much a presence in single-player campaigns. But then again, morally-oriented stories do allow for some level of acting on non-player-characters-as-actors (Killers) and interacting with those same characters (Socializers). Similarly, Exploring is still available in games like Oblivion and Fallout 3. So there may yet still be some truth here.

To confuse things, consider the Threefold Model. This model states that (usually tabletop) RPG gamers have one of three motivations:

1. The Dramatist: It's really all about story.
   
2. The Gamist: Challenge is what makes a game worthwhile.
   
3. The Simulationist: In-game events should be as "real" as possible.

I think this is a decent model to apply to many gamers, RPG-intent aside. If a gamer isn't interested in story, they're likely interested in a challenge (puzzle games, RTS, FPS), or in pretending to do or be something else (flight simulators, the Sims).

Of course I think there are other facets; neither of these models are perfect. There can be Drama-oriented Simulationists, or Social Achievers: People can not be so easily pigeonholed and tend to be a mix of aspects, generally gravitating towards one over the others. Designers have a lot of choices to make when deciding how best to satisfy that first 10-minutes (or hour, or whatever). The plan ultimately comes down to audience. Can you satisfy all players in the Threefold model? Quite possibly, but what (if anything) is being sacrificed to do so?

Of course, having this knowledge also allows the informed gamer to make some educated judgments about games before purchasing (I'm a Dramatist - Will I really enjoy this challenge-based shooter?).

So: Storydumping early (if there even is story), allowing for gameplay exploration first, or starting off with a challenge? Something else?

Which would you prefer?

MCH