THE CO-OP POTENTIAL OF NI NO KUNI
Last week, I had the opportunity of being part of something wonderful. The first Penny Arcade Expo to happen in Australia (PAX AUS). Having previously been to Supernova and Animania I thought I knew what to expect. But I was wrong. So wonderfully, wonderfully wrong. PAX is less about selling flashy merchandise and more about gaming culture - discussing it, partaking in it, and figuring how we can improve it and make it more inclusive. I had the opportunity to attend many fantastic panels about issues facing the modern gamer, and the problematic way gaming is viewed by society. The panels were really thought-provoking, and today, I want to focus on one particular insight, raised by Florian Mueller, Director of the Exertion Games Lab (RMIT), during the panel Videogames are Good For You (and other ridiculous ideas).
Florian's current areas of research are gamification, the intersects between digital games and sports, and notions of 'play' in general. He easily had the most radical views of anyone on the panel, but this also meant he had the most interesting ones. He believes that within the next ten years we will make no distinction between sports and video games, but will see it all as 'play'. The point he raised, which I've been thinking about today, is in regards to our perception of multiplayer games. Very few games are designed to be cooperative. Most games are designed primarily with single player mode in mind. If you look at game development kits, such as UDK or Unity they assume that you will be designing first and foremost a single player experience. Multiplayer modes are usually design 'features' tacked on the end. Even in a game like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 it is a lot easier to access the single player story than the multiplayer modes which, I think, are a central part of street fighting games. Even Nintendoland, a game designed to showcase Nintendo's new multiplayer features, has a surprisingly dominant single player component.
So, why is this? Why do people creating games continue to do so within this paradigm? The lack of community among people in developed countries today continually freaks me out. Being part of a community (physical or digital) is so fulfilling - emotionally, socially, and I would even say in terms of survival, as the more people you know, the more people you have to turn to if you are ever faced with trouble. So, why aren't more games being designed that can help us form bonds with the people around us? Certainly, there are MMOs, and I can think of a handful of other games (mainly children's games) which feature co-op, but none really designed to take more than one person on a journey.
So now we come to Ni No Kuni. Why the heck hasn't this game been designed as a multiplayer experience? JRPGs as a genre are traditionally solitary because of the invested and emotional storylines they often feature. Because of this, game designers seem to think that people will only want to play these kinds of games alone, which reflects the inaccurate way gamers are stereotyped; as loners and losers who yearn for escape from their boring, crappy lives. But we gamers, we are just people! And like any other people we have friends and partners and families who we spend our lives with. People watch movies and entire TV series together - which involve embarking on an emotional journey - so why has nobody ever considered making a 2+ player JRPG? If you have played Ni No Kuni you will appreciate how easy it would be mechanically to integrate a second player. Oliver and Esther travel through Ni No Kuni together, and all the battle mechanics are already cooperative. They could navigate the world map together as in the Lego games, and would have to work together to progress the story. I don't think I am the only one who would be really excited to test an experience like this. I have heard of couples buying multiple consoles and copies of the same RPG so that they can sit side by side and experience it together. I feel there would definitely be a market for this type of game. I think the reason a lot of people do not currently play co-operative games is because they know the quality will not be as good and single player experiences, as the game will either have been designed with single player mode as the main attraction, or for a young target market. I think that a lot of shifts have to occur in the game development field in order for games and gamers to become more accepted, and I think this is one of many ideas that may help begin that positive development.
Florian's current areas of research are gamification, the intersects between digital games and sports, and notions of 'play' in general. He easily had the most radical views of anyone on the panel, but this also meant he had the most interesting ones. He believes that within the next ten years we will make no distinction between sports and video games, but will see it all as 'play'. The point he raised, which I've been thinking about today, is in regards to our perception of multiplayer games. Very few games are designed to be cooperative. Most games are designed primarily with single player mode in mind. If you look at game development kits, such as UDK or Unity they assume that you will be designing first and foremost a single player experience. Multiplayer modes are usually design 'features' tacked on the end. Even in a game like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 it is a lot easier to access the single player story than the multiplayer modes which, I think, are a central part of street fighting games. Even Nintendoland, a game designed to showcase Nintendo's new multiplayer features, has a surprisingly dominant single player component.
So now we come to Ni No Kuni. Why the heck hasn't this game been designed as a multiplayer experience? JRPGs as a genre are traditionally solitary because of the invested and emotional storylines they often feature. Because of this, game designers seem to think that people will only want to play these kinds of games alone, which reflects the inaccurate way gamers are stereotyped; as loners and losers who yearn for escape from their boring, crappy lives. But we gamers, we are just people! And like any other people we have friends and partners and families who we spend our lives with. People watch movies and entire TV series together - which involve embarking on an emotional journey - so why has nobody ever considered making a 2+ player JRPG? If you have played Ni No Kuni you will appreciate how easy it would be mechanically to integrate a second player. Oliver and Esther travel through Ni No Kuni together, and all the battle mechanics are already cooperative. They could navigate the world map together as in the Lego games, and would have to work together to progress the story. I don't think I am the only one who would be really excited to test an experience like this. I have heard of couples buying multiple consoles and copies of the same RPG so that they can sit side by side and experience it together. I feel there would definitely be a market for this type of game. I think the reason a lot of people do not currently play co-operative games is because they know the quality will not be as good and single player experiences, as the game will either have been designed with single player mode as the main attraction, or for a young target market. I think that a lot of shifts have to occur in the game development field in order for games and gamers to become more accepted, and I think this is one of many ideas that may help begin that positive development.
