Game Ws Grind

Ignoring toys, it seems to me that there is a fairly simple divide amongst modern games, not every game fits firmly on one side or the other but the two sides which I'm going to name as game and grind are very obvious. I shall explain myself by defining the two types below and their main differences.

#1 Story: Story is normally attached to grind, not always but it is a good starting guide. RPG style games are usually more grind than game.

#2 Player Levels: These are a big giveaway that it's grindplay not gameplay. If the player just gets more powerful over time without doing anything different then it's a grind. Keeping player powers until later is not quite the same thing, starting off simple and slowly introducing more complex elements is a standard game progression. These more complex rules are simply absent from the initial game and are slowly added, grind doesn't add more rules, grind just increase the size of your phallus.

#3: If the first level of a game starts off with a highly powerful player who manages to lose this power and be reset back to powerless at the end and then the real game begins. Well thats a good sign of grind, the first taste is free the rest requires hard grinding.

#4 Repetition. Both grind and game are repetitive, the difference is that grind pretends not to be and that game is proud of its repetition. Grind says just keep playing for another 8 hours while we change the scenery and this will all be over. Game says go back and try again from the beginning, maybe you will get further next time.

#5: The main difference between grind and game can be seen in what reward is given to a skillful player. With game a skillful player has a longer experience, their reward for playing well. They will discover parts of the game that other players can only dream of. In grind the only thing standing between the player and the end is time, a good player will simply progress faster, the only way to really lose is to get bored and stop.

#6 The reward for grinding well is to experience less grind, the reward for gaming well is to experience more game. Yes I am repeating myself and yes I am proud of it.

#7 Account selling, if you see someone selling an account for a game on ebay, then that game contains grind. Grind is the only thing that can be sold as a game account. Some games have grind, let's call them achievements or badges attached to them like rotting barnacles but still remain games. There is no value in selling a game where the first 50% is missing but people will happily spend money to never have to experience 50% of a grind.

#8 If while playing a game you think to yourself that maybe you could train a monkey or possibly even a chicken to do this while you sleep. Then its a grind.

Not all games are "good" and not all grind is "bad" but I certainly appreciate game more than I appreciate grind. The problem is I don't think todays gamer even likes games, I'm pretty sure they just want grind and a badge collection.

spore scores for review

There are two interesting points about spore and its "review" scores. The first is the anti DRM amazon user review issue. I think this really exposes how gamers consider low review scores to be a slap on the wrist rather than any objective indicator of the content.

Don't get me wrong I agree that DRM is retarded, useless and only hurts the ones you love.

However, deciding to give an otherwise perfectly good game a low score over something that the developers have no power over is dumb. Let me say that again, the people who made the game have no power to change this, it's a publisher decision, driven by publisher brains, it is a decision made simply because they believe doing so will net them more money. It doesn't actually mater if it does or doesnt, they believe in it and that is what is important.

Publishers love the idea of DRM, it makes them feel empowered.

This response is however the same mentality that decides a game is worth 20% less because you where expecting techno or only like games with cars or cowboys in them. This is what review scores represent to the fanboys. A vindication of their continual love for yet another sequel in their favorite JRPG or a slap on the wrist to developers who didn't suck up to the gamer press enough and had the hordes of morons unleashed upon them.

Most developers understand that at best DRM is pointless and at worst counter productive. If you want to get that message across to publishers you need to empower the developers. All that is being proven with the Amazon backlash is that review scores are bullshit random numbers that people arrive at for all sorts of wrong reasons.

Next we have the professional review scores, some people are upset that spore is scoring "low" in reviews with the comment being that it lacks depth.

Well yes, it lacks depth, it's designed to be accessible to the average gaming moron, the sims player if you will. Do you have any idea just how dumb this person is? I really wish there was some hidden game play depth to spore rather than the simple grind it is but I've met the audience and I agree. This is all they can understand, it is probably already too much and needs to be dumbed down even more.

I say spore is not dumbed down enough :)

So armed with the understanding that the grindplay is mediocre some reviewers decide its an 80% sort of game rather than a 90% sort of game. This number is of course meaningless and as random as any other number reviewers are expected to give a game.
So again, we hit another prime example of how a final review score is pointless useless information.

It seems unfashionable to suggest that games, just like all other forms of media can be designed for different audiences but this is a perfect example of just that.

So there we have it, two different issues, both exposing the same underlying problem of review scores not really meaning anything, to anyone.

PS I still suspect spore will not generate the revenue that EA needs it to generate to be considered a success. Remember we are talking replacing the sims as a cash cow here. The result being a pulling back by EA of this sort of funding. Maybe pulling back is the wrong word, as it indicates an existence of funding in the first place :)