Halo 4 isn’t a ramification of CoD, but of science!
Halo 4 is trying to copy Call of Duty!
Everywhere I go users and players proclaim that 343 are warping Halo 4 into some kind of CoD wannabe in the hopes of boosting sales. Whilst the changes do stem from wanting more sales and larger profit margins, it has little to do with CoD and everything to do with research; how do you, as a developer, make players play your game actively? How do you keep them coming back for more and more? How do you hook players? This link takes you to an article about behavioural game design, written by John Hopson, a game researcher at Microsoft who’s worked on the Halo franchise. Take your time to read through it carefully and contemplate before continuing on with my text. Finished? Good, now we can start.
Don’t like it? Don’t play it!
The Halo franchise began with Halo: Combat Evolved. The multiplayer game mode contained within Halo CE is–what a lot of players now deem–a bare bones experience; you have your arenas, weapons, powerups and players. Nothing more, nothing less. If you liked the gameplay you played it. There was very little within the multiplayer portion to keep him or her playing if the player didn’t enjoy the gameplay for what it was. Developers hadn’t a desire to keep those with little interest in the game from continuing to play either. After all, why should they? Whether a customer plays for 1 hour or for months makes little difference to them; they still receive the exact same amount of money from that customer. The infrastructure for Xbox Live didn’t yet exist, and the possibility of selling customers downloadable content was a foreign idea. When XBL did come into the world developers began asking the question, “how can we keep players playing so that we can later sell them DLC?”
John Hopson (the author of the article I linked previously) worked on Halo 2, so it’s no surprise we have a mechanic that’s designed to addict players outside of the gameplay. What is it? Why of course! It’s the famous 1-50 ranking system.
> Killing opponents to gain experience points and gain levels is one example of a ratio contingency.
A lot of players who played Halo 2 were addicted to levelling up their character, so to say. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t play for longer than I should just to reach the next rank. However, not everyone was able to continue ranking up. Sooner or later they reached their skill peak, and they just weren’t good enough to rank up higher. Once a player reached this point what’s to keep him or her from quitting if that player wasn’t addicted to the gameplay? Nothing. Halo 3’s ranking system was designed to fix this problem by allowing experience points to influence rank. However, to not piss off players that loved the idea of rank being a symbol of skill they only allowed EXP points to boost a player’s rank up to a degree. The inclusion of unlocking armour permutations were also a mechanic to get players hooked; to keep them playing for longer than they normally would. The longer a game is played the more profit it can turn out in this day and age of selling consumers DLC. Plus, if your friend is constantly playing a game are you not more likely to go out and buy it yourself?
Then comes Reach. This is the real “proof is in the pudding” game. How many gamers who enjoyed Halo’s gameplay feel betrayed by Bungie over Reach? Many. How many of us have quit Halo over this game? A fair few. Yet the numbers say Reach is far more popular then either Halo 2 or Halo 3. So if the players that enjoyed Halo’s gameplay aren’t playing it, who is? Well, other gamers. Reach contains so many mechanics that are designed to get players addicted, and I dare say they’re extremely effective. We have an EXP system that encourages players to actively play via rewards ranging from armour permutations, in-game effects, sound effects, to ranks. If you want them all you need to do is play, and play often. Daily challenges are also a bloody fantastic mechanic to keep players coming back over and over again.
> In general, variable ratio schedules produce the highest overall rates of activity of all the schedules that I’ll discuss here. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best, but if what you’re looking for is a high and constant rate of play, you want a variable ratio contingency.
Super jackpots (I think that’s what they’re called) are an example of a variable ratio schedule. No matter how terrible the gameplay is in a particular playlist players will flock in tremendous numbers if that playlist has a super jackpot. They’ll keep playing and playing till they get it too. Once that jackpot ceases, boom!, the playlist goes back to having a low population (cough the old classic playlist cough). What does this all mean? It means Reach has players addicted. Not on gameplay, as was the way of yore if you wanted a popular game, but on virtual rewards. Which is the new thing your game needs if you want it to become popular, and profitable.
Why does The Arena in Reach have such a pitiful population? Because Reach is a virtual skinner box; its gameplay is boring, but players continue playing it because they get addicted to the rewards. However, competitive players are generally the players that are playing the game for its gameplay; they get addicted on the gameplay, on competing with one another, not the skinner box mechanics. They see through all the virtual rewards and notice Reach’s shallow, boring gameplay and choose not to play it. That’s why The Arena is unpopular, and giving Reach a 1-50 ranking system wouldn’t of prevented that playlist’s inevitable failure.
