Gamesindustry.biz has an interview up with Rob Pardo, Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard Entertainment. It's an interesting outlook on Rob's life, starting as a game tester for Interplay and how he ended up at Blizzard to become game designer and ultimately, CCO. He doesn't mention it in this interview but for those who might not know, he was also leader of one of the best EverQuest guilds at the time, <Legacy of Steel>, prior to his hiring at Blizzard. Along with Jeff Kaplan (who was also recruited by Blizzard, became Lead WoW Game Designer and is now developing Titan), they accomplished many world-firsts during their EQ time.
He discusses game balance and how you need to keep in mind that people want new and old both at the same time. He quotes Sid Meier, saying "one-third proven, one-third improved, and one-third new" is how you should look at making a new game/sequel. I like that way of thinking. Sometimes we would like 100% proven, other times we want 100% improved, and sometimes we want 100% new. Making it 1/3 of each covers everyone.
On single-player games, Pardo says he agrees with the sentiment that they are becoming an endangered species. I find this really sad because for me personally, I much prefer single-player stories and games than mutliplayer. But he has a point in that "Between pirating or the ability for people to rent games, it's hard for publishers to pour millions and millions of dollars into a game and not necessarily see the return they need to make those budgets realistic". The way the industry is now, if you make a single-player game with absolutely no connectivity at all, it will be pirated on day one and let's be honest, a significant portion of gamers will get it pirated or rent it, since when you finish it, the game's done. I don't like saying it, but Pardo is right here.
About the subscription model vs free-to-play and other business models, he says something I really agree with and I'm glad to hear it from him. I'll copy it entirely: "I'm personally a big fan of game designers being involved in the monetization design, because that's what will ultimately make for the best game. A lot of times I think those become very disconnected in the industry. Someone that's more business-oriented or production-oriented will graft a business model onto a game because that's what they think is going to drive the most revenue, but the game doesn't really support it. That's one of the things you've seen a lot with the subscription-based business model. I personally think subscription-based business models can still work, but you can't over-value your game. There's been some games in the past where they've put the subscription model on it because they thought they could get away with it. The reality is if you're going to do a subscription model you need to deliver an immense amount of premium content over time, because people are going to be looking at as 'If I'm going to be $10 or $15 per month, what am I getting month after month?' If I'm not spending enough hours in your product, it's just not going to make sense as a value proposition.
Free-to-play is a much more friendly business model for a lot of people to try out. People can try these games with no risk, and then only decide to pay for games that they really see the value in or want to spend on. I think that is a really strong model. Free-to-play is almost like a genre of business models, there are so many different ways you can apply it. I think for free-to-play to work really well it has to be deeply integrated with the game design itself. What is it that people are going to buy, and how much are you going to pay for this versus the other thing? One of the biggest issues with free-to-play models these days is the feeling that a lot of games give me: That for me to progress in this game, or to really have a deep game experience, you have to pay. That's where free-to-play gets a bad rap. But that's more the game design than the model."
Pardo also says he believe the next console generation could be the last. "Are people going to go out and pay $300 plus for a gaming system that plugs into their TV the way the last generation did? I personally think the answer is yes for one more generation. I still think that the console systems will have enough of an advantage, and people are still used to buying them as a consumer product. They'll be able to deliver really good games that I don't think you can experience yet on tablets. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last traditional console generation and it evolves into something new after that." Well I certainly hope not. But at the same time, like I said in my previous article about Mobile gaming, maybe the "spotlight" will be on other devices but I hope we will still have our consoles, even if we're not the center of the industry.
Here's the full interview if you want to read more, especially his thoughts on tablets, gaming genres and game design.
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