Paul Barnett Speaks, Part Two: Why Games Aren’t Art, and Hardcore MMO Players Are Yesterday’s News
Part Two of Steve’s interview with Paul Barnett picks up immediately after where they left off.
In part one, you may have noticed Paul mentioning that he hadn’t yet had the chance to sit down and prepare for a talk he was going to be giving later in the day.
You know, I had a job to do, which at that particular moment involved sticking a microphone in his face, but I still couldn’t help but feel badly about holding him up, when I could tell there was someplace else he’d much rather have been.
I told him that. He laughed.
It was one of those instances where you have to hope that the person is laughing with you.
And so, as a sort of consolation prize for taking up his preparation time, I asked him if there was anything that he, personally, wanted to talk about.
He laughed, again. Then he began to speak…
Paul Barnett: I think it is an interesting time for people who are interested in MMOs.
We’re going through seismic shifts in how these games are going to be built, what markets they’re going to reach, and the people who are going to be able to play them.
We have certain people who are tinkering seriously with revenue generation systems, from micro-transactions to mega-transactions; from people who are looking at the ability to gate content, who are looking at expanding games away from just the endless combat cycle, and looking at making games much more socializing, broadening the market.
If I had to liken it to anything, I would liken it to the challenges that are currently happening in software in general. Where we have consoles, and they’re important, and they generate a lot of money. Imagine they are sort of like current MMOs.
But what we also have happening in computer games is endless new platforms, where turnaround is fast, games are cheap, and they’re selling in great numbers.
The install base on iPhone is going to be so enormous, it’s going to dwarf anything you can get on a console. You realize that the software companies are going to have to come to a new idea about what these games mean.
That the hardcore MMO-heads aren’t the target market for the next five, twenty, twenty-five years. There’s actually going to be a broadening, a widening into different markets, different people.
The original mechanics of the amount of burn time you put into an MMO are just not going to happen anymore. People are not going to obsessively play them for huge, huge amounts of time, because that is not the way the market is going.
The MMO Gamer: Which way do you think the market’s going, then?
Paul Barnett: New people coming to computer games are playing them, but they’re playing them at work in five to ten to twenty minute snatches. They’re playing them on their phones. They’re playing them in browsers. People are looking for games that are cheaper and easier to get into.
They’re not really worried that a game has to give them 500 hours of content. Actually, games are so cheap, you just have to entertain them enough.
Think of it like dollar shops; when you go into dollar shops and you’re going to go buy something, you don’t really care about the packaging. If it’s a crazy monkey whose head flies off and it makes a whistling noise, it only has to be one dollar worth of packaging.
It only has to entertain you for, oh, a couple of minutes. Just enough for you put the monkey in front of someone else, press the button for his head to fly off and make a whistling noise so that the person next to you smiles and laughs.
At that point, it’s done its job. It’s achieved all the value you ever wanted it to have, and you look at these apps on iPhones that cost a buck-all you need is a buck’s worth of game. If you get 50 buck’s worth of game, that means you really enjoyed it. More power to you.
The MMO Gamer: So then you’re the sort of person who believes that the industry is becoming more bite-sized, casual game focused, as opposed to hardcore AAA title focused?
Paul Barnett: We’re getting more casual players, and wider audiences who are less obsessed with the old-school. You’ve got people who want to have their gaming time defined. “I’ve got half an hour before I’m going out. I know playing this game will only take half an hour,” or “I’ve got to put the kids to bed. I know that if I let them play this game, I can say ‘you’ve got one more level’,” knowing that one more level means 30 minutes and you can get them to bed.
The “I want to do stuff before I go shopping, or before the football’s on.” The “I want to be able to share that information, I want it to be viral. I want to turn up at work and be like ‘Hey, man, I’ve been playing this crazy game. Here, I can beam it straight to your mobile.’”
You know, people who generally don’t have a hardcore computer room can get interested in this idea and understand what it is.
I look at all sorts of interesting things. My boy and girl are currently playing with UBFunkeys, which are these USB connection toys. I look at that and go, “WowWow reviews
, that’s really interesting.”
It’s a physical product that’s cute and interesting, that connects through a computer, which allows me access to a virtual world. Almost unheard of in game design.
It’s made by Hasbro, it’s available in all the main shops, and it’s selling really, really well.
And you go, “That’s where the future’s going to come.”
We’re going to end up with a new idea and a new concept and the hardcore, the people who didn’t sell-out, who remember the good ol’ days, are actually turning into the people who talk about the music from the ’60s. About how it was all much better then when Hendrix was playing, not realizing that we’re going to move on.
What I think is going to happen is faster development of smaller games that last less and that monetize in a frontloaded and different way.
That’s going to be very challenging, but also very rewarding and exciting.
Continued on next page…
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#mmo Paul Barnett Speaks, Part Two: Why Games Aren’t Art, and Hardcore MMO Players Are Yesterday’s News http://bit.ly/mL6J7
Sounds like Warhammer Online has made him a cynic. No need to trash the whole industry for failing to reach the gold standard. Warhammer have a pretty narrow focus – even for todays gamers.
gamer stuff…. Paul Barnett Speaks, Part Two: Why Games Aren’t Art, and Hardcore …: The MM.. http://tinyurl.com/obws6v
Paul Barnett Speaks, Part Two: Why Games Aren't Art, and Hardcore … http://bit.ly/j6FkA
"Sounds like Warhammer Online has made him a cynic. No need to trash the whole industry for failing to reach the gold standard. Warhammer have a pretty narrow focus – even for todays gamers."
My thoughts exactly – well said sir.
Thanks for these interviews, I was a bit flippant with my first comment after part one but knew what to expect for part two and found reading it much more interesting. Good work.
It was a fair criticism. The first page of Part One had almost nothing to do with gaming whatsoever. I just left it in because it was Paul Barnett being Paul Barnett. If you edit out him going off on tangents you might as well not even bother interviewing him.
Paul Barnett being Paul Barnett made me go back to warhammer last night. So good for him, he's doing his job.
"So, Passage by Jason Rohrer is not a computer game. It’s a piece of art. And, like most of modern art it only really becomes interesting after you read why he built it, so that you can pretend that you’re very intelligent and you knew that from the beginning, because it’s almost impenetrable when you first play it."
Wow, great. Way to shit on the efforts of a number of indie game developers who are trying to expand what games can be rather than reify their definition around some preexisting set of mechanics and experiences. When I read interview with Barnett, I have trouble imagining how he functions in a creative capacity at all. Good interview nonetheless, if only for giving him space to air his inane comments.
Barnett doesn't really seem to know anything about the industry or the customers. People won't play MMO's for huge amounts of time? People wan't cheap, quick turn-around games? Yes, the millions of "MMO-heads" who make up a HUGE portion of any potential audience will suddenly decide they want to read in their free time instead; that is exactly the direction that the market is going. Catering *only* to the hardcore will certainly hurt any new MMO's, sure, but pretending that that vast sector of the audience is going to disappear in the next 20 years is ridiculous. These players want their 500 hours of content, and they are willing to pay a monthly fee for the best of it, because that's what they expect and is what they have decided is the best dollar to entertainment ratio they are going to get. Your game didn't meet the mark and was passed over by the collective gaming culture, get over it.
On another note, he doesn't really seem to have any understanding of art either. It only becomes interesting after you know the reasons behind it so that you can flex some strange type of Art-peen? I'd say that's fairly close to the exact opposite of the reason for art. "Creative director" my arse.
I'd have to disagree about the art thing, simply because of one game that, if not art, comes very close. Planescape: Torment. It is very, very hard for people to actually perform the evil path, if they're bothering to experience the game. Because it is so well written that it revolts the player, it makes them cringe as to what they are doing to a bag of pixels.
For that matter, gaming minimalism can approach art. Portal and the Weighted Companion Cube. If commentary on how you can attract someone, make them feel over a simple cube that isn't even a physical representation of a human, that's pretty close to abstract art from a gaming perspective.
First off, great interview.
I would say the answer lies somewhere in the middle of his answer between hardcore and casual. I know people of both sides on that equation and thinking that you can make a game to just suit one side or the other is a mistake.
I think the mistake people in the industry like Paul make is the complaints over interminable grinds for either gear,levels, or points. The game still has to be immersive and have the content to keep people interested for long periods of time. Other wise what you end up with is a shallow game that people burn out on fast and then move on, like the reporter in this article. As much as WOW is a curse word to a lot of people one of the things they have done well is creating an experience that regardless of the time invested is still fun and can stay interesting whether you are hardcore or not.
In my experience even the bulk of people who are casual will still find days where they will want to play for several hours.It's just that most of the time they can't.
What Paul is saying is a game should be as entertaining as a game of poker or maybe a movie. Well IMO that kills an immersive experience. Until they find a way to get people immersed in their world and wanting to spend all their free time there they will be treading water. Poker is a fun diversion, but thats all it is and it's not one that most people are willing to invest money or much time in.
If I look my some 20+ year experience on gaming, what I've seen is that I enjoy games more in small pieces than large junks. We used to play boardgames that took several days to complete. Now boardgames that I like most, take couple of hours. Although I do love a good 12h long running Twilight Imperium once in a while.
That was the reason I also stopped playing wow. Raiding was too time consuming. I like Warhammer because I can get to action very quickly and even a few hours after work will satisfy me. Yet sometimes I play straight from morning to night on some freedays.
So I dont think that heavy time investment games are going anywhere.. Neither does Paul I think.. but small time investment games can boom. I mean even now one of the most played games in world is solitaire in one form or another.
What comes to art.. I hate that word art. I've been doing theatre almost as long as I've played games and I dont think myself an artist. Yet many people have said that I am. Art as a meaning can be so different to people that talking about if something is art or not is almost useless. All that matters is that if "art", game, movie, whatever gives joy or not…
Paul Barnett is a moron. He hyped up WaR so much and the game is a pile of crap. RVR is BORING. They STILL reward RvE more than RvR. They require you to have certain gear to be able to help in forts/city sieges, they are so out of touch with the community it's not even funny.
We appreciate your comments, but please try to avoid personal attacks in the future. This isn't the VN Boards (hi guys, great thread you've got going over there!).
lol! i actually decided to read instead of play tonight due to my job being a tough one today! he has a valid point to an extent… but personally i think it has to do with generations.. My generation ( or the generation i belong to i should say) started out as teenagers in high-school and college with nothing much to do andf played games hardcore. Now we are groign up and have jobs and families ( at least i do and did) and do not have the same amount of time to commit thus we are becomign more casual. Now the younger generation starts seeign the se more casual games and they gorw up with cell phones and stuff and decide they like the shorter games and the frontloaded experience becasue they can gho out and do more and still enjoy games and you see the market shift with where the moeny is going… just my humble opinion… and I could get deeper but i am tired… the oilfield is tough lol
I thought the interview was great and very thought provoking… also a great look ino what goes on in that mans head!
… LOL …
seriously good point though… great interview btw…
Extremely thought-provoking, especially when the only image I have of him were in those promotional videos for WAR. It seems that Paul have quite a lot of understanding to the games in general, although it might be bias because I agree with him on casual vs hardcore. It is true that young people do spend a lot of time playing MMO nowadays, but the success of casual games (example: popcap, nds?) shows that there is a large market for casual as well. I don't think either side will disappear completely – chess still have people playing professionally and casually, so will MMOs.
I do wish they can achieve more with WAR though. Even nearly 1 year from its release it is barely a "good" mmorpg. They can still do much more by further expanding and fixing the game. I wish them luck.
Paul Barrnett of Mythic explaining why computer games aren’t art http://bit.ly/QPJIT I totally agree
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I have played Warhammer Online since beta and last evening I had a chance to play the new Land of the Dead update. I was hugely dissapointed and now after reading Paul's interview where he completely avoided talking about the game,once again I am dissapointed even more.
The fact is both he and his company do not listen nor respond to their player base's needs and people are leaving the game in droves.
It is both sad and unfortunate to see what looked to be so promising a title with so much potential go down the drain.
Perhaps Paul will be joining the legions of folks who turn to their favorite MMO for reasonably priced entertainment because of his own economic crisis. I am wondering if he will be playing his own game and paying for it happily scouring the sand dunes for silver scarabs with which to buy his own new set of gear. I also wonder who he will be playing it with and on what server. Two servers Iv played on are now ghost towns where my lvl 40/41 destruction and 40/50 order toons are gathering dust and the newest server im on which is core PVP server is having its largest and strongest guilds leaving for other worlds where the companies who own them hopefully will actually listen to their players calls for help in fixing their broken content and unbalanced skills.
Best of luck Paul.
ohh is he an art critic or expert?
I have an account in the game but haven't had a chance to play for some time. With the change in Mythic's management chain, maybe you'll see them listening more?
[...] help but notice as of late. More and more developers are suggesting that the AAA MMO is not the wave of the future and is soon to be an endangered species. Now there are (apparently) numerous casual games in [...]