Richard Bartle Is Irrelevant
Richard Bartle is irrelevant, but many of his opinions are not. That’s right, I’m getting involved in the storm that began with an interview on Massively and continued everywhere else on the interwebs. The fact is, whether Bartle is a senile old man with no true understanding of what it takes to make a modern MMO (or to play one), or if he’s the elder deity of all that is MMOs, some of what he says is quite insightful.
Sure, sometimes someone will say something to be a little snarky, perhaps indicating that he’s already played WAR because he’s played WoW. But, that’s not the point. There are a number of insights that come from Bartle that nobody else has presented in such an elegant manner.
Some of what he says is useful and relevant, some of what he says isn’t. He’s not perfect. I’ve said things on this very blog that I look back on and shake my head at, wondering why I thought the way I did. There are other things that I felt I brought up that others have not and regard as useful to others. I’m sure he’s thought the same thing about statements he’s made.
When it really comes down to it, Richard Bartle is no more relevant than Tobold, Keen, Graev, Moorgard, Psychochild, or Lum. Just take what he says at face value, without favoring or disfavoring him as a member of the Old Guard. Sometimes you’ll find some valuable gems, and other times you’ll wonder if he’s playing the same games you are, just like with everyone else.
Tasting freedom and then watching people happily living in jails will do that to someone.
Some people enjoy Soylent Green and wish to have more Soylent varieties. Other people know that Soylent Green is People! and hope that by yelling out loud even a few people can hear it and stop eating Soylent Green. Huh, that was a weird comment - I must be feeling loopy today.
I think all current MMO designers are irrelevant and any true revolution will come from someone outside of this industry. How ’bout them apples? Viva la Revolucion!
I think the disconnect between the fiscal and gamer realities of today and his design ethic are very visible here. Probably the best way that I can describe this is through beer. I love good beers and detest poorly made ones. I will always take a Pilsner Urquell if offered, as it is the pinnacle of the Pils variety of beer, in my opinion. By the same token, I’d pass on a Bud Light in any case, save being so parched I can’t imagine it. Am I a snob? Absolutely. I don’t drink out of habit, so I tend to be more selective and drink only when I have the opportunity to enjoy something above average.
Bartle, in this case, is like the brewer of Pilsner Urquell. He can understand and appreciate what makes his beer so good, and can’t for the life of him understand why the liquor store coolers are packed with Budweiser and their ilk.
The friction really comes when it gets down to money. If you were going into the brewing business, would you make something that sold like Bud or something that sold like Pilsner Urquell? Would you open a McDonalds or something more gourmet, even if it meant less money for your effort?
He’s pissing into the wind on this one. No one is going to make a connoisseurs’ MMO. Sigil tried that (miserably) and it wasn’t going to work out even had they not been dysfunctional.
The point is, the effort is going to go where the dollar goes, and the mass market is always going to prefer Bud, or McDonald’s, or WoW to something that is more a niche product. That’s because that is the definition of the difference between a niche and a mass market.
Anything that has $30M or more being invested in it is going to try to appeal to the mass market because to not do so would be insane. People who want to make niche products have to be satisfied with niche money. Mr. Bartle isn’t taking that reality into account.
To add some fuel to the fire… RE: Genda
Bartle, in this case, is like the brewer of Pilsner Urquell who is so fed up with the brewing business that he no longer brews Pilsner Urquell.
Meaning, he hasn’t proven that he can execute his design ideas at any time recently.
So, he’s really a great brewer, in theory, who doesn’t put those brewing techniques into practice. Maybe he’s helped some of the recent brewmasters create wonderful beers, but he hasn’t made a new brew of his own for quite a while.
“Maybe he’s helped some of the recent brewmasters create wonderful beers..”
Which wonderful beers would those be?
I have no idea who he’s consulted for, I’m just giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Saying “Richard Bartle is irrelevant” is one thing. Proving it is another. Bartle is a theorist and an academic who’s made a substantive contribution to what we know today as MMO’s. Given your logic most of what is taught at college’s and universities is also irrelevant because the professors may have not worked in the field. While industry experience making games and MMO’s is definitely a valuable asset it’s not the only criteria for determining relevance.
For me it’s a sign that the MMO industry is coming of age when we can have academics and thinkers on board who are not afraid to question the status quo and ask the big questions like: where are we headed with this MMO virtual world thing?
He’s an advisor for Areae
“Richard Bartle is no more relevant than Tobold, Keen, Graev, Moorgard, Psychochild, or Lum.” I beg to disagree. He’s more relevant than half that list.
“The point is, the effort is going to go where the dollar goes, and the mass market is always going to prefer Bud, or McDonald’s, or WoW to something that is more a niche product. That’s because that is the definition of the difference between a niche and a mass market.”
As if the entirety of MMO games is not a niche itself. The mass market is not WoW, the mass market is Facebook. It depresses the hell out of me but that’s where Raph Koster & Richard Bartle are heading with Metaplace. People like me and you are a quaint residual market. The future is my 15 year old daughter & her friends.
He is a very funny man and has an engaging blog full of wit. But some day I wish someone would say, “Here’s a pile of money - come up with something cool.”
Relevant or irrelevant to what?
“The friction really comes when it gets down to money. If you were going into the brewing business, would you make something that sold like Bud or something that sold like Pilsner Urquell? Would you open a McDonalds or something more gourmet, even if it meant less money for your effort?” Why can’t you brew Pilsner Urquell and hope it sells like Bud ?
Anyhow this guy seems to just wants to listen to his own voice.
If Bartle wants to be angry at anyone, he should be angry at the money people who refuse to understand gaming before funding them. I still maintain that Vanguard’s biggest failure was spending Mass Market level money while designing a Niche game. They should have come right out of the gate and said, “Our game isn’t for everyone, but I hope people take a look and trust that we can make a game that people who like our style of game will love.” They should have been fiscally responsible, curbed spending, and launched a tight, polished, small game with word of mouth growth potential. Instead, they poured money into it like it was going out of style, Brad constantly talked up the game as being better than sliced bread (WoW) and in the end the pressure built up by the mounting expectations crushed them.
WoW serves an very important purpose: expanding the market place. Vanguard was never going to draw new-to-MMOs players in. WoW has done that. Now its up to niche developers to make small awesome games that cater to smaller groups of people but will make them die hard fans (like the people who still play UO and will probably never quit). In my opinion, WoW doesn’t have that kind of sustainable draw (in the US and UK). I think their churn rate is probably enormous, and that their numbers stay high because they are constantly cross marketing and enticing new people into becoming players. I’d kill to see their cancellation and new subscription numbers, but I doubt they’ll release those, preferring to stick with total current subscribers instead.
“If Bartle wants to be angry at anyone, he should be angry at the money people who refuse to understand gaming before funding them.”
True. On the ever famous other hand, I’m hopefull that the platform/toolkit companie[e.g. Areae] are going to dramatically reduce the cost of putting together games. Reducing the barriers to entry will allow a dramatic increase in new offerings. Even if 95 out of 100 are pure sh1t that will result in lots of new interesting games. Risking $5000 is a lot easier than risking $5,000,000.
Bartle usually goes way deep into what mmo’s can and should be doing to its users. Well, at least thats how I read his messages most of the time. Most people cant follow to deep waters without guidiance, maybe there is a reason why most other industry people tend to avoid these topics…?
Chris Crawford starts down this path here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpW0fZ0390M&feature=related
What is “beautiful” about mmo’s? Where is the contribution to humanity? If you stop at “fun” I think we fail to develop enough value. Fun is just a requirement to carry the message, but its hard enough to get to the fun part that most projects forget the message as deadline comes closer, or do they not?
Actually Crawford and Bartle are sort of birds of a feather IMO. Apparently very interesting people, real characters, opinionated, and probably exactly who you want to have on a panel to ensure lively discussion. They are like some kind of drug that really opens your mind, but you’d probably better not operate heavy machinery while taking them.
Good point. But I also know there is merit to their arguments. To make a real lot of money from games you need to trick the subconscious mind of your users that what they are doing is worth their time. This goes well beyond “fun” and enters the realm of the human condition in one way or another.
WoW does teach you things about the interaction between people. (Something which wasnt part of the industry back in Crawford days, altho he does mention mmo’s as some kind of unwiedly beast of products which at that time was outside his definition of game.) However these days you can see people actually learning about things which before the day of the mmo was part of relatively high level academia. Such as how to operate a small scale political system with an attached labor economy aka DKP. You can also if you dare to be brave go against the norm and avoid DKP for an alternative political solution, and most likely fail horribly as your population migrates to a DKP network. Yada yada, everyone here knows this. But maybe dosnt make the connection with the actual value of the message and the profit of the project.
Could we expect the world economy to be better or worse if for example the Bush Administration had spent 5 years before the war in Iraq with running some hardcore guilds in PvP enabled mmorpgs?
I’ll put all my bets on the fact that things would be very different if they had, maybe for the worse or the better. (Probably they would have missed out on other important events such as winning the election but in 50 or so years all politicians will have been playing these types of games so the field will be evened out by then.)
Is this line of thought something you would avoid brush against when developing a title, or does it motivate and inspire? At least to me its a type of fundamental inspiration to know that anyone who plays with the game long enough will carry a part of what the game says with them for a very long time. What this message is is the ultimate reason that justifies the product, because without it it will not have much of a chance to make back the money it took to build it in the first place. Somehow there appear to be some developers who get by from a randomly composed message, but thats just because the industry is young still. ^^
I guess I’m either old or easily charmed by mind opening drugs.
I like them too but I tire of the negative pessimistic feedback and lack of positive guiding feedback. It’s like if you’re gonna tell me an idea is bad, you better step up with something that’s better else you’re just a complainer or a trouble maker.
Is that not the concept of “The Dragon”?
Its beyond reach for almost anyone in the game industry, maybe the CEO’s could reach it but I dont think they normally have the headroom to be strategically artistic. The designers on an mmo appear to be segmented into too small pieces of the puzzle to o a individual level be able to worry about much except fun.
Reading between the lines of both of them I put up my own interpretation of guiding feedback which basically says:
- Work a lot on developing a valuable product vision.
Which,m just to bolster Richard’s point, was totally something you could learn in the MUD days.
In fact, muds often had far MORE robust political stuff…
Of course, but the larger populations of the modern mmorpg’s increase the efficiency of the lesson. As Chris Crawford also says in The Dragon speech artists through time has been forced to sacrifice effectiveness for efficiency, even if his Dream was about getting both it appears as if you only can achieve both by first claiming some territory in the market.
If we compare it with music it is as if you need to have a smashing “sound” before your audience even will listen to the full song.
In games it has historically been so difficult to find a popular sound that the one major solution has been to pour money on the problem. This is at least from how I see things one root cause of Mores Wall. ^^
From there on we run into the whole mess with overly large organizations and risk aversion.
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The interesting thing I’ve noticed in all this is that the people arguing that there is a lack of diversity in new games are often clear socializer types, or at least people who very much value the socializer type. A killer or achiever type doesn’t especially value a diverse community - if anything a community that is all killers/achievers serves to validate their respective accomplishments (boss kills/item acquisition/pvp kills) because everyone around you thinks the new item you got is cool, too.
I’m sure there will be more socializer games, because there is money to be made there, but for a primarily achiever game (like WoW) or killer/achiever game (like WAR), it just isn’t reasonable to expect them to invest valuable resources in stuff that their main player base isn’t going to make great use of. Development costs enough as is.
I would also like to strongly disagree with Bartle in his assertion that game designers can’t play games because they won’t be interesting or because they’d be biased. They aren’t interesting for Bartle, which is fine, but in no way deserves to be generalized to designers. And as a designer, I’ve had no problem designing systems “for” groups of players to which I don’t belong - as long as you can keep it in mind that your task as a designer is to make a game that is fun for its audience rather than fun for you (it can be both, and indeed the more players who will enjoy it the better) you can do your job well.
I was going to disagree with you and say that Richard Bartle is completely relevant, and then I found out that he hasn’t made a full game since 1978 and doesn’t really play MMORPGs. Maybe he doesn’t have a good reason to be talking about them like he is an expert at implementing them, since he hasn’t, but he does have some good theories.