The Gamification of Halloween

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the effects of special annual Halloween events in computer games.

Although Halloween began as a Christian holiday, it has become a secular celebration in our modern western world. Famous Halloween traditions include trick-or-treating, visiting Halloween costume parties, watching horror movies or carving pumpkins into jack’o’lanterns. [1]

Due to Halloween’s popularity, it also got adopted by the media. For instance, several horror movies evolve around this special event and many comedy series feature special Halloween episodes. One of the most famous examples are the The Simpsons – Treehouse of Horror special episodes that aired annually since the second season of The Simpsons.

Naturally, a similar adoption took place in the computer game industry as well. Aside from the emergence of special Halloween-inspired horror games, several computer games received annual events allowing the players to celebrate Halloween in their favorite virtual worlds.

Hallow’s End in World of Warcraft.

The probably best example is World of Warcraft that received a Halloween-inspired annual event in October 2005. Since then, players can celebrate the Hallow’s End event on an annual basis by defeating special event bosses, collecting sweets by trick-or-treating and wearing spooky costumes or masks. In addition, the entire virtual world of Azeroth gets decorated with jack’o’lanterns, spooky candles, skeletons and other Halloween decorations during this particular events.

Aside from adding new and exciting game mechanics to an existing game, those special events also make the virtual worlds more authentic and immersive. Without those special events, the virtual worlds would just be static environments that always look the same throughout the whole year. However, with the implementation of special events, the virtual environments start to change the same way as the real world, thus making it more believable and realistic.

Moreover, special seasonal events provide the players with new content and, more importantly, new experiences that ultimately result in more fun and that’s what it is all about when it comes to playing a game.

Halloween in Minecraft.

Happy Halloween! 🙂

Other games are interesting, too

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about a special viewer group that only watches a Let’s Play series of a particular game and starts to demand more content when the content creator likes to drop the series.

Like any other computer game player, YouTubers who create Let’s Play videos (LP) stop playing a particular game when they have beaten the game or exhausted most of the game’s challenges. At this point, they move on to a different game that is more enjoyable and provides new challenges to the content creator. Although this sounds like the natural progression of playing computer games, it can have surprising side effects for the YouTuber when there is a huge group of viewers that were just watching because of the video series featuring this particular game.

Normally, one would assume that viewers follow a YouTuber because they like his style of playing games or commentating the own gameplay. Those viewers usually enjoy any series the YouTuber creates and are always looking forward to the start of a new series as this mostly shows a completely new aspect of the player. Of course, some of the games a content creator plays might not be as interesting and, as a result of this, they skip watching this series. However, those YouTuber-centric viewers (YCV) are just one classification of viewers as there are also viewers who are only interested in a particular game. In contrast to the YCV, game-centric viewers (GCV) only care about one game and ignore all the other content the YouTuber releases.

This situation works well as long as the content creator continues to release videos about the GCV’s game. During this time, both relevant viewer groups are pleased with the YouTuber’s work as it satisfies their demands. Unfortunately, as soon as the GCV’s series is dropped, they feel ignored as their demands are no longer satisfied. Some of them might give some of the other video series a try, but most of them will stop watching the YouTuber’s videos entirely or even start to complain and demand more videos of this particular game.

As a result of this, the content creator faces a difficult problem as there is suddenly some kind of pressure to continue playing a game that already has become boring and hence ceases to be fun. In addition, the content creator most certainly will observe a significant drop in the total amount of views and start to ask himself if something is wrong with the current video releases.

In sum, there is no ideal solution to this problem. If the YouTuber gives in and continues to produce videos of the game, it will satisfy the demands of the GCV, but can completely ruin the content creator’s opinion of that game. Also, it can have a negative impact on the content’s quality and hence disappoint the YCV. If the YouTuber does not return to the game, he will have to deal with all the demands for a continuation, but will also be more happy with the games he plays which ultimately satisfies the YCV. Unfortunately, this will most like come at the price of losing a good portion of views per month.

In the end, I wrote this article in order to raise the awareness for this problem. YouTubers are also just humans and hence their interests might change over time. Constantly demanding the continuation of a series is of course understandable, but in the long run, it will cause a lot of damage. Naturally, some games are really entertaining to watch, but it does not hurt to try out different series a content creator produces as they might be very interesting, too.

The Aesthetics of Imperfection

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about the aesthetics of imperfection that are mostly found in a player’s first gameplay of a particular game.

In most of the cases, players of building games, such as Minecraft and Cities: Skylines, want to achieve ideal results that look very refined and/or are very efficient. In order to do so, players constantly improve certain elements until they find an ideal way to realize their goals. Often, those games also allow the construction of new projects in the same virtual world enabling them to easily compare older projects with current ones in order to learn from their mistakes and to see how their performance has improved over time.

Serious traffic issues in Cities: Skylines

However, the prime goal of achieving ideal results, which is often rewarded by the game, too, takes away the very asthetic element of imperfection. For instance, old cities or old houses mostly are interesting as things are not done in an ideal or very streamlined way. Instead, they are results of a development process that happened naturally and/or without a clear plan. Interestingly, the special element of imperfection can often be found in a player’s first gameplay as most game mechanics are still unknown to the player and hence the development of a building or city also happens in a very natural way.

Like in the real world, players try to change minor things in order to improve certain elements or fix particular problems of their projects and hence a natural progression takes place. In the end, a player’s first game might not be very streamlined or ideal but offers the same aesthetics of imperfection as many things in the real world.

Minecraft

However, as soon as a player starts a new game, they already have a good knowledge of the game mechanics and can try to approach the game with a clear plan in mind in order to achieve a very streamlined and perfect outcome. Although this can also be very interesting, the results often lack of a unique character and feel sterile.

Personally, I often notice that I really enjoy the first time of playing such a game as the results seem very authentic due to the imperfections. However, as soon as I start a completely new world, I begin to play with a certain plan in mind but often lose interest after a relatively short while as the results start to feel unnatural. This might also be the reason why I still play in the exact same Minecraft world I created as I bought the game some years ago.