This week’s Massively Overthinking is inspired directly by a positively delightful tweet that could totally happen.
“When I’m President Of Video Games, all games will have an ‘adults with busy lives’ feature. ‘Hi, I see you haven’t played this game in a month. Here’s a reminder of the last things you did and where you need to go next. Press X for a quick tutorial of the controls you forgot.'”
Yep, I want this. But I’d want a million other things too, some of them completely outlandish. When you’re President Of Video Games (Especially MMORPGs), what one legally binding act would you institute first?
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): My first objective would probably be cleaning up the dark patterns and abusive monetization in the genre. When I was interviewing Raph Koster a few weeks ago, he was very blunt about the fact that the gaming demographic rightly associates shitty monetization tricks with the MMORPG genre, which keeps a lot of would-be MMO players from joining us. This is not just depressing but harmful. I’d probably try to fix all that first.
But, you know. If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve, etc. President of video games sounds like a pain in the ass.
Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch):
- 100-page manuals because that’s where people should learn how to play the game in the first place
- Optional tutorials
- Entirely optional MSQ
- Multiple paths to max level
- Guild Wars 2 updates its animations
- Any game with unskippable cutscenes cannot have a critic score higher than 5.
- In-game tools to learn and practice raids without having to use YouTube/other players
- An end to 30-minute video game rant videos
Time to print this and nail it to a cathedral door or something
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog):Â As President of MMORPGs, I first mandate that studios keep PvE and PvP gameplay separate. It’s been tried over and over and over again. It’s failed every time. The square peg doesn’t fit into the round hole.
Next, I mandate that MMORPG levels go the way of the dodo. Try to be a little more creative with character progression systems and maybe see how opening up your game’s world to adventures works out. You might be surprised. Or you might end up with a horribly imbalanced system like Elder Scrolls Online’s One Tamriel.
Next up: Remove battle passes. They’re not as bad as lockboxes, but they prey on similar mindsets and FOMO tendencies. Incidentally, any game with lockboxes will see the executives responsible for the decision locked up in prison for a maximum of 10 years.
Finally, I am issuing an executive order to have Kickstarter completely shut down, the creators of the platform slapped in their faces with smelly fish, and everyone’s money being refunded.
Hi, my name is Chris Neal and this has been my excuse to transform into a hot take toaster oven.
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I would order an immediate cessation of predatory and skeezy business models across the entire industry. Your game can’t hack it without one of those? Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. This should be extended to misleading video game ads and carry with it a maximum sentence of paper cuts in the webbing between your fingers for any studio execs that try to break this.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): As the President of Video Games, I say my first act will definitely be to require PvP MMOs to have a simple, easy-to-access arena – one where players of all levels can queue up and battle to their hearts’ content, where gear doesn’t matter, and where a player who wants to just smash another player without spending hours precisely gathering and earning certain specific pieces of gear can compete on even footing. Basically, the original Guild Wars PvP mode should be included for all games. I might actually play a dozen more games if they had that.
Tyler Edwards (blog):Â I would mandate massive accessibility and customization of gameplay. Absolutely everything has difficulty settings, and not just “easy, medium, hard.” You should be able to tweak every area of gameplay to your taste. Adjust how much damage you take, how much damage you do to enemies, how alert guards are in stealth sections, how punishing death is, if you even can die, everything.
For online games, this customization should also apply to social play. Every piece of content should scale to be equally playable with one player, forty players, or any group size in between.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!
