Video Games and Choice

Uploaded by: kirithem
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http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22456
Episode Five in my series of video "lectures," made in association with Gamasutra. Co-written with James Portnow, cofounder of Divide By Zero Games. This episode marks our first entry of Game Design Corner, where we look specifically at elements of game design.
Loosely modeled after Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews.
I can be reached at floydo_animation at yahoo dot com.
James can be reached at jportnow at gmail dot com.
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http://www.carbohydrom.net/music/CarboHydroM_-_Penguin_Cap.mp3
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Tags for this video: video games choice presentation lecture daniel floyd zero punctuation gamasutra james portnow game design problem

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@dcent2 HOW DARE U ... ( 3 months ago by kazyBarbarian)

@dcent2 HOW DARE U DISAGREE WITH A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE !?! I REFUSE TO HEAR YOU OUT!!!

@kazyBarbarian fuck ... ( 3 months ago by dcent2)

@kazyBarbarian fuck you man. your a dick. it would be different if i had said "OH MEE GODXXXX YOU FUCKFASSE U GOTZ N0 1DE4 WHATCHU TALKUIN BOUT DUMBASZZ!!!
But I Didn't, so shut the fuck up.

Another great video ... ( 3 months ago by Zeb364)

Another great video. I do have one point to make though. As someone who has played through Bioshock multiple times and has both havested and resuced the Little Sisters there is no clear right or wrong choice. Your led to believe that you'll receive a better reward for harvesting them, thus the lure of the quick and easy evil path, but in fact if you rescue them receive approximately the same amount of ADAM as well as Plasmids you can't get any other way.

Definitely a nice, ... ( 3 months ago by LordRevan107)

Definitely a nice, quickly comprehended view of problems versus choices in video games. Looking forward to more of these.

I love your videos! ... ( 3 months ago by TheRealDrDude)

I love your videos! You have some real gold in these :) I'm looking forward to watching and learning many more. P.S. Thank you James for sharing your knowledge :D

This was pleasantly ... ( 3 months ago by silentstephi)

This was pleasantly informative aaaaaaaaaand pretty funny. ^.^ In case you're curious, I was linked here from the Mass Effect 2 boards.

Cool, interesting, ... ( 3 months ago by anyonechagt)

Cool, interesting, well-paced, and unprecedentedly capable of keeping track of what you're talking about.
but could you please, please PLEASE not speed your voice up? I've got the time to listen to you at a lower, slower, less annoying pitch.

@dcent2 i was being ... ( 3 months ago by kazyBarbarian)

@dcent2 i was being sarcastic

I always thought ... ( 2 months ago by MuteJordan)

I always thought about this since about the beginning of this year. Why in most adventure games you HAVE to go that way instead of another. Where as in free roam you can do whatever because it's your choice.

i'm not quite sure ... ( 2 months ago by Budda2k62k6)

i'm not quite sure now, if Fallout 3 was givingme choices on how to solve a problem, or just presented me problems to solve.
anyways... FO3 is great :D

haha you are ... ( 2 months ago by Shadowgrip55)

haha you are absolutely hilarious and your a genuis great job!

I love your videos. ... ( 2 months ago by myusername0wns)

I love your videos. They are one of the best things I have watched on youtube. Your points are interesting and backed with example yet presented in a way that makes your videos enjoyable to watch.
Make MOAR :D

A lot of what we'd ... ( 2 months ago by RyuseiKitadama)

A lot of what we'd call choice by offering seemingly incomparable options, even when given in a multitude of interdependent ways, eventually ends up being reduced to a problem. The gamer population takes the list of options, exhaustively explores each one, catalogues the results, debates the merits of their approach ad infinitum, and the community comes to relative agreement on which is better. Real incomparable choice, beyond aesthetics, very often just gets discarded as immaterial.

@Xand991 ...pwned ( 1 month ago by wawern)

@Xand991 ...pwned

Gosh, your videos ... ( 3 weeks ago by ZeldaLink239173)

Gosh, your videos are the most informative I've seen. Thank you. SO MUCH.

@kirithem i love ... ( 2 weeks ago by JeTSpice)

@kirithem i love the fast voice -- time is precious to me.

An easy way to ... ( 2 weeks ago by randoguy101)

An easy way to implement choice is simply non-linearity in level design, in which each path leads to the same goal, but they present different problems, and you decide which problem you feel would be better to face.

Bathesday turns out ... ( 1 week ago by Xfacta12482)

Bathesday turns out games with actual choices.
Take Fallout 3 for example. I was basing my decision on my morals more than anything else, because rewards and such were equal in diff. ways.
Along with a great story..Fallout 3 is easily my fav game of all time. Right next 2 Oblivion, for the exact same reasons.

For example, with ... ( 1 week ago by Xfacta12482)

For example, with Fallout 3, there was no right way to play the game. You could be good, you could be evil. You could solve your problems with you gun or through words.
It came down to..really..the kind of person you are. All games should be made like it.

2.51 Thats a ... ( 3 days ago by gv1955)

2.51 Thats a problem, not a choice.
Well for me anyway.

Would you consider ... ( 2 days ago by tubeview96)

Would you consider Pokemon too be a "choice" game, rather than a "problem" game? Now the story, i don't mean that. I mean the fact that you get too pick and choose whatever combination of moves, stats, pokemon, etc. that YOU want. Nobody forces you to beat a water type with a grass type, you can choose use fire type and still win.

@tubeview96 I'd say ... ( 2 days ago by MrNinjenius)

@tubeview96 I'd say they we're choices WITHIN a problem. At the end of the day, the aim will always be to defeat the enemy Pokemon. The game just allows the player multiple ways to solve the "problem".

@MrNinjenius i ... ( 2 days ago by tubeview96)

@MrNinjenius i guess, and the main goal is to beat the elite four and be crowned "pokemon master". Maybe it can be defined as a problem with multiple choices? Sure, that works (restating what he said, what's that?)

Referring to the ... ( 2 days ago by MrNinjenius)

Referring to the fact there is no apparent "right or wrong" way when making a choice, there will often be times when solving a problem doesn't have a "right or wrong" way either. Sure, the problem itself will only lead to one better outcome, differentiating it from choices, but the process of solving that problem might not necessarily have a "right or wrong" answer. These kinds of choices-within-a-problem" could arguably be called "false choices", but they are choices nonetheless.

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