Why Do We Grind?

You've probably played a game that has a grind in it. It used to just be RPGs, but now it's sneaking into the FPS genre in the form of Multiplayer Ranks, which may or may not unlock various items. Call of Duty has it, and it's a purely linear experience, excluding the killstreak rewards, and Halo:Reach will include it in the form of 'Credits' earned for playing the Multiplayer element of the game, to be spent on shiny bits of armour. Why, though, do we grind?

For the answer, we need only look at human nature itself. To survive, animals and humans alike have had to compete. We compete for food, money, shelter... everything. Success in competition bring a slight elation, and that elation can become an addiction. Success that comes too easy will put you off, with the feeling of an empty victory, success that never comes leaving a feeling of defeat. This careful balance must be found and maintained by developers so that they can command the attention of the gamer.

Progression, however, must not come at a steady pace. If it does, gamers will feel as though they are only ever fighting for the same goal, one that they can predict and expect. By constantly shifting the goal posts, or providing multiple goals, the gamers experience will continue to become more and more addictive as they have new goals to aim for. In the classic case of levelling up, as in RPGs and recent Shooter games, the traditional variation of increased distance between goals is an obvious choice, as doing so will provide a quick buzz for the new player, but a goal to strive for that becomes measurably more distant with each goal attained, with the buzz of the early game setting the scene for the desire to reach the next goal, an almost Pavlovian response.

This response is also used to great effect by the Xbox 360 Achievements system that has been so doggedly been an inspiration for other systems including Steam's Achievements and PlayStation's Trophies, meaning that not only do we now grind our RPGs, but our FPSs, our Puzzlers, Platformers, Sims, Fighters and so on...

Why do we grind? We do it because that is what we were trained to do.

A Casual Analysis of the Top LIVE Titles

I love Xbox LIVE. I may even marry it, but let me tell you why. Major Nelson, the Xbox LIVE Director of Programming, brings us a lot of statistics and interesting information about the service, and on a weekly basis, he posts a series of Top 20s. Top 20 active Xbox titles, Top 20 Xbox LIVE Arcade titles, Top 20 Indie Games and more recently, the Top 20 active Games for Windows LIVE titles.

First of all, lets have a look at the more sedentary titles. I can tell you that The Top Three, even without looking at the list, is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Halo 3 and either Call of Duty: World at War or whatever the most recent 'Big Name Triple-A Title' is hot at the moment that doesn't have the addictive progress-hunter multiplayer gameplay experiences offered by the top two.

It used to be that Halo 3 was the Top Dog for a very long time, but that title has been around a very long time. It's starting to show it's age, most certainly in the light of Halo: Reach soon to arrive. When Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare arrived, the number one slot used to flip-flop between Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare as people would fluctuate between the two game. Since then, we've had two new Call of Duty titles released, those mentioned above, who between them clearly have a larger market share than Halo 3, with Modern Warfare 2 clearly holding the advantage.

From that, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that First Person Shooters are popular, and it's true, they are. Western gamers, the Xbox's main market, is far more accustomed to a story being told to them about things happening to the character they're inhabiting, whereas in Japan, they are much more comfortable with being The Third Person in the story.

However, if we dip lower into the charts, beyond the 'Big Three', we see this week that our current 'Jeux du Jour' is Red Dead Redemption, some game about Cowboys made by Rockstar of Grand Theft Auto fame. The 'Fourth' installment of the city-wide immigrant-gangster-it-up is currently hovering mid-table at 8, up one place each week for the last two weeks, which we can take the mean that the popularity of R.D.R. is bringing people to GTA IV as they remember the Good Times.

Further still into 5th position, we find FIFA 10, this years incremental release of the FIFA video game from EA, well ahead of the official World Cup video game languishing at the bottom end of the top 20 and far ahead of Madden NFL 10 and NBA 2K10, a possible indicator that Europe and Australasia are a significantly larger market than Microsoft's American-centric marketing would have us believe.

Dropping now to 6th, we see that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is still alive and kicking, it's addictive personality and, dare I say, retro feel winning the day over 7th place Gears of War 2, a title that was plagued with problems at launch and has done well to retain such a large fan base. Also of note is that this is the first 'traditional' shooter in the chart that occurs in Third Person, Red Dead Redemption being discounted due it it's more open-world nature when compared to the 'arena' play of Gears.

Skipping over a title already mentioned in 8th (GTA IV) we arrive at 9th, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the first new FPS franchise to appear since the start of this article and the biggest threat to those above it, certainly in light of the title in 10th, Blacklight: Tango Down, a terrible title that feels like it's just trying to get a slice of the pie. It does, however, mark our first (and only) Arcade title in the list and if it manages to do this well next week (it's second week at release) then it stands a good chance of doing well over all.

Dropping now to 11th, we're starting to get some variety. It's still an FPS, folks, but it's Left 4 Dead 2, a game co-op with a huge following on PC. It surprises me with it's popularity, though it's a welcome variation on the chart from the FPS-fest we've endured so far.

Rounding out the chart as we look further down the list, we come to the Crackdown 2 Demo, a third person open city Genetically-Enhanced-Cop-Em-Up, with the promise of 'Demo Achievements' luring people hopefully into buying the awesome Crackdown 2, our first title without it's own website, which hovers at 17th. With Gearbox's Borderlands at 19 and Fallout 3 at 20, there is hope for humanity as RPGs make themselves known.

So, from this information, what can we meaninglessly extrapolate to insult people? Well, a very easy jibe is "Most Xbox gamers are uncultured First Person Shooter fans" which is true while being completely wrong. Most Xbox gamers are competitive jerks who want to be able to best people AND prove it, it just so happens that the majority of our titles allow a person to do that while providing adrenaline rushes and subjects we can relate to. Open worlds are also proving popular, but only in Third Person, with Fallout 3 only just popping it's head in to say hello. Sports are also popular, showing us that the primary market isn't just nerds who play FPSes, but sports fans who are likely to rob you.

Scary, no? See you on LIVE :)

Google Buzz - by Seesmic?

Anyone who's anyone who follows me on Twitter (Hi Adam!) will know that I use Seesmic for Android when I tweet, so when news of Google Buzz support hit me for the most recent update, I did something I don't do often, and actually checked for the update.

The interface is pretty good. It presents you with that familiar Timeline view that Seesmic has, and the four tabs , being Following, Nearby, Search and Profile, differ from the usual tabs of Timeline, Replies, Messages and Profile. This change isn't that much of a problem, as Buzz's method of user interaction is completely different from the traditions that have grown up around Twitter's 140 character limit.

My only qualm with it is the lack of a map for Buzzes, as I do find that I enjoy the geographical side of Buzz, though with Maps and http://buzz.google.com/ (If you're on Android 2.0+ or iPhone) supporting a map of an area with buzzes represented upon it, it would be duplicating functionality that's already well done.

All-in-all, good update.

After Burner Climax

So I was wandering around the Xbox Live Arcade the other day with the urge to buy something. It's a bad habit, I know, but one that has served my entertainment well. This time, I bought After Burner Climax.

Originally a 2006 Arcade title, developed by one of my all-time favourite developers, AM2, this game has guns, missiles, Boeing planes and a stupid amount of fast-paced action. Seriously. Things just go past so fast it's hard to be sure you've even seen them at times. Unfortunately, it's very easy to just end up rolling your plane all over the place as you try to swing the reticule from one side of the screen to the other. Overlooking this small interface problem, it's actually a very fun game.

It starts out really quite punishing, being able to count yourself lucky if you're able to reach the end. As you play on, you unlock 'EX' options, which can give you things from more lives, to a game that basically plays itself. It's a bit cheap to play in the 'plays itself' mode, but it's great for getting achievements nice as fast. I got my full 200 GamerScore in one sitting, but it's important to note that I almost felt like I was cheating myself with that.

They do have the perfect counter for that, though. Score Mode. This mode of play does not allow for EX options, meaning that you can't make the game just kill everything, you have to actually put an effort into things. So that I can get good at this mode, I will reduce the EX options slowly back to their defaults so that I can learn how to play the game at the high level that it demands.

With gameplay that's pretty, fast and easy to learn but difficult to master, it's well worth the 400 MSP (£3.60) I paid for it in this weeks XBLA deal, but I doubt I'd have bought it at the normal ask of 800 MSP (£7.20).

Destinaion Arcade

So, Microsoft appear to be stepping up to the plate. We've seen that the PlayStation boys are able to have customised 'store fronts' for their various publishers in the PlayStation Store (on PS3 only, boo!) and with the New Xbox Experience, I had almost expected something along those lines in there. I mean, it's got some great features and is FAR more usable than the original dashboard used to be, but there was a lack of customisability in there from a Publisher's point of view, and that kinda sucks.

Major Nelson, however, has announced Destination Arcade, which looks to bring a much better discovery experience to the Xbox. Go have a look at the screenshots, it's pretty nice. It's a departure from the dashboard, but maybe it'll feature Kinect interaction some how. With this first simple change to what has been a neglected and increasingly over-priced part of the Xbox Live experience, we could see offerings like that offered by PlayStation. Soon, they may even one-up them. I'm not a fanboy, but Microsoft are quite an underdog, and Underdogs are always fun to root for.

In the future, I'd love to see a similar service offered for Retail/Games on Demand titles, offering access to DLC for games you've got, much like they're already offering on the Dashboard in a simplistic manner. The Internet is changing it's focus to User Content and User Owned Content, they call it Web 2.0. Maybe this is Xbox 360 2.0 in it's infancy? I wait with bated breath.