Games and User Experience

Photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

Why games?

Let’s begin with this abstract question… why should we bring games into a discussion about User Experience in the enterprise software? Games deserve a huge respect! Games address the masses, and they do it successfully, if you consider the fact that each one of us has a game of any kind of her or his preference.

Games, in the sense of a designated system constituted of rules and a purpose, exist already for a long time; they date actually back to the first traces of human civilization. In parallel, game research evolves all these years either through a trial-and-error practice or consciously as a theoretical term.

Since the last four decades, games have also reached their digital era; images from video games deluge our visual culture, as well as our senses. Consequently, a new term has been established, the game experience.

Game experience and numbers

Let’s roughly check game experience interpreted in numbers.

Analytics consider the mobile games market growth above all expectations, with estimations reaching $40.9Bn in the year 2017. [Source newzoo.com]

Video game consoles have reached in 2012 their 8th generation, which has already sold 68,12Mn of hardware and is a new record. The software in physical boxes for this generation of hardware has already reached 400Mn. The hardware of the previous generation was launched in 2005, counts 271Mn of consoles, 2800Mn of software and lasted for more than 10 years — actually, they are still on the shelves — which is also a record timeframe. Nintendo has sold 212,78Mn mobile consoles alone since 2005. [Source vgchartz.com]

League of Legends is currently considered as one of the most popular and influential video games created by Riot Games, categorized as a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena and developed for Windows OS and Mac OS. More than 67 millions of people play it on a monthly basis, more than 27 millions of people play that daily and up to 7.5 millions of people simultaneously during daily peak hours. [Source riotgames.com]

The point is that people really like this digital form of play; they spend time, money and emotions on game experience. All these records during the last four years alone show the vast interest of people for playing video games. Video games, from their side, have evolved from experimental moving dots on a dual-colour monitor into deeply interactive blockbusters. They turned from cult scene of the pop culture into an acceptable hobby of adults. Moreover, game research has been defined as an academic term and is settling its presence among the studies of visual culture.

Game experience and media

Game design has achieved the successful transition of game experience among all kinds of interactive media, without being limited or worsened in terms of quality. Nowadays, the same video game might be developed and published for game consoles addressing players sitting on their sofa, as well as for mobile devices that players hold while standing in the subway. That does not mean that the game is identically the same, but offers the same game experience by making proper use of the game medium highlighting games’ identity.

In order to classify the media and interpret the above mentioned transition there are two physical aspects to be considered regarding the input and the output of the game media. As major input is considered the game controller, or gamepad, and its factor is the number of buttons. As output is considered the screen, with factors the screen resolution and the performance of the image.

From desktop to game consoles — From the keyboard and mouse to the game controller

Favourite example for this transition is the video game series Diablo, created by Blizzard, in the category of Action — Role-Playing-Games. Initially created for Windows OS and Mac OS (1997), the first Diablo was also released for gaming console, but I would consider as milestone the third Diablo, released in 2013, and its console releases. The whole game experience previously achieved with the keyboard and mouse, has been now available with just the game controller. The player uses shortcuts on the keyboard so as to perform actions, with either weapons or magic, and the mouse in order to point a character or place on the map by clicking.

Another game genre which was considered as a PC only is the one of First-Person-Shooters. Call of Duty game series developed by Activision, is the most popular example in this category. Players use the keyboard for shortcuts and the mouse in order to navigate into 3D environments and point where to perform the actions. Hardcore gamers even use mice that have more than the usual number of buttons, so as to advance their performance; those players still consider mouse as the proper medium for navigating. Though, the transition of the overall game experience to consoles has been that successful, that Activision chose to release the latest game of the series exclusively to a game console.

From game consoles to mobile devices — From the game controller to the touchscreen

Bringing again an example from the Action — Role-Playing-Games genre, Dungeon Hunter series by Gameloft is like Diablo mentioned above. The Dungeon Hunter series have made few transitions since they were first developed for iOS and Android mobile devices; next for game consoles, PC and Mac, and lately exclusively for mobile devices again. The most interesting part is how this case sets a working example of how the same game experience can be applied in so many different ways. The varied combination of shortcuts offered initially by the keyboard are now enabled by a guided game experience on a touchable screen.

From cards to mobile devices — From the physical table to the screen

Magic the Gathering has been for the last two and a half decades the most popular turn-based strategy card game, bringing a huge complexity because of the varied combinations that can be created by the different cards of which the game is constituted. Magic the Gathering has become a video game soon after its release, first for desktop, then for game consoles and later for mobile devices. Its kind of complexity is supported by the mechanics and the interface of the game in such a way, that the strategic part, and therefore the interest of the player, are kept on high levels. This video game is a quite interesting example because of the fact that, on the one hand, the player can choose a deck of 60 cards among a collection of 15000 cards, developing a unique strategy with high complexity, and on the other hand, the game experience keeps a clearly supportive role and letting the gamer taking the decisions.

From video games to real life — From the game controller to the steering wheel

The digital form of gaming might had been considered as a long study of game experience after all, but what counts might always be real life. As crazy as it might sound, the multi-function display in the cockpit of the 6th generation of Nissan Skyline GT-R (R35) — a real-life sports car — was designed by Polyphony Digital. The studio is the creator of the Gran Turismo series, a racing video games series exclusive for game consoles that have sold 76.5M copies so far and with a large active community. The design experience that the studio has collected for all these years and the direct feedback from the players have contributed to a significant technical know-how, so as to approach the industrial design from a fresh perspective.

So, why games?

Games have been developed into highly complex sets of rules and targets, independently from their form. More specific in their digital form, they do involve a deep interaction cross the story and cross the other gamers playing in the same session and sharing the same experience.

Most importantly, people play games because they like them, and they developed that certain art of complexity and set of rules because they are attracted to such structures.

Enterprise software could be also considered as the the digital form of processes taking place within a business environment; and User Experience is asked to guide the users through all this complexity emerging from the interaction with these processes. So, why not just get a little of inspiration from fields that keep people busy in their leisure time?