Stunning Victory…An Economics Approach to Game Design (Part II)

October 6th, 2007 by DanB | Posted in Feature |

In Part I, we discussed how the economic concept of utility can be applied to create a game that provides utility (fun) to the consumer (player). Just as a brief review, utility exists when the product has some value to the consumer. In the case of games, utility comes from the series of events within a game that a player finds engaging. Depending on the nature of the game and the type of consumer, each subsequent event has slightly altered utility. Theory is fine, but to make these principles more accessible and understandable, this article will apply them to a few well-known games.

Game 1 - Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)

DDR appears to be a simple game, due to there being a set amount of moves and the gameplay being relatively constant. But with more examination, we will see that it is actually quite complex. First of all, let us define an event in this game as a single step or combination of steps. A song may contain something in the range of 200-400 steps, depending on song length, difficulty, etc. Each of these steps will require a combination of one or more button presses. With 4 buttons on the pad, this gives us 10 possible single or double button combinations. We can also assume that each single button press is relatively equal in utility to any other single press, just each double button press is relatively equal to any other double button press.

So we have a game that consists of many events of either two utility values (single or double), coming in high speed. At first glance, it would seem as though this game would have utility problems due to being so simple. But in this case, that isn’t son. The game creates utility by varying the events so that each time they are used, they lose no utility from repeat consumption. This game could be seen as a steady flow of utility with relatively low variation. Utility is gained steadily, at a fairly constant rate.

Game 2 - Final Fantasy X (FFX)

Final Fantasy X consists of two main parts, divided into many, many smaller and complex parts. Part 1 is combat, Part 2 is what we can call adventuring, or the activities leading up to combat. The interesting thing about this game’s genre (RPGs) is that the user has more control over the events than other styles of games. The game is full of choices, allowing the user to pick (within the game’s rules) the events that provide them the most utility. Within each of these types of events, there are subsets that vary the utility even more (i.e., normal vs. “boss” monsters), decreasing the chance of utility decreasing due to over-usage of an event. For example, a player may choose to kill monsters, then go back to town and do shopping, and once that is done they may play a minigame. By allowing the user to change events when the utility begins to dimish, the player is able to maximize the utility of all the events.

Compared to DDR (a long series of pre-set, stable events), FFX consists of many choices of events that the user can control. This could be seen as a series of events that are selected by the user for their utility value. This value will come in groups as the user transitions between various events and sub-events.

Using these two contrasting examples, it’s easy to see that utility via events can be obtained in different styles. Depending on the type of game, the expectations of the player, and the design of the game, different styles can deliver comparable results in radically different ways.