On Sunday, the 12th of September the track kicks off with the workshops on “Using Game Design and Affective Evaluation to improve User Experience and User Research” and “Game Design und Game Development in der Hochschullehre”. For the followers of this blog the first workshop is of special interest because it will provide an overview of available methods and techniques of evaluating game design and foster a productive discussion on creating guidelines for studying users with affective evaluation methodologies. For more information about the workshops check out the workshop page of the Entertainment Interfaces track.

Tuesday will feature the Entertainment Interfaces keynote “Trajectories through Entertainment Experiences” by Steve Benford (University of Nottingham, UK) and the two sessions “Player Experience” and “Entertainment Interaction”. Much more sessions will be provided by the other three tracks of the conference (Mensch&Computer, DeLFI and UPA), so check out the full program. Hope to see you in Duisburg next week!

Some days ago at gamescom Cologne I was able to spend some quality time with both Microsoft Kinect and Playstation Move. Both hardware add-ons shall broaden Microsoft`s and Sony`s audience in the casual market and extend the console cycles of both the Xbox360 and the Playstation 3. Here are some thoughts why I think these hardware add-ons won`t sell well:

1.) Technical limitations. Before testing Kinect at the Microsoft booth at gamescom I really thought this might be the best tech update for the consoles coming up next. Sadly, I must admit that after testing it I am a lot more sceptical that Kinect will improve the gaming experience a lot. Why? There is an input lag of a half or quarter second. Every user I talked to realized it during play and I think this will limit the games using the Kinect technology a lot. And there are other limitations (lower body point resolution, only two players simultaneously, bad recognition while sitting) mostly due to cost reduction of the hardware. So what we saw in the Natal demos won`t automatically work with Kinect…

Playstation Move feels pretty the same as the Wii Motion+. The hardware really looks robust and stylish and the cable connection of the Wii Nunchuck is gone. But why should I spend some money on an interface that`s pretty similar to the Wii one? Only for HD graphics? Because some old games get a PS Move update? Colour me unimpressed.

2.) The casual games bubble. I think the whole hype in the casual game market is a bubble which will explode sooner or later. Yes, the Wii sold pretty well but the majority of Wii games does not. The game attach rate for the Wii is lower than the ones for the 360 or PS3 which means that there must be some Wii owners out there who own just a handful of games or less. And now Microsoft and Sony want to convince the casual gamers who already bought a Wii to spend even more money for another console plus hardware add-ons plus games? And as a casual gamer you get a lot of free games at the moment. You have a huge amount of Free2Play-MMOGs, you have free browser and social games and a lot of free extra content for some games you already bought. Why invest money?

3.) Lean back versus stand up. I remember myself being extremely hyped after the first Wii trailers. Currently I am playing Monster Hunter Tri on my Wii (with the classic gamepad, not the remote) – but before this the console was not running for months. For core gamers the Wii is nearly dead – and even good core games like Red Steel 2 have very bad sales numbers. Motion control works pretty well for party games with friends but I know only a very few people who like to play core games for hours and hours with the Wii remote and nunchuck.

4.) Games sell hardware. I think the biggest mistake of Microsoft and Sony is to copy games that were successful on the Wii. In my opinion both casual and core gamers are unimpressed by the starting line-up for Kinect and PS Move. More party games? Another sport games collection? A light-gun shooter? Oh, a virtual pet? No, thanks. Sony has a small advantage with some core games like Heavy Rain receiving an update or Killzone 3 coming from start with the option to use Move. But both games can be played very well without PS Move – so why invest 150 bucks for something that is not absolutely needed to play the cool games? Kinect provides a new experience but the focus is on games for kids (Kinectimals) or casual gamers (Kinect Sports, Kinect Joyride). All the cool demo stuff from the early videos (beat`em up game, godzilla game and racing game) that hyped me is gone.

5.) The extension of the console life time. I think both Microsoft and Sony fear the next console generation and the dangers of a new console. Betting on the wrong horse (BluRay vs. HD-DVD, anyone?) can cost you a lot of money and both companies seem to prefer to extend the current console life time as much as they can. Microsoft`s 360 is now about 5 years old and Kinect already shows the limitations of the console hardware by being downsized from what Natal was before – of course they could have done Natal but at a much higher price point than Kinect. With the 360 being on the market with less than 200 bucks you cannot convince people to buy an add-on that costs more than the basic console. That`s why they downsized Natal.

Sony has a more comfortable situation with their hardware being more powerful on the long run but they also will try to extend the console cycle as much as they can. They are pretty straight forward in copying the Wii tech and making it slightly better but I don`t think that this will turn out to be the best idea. Sony`s main target group for their consoles has always been the core gamer (except the karaoke fans buying their Playstation just for Singstar). With Microsoft making a move into the casual game direction with a more sophisticated hardware approach, why does not Sony take the chance to strengthen the area they are good at? Sony probably would convince more new customers to buy a PS3 by strenghtening the keyboard and mouse support for future games (especially MMOGs and shooters).

In the end it does not matter which games are the ones that sell a system or hardware add-on, or if casual or core gamers buy the hardware. But I think a lot of people have some Wii remotes and a balance board at home which are not used that often. At the price point of 150+ bucks people will make up their mind if it`s worth to buy the add-ons and come to the conclusion that it`s not worth the money at the moment because there are no system-seller games out there. No hype. Both companies were very quick in building their own motion control to compete with Nintendo. It`s just a bit sad that they forgot to develop the right games for the hardware.

Picture by www.videogameszone.de

I still like the idea to interact with a console like Tom Cruise was doing in Minority Report but in the end it comes down to the games which will be available for each new system. In case of Microsoft`s Kinect I was really surprised that it seems like they cloned Nintendo`s games line-up: A sports collection, a cart racer, a nintendogs-like game and some sports activity stuff. Even the Star Wars Kinect game looks lousy: Poor graphics for a next gen console, standard interaction patterns instead of realtime tracking of the laser sword and some sort of rail-shooter movement. Ok, everything will presumably work a bit more precise than on the Wii but I think Microsoft really could have done much better with their line-up. Where are the new ideas? The only highlight for me was the dancing game which is a game that would not work on the Wii. But I doubt that this will be a system seller.

What`s up with Sony? After showing some fancy bow and sword action with the Playstation Move controllers at last E3 I was waiting for some motion-tracking games for the core gaming crowd. But it turned out that Sony had the same idea as Microsoft: Both want to expand their market with the casual gamers. Sony`s vision therefore includes a cartoonish sorcerer (Hello Harry Potter!) and some casual clash of old school game heroes. Of course, some older and some forthcoming AAA-titles will be supported by Playstation Move but none of them was presented live. It always sounded like PS Move will be a type of add-on feature but nothing the games will focus on.

So it turns out that both Microsoft and Sony are trying to follow in Nintendo`s footsteps by developing their own motion-tracking interfaces. Even though both Microsoft and Sony might have done a good job with their hardware, they failed to convice me with their games line-up. There is still hope that they both do better in the future but I do not find any reason to buy one of these at their release dates this fall.

And that`s why in my opinion Nintendo made the best impression with their media event. As awaited they presented some strong Wii IPs (Zelda, Metroid) and their next iteration of the Nintendo DS, the 3DS. The new version is able to provide 3D effects without putting glasses on and has a very solid start line-up  for a new mobile console: A new Metal Gear Solid title, Resident Evil, Kid Icarus, Dead or Alive, Kingdom Hearts, Ridge Racer, Assassin`s Creed, Professor Layton and some more. Of course, Nintendo is not the only one pushing 3d gaming – Sony presented their approach which includes a tv set for 2000$+ and wearing glasses. For now, it seems like Nintendo made again the right move in terms of hardware development.

The submission deadline is the 1st of June.

On the other hand, there are still publishers who try to come up with a “better” DRM or copy protection method. One of these publishers is Ubisoft introducing their new always-online DRM for PC games with Assassin`s Creed 2 and The Settlers VII in the next weeks called Online Service Platform.

So what`s the deal? The idea behind the copy protection is easy: You have to be online to play. If you`re losing the online connection during play the game will pause automatically and only continue if you go back online. Even more, savegames will be stored online. Of course, there are some benefits like playing the game without disk or installing the game on every computer you want to. Sounds a lot like Valve`s Steam platform but Ubisoft is going a bit further with the need to be always online and not only at the start of the game.

From an user experience perspective this system might lead to some problems. Here are some of my thoughts:

1.) Not everyone is always online. Most hardcore gamers / heavy users have flatrates and are permanently online during play. But believe me: There are still (casual) gamers out there who play games on systems without a permanent online access. Suprisingly, they might even want to play on a laptop system while travelling.

2.) Wireless LAN is great fun if it works fine but due to the increasing growth of inner city networks and number of access points there is a real wireless network smog around. Depending on your hardware and the density of networks around your home it is not unlikely to lose your wireless lan connection for a few seconds until your signal is  found again. These might be short breaks of only a few seconds but I cannot imagine some better killer of immersion and flow during gameplay than a pop-up message of the copy protection telling you that you lost your connection.

3.) Server accessibility. Well, even the best servers go down some time. Or your local provider has some connection issues. The consequence will be the same: You cannot access your singleplayer savegames. You cannot start your game. It`s already a bad issue if that happens to a game which is free to play. But it`s an epic fail if people pay 50 bucks for a game and cannot play the singleplayer campaign (!) because somewhere a server went down. I already experienced a Steam server downtime during a launch day. No fun at all, believe me.

4.) Longtime server availability. What happens if it turns out the game doesn`t sell well? Or people will stop playing it? Servers get shut down after a while and your game won`t be playable anymore. Of course, the publisher might fix this via patch – but there are enough cases of games which were abandoned completly.

5.) Legal customers are the ones who will suffer. It`s a general problem of every error-prone copy protection system: It`s the people who legally buy the game who will face the problems. It might be the software pirates hacking the copy protection who will be the ones facing less problems than the legal customers. It happened in the past and it might happen to Ubisoft`s system, too. If it does, it`s hard to explain to the legal customers.

Personally, as a former developer I am well aware of the  software piracy problem on the PC gaming market and see the need for a copy protection system. What I don`t understand is to build a system based completly on the idea of being always online. Everyone`s personal internet connection is something neither the users nor Ubisoft can control and that`s why my guess is that this system won`t last long.

Submissions for the Entertainment Interfaces track include full papers, posters, system demonstrations and workshop proposals. The submission deadline is the 8th of March.

For more information check out the submission information and the call for papers.

So if you are at DiGRA next week, come and join our session!

After playing a first session of Diablo 3 (which was really great) I testet DJ Hero and Tony Hawk: Ride. Both games will ship with new interface gadgets – one being a small-sized plastic turntable and the other being a skateboard without wheels. I was very sceptical when I first heard the announcement of DJ Hero but after playing it I must admit that it is really fun. Scratching felt really precise and the hardware looked much better than the first prototypes. The overall turntable looks robust but from my first impression the mixer could be a potential weak spot.

The skateboad controller of Tony Hawk: Ride looked and felt tough too but I was not very happy with the gameplay of the attached game. It felt like a skateboard game on rails with action events in between where you have to perform tricks at the right moment. I think this game will work pretty well for casual gamers but fans of the Tony Hawk series will perhaps be disappointed about the lack of freedom and control.

The PSP Go looked a bit smaller than I thought but I was surprised how well the sliding mechanism works. Still I think it was a wrong descision by Sony to use only one analogue stick for the console but the overall impression of the handheld was very positive.

Surprisingly the console version of EA`s  Dragon Age looked really bad – both in terms of graphics and character control. I thought I would definitely buy this one, but now I am quite sceptical that this one will be as successful as Mass Effect 2 (which made a far better impression).

Heavy Rain looked really good but played a bit strange since the control scheme is very untypical – I hope this feeling will fade after playing some time because graphics and story really make me wanna play this one. Other games I can recommend to test at GamesCom are God of War 3, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Pixeljunk Shooter, RUSE, Starcraft 2 and the already mentioned Diablo 3 (and I am pretty sure that I forgot at least 10 more titles…).

Compared to last year`s GC at Leipzig the GamesCom at Cologne seems to be a bit smaller and has – except of the official unveiling of the PS3 Slim – less big news than the GC 2008.  But if you are into games and have time to visit the GamesCom till Sunday I strongly recommend you to go there.

Thx to factoids@flickr for the pics!