From: jonke@kong.gsfc.nasa.gov (Stephen Jonke)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video
Subject: Dragon's Lair and pattern based games (Was: Video Game Renaissance)
Date: 13 Oct 92 20:57:11 GMT
Organization: NASA GSFC

In article <1992Oct13.174508.3890@noose.ecn.purdue.edu>, brackney@author.ecn.purdue.edu (Larry J Brackney) writes:
> 
> Dragon's Lair is a prime
> example of this thinking.  Sure it was a great looking game, but there
> was little substance to it.  It had all of the play mechanics of a Simon
> hand held game!  (Anybody remember those?)  All the player had to do
> was to react to a stimulus.
> 

Dragon's Lair was even LESS then stimulus reaction -- it was pattern based
and a simplistic, repetition memory game that guarantees you'll eventually
"beat" it (as with most of todays games and for sound economic reasons --
see following.)

The reason so many games are "pattern based" (this is just my theory,
mind you) is that game manufacturers want kids to put enough money in their
machines to make it profitable and want to arrive at such a game with as
little time, effort and expense as possible in order to minimize the risk.
This is very understandable.  The reason the technique works is that it
allows them to make games that are literally impossible when played the
first few times and yet absolutely guarantee that anyone who plays it will
progress further into the game with fairly steady progress.  A simple
repetition of the game will eventually result in your getting passed the
first "level" (or whatever you call it.)  This gives the game player the
impression that they have accomplished something (after all, the game seemed
completely impossible at first, right, so they must have accomplished
something!)  This makes the game player want to put another quarter in and
another and another to get passed level 2 which they will eventually pass
with simple repetition that will drive into their brains that they die if
they are in location X at point Y and therefore should not be in X at point
Y.  Sesame Street uses the same technique to teach the alphabet to toddlers
and it works there, so why not?

The obvious draw back to this approach is that it implies that games must
have an ending and when it is reached, kids will stop playing the game.
But, even games that aren't pattern based will eventually get less and less
usage and will reach a point at which they are no longer profitable (in
the short term at least.)  Also recall that they have spent minimal money
on the game and there will be enough kids led through the pipeline to make
the game profitable before too many kids "finish" it.  When that point
comes, they've probably already churned out another pattern based title,
so no problem.

The point is that ANYONE who plays the game will do well at it with very
little effort even if the game seems impossible at first.  That makes
people happy (after all, what's better then a feeling of accomplishment?)
and happy people spend money.  They achieve this goal with minimal expense
of time, effort and money.  The same argument can be applied to the
reasons behind the existence of so many pattern based games for home
systems as well.

Steve
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