Game Resources: Context, Importance, and Inherent Value
By: Yvens Serpa
Tags: Gaming, Game Design, Videogames, Game Economy, Game Development

About Importance

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (henceforth SF2) was an arcade fighting game released and produced in 1991 by Capcom. The World Warrior version is the first iteration of the SF2 series, and it is attributed to have started the fighting game boom in the '90s.

A player wins SF2 tournament mode (or arcade) by defeating all world warrior characters, including four CPU-only-controlled opponents (Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison). Each character is faced in a 1v1 combat of at least two rounds. The player wins a round by either zeroing the opponent's health or having the highest health points when the time is up. After winning two rounds, a player wins the fight.

In terms of resources, each fight won is a winning resource. "Collecting" all, or better, beating all of the opponents, grants the game's victory.

Even though the game has other modes, such as a two-player face-off, this article is only considering the single-player mode of SF2.

Ken and Dhalsim fighting in SF2 [Source: Yvens Serpa].

SF2 has other resources besides the victories, such as the battle's timer, the health points (named VITAL in the game), and a high score. Also, each round won is a resource on its own. From another point of view, the characters themselves are resources used by the player. Moreover, each character has resources in the form of specific stats and characteristics (hitboxes, etc.).

Comparing some of these resources with each other is quite obvious. For example, a fight is as valuable as two rounds, and more fights are (arguably) more valuable than fewer fights.

On the other hand, some relations are not obvious, such as "time and high score" or even "health and character stats." Moreover, there are subjective comparisons and relations, such as the preferred character. In this sense, some relations and the importance of resources are dependent on the player.

Additionally, the fighting skills, such as punches, kicks, and throws, are mechanics and not resources, but are impacted and determined by them. A basic damage calculation, for example, takes into account the character used, its stats, and even random numbers. Differently, throw movements have an added boost to the player with the least rounds won. In this sense, some resources relations are dependent on the game's economy.

Economical & Social Value

The game's economy is a system in which the game manipulates resources. For example, when a player hits another with a punch, decreasing the opponent's health points based on a mathematical formula. Or when the game calculates the score gained at the end of a fight. Under the lens of the game's economy, the resources and values are understood as what they can achieve within the economy's mechanisms.

Other than numbers and calculi, the player's experience is crucial to the gaming experience, both in engagement and fun. For that, resources have to be also understood under their values toward the player's opinion.

Blanka and Ryu fighting on a realistic view of an Amazonian City [Source: Yvens Serpa].

In a silly example, a player in SF2 can choose to play as Blanka purely because they like the character and stage (a certainly realistic view of Brazil). Another player, though, might prefer to play as Guile because of his theme song. The characters in the game are resources, and the choice of which character to play is mostly based on social value — it is determined by the player regardless of the game's economy.

On the other hand, winning one round has the economic value — it influences the game economy directly regardless of the player choice. If a player wins one round, it is halfway done to win a fight and move towards the game goal. From a purely game perspective, winning a match has no social decision. A player would not decide to "lose" or "win" a match based on social actions. It does so to win the game. Alternatively, winning one round is not a decision. It is a matter of skill and luck.

Surely, both cases are open for discussion. Choosing a character can be related to the metagame, for example. Therefore, players would choose characters that have more advantages than others to improve their victory chance. In a sense, this is still a decision, and players are free to bypass this and simply select Chun Li because they feel like it (and her winning stance is cute).

Likewise, a player might “decide” to lose a match while playing casually with someone, just for the sake of fun or for fair play. You might want to give the small taste of victory to that newbie friend of yours. However, the game’s economy ignores this behavior and uses this input in its economic mechanisms anyway.

Chun Li beating M. Bison [Source: Yvens Serpa].

Resources can have economic and social values, that is, a value within the game economy; and a value subjective to the player (motivation, personal opinion, etc.). Having both values in the same resource is fairly common in games. As people are social beings, it is not easy to separate activities from their social aspects. Differently, if an intelligent but emotionless machine plays a game, the machine is more likely to make all its decisions based on economic values since they tend to lead to the game's goal.

Further, on this discussion, resources with economic and social values can be preferred by players. A player might have a character it likes the most and a second-most liked character. Resources can be sorted by "likeness" and other factors. That is possible because resources have inherent value, be it again under social or economic nature. An inherent value is the importance of a resource that allows resources to be compared.

However, it is not possible to measure or calculate the inherent value of a resource directly. It is necessary to use the resource's relations and a common currency, such as, but not limited to, score and money.

Besides, a resource's inherent value must be analyzed under its relationships within and without a context.

Context-Free and Context-Sensitive

A context-free resource is one in which its inherent value and use in the game are independent of its current state. Contrarily, a context-sensitive resource has its inherent value to depend on other resources and factors in the game's current state.

For example, in SF2, the high score is a context-free resource. Regardless of the high score value, all game mechanics work the same. Also, players can discuss and compare their high scores without caring about their details. In short, a higher score has "more value" than a lower score.

The high score is calculated per round using the winner's remaining health points and the residual time. More specifically, a full health bar is worth 30,000 points (for a perfect win), and the full time is worth 9,000 points (each second is worth 100 points). Even considering two other resources that calculate it, the high score is still a context-free resource.

On the other hand, health is a context-sensitive resource. Although it works the same no matter the circumstance, and all characters in SF2 have the same health, its inherent value might change depending on the game's state. For example, a player who already won the first round might be less strict with its own health points and not bother losing some of it. Alternatively, a player who already lost the first match will value the health more and be more cautious about "spending" it.

Dhalsim and Zangief in a Time's Up screen. Zangief is not happy [Source: Yvens Serpa].

Time is an interesting case. In SF2, if the timer reaches 0, the player with the most remaining health wins, reinforcing that health is a context-sensitive resource. Still, this factor might go unnoticed in most rounds that end within the first few seconds.

In a sense, the game timer is a context-free resource because it does not depend on other factors but can determine important mechanics. Unlike the high score, which receives input from other mechanisms, the timer gives input to others, including the high score itself.

One could argue that a player with more health will value the timer "more or less" because it can be a deciding factor in winning the round. However, the resource that is actually being valued is the remaining health. The timer operates its merciless and unstoppable count down, ignoring the state in which the health points are.

Guile wreaking objects in the Bonus Game [Source: Yvens Serpa].

In terms of social value, any resource can be seen as being context-sensitive. Players can dispute over the high score or try to manipulate it for in-game and outside-game events. Additionally, players can compete to see who wins faster or how long they can survive in a fight (for some reason). As human creativity is limitless to finding reasons for pointless activities, it is understandable that any aspect of a game can have some social value to players, as long as they look for it themselves.

However, separating resources into context-free and context-sensitive can be quite helpful in understanding their inherent value. Context-free resources can be usually valued in terms of themselves due to the lack of necessary relationships to understand or use them. Whereas context-sensitive resources can be evaluated using context-free resources, as they are usually managed (created, calculated, etc.) by them.

For example, the high score, for being context-free, can be valued in terms of itself. As said before, a higher score probably holds more inherent value than a lower one. The health, contrarily, can be valued in terms of the score it can generate. A full health bar, for instance, worths 30,000 scores.

Inherent Value Through Relationship

Given the theory discussed, let us now analyze the relationship of the SF2 resources and see how it can help understand and develop the game.

Let's assume scores as our base currency for inherent value. Thus, a full health bar is worth 30,000, but any damage taken will reduce it to a non-linear equation that apparently starts at 16,000 (I could not find any official nor fan-based formulas for it). The numerical values used in this analysis are based on this video and this other.

The perfect rounds with Balrog, Vega, and Sagat are worth 50,000. A perfect round with M. Bison is worth the outstanding amount of 80,000 scores.

An ideal round would be perfect (no health loss) and done in 0 seconds (maximum score for the time), resulting in 39,000. For Balrog, Vega, and Sagat, the value is 59,000, whereas for M.Bison, 89,000. Ignoring the bonus stages, the total maximum score is 1,156,000, assuming 2 rounds per fight.

Alternatively, the worst round would be winning by time out with the least amount of health remaining, resulting in something close to 1,000 (again, no data was found for this value, and it was calculated via testing and approximation). In this sense, winning all fights (2 rounds) for the entire game would grant a total score of 24,000. Lower than an ideal round from a regular world warrior victory (39,000).

Based on this upper and lower bound, one round has the inherent value between 1,000 and 39,000 (for regular characters). A fight then is worth around 2,000 and 78,000.

High score with (almost) half health remaining. The bonus was not fully calculated yet [Source: Yvens Serpa].

Given the estimated worst round value, it is possible to assume scenarios in which losing one round might be worth it. Since a fight is decided in a best-of-three, one round can be sacrificed for another chance at a higher score. As seen in the image above, winning with approximately half the health is worth 6,900 points. Thus, it is better to lose one fight when the health is already too low and try again for a more desirable outcome. Moreover, as discussed before, the throw mechanics favor the "losing" player, which can benefit the player using such a strategy.

However, that would also mean spending more time on the game and taking longer to achieve the game's final goal. It turns into a player's decision to take longer for a higher score or move faster towards the objective.

Ken and Sagat in a Double K.O. [Source: Yvens Serpa].

Other strategies could seem reasonable, such as keeping aways as much as possible after inflicting some damage — would allow winning with perfect health, but at the cost of the time score; or, violently engaging disregarding the health for the sake of winning fast — since winning with at least 11 seconds (1,100 scores) left achieves a higher score than a time out with minimal health (1,000 scores). Both strategies are appealing because they are viable and intensify the conflict.

Keeping away or being aggressive are both stances that increase the game dynamics. While keeping away, the opponent will likely move towards the opposite strategy, which is being aggressive. Differently, being aggressive can give the opponent the upper hand (higher health), and it can then move towards a keep-away strategy. Notice that while both strategies are meant towards the game's objective, winning the fight, both can be understood as under the lens of the resource's values involved: health and time.

Moreover, both strategies can end in a draw by either a double K.O., in which both characters lose their entire health, or by time's up drawn, in which both characters have the exact same health when the timer reaches zero. For the latter, the game will let the CPU-controlled character win if it happens in the final round. Thus, it might be unwise to risk this strategy in the arcade mode.

More Resources and More Values

SF2 is quite a complex game, and there are many details about its resources and their relationships. However, for this analysis, we focused on a few of them to better understand the bigger scope, which lies in the importance of resources in a game.

To recap: resources have economic and social value. The economic value relates to how the resource is treated inside the game's economy, whereas the social value is related to how players subjectively use the resources. Economic value can be measured using some currency, such as score or money.

More precisely, an economic value will be mostly expressed using context-free resources and their relationships with other resources. Differently, social value is not measurable because it is particular to each player individually.

Resources can be subjective to the game's state and other resources, that is, to a context. Therefore, some resources are context-sensitive. Alternatively, others are context-free: they are independent of those factors. As discussed, context-free resources can still be calculated and even calculate context-sensitive resources while maintaining their status as context-free.

The advantage of separating resources into those two aspects, contextually and socioeconomically, is understanding their relationships and inherent value better. With this information, resources can be measured, compared, and analyzed to improve further and balance the gameplay elements.

However, this initial analysis is still only scratching the surface. Although SF2 was a good example of understanding these concepts, there are other games with more complex and interesting relationships between resources to be analyzed in future dedicated pieces.

For now, the main take away from this study is perceiving that a resource's value is beyond scores and money. It encompasses often ignored mechanics, such as the timer in SF2, to a broad and subjective opinion on favorite characters. Just as in real life, defining and establishing the importance of something is a discussion for pages and pages of books (and games).

Thanks for reading :)

References

Salen, K., Tekinbaş, K. S., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT press.

Adams, E., & Dormans, J. (2012). Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design. New Riders.