Not yet irrelevant

As a player it’s not something you think about very often any more. It can be one of the more thoroughly discussed elements of layout and design during the actual development process, but as the genres and canon that goes with each continues to calcify, it’s becoming more and more standardized. For a while there, when games and gameplay preconceptions were still malleable, you could get anything. In fact, if you were a “core” gamer you might even go to the trouble of playing through the first level to checkout the setup, then go back and starting over once you’d familiarized yourself with the status quo. It was the kind of thing that could change the way you played, it could take an aggressive, balls-to-the-wall gamer and make them think twice before leaping into oblivion, guns blazing. It could encourage a normally methodical, careful gamer to take risks they might not otherwise have taken, to waste gems or potions or bullets rather than carefully hoarding them against a Big Bad that might never show. (Who am I kidding, the Big Bad always shows up, doesn’t he?)

I’m talking, of course, about save points.

Any First Person Shooter player worth their salt breathes a sigh of relief when those words flash across the bottom of the screen, “Checkpoint Reached”. The actual verbiage might vary, but the meaning is the same. The suck is over and you have a moment to take a breath and unkink your thumbs before the gurgling horde of laser-fodder returns for another go-round. Its particularly interesting in this case because the genre that catches the most crap for not having story lines of note is also the one that has the cleanest, least disruptive method of moving the player forward. And, like a good novel, the point of a game, ultimately, is to keep moving your player forward. No one said you had to make it an easy movement, but the checkpoint method is the most respectful, it does the best job of maintaining the immersion that is one of the most desired qualities of a good game.

In contrast, take a look at a platformer title like Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. Like most platformers, the game only saves your progress at the end of a level. If you die anywhere within the level, you have to start over. Annoying, but clear and easy to understand. In the case of many recent platformers, however, the level has been further subdivided into mini levels, and from there we have checkpoints within the mini levels. The end result is a staccato-like gameplay experience, requiring the player to maintain a more aloof presence, keeping them from the immersion, the ability to get into the “zone” is lost. While arguably the platformers tend to be more story oriented (Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia) the experience can lack the smoothness one gets with the FPS genre.

Counterpoint to both of these is the “save anywhere” option. These can show up anywhere, but are the mainstay of the RPG genre, which strikes me as odd because if you’re a story lover, the RPGs are where you tend to end up. The “save anywhere” option is probably one of the most often abused save styles, players can theoretically jump out of the game at will with limited penalty, even in the middle of combat. Players also have the option or running an encounter over and over again hoping for a better outcome (say finding a pair of silver bracers in the box instead of leather ones). When it comes to the MMORPGs, the designers have taken this into account, enforcing draconian penalties in some cases if a player jumps ship in the middle of a mission or a quest and leaves his or her buddies high and dry. In the single player RPGs however, this is not always the case. From a readers point of view, its nice to be able to put the book (or the game) down at any moment in time and pick up where I left off, but I think that required act of saving takes away from the immersion, it again keeps the player on a slightly more clinical level that they otherwise might be in relation to a game.

The key element we see in all of these is the expectation of the player. Despite what you might see in blogs and game commentary, players tend to gravitate towards a certain type of puzzle, a certain level of depth to their gameplay immersion. Despite their craving for a well-told story, a mother of three might opt to play platformers because they a so clearly broken up into bite-sized chunks that can be doled out between runs to soccer practice and swimming lessons. Despite the fact that story might not be as cool as wielding the latest and greatest bada** laser cannon with unlimited ammo and designer flames painted down the sides, a core player is often going to prefer the deeper immersion and longer, uninterrupted playtimes that go with the FPS genre. The real trick, as games move forward, is going to be finding ways to better match these players with the things they are looking for, and a harder look at save points might be a place to start.

Cheery title for the holiday season, don’tcha think?  It was the holidays, and the attendant shopping that goes along with them, that got this train of thought rolling in the first place.  One of the interesting things over the past five years in particular has been the big push towards e-devices, not only as the obvious alternative to traditional print media, but also with regards to games and entertainment.  During this time my entire family and extended family has gone “e” and for the first time ever I am finding that the things they really want, the “thoughtful” gifts are not going to be plastic toys, battery-driven cordless drills or even shiny shiny game DVD’s.  They’re going to be gift cards.

Yeah, I know.  Talk about impersonal.  Gift cards are what you give your babysitter, or your uncle in Tulsa because of the shipping costs, not something you get your *kids*.

Except this year.  This year we have finally reached the tipping point.  The point where the value of information, of data, the near invisible bits and bytes that go into creating e-media have transcended the tawdry plastic and glitter that once had my children pointing to every new thing on the screen and saying I *want* that.

The gift card market, the e-currency market has gone absolutely insane.  Walk into your local supermarket or drugstore and you’ll be faced with a wall of goodies, plastic cards that can be charged with dollar amounts ranging from $5 to $10,000 (yes, there are a few that you can put up to 10k on, though if you’re going to gift that large an amount, I suspect a wire transfer to a Swiss Bank Account might be more your speed).  The game industry, and in particular the “Free to Play/Pay for Stuff” end of the MMO industry, has embraced this middleman with a vengeance.  As a parent, it’s become an easy tangible tool to teach financial responsibility without exposing my credit card information over and over and over (and while each of the digital entities may have excellent security, having to buy minutes or credits or pips each time my kids want to spend their earnings will statistically increase my risk).  My kids earn up, then on our next trip to buy essentials, instead of buying plastic toys that will eventually clog up the landfill, or candy bars and soda, they get a card that will allow them to buy stuff in their favorite game, or will allow them access to the “members only” section for another month.

On the one hand, as a parent, I’m a little concerned about my kids willingness to chuck money at virtual products, and equally concerned that they want virtual goods as gifts, rather than the good ol’ fashioned action figures and tea-sets.  But you know, sooner or later every one of those action figures is going to end up in the landfill somewhere, even if I turn them over to a family in need.  I myself have finally made the transition from paper books (as much as I love the hedonistic feel of the pages) to e-books because, sooner or later, something horrible happens.  I have lost books to water, bugs, rats, kids, sewage (don’t ask) poor judgment and now I am facing down an entire library of paperbacks that will be given to a new home simply because I no longer have the space to support my book-hoarding habit.

It’s remarkably freeing.  I can divest myself (and my kids) of all this *stuff*.  Dispose of all the toys that have lost their luster and get rid of bookshelves full of stuff.  Take the focus off the material, off of owning the *thing* and focus on the idea, the experience, without saddling it with the onus of possessing an actual physical trophy.

But is it a real change?  By turning the focus away from the physical toy to a virtual one, is this an actual turn from the materialism that every parent, teacher and psychologist has lamented since the dawn of time, or are we simply becoming virtually materialistic? Or are we simply broadening the definition of “material” to include ownership of things that are, arguably, less real?  And if we are, does that mean that so many of the traditionally non-material elements that we value in place of things – knowledge, imagination, intuition, experience – are *just* as material as the action figures and robot vacuum cleaners?

I think perhaps, as much as I may embrace the new “e-era” and succumb to getting an extra month of an MMO here or a hundred “e-coins” there for the kiddos, there’s still going to be a few things under the tree that likely are made out of plastics, or Nerf foam, or one of the other more traditional materials of play.  As much as I might want them to be better than my “Material Girl” generation, I’m not quite ready to give up those trophies, those physical proofs of my affection.

Yet.

Maybe when they’re teenagers.