Who Makes the Rules?
2006/04/24
Some people have expressed an opinion that they should be able to powerlevel, or twink, or otherwise get around the rules of a massively multiplayer game as those rules were designed by the developers. I don't agree.
First of all, I'm never going to agree with the belief that players ought to be able to meta-game the game. I don't accept the notion that if you're clever enough to find some exploit or some way to get around the obvious intention of the developer's, it's OK because you're just being clever. That's nonsense; it's a poor rationalization for knowingly cheating and there is no reason whatsoever why developers of massively multiplayer games should tolerate it.
Which brings me to my main point: massively multiplayer online games are not single-player games. If you (generic you) are playing a solo game and you want to "meta-game" (or whatever the PC term for cheating is these days), so be it -- you're only hurting yourself by depriving yourself of the entertainment experience you paid for. If you don't find the results sufficiently entertaining, don't even think about complaining to or about the developers.
But while getting around the rules can be tolerated in a single-player game, it can't be permitted in a multiplayer game because what you do as a player -- what you're allowed to do -- directly affects the entertainment experience of other paying customers.
In a massively multiplayer game, it's not just that "the player's fun comes first" -- it's that "the fun of all players in the game should be maximized." That's sometimes going to mean that what a few people find personally enjoyable has to be squelched for the good of all the other players.
I understand that there's a contingent of gamers who won't like this, who'll resist any limits to their power over the game they're paying to play. Too bad. If they feel that way, it's because they don't comprehend that what they're paying for isn't a single-player game, that what they're allowed to do affects how entertaining the game is for other players.
The idea that a few players ought to be able to get around the entertainment experience as designed is bogus in a mass entertainment medium. To try to insure that the most participants are getting their entertainment dollar's worth, the designer -- not players -- must control the game.
How long would Vegas last if some players could "twink" their buddies on the blackjack table with face cards, or be "powerleveled" on the roulette wheel with knowledge of where the ball will land?
For mass entertainment games, the designer has to be in control of the game, or it stops being entertaining for the masses.
Of course game designers are not always right. They're people, too, and as such are more than capable of making lousy (i.e., not-fun) design decisions. But massively multiplayer game designers being fallible and limited does not justify players taking the law into their own hands, because:
In short, most players aren't objective, they aren't experienced, and they aren't informed. The designers may not be perfect at those things, either, but they'll still be better at them than most players.
Nor would it be OK to cede control to the very small number of entertainment consumers who are objective, experienced and informed. All that does is create class warfare between the have and the have-nots, blurring the lines of responsibility for providing enjoyable gameplay content.
And blurred responsibility never, ever works out well.
Thus I conclude that both the right and the responsibility for controlling a mass gameplay experience must clearly reside with the developers, not the players. Ceding either the right or responsibility will make any mass entertainment product less entertaining than it should and could be. And that ultimately hurts us all, producers and consumers alike.
Game designers are by no means perfect, but it's still their job to determine how a massively multiplayer game should work -- not the players'.