When
Namco project manager Kouichirou Taninami stepped up to the microphone,
the majority of his potential audience was still piling out of Satoru
Iwata's keynote address, fresh new copies of Brain Training in
hand and Revolution on the brain. Though his lecture hall was enormous,
the bodies littering it were the curious few. As it turned out, the
lecture's focus was different somewhat from the features listed on the
box; in place of the obvious assumption, a lecture about the changes
made to Counter-Strike, Taninami's speech was as a whole to detail the way Counter-Strike aided Taninami in his mission to construct a working network gaming system for the famously persnickety Japanese market.
Taninami,
a thirteen-year veteran of Namco's arcade division, was assigned five
years ago to find a solution to the Japanese "network game problem".
Whereas the US has enjoyed about thirty-five years of network
connectivity, online games have never really caught on in Japan; for
some time, received wisdom placed the blame on a nonexistent or
comparably obscure architecture. And yet, now that broadband is
prevalent, the market still barely exists.
So
why is that, Taninami asked. Flipping the question around, he then
asked what makes network games fun. He concluded that pleasure comes in
part from the game itself – provided it's a good game – and in part
from the company the player keeps. He called this situation a
"relationship of multiplication": if the opponent fails to play fairly,
then the game fails to be enjoyable. As far as Taninami was concerned,
that social angle was the biggest problem.
As
Taninami had a limited budget, he figured there was no point in wasting
resources on development, when there are already so many well-made
games available; instead, he poured all of his attention into the
network aspect, conducting reams on ridiculous reams of research on how
to ensure a fun level of competition. For the game, he selected Counter-Strike,
due to its popularity elsewhere in the world. He asked Valve for a
license to promote the game in Japan; they said okay and everything was
in order. Almost.
Asian Eyes
Another crucial feature – the one this lecture seemed like it might have been about – was the way Counter-Strike
looked. Its whole presentation screams "Western PC game", which in turn
causes the average Japanese gamer to scream "Eek". The characters are
gritty, burly, and not particularly appealing – so Namco got an artist
to anime them up a little, replacing sweaty gringos with guys in
primary-colored spandex and PVC shoulderpads, and hairy guys in
fatigues and ski masks with antigravity-busted women in three square
inches of purple nylon.
Similarly,
Taninami decided that Japanese gamers would freak at the game's
anti-terrorism angle – especially if the terrorists win a match – so he
changed the scenario to a struggle between two opposing factions: the
CSF and the NEO (leading to the game's new appellation, "Counter-Strike NEO").
And of course, because PC games have virtually no presence in Japan
outside of porn and obscure doujin soft (amateur freeware), the
keyboard-and-mouse controls had to be finessed a little. CS NEO uses a custom-built keyboard, with all the controls and hotkeys specially labeled.
There's also the issue that basically all people do in Counter-Strike
is shoot each other – which should get boring after a while – so
Taninami added a suite of single-person missions and mini-games;
completing these modes gives a player special prizes. There are also a
number of in-game events timed to various holidays and seasons, such as
cherry blossoms that cascade in the spring. As for the game content
itself, "we didn't want to change it; we didn't want to ruin it."
Bang and Blame
So.
Again Taninami asks, how can you make competition fun? Here, Taninami
paused, as if waiting for an answer. Who do we like to play network
games with: friends, brothers, neighbors? He asks where we go to play:
do we go home? Somewhere we can see the other people? To study PC game
culture, Taninami spent some time attending LAN parties. At length he
concluded that these parties are the environment "that lets games sell
one million copies".
Although
clearly there is no analog to LAN parties in Japan, Taninami made a
comparison to Internet cafes – not the coffee bars with WiFi access you
might see in downtown San Francisco; the distinctly Asian phenomenon of
an immense, climate-controlled complex of cubicles: pay by the hour, do
whatever you want. Free drinks. Even sleep in the overstuffed chairs,
if you want; it's cheaper than a hotel. People live in these places.
And in places like Taipei, Hong Kong, and Korea, they are the hotspots
of PC game culture.
The
benefits of a cafe are multifold: if you get bored with the game, you
have friends nearby to chum with. And for get-togethers online
multiplayer is better than, say, a Game Boy link cable in that if your
friend gets bored and drops connection, you can still hook up and play.
Besides, Taninami says, linking together a couple of Game Boys looks
kind of awkward when you're an adult.
What
might be the closest Japanese parallel, though, is the fabled beast
known as the video arcade – and the phenomenon of "versus cabs", most
frequently used for one-on-one fighting games. Taninami explained how,
when Street Fighter II was released, rival players stood or sat
side-by-side on the same cabinet. This arrangement was all right if the
competitors were friends; otherwise, sometimes it was a a bit too
close. With the versus cab, two interfaces are placed back-to-back,
putting the length of one double-deep machine between the players – a
comfortable distance, for the outgroup-adverse. And yet players are
still close enough to discourage cheating – as if you try to pull
anything, your opponent can just step right over and kick your ass.
Arcade-based
card and mahjong games work the same way, and they pull in 100 billion
yen a year – exactly the same figure as the Korean network game market.
Kind of makes you think. Sort of.
Go Away From Me, Just Go Away
Taninami
jumped to the side a bit, to discuss the phenomenon of Japanese Go
parlors; how there is a tutorial service for beginners, and a certain
mode of etiquette against opponents. Players are given ranks (out of
thirty-five) according to their skill levels, tracked on index cards,
and maintained by the parlor. When players arrive, they wait in a room
to be matched with another player of their level. Highly-trained hosts
sort through the available opponents and use the data at hand and their
own judgment to match two players. This is known as a matching service.
The hosts call out the players, and hand them their cards. The players
who are matched are moved to what is called a "massive server".
This setup and terminology should be familiar to anyone who has played online fighting games in Japan, such as Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service
for the Sega Dreamcast. It should also sound familiar to anyone
wondering about this "Nintendo Go" thing and what it has to do with the
Revolution. To Taninami, it was just the cultural template he was
looking for. Of course; this is how a network game must work. And thus
he built his own Go parlor. Sort of.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service
|
Technically,
LEDZONE – "LED" as in "Light-Emitting Diode; the monitors are all
tracked with LEDs that change color depending on the user's status, to
allow hosting staff to quickly come to aid – is a specialty arcade.
There are also similarities to Internet cafes. Really, though, it is a
Go parlor; just a modernized one, custom-built for the playing and
maintenance of Counter-Strike NEO.
As
in a Go parlor, though to a much more dramatic extreme, the LEDZONE
servers collect all manner of random data from each game session, from
how long a player has been squatting to what guns each person most
likes to use. The servers also track the matching staff: what advice
they give, how quick they are to respond, and so forth. When certain
staff are particularly good at talking to newcomers, resulting in many
repeat customers, LEDZONE uses that information in teaching other staff.
Studies
have determined that for first-time players, a direct correlation
exists between how many times a player is killed and how much that
player spends. "If you're killed ten times for every two kills, you
normally don't return", Taninami said. By the same route, if players
are matched poorly, they will fail to spend as much as they might – and
if players are matched exceedingly well, they will pay up to ten times
what they would otherwise. "This means they're having fun", Taninami
explained. For a Japanese audience, yes, that is probably a good
analysis.
To
note, LEDZONE also includes development team overlooking the entire
proceedings, constantly tweaking the system and working on new maps and
events. When users complain of "shitty maps", Taninami said, often as
not the map designers can hear the response themselves: "What a shitty
map!" Response is usually immediate.
The Challenge of Challenge
So what makes a solid, challenging opponent? First, as Counter-Strike
rewards teams more than individual players, Taninami's team quickly
learned to disallow players from switching teams, as otherwise everyone
would simply gravitate toward the winning teams and attempt to wheedle
their way in. Taninami found the network must draw a tight balance
between cooperation and selfishness.
Next,
on the individual level, Taninami figures an ideal opponent is one with
whom a player gets along well – in the sense that they are congenial,
rather than overly friendly. A player and opponent should be at the
same skill level. And the opponent should either be a fair player or –
more ideally – a good coach for others.
"Does
the loyal customer mean the person who pays a lot of money?" Taninami
posited. "I don't think so." Rather, a loyal customer is one who makes
the environment "more pleasant"; who guides other players. Loyal
players are the ones who increase traffic on a server every time
they're around, and who bring over friends to play. On the other hand,
if everyone leaves when a certain player joins a server, then he's no
good – even if he plays well.
At
LEDZONE, Taninami's staff divides customers into "good people, bad
people, positive people, negative people, cooperative, uncooperative,"
and so on, and cordons off players with a negative influence on the
community – even if they spend a lot and are some of the most skilled
players in town. Sort of along the same lines is the "Good Job" button
that Taninami had added to each player's keyboard. When you hit it, you
donate some of your game money to someone. The server, of course,
records this action and assigns karma as applicable.
On
the other end of the karma stream are cheap hits. Hiding and sniping
are no-nos; Taninami wants to encourage players to always fight fair,
and shoot each other from the front. The system can detect when a
player shoots someone from behind, and will send a warning. If a player
is camping, again with the warning; if the player persists, he will
show up on the radar. Taninami is fascinated that even with this
disadvantage, still some players persist at misbehaving.
To
help with community matters, customers are able and encouraged to list
their favorite and least-favorite players. By announcing the research
right up front, Taninami's team thinks it can keep negative behavior to
a minimum.
Curiously,
although Taninami tries to build a healthy community around LEDZONE, he
insists a healthy community is a "soft" one – meaning, again, cordial;
not too close. According to studies, the more friendly people become –
the better they get to know each other – the more likely they are to
fight. And once community members fight, they are less likely to return
to the game center, lest they see each other again. To avoid that,
LEDZONE staff try not to match people together too often – and players
are unable to request specific team-ups or opponents.
Instead,
players are lumped into several sub-communities – A, B, C – among which
they are shuffled each visit to the center, to prevent them from
becoming too chummy, thereby maintaining a steady, if slow-burning
community. For LEDZONE, profitability and health is all about longevity.
So
in sum, the key to Japanese network gaming seems to be in fostering a
loose-knit yet loyal community – one based in age-old cultural
archetypes – meant to filter out the bad eggs and provide a stable,
entertaining experience for everyone. And being Japanese, players are
only too glad to show their appreciation with their wallets, in return
for a favorable experience. Though this system might not exactly
translate into a Western framework, some of the social filtering issues
might have a more technical future application. Even now, some of this
philosophy seems in place in Nintendo's burgeoning Wi-Fi network.
Anything that brings a little grace to online gaming surely can't be
all bad.
_____________________________________________________