Should game developers ever lie to players

I guess trick is a better word, but same thing really. Lets just say, for example, I wanted to make a zombie game (I dont, but its a generic enough example that we can all get it, and its a genre that particularly needs innovation). A zombie survival game. Now what if I wanted my hook to be the feeling of realism, and to do this, I wanted to sell players a life sim, something like second life, with no mention of zombies, and then slowly feed them in through infection.

On one hand, its fantastic, it provides massive immersion and a meta game where players can start to solve the puzzle of what is going on.

However, on the other, you've sold players a game that they never asked for. Surely thats like selling players a schmup and saying its an RTS. The players that brought it clearly want a life sim, and you've taken that from them.

Whats your thoughts on it. I'm sadly with the latter, its a type of game I'm dying to make, but in my opinion its far too dishonest, even if its for a good reason.

 

There's a pretty grey line when it comes to marketing* but if you would classify what you are doing as lying then don't do it.

*see the great example someone posted of the box art for some retro games vs the actual graphics.

 

Spec Ops: The Line does it so that you expect it to be a crappy military shooter before it blows the brains out the back of your skull.

The big issue is that you don't have the ability to really say what the player knows about your game. If they spend any time trying to figure out is your game is any good, they are going to find out exactly what the game is like.

 

Slight of hand is the most important performer's trick. That is an ephemeral way of saying if you draw them in with the expectation of one thing and then deliver something else they want, you willl have an audience that got what they *really* came for in the first place.

How about those Tapas bars where something looks like Ice-cream but tastes like steak and potatoes. Really abstract examples, but I think this kind of idea goes way beyond just video games.

 

If I were playing a game and that happened, it would instantly become the greatest game ever in my mind. A game that changes into something else without ever knowing that it would happen. That would be awesome.

 

Play dwarf fortress and wait for a vampire immigrant to come in.

 

Physical copy of a game => $60
Digital copy of a game => $60
Price of games in America => 60 USD
Price of [some] games in => 60 euro

If developers and publishers had to tell the truth we wouldn't get to hear the amusing excuses for the above.

 

Game Developers do it every day.

HERE'S MY FREE GAME....

with IAP to unlock all content.

 

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
One of my favourite games on the PS3.

 

Interesting topic. Terrible title, as it'll draw plenty of responses that aren't really on topic.

I think a better way to phrase it would be mislead and subvert players' expectations. When you say it like that, the first thing that comes to mind is Hideo Kojima, the master of misleading and subverting his audience. For god's sake, after the intro sequence of MGS2, he made you play as a whole new character!

I do feel like it's kind of impossible to do it on the scale you used in your example. You could probably pull it off with the first set of your user base, but after the twist starts happening, any new customers will likely already be clued into it.

I'm also fascinated at the idea of flipping things on the player, but it's such a dangerous move. One example would be an RPG where you don't customize your character. Your race, name, and appearance are randomized at the start of the game, but you don't get to choose them... just like in real life! You're also pre-disposed to a certain (again, random) skill set. So if you're born to barbarian parents, you'd be best suited to being a barbarian as well. If you have your heart set on being a thief, you can work really hard to improve those skills, but you'll never be as good as those characters born with natural agility. This would totally piss off so many people, but I would love to see how it affected the way people played the game.

 

Game development is entirely about tricking the player.

But misleading a customer about what he/she's buying should be avoided.

 

Your first customer will post a review on the internet. The rest of the players will have a general feeling for what they are buying.

Some players will like the subversion and play the game. Others will avoid it. But very few will go into your game actually expecting a sims clone. Build this into your plan.

Also note that very few sims fans will appreciate the bait and switch if it actually worked. Those are the games played by kids and teenage girls. By the same token very few zombie fans will buy the game if the secret never gets out.

 

The issue with that is you dont market a game as a bad generic shooter. I was talking more about lying about the games genre, something thats in fact, than how good it really is

 

I don't think you should sell something SO different than what you're advertising.

Although,

You could make a game about a crime investigation, something involving mystery, and not tell the players about the zombies. Then people would still be shocked, but would be getting their money's worth in thrill. Whereas if you sell a Sims sort of game, you're targeting the wrong audience altogether.

 

I actually think a "Sims with zombies" game would sell extremely well if marketed as such.

 

Topic title response: Why would anyone be stupid enough to lie about their product?

Actual content response:
Having plot twists and surprises is normal, don't see point of thread, sorry.

 

Okay...I love Sims games. I hate zombie games. So if you lied to me, I would be angry. If I paid for a Sims game and suddenly Zombies appeared, I would quit the game and write bad reviews all over the internet about how the developer "changed, lied" whatever, about the game.

One big example here of a game changing mid-stream is Star Wars Galaxies. It changed so much that many people left the game. Of course, some folks preferred the new version and it attracted a different sort of player so they did "okay" anyway.

But...to this day, I meet people both online and actually in-person, surprisingly, who have nothing good to say about SWG because the massive changes left a bad taste in their mouths. SWG has become a poster child for what not to do in a game.

If you market to people who like Sim games and then change it to a Zombie survival game, expect to lose a portion of your audience and have angry folks around that will smear your game.

BTW, the biggest audience for The Sims is not teenage girls, but middle aged women. I used to be very active in the community and older women overwhelmingly outnumbered any other demographic. Second Life appeals to a lot of folks, but my guess is only a portion of those would play a survival Zombie game. I think you will find that the biggest demographic for Zombie survival games are teen to young adult men....I have no proof of that, but based on my discussions with gamer friends, that seems to fit. Very different demographics.

So..risky, and in my opinion, not fair to the player. If they buy your game, they should get what they pay for, not some experiment in sociology that you might enjoy watching.

If you want to do it though, write in your description that you are making a simulation game that will evolve over time and be full of surprises, etc. or something like that. Make sure they know that the game will not remain the same before they buy it.

 

I've watched that work out poorly on kickstarter. Some people buy into the marketing and want what they pay for

@hippocoder I didn't give a separate reply for the content because I go out of my way to disrespect clickbait titles. After that other topic about 'lying' to players, this was surely clickbait, no?

 

Plot twists are fun, as long as the twists are in a direction that still appeals to the same niche that originally bought the game. For example, a military shooter could transition into a sci-fi shooter. However, a life sim probably should not transition into a zombie survival game. People that purchase a life sim might literally despise zombie games, and people who love zombie games would probably not buy a life sim.

Start by carefully defining your audience. If you want to transition between topics, make sure you know your audience will love both topics.

 

Well said. This should definitely be known ahead of time. I'm a sucker for zombie games, but I don't like sims that much. A zombie survival life sim sounds interesting because then the boring parts of sim games become very significant.

 

@Tomnnn, I think it sound great too, not something I want to play, but there are many out there that would. But you have to tell folks what the game is really about or you end up losing half the audience because they think it is a Sim game or you lose the other half when they find out later that it is not a Sim game, but a Zombie survival game.

Blending a simulation with a survival game might not be all that bad....but only to that audience who likes both.

 

If you lie on the advertising then in some jurisdictions you will need to provide a full refund to the player as well as put up with the bad reviews & flame responses e.g those 'x-Ray' apps you can buy on app stores obviously don't take real X-rays yet people buy them. Under our consumer protection laws the dev or App Store must refund the money if the purchaser complains & wants their money back as they were mislead.

There's nothing wrong with plot twists, & most people really like them when done well, but intentionally mislead people into buying your product & you will have big problems.

 

Does it? It is exactly what it says it is from start to finish. The fact that it also thoroughly deconstructs itself and its genre doesn't change that.

 

A huge issue I see with the idea is that the subversion can only happen once. It's an epically huge setup for a payoff which will only work once for a tiny minority of a game's otherwise lifetime player pool. You can't even repeat it by restarting things and running a different mystery event, because what makes the first mystery event work is that nobody's expecting it.

I think it could work as a (very) occasional event in a large MMO, something like say Eve Online. There's a community of players already playing, and already expecting that stuff will happen, but on the rare occasion you could throw a real curve ball and have an event that doesn't fit with usual play, but does fit with the universe. (On the downside, players put so much real world value on their MMO gear that this could genuinely upset people.)

 

Brutal Legend did what you suggested and it was pretty much panned.


Brutal Legend was sold as an open world action adventure. In reality, it was a Pikman-esq RTS.

So did Funny People (Not a game, but the point remains).


Funny people sold its self as a comedy, when it was actually an okay drama.


Both of these did okay in reviews, but bombed in sales.

 

I thought it was a a metaphor for Sandler's career.

 

But surely you dont tar all plot twists with the same brush, there are extremities. And the point of the thread is asking how far the extremities can go before its a too far to lying to your players.


EDIT: I should also explain, this is a discussion. A lot of people seem to be advising me on whether its a good idea or not, whether I should do it or not, ect... This isnt about me, the idea was just an example. Maybe it would fit better in game design, because thats pretty much what it is.

 

All games are a lie.

 

It is hard to give good advice without specific examples. The example you gave about a life sim turning into a zombie survival game would be an example where the plot twist would change the game so much that the before and after states would appeal to completely different niches of gamers. If you want to have a major twist, just make sure the before and after states appeal to the same niche. Otherwise one group won't try your game and the other group will immediately drop your game at the twist point. If this is not the example, post the real example and will can all try to give better advice.

 

That's true, interesting. The better a game is, the more it lies... especially when it comes to physics. The real world isn't made up of vertices and faces, it's made up of voxels that emit and reflect light. Games will never be true until they implement voxel based physics and models. It was discovered some time ago that the designer of this universe is an idiot, and objects don't actually have properties. Each particle that appears to have properties can actually be broken down into one particle that contributes each property, apparently.

I'm disappointed in the physics of our universe. It's ok with me if spin and orbit are just properties of a particle... but no, spin and orbit are themselves particles.

</rant>

 

@Tomnnn, that isn't a lie, it is an illusion. All games are illusions.

 

World's made up of strands of fibre matter with energy frequency and direction, and fibre density determining their properties. The world of independent particles popping into and out of existence is the multiverse of merging particles of fibres coursing with energy at the edges of the Big Bangs. So the truer model is to map as a web radiation flows and not atoms and molecules. You know, we've seen though time-space warp models they are working on, those energy flows are on fibres, not in a vacuum as energized particles or they'd Big Bang again themselves.

 

Caveat emptor. Playing around with the expectations of the eventual experience is something that any developer is free to do. One poster mentioned Spec Ops: The Line, which is a fantastic recent example. I would also bring up Metal Gear Solid 2, a fine example of subverted expectations.

Giving the player something that they did not expect is fine. Maybe some of the consumers will turn away from the experience as a result. Some people simply don't like having their expectations subverted. And these days most consumers have the option to return their purchase, even if that purchase is digital. Under such circumstances I would say subverting expectations is fair game, so long as you aren't out-and-out lying to the consumer. It's worth noting that Spec Ops never tried to sell itself as not being a shooter. Nor did Metal Gear Solid 2 try to convince anyone that it was not a stealth game. While major expectations were subverted in these cases, the developers were trying to surprise, not deceive.

It's also worth noting that while there was a bit of a bait-and-switch with these games, the experience that was eventually delivered was one that most fans enjoyed. You need at least a healthy portion of your audience to be into the game you've made. That's worth considering for marketing purposes. If you don't think enough of your audience will appreciate your "twist," you might want to avoid such a strategy. You could end up shooting yourself in the foot.

 

Yes all games are illusions, which is the illusion of something happening, or having a meaning that it doesn't have, or isn't really happening. As such they are attempts to `make true` something that is inherently false and unreal.. thus are lies.

But anyway.. that doesn't stop people playing them and making them.

 

Ha! But reality and the truth can also be an illusion.

I disagree that illusion is another name for a lie. When I create a game, I create the illusion that the game is "real" or that the water can make you "wet" or "drown" and that the dirt you walk on is "muddy" or "rocky".

Those are not lies anymore than the illusion the magician uses to do his tricks.

Both are similar in that they are "falsehoods" and are "unreal" but intention behind them is different, at least in the context of a game. A lie is used to purposely deceive someone for some sort of gain, whether it is to stop your asset purchasers from bugging you about when the asset is coming out or as an excuse as to why you have not updated your blog.

An illusion allows one to see or hear or feel things that are not really there, such as an ocean that exists only as a flat plane but looks like an ocean because it animated and moving.

Most players expect illusions, but they don't appreciate lies. Telling someone that a game will appeal them them because they like simulations only to find out it is really a Zombie survival game is a lie. I appreciate that the OP only used it as an example, but it is a good one. If you lie about your product to sell it knowing the players will discover the truth AFTER they purchase it, that is deception for a purpose...to gain sales.

But...illusion within the game to make the world more realistic or more beautiful or even more horrific, is hiding the truth for the purpose of making the game more enjoyable. To me, there is a huge difference.

 

Usually a lie is something that is done to harm someone or impart a benefit to someone else. Parents use white lies to 'protect' children but that is also just an excuse (& I use it) to not have to explain something to them that that the parents don't want to deal with at that time.

 

Normally in a game I'd expect a lie to hurt the liar's health, cooperation level, or freedom. Games have rules and those rules become the effective truth. Lies on the other hand, once caught become an instrument which to defeat weakness.

So the weakness here is the player is deceived into believing they are buying game genre X when they are buying game genre Y. Being sold to the players as a sim genre game there is some allowance for holidays like Halloween which are seasonably relevant; but to try and turn the promised sims game into an all out zombie game makes it clear the game designer and creator didn't have the material or the work ethic to create a comprehensive and enjoyable sims genre game. It'd be easy to get a refund and avoid all future business with such a game creator.

 

I guess that specifically would depend on who you asked. I think there are people who classify illusions as lies.

Until that fateful moment when a player camera clips into the world geometry and sees the underside of the 1 sided terrain mesh. The horror!

 

That could be cool, if the players didnt know about it and kind of a "twist" like wayward pines

 

you know whats a lie?

the cake man.. the cake is a lie.

 

Diablo 2 & starcraft 1 => "There is no cow level"
Popularity of portal & new owners of diablo franchise => "The cow level is a lie"

I hate the game industry sometimes.

 

If the game has a surreal premise then I think they would flip out and actually be super stoked about it.

On the other hand, second life players would not appreciate zombies. They would probably form virtual protests or something.

 

I think some people are taking this the wrong way, fair enough I'll take responsibility in my wording for that, but what I meant was, rather than having a little twist, going to extremities for the sake of immersion or what not. So games like Spec Ops dont really apply here, because the game is still an FPS, its just far more emotional than you expected. I'm talking more like a complete curveball, something which changes everything about the game and doesnt tell the player for the sake of keeping it a surprise.

 

Why don't you give us some examples that do fit what you were trying say then? You have not done that yet.

The one example you game was not extreme for the sake of immersion, it actually would have broken immersion for the people who were playing the simulation game.

So what kind of extremes do you mean? Anything that takes a game and changes it to an entirely new genre probably won't work unless you are honest.

So..if you make a Sim-RPG game set in a war and then have an atomic bomb dropped on the world creating a survival scenario, that might be okay. Players would know that this is a grim game, set in a war torn world. A bomb might be a surprise, more than a twist, but maybe not extreme enough for you.

 

That's why you use a pie chart for convincing people of your stats, everyone trusts the pie

 

I've read books where there is a massive unexpected twist but it never broke the story or changed it, it just changed what I was thinking. The best example I know is a sheri tepper book, possibly The Family Tree, where 2 stories are being told simultaneously & brought together roughly halfway at which point you realise that the author gave enough information to tell the story & you made assumptions based on those so everything fit together logically only to then find you were massively wrong & at that point realise just how cleverly she gave you the information to lead you to those wrong conclusions without needing to lie. It was well done, changed the genre for 1/4 of the story (ie. Half of the first half of the book), but merged the first 2 quarters into a coherent whole at that point instead of fracturing it further.

 

It was for the sake of immersion of though, because it means the events would be a surprise to you and you need to react to them as you actually would, but it only works if the audience would be into it. Thats the point

 

I disagree. A simulation has an entirely different level of immersion that a Zombie survival game, which I guess would be more RPG or FPS, depending on how you make it. A player who is immersed in the simulation aspects is going to lose immersion when you change the entire genre of the game. As one who likes simulation games, I can tell you that it is a very different mindset.

 

You can reveal to players that there will be game changing events without saying what they are ahead of time. Then you can plan to introduce whatever you wish to different seasons of your game. Maybe there's drought in the summer and zombies in the winter.

 

Maybe the zombies shrivel up as they dry up in summer & become tinder dry & flammable but swell up & bloat in the wet season & make squishy footstep sounds as the walk