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[Montoli]

So I was reading this article over at Ars Technica.  While I don't care that much about this particular debate (although I'd be sad to see other companies follow suit and abandon PC gaming) it did get me thinking.  This quote caught my eye, from an interview with the developers:

Q: Is there a console in the PC version of the game, so we can change our field of view from the xbox's default 65 FOV to 80 also can we tweaks the weapon damage for each gun, removes perks, graphical debris, breathing sway, also thru console like we where able to before or is this all gone?

Vince-IW: We would like you to play the game the way we designed and balanced it.

Is this a reasonable request?  Who SHOULD have the final say in how a game [or other creative work] is enjoyed?  The author?  Or the one actually doing the enjoying?

On one hand, I can see the point of developers saying "hey, we put a lot of effort into this particular experience, so no, we don't want you to change it.  We want you to experience something as close to our original vision as possible."

On the other hand though, I have some very happy memories of playing games in ways that I'm pretty sure they weren't ment to be played.  Things like loading up Sim City, building a town in the shape of a giant bulls-eye, and then crashing planes into it with a friend while we kept score.

While it is (probably) reasoanble for an author to say "please enjoy this the way it was meant to be enjoyed", is it relaly reasonable to say "...and don't enjoy it in any other way?"

This forum is full of creative types.  How do other people feel about this?  How do you feel about users enjoying your game in different ways or for different reasons than you planned?  Even if we're not talking about full mods or console commands, how about things like people making up drinking games for your game, or replacing your texture files, or BushidoChat, or whatever?

[konjak]

I never change the rules like that, or use noclip cheats or any other cheats, because in my entire experience it has only ruined a game for me, for several reasons. Some being making it too easy, or ruining the perception of the game's world by making it into what it actually is, a program.

[Cuervo77]

I agree with both sides as well.

How many other creative endeavors allow the possibility of experiencing them in an individual and interactive way. Movies and books are experienced from beginning to end. They are basically the same from the first time they are experienced to the next. Games allow a lot of freedom in allowing a player to pace the story in their own way to some extent and it can be vastly different with each playthrough. Even in multiplayer, a developer should have the right to define a specific experience that they would prefer a game to have. If they decide not to add certain features, only the consumer can tell them no by not buying it (although in this case, I don't think that's going to help with those kind of pre-order numbers). IW's main problem is that most gamers these days are used to a certain amount of configurabilty and choices. Telling them that they won't have it anymore is like telling a child that they can't have a desert after their meal anymore. And a lot of those gamers are acting just the same as that child. Understandable, but it isn't saying that you can't enjoy it another way just that you can't enjoy it in the exact way you were expecting. In my opinion, knowing that their game was going to be as highly anticipated as it is, they should have added in some of the basics that they had always offered before.

[LemonScented]

Ultimately the developer gets the final say, and that's as it should be. There seems to be a worryingly growing sense of entitlement amongst certain sectors of the gaming populace recently, where gamers should loudly on forums saying "I AM BOYCOTTING GAME X BECAUSE IT DOES NOT FEATURE MY FEATURE REQUEST Y". Fine, boycott, but don't whine about it - you weren't the person who put blood, sweat and tears into the project and had to make the tough calls on what stays and what gets cut.

That said, if a given popular feature is an easy thing for a developer to do, and if it won't break the game horribly, the developer should at least consider it. People have a wide variety of preferred play-styles, and it's good to be able to cater to those even if they're not representatie of the "main" intended play experience. My girlfriend, for instance, had endless fun with Crayon Physics trying to colour in the castle windows, or see how many squiggles it took to crash the physics engine. I heard a great example once about an autistic guy who loved to play GTA just to steal as many cars as possible and then park them very carefully in lines down the street. If the game allows it (or if it's easy to tweak the game to allow it), why not?

TLDR: The developer should get the final say, but they should be careful not to get too precious about the "intended play style".

[alspal]

I tend to just use the ruleset that the game designers gave it. I'm usually not a fan of hacking/changing/cheating a game, as they tend to spoil the game.

[moi]

The player is allowed to play as he wants, even if it ruins the experience, BUT the develloper is not obliged to provide a  console.
That's my judgement.

[Danmark]

Is this a reasonable request?  Who SHOULD have the final say in how a game [or other creative work] is enjoyed?  The author?  Or the one actually doing the enjoying?

Either way, the hardware and context in which it's used has a big say; it can't be ignored.

By far the biggest configurability issue with PC games these days is FOV. Values around 90 used to be typical (Doom used 95), now devs tend to import angles in the 60-80 range from console games. This is utterly wrong. See, a monitor sitting 20 inches away from the user's eyes appears much bigger than a TV 10 feet away (assuming reasonable sizes). Effectively this makes the PC gamer's periphery is more blurry. More importantly, it's a perceptual failure, giving the impression of looking through binoculars. Why? Our eyes naturally give us nearly 180 degrees. Of course detail falls off quickly, but that's still three times the angle in MW2- several times the area. Ouch.

But it gets worse. Widescreen and 4:3 monitors are both commonplace among PC gamers. Devs have to contend with the question of different aspect ratios. Does the FOV apply to the screen's horizontal or vertical, or something in between? Unfortunately, the first option seems common; for widescreen users this aggravates the shitty console FOVs. If they just let the user configure the FOV, all these problems cease to exist.

Granted, a restricted FOV might be necessary to the game itself, e.g. a crazy wide FOV could confer advantage in multiplayer. Even so, anyone with half a brain would stick to a value that looks right on the biggest range of displays, and to the biggest group of people- which is somewhere around 90.

I find it funny that Borderlands was lauded, cause I was gonna mention how much it pissed me off before I even read the OP's link. Might've improved in an update, but last I saw there was *NO* way to change the FOV, which is unbearable on widescreen displays. Oh, and mouse smoothing is on by default, and can only be changed in some config files buried in My Documents. I'll never purchase a game with issues such as these. Whoever in the Infinity Ward is responsible for the decision to let a 60 degree FOV through in a PC game should simply not have their job.

tl;dr FOVs of less than 80 degrees are unacceptable in PC games, and for devs to use them is completely insane.

[Seth]

stuff like FOV I can understand complaining about, but I don't think players have any right to demand things like the ability to tweak weapon damage (of course they have the right to ask for it, though).

[Rotten194]

I read through it once and thought, "Yeah, this is perfectly reasonable. Players should be able to play like they want." Then I read it again and noticed tweaking weapon damage. WAAAT. What's the point in following a perfectly crafted mini-quest to get the rocket launcher when you can "tweak" your default, infinite ammo pistol to three times the damage. It ruins the fun. 

[GregWS]

I've gotta come down on the side of the designers here.  It's a rookie mistake to allow too much player control, as it really ruins the experience.  The designer isn't really designing an experience anymore, they're just designing an engine/sandbox.  It's also the coward's way out from having to make design decisions and face the consequences of them.

Playing a game differently than it should is totally cool; that's entirely up to the player if they want to break the implicit rules/purpose.  It's no different from running through a museum; there's no way the architect designed that museum to be ran through, but it would definitely be a fun way to experience the space.  (On that note, I think an architect should design a museum to be ran through, it would be epic.)

[tim_the_tam]

well i think if you have complete freedom in making a game it should be the designer of the game and the audience will appreciate the game in their own way. its this how it works in any art form?

[___]

I read through it once and thought, "Yeah, this is perfectly reasonable. Players should be able to play like they want." Then I read it again and noticed tweaking weapon damage. WAAAT. What's the point in following a perfectly crafted mini-quest to get the rocket launcher when you can "tweak" your default, infinite ammo pistol to three times the damage. It ruins the fun. 

Sure, you may think it ruins the fun, but there is a lot of fun in making a pistol that does 3 times the damage to some.

Half Life had a shitload of console commands that totally broke the game or spawned items or whatever, but I still played through the single player without using them.  I enjoyed the game from beginning to end, then after that I had fun blowing stuff up with console commands and flying through walls with god mode on.

Playing GTA on the PC and tweaking my car to have infinite mass was just way too much fun for me.

Although, I was raised with FPS games on the PC being all about customization.  Scripting, key bindings, settings, anything that could be changed to make me a better player or to give me an advantage, I would do it.  Increased FOV, quick weapon changing scripts, quick zoom and fire scripts, I had them all!  All using the tools provided to me from the game engine, no 3rd party programs or hacks.  So this new era of locked down severely limited PC games is disturbing to me...

[Zaphos]

Yeah, I don't think people really play with the settings or various mods that much until they've finished (or at least given up on) the 'out of the box' experience of the game ... if I'm having fun in my first play through of a game, I'm probably not going to go look up how to do weird stuff on the console.  So I don't really think making a game tweakable is threatening the 'as it was intended' experience that much.

[mewse]

My general opinion is that for a single-player game, I'm not going to do anything special to try to stop players from tweaking the game in any way that they can think of, but I'm also ordinarily not going to go out of my way to make it easy for them, such as by integrating a scripting language (unless I need one myself), writing documentation for file formats, or etc.

However, for competitive multiplayer games, I can totally understand wanting to completely lock things down, so that player A can't get an advantage by increasing his FOV or boosting his car's engine or increasing the damage that his gun can do.

[Zaratustra]

Thing is, gamers are a very whiny lot. So if you get Grand Theft Auto and play by driving as many people as possible and start whining that the game sucks because it doesn't suport and reward your singular special (in the head) way of playing, it will make them look bad.

Hell, that isn't even worded strongly. They just said they'd 'like' you to play it the way they intended it to. I'd put it more like GODDAMNIT YOU SIT THERE AND PLAY IT PROPERLY YOU ATTENTION-SPAN-STARVED POXIE YOU DON'T FEEL HALF THIS ENTITLED TO DO THINGS YOUR WAY WHEN YOU'RE READING A BOOK DO YOU.

[Gnarf]

They're not talking about how the players should enjoy the finished game. They're talking about what the finished game should be like. It's just a bunch of people who want them to make a slightly different game.

Should the creators of the game create the game? Yes.

[TheCube]

My general opinion is that for a single-player game, I'm not going to do anything special to try to stop players from tweaking the game in any way that they can think of, but I'm also ordinarily not going to go out of my way to make it easy for them, such as by integrating a scripting language (unless I need one myself), writing documentation for file formats, or etc.

However, for competitive multiplayer games, I can totally understand wanting to completely lock things down, so that player A can't get an advantage by increasing his FOV or boosting his car's engine or increasing the damage that his gun can do.

Absolutely agreed.  If the players want to ruin the game experience, that's their own loss, but you don't have to go out of your way to help them.  So no addition, and no subtraction.  I draw the line when developers start REMOVING features because they want people to experience it their way. 

I suppose it's a bit fuzzier line in multiplayer: is it easier to just remove a feature entirely than to lock it just in multiplayer?  Basically though, going from the example of Half-life, all the options to mess with the game are still there in multiplayer, but they're decided server side, which seems reasonable to me.  I think that's one of the reasons HL had (has?) such a strong multiplayer community. 

tl;dr I enjoy tuna fish sandwiches immensely, as well as non sequiturs.

[Reiss]

developers can make games however they want.  and you can play games however you want.

i mean, what are we even debating here?

[ChevyRay]

I'd put it more like GODDAMNIT YOU SIT THERE AND PLAY IT PROPERLY YOU ATTENTION-SPAN-STARVED POXIE YOU DON'T FEEL HALF THIS ENTITLED TO DO THINGS YOUR WAY WHEN YOU'RE READING A BOOK DO YOU.

Interestingly enough, this comparison fails in the same way. My girlfriend is especially notorious for "glancing" down the page or to the next page to see what the outcome of the current conflict is, and I used to work at a book store, and there are plenty of people who won't buy a book until they've read the last page to find out how it ends. I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it happens in each media in its own way.

developers can make games however they want.  and you can play games however you want.

i mean, what are we even debating here?

How to make games better. Just because everybody gets what they want doesn't mean that they'll make the best experience out of it. Not everybody always knows what they want, or what they'll find interesting or fun, so sometimes as developers, we like to toy with them and give them challenges to open their mind up to new faculties of the gaming experience. But I agree that players should definitely not be given everything they want, and sometimes not even anything they want. Actually, I read this quote of Derek's from the Disappointing Final Bosses topic which is pretty much exactly how I see the subject:

I believe that feedback from players can be misleading sometimes.  It's not the player's fault - they can't be expected to fix your game for you.  It falls on the designer to interpret what the player is saying to find the root of the problem. Quick fixes based on player feedback may not be "fixes" at all, but are band-aids on top of band-aids.

[brog]

I used to work at a book store, and there are plenty of people who won't buy a book until they've read the last page to find out how it ends.

I shed a silent tear.