CHEGheads Blog

A Final Fantasy and International Gaming Revolution

Posted by ssymonds - 03/08/10 at 02:03 pm

Over the past year and a half, I’ve had the privilege of cataloging more than 10,000 electronic games for ICHEG. As a gamer, I’ve found this a great way to learn about the various genres and mechanics that make up the history of electronic games.

One of my favorite games is Final Fantasy XI (ファイナルファンタジーXI, or FFXI,), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) published by Square Enix. Like World of Warcraft and EverQuest, FFXI is composed of multiple online servers that enable players to interact in a virtual environment. However, unlike other games of its genre, FFXI’s servers are completely international, meaning they are not separated by region or time zone. When asked if they would consider adding servers for specific regions, the developers said no, citing their desire to foster international gaming cooperation.

To facilitate game-play, developers configured an auto-translation system  that immediately translates  in-game locations, weapons, armor, spells and abilities, along with simple phrases such as “Hello!” and “Thank you!” into a player’s native language. FFXI is also the first and only MMORPG published on multiple platforms, including the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and PC.

The Japanese company Square, Co. (the predecessor to Square Enix) entered the video game industry in the mid 1980s, publishing racing games, early role-playing games, and side-scrolling platformers for the Nintendo Famicom. These games proved unsuccessful, and by 1987, the company was all but bankrupt. In a last-ditch attempt to save it, designer Hironobu Sakaguchi created a fantasy RPG with elements drawn from the acclaimed Legend of Zelda and Dragon Quest series. In reference to his upcoming retirement plans, Sakaguchi named the game Final Fantasy (ファイナルファンタジ ). Sakaguchi’s creation not only saved the company from ruin, it also became Square’s flagship game series. The company never anticipated a sequel, therefore all subsequent Final Fantasy games are connected only thematically and with similar styles of game-play, rather than by plot or characters. Currently, there are 12 main Final Fantasy games, along with several spin-offs and sequels. Two additional main series games are hitting the stands this year, including the series’ second online iteration.  

The initial game remains one of the most influential RPG console games in history, and Final Fantasy VII is credited with being the first RPG to heavily appeal to the mass market instead of only hard-core gamers. Whenever I boot up FFXI, I thank my lucky stars that one man’s fantasy turned out to be anything but final.

First There Was Famicom

Posted by Eric Wheeler - 03/05/10 at 02:03 pm

A few days ago a researcher in our ICHEG lab sparked a rich conversation about her favorite childhood gaming platform, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Like so many gamers in the late 80s, she spent endless hours assuming the role of Mario and squashing Goombas in the Mushroom Kingdom. Her memories of Super Mario Bros. and NES brought up the system’s groundbreaking predecessor. 

Several years before the phenomenally successful NES launched in the United States in 1985, the Nintendo Family Computer—known as Famicom—hit the Japanese gaming market. The brainchild of Masayuki Uemura, Famicom was Nintendo’s first cartridge-based home video game console. It became an instant hit, with game titles like legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s arcade classic Donkey Kong fueling sales. Early Famicom units experienced technical problems and many were recalled, but this proved only a temporary setback. Nintendo sold more than 10 million units in Japan, and that was just the beginning.

The next iteration of Famicom, the NES, was bundled with our guest’s favorite, the Miyamoto classic, Super Mario Bros. NES quickly became the “must have” system as tens of millions of gamers raced around the track on Excitebike, battled hand-to-hand on Kung Fu, and sought to move the chains in 10-Yard Fight. Other popular launch titles included Duck Hunt and Hogan’s Alley, both of which used the NES Zapper light gun accessory.

Nintendo sold more than 50 million units in the United States and in the process reinvigorated the worldwide gaming industry, which had endured several years of severely declining sales. Perhaps more importantly, the Nintendo brand became the dominant name in home console gaming in both Japan and the United States.

Nintendo later released the Super NES (1991), Nintendo 64 (1996), Nintendo GameCube (2001), and their current system, the Nintendo Wii (2006). Since the launch of Famicom, worldwide sales of this Nintendo line of home consoles have totaled a staggering 235 million units. Talk about a unit inspiring unity!

Let’s Get Physical! NCHEG Home Plays Finnish Game

Posted by Marc Check - 03/04/10 at 04:03 pm

At Strong National Museum of Play, home of NCHEG, we recently installed an exhibit that allows the public to experience one of my all-time favorite games, Crayon Physics Deluxe. It derives from the original Crayon Physics, which a co-worker got me hooked on a few years ago. The museum is a natural home for the game because of the whimsical nature of the graphics and musical soundtrack, and because (Crayola) crayons were inducted into our National Toy Hall of Fame in 1999. Through a generous donation of equipment by Presentation Source, local audio-visual technology gurus, our guests (which is what we call our museum visitors) can play the game via a large touch screen in our National Toy Hall of Fame exhibit hall.

Our testing and installation of Crayon Physics Deluxe reminded me of the addictiveness and lasting power of what is, on the surface, a relatively simple game. With the basic objective of getting the ball to the star on any given level, players can create any two-dimensional line or shape to move the ball, all subject to the natural laws of physics. The game often requires unique and creative solutions, but for many players, moving the ball to the star is secondary to the fun of experimenting with the physical interplay between created shapes. As the opening screen states: “It’s not just about finding the right solution. It’s about finding the awesomest one.”

After two years of playing this game regularly I still take pleasure in even the most basic levels. This is a testament to good game design and the seductive power of physics-based games.

Games based on physics are a genre in their own right, but definitions of it vary. Many Web sites are devoted to physics-based games that can be played online, but few such sites attempt to explain what makes a game physics-based. Many early games—from Spacewar and Asteroids (thrust and gravitational pull) to Tetris (gravity) to various current titles—use a variety of vehicular and skeletal physics. Silvergames. com describes physics-based games as follows:

Physics-based games are designed to mimic the basic laws of physics. Unlike many popular games that do not specifically follow natural law, most physics-based games are designed around Newton’s Three Laws of Motion:

I. If an object is not moving, it won’t start moving unless something else moves it. If an object is moving, it will continue to move unless something else stops it.

II. The amount of force required to move an object is equal to the mass of the object times the acceleration.

III. If something pushes on an object (an action), the object will push back (a reaction).

I would add that physics-based games not only adhere to these laws of motion, but also use them as the centerpiece of game play, where manipulation of objects within these laws becomes the method by which the game is played.

Physics-based games tend to have roots with independent and international developers well outside the classic markets and distribution channels in which many of the well-known genres have emerged and matured. Crayon Physics Deluxe, developed by Petri Purho, a Finnish independent game developer, won the grand prize at the 2008 Independent Games Festival Awards. A 2006 predecessor, Slovenian university student Boštjan Čadež’s Line Rider, introduced the world to physics-based game play through viral Internet distribution. The most commercially successful and recognizable physics-based game of recent times, however, is World Of Goo, by 2D Boy, an American (yet independent) game studio.

We hope some of you will have the chance to visit and play Crayon Physics here at the home of NCHEG, but for those of you unable to make it here I suggest you download the demo, or enjoy a variety of other physics-based games by a variety of international and independent developers at the following sites. Be sure to let us know which physics-based games you find unique and the most fun. There’s certainly plenty to choose from!

PhysicsGames.net         Fun-Motion           Silvergames          The Game Telegraph

Russian-born Tetris Illustrates Good Design

Posted by Jon-Paul C. Dyson - 03/03/10 at 03:03 pm

Tetris is a great example of how simple ideas often inspire the best video games. In my recent conversation with Alexey Pajitnov, he recounted how a simple wooden puzzle game inspired him to create Tetris.

Pajitnov was working at the computer center of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1984 when the thought came to him that Pentominoes would make a great computer game. Pentominoes are a mathematical puzzle in which players need to place 12 different shapes made of 5 units each into a rectangle.  Inspired, Pajitnov programmed the game on an Electronica 60, the Soviet equivalent of a DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) PDP-11. He made the shapes out of brackets because the system had few graphics capabilities. Pajitnov quickly realized that adding gravity to the game made it more exciting—as the pieces fell, they had to be moved or rotated to fit together on the bottom of the screen.

He encountered a problem, though. Solving a Pentomino puzzle was hard enough without time constraints, and when the pieces cascaded down the screen, the game’s difficulty skyrocketed. To alleviate some of the pressure, Pajitnov decided to reduce the size of the pieces from 5 units each to 4 units, thereby decreasing the total number of unique shapes from 12 to 7. Now it was much easier! Searching for a name, he reasoned that since pente was the Greek word for five and he now had 4 units per shape,  he should name it after the Greek word for four, tetra. Tetris was born.

Tetris spread throughout the Eastern Bloc and onto PCs. But it was too good a game to stay bottled up behind the Iron Curtain. A number of entrepreneurs made arrangements to bring it to the West, and it achieved worldwide fame when Henk Rogers worked with Nintendo to secure the handheld rights for the 1989 debut of GameBoy. Tetris quickly became one of the most beloved games of all time and ultimately built the market for puzzle and casual games. It remains highly popular today, especially on mobile phones. NCHEG’s collection includes dozens of copies of Tetris on many platforms, from an arcade version to copies on key chains to numerous handhelds. We also have Pentominoes as a reminder of the source of the original idea.

Tetris’s success demonstrates that the best video games don’t just mimic previous video games—they draw inspiration from other sources. In his superb book, The Art of Game Design, Jesse Schell urges game designers seeking ideas to “stop looking at your game, and stop looking at games like it. Instead, look everywhere else.” That’s great advice. A quarter century after its creation, Tetris is proof positive that the best sources for innovative games are the play and life experiences that most move and fascinate us.

Japanese Jewels Excite E-Bidders

Posted by Marc Check - 03/02/10 at 01:03 pm

Over the last few weeks my e-mail  filled up with friends and other electronic games enthusiasts bringing to my attention a couple of eBay  auctions. Amused at first, I quickly saw a collectors’ chain reaction happening.

These auctions centered on the rare and elusive Stadium Events video games by Bandai, a Japanese toy making company founded in 1900. The first e-mail I received referred to an auction on eBay for an “Old Nintendo NES system and five games” that sold for $13,105.

At first glance, this group of artifacts may look like nothing special, but note in this picture the Stadium Events game box on the left; it accounts for an estimated worth of 95 percent of the lot’s value.

Bandai’s Stadium Events is a rare gem in the world of video game collections, with only 2,000 copies produced for the North American market, and only approximately 200 rumored to have made it into the hands of U.S. consumers. Released in North America in late 1987, the game was intended for use with an early alternate controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System—the  Family Fun Fitness Mat produced by Bandai. Early in 1988, however, Nintendo purchased the rights to this technology and remarketed the controller as the Nintendo Power Pad. During this transfer of rights, Nintendo pulled the previous Bandai copies from shelves and had them destroyed, and the few copies of Stadium Events that trickled into the hands of consumers became the coveted Bandi Stadium Event games that sat in basements and attics awaiting the advent of eBay.

When the  eBay auction generated lots of press, geeks across everywhere started rummaging through their boxes of old cartridges for these Japanese jewels. Dave, from Kansas, won the scavenger hunt.

A few days after the first auction ended, Dave began his own eBay auction for a single cartridge of–you guessed it–the coveted National Television Standards Committee (NTSC)  Bandi Stadium Event cartridge. It was still in its factory shrinkwrap, complete with the original price tag. Asking price?  $20,000!

That asking price seemed a little steep to me. I thought perhaps Dave’s reasoning was sprinkled with a touch of wishful thinking left over from the initial auction hype. But a few days ago I learned that he sold the game for $41,300!

I thought this feeding frenzy couldn’t go any further, but yesterday, eBay had yet another mint condition NTSC Stadium Events cartridge auction. With just over five hours to go and fifty-two bidders, the top bid was $800,200! Five hours later, this top bidder won.

It amazes me that what started as a small ripple in the international video game market in early 1988 has become practically a collecting tsunami within 23 years.

Since these recent auctions began, I’ve scoured my basement to no avail, and my credit card has a limit well below $800,000. And NCHEG won’t have Stadium Events in the collection this week, either, but we’ll forever be on the lookout for nuggets like this and other significant finds. Meanwhile, we’re glad that events like this one around a single Japanese game bring so much attention to the importance of collecting and preserving historic electronic games.

Electronic Yakyuu (Baseball)

Posted by Eric Wheeler - 03/01/10 at 04:03 pm

Aside from gaming, my other passion is baseball—wherever I can find it and in whatever form. Since my youth I have struggled to fill the void between the final game of the World Series and the return of baseball on opening day each spring. To get through the offseason months I have developed a large number of coping mechanisms, including reading individual player and team histories, replaying great games from past seasons, and taking a yearly winter trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown,  New York.

Another way I deal with the offseason is through electronic games. When I was younger, Intellivision World Series Major League Baseball, designed by NCHEG advisor Don Daglow and partner Eddie Dombrower, was a favorite of mine, as was Coleco’s handheld Head to Head Electronic Baseball. Afterward, every few years I managed to find a new electronic version to satisfy me until spring. This past offseason Baseball Mogul 2010, a PC sports management simulation, became my game of choice.

Naturally, I’m always on the lookout for baseball games to add to the NCHEG collection. NCHEG recently acquired a large number of Japanese titles for Sega Saturn, and those  included Kanzen Chuuki Pro Yakyuu: Greatest Nine (完全中継プロ野球). Baseball, yakyuu in Japanese, is wildly popular in many parts of Southeast Asia, especially Japan, and many titles released in that market reflect this. I witnessed that excitement first hand when I attended a game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Chunichi Dragons in the Tokyo Dome in the late 1990s.

It should come as no surprise that I am planning to set up a Sega Saturn early next week to try out Greatest Nine and see how it compares to World Series Baseball, the Sega Saturn baseball game I remember playing. Fortunately, my colleague, Shannon Symonds, who is cataloging incoming NCHEG materials and will soon be a CHEGheads special guest blogger, speaks Japanese, and I am hoping that her language skills, combined with my years of electronic baseball play, can get us safely around the diamond. Play Ball!

We Extend Our Deepest Condolences

Posted by Marc Check - 02/26/10 at 01:02 pm

We at NCHEG extend our deepest condolences to the family and colleagues of Mark Beaumont, who suffered a fatal heart attack during the early hours of February 23. Mark was an industry veteran and visionary who began his career at Atari in 1982 and at the time of his death served as Capcom’s COO for North America and Europe. Previously he held various positions with Activision, Time Warner Interactive, Data East, Mindscape, and Psygnois. 

A 1987 interview in Compute! Magazine demonstrates Mark’s foresight and understanding of an industry where software and hardware share an evolutionary symbiosis:

Consumer taste is so varied that to find one thing that appeals to millions of people would be difficult. To find a market that big, you’d need, for one thing, to have many more computers in the home.  But that’s a double-edged sword. To get more computers into the home you need better software that appeals to more people. As entertainment software becomes better, more people will become interested in computers.

Mark helped transform entertainment software, and this evolution of games drove the home PC and console market through decades of growth and societal penetration. 

In a 2007 interview from gamesindustry.biz, Mark, then leading Capcom’s European arm, continued to explain the relationship between console platforms and entertainment software, this time adding new considerations concerning the role of platforms in international markets:

Q: As a publisher, when do you start deciding which platforms to offer stronger support for?

A: 24 to 36 months in advance [laughs]. We have to make those calls well before we know how things are going to progress, and quite honestly that’s why you’re seeing Capcom move to a more multi-platform strategy.  Not only is there some question as to who’s going to be most successful, but there’s some question as to who’s going to be most successful in each market. It’s entirely possible that the ranking of the three systems in North America will be different from the ranking of the three systems in Europe. I’m actually expecting that will probably be the case, and it will be different again in Japan. So by going multi-platform we hedge our bets; it gives us an opportunity to move with the marketplace.

It is easy to overlook how young the electronic games industry is and how quickly it has evolved. Mark’s passing reminds us of that. It also reminds us of the tremendous impact that he and other industry leaders have had not only on the industry itself, but also on our culture, affecting how we play, how we learn, and how we connect with each other. And it reminds us of the responsibility we have to preserve the history of that legacy.  NCHEG recognizes and appreciates the contributions of Mark and his contemporaries, and we will continue to work to preserve their legacy.

CHEGheads Find World Championship Cartridge

Posted by Eric Wheeler - 02/16/10 at 11:02 am

The CHEGheads have found and acquired a rare and unique Nintendo World Championships 1990 gray cartridge!

Collectors, in general, love that which is rare. Sports memorabilia aficionados covet the T206 Honus Wagner baseball card, comic book fanatics seek out Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1, and stamp collectors covet a chance to lay their eyes on an Inverted Jenny. Few collectors witness, much less acquire, such uncommon gems.

Those of us who prize electronic games have our treasured pieces as well. Classic arcade collectors, for instance, search out working copies of the first coin-operated game, Computer Space (1971), like the one (pictured below) that resides in the NCHEG Game Lab. A game that is both historically significant and limited in number (less than 1,500 were produced), Computer Space always finds itself atop arcade video game lists on gamer Web sites and in collector’s guides.  Like Computer Space, Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge perennially tops the lists too. That’s why I’m particularly excited that NCHEG acquired this game cartridge to share with researchers and guests alike.

     

How is it that this cartridge came to be coveted by game enthusiasts, including yours truly? In 1990, Nintendo sponsored a gamer competition that toured 30 U.S. cities. The specially designed gray cartridges, which combined a triathlon of play with Super Mario Bros, Rad Racer, and Tetris, were produced for, and used in, this tournament.

Players in each of three age groups (11 and under, 12-17, and 18 and over) tested their gaming prowess in a six-minute sprint to score as many points as possible against other contestants. Finalists in each age bracket at every venue received prizes, including a copy of the gray Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge.

Only 90 such cartridges are extant, and so both their rarity and their unique provenance make them highly desirable. These Nintendo World Championships 1990 grays and 26 venerated golds (awarded through a contest in Nintendo Power magazine) are often referred to as the “Holy Grails” of video game collecting.

Until our unique gray appears in a major new exhibit—eGameRevolution—opening here in the fall, I will guard the piece with all of my might. Unless, of course, my fellow CHEGheads convince me to fire up a Nintendo Entertainment System to see who among us is the champ.

Four Decades on the Oregon Trail

Posted by Jon-Paul C. Dyson - 02/08/10 at 09:02 am

If one sign of a great game is staying power, then The Oregon Trail stands out for over forty years of enduring popularity. The game has also outlasted many different platforms.

If, like me, you played it growing up, you remember that the game challenges players to guide their wagon party across the great American West in 1848. To successfully traverse the continent, you must choose supplies, set your travel speed, cross rivers, trade with Native Americans, hunt for animals, survive disease and storms, and make wagon repairs. Choose poorly, and one or more of your party dies along the trail.

 

Three Carleton College students invented the game in 1971, when student teacher Don Rawitsch asked fellow seniors Paul Dillenberger and Bill Heinemann, “Can’t we do something with the computer in my history class?” They developed a text-based version of The Oregon Trail, and later, when Rawitsch joined the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium (MECC), he made the game available to students throughout the state. The game play was primitive. Students dialed in on teletype machines and hunted by typing in “BANG.” Players who spelled the word correctly got the award message, “Good Eatin’ Tonight,” and some food for their travel party.

The Oregon Trail was not the only 1970s game to simulate historical adventures. Programmers turned to the ancient camel caravan trades, the rule of Hammurabi, and Civil War battles for inspiration. But unlike most of these other games, The Oregon Trail successfully migrated from mainframe computer to the newly popular microcomputers.

In 1979 MECC ported the game to the Apple II, and players could then hunt by shooting at graphics of deer, bison, or rabbits dashing across the screen. The game’s popularity expanded enormously in school districts all over the country, and as a result, in 1985 MECC released it to the general public. You can play an emulated version here. Continuously updated, the game is still a steady seller and has even migrated to the iPhone.

The Oregon Trail succeeded because it was simple, yet challenging, but endured because MECC, a stable and committed creator of educational software titles such as Number Muncher and Lemonade Stand, invested the resources to keep it updated and fresh and get it into classrooms so that teachers could easily tie it into the American History curricula. For the majority of children who didn’t have home computers in the 1980s and 1990s, The Oregon Trail was often not only the first computer game they played, but also their first introduction to computers. For a collection of people’s memories playing the game, see Dave Lester’s 2006 Facebook survey.

Today, there are many other historical simulations and many more opportunities for teachers to use games in the classroom. But 39 years after its creation, The Oregon Trail still stands out as one of the most effective simulation games. When children stock their supplies, load up their wagon, and head West, they start to understand the challenges of Western migration, build some valuable decision-making skills, and have fun. And hopefully no one dies of dysentery along the way.

 

Did you play The Oregon Trail in school? Share your memories!

 

Welcome to Farmville–Please Have Your I.D. Ready

Posted by Marc Check - 02/03/10 at 03:02 pm

Recently, I reluctantly signed up for Facebook.  The site’s grown too large for me to ignore it any longer—and Lord knows I have tried.  Part of the reason I joined is because Facebook has become a huge platform for the delivery of games.  Several people I know don’t consider themselves gamers, yet they play Facebook games on a regular basis, mostly to maintain their farms in Zynga’s FarmVille and aquariums in CrowdStar’s Happy Aquarium.

These real-time simulation games’ immense popularity and diverse audiences make them especially interesting to NCHEG.  They mark a significant change in the way people play, learn, and relate to each other.  They also represent a type of game play that has prompted numerous criticisms.

Some professional game developers have dismissed these games as glorified spreadsheets.  In a  recent conversation, NCHEG advisor Don Daglow half-joked with me that he could immediately cause passionate arguments at any table of game professionals  by simply walking over to them and saying one word,  “FarmVille”.  Critics lambaste the use of virtual cash and micro transactions within the game, warning that it targets “young people to spend real money” or tricks users into subscribing to various services in return for virtual currency.  The latter charge has earned FarmVille a “Controversy” content section in Wikipedia.

There is no doubt, though, that lots of people love these games. My eight-year-old daughter’s recent request for her own Facebook account is a case in point. It prompted a fervent discussion during which she experienced all five stages of grief within one Saturday. She spent much more time on the “anger” and “bargaining” stages than I would have preferred, but eventually we got to “acceptance.”  And she now understands that Facebook is for those humans who have taken at least thirteen trips around the sun.

What is pertinent about all of that here is that she wanted a Facebook account for two reasons.  First, she said she really likes to play Farmville and Happy Aquarium, which I completely understand.  The themes and aesthetics of these games, which are enjoyed by players of all ages, appeal strongly to tweens. Secondly, she declared, “All my friends have Facebook.”    If I were her age and I saw my mother or father or even grandmother playing these games, I’d feel short-changed as well. But in response to her request for Facebook as a necessary avenue to the games, I found myself repeating phrases I sworn I’d never use with my child: “If so-and-so’s mother let her play with razor blades….”

Through both informal observation and surveying, I know that many children younger than thirteen years have Facebook accounts, and the reason is primarily so they can play games that are unavailable on other platforms.  I understand why some parents allow this, but I chose not to capitulate for a few reasons.  Although Facebook has lowered its minimum age to thirteen, it remains largely an adult social networking platform.  I cannot limit the language or content my daughter would see on Facebook and I certainly cannot monitor her every interaction. I also find it unfair to expect adults to limit or monitor their conversations knowing there are “uninvited kids in the room.”  Most importantly, my wife and I concur that letting our daughter lie about her age to gain access to a desirable product sets a bad precedent.

Although my daughter got over her disappointment quickly—I haven’t heard a peep about the subject since—the conversation has stuck with me.  It is unfortunate that these games are not available to children under thirteen through some other means. Unlike the long-standing issue of children playing age-inappropriate games, the problem here is that these games are age appropriate but are unavailable because of age restrictions set by the delivery system.

In the future I’d love to see these games accessible through a different venue for children of all ages.  Until then I’d appreciate feedback from our readers. Please answer the survey questions below (I promise anonymity!) and give us your comments and opinions on these Facebook issues.

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