What is game quality?
Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/What is game quality?
Ok, this is a question born from a discussion with friend Mortiis.
What is a game quality then.
Which factors describes quality and who can judged a game for this?
A game has quality when the sound, gfx, gameplay, story, etc. don't suck :P
Even when you don't care much about for instance music: when it sucks, it'll suck even for you.
Everything in nowadays are subjectives. A music may suck for me and not for you.
In that case:
- everything in life is relative, so is game quality, so why bother investigating what game quality is..?
- the music decreases the game quality, as there could perhaps be a more neutral solution which may suit everyone. This is either subjective again, or simply impossible..
everything in life is relative, so is game quality, so why bother investigating what game quality is..?
Jeeze louise.
So how about something more concrete - such as the AI's ability to handle all the situation's that may appear in a game. I would call that a quantifiable part of 'game quality'.
Then there's the interface's effectiveness.
Graphics quality could reasonably measured by looking at current, similar games.
Point is there's any number of factors that could be measured reasonably objectively before getting on to more 'subjective' factors of 'game quality'.
Things which a quality game should have:
- no quickload/quicksave (it ruins the athmosphere)
- non-linear storyline, able to go back to earlier areas
- support for OpenGL and OpenAL (that doesn't mean that DirectX should not be supported)
- Soft Shadows
- Physics Engine
- UDP network engine
- User settable Windowed and hardware supported FullScreen modes
- LUA scripting (if the game supports modding)
- Cooperative Multiplayer mode (in addition to possible PvP or Deathmatch modes)
- 1st and 3rd person camera modes
Quality = ((Graphics ^ Hype ) * Sound) + Music + (Gameplay / CurrentYear)
...apparently.
for me, quality is linked with aestheticism. The preface to
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde expresses my feelings quite well:
The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
Despite the fact that video games are a form of entertainment rather than works of art, I believe that Wilde's statement applies to them rather well.
Things which a quality game should have:
- no quickload/quicksave (it ruins the athmosphere)
- non-linear storyline, able to go back to earlier areas
- support for OpenGL and OpenAL (that doesn't mean that DirectX should not be supported)
- Soft Shadows
- Physics Engine
- UDP network engine
- User settable Windowed and hardware supported FullScreen modes
- LUA scripting (if the game supports modding)
- Cooperative Multiplayer mode (in addition to possible PvP or Deathmatch modes)
- 1st and 3rd person camera modes
So the epitome of quality is an online FPS, then?
Gfk: Can be also 3rd person adventure game, or 3rd person RTS (like Command & Conquer) the UDP network engine is needed for game updates at least. And it can be also a 2D sidescroller (it just looks better with 3D graphics).
lol @ GfK
Half of that list represents technical features that may or may not apply to a decent quality game. You can have a fantastic puzzle game without most of that stuff.
Lumooja: your list is just a list of technical features. Features<>Quality imho.
I think that "Quality" means that experienced/talented people have made the various aspects of the game (technical stuff, interface/menu system, story, atmosphere, graphics, special effects, sound, music, extra bonus stuff/features, controls, bug testing, level design, and gameplay). If these things don't seem crap i.e. they match or beat other similar games in the marketplace, then it's probably fair to say that the game is good quality. Probably many of the things in the list above were iterated over many times to get them just right instead of just being slapped in there. Even experienced people don't get it right first time.
Game quality is the all-round level of excellence.
Well, you see...
Everyone has an opinion DIFFERENT from the rest. To be honest I agree with all of you but most of us we have a COMMON PLACE playing a PAC-MAN or a TETRIS.
Now if I ask you what makes you play these games again and again I suppose I will get so many different answers...
Pac-Man and Tetris don't rely on gfx or sound. They do well without 'em. An RPG however is a game that should pull the player into another world. When this world sucks because the gfx are lame, the music is crap, the story is bull and the characters are flawed, then the game quality is low.
The more the game resembles another world or a story, the better the art (gfx/music/sound/story) needs to be.
Excellent point, CS_TBL.
For me one thing that ALL games should have to be considered "quality" is thorough testing before release, resulting in a stable game with minimal or no bugs.
A quality game should be able to stimulate the players "suspension of disbelief" (a great phrase borrowed from a book i read once) and does not necessarily need hi def graphics and sound.
I believe it does however need good interface, gameplay that needs to capture the players curiosity and interest in a short time and then sustain it in a way as to not get boring. It also needs a desired (and eventually reachable) goal of some kind weather its beating a score or saving the "world". Even a text adventure can be a "good" game, if it can capture the imagination and be exciting in the same way as a book can, without even using a graphics mode.
It seems to me like we are entering an era where the uninspired and the imagination-less instantly rate games that dont have 3D, state of the art graphics etc as automatically uninteresting crap! They kind of remind me of an un-educated slug looking up from the telly and bowl of nachos going "Wot u readin for?" :)
While we're on the subject. Blonde or Brunette? How long is a piece of string? And how much is that doggy in the window?
A quality game should be able to stimulate the players "suspension of disbelief" (a great phrase borrowed from a book i read once
...or Blackadder Goes Forth, Episode 1.
"Well i'm not having anyone staring in disbelief at MY willy suspension!"
:)
lol (classic) :P
it was in fact this one...
http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/detail.asp?item=100000000039738Got it for christmas one year, was quite a good read.
- Soft Shadows
- Physics Engine
I don't agree with those at all. I can play command and conquer with or without shadows/soft shadows, and it doesn't make the slighest bit of difference to the quality of the game :o) Cause the gameplay is engrossing.
I'd say the three main factors of a game are the gameplay, sound and graphics, in that order. Alot of people underestimate the importance good sound makes in a game.
Well, those are just things which add to the total quality of a game, it doesn't mean a game is bad quality if it doesn't have those, it's just not best possible quality. I can also play Command & Conquer with no physics and shadows, since the gameplay is so much more important than anything else in the game, however having those 2 things would make it a bit more fun, at least if you care about eye-candy.
Avon wrote:
For me one thing that ALL games should have to be considered "quality" is thorough testing before release, resulting in a stable game with minimal or no bugs.
Thorough testing doesn't ensure the release of stable games with minimal bugs - thorough bug fixing does, though.
In my experience, most of the bugs that are "discovered" after a game has been released have already been identified by testers at some point during the testing process. These bugs are then waived (officially ignored) by tired developers in order to meet unreasonable deadlines, imposed by souless corporate suits, shareholders and marketing scumbags - none of whom care one jot about quality or stability.
In my experience, most of the bugs that are "discovered" after a game has been released have been identified by testers early in the testing process and waived (ignored) by tired developers who are struggling to meet unreasonable deadlines that have been imposed by souless corporate suits (and these guys most definately do not care about quality)
Fatal Racing springs to mind....
i think quality in the term "game quality" should be judged on how well the game/app does what is expected of it. so bugs should be part of it, is the game finished to a consistant standard etc. not really if its a great game thats the subjective part. even if a game has music you dont like, most people can tell if its badly put together or not even if its not to there taste.
But if I intentionally create a poor quality, tedious and bug ridden game, and tell potential customers how bad it is, then, by your reasoning, should it be classed as a quality game because it lives up to my expectations?
if thats the quality your telling people it is yes. As long as it is what it says it is you can't go wrong. if your were to tell people its rubbish and full of bugs and they still buy it, they cant really say they have been ripped off in anyway.
Hmm. I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but it rather takes the quality out of the term quality, if you see what I mean. It's like saying that honesty equals quality rather than artistry or beauty equals quality.
I'm not sure that I agree, but that's an interesting take.
To me quality does not mean quantity. It also has nothing to do with measurement, or `how much`. It's not to do with the form that a game takes, either visually, audibly or otherwise. It's about the content, the message, and its subtle consistency.
It has nothing to do with how many pixels you're drawing or how fast you're drawing them or how realistic they look or behave. It hasn't got anything to do with the size of the game or how many unique frames of animation or how long the music is. It doesn't even have anything really to do with how much time is spent creating it. It's not about being clever or technical or well versed in computer science.
Quality is more to do what it's made of, now how much of it there is. It's to do with a consistency and purity of story/intention throughout. It's to do with attention to detail, so that you aren't too busy thinking about how much of the stuff you're creating. It's the result of slow methodical careful loving craftmanship. It's about putting things into the game where they are intuitively supposed to be and making it make sense. It can be art but some art is not quality art. Usually quality can be equated with virtues such as beauty, purity, innocence, love, joy, etc. If you put those into your *creating* then your *creation* will reflect it. It's not about the end result or the game that you make, it's about how it was made.
Which factors describes quality and who can judged a game for this?
Stability. Nothing else matters if the game won't even start.
So the epitome of quality is an online FPS, then?
Well Richard Garriott pretty much falsified that hypothesis quite effectively with Tabula Rasa.
Quality = ((Graphics ^ Hype ) * Sound) + Music + (Gameplay / CurrentYear)
Hah! That's awesome! Because it's true. Unfortunately.
Blonde or Brunette? How long is a piece of string? And how much is that doggy in the window?
Brunette, one end to the other, and if you have to ask you can't afford it. Tada!
Quality comes down to all the core features working well together as a coherent highly polished whole. Usualy something is overlooked that makes a game weak, whether its controls, sound, graphics, or gameplay.
What I often find with games is that ideas arent taken far enough and often rely on a cool little gimmick thet gets tired quick. That or controls or AI is overly simple to the point that it feels mechanical and not fluid enough to give a player a good feeling of control and immersion.
After that it comes down to the game being something you like. Nintendo do a great job of pulling off the polish and to some extent controls. It's a real shame that they just arent te kinds of games I enjoy playing. But they do get so much right, which is why they have such a huge following. Even when the graphics are often a bit simplistic, a lot of attention to detail gives them a polish that makes up for lack of cool effects etc.
Game quality comes down to balance just like many other things in life. If you create a game with astonishing graphics then players will expect the physics, sound, etc... to match those graphics. Conversely, you could make a game like Michael Reitzenstein's latest flash games. They don't contain ground breaking graphics but all of their components are complimentary.
OK, here is my proportion:
1. We take Rob Farley's formula (or any other formula we will all agree)
Quality = ((Graphics ^ Hype ) * Sound) + Music + (Gameplay / CurrentYear)
2. Then we make a list of games we want (It may consist only by Blitz3D games).
3. For each game we vote about Graphics,Sound,Music,GamePlay (Hype = 2)
4. We calculate the quality and give to the public a sheet with the results
What do you think?
The trouble with that formula is that the values are entirely subjective. The numbers that we use to replace "graphics", "hype", "sound", and "music" will vary from person to person, rendering the outcome entirely, uselessly, subjective too.
Lumooja, I second what Grey said. Look at Eschalon: Book I -- it has NONE of your technical features, but is still an absolute high quality title in my book.
IMMERSION is the key. You must get the player to fall in love with the game right away, and that is an entirely emotional aspect where all the technical toys usually can't help you with.
Quality is defined as an objective or subjective experience.
Objective:
In advance you define specific properties and functionality.
If you can later on fulfill these goals or even excel them you have a good quality, if not, well...
Subjective:
If you subjective expectations are fulfilled than it's a good quality for you.
Games related you can measure the objective case by defining the properties in advance (gfx, sfx, gameplay, story, depth, ...) and subjective it's anything which pleases you.
Winni wrote:
IMMERSION is the key. You must get the player to fall in love with the game right away, and that is an entirely emotional aspect where all the technical toys usually can't help you with.
Exactly. Which is partly what I was getting at in my earlier arty-farty, Oscar Wilde quoting post. It's all about emotional engagement, which is basically an aesthetic value judgement.
At best, using fixed properties such as the ones you mentioned in your post can provide a value judgement based on workmanship rather than quality, but even here the value that we attribute to each property is entirely subjective.
For example, someone with little experience of fantasy tropes might consider a typical "an amnesiac discovers that he is a powerful wizard/warrior/king" plot to be fresh and engaging (leading him to rate the story quite highly), whilst I would consider it to be cliched and unengaging (therefore giving the story a poor rating).
I think that quality, following on from the basic premise that you spend as much time as it necessary to do things right, is what you get when you don't skimp on things and you provide a full complete polished implementation of everything that really should be there. It doesn't mean throwing together some basic idea which has little depth and then not bothering to make a decent menu or document it properly. Quality means having a high standard throughout.
( gameplay ^ 2 ) * ( hype ^ 2 ) * sqrt( ( graphics / ( currentYear - 1972 ) ) ^ 2 + ( sound / ( currentYear - 1972 ) ) ^ 2 )
Obviously gameplay and hype are always increasing with time. We started with 2 paddles and a bouncing ball and now we can do just about anything from real life and then some. Hype started as computer disk in plastic bags with lables and now we have full blown midnight launches and more.
Graphics and sound are both means to an end. Additionally, they are quite relative to the times. Specifically, although they do keep getting better (Pong might be graphic 1 and Crysis a 100) they are represented with diminishing returns in the above equation.
Ok, what is the minimum and maximum values for gameplay, hype, graphics and sound?
I have setup a page for vote:
http://www.moraldigames.com/gamequality.htmI think a list of 10 games max its OK.
What games I will include?
We can vote for 3 days after beginning and then I can post the results based on Jeremy Alessi's or Rob Farley's formula
PS: Don't hesitate to visit this page, you will be awarded with fine Greek music...
I think you didn't like my idea
Your site crashed my browser :(
Hmm... strange
Please can you tell me what you mean crashed?
Which browser do you use?
Usually I need to pause my Kaspersky security because when it is active my Mozilla refuses to load any freewebs site (including mine)
Usually I need to pause my Kaspersky security because when it is active my Mozilla refuses to load any freewebs site (including mine)
Maybe it's just me but if this happened to me I would have diagnosed a problem with FreeWebs rather than a problem with Kaspersky.
Ok, what is the minimum and maximum values for gameplay, hype, graphics and sound?
That depends entirely on your target audience -- some people can see the quality in an 8-bit 4 color game and come back for more (especially those who grew up in the 80s or before that) while others consider anything without true color 3D graphics and surround sound to be crap.
It's completely subjective.
Ok, I think I will keep the scale from 1-10 for all four factors, and I will calculate the result.
I will complete a list of 10 games from what I've see so far and start the voting.
Please note that this voting is not competitive because anyone can vote as many games as he wants.
I'll let you know when we start
Traditionally quality is objectively measured in number of tests passed. For a bolt it is whether it's various measurements and dimensions fall within a given tolerance. The same with electronic components. For software it's usually a matter of how many tests it successfully passes (for test driven development) or how many of the design specifications materialized (for up-front design development). Of course since most software (including games) is developed using code and fix, there is no way you can credibly claim any type of quality.
The list is ready! Mortiis helped me and you can start vote!
I hope to your active participation
http://www.moraldigames.com/gamequality.htmThanks!
An update:
So far the following games have been voted:
Eschalon Book 1 : 2 times
Lights of Dreams : 3 times
Master of Defence : 4 times
New Star Soccer 3 : 3 times
Techno : 3 times
Fairway Solitaire : 2 times
Super Gerball : 2 times
Naked War : 2 times
War Wound : 2 times
Wonderland : 2 times
C'mon guys what you wait for?
The music is what seems to crash my browser BTW.
ok, I will stop it
Edit: done!
So I'm still heavily updating it, but doesn't Tank Universal make your list?
<sulks>
Moraldi:
The trouble with polls like yours is that they need to include games that all the voters have played, otherwise the results are worthless. If people were voting on a list of popular FPSs then you might get somewhat more useful results, but - and I mean no offense here to anyone - the games on that are included in this poll are too obscure for many people to have played a decent number of them.
For example, out of the games that you've included, I've only played Eschalon, so that's the one that I would choose. What would voting for it prove? Nothing. It certainly wouldn't tell us anything about the "quality" of the game in relation to the other games on the poll. It would only mess up the statistics.
So your voting system doesn't work, but neither does your formula for judging quality (as has already been discussed in this thread) either. At best, all you might receive is a mainstream, lowest common denominator value judgement - but of course you won't even get that because the poll is only of interest to a niche demographic.
I'm with JustLuke on this ... I've only played a couple of the games listed so the voting system is majorly flawed.
I'm willing to wager that Xilvian will be in a voting frenzy to ensure his 'Light of Dreams' tops the list, which proves absolutely nothing ;)
MadJack:
I had to choose only 10. I asked you about a short list but you didn't respond...
JustLuke:
This poll is just for fun (that's why I included Light of Dreams...) It is not based on any scientific essay. I just want to give a chance to all those who wrote their opinion about Game Quality to make this a little bit more specific and the thread more interesting.
From the first time I said that that voting cannot be competitive for reasons you mentioned in your post and because you have not to vote ALL games.
I agree with most of your thoughts but don't take all things so much serious in your life
Edit:
Here is my proposition:
Let's make a community rating system for Blitz Games.
I could contribute with whoever way I can
"What is a game quality then."
Game Quality would be the overall presentation of the gaming experience.
"Which factors describes quality..."
While visual pizazz is important, quality to me means ease of use, clear easy to understand goals/storyline, an end user interface that is intuitive and easily comprehendable.
"and who can judged a game for this?"
People who have experience in the distribution channel, and your targeted users.
Otherwise the quality experience of the game itself is nothing more than one's own perception, opinion, etc. Crappy games can still have a high level of quality, and vice-versa.
The poll is irrelevant in this topic.
Don't confuse game play with game quality, they are 2 very different things.
MGE: The poll is irrelevant in this topic
You didn't prove this. Can you suggest a better topic for this poll?
New update:
-----------
Eschalon Book 1 : 5 times
Lights of Dreams : 9 times
Master of Defence : 6 times
New Star Soccer 3 : 3 times
Techno : 4 times
Fairway Solitaire : 2 times
Super Gerball : 2 times
Naked War : 3 times
War Wound : 2 times
Wonderland : 2 times
Results will be posted tomorrow (15:00 Greek Time - Now its 18:41).
There will be a link to download in .xls or .ods format
I had to choose only 10. I asked you about a short list but you didn't respond...
Must have missed it - oh well.
"Can you suggest a better topic for this poll?"
If you want to see game quality, check out the top 10 on some of the more popular portals. Doesn't matter if you don't like the games themselves, almost all of them will be the type of overall quality the normal consumer expects. On another level of quality design is some of the more big name boxed PC releases.
So you mean quality is how a game satisfies the expectations
of their target audience MGE?
Well I know a lot of great games which we didn't see on any
top10 lists or didn't sell that much. Example; "Omikron:The
Nomad Soul", "Grim Fandango" etc.
Ok, guys here are the files:
OpenOffice format:
http://www.moraldigames.com/Temp/Game%20Quality.odsand EXCEL format:
http://www.moraldigames.com/Temp/Game%20Quality.xlsI cannot say that the poll had success but I have to thank you all of you who finally participated.
MGE:
Portals always looking for quality games and I agree that you can find many of 'quality games' here, but I never forget that portals makes profit and you cannot be sure if a top10 there is uncolored...
There is something wrong with the xls, all the games have the same results!
The top 10 games are probably good quality but a lot of games have got in there because they are new and reasonable quality/addictive. I've seen some games that are addictive but not such good quality still do well. The top 10 on BFG and Reflexive is not artificial, I know that for sure, can't say for other portals but it's probably valid. Also BFG has a top 100, now if a game is in that list for a long time you can be sure it is probably good quality and certainly addictive.
Thanks Grey. Corrected.
(I am an OpenOffice.org user and I uploaded by mistake a test file in EXCEL to see if export works)
Cool. Each column could really do with an average though...