Developing & Managing Communities: Interaction with Players

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

The gaming industry has understood the value of communities. There are many community managers in every video game company. They tap into the folks who follow their games for the folks who invest in their products.
“That’s brilliant,” says Malik Forte, “because you want people to play your games again and again. If you implement micro-transactions, and they keep coming back, you, the developer, make more money. “
A lot of games nowadays are about persistent online experiences. You play those games for a long time. The developers keep releasing content for the games.
Players look forward to all those content updates and additions. They see the game grow and mature.
It is like planting a tree and seeing it grow. Games are the same. Therefore, so many video game communities are passionate and dedicated to the developers and the game.
Forte’s been a part of several game communities like the Overwatch community. Overwatch is a team-based shooting game in which the players fight over objectives. Blizzard Entertainment, a veteran game publisher/developer, created the game.
“It wasn’t about me knowing the developers, the game, or the characters,” says Forte. “I got to know several people who were passionate about that game.”
The Overwatch community is one of the biggest of any video game. Community members love Overwatch and its characters. The community has people who passionately love the game, love watching other people play it, and love talking about it. They’re so invested that they make fan art and dress up as those characters at conventions.
Overwatch became more sophisticated on the competitive side, too. It became a whole league and made it to the Barclays Center for the grand finals in 2018. It’s been on television.
It is the community that made Overwatch a phenomenal success. “You see that with many games that top the sales charts,” says Forte. “If you go on Twitch,” Forte continues, “the most-watched games have the strongest communities.”
Establishing a community is crucial. You hire a community manager to keep that excitement going. With video games, it’s super imperative to have somebody in your company who focuses on your game’s community.

Toward Democratized Cinema: Working on the Outside

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

“Oscar Micheaux, (born 1854, died 1951) was an important African American filmmaker. Micheaux had a different, sort of parallel film career compared to other filmmakers of the era. While the early days of commercial American cinema were dominated by a handful of studios—white heterosexual men telling a certain kind of story—Micheaux worked independently, making distinct kinds of film specifically for Black audiences, known at the time as Race Films.”
Liberated from the sound stages, indie filmmaking begins
When film equipment became smaller, more portable, it paved the way for other types of film to burst upon the scene. Italian neo realism, auteur theory. It was then that films representing these cinema styles began showing up in American arthouse theaters. Shown mostly in urban areas like New York, San Francisco, Boston, and-Los Angeles, filmgoers started to watch these films and get new ideas.
Around the same time, in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a cultural inflection that coincided with the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement. There was a whole counter-cultural group of people who wanted to express a new kind of story.
This led to the emergence of new filmmaking styles, voices, and visions. John Cassavetes was one important filmmaker who made the type of films that led to the American independent film movement.
Independent film always had more diversity than the studios, but not as much as they could. Though the film industry was still dominated by white, middle class cis-gender males this slowly started to change.
The aperture started to widen.
In the 1970s, we finally started to see more interesting films being made by women and people of color. And this movement only grew over the years.
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Development in VR: VR Audio

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

It is odd to hear sounds behind you, but it is actually on the screen in front of you. But that’s precisely what happens with Dolby 5.1 and gaming. We have grown to accept it. But it is artificial.
In VR, you want to hear a character coming up behind you. If a character is 100 feet away talking, you want to feel and hear them as if they really are that far away IRL. That is why the concept of spatial audio in VR is huge.
Spatial Audio
Sound is incredibly important in gaming. Yet, some developers do not realize how imperative it is. They’ll work on a game for a year, then show it off without sound. “Audio design is extremely important,” Dan Shimmyo says. “And if you are not thinking about audio early, I feel like you are failing to develop your game.”
In VR, audio is vital because players need to hear where sounds are coming from. Shimmyo describes a perfect example of this using zombies. “You want to be able to hear a zombie coming so that you can protect yourself and deal with them as quickly as possible, expecially when they’re coming/sneaking up behind you. And what could be more terrifying that sitting in a dark room but you can hear these zombies coming from all sides?”
If a player is holding a lightsaber in their hand, they should be able to hear sound like it is really there. Spatial audio is a fantastic part of the immersion of VR. There is a significant difference between looking at something two-dimensional and hearing a sound over here on stereo. It may work, and we may accept it in regular gaming. But in VR, we want technology to advance to full immersion for the best possible experience.

Visual Effects (VFX): Special Effects

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

“Special effects are a wonderful tool in the film industry. Some more obvious special effects use would be, as an example, in the Avengers films. However, many other films use visual effects that aren’t as easy to detect,” explains David Irving.
“These effects simply enhance the image—whether it’s adding elements to a crowd, a composite shot. This is all done in post-production.”
Some special VFX examples
You have to be careful about working VFX material in the film post-production process. If you’ve got a CGI-heavy movie, you’ll have a post-production budget to do all that work. However, post-production CGI can be very expensive, so you want to be very prudent with costs.
For example, in the movie Forrest Gump, the Gary Sinise character loses his legs in the opening reels of the film and spends the rest of the movie legless.
Obviously, we did not go to Sinise and say ‘we’d like to remove your legs surgically. We can put them back on later because science is so wonderful.’ Sinise would have said ‘no thank you.’
“Instead, we created visual images with the help of a green screen,” says Irving. “We put the actor (Sinise) in green socks against a green background and (using editing and VFX software) we erased his legs.”
But we only do that for three or four key shots, so that the audience, in their brain, sees him without legs. For the rest of the film, we have him in a wheelchair. We only show him from the waist up, but the audience believes that he has no legs.
VFX costs may be too much for most film budgets
Working post-production CGI or special effects is challenging. When Jurassic Park was made, Dennis Mirren—who later won the special effects Academy Award for that film—was told by director Steven Spielberg to make the dinosaurs ‘cross in front of the actors on camera.’
This had never been done before. Up to that point, it was either rear screen, where the actor would look toward the back, and go “awgggh,” or it’d be front screen, same thing. But before Jurassic Park, we’d never seen animated/CGI characters cross in front of a live actor. But Spielberg said, that’s what I want.
Dennis Mirren took a year to do the R&D necessary to create the special effects and software that allowed them just that. When he accepted the statue—this is the statue I hope you all get one day—he said, ‘from now on, no director ever has to compromise his or her vision.’
But that sentence should have ended with, ‘…if you’ve got enough money.’
“So just be very careful about CGI in post-production. It’s an expensive part of the filmmaking process. It looks wonderful, just make sure that you’re covered. And just don’t count on it too much,” Irving ends.
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Engaging the Player: Audio, Haptics, and Information: Accessibility

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

Adding accessibility features when you’re developing your game can help make it playable by a larger audience, even if they aren’t diagnosed with a specific condition. You may unknowingly be limiting your audience by not adding these features.
For instance, many high performing players will play with the colorblind mode on even if they are not fully diagnosed with color deficiency. Colorblind mode has a higher contrast which makes it easier for them to play.
Even for those that aren’t colorblind, when people get in a really stressed situation its harder for people to see color. It’s as if your brain goes into a high-octane mode and optimizes for moving quickly and efficiently. Color information is a lot to process, so you stop being able to see color clearly when you are pumped full of adrenaline. This is the reason why when people are in a situation where someone has a gun, they might not actually remember their shirt color, or if they were in a car accident, they might not remember the car color.
Another time when people can experience a lot of adrenaline is when they play video games, especially if they are in a stressful firefight or a large boss battle. Because of the adrenaline it might be harder for them to perceive color. Running colorblind mode can help in these situations.
Another area of accessibility that’s becoming more popular in recent years is around cognitive differences. People have differences in short-term memory. You might tell a player on one screen that you need them to do this thing, and then they move to another screen. There is a sizable percentage of players that might not be able to remember those exact words transitioning from screen to screen. This is important for game developers to be aware of so you don’t limit your audience from being able to play and enjoy your game.

Visual Effects (VFX): VFX production Arc: Pre-Production and Principal

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

“When I talk about pre-production and production in sci-fi or visual effects, I really should say sci-fi or visual effects world,” says Seith Mann. “Because now in film production, there’s much more visual effects usage. For instance, we used visual effects on The Breaks to recreate physical realities that no longer existed. To depict architecture of 1990s New York City, we removed modern day objects from our 2015 New York City shoot—any evidence we were not actually in 1990.”
“There’s a lot we can agree on, when talking about what that reality should look like (1990s New York), while trying to get as close as we can to it,” continues Mann. “But it’s very different in a sci-fi environment, you’re trying to create and present something as reality that doesn’t even exist in our world.”
For instance, something like the “Crooked Man” in Raising Dion, which was, on paper, this lightning monster, which is cool when you read it. But then it’s like, but what exactly does a lightning monster look like? This feels like it.
We went through many different drawings and concept diagrams of what this monster would look like. Once you have something, that’s great because you can share it with your actors, other crew people. Then they have a sense of what it is they’re imagining.
“That’s important because when we’re shooting, the monster’s not actually there,” explains Mann. “But I need people to be reacting to the same thing, even though there’s nothing there.”
I mean, there may be some lights up on stands that shoot lightning strikes for timing, something like interactive lighting that will work when everything’s cut together. “But my poor cast is tasked with imagining something that they’ve never seen before. They must react to it in a way that’s believable and consistent among these different characters,” says Mann.
I can’t assume that, because something’s not there, I don’t have to be specific. That’s a false assumption, even though there’s some flexibility.
I have to say to yourself, “OK, the monster’s over there and he’s hurting something now”, as far as camera composition and timing is concerned. “Not just for the cast, but for any interactive gags that are going to help sell the illusion once the visual component is laid in,” Mann ends.
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Engaging the Player: Audio, Haptics, and Information: Music and Experience

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

Audio and haptics play a vital role in creating a full, sensory experience in games. Genevieve Johnson explains how these senses can define a game – and even how gamers move through virtual spaces and engage emotionally.
“Besides the sounds, you want to think about the button clicks and the sound they’re making. Think about the music in your games – music is a huge deal. I happened to play maybe six different zombie games for a minor research project just a couple of days ago.
“In one particular game, it had solid gameplay – most of them had solid gameplay – but its music was mostly sort of soothing. So you felt sort of soothing, calm, like, alright, I’m getting ready to go to battle these zombies. And it was a long, long battle.”
That juxtaposition removed tension that would have otherwise made the game unplayable while setting a tone that still worked with the horror.
“There’s no difference between music in a game and music in life,” says Dan Shefelman. “If you’re working out, you want to hear a workout mix. If you’re trying to relax, you want to hear calm music. It emotionally creates a feeling in you.”
Haptics – the understanding of the world around us through the sense of touch – works similarly. Shefelman details how haptics shapes so much of modern gaming, and how it can change depending on the medium.
“My first experience with haptics, or, I should say, with the lack of haptics, was in virtual reality . . . I couldn’t tell how far anything was because I’m used to sculpting. I’m used to feeling something that I hit. Until they have developed haptics, you’re in a three-dimensional space and you’re not feeling it. It feels vague.”
Now that games are becoming more of a sensory experience, audio and haptics have become just as important as optics. When you’re immersed in a game, you want to feel something at the same time.

When Film Became the Real: “You make film in the world”

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

“After the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of silent film and transforming into talkies, there was life going on,” Alrick Brown notes. He teaches his students, “you can’t make films outside of the world. You make films in the world.”
Two world wars happened in that time period. There was filmmaking that happened before World War I and after World War I. And then you have filmmaking that happened after World War II when the world changed a bit. A lot of lives were lost. This has a reflection on society and a reflection on storytelling in Alrick’s opinion.
As societies go through traumatic times, the art also changes and shifts. The Italians, Germans, and other people started looking at their stories and said, “let’s be a little bit more honest, a little bit more truthful, and not do this romantic storytelling that Hollywood is always doing.” Hollywood picked up on that. There were people in Hollywood who said, “yeah, let’s stop romanticizing. Let’s get a little bit darker and a little bit grittier.”
Alrick thinks that Snow White was one of the first color-popping films. Filmmakers had always tried to play around with color and different hues, even in the black and white era, to give a different feel of a film. But 1937 or 1938, when color started becoming this thing, another layer was added, he says.
Alrick thinks that no one can argue that you’re able to capture color now. You’re able to look at real life and think, “what is that real life that you’re going to capture?” But back then, filmmakers had this existential crisis that the world was getting a little darker, but the films were becoming more colorful.
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Engaging the Player: Audio, Haptics, and Information: Touch and Feel

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

“We’re saying something about something here,” says David Jaffee, “We’re saying something about the human condition.” Fundamentally, it’s what feels good when you’re holding that controller. That’s what most gamers love. Rocket League, Fortnite, PUBG– it’s fundamentally about mechanics.

Audio design is tricky. You know when you want the sound to show up and do a job. You know when you want to sound to evoke an emotion in the player-a reward– a warning specifically. Usually, it’s the audio and heads-up display that says, “Hey, a missile’s coming in,” or “a bad guy’s behind you or off to your right.”

Designing a HUD is really hard for a game designer. Because the game designer wants to think that the player wants to know everything they know about the game. It’s like there’s so much stuff that the game is tracking.

And you want to throw all that at the player and say we have audio cues, we have visual cues, and we have heads-up display cues. Did you notice the player’s feet glow a little bit when he’s low on health because the eye tends to be looking lower than the center of the screen?

And you can get carried away with that. The average player might ultimately– when they get good at the game– want that data. But if you throw that at the player at the very beginning, they’re going to get overwhelmed. The game is going to end up looking like user interface porn. And you’re going to push people away.

It’s a really hard thing to do, especially when you’re talking mechanics-based games, to design something that’s robust enough to yield a play experience that the player can have a meaty, deep, intellectual, satisfying time with but without overloading what’s on the screen. Because the minute we went over the shoulder or the minute we went first-person, we lost that brilliant play mechanics space.

These are not movies. And they’ve become movies because they look like movies. But what we’ve lost in that is so much that is germane to great gameplay.

Sound & Score: Sound

Yellowbrick on December 24, 2021

When thinking about filmmaking, you can’t ever forget the importance of sound, Sam Pollard says. Dialogue, sound effects, and music all help enhance the storytelling. As a young editor working on Steinbeck’s, he would do all his sound editing himself because he didn’t have money to pay for a sound editor.
As Sam became more experienced, he worked on bigger films with bigger budgets. He was able to get sound editors and sound designers who could bring their professional style and technique to enhance the drama or the emotion of the film.
The sound design and sound arc of every film are different, in Sam’s view. Some films need lots of sound effects and sound design. Some films need less.
Caran Hartsfield agrees that sound design and sound effects add to the storytelling within the scenes. Ask yourself, what does it sound like in a scene where a boy meets a girl and it’s raining? She thinks it feels different than the sound design of firecrackers going off outside a room, right?
It completely changes the scene, Caran says. She thinks that sound design is a fun part of the filmmaking process because you can dramatically alter a scene with the sound effects that you choose.
She encourages any filmmaker to really play with sound because it’s so much fun. Just start pulling sounds that are interesting and have a good texture for you.
It could be the sound of a fan or the sound of a river going downstream. These sounds have very visceral effects and it’s subliminal. The audience isn’t thinking, “oh, that was a great river flowing down in that scene.” But Caran thinks that you’re ushering the audience in a particular direction in an undercover way.
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