Developing a New Major

different kinds of conflict – he calls them dimensions – physical (hand to hand, weapons), verbal (insults, boasting, telling stories about other people, left-handed compliments, crypto-insults, narrative assault (like the 1985 Mac commercial – how could ibm respond to that), political and economic

different levels of conflict directness – increase directness by decreasing physical distance, weapons let us move further from our target to make conflict more indirect, can toss a grenade into the window and run and hten you don’t see any of hte violence, more indirect forms of conflict tend to be less violent, be more subtle and can take more time to achieve goals

conflict intensity – intense conflict good in short bursts, longer games need less intense conflict – can’t go  go go full tilt intense conflict all the time

violence not the only form of conflict – designers are lazy now a days because that’s all we see – mortal kombat rip the heads and spines off the vanquished, kill or be killed is most intense kind of conflict, designers need to be more creative

another reason they go with so much violence is because that’s what the typical game player (kid) wants – kids want extreme, intense, balls to the walls kind of excitement

and it’s hard to sell any other kind of game because the system is set up to make and distribute and attract only kid gamers – the sales chain is so conservative – most games fail now and they’re not willing to take chances on new kinds (seems kind of dumb doesn’t it – so many fail now, why not take a chance – guess they  think theirs will be the one gme to catch on

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