The CSM Memebers live in EVE's Hinterland

[Null Sec] importing  goods from Jita and exporting harvested materials to Jita, Elise argued, was a bad design. [CCP] Grayscale agreed...

This line in the CSM minutes really frustrated me because it show a lack of understanding in both why EVE Online is an interesting game and how economies work. I believe that what Elise is observing is evidence of good design. The shear volume of trade passing through Jita, the main trade hub in EVE, shows that EVE has a deep and highly connected economy. Further the exporting of raw materials and importing of finished goods indicates a large degree of specialization, which is evidence of a highly developed economic system.

Elise & CCP Grayscale don't see that they would have to turn the entire EVE world on its head to achieve a higher level of industry in Null Security Space and less reliance on High Security Space. The full exchange on page 45 discusses changing industry incentives and resource distribution to make Null Sec look more desirable misses the logic completely. Higher production efficiency and more abundant resources would have lots of trouble off setting the inherent locational  and security advantage of High Sec.

High Sec is the only region of EVE where NPCs police behavior. Any crime, like blowing up another ship, will result in speed retribution. To the extent that it is impossible for a player to keep his current ship once he has committed a crime. This makes it really easy to move items and materials around. Especially low value to volume items which can auto-piloted to the destination, leaving the player free to do other things too. On top of the level of safety, High Sec is also the central region of space. Meaning it is easier to move good where ever they are needed as opposed to an operation on the far side of EVE's galaxy.

Null Sec is space that can actually be owned by players. It forms the outer ring of the galaxy. Also there is no police response of any kind, so your ship is not safe. Granted a player that is part of the alliance which own the space will be very secure there. There are also certain logistics structures which makes moving things around fairly easy for those that inhabit the space. The issue is any independent player will not be able to gain a market foothold without becoming part of the alliance and subject to its rules & taxes. Further any moving requires an active player, auto-pilot is certain death in Null Sec.

The real issue is Null Sec would not be Null Sec without the features mentioned above. But it is these very features which make the space undesirable to industrialists. So I see no way to improve Null Sec industry without turning the game on its head, or providing very extreme incentives to make players to what they don't want to. Which is bad design because player's don't enjoy being forced to do things.

To make a historical analogy, High Security is the center of a strong empire. People are free to come and go as they please and are relatively safe. Null Security is the hinterland or frontier of the empire. It may be ruled by local strong men demanding tribute or even be completely lawless. Often this hinterland contains materials which the central empire needs, but rarely is any actual production of finished goods done there. It is too easy for the local strong my to extort away all profits and too much output is lost in transport to thieves.

In this light the truly strange thing is the CSM is composed mostly of these frontier strong men with very few representative of the strong central empire. This seems like a case of the fox guarding the hen house.

The Experience of Design

I started reading The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell recently. So far it is a pretty interesting book. Some of the information is stuff I have come across in other readings, which is a good thing as this is supposed to be an introductory textbook for game design.

Chapter 2 of the book focus on how a designer is not creating a game but an experience. The game is just a medium for the experience. At the core this seems approximately correct for what a game is. Most video games seek to let you experience some story. Even board and card games often strive to create an experience. For example Magic attempts to simulate a wizards duel. This lens certainly provides focus  for a designer as she can constantly evaluate the components of the game against the criterion of how they contribute to the experience she is trying to evoke.

On the other hand focusing on just the experience is limiting and would seem to reduce the depth of the game. Evaluating the concept that a designer creates an experience through the lens of Mark Rosewater's Psycographic Profiles, this focus leads to just designing for Timmy. Johnny and Spike are not drawn in by raw experiences, they have other base needs that drive them. A game that simply provides an experience has little replay value for them because Johnny can't express himself and Spike can't prove himself just through experiencing what the designer had in mind.

I think that Schell's focus on the experience because that is an actual starting place. Starting with either of the other two's desires would be extremely tough. The need to express oneself or prove something makes more sense in the context of experience or existing game, but not much on the blank slate that is the start of design. While I think it is necessary to have Johnny & Spike elements in any game to give it replay value these add to the Timmy experience which starts the creative process.

Measuring Meat lost to Pirates

A friend of mine pointed out this article to me. It is written by Tommy Refenes, one of the developers of Super Meat Boy, on the joint topics of losses due to piracy and consumer confidence in a game studio. His points on the value of consumer confidence are spot on. Having a good reputation with your customers is key for them trying new games you produce & continuing to support your current offerings. Tommy considers keeping consumer trust as far more valuable than worrying about pirating. I completely agree with him on this. My disagreement with the article stems from his reasoning on why piracy is not a problem.

Essentially Tommy believes that piracy is not a problem because we can't precisely calculate the loss. As we can't pin it down exactly ever, we shouldn't even try to estimate it. An implication of this logic would be we should not come up with theories to try and figure out any counter factual. The problem is that coming up with theories, working out their testable implications, & then testing them is the basis of the modern scientific method. That is why to me his main argument can be summed up as giving up.

Really anyone can come up with rough bounds on the loss due to piracy, [0,Price*Pirated Copies]. The power of theory is then tightening these bounds, especially the lower one, as that is more relevant to the DRM worst case cost-benefit analysis. Granted the theory is only as good as you think the assumptions are. But we can compare games with different pricing strategies & types of DRM to try and separate competing assumptions. For example, comparing a game with a fixed price to one that has periodic, but randomly timed sales, which should allow us to understand how sensitive piracy is to price. I am sure with the data most companies collect quite a bit could be said about the true costs of piracy.

Returning to why piracy is less important than consumer trust, essentially piracy is a good problem to have. If people want to pirate your game, they must find it fun enough to want. So if people want to pirate your game, you clearly have some player confidence that you are delivering a quality experience. Granted you can have cases where the reason to pirate is the DRM is invasive and it is easier to play without the DRM on. But these are cases of companies throwing the baby out with the bathwater due to not understanding user issues and being overzealous in piracy elimination. So barring MMOs, which almost have perfect DRM by definition, there must be an optimal level of piracy & DRM where one balances increasing trust with providing just enough barriers to piracy to deter some people.