Why Jeff Engel is Wrong

In today’s issue of Counting Rupees, Jeff Engel talked about why the sales figures for Braid are a bad sign for the casual game industry.

His arguement is essentially that when you do the math, Braid has sold 55k copies (according to public estimates) at 15 bucks each, which translates into $825,000.  You have to multiply this by 70% to get the developers cut, and then do a bunch of math to account for localization fees, certification, and development costs.

Jeff Engel makes the claim that in order for Braid to achieve its goal of completely financing the next game Blow wants to make, the magic number of sales Braid would have to achieve is something like 100k copies.  Jeff’s concern is that many games don’t sell those kinds of numbers.

My response to this would be that I have absolutely no doubt that Braid will hit and exceed 100k copies, that’s virtually a certainty.  Digitally distributed games certainly don’t have the market penetration that sales at brick and mortar stores do, but by the same token, the costs are significantly less.  XBLA arcade sales should follow a long tail distribution - meaning that after only two weeks of sales, the majority of the income from Braid is yet to be seen.

While it might be true that many games don’t reach 100k in sales, that’s true when you sell your shovelware game at Gamestop too, and at least there you’re not giving a cut to the retailer, another cut to bribe the retailer into showing your title promenantly for three days, another cut for manufacturing and distribution, and an even bigger cut to the publisher.

Jonny B. Good

I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Blow yet, but I get the impression that he’s the type of man who does what he does, not for the attention of the gaming media, but because he thinks that’s the way things should be.

And I’m going to have to agree.

I’ve spoken of Jonathan before, and if you haven’t heard any of his talks on design, you should, if that’s the kind of thing that interests you. Jonathan has made news recently based around many of his design philosophies. I had thought that these views were lofty and optimistic, it was difficult to point to any one of them and demonstrate a successful title that really embodied it. Then it came about that Jonathan was bringing a game to market, and I had intended to draw a bead upon it with a critical eye, looking forward to pointing out in his game where he was defying his own rules.

So much for that.

I realize that Braid is currently only available for Xbox Live Arcade, which I’m happy about from a business standpoint, but I almost wish it was more widely available in this case. I feel bad for friends of mine who would rather spend a few hundred dollars in coffee than own an Xbox, because they are missing out on an a profound experience. Braid is coming to PC later this year, but many of these friends own Macs (probably for the same reason they don’t own an Xbox 360). So let’s talk about Braid and Jonathan’s design beliefs.

Jon holds the stance that playing a video games should be a holistic experience - you shouldn’t need to be artificially prodded into doing one thing or another, rather the game play space should naturally draw you to areas and concept that should be interesting, and you should discover them for yourself. Braid contains no tutorials, and as the central game mechanic is about playing with the flow of time, describes a world in which things can happen which are not expected. Nevertheless, the game is built in such a way that you will naturally discover the quirks of this world, in a very organic fashion, and every time you do, you feel really good about it.

Jon is vehemently against scheduled rewards (a term I used, and I believe he coined). These are the little meaningless bonuses that at their best, try to get you to explore areas of the playspace you might not have, and at their worst, are a cheap mental trick designed to keep you in front of your box. Nearly all games contain these in some way, they’re so prevelant, it’s difficult to imagine a game without them. Braid is such a game. Taking them away gives the game a clean, minimalistic feel. It invokes the feeling that you’re free of distractions, and can be focused on the exploration at hand.

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Jon is of the opinion that there is often a dichotomy between what the gameplay is trying to tell the player, and what the story is telling the player. The canonical example is Bioshock, in which the story tells you that the choice between saving or destroying the little sisters is critical, and the game play tells you it doesn’t matter (because the difference in rewards for doing one or the other are trivial). Braid’s story is tightly integrated with gameplay, and in fact it didn’t occur to me until the sixth world that the story being told was an allegory for what was happening in each level, and vice versa.

Finally, Jon believes that developers should think about what they’re teaching their players when they give them a game to play. On this point I think the world needs a balance, and in general we are lacking developers who live in Blow’s camp. Games have been used to teach people since time immemorial. As a tool for teaching, it is certainly important that what is being taught is a Good Thing. I think, however, that from a pragmatic standpoint, not everyone is interested in learning. There is a place in the world for people who want nothing but to be entertained, and someone will always be there to fill that desire.

So what is Braid? It is a world turning experience on both an intellectual and emotional level. Braid integrates complexity out of simplicity, it evokes a sense of wonder and delight. Free of distractions, you are brought into a masterfully crafted world where you are repeatly filled with a sense of delight as you learn. The feeling is much like the feeling of exploring in Portal, only more so. Jonathan values this feeling so much, that the official walkthrough simply urges you not to use a walkthrough - and he’s right. Using a walkthrough robs you of much of the experience you get out of this game, and you can never get it again.

Braid is a bittersweet, magical journey, and missing it would leave your hand off the touchstone of our generation. Jonathan Blow earns my respect in spades, and the world will never be the same again.

Braid Release Date Announced

Braid is coming out on August 6th on XBLA.  Happy Birthday to me.