Programming differences: Arcade Vs. Consoles

Technosis · August 18, 2003

I have always wondered if more care went into programming arcade games for repeat play value than a home (console) game?

In the arcade there seemed to be more of an emphasis on programming games with more "dip switch" settings to allow for the tweaking of game play for such things as number of lives, difficulty level, etc......When you think about it an arcade operator would like a game to remain as challenging for as long as possible, thus continuing to earn money and contributing to the manufacturer's reputation for producing games that "pay off". If a game is to easy or has some bugs (i.e. the famous Asteroids "leave the last rock" bug) you can have someone occupy the machine for extended periods on one quarter...a real financial disaster for the operator that just shelled out big bucks for the coin-op.

Now I really doubt that it is intentional, but many of the home games (especially the side scrollers for systems like the SNES or Genesis) seemed to have a certain "wow" factor for the people viewing the game for the first time, and the game quickly became boring after the levels had been completed, thus not having any real replay value. However, didn't this really benefit the console game producers in the long run? I mean if you had a bunch of games that stayed fresh and challenging forever, wouldn't the desire to buy new games lessen since you were not totally bored with what you had? Wasn't it a matter of style over substance where the main objective was to impress gamers in order to get them to make the purchase?

One of my biggest gripes over the years have been games that are just way too easy. We seemed to see this in many home ports of coin-ops as well, where sometimes it appeared that most of the difficult games are that way for reasons more to do with poor design (i.e. bad control or unfair collision detection) rather than a steadily increasing difficulty curve. A game like Demon Attack on the 2600 could have been so much better if the difficulty didn't top out so soon. Once you learned the attacker's movements, you could play for hours, even on the highest difficulty setting. (unlike games like the coin-op Robotron...unless you were superhuman ;-)

Maybe someone with programming experience on both arcade and home platforms can comment. Is there any significant programming difference in the approach to programming arcade games vs. home games?

Cheers,

Chris Burger (aka. Technosis)

Ze_ro · August 20, 2003

In the arcade there seemed to be more of an emphasis on programming games with more "dip switch" settings to allow for the tweaking of game play for such things as number of lives, difficulty level, etc..

I'd say that's a fair observation. This leaves some of the game's details at the discretion of the arcade operator. If he decides to have a Street Fighter 2 tournament, he can enable freeplay and charge admission (In fact, there is (was?) an arcade in my town that charges admission like this all the time). It also lets arcade operators find that "sweet spot" where a game is hard enough that it makes money, but not so hard that people give up on it. I don't imagine this is an easy thing for the programmers themselves to figure out, since it requires a bit of experience.

One of the local arcades was particularly greedy and set all their games on the highest difficulty all the time. Jerks. I don't go there anymore.

Now I really doubt that it is intentional, but many of the home games (especially the side scrollers for systems like the SNES or Genesis) seemed to have a certain "wow" factor for the people viewing the game for the first time, and the game quickly became boring after the levels had been completed, thus not having any real replay value. However, didn't this really benefit the console game producers in the long run?

At the time, maybe. In the 16-bit days, I think a lot of the appeal of games was their graphics and presentation, and the "fun" of the game was somewhat secondary. FMV games like Dragon's Lair were the zenith of this philosophy in my opinion. At the time, most people seemed content with what gameplay was there.

I don't think this is true anymore though. Now that people have had a taste of REAL gameplay, crappy flash-in-the-pan's are losing their steam. Of course, they're still out there, but I don't think they're as prevalent. Nowadays, companies strive to make a game last as long as possible by adding secret stuff in the game, or sticking in thinks like Chao's in Sonic Adventure, galleries in games like Soul Calibur, or multitudes of side quests in role playing games. People pay a lot more attention to the replayability of the games these days, and I think developers realize that.

I mean if you had a bunch of games that stayed fresh and challenging forever, wouldn't the desire to buy new games lessen since you were not totally bored with what you had?

This might sound like a winning axiom at first, but it's self-defeating. As people realize that the games get stale after a week or two, they become jaded and maybe stop buying games altogether. Remember The Crash in the early 80's?

Wasn't it a matter of style over substance where the main objective was to impress gamers in order to get them to make the purchase?

Once you learned the attacker's movements, you could play for hours, even on the highest difficulty setting. (unlike games like the coin-op Robotron...unless you were superhuman

Some would say that sometimes the journey is more important than the destination.

I've played RPG's that weren't terribly difficult, but were extremely time consuming. They play out more like a movie than a game. But, this is what often sells RPG's.

I play a lot of Tony Hawk games, and I enjoy them immensely. There's really no way to lose the single player mode, since you continue indefinitely... however, that never really detracted from my enjoyment of the game. In fact, I often just put it on "Free Skate" and just skate around for 15 minutes or so.

If a game wasn't fun to play and you only did it to say that you won... then the game wasn't very well done. A good game will make you want to play it over and over again.

Maybe someone with programming experience on both arcade and home platforms can comment. Is there any significant programming difference in the approach to programming arcade games vs. home games?

Well, I don't think it's really a programming issue, but more the choices that went into the design. Programming for a Super Nintendo instead of a CPS2 arcade board doesn't mean you have to program a way... but the marketing department might want to you change things depending on who will be playing it and under what circumstances.

In the end, it all depends on what the player wants. I'm content to cheat and give myself infinite money in SimCity and just build for hours, while a friend of mine prefers the challenge of dealing with a budget.

I'd say that when designing an arcade game, you'd probably want the game to be of medium length... long enough to make the player feel like they got their moneys worth, yet short enough that you can get more people playing it over and over again without getting frustrated. There's a lot more to it than that though... if a game is particularly flashy, players may be content with a shorter game (Theoretically, the loser in a SF2 game only plays for about 3 minutes at the most). Multi-player contest games like Daytona USA might also work fine for a shorter game, since the thrill of victory is more important when you're against a friend instead of a computer.

When you go to a console thing, things are quite a bit different. People don't generally keep paying you once you've given them a game (except for MMORPG's and X-Box Live and other such subscription stuff), so you have to convince them to part with their cash for the game. Flashiness can do this, and replayability can do this... but I think most consumers are more informed these days than they were in the past, so pure flash isn't a good idea... and replayability is useless if the player didn't enjoy the first game. Some success stories are subscription based online games like Phantasy Star Online or Star Wars Galaxies... Games like Pokemon that can be "extended" by linking with other players have also been quite successful as well. It's definitely a complicated business, and there's a lot to consider when creating a game.

--Zero