It's been a weird decade in terms of how we interact with our videogames. There's always been a market for weird peripherals and gimmicky additions to our home consoles, but in the olden days the policy was basically "quick, add some more buttons to that!" Looking at controller designs from the Atari 2600 up to the PlayStation 2 the general formula was "take the old, add a few buttons to it or at the very least move them around." Probably the most embarrassing example of this was the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, whose grand plan was to take the NES controller and stick another button on the end with no consideration of the human being using it who perhaps maybe would want to have easy access to both the A and C buttons. But hey it was a good idea I guess, 3 is definitely a bigger number than 2 after all.
Now we're the point where our controllers have a D-Pad, two analog sticks (that can also be buttons) and 11 other buttons to play with, they're also all in places that experienced gamers are generally okay with. However, for someone who isn't already on board the videogame train to Funtown a PlayStation 2 controller is probably as confusing as a Rubik's cube with 16 different colours. So it was clear the button-orientated arms race wasn't going to get us anywhere further .This is when Nintendo came out with the DS and Wii in two consecutive years, both were commercially successful, and from a game design point of view one of them was a really good idea and the other was a not that great an idea. Soon followed iPhone/smartphone games, Kinect, PlayStation Move and now everyone's talking about VR.
The point of those first two paragraphs is for the longest time in gaming, the assumption has been that to change how videogame controls work you have to physically change the controller or the method in which the player interacts with the game in the first place. Well, a heck of a gosh darn lot of that has been happening in recent years and results have been pretty mixed, so trying to think of the next "revolutionary controller" may be a flawed concept.
Well, for those that don't know or found this little rambling through some other means, this is part of Critical Distance's Blogs of the Round Table, and the topic of discussion for this month is "How do we move forward with controls in games?" Well since I'm British, I'm going to change that to "How do we move forwards with controls in games" because some people say that here, and because I'm a negative jerk I'm going to go through three ways in which we DON'T go forwards with videogame controls:
1. - ADDING MORE BUTTONS
We've pretty much hit our threshold on how many buttons a videogame controller can have. The only counter-argument to this I can think of is "well, most people have to learn how to use keyboards for typing and stuff!" Well sure, keyboards are kind of convoluted out of necessity, but still it takes years for the average person to get really good at typing, and even then how many tiny errors do all of us make every day whilst typing? Most videogames don't have the equivalent of a backspace key, so these tiny errors can be murder when trying to present an interactive experience.
Having said that, I don't think it's essential for game controllers to have less buttons either. Those trigger things they've added to the backs of controllers, those are pretty darn good for shooting I guess, and most platform fans probably don't want to see the face buttons on the front of the controller get hacked off either. I guess I should just write a little public service announcement for any developers that might be reading this (especially AAA ones) that you aren't obliged to use every single button on the controller. I'll concede that it's necessary in some games, but if you are seriously applying a core part of your game to the L3 button you might need to either re-evaluate your design document or at least move the open can of industrial paint away from your desk.
Basic point here: controls should be streamlined as much as possible.
2. - MOTION CONTROLS
Well of course we were going to get back to the Nintendo Wii, which other than gimmicks and party games didn't have a lot worth a damn released for it despite its massive success. Motion controls definitely have their place in the gaming stratosphere, but I'm sure most people have given up them as a potential "next big step" sort of project.
(Most) Videogames have to engage the player emotionally and/or mentally, and both of those things are things that happen inside your brain and not to your body. The key is to make the time between videogame > player's brain > back to videogame as minimal as possible, and preferably instantaneous. Having to perform larger physical motions (which no physical feedback so they can't possibly emulate what is actually happening on the screen) only extends this time and draws you further out of the experience. This same kind of dissonance between input and action is why online games with poor netcodes (i.e. a lot of them) are so ungodly frustrating. I genuinely don't think there's a more depressing feeling within the context of videogames than failing because your button press came out 0.8 second later than it should of. Online games can possibly fix this entirely someday, motion controls can not.
Also, people generally don't do star jumps while watching a movie or reading a book, probably because it's really distracting for the former and physically impossible for the latter.
(this is slightly off the topic at hand, but you can read me further discuss the issues of physical input in regards to videogames by reading my "Why Mashing Buttons is Stupid" piece on GameGrin)
3. - VIRTUAL REALITY
A ha! I'm done playing Captain Hindsight on the past and now I'm laying my balls right on the table ready to take several knocks at the future! Okay, same point again, Virtual Reality is a great idea (not just for games though, it's kind of super weird that so many people only see VR as a gaming device when it has many other interesting applications) but it's not something I can honestly attest to being the next step of gaming technology.
I could just be a jerk again and point out that people generally don't seem to take to things that have to be strapped to their heads, they don't even really like having to wear funny glasses for 3D movies. But I'll turn the jerkiness on myself and also point out that a lot of people like to listen to music with sweet big-ass headphones so that's probably a hurdle it could overcome.
The main problem I can see with VR is that it's overwhelmingly antisocial. I can't picture a world where two or more people would sit around in a living room all with these things strapped on, nor would you let other people "watch" you play it. You can argue that its strengths would be in single player games anyway, but a single player game that you're basically forced to play alone is not going to be the new hotness. Videogames have become highly social and are not something near-exclusively played by little kids and closeted nerds any more, so any advance in the technology needs to acknowledge that.
Again, none of these things mean VR will be a failure (and I would predict that it almost definitely won't be a failure) but there are inherent design issues with it that limit its appeal to a mainstream entertainment audience. Maybe someone a lot smarter than me will find a way around them and prove me wrong, and I would be down with that! But right now, consider VR as part of the future as opposed to the next big step.
THE FUTURE
So what is the FUTURE OF VIDEOGAME CONTROLS? Well I don't know, but let's be honest the entire industry would look pretty ridiculous if a website called "Lesmocon.com" cracked the secret.
One thing that my mind keeps coming back to is the connection between the player and the screen. In a way, it's unfortunate and somewhat unnatural that we have to press anything, I think it's in the interest of videogames for them to make themselves as intuitive as possible, maybe even to the point where it's easy to forget there's a controller there at all.
Games are almost there in terms of movement (good ones are anyway), I've had some weird existential moments within games where without even trying I navigate a really difficult path in a platformer or something, and immediately afterwards my brain has this moment of "woah...how did I even just do that..." But in terms of extra actions there's some work to be done, this is another example of how button prompts and Quick Time Events are really bad design. When a videogame shows a message of "Press X to do this contextual action" within half a millisecond your brain processes "oh! Press X! Where's X on the controller? There's X on this controller! Now I'll press X on this controller!" See, the way I chose to write that there were three cases of the game forcing you to remember you're holding a controller, clearly I have proven my own point now.
I guess that's my answer then. You may argue I've somewhat dodged the question, but I'd argue that the industry has been dodging the question by constantly trying to change the hardware as a solution. Any human being can be taught how to use an analog stick, or how to tap the screen on a mobile device, now it's developers turn to design games in a way where people can pick up a controller and play it. It would be too much of a sweeping statement to say no games should have tutorials, but if you feel your game needs a tutorial to explain what every button does directly, with words on the screen and everything, maybe you should consider why that is and what you can do to change it.
So yea...we have enough buttons, we have enough controllers, we have enough technology, we probably don't have enough good games though, and logic would dictate that this isn't the controller's fault. The failure of the Wii U, rejection of the Xbox One forcing the Kinect upon its audience and the utter confusion in whatever the PlayStation 4's touchpad thing is are all evidence that gimmicky changes to how we interact with our games no longer impress anyone. You know what did impress a lot of people? Super Mario Bros., that's what.
There you go games industry, I did crack the secret after all! Just make a game as good as Super Mario Bros. and you're golden.
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