This amusing Bartle controversy.
We’re not sure Richard Bartle deserves two posts dedicated to him in a row, but let’s be fair this time around: the man isn’t without good ideas, even if our last post was all about how ridiculous he can sound. After all, even shooting from the hip during an interview, he ought to at least have his World of Warcraft (WoW) terminology down if he’s going to seriously critique the game and later postulate that he should come up with a glossary of universal massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) terminology for the masses to better understand him. So forgive us, ye Bartle-lovers, for focusing on the massive noise in the recent interview with him, instead of the signal that you hold onto so dearly. For truly, the signal has merit, and is not unlike many of our (admittedly unfinished) thoughts that we explored in our Second Big Bang series (in A Call for New Worlds and A Glance into the Maelstrom, respectively).
We’re not going to redact our previous post, in chief part because we refuse to be apologists when humourously pointing out Bartle’s condescending tone. He did, after all, say a lot of silly things, and he deserves criticism for them, especially given that he’s a professor teaching about MMOGs. Ignoring Bartle’s poor statements is just as bad as ignoring his good ones, and to that effect, we’ll take a moment to comment on Wolfshead’s post on why people hate Bartle, which was pointed out to me by Gwaendar after an exchange over at Blog Azeroth.
Wolfshead’s post is a solid read, particularly as he correctly identifies the defensive nature of WoW players when their MMOG of choice is criticized. That kind of backlash is obviously something we’ve experienced before when blogging about WoW, and though MMOG design has changed somewhat over one-and-a-half years later, there’s still a lot of defensive posturing out there regarding the stubborn lack of innovation. If anything, the chief change today is that options other than WoW are available, or will be soon, and this means that there will finally be more drastic innovation in MMOGs than Blizzard is willing to emphasize in their WoW patches. Sure, these changes may come at a crawl, but they will undoubtedly pick up steam, and from the announcements we’re seeing about proposed improvements to WoW’s mechanics, Bartle ought be a little more respectful concerning the pace of innovation. After all, despite the fact that he helped write the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) back in 1978, the MMOG industry is still in its infancy.
Saying that people hate Bartle is a bit extreme, and though Wolfshead is correct in pointing out that Bartle’s comments aren’t always looked upon kindly by players, developers, and publishers, he’s hardly the threat that Wolfshead purports. If anything, Bartle’s opposition to traditional MMOG elements are effective non-factors, as they can (and are) ignored by publishers because Bartle’s designs would likely not draw in the sheer number of players that publishers are hoping for. However, Bartle’s suggestions for improvements are nonetheless worthwhile for players and developers alike, because even if only a small fraction of his suggestions are taken into consideration, they warrant a thorough look-over because they could add to the player-base by drawing in players who might otherwise not even consider buying a MMOG. We touched on this years ago when we pronounced the massive appeal of more social elements in MMOGs, in which players could be successful without devoting their time to combat. Undoubtedly, Bartle would agree with this change, but that’s not why people have jumped on the “bash Bartle” bandwagon. Rather, it’s how Bartle expresses his dislike of the status quo.
As I told Gwaendar, if Bartle’s comments were made in a different context, such as during a round-table discussion with other industry insiders, then perhaps they wouldn’t have come across as condescending as they did. However, with a rather linear perspective in a one-on-one interview, Bartle didn’t come across as respectful to the advances the industry is making, and instead perpetuated the disdain people gained for him in 2007. If it was his tone alone that didn’t sit right it would be one thing, but some of the actual statements themselves sounded uninformed.
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I appreciate the two replies, I was a bit worried afterwards that my exchange with you was a bit over the top.
I can agree with most of what you wrote in this post, I’d just like to point out that the very first sentence of the Massively interview gives the setting, he sprung the interview on an unprepared Bartle at a game dev conference. He really was in a setting with industry designers. Indie designers, too, those who (but I might be projecting stuff onto him here) may actually be in the best position to create games which break out of the mold.
Granted, he didn’t adapt for Massively’s audience, but send me to a good conference on the future of IP storage for a couple of days then interview me about my views on the storage market, and I would probably not immediately give Fibre Channel storage its proper place in the industry. He’s no god, he’s a teacher and a consultant, and he questions the designers’ motives and the reasons behind their decisions. And the answers aren’t right or wrong or good or bad either. It’s the thought process which is interesting and the reason which lead to a specific decision rather than a different one which is worth exploring, and these elements are probably worth more to the one questioned than the one doing the asking.
I’m no designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can fully empathize with this working method. Before moving to training, I’ve been a technical consultant for most of my professional life. And while I saw many of my peers being really good at selling great solutions to their customers based on their know-how and expertise, my own work approach was to get my clients to pick my solutions not because I told them the best but because I gave them as much information as possible that they could fully measure what consequence their choices had. It isn’t a better or worse approach than the other one. It was mine, and at the end of the day, I made no less money than my peers.
You can either give your answers to people, or you can give them questions. Both tools work. Bartle is definitely someone who uses the second one to make a living, and as he stated elsewhere, if he only gets people to choose, in full conscience and after having evaluated it all, to do the exact contrary of everything he said, he will consider it a job well done.
Does this make me a Bartle fanboi? Probably. I’ve been very fond of the Socratic method long before I became a trainer, and, for that matter, long before I ever heard of Bartle.