Gameplay - depth vs complexity vs fun

[kofeiiniturpa]

I'll take custom made content over procedural generation myself. Calling random gameplay events story is stretching the definition imo. Not that random stuff in an open world isn't important to have. It needs to be there to make it feel alive and provide distraction. But when we're dealing with missions, I'd rather they be constructed by the devs, nonlinear and with multiple strategies.

Indeed.
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Further, the game can not react to what one has in his head. If the game is all about make-believe it's not really a game at all anymore but an interactive platform to imagine things on top of. I've never found that kind of gameplay fun in the slightest because there's ultimately no point in that because it accomplishes nothing In the game, that is -- I don't mind if a person finds satisfaction in such activities, and can imagine all those things like the oddball Oblivion and Skyrim players who have 1000 hour characters pretending to be cityguards (while they're not because the game doesn't recognize that) with schedules and everything.


I'm agreeing what Chris Avellone has to say about storytelling in videogames - in that it's the mechanics and their design you have at your disposal that help create a lot of the flavor and variety in the storyline (not makebelieve, but actual reactivity of the game; of course there still needs to be good writing to keep the storyline and its reactivity interesting, keep the player interested and going, but you get the point):

Avellone's response, meanwhile, challenged the idea that the story a game designer can write matters at all. Instead, he explained, the systems that designers put into a game can let the player tell their own, more compelling story. He had found that perhaps the best role of a narrative designer was to "ultimately let the systems and the player's interaction with those actually create their own story." He cited experience with Fallout: New Vegas, describing the way a player brought more to the game than he could ever have intentionally written in:

One particular example that comes to mind is .. Josh Sawyer, who was playing through Fallout New Vegas for the second time. And he decided to piss off both factions in the game, who hate each other. And when you piss off either faction in the game, assassins will attack you, which is pretty typical for showing reputation mechanics in games.

But because he had chosen to piss off both factions, which is something we hadn't accounted for, he woke up in the Mojave Wasteland one morning to find that both assassin squads had spawned in but rather than attack him, they launched at each other, murdered each other, and Josh just went by, whistled, looted all their corpses... And I could have spent like a month and a half trying to do a narrative design solution that would set up that situation, but because of the mechanics Josh was able to have a story all his own because of his actions in the environment.

http://kotaku.com/5900248/david-gai...-matters-most-in-games-the-words-or-the-world

do you think the advantage of baseline combinations, where you generate manipulateable characteristics for people and objects, might help avoid the sneak/shoot/charm trap? Or would it just put a clumsy, bland face on the mechanic?

I'd first ask why do you consider it a trap? As if to suggest the three (distinct) way optability is a bad thing.

I don't fully get what you mean by manipulatable characteristics here. Doesn't everything ultimately fall under the umbrellas of either "diplomacy", "action", "stealth"; or the combination thereof, whilst design allowing?

 

[Suhiira]

Take Dragon Age Awakening for an example (where your Warden got to build a new HQ), the major decision in the game was "Save the city vs save the keep", personally I thought that was a no-brainer if you were RPing your character as a Warden.
On the other hand in Dragon Age Origins you got to kill Loghain, or not, and choose to go with Morrigans' ritual, or not. Each of these choices much less clear cut.
Yeah it was pretty easy to kill Loghain (he deserved it and you didn't lose Alistair) but the ritual? Ignoring the fact that by participating your character (or Alistair/Loghain) didn't die the long-term effects of an "Old God" soul running around lose ARE going to be significant. Do you play it safe, and die, or (probably) change the very fabric of society by (re)introducing a new/old "diety level" participant?

 

[Sardukhar]

I'd first ask why do you consider it a trap? As if to suggest the three (distinct) way optability is a bad thing.

Because it's limited. Yes, it's further down the road than "shoot it!" or "Sneak it!" but it's still formulaic and if you have a formula, you tend to try to fit things into that formula. Once you have a hammer, everything starts to seem very nail-ish.

In your daily life, in the problems you encounter, do you choose shoot/sneak or charm? Do you think the universe set it up that way for you?

I'm not saying you cannot group most solutions into one of those broad categories - or even a combination. I'm saying it's dangerous for developers to do so because,as your example from Josh S above illustrates, they will then try to build encounters around those categories, rather than let the game world and story combinations create those encounters and let you resolve them as best you can. Narrowing them down to violence/diplomacy/stealth is still narrowing and still a limit. What about hacking, for example? Couldn't you further narrow it down to passive/active solutions if you wanted? Violence and diplomacy or both active, stealth or retreat are passive?

Rather than categories, perhaps create tools for the player to play with, built into the gameworld. Side by side with story - I'm not talking some let's-pretend mental narrative you write for yourself, but an actual storyline both developed by the writers and created by your actions and NPC/world responses.

I don't fully get what you mean by manipulatable characteristics here. Doesn't everything ultimately fall under the umbrellas of either "diplomacy", "action", "stealth"; or the combination thereof, design allowing?

Well, what I meant by manipulateable characteristics is that objects and NPCs have flags and properties that the player and other NPCs and objects can manipulate. This is already true in video games - physics, seduce rolls, etc. But I'm thinking of a much broader range of values, allowing a living world and a world with unpredictable solutions from the player.

Take NPC Bob. Bob is Male, Healthy, 10% Cyber, Straight, Married [NPC Jaquelle], no children, Sportsfan, Political Left, Educated, Combat Skills Moderate, People Skills Strong, Employed [Zetatech], Special Ability Corporate 3, Lightly armed and armoured. So that's Bob in a nutshell. Toss in a couple twists, maybe, like a corruption meter, perhaps, (Bob is 30% Corrupt - he can be bribed) or Tastes: Bob likes Cappucino and Nomad Bikes. Was shot as a child. Hates gangers. Whatever. Some faction +/-.

Now Bob gets off the train at the Corp. Center on his way to work. So he walks past twenty or thirty other NPCs and observes them as they observe him. In the morning, before coffee or maybe just one coffee, A/Notice is -5 for everyone except the transit cops. The area Bob walks through is filled with objects as well as people - auto vendors, Dataterms, trash bins, screamsheet trash, bolted down seats, storefronts with plasglas windows, cleaning bot, some empty shell casing from the night before, you get the idea.

Each of these objects has properties. In/flammable. Un/hackeable. Adhesive. Explosive. Breakable. Takeable. Living. Non/transparent. Sound baffling. A whole range.

So Bob, sportsfan, corporate, straight guy, doesn't like gangers, was shot once, etc. is walking through this crowd. You're also in the crowd, following Mike Santino, bagman for Night City Mafia, works for Underboss Mario "ironarm" Cuzolini. I'll forbear from giving you Santino or Cuzolini's profiles.

So that's the situation at 0755 hrs, Corporate Center metro station.

You're probably already seeing situations that could crop up. Is Santino armed and does someone spot it? Corp Cops? Bob? Someone else? Are you armed? Is Bob armed, (yes) and the cops do a routine stop-and-check on him, distracting Santino enough for you to stick a tracer on his jacket? Maybe the TV behind you is running the Rangers' latest playback and Bob turns to watch, Santino sees him do it and also turns...and sees you closing in. Or maybe the TV is showing stock prices and Bob turns but Santino doesn't...only Bob recognizes him, hates gangers, is in the Corp Center and flips his shit at seeing this ganger wandering around, chaos ensues...

And then the properties of the objects might come into play. Some can be moved, some, like the store windows are nearly unbreakable but are flammable. Maybe you know that from earlier. Maybe the cleaning bot can be hacked or - hilariously - has already been hacked by an NPC faction and is protecting Santino. The doors into and out of the metro are lockeable - inner doors breakable, outer doors not. Important if you have to flee or are trying to stop reinforcements.

So this metro train station that you are just moving through as part of your plot mission to track Santino is rife with adventure possibilities, affected by who is in it, how they interact with each other and what happens to the world when they do.

It's not procedurally generated, per se, although you could certainly use PG to give you NPC characteristics and whatnot, as well as what obejcts are present in an area at a given time and type of location. It's more using a really, really wide range of variables to define the world and letting the PCs and NPCs affect those variables.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

snippety

So what you are talking about is (semi, at least) random occurences during (at leat semi) scripted scenes and with interactive objects in the scenery? A "smart" AI routine for NPC's that react to the scene (that's not really a new thing....)? You narrate it well here, but you as a player have no idea why this random Bob suddenly goes apeshit and turns the scene into a mess. I can see benefits in some randomness resulting from a complex design (like in the New Vegas example; unforseen events that actually add to the game), but if it is designed to be random, if it just leads to confusing things you've no idea why they happened, or, in more subtle cases, you don't even notice anything happens, is it really a good thing? When you have 50 random NPC's in the scene who all have randomly defined characteristics that all just happen to clash with eachother.... yeah, well, sounds a lot like the random firefights in Postal 2 (that made absolutely no sense at all; but considering the game, they were actually funny at times) with an added interactivity in the environment. Or am I (still) not reading you right here?

Considering the "stealth-action-diplomacy" stuff... Those are just the principle of "multi-approach multi-solution" quest/event design. It's the basis to start figuring things out, not the strict rule to create situations as rigid three way forks (or it shouldn't be). You consider what all goes inside a category - for example, diplomacy consists of seduction, bribery, reasoning, bartering; stealth has disguise, sneak, evesdropping, hacking, stealing/pickpocketing, deception; action is the most straightforward where you have lethal, nonlethal, ranged and melee/HtH; et cetera - when you start mixing and matching as an ingenious designer, the possibilities you have skyrocket. Then you have the different resolutions coming from different approaches and the possible long and short term consequences (narrative and/or gameplay) that are not necessarily directly related to the particular quest/event at hand but on a larger scale, and the considerations of the player who through his characterbuild is not able to pick and choose from all the possible choices (which he probably doesn't even know they exist until later).

It's not really limited at all if you broaden the spectrum from approach 1, 2 and 3 to aprroaches 1a, 1b, 1c..., 2a, 2b..., 3a, 3b..., mix and match, and live with the consequences.

And really, does somebody really think while playing a game, a cRPG: "Oh, I can go about it this, this and this way; how awfully formulaic.... I don't think I like this..."? People who appreciate different choices, that is, I've seen people prefer a strict tunnel path through the game because choices and consequences confuse them and am obviously not talking about that sort of folk.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

How about instead of focusing on very small details, focus on the macro things like

Let's say you have to deal with a troublesome corporate/police station/gang hideouts

kidnapping the constable's daughter so that he gives in to your demands?
Or blowing up the building allowing for encrypted C&C or hacking into it, thus forcing them to rely on unencrypted personal cell phones?
Or sneaking a bomb inside a station via the pizza delivery man?
or starting a city-wide riot so that Law Enforcement will desert their posts to protect what they hold dear?
Flood a market with cheap drugs filled with a painful degenerative disease, then sell the medicine at ultra inflated prices?

I would like the ability as a corp. or otherwise to build an army and to take down everyone else.

But otherwise, I kind of like Sard's idea.

 

[Sardukhar]

i'm...not sure why you think Bob will necessarily go apeshit, Kofe. That was one of several possibilities - you picked the most dramatic one.

The point is it's not random, or semi-random, any more than life is. The point is that it follows from reasonable actions in the game world, triggered by interactions between NPCs, PCs and the world. Like life.

Nor would the NPCs have randomly generated characteristics, (they would be either hand made or from a table focussed on location and faction, like the PnP), nor would they necessarily clash with each other and if they did, it would not necessarily mean violence or even any interaction at all, without some kind of triggering event.

You see this in GTA for example - what I'm talking about is a much, much more in depth version of the NPC/PC/World interaction that you get in GTA.


If you broaden your categories enough, of course they aren't limiting. Deus Ex and Vampire Bloodlines, for example, as much as I like them, did not broaden them anywhere near enough for my taste. Neither did Witcher, of course.

And, yes, many of us play games thinking, "This is formulaic. We've been here before. Oh, look, Renegade/Hero options, that's not new at all.."

Poet, the focussing on macro details examples are great. Those are all great examples of what I'd like to see, all the way down to the smaller details as well. Improvised solutions to gameplay challenges.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

i'm...not sure why you think Bob will necessarily go apeshit, Kofe. That was one of several possibilities - you picked the most dramatic one.

It was your example. But I did make note of more "subtle" events.

The point is it's not random, or semi-random, any more than life is. The point is that it follows from reasonable actions in the game world, triggered by interactions between NPCs, PCs and the world. Like life.

Of course it is random to an outside observer (the player). You don't know the motives of the NPC's (or the unknown passers by in real life) nor can you really anticipate them, unless you are being told (which would be absurd to happen for every faceless pedestrian and their AI dictated whims).

I don't really disagree with what (I think) you are saying, though. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what you are going for because I thought at first that that this was about alternate quest solutions (and didn't really get how, other than the said random interferences to which the player needs to react to), but now it seems that that is a topic if it's own and this appears to be just about more complex NPC AI routines and "random encounters" they produce (which is fine).

If you broaden your categories enough, of course they aren't limiting. Deus Ex and Vampire Bloodlines, for example, as much as I like them, did not broaden them anywhere near enough for my taste. Neither did Witcher, of course.

I can agree with that. Is there a game that you think did manage it?

And, yes, many of us play games thinking, "This is formulaic. We've been here before. Oh, look, Renegade/Hero options, that's not new at all..".

The morality choices are a different case though (and pretty universally shunned when being clear cut black or white) from the practical means of solving tasks. At least the way I see it. Morality can relate to them, but is not necessary at all.

 

[Harthwain]

Of course it is random to an outside observer (the player). You don't know the motives of the NPC's (or the unknown passers by in real life) nor can you really anticipate them, unless you are being told (which would be absurd to happen for every faceless pedestrian and their AI dictated whims).

I don't really disagree with what (I think) you are saying, though. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what you are going for because I thought at first that that this was about alternate quest solutions (and didn't really get how, other than the said random interferences to which the player needs to react to), but now it seems that that is a topic if it's own and this appears to be just about more complex NPC AI routines and "random encounters" they produce (which is fine).

For the world to live it must not be player-centric. I think CK2 is good example of how NPCs should act: they all have their own goals and try to make them true. They shape the world of the game alongside the player and they will keep doing so, because they can't achieve everything they strife for (let's say they become the king, but then they have to be able to keep the crown, etc.) and new characters come in and fill the void left by dead characters, with their own goals in mind. Possibilities of encounters, schemes and outcomes are limitless. Now there are you, a player, interacting with the world also, who have to deal with these non-scripted events...

 

[Suhiira]

For the world to live it must not be player-centric.

And that's really the key. The world the player interacts with must have a life of it's own not just wait around for the player to interact with it.
But at the same time character actions must influence (note the word "influence") how the world reacts to them.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

For the world to live it must not be player-centric. I think CK2 is good example of how NPCs should act: they all have their own goals and try to make them true. They shape the world of the game alongside the player and they will keep doing so, because they can't achieve everything they strife for (let's say they become the king, but then they have to be able to keep the crown, etc.) and new characters come in and fill the void left by dead characters, with their own goals in mind. Possibilities of encounters, schemes and outcomes are limitless. Now there are you, a player, interacting with the world also, who have to deal with these non-scripted events...

Oh, I'm all for non-playercentric worlds where the challenges don't scale to the PC and where things happen dynamically with or without the players presence (eg. dynamic quests that have different outcomes or thematic crossroads providing consequenes but also opening up pathways to other possibilities based on if the PC performed the tasks in or out of a given timeframe). To make it an analogy; you must sometimes wait for the bus, but the bus will not wait for you. Mustn't go overboard with that "just a meaningless pawn among the others" mentality, though, lest the value of the players actions be diminished.

As far as I know, though, CK2 is a grand strategy game about managing a nation and its wars where NPC interactions are narrated events that are all in some way, directly or indirectly, linked to your job in managing the nation (do correct me if I'm bullshiting here, I haven't played CK2, but that's how I have understood its basics). It's a very different scenario from an up close and personal RPG, don't you think?

What sort of limitless possibilities, schemes and outcomes do you mean such that would touch the player and require him to adapt? Knowing that you are (at least initially) just a nobody among other nobodies.

 

[Poet_and_Gentleman.598]

It's easy to imagine. Every RPG has social structures and an economy. It's only that they aren't modelled most of the time.

Being the grand dragon of the Imperial legion did essentially nothing in morrowind for example.

Let the player climb them and take the role of the NPC

E.g. Police Chief
Shift Supervisor.
Capo
Etc
etc

and let the alliances and structures shift

E.g. Player destroys a warehouse, It's store goes unsupplied and the cash outlet of X organization goes down significantly in that territory.

Or player destroys a police station. The morale of the cops go down and their ability to respond is lenghtened by X amount.By the same token, the local gangs (maybe the player's) see an oppoturtunity to expand.

The police raids.... and so on and so forth.

Would make for very interesting multiplayer mechanics. in short, the way is to superimpose grand strategy/maangement game mechanics @ the macro level.

Poet, the focussing on macro details examples are great. Those are all great examples of what I'd like to see, all the way down to the smaller details as well. Improvised solutions to gameplay challenges.

It's a little known fact but Oblivion and Skyrim did this to an extent. It's been Bethesda's dream since Morrowind at least.

It would be very nice if this mechanic was extended to thousands and thousands of NPCs. Some of it could be abstracted away while keeping the sense of scale (after all, you don't know thousands and thousands of people in real life)

A mixture of DX1,ArmA,Hitman and the Sims would be interesting indeed.

 

[Harthwain]

Mustn't go overboard with that "just a meaningless pawn among the others" mentality, though, lest the value of the players actions be diminished.

How would you measure the value of the players' actions?

As far as I know, though, CK2 is a grand strategy game about managing a nation and its wars where NPC interactions are narrated events that are all in some way, directly or indirectly, linked to your job in managing the nation (do correct me if I'm bullshiting here, I haven't played CK2, but that's how I have understood its basics). It's a very different scenario from an up close and personal RPG, don't you think?

Well, you're wrong. CK2 isn't about managing a nation. CK2 is about family. CK2 is about people. People who have their characteristics and aspirations, and positions. It's much like Game of Thrones. It's you in the world where you decide what to do and how to do it (NPC interactions are less narrated through events than you'd think). In fact, I find this game very close to RPG. It's very, very personal game. You should check out the demo on Steam.

What sort of limitless possibilities, schemes and outcomes do you mean such that would touch the player and require him to adapt? Knowing that you are (at least initially) just a nobody among other nobodies.

Are we talking about CK2 or CP77 here?

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

How would you measure the value of the players' actions?

From how the game reacts to them. If there are decions, big or small, to make but no reaction to suit, you never give it a second though on which way to go about it because it doesn't matter. The higher the impact on gameplay, on storyline be it a sidequest or main quest piece, of any action or decision, the more it has value to the player because it - in the optimal case - molds the way the player has to approach the game and it's storyline.

Not everything needs to be world changing, it's not that, there's always some room for fluff and flavor. But where it is plausible, which by design should be a lot of places, even small decision might and should ripple throughout the game offering side effects here and there, while bigger stuff obviously have bigger considerations.

Well, you're wrong. CK2 isn't about managing a nation. CK2 is about family. CK2 is about people. People who have their characteristics and aspirations, and positions.

I guess I was wrong then. It looked like a strategy game in the same vein as Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron to me.

Are we talking about CK2 or CP77 here?

If you were talking about CK2 and didn't draw the possibility parallel to CP77, I withdraw my question.

 

[Sardukhar]

I have thought of Kofe's statements about "random actions" and realized he's narrowed down to what makes a gameworld - and it's gameplay - seem so shallow.

In the real world, if you saw NPC Bob turning to watch something on TV or saw the transit guards stop and check his weapon, you would not think it a random event. You'd assume Bob liked sports or the guards were doing weapon checks, ( and you'd better hide yours).

But in a video game, as Kofe says, when NPCs interact with each other, it is so haphazard and transparently shallow, we assume it's random and there is little to no logic or underlying motive to it. Some steal-that event generator or fight-me encounter generator, but not a whole motive-structure behind everything.

And that's what I want to build into CP2077's world - underlying motive for everything. The world and all the things in it react in a predictable, believable, useable way.

For example, using Poet's Exploding Pizza Guy: If you see a Pizza Guy go into a restaurant, the weapons detector on the door blinks green, you might think, "Hey, I wonder if I swap the guy's cyberarm out for one with explosives in it, would that set off the detector?" And you do it, by kidnapping Pizza Guy NPC while he's asleep and swapping his arm out. And it works! Or doesn't!

But either way, you have sense that the world makes sense, that the door detector and the PIzza Guy can both be manipulated logically and reasonably to accomplish your gameplay goals.

Likewise, if you see a Pizza Guy go in a restaurant and then it explodes, ( and maybe it's your job to figure out why, as a Cop or Fixer, so you care), then you could work with the game world and gameplay mechanics to figure out someone rigged the Pizza Guy or the Door Detector to get the explosives in there. Because it makes sense.


So that's what I'd like to see: fun gameplay mechanics that take place in a world with a logical, sensible underpinning.

Not, for example, a place where NPCs try to kill each other for no reason or factions try to kill you without cause, for story reasons. Stuff Should Make Sense. And then you should be able to mess with it.

 

[Harthwain]

If you were talking about CK2 and didn't draw the possibility parallel to CP77, I withdraw my question.

I'll give two examples then:

I started as Saxon count in timeline where William the Conqueror accomplished his conquest of England. My goal, that of my bloodline, was to return Saxon king to the throne of England. I had little, except for a large family. By policy of careful marriaging I've managed to rise my kin to power on various seats of England. Including two of my grandsons as two the most powerful dukes in north. In the meantime the king asked me to become his chancellor. I accepted, it gave me more power in his court. At some point he died and and his son - still a child - asked me to become a regent. I started fabricating claims on the whole kingdom and when this was done created the coalition of barons, counts and dukes to support my claim. We've sent a letter to the boy, asking him to step down without a fight. He refused. The loyalists controlled half of the land, we - the other half. But in the end we were victorious and my count managed to become the king, although I didn't expect this feat to be accomplished so soon.

Bulgaria, kingdom that had to contend itself while being threatened by Hungary and Eastern Roman Empire. I will only give a small excerpt of the story. King married himself to princess of Sicily and when her father was dead his sons (Boris and Petar) gained claims to the throne of Sicily. Boris was the firstborne, so I went with him as claiman. War raged on for years, but as we were closing in to victory Boris died. King became depressed (yes, I got event that he was depressed, because his son died) and at some point become bedridden and started to... see beautiful colors. Son of Boris was a little boy, so his uncle, Petar, became his regent. In the meantime, when king was still conscious, transferred all lands to Petar. A mistake, because I didn't realize laws of succession will make me play Boris' son, instead of second son of the king. Kid was left with the capital, after his grandfather died and then it happened. A hooded assassin killed him. Petar became king of Bulgaria and then I took control of him (as last in line of the bloodline) and started second conquest of Sicily in his name. Petar established a long line of ruthless monarchs (all called Petars, tradition, I guess) that eventually managed to topple the Eastern Roman Empire, weakened by wars in the Middle East.

Mechanism are all the same, but circumstances are all different and make for different stories, and all this without a writer.

 

[Suhiira]

CK2 since it's a dynasty centered game does a nice job of giving the player a "story" behind the game play.
And I guess that's what it comes down to. Do the games's basic NPC interaction mechanics support autonomous NPC activity (ah la Sims or Crusader Kings)? But of course for them to do so requires not merely the computer code (which costs time/money to develop) but a fair chunk of your games processing time and a LOT of record keeping. Since processing time and development budget (time and money) is limited what suffers to permit detailed NPC interactions ... probably complex/detailed combat interaction. I suspect given the option between combat and NPCs we can guess which it going to win.
Of course IF development time/money were unlimited sure you could have both, but it never is.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Is the discussion still about NPC interactivity and AI, or is it now that the game should be about a chain of unsequenced, more or less random actions that provide some rudimentary conditions for a storyline that the player fleshes our in his head if he wants to?

 

[Harthwain]

The two are connected. You seem to be separating them for some reason.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

What do you mean "for some reason"? The way NPC's work is an individual mechanical feature like world interactivity or combat. They are all parts of a whole, but you can talk about them separately for how they work, that's what I was doing (apparently due to a misconception of some sort...).

Anyways, from your example CK2 sounds like a fun game but not something I'd wish for an RPG of the sort we are looking forward to here. I'm more for more traditional approach for narratives and augmenting that to provide more complex experiences.

 

[Sardukhar]

You said "augmenting" heh. 1/2 a SARDpoint.

The discussion, though, was never just about AI and NPC interaction, nor more-or-less random actions. It's about gameplay as a whole, interacting with not only NPCs but the world, of which NPCs are just one portion.

Here's a question - should you be able to change TV stations? Or, if you play a media, should you be able to be on TV? And if so, given the modern ease and use of webcams and smartphones, could you guys see a media-interactive portion of the game for that? Take a video selfie and upload it to the TV playlist, much like many games now let you add your own MP3s to their playlist.