Fun VS Realism: a Game Design challenge
Where I’m from, nobody knows who Babe Ruth is. Or Ted Williams. Or Mike Trout. Or even what a home run is.
Welcome to France, country of Soccer!
Of course, French people have heard of baseball, that’s an American sports, right? The rules? Something with a ball, a glove and a bat. Besides that, no clue.
One day, out of the blue, I started to develop an interest for baseball. Just by curiosity at first, I learned the main rules, downloaded the At bat app, then watched a game. That was it, I was hooked. That was approximately four years ago.
As an app and game developer, I love to program stuff on my spare time. So with my brand new (and very limited) knowledge of baseball, I started to create a baseball simulation game. I discovered plenty of amazing stats like AVG, ERA, OPS, and quickly simulated a ballgame between Seattle and New York with fake players. It was a foundation for what came next: an entirely simulated league, a lineup screen, trainings, strategies…
After a month of work I released the app, right after a beta test with some friends (who discovered the rules of baseball at the same time. French people). It was a very bare simulation. But it was fun. And fun is the purpose of a game, right?
My focus has always been fun over realism. The first version didn’t have steals, double plays, a proper bullpen, errors (Added in ‘19), sacrifices (added in ’19 as well). Players even didn’t have a proper position on the field. But to be honest, very few people cared. It was fun, and people wanted things like « more training options » or rankings. It wasn’t very realistic, but that wasn’t a concern at all.
Over time I implemented many more features, and added parts of the game we love. They’re part of baseball for a reason, and bring more depth and gameplay opportunities. But even today, most people ask me to be able to manage their ballpark besides their team, very few ask for pinch-hitters for example.
So the question is, how to balance a simulation game between fun and realism? That’s something often mentioned on this blog, and this is a big game design question. For almost any game. I’m not sure there’s one true answer to this problem to be honest.
Personally, I like realism because what I’m developing is closer to the sports I love. But I also think that if it doesn’t contribute to the fun, it’s not worth it. Simulation game includes game. That’s enough for me. It’s about having a good time playing. Of course, there’s simulation as well, but my goal is not to precisely predict who’s gonna win the World Series next season.
And when real things are too frustrating, I don’t want them to be part of the game. One of the reasons there’s no injuries in the game is because I’ve had too many of them playing OOTP (a true masterpiece, for real). One time I just traded for a young and promising Joe DiMaggio. He got a career-ending injury in his first game! And I’m not even talking about my Felix Hernandez who gets an injury each season right before the playoffs. To me, this is a great example of this realism over fun issue.
That’s how I build things: Fun > Realism. Just grab your phone and manage a fake baseball team. That’s it.
And you, how would you balance a simulation game?
