The Art of Reanimating Plants vs. Zombies 2

In this 2014 GDC talk, PopCap Games' Mark Barrett reveals the creative, crazy and oftentimes unholy processes endured in the making of Plants vs. Zombies 2.
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[@naonna1]

It's fun seeing a game designer talk about stuff he or she enjoys. The show of emotions give a sense of child-like enthusiasm.

[@polyhedron6834]

15:58 3 are from the 2 version 1 are in the first one

[@electriczap9615]

Mark barret: makes some attempts of humour troughout his presentation The audience: (literal non-existing silence)

[@Tymon0000]

shame they replaced the potato with a walnut

[@shadowbladegaming4744]

Nice joke

[@blueknightskeleton8424]

PvZ2 before Modern Times is one example how to make a sequel. PvZ3, ALPHA or BETA, is one example how *NOT* make a sequel.

[@JanTuts]

Haha, my first thought when he mentioned the walnut was: "Wait, that's a walnut? I always thought it was a potato... And then later on, he mentions that lots of people think it's a potato :P

[@HueyTheDoctor]

Jan Tuts - You thought the thing called a Wall-nut was a potato? If you haven't had children already, you will soon. Only stupid people are breeding.

[@JanTuts]

Scott Douglas - I've never played any of the Plant VS Zombies games, I've only ever seen some images, and saw people play it in class. But thank you showing everyone what a toxic person you are.

[@HueyTheDoctor]

Jan Tuts - My bad, bro. Having a tough week, shouldn't have taken it out on you. Although I maintain that anyone who thought the Wall-nut was a potato should probably avoid procreation.

[@officialspock]

Scott Douglas why so hard on potato dude? #potatolivesmatter

[@officialspock]

Scott Douglas why so hard on potato dude? #potatolivesmatter

[@kepler1175]

7:27 this was such a valuable and respectable moment,

[@Pfaeff]

Still wondering why this game never made it to PC.

[@FloatingSunfish]

Microtransactions are simply more lucrative on handheld devices.

[@mackojacko]

if you ever play the game on pc through emulation, it becomes very clear that he wasn't lying when he said it was built from the ground up for a mobile display.

[@ceskybro3290]

@@FloatingSunfish EA=bad type a thing?

[@RodinRaskol]

@@ceskybro3290 to be honest, EA publishing the game to mobile is a smart move due to mobile games making tons of money from 2013 And 2022 so in their perspective making a PC version would be pointless because it would be paid and no microtransanctions. Before you go in and say "you have the popcop good ea bad mindset" I am aware that popcop design the game and could do whatever they want However, EA could decide where to publish it and they both decided that they would make more money with it being in mobile.

[@Roaming_flooper_MK]

When everyone thinks of the main line up of plants everyone thinks peashooter, sunflower, and wall-nut but no one thinks peashooter, sunflower, cherry bomb, wall-nut, potato mine

[@henryvoon8605]

I came from that "demise of PvZ" video, this whole video is incredibly good it's a shame that there's not that many views on it, especially the key takeaways "Figure out the core element of your game and do not replace them" is extremely insightful and should implemented to all modern games.

[@marcelopaulo446]

"for the last time,that's NOT THE RIGHT SONG"

[@gamedesignwithmichael]

Always good to see the process behind games and why certain decisions were made. Worth a 20 minute watch.

[@seraphimwiththecheese5880]

Indeed it is.

[@KumekawaMakotone]

So that means phat beet, intensive carrot and spear mint had existed a long time ago.

[@Stardustmiku]

8:58 Look at left WTF HAPPENED TO BEET

[@RodinRaskol]

I think the concept of a pvz game travelling around the world does seem interesting, and I'm surprised nobody tried to attempt to recreate it, but that would mean to make original plants, zombies and mechanics for each locations and allot of levels, not just simple balance changes and removing microtransanctions.

[@HamdiRizal]

Until now, my wife calls that wall-nut a potato.

[@svelle37]

Yes, questions in the microphone! Finally! :D

[@LazarheaD]

And destroying it with microtransactions.

[@marshallr.8121]

not related to the talk tho, i do agree but i think as far as graphics go they did a good job~

[@finoraptorscorner]

and also those are things always imposed by publishers. They want to make money out of it. Producers only produce what they are told to.

[@gamedesignwithmichael]

Or they have to eat. Self published game devs gotta eat too. People pay more for a latte then a game that took 2 years to develop. Necessary evil in some cases. The market decides with their wallet.

[@finoraptorscorner]

Yes that is true too. The problem with loot boxes and DLC is that are not planned well. For example loot boxes for cosmetics are totally fine, or DLC with extra story. Games can't cost $60 dollars anymore, inflation makes everything expensive with time, and $60 dollar games since 2009 or so? I don't think so. Games should cost $175 only by inflation! So that's why they introduce this new microtransactions every year. And that's not calculating that games are more expensive to make when they have more graphics, textures, models, etc.

[@gamedesignwithmichael]

For sure. Nothing but truth there. I guess I'm just saying everyone is bashing on microtransactions. Just don't mistake a symptom for the cause. Supercell: 2.3 billion eur (2016) == ~$2.85 billion USD - Play their games for free for months, games themselves are great, basically no handicap for playing for free. EA: $4.8 bilion USD (2017) - play some games for free, games get better the more you pay, handicap if you don't pay and sometimes parts of the game are pay-only It's an implementation problem with the companies, not with micro transactions themselves.

[@gatorrator4170]

"A planned trilogy"

[@aRandomwacko]

Oh! Hi josh ferlin!

[@roeckinsogg6855]

EA: "bruh"

[@Lissy_YT481]

Hey there!

[@Sonic_The_Weredog]

*See! They planned PvZ3 from the beginning.*

[@fightnight14]

Private Dancer LMAO

[@hiwka0w575]

Pvz 2 Farm or road trip would be awesome.

[@magic666z]

why I cant play this on PC?

[@blazie42069]

Yeah, they may want to make Pvz 3, but it may be 2/3 years before it comes out, I think most of Popcap wants to forget about Pvz2. So I think the majority of Popcap nowadays regrets putting plants behind paywalls. See, I think PopCap wasn't aware of how their monetization scheme should be at that point. But with Heroes and GW2, they figured out how to make a game without permanent paywalls, causing the devs to regret the desicions made for Pvz 2. They did it thinking it would make the game good and make more profit, but the permanent paywalls utterly failed and made people pissed. So, i'm pretty sure Battlez is their way of saying: Sorry for the paywalls, here is a way you can earn paywall plants from PVP for free. The only things I think they will do besides Icy currant, and Dark Ages Expansion is fixing balance issues for Battlez. So you know what, PopCap has probably figured out that permanent paywalls are not the answers, now they have figured out temporary paywalls and microtransactions for in game currency is the way to not give their game bad reps like Pvz2. So, let's hope for Pvz3 and pray it comes to consoles. Tell Popcap you want Pvz3 to be more like Heroes in its monetization scheme. Tell them you want only temporary paywalls. Tell them you don't care if the freemium model is there. Tell them to port Heroes Pvz3 it to Switch and Xbox One. Tell them you want them to put love and care in the game like Heroes. And tell them to communicate with us.

[@gatorrator4170]

You have blessed my eyes with this. I can honestly agree with you. I'd honestly prefer paying 20 or 40 dollars for the game and have no in app purchases.

[@seraphimwiththecheese5880]

Me, too! I think that it's a bit unfair that almost half of the plants are premium. What I loved so much about the first game was that you could pay for the game once and have everything the game had to offer. Microtransactions have ruined an almost perfect sequel.

[@lilythebluespheresfan2897]

Haha man, we were so naive back then 😔

[@GooeyDoggy]

I would've asked so many questions...

[@EduardoMartinez-rs3bu]

Why doesn't this have 3 million views?

[@jayphonic9244]

I really liked this one.

[@FloatingSunfish]

These guys really did a great job with the sequel. I initially dismissed PvZ 2 as EA ruining a good game with its business model, but after revisiting and beating it with just level 1 plants, I have a newfound appreciation for what the new team added to the PvZ universe. It would've been an even better game if you could unlock all plants and the difficulty was toned down even further, but every game has its flaws, especially one centered on microtransactions. Still a great job though!

[@FusionDeveloper]

Never officially released on PC, which is a shame, because my phone screen is too small to make the game worth playing.

[@JamesBond007Nejc]

You can play via android emulator on PCs

[@spencerbell2199]

343 industries really could've used this talk 12 years ago

[@BenRitter]

Fantastic!

[@edzbig5700]

"If you did time travel (for the second game), what would you do for the third?" About that.

[@antonioreis8394]

Awesome presentation

[@orkhepaj]

rly? it is full of bs

[@orkhepaj]

@@prachayamishra1950 why not? btw i dont call everything bs i dont like , but this is just bs

[@rens4140]

yeah dont change too much i looking at you pvz3

[@synergiedizz3641]

Plants vs Zombies was a masterpiece of game design. Plants vs Zombies 2 was another aberration vomited by EA's greed

[@andrewramlall3560]

PvZ2 was good at first. But then EA slowly poisoned it with in app purchases and firing George Fan behind the scenes. I personally do still think it is a good game, but one with a tragic backstory

[@saphirasorra2203]

Personally I don't like PvZ 2 more than original. I mean, I really enjoyed the gameplay at first, but I realized that the system on it kinda made it not easy at all... Forced me to left the game for good. Even the first game on phone platform already had IAP thing and I'd rather playing the PC version...

[@ceskybro3290]

@@andrewramlall3560 nooooo EA=pvz2 so pvz2=bad nooooo (even tho EA never touchted pvz2 but ok)

[@lilythebluespheresfan2897]

​@@ceskybro3290 Also EA: yeah let's put an unreasonable revenue goal for PopCap after 2 seconds of acquiring them make smash hits bye

[@Sonic_The_Weredog]

*It is PopCap, not EA. PopCap is the developer and they are the ones who make the game.*

[@Feranogame]

It's so bittersweet to see this after what happened with PvZ 2 throughout the years and with "PvZ 3" blatantly ignoring every concept shown in this talk

[@bilibili2697]

I thought pvz3 will be country travelling but it turns out that I was wrong,

[@8illy]

cool

[@notsoren665]

still not on pc

[@guacodile2528]

This game got better now tbh , but I admit was pretty bad back 2 years ago

[@MegoZ_]

Should've sticked with all of them on PvZ3

[@docwhogr]

he can replace Howard on the big bang theory and renew the show easily

[@maxv9793]

then there is the chinese version, the style does not fit in PvZ at all

[@seraphimwiththecheese5880]

It sorta works. I personally think that it would be awesome to have some of the chinese plants added to the international version.

[@xGARIDx]

Played many times first PvZ but never played second one i thought its not fun to play too many thing to make, farm so

[@MaxenceBerrier]

??????

[@AHTOOOXA]

Great game, such a pity it is spoiled with cruel f2p model

[@Saedorthemar]

Live2d Cubism

[@blacxthornE]

Such a missed opportunity. The animations weren't the distinctive part of PvZ 2. The talk should have been about "The Art of Cashgrabbing in Plants vs Zombies 2" or "How The Devil buys developers, destroys their intellectual properties and kills their studios". If I were a part of PvZ 2 I wouldn't talk about it ever again, and act like it never happened.

[@EpikBirb]

Yeah, because PopCap totally didn't plan adding MTX before EA bought them and you totally can't beat the entire game without them

[@naufalilhamhw]

bro why they changed the outline lineart yo

[@cirodefagot8554]

Subs español pleseee

[@Dack105]

Shame. That first concept sounded nice. You could have a homestead with various buildings and protect them all. Maybe do some push and pull with losing and reclaiming different outhouses and building large barrier fences. The zen-garden could have been expanded greatly, and you could have had a zombie lama that spat acid. But we got some bull-shit time travel stuff. The reason you were fighting the zombies in the first was because they attacked your house. Why are you going on a multi-denominational time battle? I don't care if ancient Egypt gets overrun by zombies.

[@seraphimwiththecheese5880]

But, what about finding Crazy Dave's taco? I personally like the time travel theme and think that acid-spitting lamas would have been a waste of the game's potential.

[@Lapisofdoom]

Remember when pvz was supposed to be an adventure loved by its creator for 7 plus years, and then remember on how that was taken from them by The King Of Micro Transactions and all of its people fired probably like the designer we just watched. It’s sad to know how much the original Popcap loved and lost.

[@nooberiazi]

where can I read more about this ?

[@EpikBirb]

@@nooberiazi None of that was true besides like the first part

[@imtoolazyforaprofilepic4961]

Then PVZ3 ruined it...

[@HueyTheDoctor]

PvZ 2 was considerably less fun than the original. I was disappointed with it. This talk is all about where they went wrong, not what they got right.

[@antonioreis8394]

Scott Douglas Remember this is about the art, not the design even though he does reference it quite often. Also I disagree with you, in my opinion PvZ 2 was more enjoyable and addicting.

[@HueyTheDoctor]

António Balcão Reis - At one point during this talk the guy mentioned that part of the reason for his redesign of the artwork was he wanted the assets to be easily translatable into merchandise. Meaning the opportunity to sell plush toys affected art and design decisions in the second game. Enough said.

[@Pfaeff]

That probably was just a joke, but who knows?

[@HueyTheDoctor]

Pfaeff - Nah, dude. He was deadly serious. Merchandising has been huge for PopCap. To the point where it affected their design decisions. Dude representing PopCap outright admits it in the middle of the talk.

[@Darrell3H]

It could also be that it was part of the job description.

[@Sharkfurter]

Too bad PvZ 2 was just.. bad.

[@st.charlemagne9990]

I hate the design of PVZ2, they literally spoiled everything I love about this game.

[@jeffreyrichey6039]

and made it worse than the previous game

[@Sr.Tweeter]

Better*