What Cats Can Teach You About Empathic Game Design

[@Zorgdub]

Not enough footage of users engaging with the device.

[@MuzikMann96]

We need more input

[@CrimsonBlasphemy]

1:22 Oh Lordy I've had that conversation many times before. With clients making assumptions about what would and wouldn't be hard for me(us) to develop or change. Just ask your developer, you have hired a professional to give you professional opinions. Which also means respecting the Developer when they give you an answer.

[@silkaverage]

that expresssion " the customer is always right" is such an oxymoron, no they're not, thats why they hired an expert..lol

[@andresnexuschamarra6991]

This is affects every person in the process, clients do it, producers do it, designers do it, programmers do it, even testers do it if they are requesting testing features, its a communication issue, when you need someone else to do something for you, you try to make it sound low effort so they'll be inclined to do it, but if you are poorly informed of how they do their thing, you are bound to make bad assumptions. In most cases its best to clearly state what you need and let them figure out how they can best provide that.

[@RyanTosh]

That example got on my nerves SO MUCH...

[@SavageGreywolf]

Understand that the customer's logic makes a weird sort of sense. As game designers we know that making a car move faster is simple but graphical improvements are difficult, but on a _real_ car putting shiny bells and whistles on it is much easier than making it a better performing machine. It was a breakdown of understanding because the customer is not savvy to the limitations of the technology- but they're relating it to a technology they DO understand- one that the game was designed to simulate.

[@storerestore]

Working with (non-game) development, this rings a bell for me, too. The most soul crushing variation is where it guides management decisions: We need this feature in x months (0.1x months later) We have a put together a strategy and plan for implement that feature cleanly but no matter how we turn it it's going to take 2x months OK, just ignore the polish and refactoring and deliver 80% in x months. Just jam it in there by whatever means possible That will have a huge future cost and it might not even be faster. Just do it! We need to take the risk, because customer needed this feature yesterday (= sales person promised the feature not knowing that it doesn't exist) OK 2x months later you ship a shitty 60% implementation that you basically have to throw away to deliver the final 40%. But it won't be thrown away! Developers for years to come will work on balancing your crap on their nose while. Customer never expected timely deliver or 100% feature in the first place and are just as happy.

[@Gnurklesquimp]

That tester asking for more chrome when they wanted speed is such a good demonstration of how wild this can get, people will very often suggest a solution they quickly come up with and present it as though the issue is the absence of this solution, rather than the actual core problem. I can only imagine how hard it is to communicate with a fanbase of an evolving game, because there's always a flip-side: You can also make the mistake of reading fundamental meaning into complaints that isn't even there by not considering the fundamental value the players are getting at, so emphasis should always be on digging deeper instead of making assumptions.

[@Nikolai508]

Like how Square Enix recently put out a statement saying they believe Avengers failed because Crystal Dynanics aren't experienced in making live service games. The reality is that people didn't want a live service game.

[@UltimegaSeven]

I think this is a powerful talk not only on why such things can be useful to sell your game, but shows that making such a product means you ample time to make it high quality towards your target audience. Cats are so interesting and you have to make your game interesting to them to win it out. Sadly so many devs get this wrong. They treat you like braindead cattle instead of showing care for you in their game. So they chase after you with cash grab after cash grab

[@celinak5062]

Or whatever the eff happened with pokemon, there are stories of people who couldn't read and finished the game with their starter. If they're really gonna pretend that it's for children, why don't they know some kids can't read or are not english, so can't read english. One thing I'm actually okay with is the experience share, because it makes sense as a reason pokemon would want a trainer and not punishing you for having more than one pokemon. So less talking, more pokemon

[@Dragonboy55564]

This is such a vague comment that mixes multiple criticisms without really saying anything. A lot of devs are bad because of handholding and also cash grabbing? What exactly do those have in common? What kinds of situations (or specific examples) are you referring to exactly? It's honestly baffling how many people agree with you, because there's very little substance to it beyond a general feeling of being disgruntled or jaded. Moreover, who says that you're the target audience in the first place? You're complaining about games giving away too much, but what if the average player actually needs that kind of help and get frustrated without it? Does it make financial sense to make a game that appeals to a very narrow audience instead of a broader one? Sometimes, but usually those are riskier and generally lower reward unless you have a very specific vision in mind and don't mind sacrificing other crucial aspects.

[@alextaylor3380]

@@Dragonboy55564 It not so much handholding they are complaining about here, it's how they treat marketing and often the 'tone' of the game itself, (i.e. dumbing down just about every other sentence to the smallest words possible) I have seen this even in games marketed for adults/late teens. They also often just toss out broken products expecting people to buy it, no playtesting, barebones bugtesting.

[@Gormathius]

But don't you know? Focus testing gives 100% accurate information about what the audience will buy and enjoy, every time.

[@GenCyfur]

19:13 "Purrental Controls" would've been better, imo!

[@Alisha-yz6nd]

Purrental Catrols.

[@georgplaz]

@@Alisha-yz6nd mind blown *:O

[@FelixHelixihare]

"Cats are millenials too." Best quote of the video.

[@AliIKarimi]

Thought it would be clickbait, but was actually really good.

[@georgplaz]

it's weird how he managed to really deliver on the promise in the title. never would have guessed

[@mattp1337]

I enjoyed just watching this, but was also compelled to tap the screen.

[@qwertyuiop-cy5en]

i diagnose you with cat

[@raphaelaquino9898]

r/foundthecatuser

[@Trailtracker]

Haha cat

[@williambarnes5023]

10:54 Hey now. You can totally fill out the "says" for cats. It's just a lot of different kinds of meows. If you're looking at making a prey simulator game, then a cat watching it and chirping out "Mye-ye-yow" is success. Because that's the "Come back here so I can eat you! / Hey come look at this thing! / Is this tasty?" chirp.

[@OrigamiMarie]

And if you're paying attention to the tail, ears, and whiskers, you can get a pretty good understanding of what they're feeling.

[@gordo6908]

yea, it was quite strange how he instantly discounted all meta communication

[@AmericasComic]

If you want to design like a cat, your game would wake you up at 5:00 am and force you to play with it.

[@jaysea5939]

Gacha

[@flameshana9]

Sounds like mobile games to me.

[@KATinBLACK]

Or wake you up at 5am cuz it’s breakfast time NOW

[@reinbeers5322]

Wake up at 5am so you can give your cat some spacr in the bed.

[@johannageisel5390]

Will also demand being connected to power although the battery is still full.

[@ThreeProphets]

Ubisoft empathy chart: Saying - this sucks Doing - buying Thinking - ??? Feeling - ???

[@101jir]

Ubisoft empathy chart: Saying - this sucks Doing - running into multiple, gamebreaking bugs Thinking - this is unfair! I like the concept but the bugs prevent what is supposed to happen from happening. And why hasn't it been fixed in all this time? Feeling - frustrated that a fun concept was let down by being unplayable. And betrayed that they do nothing to fix it much of the time.

[@sffc95]

10:40, a terrible waste of a pun opportunity. Come on, of the four CATegories?

[@georgplaz]

yea, i thought the same thing. and he could have mentioned that since you only see what a cat is doing, they are like a "black box", which is very potent cat joke material too

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

oh my gosh. the phrase "this video game has not been tested on animals" has probably never been uttered and now it never can

[@MuzikMann96]

it still can. Just not with this game.

[@Lunareon]

Thank you for this fun and informative talk. This proves that you really can design engaging games for anyone or anything by researching the target audience thoroughly.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

You're awfully optimistic... Either that, or you have some amazing insights into what kind of games cacti would be into. ;) But yeah, it's kinda cool. Although, for cats, you really do want to go physical rather than display based, as the tactile experience of catching the prey is an integral part of the hunt for felines.

[@xelestial5342]

26 mins well spent. The presentation is so enticing and cute

[@myriadmistress]

This surprised me with how much I liked it.

[@GodOfReality]

I like videos like this because it just talks about super obvious stuff and I'm just here thinking "wait, people aren't designing games with this approach?"

[@-Devy-]

Sometimes the most obvious things are the easiest to overlook.

[@Lovuschka]

When the meme was that the internet was made for cat videos, people wouldn't have thought about videos where studying cat behavior actually teaches you about videogame design. But here we go! Many thanks for the great talk!

[@thebluecat3925]

our cat have found interest in one game celeste... and perhaps nintendo badge arcade with some treats for button pushing "pawing"

[@theSato]

@VerumRex nice bait attempt

[@buhbo3250]

@VerumRex cool speech bro, you totally contributed to the conversation

[@georgplaz]

@VerumRex do you just walk around all day randomly insulting people off-topic and unprompted? :'D

[@georgplaz]

@VerumRex i would like to recount what happened here.. someone mentioned their cat likes celeste. you pointed out your subjective opinion, which is that the game is trash. nobody insulted you or anything, yet you proceeded to call people "soyboy" and "SJW". both in and off themselves very political insults which makes it even stranger, since nobody expressed any political opinions. and now you are saying that people in this thread have spread harmful and stupid things.. can you specifically name which of these things were "harmful and stupid"?

[@georgplaz]

​ @VerumRex you might know the objective target audience, but you can't imply that this makes the game objectively trash. also how is this part of the "post modern agenda"? this game is not part of any "agenda". the developers wanted to make a game, not send a political message, so don't imply it is a political game. and what does that now have to do with TED talks? you keep mixing in different off-topics seemingly randomly. also: you neither get to decide what constitutes a "real game" nor a "real gamer" why does it make you so angry what the target audience of a game is? why does that trigger you so much? if you don't like the game, why can't you just let it be? it seems like you feel like you are on a mission to destroy everything you don't like. where does all your anger come from? seriously, that sounds pretty exhausting to me. being so angry at everything all the time..

[@101jir]

1:22 As a consumer I get really frustrated when developers think they can hide stuff that way, but then I look at their communities and suddenly realize that I am (embarrassingly) in the minority. It isn't because they were trying to hide anything, it is because most of the community was demanding something stupid, got said stupid thing, and left when they got it. Tragic.

[@jojojo8835]

Like many businesses it’s 90% ‘active listening’ skills, being able to draw out the full story from the client who may not realise what they really want. Unfortunately people with the technical skills to code or whatever often struggle with the social skills and communication, and vice versa.

[@RaunienTheFirst]

I would just like to point out that you can actually tell how a cat feels. If their tails or ears are twitching, they are interested, and actively engaged, otherwise they're just disinterestedly watching.

[@razielhamalakh9813]

Speaker: Participate! Come on, it's more fun that way. Also speaker, after any question: You don't need to say it, just think.

[@AaronRotenberg]

That story at 0:41 hurt my soul.

[@letsbegin-nerdbunker]

My two favorite things in 1 video, Game design and kitties!!

[@Wandervenn]

I call my dnd group my "cats" because being their DM is like herding cats. I'm definitely going to use this advice going forward when planning sessions. No joke

[@Remy-mz5ug]

where is the link to the kickstarter for the big cat version?

[@TheStygian]

Wow.. some were complaining about killing virtual mice? Were talking about cats! My cats murder mice, rats, birds and bunnies... They are predators, very cute ones at that. And I bet my dogs would do the same too if they could, in fact I know of one dog who loves to catch mice!

[@tirone7520]

You shouldnt let your cat hunt. It kills for fun and it kills a lot, and it can and will kill entire species of small animals. I recommend putting a bell on your beautiful fellas as it will prevent them from destroying the small animal ecosystem. Unless youre in a rural area and you have cats to kill mice. Then sorry about my comment.

[@celinak5062]

I was shocked too at first, but that's because I'd want one with blood or maybe they can't "kill" it before they've tried to bite it. But it is just virtual hunting, so if it stops some people from getting it or stops my friends to try it on their cats and the cats don't need it. It doesn't really matter

[@draco89123]

Yea, that's when you have humans who don't understand what cats represent. They're medium tier obligate predators, and owners are getting too sucked up by the cuteness because of their caretaking instincts. Dogs are larger tier predators. It's pretty much why we domesticated them, very useful for the apex predator to enlist the next couple of tiers down. Also useful for the lower tier predators to co-opt evolution with the apex to become more appealing and develop communication.

[@infinitesimotel]

@@tirone7520 Many things kill for fun, and they would do it and do do it when you aren't there. As far as the ecosystem is concerned, the effect cats have is bordering on insignificant as to what mass industry has had serving the monetary system.

[@infinitesimotel]

Everything is a killer, all things die, life is everywhere, grow a pair, accept your fate. Stop crying about life. Have a good day.

[@zestywiggin4790]

I know this is an old talk, but I would be fascinated to see if kittens that grew up with these games continue to stay engaged in games as they get older, especially in comparison to their older counterparts who it was new to Edit: oh! He kinda touched on this at the end! Fantastic

[@shortcat]

My cat used to love watch me play Road Blasters on Sega Megadrive back in the day.

[@ladyaceina]

when there is no more room left for cat videos cats will play the games

[@Blaise2211]

5:45 Me when I watch Let's Plays xD

[@jaebigc]

I am simple slave, when I see cat I click like

[@stungunnotapplicable1953]

Not talked about: The hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of scratched tablet screens.

[@maxhuk]

Absolutely enjoyable talk. Very intelligent too 😊

[@LunarBulletDev]

Woah, doesn't seem like that right away, but this was a really great talk! Love the focus on human oriented design / emotion oriented

[@cheesedog6620]

That's a pretty big logical leap after the first test. If only one of the users even attempted to interact with the game, how does that lead to the conclusion that they want feedback? Wouldn't it be a better to entice the users interact with the game more before drawing conclusions about the nature of their interaction?

[@mattj2389]

It's probably much to interpret an interaction when you're there in person. You can see a cat lose interest and be able to deduce that it's because nothing happened after the cat attacked the screen and then conclude as such.

[@cheesedog6620]

@@mattj2389 He said only one cat interacted with it at all though. That's nothing.

[@mattj2389]

@@cheesedog6620 it's not nothing, it's one cat and it lead him to successful results. Maybe you don't know as much about what you're talking about as you think.

[@cheesedog6620]

@@mattj2389 It would have been more intellectually honest to phrase it as a question or a hypothesis than a Big Discovery.

[@mattj2389]

@@cheesedog6620 maybe you should've done the talk

[@RhymesWithHannah]

A small thought on why parents want their kids to be independent and using one of these bottles on their own. It's because we don't want to have to keep holding a bottle up to their mouth forever. It's less about my kid feeling accomplished and more about offloading a task to a less skilled teammate who can still get the job done sufficiently well.

[@cappuccinipaolo]

very cool stuff!!

[@johannageisel5390]

I guess with the experience gained from developing games for cats you can improve the developing process for games for nonverbal humans. That includes babies, but also people who suffer from some kind of disability or health issue.

[@connectivitytissues1429]

This was pretty cool..very interesting... I'll definitely check out the App and share it with my kitties...

[@kemmli]

Time to download mew and me. This is really interesting, especially since I have a 7 month old kitten and a 4 year old cat. I’m gonna see if any or both cats wants to engage with it :p

[@itsatubeuser]

Someone send this talk to blizzard before they kill all their games for good.

[@ieuanhunt552]

Man a GDC talk that does not make me want to vomit blood.

[@KentHambrock]

Using ML to detect when a cat is watching and not playing to switch the game while the cat is watching until the cat is playing would be neat, maybe also shut off the screen to save power and screen burn-in when no cats are detected would be sweet.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Should be easily doable. I had a phone years ago that would use its front cam to detect if I was watching the screen, so it wouldn't turn off if I was reading long articles etc...

[@vulduv]

12:10 wat? how does that even work? arent brains primarly analogue and focus on the change in the input from the eyes rather than capturing frames?

[@Gormathius]

Why make the cars more chrome though? Everyone knows red is da fastast colour.

[@hhehe24]

22:04 its cat zoomers holy crap

[@michaelatanasio223]

Science is amazing!

[@bewareofbear3576]

I downloaded the app and tried to show it to my cart, but she was definitely more interested in cuddling I tried to click on the dragonflies to show to get that is fun, but she looked at my fingers touching a screen and deducted that this fingers are good to rub against. She won't even look at the screen. Zero engagement. But hey, at least she loves this scene in Portal 2, when you fall through clear tunnels, and will watch it with apt interest over and over again. Not all cat games could be as good as Portal 2, i guess (to be clear, i loved this guy work, and think that everyone should try it out. It's free in playstore, and there's a good chance your car will love it! And if it don't, well. Try Portal 2, i guess)

[@Lishtenbird]

Cats are the only people we can trust.

[@moshaaah]

This means I can't trust u and ur comment....which leads me to trust ppl.... and then I will read ur comment again, and I realize that u r not a cat, so I cant trust u.... and I will trap in this loop forever

[@Lishtenbird]

@@moshaaah "On the Internet, no one knows you are a cat."

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

But some people are really cool cats...

[@TomiTapio]

Exists "Kinect + projector" enrichment games for orangutans.

[@annel1991]

Then again, cats are also made up out of different "target audiences". As someone who has worked for years in an animal shelter, cats come in all sorts and different levels of intelligence and interaction. Indoor cats are honestly more likely to be entertained by these games than outside cats are for example. In my experience, especially cats that have actually tasted blood are less likely to participate in frivolous games.

[@myew]

My people thank you. 😸

[@cattycatqueen7643]

Finally my kind has video games

[@angeloireland576]

Were can I get these games, I want to see if my cat would like to play them too

[@GlueIsRequired]

Was not expecting this.

[@UltraHylia]

I love cats ❤️

[@brannonharris4642]

Well frick. This guy looks exactly like me with a red swoop. Waddup twin.

[@bigbyrd7755]

*writes 20 page essay on the feedback systems of the Souls series in the comment section of the games for cats video*

[@jackcaffrey8493]

what games has he made?

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Can I ask you something? This is not criticism, but I'm genuinely interested in your thought process, as I see tons of people ask questions like this that can easily be answered with a simple Google search, clicking the links in the description (not applicable to this video), or typing out the URLs in his final slide. And I can't figure out why you, and people posting similar comments, wouldn't just do that? I mean, typing in that question and posting it takes a certain amount of effort. Not much, but more than simply not asking the question. This shows that you're at least somewhat interested in the answer. So why ask online in the hopes that some random stranger will be kind enough to oblige (which almost never happens) instead of e.g. just searching the guy's name online?

[@flameshana9]

@@EvenTheDogAgrees If I asked this question it would just be because I'm curious. Does anyone these days like digging through search results from a machine instead of talking to other human beings? Google has made noticeable improvements in how it tries to answer questions. And voice searches help as well, but I don't know any normal people who prefer to use a search engine over talking to a real person instead. I'm betting this all will change the day voice searches actually work the way we want them to. Technology is still an awkward thing. Another part of it (in my opinion) is how if you asked a question like this in real life, and the response was "Why don't you look it up yourself?" no matter your intention it would be offending them. Questions are innocent and casual, a part of normal every day conversation. Usually it's a passing thought, hence the length of the question itself.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@flameshana9 Thanks for the clarification. Can't say I agree with you, but at least I understand where you're coming from. Personally, I don't like to ask trivial questions in fora or comment sections for a couple of reasons. The main one being that I just don't feel comfortable asking others to do the research I can easily do myself, especially considering it will only take me a couple of minutes. The rest of the planet are not my servants, and I don't want to imply that other people's time is less valuable than mine. To me, treating others this way would be insulting them. I would have no basis to be offended by the response "google it", as I am the one who started with the insults in the first place. Then there's the aspect of immediacy. If I ask a question here, it will take some of time before I get an answer. Going by experience, odds are I'll receive the answer long after I stopped caring, if ever. Especially since people won't be very inclined to answer this type of question, as it would take them longer to type out than it would take me to look it up. So if I care about the answer to my question, I better look it up and have my answer within minutes. I do agree with you though that a conversational information retrieval interface, as often seen in sci-fi, would be a definitive improvement over what we currently have. It would be nice if we could ask the computer a question, and it would respond with a _summary_ of the information that's out there. And then we could dig deeper, or draw connections to other information by way of follow-up questions. But we're still a long way away from that utopia, unfortunately, and in the meantime I have the impression the quality of search results only seems to be dropping.

[@flameshana9]

@@EvenTheDogAgrees Yep, it's two different ways to approach it. I see a question as harmless (kind of like the saying "There's no dumb questions, only dumb answers"). In my opinion it's good to ask, rather than stay in the dark. From your view it seems like it's taking the time of the other person, which is true sometimes. Some people feel threatened by a request, while others feel bad about making a request. Neither is wrong or right, but unfortunately it's hard to go through life without your own biases getting in the way. We go by feelings, not logic. One thing I don't get is why everyone says they'll have forgotten it long before they got an answer. Sure, I forget everything a day later, but I like the idea of coming back and finding answers waiting for me. I look forward to that, even if I forgot what the question was. So essentially I don't stop caring about something once I've asked. I don't know if other people feel that way though.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@flameshana9 Your life must be full of happy surprises then. :)

[@celinak5062]

11:50 26:00 Or a projector

[@stungunnotapplicable1953]

9:54 -- that is NOT an 8-bit sprite in the sense of graphics for games on 8-bit consoles. It has way too many colors and is too large, at very least if we're talking about the NES, whose graphics limitations are well known and documented. The NES supports 8x8 sprites natively with up to 3 colors + transparency per sprite. It's possible to make 'compound' sprites of multiple individual sprites jammed together, moving in unison to exceed the limitations somewhat, but the NES would quickly start to choke and flicker sprites if you had too many sprites onscreen being rendered in any individual scanline (which isn't much -- 8 total). This happened with the moving platforms in Super Mario 3 from what I understand. Extremely large 'quasi-sprites' could also be made using clever tricks with background tiles (which must be on a grid and can't overlap, but you can basically have a separate 3 color palette for each 8x8 tile and no limit to the number per scanline) but these can't move as freely as actual sprites (they can only move smoothly by scrolling the screen), and an example of this was the dragon in Mega Man 2. There's also an upper limit on rendered sprites per screen, which from what I understand is 64. So oversized sprites, while possible, become quickly impractical as it harshly limits what else you could theoretically put onscreen. The bigger your compound sprites, the less action you can have on screen at once, and 16x16 sprites were fairly common (see The Legend of Zelda). If you look at a sprite sheet for Mega Man, you can see Capcom positioned the sprites in very clever ways to use as few sprite slots as possible for his sprites, but that's still too much for the NES sometimes, as in Dr. Wily's fortress (in Mega Man 2), the flicker appears to make Rock's face intermittently disappear in spots. Some of Rock's sprites, such as shooting, have to pack four sprites in a scanline (reminder: the limit is 8, and this doesn't count his buster shots), and eat up 10 slots of the 64 global slots available. I can almost divide the sprite up into regions of 8x8 that have 3 colors each but it really chokes at the head. Not only is there subtle shading used but the eyebrows are a different color than the border of the head (which also has two shades at the jawline -- any real NES graphics artist would be economical in their color use). Combine this with the fact that the head already is more than 8x8 sprites and you'll wind up using a huge amount of your sprite budget here. Also, the colors on that sprite don't fit the NES global color palette, size issues aside. The NES is capable of displaying only 64 specific colors.

[@Pyro_Salamander]

all my cat can teach me is how much it can shit and puke all over the house without giving a fuck that it has an entire room dedicated to food/water and the litterbox

[@AA-eq2zq]

I realize it's an old comment but in case it helps in the future: If it's doing that, it's distressed and/or sick (and likely confused). Gotta research why it might be doing that and what might not be suiting its needs.

[@trieayuningtyas833]

actually came here for 22:05

[@Alina28357]

I had a small hope that this might be about letting people let cats in games. Hopefully next year a speaker will take up this important task :(

[@nightlightXIII]

Square Enix should take pointers from this

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

LOL, imagine your cat playing RPGs. Soon it'll discover World of Warcraft, and before you know it, it'll just slouch on the couch, eating tuna and grinding for xp all day. :D

[@npc6817]

@@EvenTheDogAgrees that's actually more productive than the average cat

[@BlaZay]

@@npc6817 Touché

[@n.fejzic]

Does anyone know bottle is he using?

[@mbilbo]

21:41 can't or wont? :v

[@infinitesimotel]

Good stuff, but the core problem lies in trying to define something that can only at best be approximated.

[@bigb0ss282]

Hippie dev calls his cat FEZ. Yeah. Great.

[@griffca4814]

What can cats teach me? It's ok to drown other peoples children in small water bowls.

[@Heeppp]

Should have called it “pur-ental control.”

[@Vysair]

Now cat are treated much like family member or a friend

[@silkaverage]

purr-fect video

[@user-pc5sc7zi9j]

If an organic eye has a framecap does a brain have a clockcycle?

[@eugkra33]

Take ideas about EMPHATIC game design from a psychopathic animal that kills hundreds of other animals around your house a year for FUN!

[@nihilisticmonkeydancing9806]

Instruction unclear. Cats tail stuck in Printer.

[@itxi]

Should have called it pawrental controls

[@FuzzyGecko]

Not sure if hell see this but, Ive had cats all my life. Kittens almost always attack themselves in a mirror until a certain age then stop when they realize its not really a cat. I dont think its a learned play now will play later. I think older cats just know its nit real and not worth the energy expended for the 0 return. Watching uses no energy.

[@flameshana9]

Studying someone, asking questions, writing on a chart what your subject is thinking and feeling is not being empathetic. You're deliberately distancing yourself from them. This is the mistake most developers make: *not being a gamer themselves.* Of course you can't be a cat gamer but the whole approach was the opposite of empathetic. It was studying. To be empathetic you need to _feel_ what they feel, literally. If it was a normal game, play it. Did *you* have fun? Did *you* feel engaged? You're not a cat but it didn't even feel like you tried to put yourself in their shoes. You made something, gave it to cats, analyzed the numbers, charted the results and changed your formula. Then you tried again and analyzed the new numbers to see if it worked. Isn't that the total opposite? That's exactly what giant corporations, the most heartless of all entities do these days. They go by the numbers. Heck, your most effective change came from raw facts; you changed the visuals to make it easier to see. That's as empathetic as saying babies respond better to bright colors. It's just a plain fact. "When kids press a button and the game says 'You win!' accompanied with loud sounds they get excited." Does that have anything to do with empathy because it makes _them_ feel good? Not at all. You gotta re-think the word empathy. It means to identify with a feeling. The more you have to ask the less empathy you have. It's similar to experience. The more questions you ask the less someone would believe you have experience with a subject.

[@bensosnowski1128]

From google Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. They aimed to understand the feelings to improve their product and marketing. Seems appropriate to me

[@flameshana9]

@@bensosnowski1128 If you have to ask how they feel is it really something you have? A robot can ask a human how he feels. Doesn't mean the robot can empathize with it though.

[@bensosnowski1128]

flameshana9 if I were to ask you how you felt when reading my response, that is an attempt by me to understand how you feel. Humans aren’t magicians that can automatically know everything. Asking you to clarify your feelings is not a failure of empathy. Only by gathering information can one fully understand another. His example in the first few minutes demonstrated how you can’t always assume you know what someone is feeling/thinking. The person asked for more chrome. Only by asking for more information did they discover it was because he felt the cars didn’t feel fast enough.

[@someguy3167]

Your comment comes from a deeply flawed understanding of empathy. Empathy is not inherent, it comes from stimulus (it’s not a magic property of humanity). If I punch someone, and they cry, my empathy is not an inherent trait that comes from punching, it's a reaction to the negative stimulus of the kid crying or a learned reaction from previous experiences. If one sees a little kid getting beat up by a big kid, empathy goes to the kid who is obviously in pain. However, if a little kid punches a big kid, there is much less, or even no, empathy, because the pain is lesser or non existent. Again, the empathy comes from the fallout of an action, not the action itself. Developers do not, can not, and never will be able to inherently understand what is best for a game. Developers play their own games all the time, the problem is that they are just one or a few people. If the developers made games that they and only they liked, the game would not be fun for everyone. They can understand what would be best for the game for themselves, they can get self-stimulus, but they can not inherently know what is best for others, hence why developers need to ask questions of their players in order to understand what they want. No matter how immersed you, me, or anyone is in gaming culture, we will only understand its wants in relation to ourselves, hence why an aggregate opinion is always needed. Developers are able to see when players are not having fun with their game, the point of this talk is that simply dismissing the players in a similar way as to how the previously mentioned hypothetical people dismissed the bigger kid getting punched is bad. The developers should realize that the game has problems and ask questions similar to how one would ask questions when the little kid gets punched. "Are you ok? Where does it hurt? Why did he punch you?" Or in this case, "Do you still want to play the game? What part(s) of the game did you not like? Why do you think you did not like those part(s)?" Empathy is a reaction to stimulus that makes the person experiencing empathy understand or feel for another. A robot can react to the stimulus, but it can not actually understand or feel for another. Not until neural networks catch up to evolution. But hey, I'm just some guy; what do I even know?

[@flameshana9]

@@someguy3167 Yeah, developers can't know everything. But a lot of the time they use cheap tricks and do things like try to get their players addicted. That's the opposite of empathizing with them, it's treating them like a walking wallet. This guy analyzed test results for the pure goal of finding whatever works. Empathy is the opposite because it means putting yourself in their shoes, not using someone as a tool. Like when they make games pay to win; it gives players a feeling of power, and they only let you have it if you pay hundreds of dollars. @Ben Sosnowski _You can't assume you know what they're thinking/feeling_ That's part of the issue right there. Asking questions is understandable since you are different from other people and will never fully be able to get the way they feel. But if all you're doing is asking you're not empathizing. It's the most common problem people have with counsellors. They ask "How does that make you feel?" after everything on purpose, hence why people always say they don't have any empathy. They intentionally keep their distance so as not to get involved. When your friends or family get hurt in any way you don't go and ask them how they feel, you ask if they're okay. That's because you immediately _care_ that they got hurt. You only ask people you don't understand or care about personally. Another example is when you're very young. You understand nothing yet you can be plenty empathetic. It's why toddlers are so willing to help others. They don't know anything but empathy. It's difficult for them to grasp the details of how and why, but they still care.

[@astonbean]

His hair kind of looks like cat ears....

[@mollemannen]

is this minimal effort for gdc? first i thought he made cat games because ppl are harder to understand. after a while i started wondering why make games at all?

[@thegreatwhitedope2223]

"Empathic Game Design" - bugspeak

[@vidyagaems4063]

"bugspeak" - ghoulspeak

[@Gadgetmawombo]

Cats are cute little jerks tho. They're not what I'd call empathetic lol.

[@chocobochick5390]

depends on the purrson. lol

[@KB-zq9ny]

Maybe you should expand your definition? There may be some humans who have the emotional range of cats, and you may be missing good friendships by ignoring them.

[@IfYouWillem]

Nah they can be awesome. They just take effort

[@KrissFliss]

They get bored easily.

[@FaustoPego]

Jesus... the whole talk was the playtest process... There's nothing about empathy in game design here. Sorry, but, no, this wasn't a good talk. Well structured but awful at "empathy" with an almost intentionally misleading title.

[@luchollandsyd]

The start of it has some of the empathy

[@IfYouWillem]

Don't be mean ❤️

[@flameshana9]

Almost anyone these days who stands up on a podium and then puts their video on KZbin misuses the English language. Clickbait is an effective way to make money, or to just get attention if that's what they're craving.

[@bugjams]

Empathy is the ability to feel what others are feeling. The playtest process _was_ the part about empathy. The point is that so many devs just _don't care_ about how the players feel. At least, not to the extent they should. If you use empathy mapping and try to figure out how players feel, you'll make a better game. I read something about this in action games like First Person Shooters or MOBA's. You can make a game that is 100% balanced, but it won't be fun, because it's designed around statistical balance and numbers, and not people. Have people play it, and listen to how they say it _feels._ If a gun or ability _feels_ under/overpowered, it is. It doesn't matter if it's actually not. If the majority of players feel like something should be changed, it should be changed. Because what matters isn't true mechanical balance - it's having the players _feel_ like there's true mechanical balance. The key factor here being *most players don't know what true mechanical balance is.*

[@flameshana9]

@@bugjams That's simply because people don't want balance. They want methods that are faster or better than others. A fake feeling of power feels good, but that doesn't mean much. Mobile games for example give people cheap thrills and constant highs to keep them addicted. Carrot on a stick. Keep feeding people what they want. That's not empathy either, that's taking advantage of them which is quite the opposite. Even if you harmlessly appeal to a base instinct to make a game fun (like chasing a moving object) that still doesn't mean empathy. You're not involved. Empathetic behavior involves _you_ personally, and that's something you can't say you're doing if you're not playing the game too, or in this case being a pet owner yourself. The designers showed no personal interest in the subject and treated it like a random poll on the internet. A machine can and does collect that same kind of data. KZbin (and Google) are prime examples of using machines to make cold, heartless yet effective decisions. They take pictures of you with your camera to see how you react to things you watch. Is that empathetic at all? No, it's literally a robot's way of analyzing us. This is just collecting data to keep you playing the game longer. Or giving a child a lollipop to make him happy so he stays quiet for a car ride.

[@CorsairSoul]

Eyes are not digital.

[@MarkChimes]

Yeah "60fps" was strange. Probably means that below that framerate, the cats seem to pick up on flickering.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

First of all, allow me to out-pedantic you. :D A film projector typically runs at 24FPS and is also not digital. What you probably meant to say is "eyes do not see in discrete frames". That said, what he obviously meant is that cats can detect faster motion, and 60fps is more or less required for a smooth experience when it comes to cats. It also surprises me you didn't pick up on the grammatical error on the slide: "turns out cats are semi colour-blind, [...] are primarily motion based". Obviously their vision is, not the cats themselves.

[@CorsairSoul]

@@EvenTheDogAgrees A film projector runs on discrete frames because the actual film tape has frames.

[@Pablo360able]

Eyes have a refresh rate

[@TheGuindo]

@@CorsairSoul it means if a video's framerate is under 60 fps, cats won't perceive smooth motion; they need video at a higher framerate than humans do to eliminate flickering. saying it the way he did is a shorthand and one that is used pretty commonly when speaking about this particular subject.

[@FizzleFX]

Cats are cruel monsters...

[@ruslanbes]

Don't show it in EU - they will tell you that you collected the personalized data of cats without their explicit consent and will put an incomprehensible penalty.

[@LANstorm.]

nothing.

[@SomeSayApple]

Am I the only one thinking about the resources and energy "wasted" on entertaining cats like that the whole day? I love cats and the guy seems cool, but oh man...

[@alexbuhl1316]

imagine the resources and energy wasted when the cat decides to entertain themself with the curtains...

[@TheGuindo]

well, first of all, a bored cat is a destructive cat, so making sure they have something to keep them entertained while you're away at work all day is actually beneficial to you, the owner, as well. Secondly, why is it 'wasted'? there's a huge market for physical cat toys - just take a look in the pet shop's cat section some time and see how many there are to choose from. you might not think so, but a lot of R&D goes into designing those things - they have to design something cats will be drawn to, design it to be cat-proof so it won't break and hurt them if they bite or claw it especially hard, design variations that will appeal to different cats' preferences, test, refine, etc. is that also 'wasted' resources and energy because it's all going to entertainment for cats? personally, i like knowing that my cats aren't bored and have things to entertain themselves with while i'm gone all day. they're living better lives that way.

[@perydwyn]

Christ. This was cringy. No wonder so many game devs are failing.