What Can Game Designers Learn from Competitive Reality Shows

[Music] hello everyone my name is and i want to talk a little bit about what can game designers learn from competitive reality show before i start i want to acknowledge the land in which i'm speaking to you uh is from the traditional territory of many nations including the mississauga of the credit the anishinabe the chipwa the other and the one that people and is now home to many diverse first nations innovate and mate people i would also like to acknowledge that toronto also known as sacramento is covered by 2013 with this mississauga of the credit so who am i uh my name is as i mentioned i'm an assistant professor at york university in canada i'm also an experimental game designer i'm currently working on games that are made

in non-traditional game engine uh the current one uses miro and i made games in excel as well and bots that examine issues around ai ethic i am not going to talk about any of those here but rather i'm going to draw of my love of trashier the trashier side of tv which frankly i do not consider to be trash at all and examine the game design of specific reality show as i believe that there is a lot we can learn from them uh this to say not this talk came to be because i really like survivor and i'm trying to convince more people to watch it uh i should know that i try to make this talk um intro into a more practical look at this show with the idea that by the end of this talk you will come out with some idea of how you can use those game to implement uh your own in your own design but i only have about half an hour so probably only wet your appetite and interest on the topic or just make you think that it's not worth your time i'm also an academic

so sometimes i can't have myself an overcomplicated thing so um on august 23rd at 2000 more than 50 million americans watched the final of the first season of survivor making it a cultural milestone and birthing the age of reality shows it seems silly nowadays but looking back at the popularity of the first few seasons of survivor and later big brother the made the participant of this show used celebrity if only for a very short while and managed for at least a few years to dominate the tv landscape until eventually being replaced by prestige tv it is important to note uh survivor was certainly not the first very popular reality show out there um i want to give credit to the real world uh but and can also be argued that game show also can fit into the term reality show um and i think some of them uh i can think of something like the crystal maze is well worth exploring

um so this to say reality shows are still being produced uh for one thing they're cheaper to produce uh well a survivor uh at this point has huge amount of people working for it uh it's still cheaper than working on a more prestige tv drama um and and a lot of them also share production with other countries so uh the the cost of running a reality show is still enormously less than other type of show they're still very popular well they do not reach the height of popularity and buzz that they had in the early 2000s they are still very successful um and a huge part of the media landscape and they still get a really high rating um i think survivor is still one of the highest rated shows on wednesdays uh they prove that they're here to say survivor has 40 seasons big brother the american version has 22. uh this circle is a huge hit for netflix

uh and then like shows like rupaul drag race the great british aircraft etc uh we do not talk about the cultural impact for both good and bad and very bad realities show have affected our culture uh by all accounts the image of the former president of the united states uh and which helped him get elected was heavily influenced by the image constructed by a reality show um there is a and lastly we can there's a lot we can teach they can teach us uh their design can teach us how to improve our own design um there's a lot of thing we can analyze and critique about the shows from issues of race colonialism and gender to the evolution of strategic gameplay for the sake of this this talk i'm going to focus on how competitive reality show which i will describe in the next section create emerging gameplay and our player agency affect the overall automatic game i'm going to look at the way the players interact with the system of rules set by the designer of the game now they use

those to create their own rule and game dynamic while those rules of the show do not change that much the way the player used them and interact with each other is ever changing creating surprising new interaction in narratives so let's talk about our competitive reality shows first what do i mean so there's many genre of reality shows um and their popularity tend to change over time from the uh documentaries like shows where there's very little production interference like the real world skill based competition like paul drag race the great british bake off american idol etc uh which are probably the most popular nowadays uh sub upper style like taco soap and celebrity reality uh like the kardashian and the real housewife uh which mimic uh sort of deliberately tries to mimic the appearance and structure of a soap opera uh home improvement show which there's a full channel just for those kinds of shows dating show like the bachelor to

how to handle marriage on first sight etc uh and there's many other um uh genre in it i would like to focus on one specific type of reality show which i call competitive reality show uh which might be a sub genre it's a bit hard to quantify but those are competitive show in which ordinary people compete to win a prize usually a cash one and they have a strong game like elements to them uh with a specific game mechanic the idea of entering the magic circle strategy procedural regenerated uh contact and etc um so what are the specific elements of the show how do we differentiate them from other types of reality genre so the first one is the prize the show will generally involve a large cash prize uh this will not include job offer collection etc but but strictly money uh which survivor

probably has the largest prize which was a million dollar and i think 20 40 was 2 million um because the amount of hardship they have to deal with and they offered affect the the amount they get uh and i think like the circle is uh much less i think it's like 100k uh or the the second element is ordinary people the contestants do not have specific skill and are often chosen for personality and archetype they embody and the last thing which is probably the biggest thing is immunity in which contestant can win the right to be exempt the next time uh a contestant might be eliminated from the show this allowed for strategic gameplay as the players are not only trying to not lose but also to get immunity uh in my opinion as i said this is the element which allows the game to become complex strategic game as players are not only trying to win not to win to win or to lose but also trying to be safe and or trying to

prevent other players from uh being safe uh i'm gonna there's a few shows that feed the bill survivor obviously as i mentioned the amazing race big brother the american version canadian version not the more international version uh the circle um but for the sake of time and keeping the top focus i will only focus on to show survivor in the circle uh for one thing i'm the most familiar with them um and while there's a lot to say about big brothers specifically um but the two different version of the show and my lack of familiarity with the american canadian version i felt i'm not an expert enough on those shows to talk about them um i also think there's something fitting in talking about the oldest and the newest show of the genre so level of engagement um you can look at those shows and games before the distinctive distinct level of

engagement the producer the player the editor and viewer with each level uh separately contributing and helping with the success of the show the producer who act as both the game dungeon master and the game designers they are there to design the rule of the game and make sure they are followed as well as making sure the production of the show is running smoothly i call this category producer but it includes almost everyone involved in the overall production of the show uh the behind the scene that includes survivor vast medical staff and the poor person whose job is to describe what the players in the circle say uh while they are mostly silent though hack acts as their face and reinforcers uh sort of we can look at them as the main dungeon masters and their job is to guide the player make sure that the game is run smoothly and mention and maintain the uh illusion of reality in a make-believe situation uh in some cases like jeff proff's

survivor the host is also the executive producer and his control is much bigger than other oauths and it can even change or modify rules on the fly the amount of control the producers have is different from show to show and reports of producer interference is always part of the conversation around this show survivor especially was accused many times of having the production interference uh and interfere and change the outcome of the vote this has never been proven uh big brother has also been accused and frankly the producer interference fairness is a lot more visible there there are actually quite a lot of fan theory around producer interference which i won't get into the second level engagement is the players the players are the people chosen to play the game they are the one who produced the majority of the uh emerging there's gameplay humane moment they're

wonderful strategic element and some of them are extremely uh unpleasant like a consensus being outed as a trans man um i don't have time to specifically talk about the casting process but with a lot of them players are chosen chosen to fulfill a specific archetype and are often presented um that way uh in our recent tick tock uh kelly wayne's world uh survivor contestant mentioned how she uh was uh her architect was the former daughter and so she was only allowed to bring in clothes that fit that archetype the next one are the editors the players are often filmed 24 7 and the editor job is to distill this narrative into chunk of about 45 minutes depending on the show which tells the viewer everything that happened in the span of few days and craft a coherent narrative from the footage they have

the editor have full control to pick and choose how to tell the narrative but the narrative is also completely dependent on the player action themselves if the flare players have nothing to show even the most interesting editing won't help with crafting an interesting story and the last ones are the viewers uh the last level of government is the audience itself which engage with the show is linear entertainment sort of as a spectator in a sport event and have no power to control the narrative of the show but can engage in participatory action when the need arise uh example anything like voicing their opinion on social media and as well as creating games based on their show which i will talk about in later section so how does this mechanic of the game encourage player engine agency and create an emerging narrative how does the intention of the designer and the player uh interaction with the

game affect the gameplay um and so before i give specific example let's talk a little bit about what it means when i talk about emergent uh this is sort of my definition mixed with a lot of other definition and some of you might say oh this is wrong that's okay uh but this is just sort of to put us in the same place um in the simplest term emergent is when the game allows the player to craft their own experience in the game it is the unexpected outcome of player interaction with the system of rules set but the designer emergent is sort of a buzzword nowadays as game companies are looking more and more into procedural technique which will allow them to prologue player engagement with their product the problem with that is that unlike crafted story emerging stories and systems are not something we necessarily know how to design and even how to approach it in a way that creates an engaging play experience so the single most important act of emergence in survivor

happen in the first season and it definitely defined not just the show but the genre itself uh initially survivor was built as the greatest social experiment on the planet a show in which group of ordinary americans are left stranded and main island has to build a new society um most players took it to heart and while they voted up a player everywhere those players were generally the people who could not handle the physical and social aspect of the game it was richard hatch the eventual winner who understood something that not even the producer did survivor is not a social experiment about who can survive in the wilderness rather it is a complex strategic game and in order to win you need to deploy gemstrip the theory strategy like the prisoner's dilemma in the nash equilibrium on day 10 he formed a plan which led to his victory from a voting bloc or an alliance with three other members of his tribe for the rest of the season the four-person alliance dominate the game vote out

everyone else until there were only four left at this point their lines were shattered and the game became an individual game and while this character considerably evolved since then the concept of alliance become a pivotal part of survival and other competitive show like big brother the amazing race so there are other reason why that season was a resounding success um it was richard had strategy that cemented survivor success in his cultural influence it also formed its core gameplay loop creating alliance and understanding which path you need to follow in order to win the game uh and it was probably the main factor in survival longevity as it made the game interesting um another uh uh sort of emerging thing that actually caused a new uh mechanic to be introduced was uh in i believe season nine uh which was palau uh and in this case the one of the tribes the oolong tribe just couldn't

win uh they basically lost every immunity challenge in the game uh and one by one they were just decimated until there was only one uh one uh tribe member left stephanie lagrosso uh and because there was no merge because there was just nothing left of that tribe um stephanie had to stay one full day at the island bite by herself um surviving by herself and uh sort of uh shining a new light on the hardship of the setting um and it was such a poignant um tv moment that uh the producers saw that and actually sort of introduced they never said it is but they did uh introduced a new mechanic which is the xy island in which players have to stay by themselves along on an island for a day um

uh and and that mechanic already was introduced the next episode uh and sort of became kind of a a main mechanic of the game for at least a few more seasons until sort of it became kind of redundant um but um but yeah uh that's an example a really good example of how that mechanic how the player and what happens in the game can lead to new mechanics there's also there's countless other uh examples this is just a few of them um in the circle uh again fairly new um shell so we don't really have that many examples but uh we know that the idea of the catfish mechanic where players can play as different people and not as themselves was a huge success at least in my opinion when um when two players who plays catfish go on a date a virtual date so

uh alex uh was playing as adam uh alex was married a married man and um a straight married man he was married he played as adam like a very handsome uh single dude and he had the ability to go on a dinner date with one of the player and he chose rebecca because they sort of had a connection uh rebecca was also a catfish who was actually seburn who was her rebecca's boyfriend um [Music] so um [Music] basically they there was a bunch of awkward flirtation and some really inappropriate questions um and they sort of started this fake relationship again if you have seen the circle they can't see each other um and in terms of the show rebecca pretended to be completely crazy over adam while adam accurately tries to keep

the relationship going uh eventually um adam was um was alex was cut from the game uh cyborn actually was a finalist but um these two guys going on the day these two uh not single guys going on the date both playing totally different characters was just there was tv gold frankly so uh a little development of the gameplay so i want to look a little bit about the development of gameplay strategy from setting up the alliance in season one of survivor to the far more complex strategy deployed today in most of those games like shifting alliance etc um the simple mechanic and the player interaction means that the strategy of the games evolve over the years um and i wanted to give give a quick overview of those um i should not most of this is based on survivor and a bit of big brother as the circle is still fairly new but i won't be surprised if it

follows the same trajectory just to say you know i might be completely wrong um so one thing to note is uh the way the game is played in season one really affects the way in which the game will be perceived in in later season in season 1 nobody knows what to do and the overall theme of the game will be determined so in season 1 of survivor richard hatch forming an alliance uh cemented the game as a strategic game that is based around alliances and uh making alliances and breaking them uh with the circle for example a joy of niceness as well in his friendship with siobhan sort of made the circle a far more wholesome game um and far more i would say soft games or um and and while the game is actually fairly different in international version um

even today uh when you play when you watch season two of the circle that particular strategy have been being genuine and nice uh continues even if there's more complex strategies uh by season two strategies are more refined players make less mistake but there's still a few cases that will show a future player what not to do so in survivor for example joe colby chose tina and not the goat uh which was uh keith and i won't talk exactly what the goat dynamic is uh and in the circle for example uh the use of jack kind of um was playing emily a very sweet uh um like sorority girl uh uh failed the makeup challenge and sort of outed himself as a cat fish um and faces are introduced and it's usually a much better season

season three the mechanics and strategy are more refined and dominant strategy is emerging and this is where the game kind of gets a bit stale um and so at this point new twists are introduced in order to counter it so uh in season three of survivor um the dominant strategy at this point was begunning which is that one strong tribe will vote out one bigger tribe to vote out the smaller tribe and so they had to um um introduce a new mechanic uh which is the tribe swap which is nowadays uh a a mechanic in the game uh which will uh make players basically uh have more shift in their lives and not just be only with their alliance with the original tribe uh by season four new strategies are introduced uh probably as a twisted and

dominant strategy this was very apparent in season four of survivor where um the uh the smaller tribe uh managed to basically vote out the bigger tribe by uh having two um two members of the bigger tribe join them as an alliance uh in season one twists are more common strategy is getting more complex but no dominant strategies start to emerge so in seven season five of survivor um the uh there was the strategy of begoning still exists but also a new strategy emerged which was goat which is basically chosen the weaker player to sit with you at the end so you will definitely vote get the votes so it's important to note a little bit of a dominant strategy uh dominant strategy is the optimal move for individual regarding of how the other player acts uh and they will make quickly make your

game still and so they need to be neutralized as fast as you can um in reality show it's often done by adding a twist in survivor it was the tribe swap and then idols and many others the circuses and two introduce the joker um and big brother is filled with them uh the dominant strategy can also create uncomfortable and often ugly situation when players are too observed observed in the reality created in the game to understand the repercussion of their behavior uh the most planted example was season 39 of survivor where the strategy was for the big player to be kept over the strong players so the player in the middle will have greater chance to win which is a fairly uh regular strategy uh in both survivor and big brother but it doesn't make the most interesting of games uh in this case mean keeping the player that was accused of sexual harassment over a strong player who happened to be the person who was harassed um so a weak player was kept in the game despite action that went beyond

strategic uh just because everyone knows they can win against him and the person who accused him was voted out because she was a strong strategic player um reality show at the game so um can those show work as more interactive game the answer is both yes and no the answer is yes but we have to look what fenn have done sorry um rather basically survivor does have an official release a a video game or interactive game i think there's two of them um that follows the original mechanic of the game it's very very bad it's available to play on i believe archive.org i i post a link at the end um and so this was an example but it didn't work but it doesn't mean that um the mechanics of survivor cannot work in those uh uh in order circle and stuff like that but we rather we want to look at what

the fans have done so some examples are uh for example survivor alexa which was a fan alaska sorry a fanfic that used dice to determine the result of each no of a vote uh survivor edging which slightly unfortunate name but it's an editing meta game in which player analyze the editing of the show to determine the winner uh there's a few survivor larps or tabletop rpgs uh like survivor college edition and survivor quarantine which allow player to play an online usually in zoom version of survivor and there's videos of those online you can watch them and there's the circle discord which is a larp uh tabletop rpg that is played on discord so let's so what can we learn from all of this so first of all pay attention to your player and they're the one who's going to make them break your game um and

like it's especially very important in in reality show as the casting really changes how the game is every season because the rules don't change that much we can trace the way in which strategies evolved in these games which can be very useful when looking at games with strong strategic elements of temporal competition of sort uh dominant strategy will be introduced um some ways of the show try to come to them uh for example these in the circle because uh players especially catfish players can uh can just coast and just like be nice um the producer actually used the weekly minigames uh which are usually like fairly nonsickle to uh out one of the cat fish uh player who did not prepare well um for um being a cat face so jack not knowing how to put on um makeup

this will mean that next time players who are catfishing will have to make sure they're really prepared um in survivor the dominant strategy of begoning i mentioned this before uh is um was uh sort of uh twisted by having uh the tribe swap and so making a lines that are more dynamic uh four if the mechanic can only be countered by one dominant strategy then remove it from the game uh at edge of ex extinction in survivor a when losing players are sent to another island and have the chance to come back to the game really has one way for the player to win by giving up immunity in the last tribal council and so by the second time this uh this strategy appeared um people were really the players themselves really disliked it and basically the mechanic was cancelled uh five just because a mechanic was successful or unsuccessful in one season

doesn't mean the dynamic in the next season would be the same uh one world in survivor was a great idea but the player the season were so full the plan didn't work uh exa island was a great concept but it runs course fairly quickly uh a very good mechanic will last a six a very good mechanic will allow strategy to become complex and again to not be standing seven uh simplicity is key for a merchant but messy game can work if the overall gameplay compensates for the messiness uh big brother and survivor are very messy uh with a lot of useless twists but if the contestants are interesting and there's enough interesting strategy uh the people you'll be forgiven um uh survivor fiji has the worst twist in the game but since the player were interested and over gameplay was good it's not a bad season despite being so messy um eight it doesn't matter if the gameplay

is good if the player are bad the game is no longer enjoyable survivor world apart a pretty good strategy and gameplay but everyone involved was so helpful that it become an unpleasant viewing experience uh the games are often unfair but if the narrative is well constructed and the game isn't interesting enough the player will forgive you uh for example no player in the circle often do not have a chance to win and luck plays a big role in survivor give the player 10 give the player freedom but make sure that you still have control without being obvious about it it increases the game on the mechanic is a way to make sure you're still in control over the overall gameplay um the idol in survivor is a good example you've given a player enough freedom how to use it but you're the one who decides where it is and how many there will be in the game um a little bit uh harder in the circle because there's only two seasons uh something sometimes and eleven um

moderation is important something really bad thing will happen and you need to anticipate them and stop them uh the mess of season 13 of survivor would have been maybe not so awful if the producer would have kicked out dan the first time he inappropriately touched female players okay before i finish uh just a bunch of links uh this is some of the stuff i use or some of the uh connection uh some of the um videos and stuff i looked out uh once you have the um the slides you can check the link and uh thank you very much uh if you have any question i will be in the qa after and this is all my information where you can find me on social media or the internet [Music]