Holly G. Miller. "Games: Masters and Players Match Wits Online." In _Online Today_ magazine ("A CompuServe Publication Printed Monthly/Online Daily"), February 1989. Pages 20–25. ISSN 0891-4672. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/Online_Today_Vol_08_02_1989_Feb/page/n22 on 2019-12-13. If you call Beth Pickett a witch, you'll not only get away with it, but you'll probably earn a in return. She's died a dozen deaths for the title and has lived to laugh about it. Today she counts among her friends a few thieves, some Good Samaritans, several noble avengers, and a wandering ruffian or two. After a year of slaying dragons, she is still mesmerized by the fun of it all. Debbie Deutsch's idea of the sporting life is hunting fowl in the mines of Torii and pursuing griffin in the dungeons of Annwn. She's good at it, too. She dreams of the day when she can hear the mournful howl of a hobgoblin after she's dealt the rascal his fatal blow. She claims that thoughts of the office and problems with the plumber who won't return her calls drain away when she spots a covey of critters poised for attack. "Should I stand or run? What is the best way to fight them? I've got to decide quickly because they'll be on me in one round," she says. "I've been wounded! Should I attempt to escape, try to patch myself up, or continue fighting?" The office scene fades, and the plumber is put on hold as she deliberates. Someone once joked that computer games appeal mostly to adult boys and teen-aged men. But don't tell that to Deutsch, "Ulrig" to her pals on the _Island of Kesmai_, or to Pickett, known as "Evangelin" among living _British Legends_. Deutsch and Pickett are typical of the new wave of enthusiasts who tune out when they log on to join in the fun of computer gaming. Part of the attraction is escape, part is entertainment, and part is exercising wits against players around the country. Making friends in the process is a nice little bonus. If there was ever such a thing as a "typical" gamer, he's changing. And so is the industry. It's growing at a breathless pace, is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and is gaining acceptance as a legitimate business as well as a valid pastime. "The average computer gamer fits into two categories: male college grads in their 30s and teen-age boys," says Russell Sipe, publisher of _Computer Gaming World_. At age eight, the publication is the oldest computer game magazine in the country, which says something about the industry. "Gaming is still a hobby heavily dominated by males," adds Sipe, "but more women are becoming involved, especially in the role-playing games as opposed to the simulation or strategy variety. There are a number of products out there now that were either designed by women or designed with women in mind." To Sipe, gaming is a pastime as well as a profession. He studies its indicators, tracks its ups and downs, and is considered to be one of its veteran spokesmen. He takes issue with the assumption that all gamers indulge their hobby as an escape from reality, and he uses himself as an example to prove otherwise. He's happy with his lifestyle, he says, and isn't looking for ways to dodge it. Still, he's an avid fan. "At age 37 and being a few pounds overweight, I recognize that my chances of quitting my job and going into the Air Force as a pilot are zero," he admits. "So a game lets me experience a life I can't sample otherwise. The same is true of economics simulations. I'm probably never going to be one of the 100 richest men in America, but I can play with the same problems they do, thanks to a simulation." If games aren't solely for escape, neither are they just for entertainment. Some are downright mind-boggling in the demands they make on a player's ability to act and react to high pressure situations. A colorful scenario is created; a harrowing conflict is devised; life, death or annihilation are the options; and the resolution is up to the player. Gaming has come a long way, and anyone who hasn't succumbed to its lure since Pacman gobbled quarters and devoured blocks of time is in for a surprise. The good old days — in this case the early 1980s — are gone forever. "Changes have been coming for some time now," says Sipe. "Back in 1982 or so, we strategy gamers tended to be a very small minority in an industry dominated by hand-eye coordination arcade games. The arcade crash came in 1983 and, from that point until now, strategy and simulation games have been on a steady growth pattern. We're seeing some arcade elements coming back with the Nintendo situation, but I see strategy games continuing to grow." Making sense of the industry's evolution comes down to the old chicken and egg question. Which came first? Whether gamers outgrew the products and nudged developers to create more sophisticated challenges or whether the developers taught players to stretch their minds by offering increasingly difficult games, is anyone's guess. The result has been the same: As quickly as players have mastered the games, they've wanted to move on to something bigger, better, more demanding, more complicated. This has led many gamers to online products. "The advantage to online games is that they run on mainframes that will support much larger, more sophisticated programs," says Beth Pickett. "That's why I prefer them. Online gaming allows far more possibilities in terms of creativity and imagination both for programmers and players. To me, store-bought games are now merely interesting; online games are fascinating." But they, too, can be mastered and outgrown. No one knows this better than Bob Maples, creator of _BlackDragon_, one of the first games to be offered on CompuServe. When Maples designed _BlackDragon_ it was for his personal use as dungeon master for a group of friends who gathered every Friday night in Washington, D.C., to play _Dungeons and Dragons_. Record-keeping was becoming time-consuming, so Maples decided to write a program that would help ease the burden. He got caught up in the exercise and soon was generating characters, monsters and maps. "It dawned on me that this would be fun just to do with a computer," he recalls. "So I added magic items, mazes, traps, pits, and an element so a bat could come along and drop on the player at some random location every once in a while." He was surprised at the work involved in creating and debugging the game program. Professionally he had designed telephone switching systems with more than 1 million lines of code, and while online computer games don't approach that size, they have a similar complexity factor, he says. Two years and a half-dozen program versions later, _BlackDragon_ was up, running and causing a stir online. Feedback was positive: Men seemed to enjoy confronting monsters, and women liked bartering with vendors and accumulating points to gain strength. Other successful games followed, each with its own gee-whiz elements and cache of surprises. Then the emphasis shifted to multiplayer games. "Players are becoming more sophisticated," says Maples. "There are products out there now that have lights, sound, color graphics and all sorts of neat stuff. I may do a multiplayer version of _BlackDragon_ at some time in the future and put in all the things I've always wanted but never had time for." This kind of constant updating, expansion and tweaking of existing game programs is what sets online gaming apart from standard retail products. Changes are sometimes suggested by players during online dialogue with developers; or they may be innovations devised by the games' creators; or they might spring from focus group members who meet with CompuServe personnel in key cities around the country. Mary Morgan, market research analyst for CompuServe, visits twice a year with randomly selected CompuServe subscribers in Boston, Chicago, Columbus, San Francisco and Tampa. She's a trained listener who asks a lot of questions, takes a lot of notes and reports her findings to the decision-makers at company headquarters. The subject of games is a popular one. "I ask players if they had a wish list, what would be on it?" says Morgan. "What types of games would they like to play if they had the chance, and what kinds of enhancements would they like to see added to those already online? After the meeting, I write a summary of what I've found out, and it is routed to the managers involved in that area." She believes the online gaming market is changing. Some changes are slow — the number of female players has increased by 4 percent in the seven years she has tracked the numbers — and some are rapid. Gamers now want enhancements that duplicate what they can get in commercial software. They want color, sound and graphics. They want to hear hobgoblins howl, see the sparkle of uncovered loot and watch loathesome monsters slither across the screen. They also want variety. Even if they play only one game, they want other choices available. Even if they have no children, they want products suitable for young people. Even if they don't like trivia, they want the option of declining it. "It's like going to the supermarket and knowing you're not going to buy everything on the shelf, but you still want to know it's there," says Morgan. Comments coming from veteran gamers often address their insatiable appetite for more of everything. When "Alyce Blue Gossamer" (a.k.a. Alyce Cresap) and her pals in the _You Guessed It!_ studio lobbied for more questions (they had memorized most of the old ones), they got their wish. Jim Howard, one of the game's creators, was given the assignment of concocting new questions, quips and scenarios. Howard (a.k.a. "Eraserhead") enlisted the wits of four free-lance writers around the country to help him freshen the file of 6,000 game questions. "In the past, we've tended to get a lot of music, sports and movie questions," says Howard. "Those are the big three. So, I've tried to encourage the writers to work in other areas. We now have about 50 general subject categories, and 10 of them have more than 200 questions apiece in them. We'd like to get more questions out of the areas that haven't been hit as hard. That gives us a more balanced game." Designing questions for _YGI!_ fans would be easier if Howard and his staff had a more precise profile of the "typical" player. "I have never been able to figure out if there _is_ a typical _YGI!_ player," he admits. "I think we get more women than a lot of other games. Everyone seems to share a good sense of humor, and we seem to draw a number of people who aren't particularly computer-oriented. This is great, because I'm certainly not very technical. In fact, only one of our writers is. Our players log on to talk, crack jokes and have a lot of fun. They're not there to download software." Whether the online environment is populated by spoofy _YGI!_ characters or the spooky _Kesmai_ kind, hours of work have gone into each brief scenario. _Kesmai_ spans four lands and boasts a cast of thousands of computer-run creatures. Its creators, Kelton Flinn and John Taylor, spent years developing the game in the computer lab at the University of Virginia, while simultaneously earning graduate degrees. Which took priority — studies or game — was never determined, but they left campus with degrees and game in hand. Their product was so complicated that even after they sold CompuServe on its merits, they had to totally rewrite the game to make it fit a commercial environment. "It's close to being the ultimate game," says Flinn. "It's not the 'be-all or end-all' game, but I think it's about as far as anyone can push current technology. It's about as complicated as a game can be on a commercial system.'' And that's all part of the challenge of being a developer for a product like _Kesmai_. You go as far as the hardware allows, then you wait. As the technology gets better, so must your game. Even when a product is done, it's never finished. "We don't feel we're designing games," corrects Flinn. "We're designing simulations. We create a world and then we let the players roam around in it. Of course, we're always adding to our view of the world, fiddling with things all the time, creating new treasures, making things work better. I suppose at some point you have to call a halt and say, ‘Let's see if we want to make a clean break and try something bigger.' But we haven't reached that stage yet." To keep the players updated on the innovations in both technology and programs, the various online games forums have grown in importance. Gamers Forum Administrator Patricia Fitzgibbons, an expert on what's hot and what's not in the gaming industry, calls attention to both by designating monthly _Hot_ topics (GO GAMERS). After that, the friendly free-for-all begins. "Usually a _Hot_ topic is a subject or game that has been ‘heating up' the message board," Fitzgibbons explains. "At times, I've set up a _Hot_ topic and it has become so active that I've created a permanent new section of the message board for it. Cartridge Games is an example of that. Occasionally I choose a _Hot_ topic because I feel that a subject or game has potential to attract a lot of interest, but really hasn't taken off yet." Another new idea initiated by Fitzgibbons has been the Play-by-Mail Forum (GO PBMGAMES), created to serve the growing segment of gamers that has found playing via electronic mail rather than surface mail is faster and more fun. Players engage in diplomacy, make and break alliances, and send their moves to the game companies, all online. The Game Vendors Forum (GO GAMVEN) is the latest addition to the gamers' support system. Here, game companies, such as Electronic Arts, SubLOGIC, Epxy, Sierra On-Line, Lucasfilm Games, Activision, Mindscape, Spectrum-HoloByte and Accolade, support their own creations. Players can get the scoop on new products, read announcements about when certain games will be available for certain machines and preview game demo programs in the library. Customer-support representatives, project coordinators, designers and other technical staff are present in GAMVEN to answer questions. Perhaps the most welcome visitors to any of the forums are the veteran players, and game operators who take time to help novices learn their way around. "I frequent the Multi-Player Game Forum (GO MPGAMES) and answer questions from new players and keep everyone informed of upcoming changes in _Mega3_," says Doug Banker, gameop of the futuristic war game, _MegaWars III_ (GO MEGA3). Banker, an expert player, was elevated to his current position more than two years ago and has been instrumental in bringing about many of the changes and improvements in the game since then. He serves as a liaison among the players, Kesmai Corp. (originators of the game) and CompuServe. He fields questions, supplies answers, communicates ideas and tests new versions. He keeps veteran players active by pointing out innovations, and simultaneously draws newcomers to the galaxy by removing the fear factor. Such interactivity is typical of online gaming, and it has helped to ease the growing pains of the games industry. It also provides the single most important asset of online gaming: friendship. At least that's what the players say. Holly G. Miller, a free-lance writer and college professor from Anderson, Ind., is a contributing editor of _The Saturday Evening Post_ and _Indianapolis_ magazine. Her CompuServe User ID number is 70007,2345.