If you want a good FPS, use close combat!

A fascinating study by Emsense, a tech company dedicated to measuring brainwaves, found that most successful first person shooter games use close combat and a significant amount of fear to engage players.

Take these examples from Halo 2 and Gears of War. The study says:

It was no surprise to us that the three games in this study widely considered “game of the year” (Gears of War, Halo 2, and Half-Life 2) all designed and executed exceptional melee weapons to encourage or force close combat…

For instance, in both Halo 2 and Gears of War, players were rewarded with an instant kill for using the energy sword and chainsaw. An energy sword kill in Halo 2, for instance, evoked 30 percent more recorded positive emotion and reward than the genre benchmark…

In addition, Gears of War players recorded high emotional reward for the spray of enemy blood after they succeeded.

Perhaps most importantly, Emsense found that the same engagement parameters could be easily translated to multiplayer. Success in FPS games, single or multiplayer, can be boiled down to a formula of engaging the players in visceral combat.

This may seem elementary at first glance, but Emsense actually measured the level of engagement per level of certain games, allowing the company to point out shoddy game design piece-by-piece. In particular, tutorial levels that took place in a low-intensity environment found gamers extremely turned off.

Good game developers figured out long ago that most people don’t have patience for huge manuals and tutorials anymore, but some are still cranking out boring “how to play” sequences.

First, and most obviously, players who don’t know how to play the game consistently have lower recorded engagement levels throughout their play session, as they continue to struggle to immerse themselves in gameplay, even after the introductory tutorials and levels have finished.

Second, long and boring tutorials delay the first moment of engagement, that critical moment when players realize they can indeed be immersed in this game. In some games we’ve tested, the first strongly engaging event does not occur until 20 minutes into the experience, a lifetime for a gamer who just wants to have fun.

To people who play games all the time, this is old news. However, it has some important business implications. If sales can be correlated to engagement, developers can make FPS games that better cater to adrenaline junkies, and both parties can get more of what they want out of the transaction.

Read the full study at Gamasutra.