The Mass Effect: Are We Decieved by Huge Numbers in Video Games?

Editor's note: Trevor considers the growing numerical arms race in games -- more guns, more XP, more players -- and if those rising numbers are a selling point. -Demian

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17 million guns. Really? Who heard that there were going to be 17 million guns in Borderlands and immediately pre-ordered it? It didn't make any impression on me. Huge numbers are a growing trend in gaming these days -- I can't even kill someone in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 without getting thousands of experience points. Do we gamers really love big numbers that much? After the jump, I'll look at a few more examples of numerical inflation in games, and determine if all the extra zeros paid off....

Borderlands:

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When Borderlands was first announced, developer Gearbox promised an unprecedented 250,000 guns in the game. The latest gun count is 17,750,000. Someone over-delivered. Borderlands creates this arsenal on the fly with a process called procedural generation, which takes into account six factors: color, length, weight, ammunition, manufacturer, and statistics. Statistically, there are many very similar guns in Borderlands, which is why I'm not enthralled by the massive amount of weaponry.

Did the big numbers work? Not for me, but Borderlands has been a surprising success at retail. I would guess that a good marketing campaign and the art style deserve more credit than the “helluva” lot of guns. But then, the game's loot system is also key to its appeal, and the guns are a big part of that.

Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2:

While the Battlefield series pioneered an advancement system in multiplayer shooters, Call of Duty all but perfected it. One difference in Battlefield's system is that you aren't awarded as much experience per kill. The most you can theoretically get for a kill in Battlefield 1943 is around 30 points, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 awards players up to thousands of experience points. Modern Warfare 2 broke the sales record for day-one sales with 4.7 million. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Did the big numbers work? Definitely.

World of Warcraft:

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This example of big numbers is a little different, because the big numbers are the players. World of Warcraft has over 11 million subscribers as of about one year ago. This is a classic example of peer pressure. If 11 million people play it, it must be good, right? World of Warcraft's player base is probably the biggest selling point for the game at this point.

Did the big numbers work? Ask the Blizzard tester who just bought himself a new yacht. [Editor's note: Actually, I think you'll be hard-pressed to find that guy.]

Tags: World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, Battlefield 1943, Borderlands, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

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Rich McGrath

November 17, 2009

While I do like variety in my games. 17 million guns is a little excessive, but I bet there is an achievement for shooting each one once.

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Alex Martin

Did anyone know or care how much MW2 kisses your ass in multiplayer before buying it? I doubt anyone read "MILLIONS OF POINTS!!" on the box and was persuaded. Otherwise, yeah, millions of guns and millions of players sounds impressive and could fool people, but means nothing about the quality of the game. Fuel was another one - the biggest videogame landscape ever. How you define a square-mile in a game I don't know - Civ 4, Spore and Flight Simulator have entire planets. Didn't make it a great game though.

Joshua Martin

I don't think that the number of guns had anything to do with Borderlands success...it was more it's word of mouth marketing. I heard that there where 17 million guns and laughed cause I thought it was that stupid. As for Call of Duty, I don't care about the multiplayer and that is why I rented it. And the reason I played WoW had nothing to do with the number of players...more I was bored out of my mind...80 is a big number for level grinding. A development studio wants to do nothing if not build brand recognition. And what better way to do that than to give instant gratification. MW2 does this with the experience system, WoW with the loot and the community. Borderlands did market the insane number of guns (which in my opinion is stupid. There is about 25 different guns. Stats; a unique gun it does not make), but it is there right as a studio to do whatever they can to make their game stand out to consumers. But to your point, more games are attempting to include the 'Bigger, Badder, More Badass' slogan as as we go from here, who knows if the increasing numbers trend will continue. Only time will tell.

Jason Wilson

When it comes to huge numbers of "x" in games, I like to see a large number of player races and classes in role-playing games -- the more options to play different characters, the better. Especially if the game designer can make each feel different that the others. This is one of the draws for me in Neverwinter Nights 2. Some of the mod-created races and classes offer an amazing amount of different role-playing opportunities.

Tom Heistuman

November 18, 2009

This goes all the way back to classic arcade games. You get thousands of points for killing a few enemies in rapid succession and by the time you die, you're on a leaderboard with 12,583,500 points. It always seemed screwy to me, but never bothered me at all. Blame Namco, Taito, Activision, Midway...

Chris Whitehead

I blame capitalism. No, but seriously, last time I checked the Kingdom Hearts series uses startlingly low numbers in its stats. And I must admit, seeing Sora's MP maxed at 99 in the original was not only surprising, but felt like it was that way for kids' sakes. I know bigger numbers aren't inherently "older," but it's interesting that I kind of felt that way.

Alex Long

Why I don't have the option to have big numbers expressed in scientific notation in games? The games industry is so prejudiced against us technical sort.

Zack DeRego

I was looking forward to Borderlands ever since I first read about it in the Game Informer way back in 2007 I think it was. Part of my excitement did stem from the massive amount of guns which at that time was only a couple hundred thousand. More than the sheer number of guns though, I was excited about the way they were generated and the possibilities of finding crazy guns. What also excited me about the game was that at one point it was supposed to have procedurally generated levels/dungeons, but this is a different matter. I would say that for the most part Borderlands success has come from it being a solid and fun shooter with a great marketing campaign. Seriously who doesn't get pumped up when they hear the songs that they chose for their commercials? The bright shiny colors probably don't hurt either. Now as for COD:MW2 I think that it's not so much the numbers popping up, or the size of the numbers, as it is the fact that you are working toward gaining in game rewards. For me I stopped playing COD4MW when I stopped gaining new and exciting weapons and attachments. I'm sure once I max out all the guns I like in MW2 I'll be done with it, but one thing that I've noticed that I haven't seen mentioned is that MW2's reward pacing seems spot on.

David Welsh

Every Extend Extra is kind of a great parody of score in games. The point of the game is really to just chill to the sights and sounds, but the scoring is absurd. You can get a million points in seconds, and a trillion is an obtainable goal. It totally blows the sense of achievement out of the water, and you learn to ignore it and relax.