Teamwork in Games

As I continue to study for my Master Year dissertation on educational games I find myself reading a rather academic book: ‘Computer Games and Team and Individual Learning’. It is a rather interesting book with many theories on how games can improve working as a team. One such article got me thinking about what games I have spent the most time in working as a team and I think that Counter Strike would have been one of the first instances of that.

Teamwork in games comes in many shapes and forms, from working as a group against another group (Team Death match) to working as a pair or more towards a common goal (Co-op) to working as a much larger group playing roles in something more akin to ‘Raiding’. All these modes are becoming more highlighted in the positive aspects of gaming with peers. Halo: Reach being a good example of a AAA game that directly promotes Co-op play, as does L4D and Borderlands. All of these games have been highly successful and I have a sneaking suspicion that Co-op gaming is a reason why.

So let’s think back to my past, I mentioned counter strike as the first teamwork game I played. Counter strike’s team death match scenarios are the perfect environment for team based play as they feature no re spawns and an objective other than just killing. This tactical play can encourage all manner of interesting manoeuvres from decoy groups through to all out ‘rush attacks’. As a younger player I was involved in a ‘Clan’ for the game through which we coordinated usually over VOIP in order to play more efficiently. The type of game that it is rewards team based play without having to take an active role in doing so. Basically it is an advantage playing in a group rather than not. We developed our skills as a team and even went so far as to run ‘drills’ in preparation for high stakes clan matches. This truly was building teamwork between individuals.

Even before that though I may have been developing working as a team. Further back than counter strike me and a few friends would gather for a LAN party (youth of today are really missing out on this) and we would play all genres of games. The games we had the most fun in though were the strategy games. These games we would play for hours on end, matches of Empire Earth could take up to 6 hours to play. Team based play in strategy games takes on a somewhat different role in this genre. The best example I can think of was a match of 2v2 in Empire Earth set in the Dark Ages. I and my team-mate without communication would launch attacks on the enemy in highly coordinated ways. I would take on the role of ‘Distraction Force’ and launch massive attacks against the enemy walls using as many weak troops as possible in-dispersed with a few higher threat ones. The enemy would then send all their forces they had available to try and stop me. Once they did, my team-mate would sneak around to another side of their territory and launch a high scale attack with many powerful units. The enemy was un-aware of our ploy and continued to fend off my larger force. My team-mates attack was ultimately successful in destroying the entirety of his base and resources before he could recall his troops. Team work indeed.

The book I have been reading made me reminisce on one type of game play style I quite miss. Raiding in World of Warcraft. The only reason I ever really played the game in the later years was because of Raiding. Raiding requires people to take on many roles such as healer, tank or damage dealer. It also required unique skills to be utilised well in order to control situations. When playing through the raid content in ‘Wrath of the Lich King’ I was really enjoying myself as a Healer. My role in the group was to keep people alive as they completed their tasks while simultaneously keeping myself out of trouble. This type of teamwork requires complete reliance on your team to do their jobs when taking down a particularly hard challenge. This is actually the same reason I quit. I became so passionate about people working as a group, when certain people let the group down when refusing to play their role properly it got me frustrated. So really the only reason I left that game was the players, not the game.

Another type of teamwork based play I haven’t mentioned is social gaming. This phenomenon has cropped up rather recently and taken a lot of people by surprise on its success.  People co-operate in this manor considerably more passively and most often not even simultaneously however it can still be seen as teamwork. Games like Mafia Wars require you and your social networked friends to group together in order to face challenges. Games such as Farmville can encourage a similar cooperation in visiting other people’s farms and helping them out. Social play like this is a positive attribute to develop and promotes at least the ability to better interact in team situations.

So is working as a team the future? No. Working as a team has always been at the heart of gaming, some examples are more subtle: People who write and contribute to FAQ’s and Guides are assisting you play. It’s another form of teamwork entirely but it is still groups of individuals working towards common goals. I suppose it is down to how you define teamwork in the end, but I see it as a core element of all good games and it will continue to be long into the future.