Today Matt gave a lecture on the common problems and misconceptions surrounding the illusive 'average gamer'. He began with using the GameCity Prize as an example of non gaming and gaming communities viewing the same games completely differently, and posed the question: Are games simply made for gamers. One game featured in the contest was Mass Effect 3, and because the judges for these games are typically 'game illiterate' one judge described it as scifi tosh. On further inspection however they were found to have gotten simple controls like walking and talking wrong and so one can only imagine how the game must have deemed to someone who could not even explore its vast and varying universe.
Another opening question from Matt to the class was; Are Games Art? To this the whole room raised their hand, Matt then followed up with Is Art Better than Games? To a resounding no - though to even ask this question is interesting. Games are often talked of now in the media as being works of art (to much debate) yet as the question suggests they should not be comparable to art no more than music or film. They are in the media industry, they are a creative entity of their own and so cannot be singled out as one thing or another.
I often find myself debating what constitutes art, and more importantly to me what makes great art. I have a strong belief that any art should have a purpose no matter how small such as to create a thought in a viewers mind, to give a perspective to someone on something unknown, to educate, to humour, to inspire, to make comment , to give purpose. Much like an invention or design, so too must art give something forth to the viewer or society or environment in which it exists. I am not against fine art, though I do feel that with more conceptual pieces, accompanying documentation of development, ideas or artists thoughts would greatly improve the experience of the viewer. However I think this is just my inquisitive logical mind not being able to appreciate the abstract without a reason behind it.
Now back to what is an 'Average Gamer'. Matt described this as being a false person you create from market and industry trends in order to define the kind of person who is buying the most popular games. That is who you sell to because they are the ones who will theoretically buy it. This theory starts to fall apart when you begin to ask a group of people about their tastes in games. No two people seem to have the same taste in games like you find people with a similar taste of music. It seems more personal and detailed than simply liking a game; influences on your opinion of a title can come from its art style, it's music, it's narrative, it's length, it's gameplay, it's replayablility. And so no two people will apply the same criteria to the same game. (Like its not hard enough already to create a successful game).
Another thing to consider when looking at your target market is who you don't want to play your game. Or if phrased better who will probably dislike your game. I rephrase because I dislike the idea that you assume people will not enjoy your game based on their previous game history, because by my previous argument this way of thinking will fail. I would like to think that your game could in fact change the opinions of gamers in the playing of it.
The next problem is how you create new and exciting content or Intellectual Property in a market governed by the people with the purse strings. How can you create a new game and achieve funding for it without making sure it has similarities from already successful games to reassure the investors it won't be a flop. This in turn has created a vicious circle within the industry between sequels and successful games. If your game is successful, why change anything about it say the financiers (which would be true for most situations in life) However if the gameplay or franchise is allowed to grow stale and repetitive, sooner or later the fans will catch on and will turn off the brand. And a lost gamer is much harder to convince to come back than a brand new one. The question is, does the industry think this is a problem, after all new gamers means a wider demographic to market to etc.
How do you keep a person playing your game? Hugely successful games such as World of Warcraft are constantly adjusting their game in order to keep hold of their middle-field gamers which are happy to spend large amounts of time on a game without much progress.
How will you keep of your fans? If a sequel is released, how do you make sure they will all buy it? If you take Mass Effect as an example they used a straight connection between your character in ME1 and ME2. This gives the fan a great incentive as they already have a vested interest and have invested their time by playing he first title in the series.
Is a great game one which has the most ranged demographic or the largest numbers of players? If you look at Angry birds, it is hugely successful in the western world. Yet as Matt pointed out, it is barely a game and so it is hard to find fault in it. So do you decide to keep it simple and inoffensive or do you develop it further if only to offend some? The more of a game you have, the more there is to criticise and pick apart. However the same applies that if a game is picked apart and 'broken' by players it shows that they are enjoying it enough to want to break it.
Matt gave some wisdom on game updates, and how the majority of feedback you will recieve will be negative as they tend to be the loudest voices online and people who are appreciating your work are probably too busy playing to rave about it on forums. There is also the term that all publicity is good publicity, which could be true of some things. A negative opinion of your game is in some ways better than someone having no opinion of your game.
And lastly, a reminder that a vast proportion of the games industry is dictated by the financiers of the company and so before you even get to release a game for feedback, you have to please and convince the people with the money to back your vision.
Another opening question from Matt to the class was; Are Games Art? To this the whole room raised their hand, Matt then followed up with Is Art Better than Games? To a resounding no - though to even ask this question is interesting. Games are often talked of now in the media as being works of art (to much debate) yet as the question suggests they should not be comparable to art no more than music or film. They are in the media industry, they are a creative entity of their own and so cannot be singled out as one thing or another.
I often find myself debating what constitutes art, and more importantly to me what makes great art. I have a strong belief that any art should have a purpose no matter how small such as to create a thought in a viewers mind, to give a perspective to someone on something unknown, to educate, to humour, to inspire, to make comment , to give purpose. Much like an invention or design, so too must art give something forth to the viewer or society or environment in which it exists. I am not against fine art, though I do feel that with more conceptual pieces, accompanying documentation of development, ideas or artists thoughts would greatly improve the experience of the viewer. However I think this is just my inquisitive logical mind not being able to appreciate the abstract without a reason behind it.
Now back to what is an 'Average Gamer'. Matt described this as being a false person you create from market and industry trends in order to define the kind of person who is buying the most popular games. That is who you sell to because they are the ones who will theoretically buy it. This theory starts to fall apart when you begin to ask a group of people about their tastes in games. No two people seem to have the same taste in games like you find people with a similar taste of music. It seems more personal and detailed than simply liking a game; influences on your opinion of a title can come from its art style, it's music, it's narrative, it's length, it's gameplay, it's replayablility. And so no two people will apply the same criteria to the same game. (Like its not hard enough already to create a successful game).
Another thing to consider when looking at your target market is who you don't want to play your game. Or if phrased better who will probably dislike your game. I rephrase because I dislike the idea that you assume people will not enjoy your game based on their previous game history, because by my previous argument this way of thinking will fail. I would like to think that your game could in fact change the opinions of gamers in the playing of it.
The next problem is how you create new and exciting content or Intellectual Property in a market governed by the people with the purse strings. How can you create a new game and achieve funding for it without making sure it has similarities from already successful games to reassure the investors it won't be a flop. This in turn has created a vicious circle within the industry between sequels and successful games. If your game is successful, why change anything about it say the financiers (which would be true for most situations in life) However if the gameplay or franchise is allowed to grow stale and repetitive, sooner or later the fans will catch on and will turn off the brand. And a lost gamer is much harder to convince to come back than a brand new one. The question is, does the industry think this is a problem, after all new gamers means a wider demographic to market to etc.
How do you keep a person playing your game? Hugely successful games such as World of Warcraft are constantly adjusting their game in order to keep hold of their middle-field gamers which are happy to spend large amounts of time on a game without much progress.
How will you keep of your fans? If a sequel is released, how do you make sure they will all buy it? If you take Mass Effect as an example they used a straight connection between your character in ME1 and ME2. This gives the fan a great incentive as they already have a vested interest and have invested their time by playing he first title in the series.
Is a great game one which has the most ranged demographic or the largest numbers of players? If you look at Angry birds, it is hugely successful in the western world. Yet as Matt pointed out, it is barely a game and so it is hard to find fault in it. So do you decide to keep it simple and inoffensive or do you develop it further if only to offend some? The more of a game you have, the more there is to criticise and pick apart. However the same applies that if a game is picked apart and 'broken' by players it shows that they are enjoying it enough to want to break it.
Matt gave some wisdom on game updates, and how the majority of feedback you will recieve will be negative as they tend to be the loudest voices online and people who are appreciating your work are probably too busy playing to rave about it on forums. There is also the term that all publicity is good publicity, which could be true of some things. A negative opinion of your game is in some ways better than someone having no opinion of your game.
And lastly, a reminder that a vast proportion of the games industry is dictated by the financiers of the company and so before you even get to release a game for feedback, you have to please and convince the people with the money to back your vision.
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