Getting back to work after a physically stressed out function was really tough, especially when you have the maximum amount of work at office. Well it took me a month to finish of the official works and now get back to my habit of posting blogs. It feels good when you put down your findings and feelings somewhere and I was really missing it!
Well, just sharing a function’s highlights in the form of a small photo album, the function was (unexplainable), it was AWESOME!
It’s one major factor that I take into consideration when thinking about a game now a days. Designing an audience.
As usual the question is Why? Game Developers design the game why the audience. Well, what the game developers are excited about can’t be always the case for the audience. At times its like that most excited feature for the developer is least one for the gamer.
Why wouldn’t I want to just always make all of my players happy all the time? The short answer is that’s exactly what I do want. The longer answer is that if you end up with too many different groups of players who want opposing things out of your game, you’ll eventually reach at a situation where any decision you make will anger one of the player camps. So its very important rather than what entertains you, its important that the target audience reaction to your creativity is decided on the first. And there hence designing your audience is a must to do, must to do if you want the game to be sold .
Apart from bugs in the game, the biggest cause clash between the developers and players are not agreeing on what the game is supposed to be:
For eg: Players thought it was an RPG with FPS elements, developers shipped an FPS with RPG elements. These are very small differences in opinion that don’t matter at all, until they matter more than anything and all your players have quit.
With a industry with so much of genres, the gamers tend to stick with the game genres they love. As developers we need to stick to the basics of what the genres defined till date has been following. Making a new revolution is a gamble. Probabilities can be either it was taken the way it was visualized or more by the gamers else no link at all (majority of the time its the later one).
4 mantras I keep in mind :
Be sure to know what game you are making and for whom
You need to have a clear cut idea of what your game is. It helps us in trying to find out what are the basics that has to be followed for this genre of game lovers.
For whom (the age group) is a real need to know. That’s how when we integrate a new feature we can anticipate whether they would notice/like/love/hate it.
Be sure to have the Design focussed on the basics
Designer have various ideas of wanted to be integrated, only a strict border drawing can bring your product on to follow and keep the audience anticipated reactions in tact with your design.
You should be very clear what you are not making and which is not your audience too. Plain words don’t try to target everyone.
Where? Through out! From start till end, its the audience and their basic foundational knowledge that are to be consistent.
May be you can design complex designs but then the learning curve should be rational enough for the new player.
Be Honest with the Target Audience
Not as easy as it says, being frank with your audience on what you are trying to sell.
Clear idea of what your product is all about and how is it better than the current market competitors (NO COMPARISONS, you will have to identify your pluses and negatives with the current market)
Never give them false hopes, we may lose them forever.
Be ready to OPEN up
Open up to any suggestions from anyone. If the concept you have is a already an inspired from marketed game or of a game genre that already exists, search for the suggestions for those games, you will find something interesting that can make your better.
Just like every other aspect of the game, your players must be carefully decided, designed and crafted. I have been only on my 2nd creation and that’s a lot of things I noticed in a New IP creation. May be I am wrong, well I am still learning.
, my views on the this year’s E3, next post!
