Is it better to…

About the approach to game design and development in general:

1. Listen to those without experience and heed their demands - hoping they actually know what makes the best game.

2. Listen to yourself, and PERHAPS make the inexperienced appreciate that sometimes the best gaming moment doesn't come to you without making an effort.

The first will almost invariably sell more copies in the short-term. Casual players will be turned off by having to dedicate time and effort to understand the game.

The second, however, might inspire a part of the audience to appreciate more depth in the future. Theoretically, you can still appeal to a lot of people - and sell quite a few copies.

What do you think?

( for game development ) 3. Listen to people who have experience of games and particular game development and heed their demands.

It is very easy for hardcore gamers to complain about how stupid game developers are and how they all go mainstream and so on. But there are usual a lot of good reasons for a lot of decisions, and while it often is money there are also lots of other reasons. Such as technical limitations, looked good on paper, ruin the balance of the game… and so on.

( For general problems ) 3. Listen to people who have experience and heed their demands and advice.


If you want to be extremely innovate and take a lot of risk of everything going to the bin stick to your idea and go 100% for it. This fails 99.9999% of the time… but the 0.00001 percent who manage to go through usually create something fantastic.

GothicGothicness said:

( for game development ) 3. Listen to people who have experience of games and particular game development and heed their demands.

It is very easy for us casual gamers to complain about how stupid game developers are and how they all go mainstream and so on. But there are usual a lot of good reasons for a lot of decisions, and while it often is money there are also lots of other reasons. Such as technical limitations, looked good on paper, ruin the balance of the game… and so on.

( For general problems ) 3. Listen to people who have experience and heed their demands and advice.


If you want to be extremely innovate and take a lot of risk of everything going to the bin stick to your idea and go 100% for it. This fails 99.9999% of the time… but the 0.00001 percent who manage to go through usually create something fantastic.

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Us casual gamers?

Anyway...

You're saying 1 is the answer - ok

Ehh, what kind of obscure DARt logic got this to be option number 1 ? *just curious*

Ehh, us casual gamers.... that was not what I meant to type oooo well. edited.

GothicGothicness said:

Ehh, what kind of obscure DARt logic got this to be option number 1 ? *just curious*

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Your answer was a bit of a mess, and I couldn't quite make sense of it.

You seem to be saying that developers should not listen to themselves, but others with experience - which can pretty much only be the suits/marketing people who are "experts" in their field.

But they're only really experts in how to read the market, and as such they simply listen to market demands - which in turn would be the audience.

So, that comes to answer number 1.

You seem to be infering that I'm calling developers stupid or something - and that I'm a casual gamer. Both are pretty far from the truth - so I have to try and guess what you're really saying in terms of what I was asking.

Sorry if my post was a bit messy, it was indeed not of very high quality.

But I think the following sentence was fairly clear.

3. Listen to people who have experience of games and particular game development and heed their demands.

1. Listen to those without experience and heed their demands.

GothicGothicness said:

Sorry if my post was a bit messy, it was indeed not of very high quality.

But I think the following sentence was fairly clear.

3. Listen to people who have experience of games and particular game development and heed their demands.

1. Listen to those without experience and heed their demands.

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But who, if not the developers themselves, should they listen to - that have experience?

I guess it should say people who have experience of games and in particular people who have experience of game development.

So the people who have experience of games even if they are not developers are included in this.

It is not 2… because 2 you said just yourself… so that is why I made 3.

GothicGothicness said:

I guess it should say people who have experience of games and in particular people who have experience of game development.

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Ehm, how about an example?

Such as a lot of people on this forum who have played a lot of games.

GothicGothicness said:

Such as a lot of people on this forum who have played a lot of games.

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Ah, so they should listen to experienced gamers?

I'd like for that to happen. But that's kinda what I mean by listening to themselves. I have a feeling that most developers know what the enthusiast would want - but they often choose to listen to the market instead.

But even if they don't know what we want - I'd still prefer if they just listened to themselves and trusted in their own ideas.

Well, for example whose idea do you think it was to make dragon age 2 into what it is now? Did you see any suggestion a long those lines like make it more cartoony and like a cheezy kung fu movie from the fans or the forum? do you think it was EA ?

It is a known fact several people at Bioware loves cheezy kung fu movies.

GothicGothicness said:

Well, for example whose idea do you think it was to make dragon age 2 into what it is now? Did you see any suggestion a long those lines like make it more cartoony and like a cheezy kung fu movie from the fans or the forum? do you think it was EA ?

It is a known fact several people at Bioware loves cheezy kung fu movies.

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Well, we can but guess.

I can give you my vision of what it is.

I think Bioware decided long ago that they were going to be BIG - and that they were going to make millions and sell millions of copies.

Because it's human to want that, and to want to be the top dog on the block.

So, the top-people have been pursuing that goal for a while - and they've slowly established an internal infrastructure to make that happen. This would include market researchers and slowly spreading internal "goals" to the developers, like most corporations do.

Corporations like to have developers who agree with them about their policies - and we all know it's not a popular thing to stand up as a co-worker and say "this new direction is bullshit" - so even if some of the developers aren't happy about Dragon Age 2 - they would never talk about it openly to the public.

So, I imagine it's kind of a corporate mantra over there, that they want to be big and they want everyone to love their games - and over the years, that has become the norm and the accepted goal - even for the artists themselves. Artists who might have entered the industry to be passionate and to create evolutionary games - but are now in the position of having to keep their jobs - and they're probably very well paid.

So, they can either react against this "dumbing down" or swallow the corporate line, incorporating it into their own mindset - until everyone in important positions agree with top-management about what their games should be.

This is probably why we have prominent Bioware people talking about how great it is to be able to sell millions of copies, and how they're increasingly less interested in the relatively small enthusiast market.

That's kinda what I imagine.

I'm Number 4 !!!

I don't have experience, I'm totally aberrant, AND I'm an alien on these boards regarding my opinions ! :lol:



On a more serious note : Sorry that I'm linking towards this article so often that it might occur to you as spam already , but I think I've lerned quite a lot through it : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PanderingToTheBase

If you have some time, the follow the links embedded in his articles : They lead to sometimes similarily interesting articles …

Example : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlezwauc374?from=Main.ItsHardSoItSucks
Or this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitle3gvof391cwuy?from=Main.ItsEasySoItSucks

Quote from the second article :

It's also rather weird when people complain about features in a game that make it easier and said features are actually completely optional. You'll notice several examples are about features in-game that you don't have to use.

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Or this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RunningTheAsylum

Or even better, this one : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndTheFandomRejoiced
(Which shows imho quite a lot on how discussions here go regarding freshly-announced games …)

Or this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle3tinj4tz
Or this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuinedFOREVER

And regarding the fresh Dragon Age demo : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TaintedByThePreview
And this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FanHater

Um, sorry, I'd better stop this spamming … :lol:

DArtagnan said:

About the approach to game design and development in general:

1. Listen to those without experience and heed their demands - hoping they actually know what makes the best game.

2. Listen to yourself, and PERHAPS make the inexperienced appreciate that sometimes the best gaming moment doesn't come to you without making an effort.

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Fish 1., then look at it through 2., develop the game dialectically.
Basically, don´t compromise your vision, but don´t think you always know what´s best for your intended audience either.
Profit!

And If you´re AAA dev, put more friggin´ resources into difficulty settings and market the game diversely ("This game is hard as hell, but we´re having toggle for pussies too!").
Make a trailer showing your character(s) kicking ass, make another one showing their ass(es) getting kicked rampantly.
If the game is good in general, chances are even a lot of casuals will eventually choose the lolpwnd setting and discover that putting more effort to overcoming obstacles may be more rewarding than cruising through the whole thing effortlessly.

DArtagnan said:

About the approach to game design and development in general:

1. Listen to those without experience and heed their demands - hoping they actually know what makes the best game.

2. Listen to yourself, and PERHAPS make the inexperienced appreciate that sometimes the best gaming moment doesn't come to you without making an effort.

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Well, I think the question is a little ambiguous. "Is it better to…" -- well, "better" by what standard?

"Better" as in …

1. Generating the most sales/profits?

2. Keeping the company afloat and the employees employed (not as greedy as #1, more about safety/security)?

3. More likely to win industry respect and awards?

4. More likely to generate a game that pleases "hardcore" gamers?

5. Producing something new and innovative?

6. Producing something that educates and ennobles?

7. Producing something that is fun to play?

8. Producing something that pleases Dartagnan?


I'm sort of playing, though, because, despite the ambiguity, I think I know what you're getting at. However, I still can't answer, because you've phrased the options in a "loaded" way, and you have only included two, making it fairly obvious which choice you think is the correct one.

If I can "write in" an option, it would be this: You seek your own counsel, AND you seek the counsel of people whom you respect. Part of respect is based on experience, but there is much more to it than that (e.g., shared values, sense of integrity, whether they are experts in the area where you are lacking, whether their expertise helps you move toward your version of "better," etc.).

Anderson said:

8. Producing something that pleases Dartagnan?

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Let's try to stay realistic.

Regarding the first question though.. I have to agree with GG. Why would you listen to someone without experience in the first place?

The following is somewhat tangent…

This is tough, because I would think devs got into the business of making games since they want people to enjoy them… If a game is a commercial failure are people enjoying what you've created or are a majority not enjoying it(for whatever reason)? I'd say it depends on the audience, if you create a game that only appeals to a minority(ex. HC RPG fans) and let us assume that the game is amazing and everything they could ask for, then it might fail financially but at least those who played it enjoyed it, right? I don't think it's that cut and dry, at least for a full time dev(especially with a family). You can't expect them to be "starving artists"?

Honestly, I have no idea what it's like to be a professional in their field but if I had to guess I'd figure it's a roller coaster. I would imagine it's like any other business(excluding the self-employed) you do what the bosses command.

In a perfect world I suspect most devs would pick option two… The audience would be won over by your work and you'd be able to provide more of your vision for them. Unfortunately, that seems more fantasy than reality. I've known some people who followed their passions and vision to financial ruin, where as those who have succeeded appeared more profit/success oriented(IE willing to do whatever it took to win/succeed - even if it meant changing their goals/vision).

Thank you for your input.

Of course, I know it was very simplified - it's just a way of getting opinions out.

When I ask for what's "best" - it's merely fishing for your opinion of what you would find best.

Not looking for objective truths here

I think I'm trying to guage how many people sympathise with the financial aspect of making big hits. Because, obviously, if most gamers are fine with money guiding development in most aspects - then hope of ever getting the industry to try new things again is diminished.

DArtagnan said:

I think I'm trying to guage how many people sympathise with the financial aspect of making big hits.

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Oh, okay. Well, I sympathize with people who want to keep their company afloat and their people employed. If they want to make a reasonable profit along the way, that's fine with me, too. Otoh, it would bother me if I thought the company had excessive greed and seemed only interested in making huge profits.