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Tag: insight

Data driven is not fortune telling

Published by Paolo on 20/11/2023

Over the last 10 years, I have assisted in the rise of many services and information providers that offer concrete predictions based on data. I had to quit a big company too, because of that. They were also testing game concepts based on the people’s responses to some text. So everything we proposed was texted out using a text redacted by someone with a high salary and very few things to do.

I went to a local indie fair where a friend pitched a game to publishers. One of them said, “Don’t you know that games with vegetables do not work?”. Then we ask why the publisher’s business model doesn’t work. It’s because of things like that!

Games are made by people who believe in a concrete vision and work hard to deliver. Many games will fail, because maybe people are not interested, because of the quality or many other factors. But you cannot use data to predict the success/failure of something without having tested it out.

Data-driven (or better, data-informed) development works when you work with concrete data from your things and compare them with your past. It doesn’t work when you read data from others and try to replicate it blindly. Sometimes it works out, but it’s because of other factors. It’s always because there is a passionate team behind that did something great. And lots of luck, the state of the market, and factors you can never control.

You can avoid risks by going iterative, of course. You can test prototypes and demos and see the actual reaction of people to that. That is good. But you cannot assume “this kind of game with these features is working in the market, so if we made something like this we would probably have success”.

The silent contract between the players and the designers

Published by Paolo on 17/11/2023

When we play games for work we often misunderstand the real motivations for the true fans to play that game.

Maybe we are working on a social casino game but we don’t really like this kind of games, as players. So that we study that game from a cold perspective. And we can also think that it would be easy to replicate mechanics and dynamics. Social casino games have really simple interactions, right?

Then the degeneration of that discourse leads to something worse. We start believe that a machine can build this in series. Today everyone is talking about AI, but also before of that there were kinds of fun experiments.

one of the best GDC talk ever!

But then we notice that these kind of experiences are hardly successful out there. Best social casino games have teams of more than 50 people working hard and passionately every day to deliver the best experience.

To me there is a silent contract between the Player and the Designer. For designer I mean the whole team, also. That silent contract states that there is a creator from one side that propose a challenge to another person on the other side. The motivation to play (or fun, if you prefer) comes mainly from this contract.

You decide to play a game. You know that the game has been made by someone. Part of the challenge is to beat that someone’s mind. If you read reviews of games you will notice that many comments go in the directions of creators.

What happens if the Player know that a machine created that game? Will they give these games the same value? People are smarter (and dumber) than we think.

On finishing games

Published by Paolo on 10/11/2023

Every game creator I know, every company I worked for, always wants a thing: that the Players stay with them until the end of content.

On f2p games the more the game stays in the market the more this is hard to reach. For premium games, games with an ending, it can happen. Still, in most cases it doesn’t. The vast majority of people do not complete the games they purchase. And the trend is going worse as we have so many great games published every month.

The question I have is: is that important? One may think that if the Players complete a game then maybe they will buy its sequel. Another can say that if the Players stay until the end it’s because they loved the game.

Well, I think of me and it’s not always the case honestly. There are games I loved and that gave me tremendous emotions that I have never completed. The reason is not important here.

That’s why in game design we like to talk about the moment-to-moment. The important thing is that the Players enjoy stay in our game while they stay. It doesn’t really matter if they don’t complete the game. If we provided them enjoyment, engagement, challenge and motivation during that time that is where the real value of games is.

How to design for 1M people

Published by Paolo on 31/10/2023

Every gaming business founder wants to reach that milestone. 1M players and counting. So, how do you design for 1M?

You simply don’t. You design for 3-7 people instead. Be prepared for the growth, of course. But good design is a personal thing. Is for someone!

Who’s that someone? When you work for a company, that someone is first of all your manager. You don’t design for players, you design with players in mind. But your client is your manager.

You should first convince her!

MDA from artifacts to services

Published by Paolo on 26/10/2023

MDA is great to start, but as you can read on their paper it was created where the games were considered artifacts.

Nowadays many successful games are services, the model should be updated to me.

  1. considering not just mechanics, but themes and fantasies
  2. considering not only dynamics, but the journey
  3. identifying more aesthetics based on “stress relief”, “entertainment” and “engagement”

Prepare the soil

Published by Paolo on 09/10/2023

You can buy a plot of land and start planting crops. You may want to build some structure and make changes on the land. You start a new business. Then you may hire farmers to take care of your land and make it grow.

The same is valid for the game as a service business. Often the people who start a game are not the people who make it grow. Often you need a certain type of people to find something new, a new land. But then you may want expert farmers to make it grow.

It’s not that people cannot do both, it’s a matter of will. Creating a brand-new experience requires the ability to spot opportunities and connect the dots. Maintaining and making a game grow requires analytical skills, instead.

Someone says that one thing is to go 0-to-1, and another 1-to-1000.

Fight for more value to creativity

Published by Paolo on 03/10/2023

Do you know why companies spend so much on marketing, especially advertising? Because once the game is done, all the effort has been made they HAVE to sell it.

Probably if they would spend more on keeping and growing talents they will have better games and should spend less on marketing. And I am ironic when I say “probably” because that’s for sure.

The more I work with my creativity the more I feel the urge to learn how to negotiate better my conditions. Because a simple design can become gold for someone in the future.

A prompt to start them all

Published by Paolo on 02/10/2023

If your manager or client gives you a specific goal, you should be able to think of everything you need to consider your tasks done.

Game design is also design, so that is also solving problems. Frankly, it’s hard to predict precisely everything you will encounter on your path.

Use the help of the AI to improve this part. AI will probably give you lots of wrong information, too. But it’s great to not have to start from scratch.

Try out a prompt like this:
“You are the lead game designer for a new game. [add here more detail on the game]. Your manager gave you 2 weeks to complete a {task}. Write in a table format all the steps needed to reach the goal successfully. Please, use this {columns} format.

{task}: tutorial
{columns}: days, tasks title, description, KPI, needs”

(you should edit and tailor this prompt, it’s just an example NOT a template)

When you have the output, work on that table and prepare to make the right promises to your manager/client.

PRO TIP: it’s better to promise 1 thing and deliver 3 than 3 things and deliver 1. Fight for your rights! If you see 5 tasks that you can do in 2 weeks, tell them you can do 2-3. Then surprise them with the rest, in case you manage to be fast! We suck at estimations, and that’s a human feature, not a bug. But the reason for that is for another post.

Growing business and talent

Published by Paolo on 28/09/2023

If you want to create a sustainable games business you need to serve an audience.

But game ideas for new intellectual properties almost never come from that logic. A new idea comes while playing a good game, or connecting things belonging to our personal life. Often we need to leave that idea for a while to make it grow. This process can last months, and this time is unpredictable.

Every time I speak with the founders of some indie games company, they say the same. They are constantly working on new ideas while developing the current game. They need to pitch new concepts all the time to publishers. In this way, they can find the funding for the next project, hopefully before completing the current.

When you find your audience with a title, then, is better to focus your firepower. If you understand how to serve a concrete audience you have more chances of being successful again.

In the long term, though, this can become stressful for the creative people of your team. At the last fair, I met a designer of one of the most successful indie sagas of the last few years. And I felt his frustration, he felt like “it’s always the same”. Sometimes those people end up building their own company. Other times, they just leave for new ventures.

Striking a balance between serving an audience and allowing creative freedom is crucial in the games industry. Both are essential for long-term sustainability.

From one side, you have to grow your business, and serving the audience you found is the smartest move. On the other side, you don’t want to lose the members of your team who bring more value on the table. Let express themselves, maybe in smaller projects.

Choosing your visual style

Published by Paolo on 25/09/2023

There are two lenses with which to check the visual style of your game. Consider them in this exact order.

  1. The first is the lens of invitation to play. The marketer calls this user acquisition (horrible naming, as always. :P). The people watch a video or an image showing your game and decide to take a step into your magic circle. Users decide to install your game, using that cold terminology of business. You are investing money to reach your audience so the visual style is very important at this stage. You should consider the devices from which the people will watch your trailers.
  2. The second step is the realization of the fantasy proposed to the Players. People made the step into the magic circle and became Players. The game makes them a promise and offers a fantasy. If the visuals unmatch their expectation, they can feel something is not OK. For instance, in my case, I have played RPGs my whole life. When I open a modern gacha-based RPG from Asia nowadays, I see boobs and sexy poses everywhere. That hypersexualization makes me step out of the magic circle. Using the boring business language, I will not retain (really business guys? retain? What a terrible word choice, honestly…)

Common visual styles are cartoon, stylized, low poly, and realistic.

Remember: first there is the invitation to play and then the realization of a fantasy. To balance those two things is an art. The art of game design. Especially the marketing and art department are responsible for that. Game designers help their communication.