Creating the game you've always wanted to play is always a good reason to get started making games (and also a good incentive to get it finished) but just because you think a game idea is the "best thing since sliced bread" doesn't mean anyone else does, in fact making the game appeal to a wider audience means it stands a better chance of being commericially successful (ie. you might actually findsome willing to pay you for it!)
To make a game (or any product for that matter) appeal to a particular segment of the market it's pretty obvious that you should first find out about and get to understand that segment, there are many ways to achieve this (just ask anybody who works in market research / focus testing), however a simple way (to get started at least) is to try and answer the following questions (obviously if you can think up some more - great).
- Who is going to (or who do I want to) play my game, Why ?
- What kind of games do these people like, Why ?
- How long (and how often) do these people play games for,
- Does my game scenario fit in with what I know about these people (their likes, their dislikes)
- Will my game appeal to these people (does it satisfy their needs / wants), How does it ?
- How much would they be willing to pay to play my game (what value will the audience place on my game)
- How will these people get to know about my game
- How will I deliver my game to these people
- How will these people actually play my game (controller / accessiblity issues)
- Will these people understand my game (it's concepts, controls, gameplay mechanics)
- Will these people like my game,
- Will they find it fun and enjoyable.
Now, obviously this in itself can be a lot of work, especially if you are not intimate with your target market, so my advice (initally) would be it's probably best to "stick to what you know" - target people like yourself, especially for your first couple of projects.
Being able to identify and empathise with your target market allows you to design for and tailor specific elements of the game to appeal to that market (with the obvious benefits) and the use of feedback from any focus groups, beta testers you might have access to is invaluable.
The key thing here is to remember WHO you are creating the game for and WHY (most often commericial success), this may cause design descisions that go against your initial intentions - all of these must be weighed up and considered before deciding on a final course of action.
Once you've decided on your target market - hopefully this will make the choice of target platform easier. In most cases (especially for hobbyist's and indies) this will be the standard option of a PC running some flavour of Microsoft operating system, however the good news is that a greater degree of choice finally becoming available and systems that were once considered closed to all but the elite-few are now becoming more accessible to the masses.
For now I would advise sticking with the humble PC, it's wide range and mass market appeal means that most people own or have regular access to one, targetting other platforms has it's own pro's and con's (worthy of a seperate topic in it's own right - and one which will hopefully I'll be writing about in the future).
Again if you look through the list you can see that that old nugget about fun rears it's head again - remember the key element in everything you do - IS IT FUN!, WILL MY AUDIENCE FIND IT FUN!, if not how can I expect them to play, enjoy (and utlimately pay for) the experience.
When you understand the target market and the target platform you can now start to fill in the blanks in the design document, choice of target platfrom may limit (or open up new possiblities for) player interaction. Understanding who is likely to play your game (and for what reason) will allow you to design an experience that best fits their needs, presenting them with a series of challenges that they will enjoy, achievements that they will want to try and aim for...
0 comments:
Post a Comment