[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN} Who to design for?

[Sean Howard]

 "Damion Schubert" <dschubert at gmail.com>  wrote:

> 1) Your game design should have a central theme or activity that everyone
> gets and understands.

I agree with the central them - big fan of strong backbones here - but I'm
not sure I understand the "everyone gets" thing. I'm not sure everyone
"gets" the average MUD or MMORPG unless they've already played one. I
don't know, maybe that's the main obstacle against adoption.

> 2) Your game design should have appeal to the hardcore, which is usually
> done by taking the central theme as far as it can go (raids and sieges in
> most classical MMOs), with higher time requirements, etc.

No way. Screw those hardcore bastards. Those guys are absolutely the
single greatest threat to the long term viability of MMORPGs that we have.
Right now, the industry can't seem to ignore them, but with stuff like the
Wii and casual gaming becoming a VERY big market, I don't think we'll have
to give in to their demands much longer.

I stand by the cookie analogy. Hardcore gamers want cookies, and we just
keep giving them cookies - soon they start to think they deserve cookies,
that they are entitled to all cookies, all the time. They are capable of
eating other foods, and I think we should force them to eat some
vegetables every once in a while to put them in their place. They'll be
better people because of it.

> 3) Your game design should have casual appeal, which is usually about
> ensuring that the central theme or activity is not alienating to the
> casual player the first time he logs in, and is actually easy and fun
> without unnecessary roadblocks.

I think you've already got the casual gamer by the time they've bought the
game - it doesn't matter what's actually in the game. It doesn't matter
what the controls are like, or the difficulty curve is like, or how easy
it is to set up. Casual gamers don't download demos from FilePlanet. They
don't try before they buy.

So, if you want to target a casual gamer, in my opinion, the way you do it
by not targeting the hardcore gamer. They can smell it. 200 hours of
gameplay, competitive PvP, buzzwords like "six axis control" (compare that
to how Nintendo markets the Wii controller) or "normal mapping", system
requirements that require a computer with specialty hardware, and so on.
Casual gamers HATE hardcore gamers (mutual, I'm sure), and especially in
an online environment like a MMORPG, you've got to pick one side or the
other, because there is no compromise.

I think you can sell very complex games to casual gamers. It doesn't have
to be easy. Chess isn't easy, it's not fun (in the traditional sense), and
with specialized pieces with non-standard movement and capturing
abilities, there is quite a learning curve.  Chess (or even Monopoly or
Risk) is far more complicated than something like God of War, and yet,
everybody has played it. This leads me to believe that the difference
between a casual game and a hardcore game is nothing more than flashiness.

You sell a casual game to a casual player by selling a game. You sell a
hardcore game to a hardcore gamer by selling a way of life. It's easier to
sell to a hardcore gamer because of this - they'll buy more games because
they don't buy games based on individual merit alone.

> 4) Your game design should result in a culture where hardcore players are
> evangelizing the game to casual players.  WoW's success comes largely
> from classic EQ players finally being willing to recommend an MMO to
> their wives and girlfriends.

I think you've got that backwards. You need the non-hardcore (not casual,
but somewhere inbetween - maybe a hardcore gamer who grew up and had a
family and still tries to keep up with gaming) to evangelize a game to the
casual player. WoW's success didn't come from Everquest. It came from
Diablo and Warcraft II - two games which breached that gap before. Once
you have the hardcore talking about a game, they talk about the wrong
stuff and put the emphasis on the wrong things, and it will do more harm
than good for casual players.

To give you an example, Guitar Hero was a game that was very much liked by
hardcore gamers, but it was picked up by guitar and music enthusists who
weren't hardcore gamers. However, Guitar Hero is a freaking carbon copy
clone of a Japanese series called Guitar Freaks, which the hardcore import
gaming scene has been raving about for almost a decade. The hardcore
couldn't sell that game to casual players because it was too difficult to
set up, in a different language, unfamiliar songs, and what not. But they
couldn't even sell recognition amongst the non-importing hardcore, because
hardcore gamers don't sell games to each other. Ever. That word of mouth
stuff doesn't work unless it is picked up by a media outlet or some sort
of influential "way of life" trend setting outlet.

A casual gamer will pick up a game because their friend tells them about
it or because it has a cool box. A hardcore gamer buys a game the day it
comes out because they've been told for three years all about how much
they should want it.

> 5) Your game design should have subtle ways and means for players to
> increase their investment, so that casual players become more hardcore
> as time passes.

Do you think my 55-year old parents who play Wii bowling every day are
going to suddenly think that, hey, maybe they should try out EVE Online?
No, you don't make casuals hardcore. That only works for teenagers and
college students.

-- 
Sean Howard