DESIGNING FOR NEW AUDIENCES

with a focus on shared worlds and social networking

NO LONGER A SOLITARY ENDEAVOR

Competition and Cooperation: Goals give players common points of reference to share or

contest.

Building Community: Impetus to returnto the game or environment.

Belonging and Identity: A gamer’s mostvaluable takeaway is other gamers.

Shared Worlds: What I see is what you see.

EXAMPLES:WELL-DESIGNED FOR NEW AUDIENCES Braid Bioshock

+ Immersive artwork, sound, and music design

+ Emotional storyline that provokes response

+ Simple-to-master control+ Intriguing gameplay beyond the run-

jump-shoot of stock platformers+ Logic puzzles mixed in with platform

play+ Compellingly strange but not off-

putting world suggested in broad strokes and story context.

+ Just enough story, and if you don’t want it, you can ignore it

+ Sympathetic protagonist+ Exciting, original world design+ Integrates minigames well and

believably+ Easy to control± Boy’s club gameplay

EXAMPLES:ALMOST THERE… Puzzle Quest Aurora Feint

+ Complex but casual puzzle-play married to a fun RPG environment

+ Addictive+ Competitive online play- Derivative world and story- Clunky story interface

+ Puzzle-play as resource gathering+ Massively multiplayer builds

community- Spotty tutorial- No overview of scope — don’t

know what I’ll be doing past the obvious

SMART DESIGN

Create a feeling of belonging and pride. Community tools Concurrent users Content is key — let the

player do it and create it.

Know who you’re designing for. My Little Pony: The perfect

game? Lineage did poorly in the US —

everyone wants to be a prince.

SMART DESIGN

Reduce barriers to entry. More connections increases

the value of the network. Make it easy for players to

make and keep in contact with friends.

New Player Experience Useful tutorials Optional participation Reward learning

SMART DESIGN

You’re not competing against your competitors at launch, you’re competing against them now. LOTRO, AoC, WAR, Tabula Rasa

Which means you’re competing with their... Tools UI Add-ons NPE