Making Games For Non-Gamers

from the how-do-you-do-it? dept

It seems that every few months there's yet another story about how to make video games for an audience other than the usual crowd of games. Usually those articles focus on making games for women - something that companies have been talking about over and over again. Here are two more articles on the subject, though. First, a piece written for the BBC by a game developer says you need to put more emotion into games. Meanwhile, it appears that all of the new handheld gaming devices think that they can successfully target adults as mobile gamers rather than focusing on the youth market that Nintendo has traditionally owned. The more I think about this, the less of an issue I think this is. The hard core gamers seem to enjoy very complex games with impressive graphics and detailed storylines. However, these things seem to scare off the more casual gamer. At the same time, we hear stories of the millions of folks who spend their time playing solitaire or going online to play various card games online. It seems to me that those "simple" games are the games that casual gamers are signing up for. The learning curve isn't high. The commitment level isn't high - and there's often something eerily addictive about very simple games.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Gary Burke, 17 Sep 2003 @ 11:39am

    No Subject Given

    Go to any casino and you'll see hundreds of non-gamer people every night playing games. Poker, blackjack, craps and especially slots. Most slot machines are practically video games, with advanced graphics and complicated payout schemes and interfaces. 75 year old grannies have no problem figuring out video poker.

    It has nothing to do with complexity, 'emotion' or intimidation factor. It has to do with expected reward for putting in the time to learn. People play slots because they can win cash money. That reward is worth the effort to them. Fighting a fictional demon is not.

    A "non-gamer" doesn't see the value in spending hours in tutorials to learn how to press fifteen buttons in exactly the right sequence to fight a big demon or give orders to a squad of Navy SEALs.

    I think if game designers can break out of the 'sci-fi/fantasy/military' rut that they are in, and create games that appeal to other genres, say murder mysteries or romances or legal thrillers, perhaps they could reach a wider audience. The reward would not be monetary, like a slot machine, but story-based, like a TV show. The problem is the game industry is controlled by overgrown adolescents who want to blow stuff up : it's as if the program directors at TV networks grew up watching Westerns, and so that's all they put on their networks, slightly different Westerns to appeal to fractionally different groups of Western fans, but everyone else is left out in the cold - and then the program directors wondering why nobody else wants to watch their network's fine array of Western shows.

    Plenty and I mean plenty of people who never play games otherwise loved "The Sims".

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    AMetamorphosis, 17 Sep 2003 @ 12:04pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    EXCELLENT OBSERVATION !

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.