Engage First, Monetize Second

Hi everyone. Before I begin, I'm currently busy working on a table top game so I may miss a week or two of posting on my blog (such as last week).

Now let's get on with it. This week, I want to talk about engaging the audience first before trying to monetize your game. Making profit from your game is fine, but you shouldn't make this the first priority. I know this sounds stupid and perhaps moronic, but what I'm trying to say is... your first priority is to make a game that is engaging. Design your game with the aim to engage, satisfy and hook your players. When you've figured that out, then you can think of how to monetize your game. If you haven't read it already, I previously made a post in the past where I talked about micro-transactions and the do's and don't's. I recommend reading about that before continuing.

So, engaging your audience first... if you can engage the player in your game and hook them in, they wouldn't mind spending more money on your game because they will see the game as worthy of the extra dollars. This is why some people are willing to pay extra for special editions or box sets of a game. This is also how you create game loyalty.

I'm sure you've heard some players asking developers to make a game available on certain systems or re-release a game. For example, some people want Square-Enix to remake Final Fantasy 7 and some want Konami to develop Suikoden 6 or at least make Suikoden II available on the PlayStation Network. These people are willing to spend more money on games that they most likely already played. But the reason why they want this is because they loved the games.

This is your main goal, make the players fall in love with your game. If a person loves something, they won't hesitate to spend money on it (just like partners and hobbies). The thing you want players asking themselves is "is this game worthy of my time and money?". However, be careful that you aren't using the Skinner Box method to falsely engage the players. You want them to truly like your game.

If you don't know what a Skinner Box is, you should watch this video:

Skinner Box

Anyway, I'll use myself as an example. I've played many MMOs and MMORPGs since I started with Ragnarok Online back in high school (back when Ragnarok was free to play). Each one I've played, there was always a Cash Shop where you can spend money to buy extra stuff. But I never did. Then DLC content became popular and even then I wouldn't spend money on them, despite me liking the games. But last year I broke my streak with Guild Wars 2.

I had spent not only around $270 on the Collector's Edition, but an additional $180 through micro-transactions (buying both convenience and vanity items) and I may spend more in the future. Guild Wars 2 is the only game where I have spent additional money on it on top of its retail price. That's how much I love the game. Mind you, the additional content are purely optional. You can do nearly everything else in the game for free from the exploration, living stories, PvP, WvWvW and so forth.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Thanks for reading!

Clones, Copies and Inspirations

This week, let's talk about developing games based on existing ones from downright cloning a game to games that are inspired from existing ones.

There are at least two ways to approach designing a game. The first is to design a completely original game, which can be difficult to do at times. Everyone has a great idea but pulling it off is an entirely different matter. This can lead people to the second approach, take an existing game and develop a new one based on said game. Now this approach has a few variants.

Some people can take the laziest route and simply clone a game. This usually involves keeping all the core mechanics and changing the visuals so it looks somewhat different. An example of this is Triple Town and Yeti Town with the latter being a clone of the former game. Don't EVER take this route because you're riding on the back of someone else's success. It's even worse when the cloners don't acknowledge the game they cloned.

The next route is improving an existing game. This involves developing a game similar to an existing one except the aim is to fix its flaws and leave alone what isn't broken. Another way of looking at this route is developing a game that's inspired from an existing game.

However, this can be tricky because it can be borderline cloning. But it depends on how you handle it. For example, recently, NimbleBit released a game called Nimble Quest. When it was released, several people accused them of cloning an existing game called Call of Snakes. However, NimbleBit has said during an interview that they were inspired by the Call of Snakes game (see link below for the interview).

In the end, Nimble Quest turned out to be a great game, some saying much better than Call of Snakes. Which is great because NimbleBit not only improved on an existing game's idea, but they gave Call of Snakes credit for their inspiration.

This is how our industry moves forward. As we improve on each other's idea, we bring new innovations to the table. Also, think about this... when people clone or copy a game, they will always add at least one new feature to avoid their game being seen as a blatant clone or copy. Though it's nearly always obvious to the public, the need to add at least one new feature can be positive, negative, a new innovation or be the foundation of something revolutionary.

I've placed an interesting video of a TED talk regarding the above but in the fashion industry.

Now, I'm not promoting cloning, copying or the like... I'm merely giving you another perspective to this subject. I know it can be painful to see a game based on yours becoming more successful, but know that without your game, it wouldn't be possible.

Well, that's it for this week. I hope I've opened your minds to this part of the gaming industry. See you all next week!

[Links]

TED - Lessons from fashion's free culture: Link
NimbleBit Interview: Link