What Games Are

Angry Birds and Celebrating Theft [Tetrism]

It’s hard not to notice that some games have roots in other games and that genres tend to group around certain rules. In some cases these rules even become a template and lead developers to copy each others’ work wholesale. Cloned games are the mark of either student or lazy developers, however sometimes a game comes along which takes its start from another game type but runs with it and becomes something original.

The negative backlash then says ‘Oh that game is just a copy of X’. Like a bunch of haughtier-than-thou music fans striving to be more underground than one another, this kind of one-upmanship is just jealousy talking.

Lately, for example, I’ve been reading comments in various forums that Angry Birds is ‘just a clone’ of other games. No it’s not. Such sentiments are the ugly underbelly of a development community that begrudges success by reducing every game down to its basic elements with a self-satisfied sneer.

For shame.

To Demo or Not to Demo? [Marketing]

Sharna Jackson tweeted me, asking:

what's the verdict on playable demos? Just trying to decide if we need one on an app we're developing for 8+

And it’s an excellent question. Studios often get caught on the subject of whether they should give away a demo of their game, or leave it alone. The prospect is that they will acquire customers through this marketing effort, but the fear is that they will effectively give the store away.

Here’s my view: If you’re going to give away a demo, make it substantial. Otherwise, don’t bother.

Visual vs Action Oriented Design [Game Design]

(with thanks to Ian Carroll)

Generally speaking, there are two ways to start designing a game. The first is to start with visuals. You create a world, a series of possible dynamics that might come out of that world, and you have a sense of back story. You tend to describe the world in terms of place, character or storysense, and paint a picture of an experience to inspire your team.

The second is to start with actions. You start with what the player will do, how he will do it, how the game will control and what the camera will do. You tend to think in terms of rules, efficiency and flow and treat the aesthetic components as something that will come along later.

The games industry often uses visually oriented design to sell its ideas, but action oriented design is usually superior for making great games. So why does the visual persist?

Red Oceanomics [Social Games]

Yesterday, Inside Social Games published a post of mine about the social game market and how I believe that it’s increasingly becoming a red ocean. Red ocean is a term from the book Blue Ocean Strategy, and it means a market that has become bloody with competition. Red oceans tend to be focused on aping, copying and differentiation rather than pure innovation.

This is a trend that I see happening a lot in Facebook gaming in particular, whether for bad or good. I’ll have a follow-up piece on ISG soon, talking about ways to head into the blue ocean instead, and perhaps kick of Facebook gaming’s next generation.

Muggles [Casual and Social Gamers]

Facebook, motion controllers, mobile phones and minute-long game experiences tap into casual (and social) game players. Many believe that conversion of these players to bigger and better games is just a matter of education and exposure. And so we can expand the market for games exponentially. We can take on Hollywood. By broadening the appeal of games, everyone becomes a gamer.

Not so much. Casual players have significantly responded to games targeted at them, but not to richer gaming any more than ever. They like to play games, but don’t engage with the possibilities beyond what they already expect. They still don’t seem to see games as anything other than either amusements or for ‘gamers’.

In Harry Potter terms, they are muggles. If you’re going to make games for muggles, you need to realise that you’re not in the conversion business. You’re in the satisfaction business.

Satoru and Steve [Life Meets Art]

Yesterday two of the most important companies in games and technology, Nintendo and Apple, held keynotes back to back. The Nintendo keynote at GDC primarily concerned the 3DS and filling out its marketing story, while across town Apple unveiled the iPad 2 and its particular brand of fanfare.

However, something a little bit special happened: Satoru Iwata (CEO of Nintendo) used the last ten minutes of his keynote to deliver a talk that conveyed a complex and difficult time for game development. Then Steve Jobs told the world that Apple have paid out over two billion dollars to developers through its iOS ecosystem.

These events literally happened within minutes of each other. If you ever wanted a vertical slice of what’s happening in the games industry, this was the moment to witness.

Social Games vs Multiplayer Games [Review]

I have a guest post on Inside Social Games tonight which reviews a presentation by Raph Koster on the subject of social games. Raph’s talks are always one of the highlights of the conference – even from afar – so you should definitely check out his latest. I hope you enjoy the review, and if you did manage to get to GDC, let me know how it’s going.