What is holding my game back?

2023 May 19 Fri
3 min. read (633 words)
Growth strategy
How many chances do we get to impress people?
Wishlist
Is my game impressive enough?
References

Games are like chocolate. The problem isn't nobody wants chocolate. The problem is nobody wants our chocolate. There are lot of games out there. We need to convince people to try ours.

Growth strategy

Let's say we see a great game, and recommend it to 2 people. Those 2 people recommend it to 2 other people. Repeat for exponential growth. In reality, most people are too lazy to recommend games. I don't think individual word of mouth will lead to much growth. Instead, I prefer to contact individuals to play test the game.

We need to impress a large group of people. To target large groups, we need to contact people with a large following.

How many chances do we get to impress people?

We'll get the most impressions when the game launches, and when someone influential talks about our game. Reasons they might talk about our game: to review it, to cover a big update, to do a video essay on it, to explain the story, to speedrun it, tier lists, reacting to funny aspects of the game (bugs, dialogue), etc.

Again, people will only talk about the game if it is impressive enough to begin with. If our game is attractive, and unique, a review score of 7/10, or 3.5/5 should be enough. If our game is similar to many others, then a score of 8 or 9 may be needed to stand out.

Wishlist

There are a lot of games. People probably have 5 games on their wishlist. Just because our trailer is impressive, doesn't mean our game will jump to priority 1.

What makes a trailer impressive? In general, people value entertainment, because it sparks emotion in them. What emotions should we focus on? If our goal is wide appeal, then I've noticed the top news stories in my social media feed invoke curiosity, humor, education related to self-improvement, wholesomeness/ warmth (animals, people helping each other, couples doing cute things), and surprise.

Music and art are the best at communicating mood, so make sure the trailer has great art, and music.

Sales

We can increase our game's priority a little through sales. If someone's top 5 wished for games are not on sale, and they aren't playing any game, then they might try our game. Going free probably works best for multiplayer games, since people have more motivation to invite their friends.

Is my game impressive enough?

Again, nothing in this article matters if our game isn't good. In my "Good Game" article, I covered the 3 elements of an impressive game. They are uniqueness, beauty, and elegance. I believe a majority of a games impressiveness is based on it's beauty, so that's what I'll talk about. By beauty, I mean the ability to invoke emotion.

Art, music, story and gameplay are the main sources of emotion

7/10 art = Most artists study realism, so my semi-realistic style is generic.
5/10 music = The quality my music is 4/10, but since dark ambient isn't that popular it will seem fresh to people.
7/10 story = The quality is 5/10, but will feel like a 6/10, since people have low standards for game stories. Voice acting should also boost the score by 1.
4/10 gameplay = Game design is a mix of skills. Although, the word puzzle is weak, the other skills boost the score.