So, you’ve decided to create a video game.  What do you do now?  How do you get started?

The decisions you make here can make or break your game.  At the same time –  this is a process.  If you treat it like an experiment (which it is), you’ll be able to make changes as development goes along and seek the best possible game/user experience rather than succumbing to other, perhaps monetary, factors.

Don’t get me wrong.  You should never throw money at a problem.  You just end up with money out of your hand and all over the floor.  But, you should also never decide to use an element/ingredient just because it costs a lot of money.  If the gargantuan-ly expensive element detracts from user experience and thereby the game overall, it will discourage users from the game and your product/service.  You’ll lose more money keeping it in than if you dropped it in the first place.

At the end of this grand experiment, you’ll either have invented the light bulb or learned something almost more important: how a light bulb doesn’t work.  Here are just a few of the decisions you’ll need to make on your journey towards play-marketing (as I like to call it):

1. Audience.  Just because you have a large audience for your product/service doesn’t mean you need to include all of them.  Just because you have a small audience for your product doesn’t mean you need to limit the game to their demographic.  Choose an audience that you want to target and build the game around them.  “Everyone” is not an option.  It’ll be much easier if you’re more specific, but you don’t need to say “women between 30 and 35 with cats named Stella.”  Hey, if that’s your audience great, but something too specific may be limiting to your creative process.

Once you’ve chosen your audience, learn about them.  Find out what they like and dislike and how you can better make a game that they will enjoy.  A gothic horror game probably wouldn’t go over well with the Hannah Montana-obsessed tween crowd.

2. Genre.  Many people like to hold their nose up and say, “My game transcends mere Genre.”  That may be true, but I feel the genres exist for a reason.  We should definitely try to break out of genres with new and interesting games/books/movies/stories, but it’s the true artist who creates a new genre without telling anyone.

If you’ve already got an idea that doesn’t fit neatly into a genre, great!  Go ahead and pursue it.  But if you’re strapped for ideas and don’t have the next flOw up your sleeve, it’s best to just pick the genre you feel would appeal most to your audience.

3. Tone.  Although many genres have a built in tone, putting a new spin on the genre by using a different tone e.g. a World War II comedy or a dark puzzle game could help set you apart from the crowd.  Sean of the Dead, for instance, mixed zombie and comedy to a moviegoer’s delight.  Don’t make this choice lightly.  A comedy WWII game done poorly could at best not create any interest, but it could also offend veterans and military personnel in general.

4. Gameplay.  Determine how the game will be played.  Is it a 2D side scroller, is it a 3D shooter, is it a click-and-match puzzle game?  How will the user interact with your game?  This covers both the buttons a user pushes as well as how the character/avatar/block/thing reacts on screen.

Of all the decisions you make, this is probably the most important decision because it is the crux of the game.  Your game would not be a “game” without it.  A great concept with awesome graphics and a good story will fail if the gameplay is clunky or difficult.  A mediocre concept with mediocre graphics and a mediocre story that has great and interesting gameplay will do much better.

5. Platform.  Choosing a platform often will come down to money.  If you have gobs of money you might want to consider one of the high end platforms like the Wii, Xbox 360, or Playstation 3.  But then, you also have to deal with game publishers and many other headaches.  Other platforms like the iPhone, Flash, or Silverlight have a much lower cost of entry.  Your choice of platform will help determine your revenue stream i.e. if you can monetize the game directly (probably inadvisable) or use advertising/licensing to defray costs or simply give it away as a freebie.  It can also determine development costs, and will most of all determine where and how your game will be viewed and played.

6. Goals.  Set realistic, measurable goals for how you (and your boss, and his/her boss) will classify this experiment as a success or failure.  Do you want to increase traffic to your site?  Do you want direct revenue?  What does your boss want?  Answering these questions on the front end will save lots of headaches (and possibly your job).

So, go ahead and get started making your game.  If nothing else…Solitaire can now be classified as “Research.”

Filed under: Design & Development, General Marketing on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 by John Rhea | 1 Comment
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