But that’s not true of everyone. And that’s why Russell Ginns spoke to CMA members on Monday, August 11.
As Executive Producer of Big Yellow Taxi, Russell’s job is to help people make great games. In order to do that, Russell spends an awful lot of time clarifying what does and does not make a good game. There was a lot to cover, and Russell encouraged us to follow his presentation for offering prizes to anyone who spotted errors.
The first thing he discussed was the ubiquity of games in today’s world, both in kind and quantity. “We are living in a game world,” Russell said, where everything is turning into a game. Pretty much every consumer product, from toothpaste and television shows to language learning software, feels the need to make a game in order to engage its audience… and that means breaking down all sorts of non-gaming activities into levels and turn-based play and reward systems.
And it all started with board games.
In Russell’s experience, there are 10 key rules to remember when trying to make a good game:
If not, people — especially kids — get bored and angry, and the adults “pray for death,” as Russell put it.
Don’t expect your players to be different.
Trivial Pursuit and The Game of Life were products of their time. Today’s consumer demands something different.
Adding the element of surprise to a group of seasoned players, and creating fun all around
You’re not just doing an activity; you’re engaged in an interactive experience
Target, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, & Toys ‘R Us are the largest toy outlets in this country. After they stock their shelves with the big brands, there’s only room for a handful of games.
See above. Also, Monopoly tends to thrive on cross-brand promotion with all kinds of limited edition sets — my favorite is the Klingon one.
“Settlers of Catan” is A HOBBY. It’s the best-selling hobby game of all time, and they only sell 15,000 per year. It’s numbers are low… but it’s fans are devoted. “It’s like a different industry,” Russell explained.
10. Nobody wants your word game
EVERY game company has a word game – and they have to work ALL THE TIME to sell it. Because EVERY company has one.
11. Boardgamegeek.com is the ultimate resource
It existed before the internet.
Did you count 11 things in that top 10 list? So did I!
That’s why I won a prize!There are lots of games that use these rules well:
Blokus allows for kids as young as 1 to play alongside adults and act as an anti-player.
Pretty Pretty Princess is a perfect daddy-daughter game that dads really seem to enjoy playing (“It’s okay,” Russell explained. “For a Princess accessorizing game, it’s weirdly gender-neutral”).
Tumblin Dice is a game that nobody’s heard of but works wonders in a crowd, drawing people who don’t play games (and is “incredibly mean-spirited,” which Russell found fun).
Taboo, like many great party games (Apples to Apples, Pictionary), is a tool to make people feel smart and learn about each other in a group setting (“Someone put a LOT of work into making that game,” Russell praised).
It’s a bit trickier to translate those experiences to digital.
Back when there were only 150,000 games in the app store, iTunes built a business model on getting people to pay for apps. Consumers were trained to go to the app store and pay for games. Anything that was on the web, mobile or otherwise, was free. That same model “will likely be taken back to the web,” Russell explained. Even though the user base for Android users is growing faster: Android users rarely pay for apps.
A little while ago, when there were 750,000 games in the app store, exposure and novelty were a lot harder to come by. Now there are over 900,000 games in the app store, and the rules have changed:
Ideas that first came to life on CD-ROM re-surfaced a bit in the app world.
Those strategies may have worked as a novelty back then, but now they are absolutely no substitute for figuring out how to reach your audience
The company that made that game made 50 other games. They are not flashes in the pan. And remember: whatever gets featured on 60 Minutes or in The Wall Street Journal tends to be what the vast majority of consumers buy. Can you get that exposure?
Don’t make your consumers register before playing the game. Most won’t. Would you?
In-app purchases can ruin the experience of smooth gameplay. Test your app first, and think about how players are making purchases in it. And if you make it so that players are forced to buy products in order to play properly, your game is broken.
DON’T DO THIS.6. You are not smarter than Steve Jobs
You can’t bypass the app store’s fees. Accept that. In fact, learning to promote your app in the store will allow you to make more money than the 15% you think you’d save by bypassing the store.
Meaning, don’t try to translate some other project of yours into a game. ESPECIALLY if you don’t like games. “There’s nothing worse than science fiction written by people who don’t like science fiction,” Russell confirmed.
So how does all of that apply to educational games, the bread and butter of the CMA crowd?
“The customer is NOT the consumer,” Russell summarized. Educational games are made for children and sold to adults – and no kid in the history of EVER has asked for “Hooked on Phonics.” As much as educational game makers might want to change the world, at the end of the day they still have to make a game that’s fun and engaging. As Jim Henson famously said of Sesame Street, “If you’re going to watch TV, this is less bad for you.”
And if you’re going to make an educational game? It better be pitched at kids ages 3-5. And about reading.
Fun fact: 80% of all educational games are for Kindergarten and Preschool age kids, 15% are for 1st and 2nd graders, and 5% for everyone else. That’s the buying pattern for parents – buy educational things before they get into school to help them get a jumpstart, but once they’re in school the buying pattern switches to supplies.
Also, 80% of those games above? Reading games.
“Parents are always teaching words and meanings,” Russell explained. Math might be about 10% of games. Maybe.
Here are a few other things to keep in mind:
“Angry Birds” work because it’s well-executed. If you’re trying to teach something in a game, the player has to learn something they didn’t know before playing it. “How much less fun are you going to make that game to teach something?” as Russell put it.
This sounds obvious, but a lot of games do this. A LOT.
Meaning, the educational parts interrupt the fun parts, making the game not fun to play and not a good teaching tool. This is “education as the punishment of getting to play a game,” according to Russell. And it is far too common.
No matter how expensive it was to create. Dashboards for parents to review and track their child’s progress on a particular game are not integral to the game – or, the player’s use of the game. “It’s putting all your effort and expense into something 4 people are going to use. And 2 people are never going to be happy with it.”
Or, just because you read the rules, use the dashboard, and watch PBS, don’t expect that half of the country does, too.
Designers keep wanting to create games “for granny to pass down for her grandkids” and they don’t realize that granny isn’t the sweet, old, cookie-baking granny that they have.
While those points could have gone on all day, Russell closed his chat by listing discussions that will never die. They are:
“Usually, the answer is ‘You’re a horrible parent, because how did the kid get the $59 game??’”
“If Pokemon taught anything, kids wouldn’t play it”
Russell wrapped up his talk and we launched into a spirited Q& A. Here are the highlights:
Russell is a fount of gaming info and is open and eager to chat. Check him out at Big Yellow Taxi and hit him up to chat games. He’ll happily tell you.
Lastly, remember that a game is broken if a player can’t figure out what to do and it stops being fun – and that isn’t obvious to every player. As someone who keeps turning to her DS when she gets stuck writing this post, I would have never asked that question. I would have never thought to ask that question. But what I appreciate about CMA is its diversity, and someone did ask that question. And we all learned something because of it.
This is NOT a broken game. And super fun.That’s my favorite part of CMA. And Russell was able to facilitate that for us.
Even if he didn’t actually hand out anymore prizes. Oh well. Don’t worry, Russell. We’ll crack your rules.
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