Blog: The Anatomy of a Successful Game

3 Lessons from Game Thinking to Help You Innovate Successfully in Games, VR, and Beyond

  • Added on 24 March 2017

  • By WpFlara!-14?!

  • 0 Comments

Innovating is hard. There is not a clear road, and a disorienting number of possible directions to follow. Innovating and succeeding in the market is even harder; but there are a few lessons we can learn from innovating products that have succeeded in the past. Amy Jo Kim has put together a Game Thinking Toolkit, a powerful system that integrates many processes and practices she learned as part of the design team at games like Rock Band and The Sims. It turns out that a lot of the principles that game designers have used for creating successful innovative games can help us innovate successfully in all sorts of fields.

Lesson 1. Assume You Will Be Wrong

There is a lot in common between good game design practices and other product discovery methodologies like lean startup, UX centered design, and design thinking. One of the things all these methodologies agree is about the chances of succeeding at our first attempt at product development: every time we are coming up with new products or solutions to problems we make a lot of assumptions -many of them unconsciously- and a lot of these assumptions turn out to be wrong.

To counter this problem all modern product discovery methodologies prescribe as a solution user-centered iterative development: focus on understanding your user needs first, and then develop solutions in an iterative way where user testing and course correction is part of the development process throughout. If you know that most likely you will be wrong, early and continuous testing will let you correct before is too late or too expensive. “You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site” says the famous Frank Lloyd Wright’s quote.

When you assume that you will be wrong, plan for it, and do your best to uncover the wrongs as early as possible, the whole process will be more effective and smoother.

Lesson 2. Develop a Core Learning Loop First

If the first lesson is common to many other methodologies, this one is more unique to game thinking. The concept of a core loop is something common in games but game thinking expands its application to all sorts of products and experiences.

All games have a core set of activities that the player repeats over and over to advance through the game. In a casual game like Bejeweled the core loop is pretty simple: you solve match-3 puzzles, which let you level up and earn new powers, which make it more fun to solve more match-3 puzzles, level up more, earn more… and so on. These core repeatable activities are called core loops and are the foundation to long-term engagement. In essence, players complete rewarding activities that compel them to come back and do more rewarding activities. Social networks are an easy example of products that are not games that have a core loop. In Twitter and Facebook for example, the loop would be about reading and responding to updates and messages, as you engage with people and topics that you find interesting, your updates will be tailored around them, making your updates more interesting and engaging for you, which will lead you to interact more, and so on.

The other aspect that is unique in Amy Jo Kim’s toolkit is that we are not just talking about core-loops but about core-learning-loops: loops where the repeating activities allow the player or user to learn or get better at something. “Fun is just another word for learning” is a well known quote from Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. It is true; the most engaging games include a mastery component. If you add this element of mastery and transformation to your loop it will be much more powerful.

Why developing this core-learning-loop first? Because in most cases if you cannot figure out how to keep people around your product or experience, nothing else matters. You can spend as much as you want on marketing, but if the people you bring from your marketing efforts don’t stay, become fans, and recommend your game or experience to others, you won’t succeed. In other words you will have a leaky bucket that can never be filled, no matter how much water you manage to put in.

Developing a loop that keeps players around is much easier if you have found something that connects emotionally with your users or players. In the case of a utilitarian product this would be the value proposition, you offer the solution to a problem that your users have, and that is enough of a reason for them to be invested. So although the first part of the product that you should develop is this core-loop, you need to be clear about your value proposition and how it connects to your users.

In the case of an entertainment product, finding that emotional connection is much trickier. The value proposition, providing an entertaining game, is not enough in a market filled with games claiming to be entertaining. In the case of games and other purely entertainment products, figuring out how to connect emotionally through the right theme or IP might actually make it easier to find the right loop. In the case of games and other interactive experiences engagement will also be stronger if you tie your loop to other ingredients that contribute to engagement like stories. You can read more about how concept art can help you test and validate you emotional connection in another article here. You can also find out more about how core-loops can connect to other ingredients in your game to strengthen engagement in this article here.

Lesson 3. Test First with Your Super-Fans, Not Your Core Market

This is another thing that is unique to Amy Jo Kim’s game thinking approach. At the beginning of the process, the people that you are going to learn the most are not the people that will be your core market, but the people that are already very invested: your early adopters or super-fans. This recommendation is very different to what you hear from other methodologies. The most common recommendation is that you need to test your ideas and prototypes with your target market, with the people that will eventually be your core customers. That makes sense, a successful game or product needs to attract a wider audience, and not just the super committed fans willing to adopt any new product in the niche they love.

However, when you are truly innovating your product will be difficult to grasp for most people. People in your target market will get it once you have polished all the rough edges and figure out a smooth user experience, but that comes at the final stages. At the beginning you will have a lot of rough edges and you should not be spending time smoothing them out, but figuring out if the core features are the right ones. The most qualified people to give you feedback about those core features, the ones that will be able to see beyond the rough edges, are your early adopters and visionaries, not your core market. This approach, although counter intuitive at first, is what allowed ground breaking games like Rock Band and the Sims come to fruition and become the huge market success they are. Of course you want to make sure that your value proposition, or your theme and IP in the case of a game purely for entertainment, will connect to your larger target market, but to figure out the right core features, test with your super-fans.

Conclusion

Innovating successfully is hard, but following some lessons from previous innovative and successful products will increase our chances. The Game Thinking toolkit that Amy Jo Kim has put together is a very useful roadmap to navigate the confusing waters of innovative product development.

If you want to learn more in depth about this system and save time in your product development, check out Game Thinking Live, a yearly conference and workshop happening at the end of March in San Francisco. I will be participating as a coach and if you are interested in attending you can get a 30% discount by using the code FELIPE30.

4 Prototypes That Will Help You Survive The Road Towards a Successful Game

  • Added on 28 February 2017

  • By WpFlara!-14?!

  • 0 Comments

If you have led a team in the development of a new game, you probably felt at some point like the clown in the illustration above: trying to entertain people, while juggling 10 things at the same time, trying to navigate through a flimsy thin line without falling, and pulling your team along for the ride. The fact is that making games is risky business. There is no way around this, but prototyping the right things will help you reduce risk greatly.

The main risk is of course figuring out what game you should build – what combination of game mechanics, compelling art, storytelling, and social will attract players and keep them engaged long-term. But this major risk is composed of many smaller risks: Do your game mechanics engage players? Does your game run smoothly in the delivering platform? Does your game stand out from the competition? Etc. Although there is no way to getting rid of all risk, you can reduce and keep your risks in check before too many of them pile up and bury your game down.

This process of figuring out what product we should build is what is called product discovery. In the last few years, new methodologies have emerged that have changed the way we look at this process: lean start-up, design thinking, rapid prototyping, user-centered development- all involve prototyping and user-testing as essential tools to help us learn sooner rather than later what is the right product to build, connect with our users, and reach our goals. For a big picture view of product discovery I recommend this presentation by Teresa Torres, a coach and consultant who helps companies figure out how to build the right products.

In this article however I want to focus on 4 prototypes that will help you create a game with long-term engagement and growth. I talked in previous articles how successful games and experiences need to go through four steps: first stand out so your target players notice you, then connect with them at an emotional level so they are willing to give you a few minutes of attention, then engage them so you can keep them for longer time, and finally get them to help you grow by sticking around and inviting their friends to join. Each of these steps has at least one major risk:

  • Is your game going to stand out in the crowd?
  • Will players who see your game care about trying it out?
  • Will your mechanics keep them engaged?
  • Will they talk about your game with their friends and recommend it?

 
The 4 prototypes bellow will help you validate potential solutions to overcome each of these steps:

 

1. Concept Art.

 
It might sound strange to list concept art as a prototype, but the right concept art can be a very useful tool to test two of the foundations of a successful game: how to stand out and how to connect emotionally with your target players. In reality players do not connect to games and experiences exactly because of the art itself, but rather because of the attitudes and points of view that the art reflects and that resonate with them -what I have called Theme in previous articles. Art alone will not sustain players’ interest either; the “cool look” factor wears off quickly and needs to be accompanied by game mechanics and stories that continue reinforcing the Theme that got players’ attention in the first place. However, art is the easiest way to explore and start testing which Themes resonate with your target players and which ones don’t. Finding the right Theme and the right representation of it, will take you a long way towards standing out and connecting quickly with your players.
 

2. Core loop.

 
Having a core loop that does not engage players is probably your highest risk and one of the most common causes of failure. All games have a core set of activities that the player repeats over and over to advance through the game. These repeatable activities are usually called loops and are the engine that keeps the player’s interest going. If this core loop does not help the players keep their interest and fulfill at least some of their initial expectations, they will quit and your game will be like a leaky bucket that needs to be refilled with new players constantly. Needless to say, it is much harder to reach any success with a leaky bucket. I have seen many developers trying to add more and more features to their games, hoping that these features will cover the hole in their leaky core-loop. The problem is that more features rarely solve the problem, and fixing the core-loop is much more complicated and expensive once it is interconnected to a bunch of secondary features. In the end, they would have been better off if they had taken care of their core loop before adding a bunch of extra features and smoking mirrors. Prototype your core-loop and make sure it works before trying to add more features!
 

3. On-boarding experience.

 
Once you have an engaging core loop, you need to make sure that players get to it. This means that the onboarding experience -the time since your players first start playing your game until the time they get to the core loop- needs to be as smooth and engaging as possible. Having an engaging core loop won’t help if players quit the game before getting to it. Prototype and test your onboarding experience.
 

4. Social loop.

 
There is a sequence of social activities that happen around games that go viral or form a strong player community: players are compelled to share the game or the results of the game with their friends, which in turn are compelled to start playing the game and tell other friends about it. These activities are sometimes structured as part of the game mechanics inside the game, like in Clash Royale where the core mechanics of the game involve playing with other players, joining clans, etc. But social loops can also happen outside of the game itself. In games like Minecraft or Little Big Planet players create their own content and share it in forums and social networks, and although these activities happen outside of the game, they effectively promote the game to others. Social loops outside of the game are harder to measure, but even looking at number of social media posts and likes can veer you in the right direction. If you care about having a game that can grow its user base organically without a highly expensive marketing campaign, you need to prototype and test your social loops.

 

Conclusion

 
Risk is part of the thrill of making new games and experiences, but building the right prototypes at the right time can help you keep your risks in check before they get out of hand and you fall into the sharks. The 4 prototypes above are important because they help you test and validate how your game will engage players, but they are not the only ones. In the end prototyping is about mitigating risks and the general rule is that you need to build the prototypes that tackle your higher risks first; this could be more related to the technology, or to your business model, depending on what you are innovating on.

What prototypes do you consider the most important ones? Let me know in the comments.