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[joshg]

from Casual Connect:

3. Make People Instantly Successful
If there is any secret to making casual games, its this one: The first few levels should be achievable by a brain-dead moron. The whole idea is to entice people with instant success and the feeling of power, and then very slowly turn the screws, doing so only after you know the player has mastered the basics.

Don’t ever forget that the success of your game depends on your ability to make successful even those people who can’t figure out how to send email.

I was going to write something ranting about this, but I think the craptastic attitude speaks for itself.

(stuck in Art and Design because this article actually does have good game design tips, or at least ideas that are good until warped by the Dark Side into malevolent devices of evil)

[Melly]

I kind of agree that if you want your game to be universally accessible even by the parents and grandparents who never touched a controller you should hand-hold quite a bit, but he does seem fairly hostile. Just because someone never played a game before doesn't mean he's an imbecile, and many of those people may be insulted by being considered so, even if you don't explicitly say so in your game.

[Alex May]

I don't see what is wrong with this attitude joshg. I think if you have a game you want everyone to play then you should make it playable by everyone. What would be the point of making a game designed to be played casually, difficult to play? It's just elitist. A huge aspect of casual games is accessibility, so this is perfectly OK.

In fact there's a good argument for having this kind of attitude with all games, allowing people who think they're hardcore enough to skip ahead to wherever they feel they will meet a worthy challenge, or to set the difficulty themselves. I assume from your original post you are against having different difficulty levels as well?

[Paul-Jan]

Sounds to me like he was not so much having problems with the what (i.e. casual audience needing accessible games) as the why ("because they are morons").

[moshboy]

I think it's just an honest description of how casual game development works, rather than sugar-coating it in bullshit. I think it can be both good and bad. I think one of the joys of playing games is to discover game mechanics for yourself once in a while (but other times you do need your hand held, if the game mechanic is a little more complex).

[Corpus]

Uh, dudes. Guys. What are you talking about? He or she didn't call the audience morons. They just said that the first few levels have to be of a level suitable to enable completion by morons. As for the second part, a lot of people can't figure out how to send an email, and many of those people are the definition of the casual game's target audience.

What's the beef?

[increpare]

As for the second part, a lot of people can't figure out how to send an email

a lot? even for casual gamers, I'd say that, at a minimum, 90% would have email access.  you have any statistics to substantiate your claims?

[Corpus]

Um, do you? 10% is a fuckload of people, not that it's an even vaguely plausible figure. Having email access does not necessarily mean that a person knows how to send an email. Most people I know over the age of 60 - and there are a lot of people over 60 - don't know how to send an email, and use computers only minimally. Even my mum only recently learned to send an email.

Notice, also, that I said "target audience," and not "audience." Casual games, ideally, would be able to attract, well, everyone, but especially those people that wouldn't usually play games - say, for example, most people over the age of 60.

[increpare]

Most people I know over the age of 60 - and there are a lot of people over 60 - don't know how to send an email, and use computers only minimally. Even my mum only recently learned to send an email.

Most people I know over 60 are rather active on the internet.  (Retirement and whatnot leaves them a lot of time for idle trolling  ).  Both of these are just anecdotal pieces of evidence though.  Anyone have any stats about these various demographics?

As for 105 not being even vaguely plausible, on what data do you base this claim?

Notice, also, that I said "target audience," and not "audience." Casual games, ideally, would be able to attract, well, everyone, but especially those people that wouldn't usually play games - say, for example, most people over the age of 60.

I'd say that it'd possibly be more worth most people's time  (from an individual, business-person's perspective) to target people who do already play games than those who don't.  From what I gather, most casual games already do that, and appeal to people who like other casual games.

[Akhel]

Most people I know over 60 are rather active on the internet.

But that's certainly not the norm.

[increpare]

Most people I know over 60 are rather active on the internet.

But that's certainly not the norm.

What is the norm then?

[Akhel]

People over 60 not being active on the Internet.

[Corpus]

Well, 90% is implausible because not even 90% of people own computers. Unless you meant 90% of casual gamers, in which case it would be plausible, but I went on to cover that in my last post, anyway.

Do you know most of those over-60-year-olds on the internet? Because that would explain it.

Casual games are supposed to appeal to the people who, stereotypically, would not be expected to play games. Obviously, there's already quite a large market for these games, but the fact remains - no, I don't have statistics, and, yes, I defy you to contradict this - that most of those demographics - stay-at-home mothers, older people, etc. - do not currently play games.

[increpare]

Well, 90% is implausible because not even 90% of people own computers. Unless you meant 90% of casual gamers, in which case it would be plausible, but I went on to cover that in my last post, anyway.

Yeah, that's sort of what I meant.  So you're targeting people who don't have computers then? 

Do you know most of those over-60-year-olds on the internet? Because that would explain it.

You got me on that one!

(okay, no more demands for statistics from me; I'll work with what we have to hand)

Casual games are supposed to appeal to the people who, stereotypically, would not be expected to play games. Obviously, there's already quite a large market for these games, but the fact remains - no, I don't have statistics, and, yes, I defy you to contradict this - that most of those demographics - stay-at-home mothers, older people, etc. - do not currently play games.

I can sort of accept this.  But isn't it a sort of hopeless task to try to attract such an audience?  It's in the interest of ISPs to attract such people.

The post quoted at the start reminds me of the whole 'aunt tillie' linux-usability stuff.  I personally have no issue with some of the content of the quote, it's more the language that they use to express things that seems a bit off.  And, taken literally, I can't really imagine that somebody who actually can't, in spite of having tried, figure out how to send email (assuming somebody has set up the account for her) has much chance at all of coming across such games, navigating websites that might have games, &c. (I'm willing to take the guess that the most likely way of people finding out about various casual games (or casual gaming sites anyway) is via email forwards and fora).

[joshg]

Okay, I guess I should've explained what I was thinking after all.

I totally agree that a game should be designed to be super-accessible in the early levels, and then ramp up the difficulty as you progress.

What I dislike is the attitude - or, more precisely, the wrong-headedness of thinking that accessibility is the same thing as designing for morons.  It's not really even a bad attitude at all, it's just the wrong way to think about good design.

Disclaimer: this is a lot of Donald Norman's "Design of Everyday Things" coming back to me.  Anyone who cares about design at all (of games, chairs, doors, cars, whatever) should go hunt down a library and read this book.

Making something accessible does not mean assuming that your users are stupid.  In fact, if that's as far as you can think about it then you may actually end up making things worse.  The overused example in "Design of Everyday Things" are (trust me, this is relevant eventually) the design of public doors.  How many times have you come across a door that you glance at, grab the handle and pull, and then realize that it says "PUSH"?  You know what?  You're not an idiot for doing so.  If the door had a handle which you would expect to grab and pull (probably one with a vertically oriented bar or plate on the outside edge of the door), then the door is communicating to you that it should be pulled.  There are plenty of push-side door handles which you wouldn't expect to pull (eg. a horizontal bar) that the designer could've used instead.

The reason I'm rambling about this example is that slapping a "PUSH" sign above a poorly designed door is a perfect example of thinking your users are idiots.  "Oh, why aren't these idiots pushing the door open?  I guess I have to shout 'PUSH THE DOOR YOU MORONS' at them for them to get it.  Sheesh!"  This totally fails because no sane person will expect to have to read instructions for something if there are simple visual conventions that should be enough to let them know what to do.

On the other hand, if you think of your users as perfectly normal and rational people, then when you see them fail to get something right away you will stop and ask why they didn't get it - and assume that the problem is actually a miscommunication in your design.  What did my design lead them to believe which led to this mistake?  How can I fix the communication problem so that they learn what the correct action is to take?

An easy example of how this relates to game design is in creating an accessible user interface.  For example, if you think your users are idiots, you'll put "CLICK HERE TO DO THIS" messages all over the place.  If you think of your users as perfectly rational people who can be communicated to via standard design cues, you'll know that you can probably achieve the same effect by simply highlighting the objects you want them to click with an animation and then having a noticeable visual change when they mouseover the object.

I'm willing to bet that no one on the Portal design team told each other, "Okay, if we were complete f'ing morons, how would we play the game?"  If you listen to their design commentary in-game you totally don't hear that kind of thought process.

[moi]

There is definitely A LOT of over 60 years old on the internet, all the retired people around me with a good income(mom, uncle, etc...) actually spend a lot of time on the internets, I can't quantify the numbers but there really is a lot of them.

[joshg]

There is definitely A LOT of over 60 years old on the internet, all the retired people around me with a good income(mom, uncle, etc...) actually spend a lot of time on the internets, I can't quantify the numbers but there really is a lot of them.

I have a great aunt who switched from making her own (birthday, etc) cards scrapbooking-style, to photochopping her own cards.  They're friggin' amazing.

[Zaphos]

I completely agree, joshg, thanks for writing it out so nicely

[William Broom]

Maybe if less casual game developers thought like this, then casual games would be more enjoyable for *real* gamers.

EDIT: Wow, I hate this guy even more now since he implied that Lego Batman is a casual game. DUDE, LEGO BATMAN IS HARDCORE AS YOU CAN GET.

[joshg]

I was going to write something ranting about this, but I think the craptastic attitude speaks for itself.

(stuck in Art and Design because this article actually does have good game design tips, or at least ideas that are good until warped by the Dark Side into malevolent devices of evil)

The complexity of your game should depend on the audience you wish to appease. Not everyone makes games for new comers in the realm of technology. Others want simple mechanics so everyone and their grandma can play. Why set rules on how to make a game? Make what you enjoy, and or see others enjoy. Live and learn.

 - My 2 cents.

Yeah, this wasn't actually what I was bothered by at all.  Guess next time I'll put my long-winded response in the first post so that people who don't read the rest of the thread can catch my drift.

Maybe if less casual game developers thought like this, then casual games would be more enjoyable for *real* gamers.

EDIT: Wow, I hate this guy even more now since he implied that Lego Batman is a casual game. DUDE, LEGO BATMAN IS HARDCORE AS YOU CAN GET. Angry

And it is quite possible - take a look at the work done by Gamelab.

As for Lego Batman, maybe it spans across those categories because it's both frickin' awesome as well as carrying instant appeal for a less hardcore audience?  I haven't actually played the recent Lego games yet (they're on my list) so maybe I'm crazy though.  The actual gameplay doesn't require hardcore levels of skill, does it?