What users like about games

DaveTheCoder

What characteristics of a game do users like? What makes a game more popular than other games? What characteristics make the game less popular?

cybereality

I think visual style is important to get gamers to even initially buy/download the game. Not necessarily super realistic graphics, but a consistent and original art direction. Then you need a hook. Something that is new or novel. Making a Call of Duty knock off probably doesn't work for an indie dev, you can't really compete with that AAA level, but if you make something smaller with a unique feature it could work. Finally, it has to be fun. That means tight controls, challenging and rewarding. Something worth talking about on social media. I think if you have all those things the game will find an audience.

DaveTheCoder

I finally came up with an idea for a game and began development. I left it running on my computer while I was in another room. I noticed one of my cats staring at the monitor. Eventually he jumped onto the desk and started pawing the monitor.

I wonder if that's a good sign.

cybereality

Yeah, my cat was obsessed with Cyberpunk 2077. She's bigger now, this was her as a kitten.

OpinionatedGamer

One cool thing in some games, are the games where you feel like you can always get better at and find new moves to try. Rocket League is a good example, and also a game no one knows about, Teeworlds (it's free and open source too, but I digress). In Rocket League, the controls feel great, you learn to flip, and score goals, but you can always get better by learning to rocket fly, or do a tornado flip.

DaveTheCoder

Do you prefer that a game have instructions that explain everything? Or do you prefer figuring out things for yourself?

Examples:

A weapon becomes more potent after you befriend other characters. More points are awarded by killing certain characters than other characters.

Megalomaniak

Rules of the game especially anything to do with win/lose conditions should probably be explained explicitly.

DaveTheCoder

I'm wondering, though, if some of the tactics needed to become skillful at advancing in the game should be things you have to figure out for yourself.

I'm thinking of the old interactive fiction games like Zork, where you have to figure out almost everything.

cybereality

Even if you don't have a tutorial, it should be understandable what is happening. Otherwise there is almost no point as if the player doesn't know what something does it might as well not even be in there.

I saw this happen with Cyberpunk 2077. While there are some real choices in the game, they don't tell you when a dialogue options opens, or when your choice affects something else. So gamers mostly complained that there were no choices in the game, even though there were, because it was unknowable to them. I noticed this once I played the game a second time, there were some very different things that happened (though, to be fair, the game was mostly linear).

Though I think some mystery is good. Like certain weapons being more effective against certain enemies. As a simple example, you can have a fire round that hurts ice enemies. You don't have to say this anywhere, but give players a clue and let them figure it out. That could be fun (like the old Megaman, they never told you what weapon to use).

Or really any old game, they never had tutorials, they just dropped you in there. Metroid is a good example. There were lots of upgrades you needed, but you had to figure out based on the levels when you needed them. Like there was a large jump you couldn't make, then maybe hours later you find the high jump boots and remember that earlier part you couldn't complete. So I think stuff like that works. Axiom Verge is a good example of a modern game that does this.

OpinionatedGamer

@DaveTheCoder said: Do you prefer that a game have instructions that explain everything? Or do you prefer figuring out things for yourself?

Examples:

A weapon becomes more potent after you befriend other characters. More points are awarded by killing certain characters than other characters.

It differs for each game, but in general figuring stuff out yourself is great, as long as it's fun stuff. However, some hand holding is nice to get started on stuff. This also differs for game type, if you are playing a single player survival game, the whole point is learning how to survive, so being told how everything works would be against the point of the game. However if it's an online only arena game, and the whole point is matching skill against players, some good tutorials are in order IMHO. As for your specific examples,

A weapon becomes more potent after you befriend other characters.

I think for this what would be best is to give a hint. Don't outright tell the player that "this weapons will be this much stronger in this area if you befriend this character," it removes all the coolness. Instead maybe say something like "Your weapons are nice, but a little average. Who knows, maybe someone could help you with that if you asked nicely." No matter what you try to do, I think it's critical that you make it obvious why it happened after it happened.

More points are awarded by killing certain characters than other characters.

You could go either way, but I think this one will be obvious to the player without being told. Usually the characters that earn the most score will be the hardest to beat, so the player will assume this will be the case.

Even if you don't tell the player, often times you will figure out subtle ways to lead them to the conclusion. If you can do this successfully, the player will feel great that he figured it out, but if it takes him to long, he will be frustrated. Sorry if it feels like this comment is totally in limbo, but I think this depends a lot on the style of game. =)

OpinionatedGamer

@cybereality said: I think visual style is important to get gamers to even initially buy/download the game. Not necessarily super realistic graphics, but a consistent and original art direction.

Just a note, I think that the key point here is consistent. If the art style looks different for different assets, it looks like you downloaded random assets online. To me that immediately makes the game look low quality, and I lose interest.

cybereality

A great example is Mirror's Edge. It came out in 2009 and the graphics still look good. Cause they didn't attempt to do hyper-realistic, they went with a unique and simple art style and it holds up even today.

xyz

Mirror's Edge is one of the best visually designed games ever. I bought it on the looks alone. Although the gameplay is nothing special, just soaking in this masterfully stylized visual experience is worth the money and time investment. And yeah, it doesn't have to be something realistic or even 3d. Hohokum is another one that comes to mind. If I had a PS I'd buy this game no questions asked, solely on the basis of its visuals. I remember impulsively buying Psychonauts immediately after seeing a poster showing all of its beautifully unhinged character designs. I didn't know anything else about the game nor I cared to check...

Consistent and well thought out visual design can indeed be a key factor in the overall game appeal, at least for me personally. If a game is otherwise excellent but not much effort is put into its visual side, I typically can't get into it. FTL being one such example.

fire7side

It really depends on the gamer. I find very few games intriguing. I like to explore mostly, and I like character interaction even if it's just choosing from some options. It still gives the game personality. I like some kind of mystery that comes clearer though out the game play. I like actually getting better at something rather than having the game award me upgrades because I played a long time. Upgrades are all right, but they need to feel earned.

OpinionatedGamer

Outer Wilds (not worlds) and Astroneer also have beautiful, timeless graphics in my opinion.

OpinionatedGamer

@fire7side said: I like some kind of mystery that comes clearer though out the game play. I like actually getting better at something rather than having the game award me upgrades because I played a long time.

You should check out Outer Wilds. It's a really cool space game where you are trying to solve a mystery. It's all about searching for stuff and piecing together clues and the mystery becomes clearer and clearer as you play. (This looks like a blatant add, I am not being paid to say this, just recommending it, lol)

fire7side

@OpinionatedGamer said:

You should check out Outer Wilds. It's a really cool space game where you are trying to solve a mystery. It's all about searching for stuff and piecing together clues and the mystery becomes clearer and clearer as you play. (This looks like a blatant add, I am not being paid to say this, just recommending it, lol)

Yeah, I've been waiting for the price to come down because I'm so cheap. It looks fantastic.

OpinionatedGamer

@SuperMegaHamish said: I`ve played games from 2001 and started from SEGA 32bit. I played almost every day of my life in BIG variesty of games and...I think game industry started to suck after it became so popular and expensive. And Im not the only one who thinks so - just check this article.

I mean - yes, there are some good games and now like RDR 2 or Skyrim but....

I think the current issue is that people are willing to pay for awful AAA games that have no new mechanics and then rant about them on reddit. If people would just stop paying for bad quality games, the big companies would be forced to try new things. But since they only care about money, and this is getting them tons of cash in a safe way, they wont bother. I personally think their are tons of great games tho, made by people who are making the games they want to play, but a lot of them are drowned in the noise.

Bimbam

What characteristics of a game do users like? ....What makes a game more popular than other games?

I'm purely a hobbyist so this is a gut feeling, but these two questions I suspect have a much bigger divide than appears at face value. What I mean by that is there are plenty of immensely popular games riddled with characteristics I suspect most users DON'T like.

In my eyes, most 'successful' (and by association popular) games today include: Gambling mechanics, pay to win (even in single-player games), paywalled content, slow/convoluted matchmaking, planned obsolescence, re-used mechanics, grind, bugs, poor portability/cross-play compatibility etc.

However, most of the above are largely why AAA studios are obscenely rich, and therefore like lightbulb cartels of old, the users are forced to accept 'that's how it is'.

Ultimately I think these days popularity of a game is largely luck, gross amounts of marketing/lying or pre-existing IP. Some pre-existing IP also originally started with luck as they may have simply released something first (for example particularly older series which may have defined a genre or benefitted from a step-change in technological advancements).

####So if what users like /= popularity, why make games that users like?

In my opinion, if you are a hobbiest indie dev I'd say don't. Make games that YOU like, and then maybe sequels based on fan reactions/feedback.

If your aim is to be a career indie dev/small studio startup that actually needs to make money... well some of those mechanics that users don't like.... there's a good chance you may end up adopting one or more of these as time goes on.

Sadly I think Stardew Valley/Undertale etc. are the exception, not the rule :(

Erich_L

@OpinionatedGamer said:

I think the current issue is that people are willing to pay for awful AAA games that have no new mechanics and then rant about them on reddit. If people would just stop paying for bad quality games, the big companies would be forced to try new things. But since they only care about money, and this is getting them tons of cash in a safe way, they wont bother. I personally think their are tons of great games tho, made by people who are making the games they want to play, but a lot of them are drowned in the noise.

I love how your name is OpinionatedGame and you wrote this.
AAA games have big budgets and are big risks. Their main instinct is to follow the safe path and if you were spending the money you'd probably do the same.

It's the job of small indie devs to lead the way in game development. We're here to prove that a novel game concept can succeed so then the big producers can throw their own cash behind it. Well.. you can either follow that path or just make something really niche and cash in on the fact most devs won't go to a certain corner of development because it just won't ever be mainstream enough.

Remember all the first video games were basically small indie experiments we could put together now in a week or two. I'd argue the earlier successes and failures did more to shape the game market today than just greed. But I'm only 31 so idk.