[casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

[Juan Gril]

Pedro, that's why I'm recommending we start talking about "best practices"
instead of rules. Your example of Super Granny 3 is quite valid (although
you are reading the game-sales-charts data in a wrong way).

Your comment on:
"I will never like green strawberries if I never taste them, right? Yet they
might be better that the red ones…"

Is wrong because you are making an assumption that it has been an arbitrary
decision, when it has not, as Publishers and Distributors make focus groups
and user tests every week with real users, and they have already proved that
most people who buy downloadable games have difficulty playing a game with a
keyboard.

And I'm going to give you my opinion after having watched many user tests
why downloadable game buyers are having difficulty with the keyboard. Most
downloadable games players (based on, for example, Popcap's survey of last
year) have never been exposed to PC videogames or console games. The use of
buttons (in a keyboard or in a gamepad) is completely foreign to them. But
they use the mouse in the computers they use at work, so they are familiar
with that form of interaction between computers and them.

In web games sites like Miniclip or Addicting Games or Kongregate, you have
a lot of people like college students, male office workers, and kids who all
have played videogames. So use the cursor keys to play a game is something
more natural to them.

When I was saying before to design the game for the right channel, what I
was saying is this: if you are trying to make money on downloadable games,
it's a "best practice" if you design a game that it's going to use the mouse
to be controlled. And if you have a game that's keyboard controlled, you may
want to think about distributing it on another channel, as it may do better
there.

And no one stops you for putting keyboard control as an option on any casual
game anyway, so have fun with it.

Please keep in mind that I'm trying to avoid the use of the word "rules" as
they can always be broken.

Cheers,

Juan



On 5/30/07, Pedro Honório Silva <pedro.silva at ignite-games.com> wrote:

>

>  Interesting. How do you think Publishers/Distributor have come up to that

> conclusion that games should only use mouse control. Do you think it has

> been an arbitrary decision then?

>

>

>

> Of course not.

>

>

>

> How come is it hard for you to believe that Publishers and Distributors,

> who run focus groups every week with real users (those who pay for the games

> we make) are wrong on that particular aspect?

>

>  I did not say that they were wrong. I said that I believe that it isn't

> 100% assured that making a game that uses the keyboard will result in a

> total failure. And there are games out there that have been successful and

> use the keyboard. I'm thinking of Super Granny 3 who, according to casual

> games charts, has been +200 days on the top10 selling games, for instance.

>

>

>

> Of course, we are always talking about the downloadable games audience.

> Like I said before, keyboard control is doing well in web games.

>

>

>

> Ok. Then why wouldn't it do well on the downloadable audience? Is it a

> problem of the audience or a problem of the games they have to play? Or

> something else?

>

>

>

> Notice that I'm not against mouse only games. We're currently developing

> one game that has a mouse only input. What I'm a bit against is the fact

> that people may have no choice.

>

>

>

> I will never like green strawberries if I never taste them, right? Yet

> they might be better that the red ones…

>

>

>

> *Pedro Honório Silva*

>

> *Chief Financial Officer*

>

>

>

> *Ignite Games*

>

> Rua Cova da Moura, nº 2 - 2º Dto.

>

> 1350-117 Lisboa, Portugal

>

> T: +351 212 427 695 - M: +351 933 465 985

>

> pedro.silva at ignite-games.com

>

> www.ignite-games.com

>

>

>

> *From:* casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:

> casual_games-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *Juan Gril

> *Sent:* quarta-feira, 30 de Maio de 2007 18:49

> *To:* IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List

> *Subject:* Re: [casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

>

>

>

> Interesting. How do you think Publishers/Distributor have come up to that

> conclusion that games should only use mouse control. Do you think it has

> been an arbitrary decision then?

>

> How come is it hard for you to believe that Publishers and Distributors,

> who run focus groups every week with real users (those who pay for the games

> we make) are wrong on that particular aspect?

>

> Of course, we are always talking about the downloadable games audience.

> Like I said before, keyboard control is doing well in web games.

>

> Juan

>

>  On 5/30/07, *Pedro Honório Silva* <pedro.silva at ignite-games.com> wrote:

>

> I totally agree with Oscar here.

>

> I know that Publishers/Distributors tend to "only bet on the winning

> horse", which include really simple (yet amusing) games for their audience.

> Therefore the independent game developer companies tend to develop games

> that they often don't really enjoy doing just to satisfy the market's

> apparent desires.

>

>

>

> However, we at Ignite believe that an increasing number of people is

> getting more interested on different kinds of games, less simple, yet still

> amusing and entertaining. And many of those games have the need to use the

> keyboard or even a mixture of mouse and keyboard.

>

>

>

> Telling me that the 40 year old woman that plays casual games doesn't know

> how to play a game using the keyboard is kind of hard to believe. Even more

> when several good (and successful) games out there use the keyboard as their

> primary input.

>

>

>

> What I feel is that, as Oscar said, being a design issue, it should be

> left to the game designer to decide what way is better to play the game.

> Imposing these type of rules will only accomplish two things: independent

> game developers continue to develop games they don't like just to make some

> cash cows; at some point in time we'll have a subset of the casual market

> where we'll have "not-so-casual" games (pc downloadable) for different

> audiences (which actually will be the same people looking for different

> games).

>

>

>

> Honestly, such rules is clearly Publishers/Distributors rules and not game

> developers'. It will most likely level down the quality and variety of the

> games in the casual space. Leaving little space for innovation and new forms

> of gameplay. Or even worse, it's a huge investment on "keep-doing-clones"

> strategy that many game developers follow.

>

>

>

> Just my 2 cents…

>

>

>

> *Pedro Honório Silva*

>

> *Chief Financial Officer*

>

>

>

> *Ignite Games*

>

> Rua Cova da Moura, nº 2 - 2º Dto.

>

> 1350-117 Lisboa, Portugal

>

> T: +351 212 427 695 - M: +351 933 465 985

>

> pedro.silva at ignite-games.com

>

> www.ignite-games.com

>

>

>

> *From:* casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:

> casual_games-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *oscar oscar

> *Sent:* quarta-feira, 30 de Maio de 2007 18:22

>

>

> *To:* IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List

> *Subject:* Re: [casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

>

>

>

> There are NO  established rules that dictate a USER INTERFACE.

>

> Nor SHOULD there be.

>

> IT IS a conversation between the game DESIGNER and the game PLAYER.... and

> that palaver is moderated by the DESIGN and INTERFACE... ANYONE who throws

> out RULES about how "This is GOOD" and "That is BAD" is taking steps to

> reduce the language by which we converse with those who would join us in the

> interaction.

>

> A designer would be wise to include as many viable options to join that

> conversation in the design phase...

>

> Design Permitting of course.

>

> oscar

>

> On 5/30/07, *Andy Fitter* <andy at morpheme.co.uk> wrote:

>

> I think either can be acceptable, many games only real work well with one

> and not the other. What your design should avoid, as it's one of the most

> painful experiences ever for me, is a game that is 98% mouse driven but then

> requires you to press space to exit a menu screen for example, or entirely

> cursor key driven but requires you to click a button with the mouse to start

> each new level etc.

>

>

>

> Forcing the user to un-intuitively switch input methods to continue is has

> to be one of the worst design 'features' you see in casual games, and you

> see it far too often.

>

>

>

> Andy.

>

>

>

>

>

> *From:* casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:

> casual_games-bounces at igda.org] *On Behalf Of *Juan Gril

> *Sent:* 30 May 2007 15:50

> *To:* IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List

> *Subject:* Re: [casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

>

>

>

> Keyboard control is well accepted on web games (because of their

> audience), although i find that even those web games that use mouse control

> have a better acceptance.

>

> You are absolutely right that it is a design decision, so it is important

> to design the game for the right channel.

>

> Cheers,

>

> Juan

>

> On 5/30/07, *Jose Marin* <jose_marin2 at yahoo.com.br> wrote:

>

> Hi.

>

>

>

> This question could look a little silly, but I think it's very important:

>

> Every casual game must allow the user control the game via mouse, or it's

> ok to use the keyboard to that?

>

>

>

> It's a design decision, because some kinds of games could be more playable

> using the keyboard.

>

>

>

> What do you think about this?

>

>

>

> Regards

>

>

>

> Jose

>

>

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