[casual_games] Use of keyboard on casual games

[Juan Gril]

Interesting. Do you base this assumption based on the conversations you have
had with major publishers and distributors?

You are right on one thing though: follow your vision, it's the only way to
break the mold. Of course, we are not always successful at it. But it is
always worth trying.

Cheers,

Juan


On 5/30/07, oscar oscar <oscar.oscar.oscar at gmail.com> wrote:

>

> In my experience... and mind you... I've only been doing as long as I have

> been doing this... ;)

>

> Publishers and Distributors are no MORE or LESS  insightful than Movie

> Producers...

>

> And if you are aware of the crap that gets multimillion-dollar-backing...

> be in on the Big Screen or in a 7-minute Downloadable... then you know that

> the people who control the purse strings, more often than not, chase

> TRENDS... not SATISFACTORY User Experiences.

>

> Further, many of the cats and kittens who say "so it is written, so shall

> it be" have neither written NOR read anything of relevance to the matters at

> hand.

>

> They just have CASH, they have their limited successes and failures... and

> based on the last 13 months of "this game did this much biz" they determine

> that your idea is SHITE or is GOLD.

>

> You can skew usage figures and Focus Groups to say whatever you deem

> necessary.

>

> "THEY" are not always interested in profound, engaging, or even intuitive

> "Player Experiences"

>

> They want what they perceive to be immediate, pervasive and viral

> dissemination of LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR  experience

>

> Interface Follows Design. And Design Follows Vision.

>

> If Vision deems "Unique" interface, then Design should the Vision.

>

> Of course, my rant has NOTHING to do with the economics of getting some

> quick-clone of "pick-three" or "sudoku" on crack on the top ten list of some

> nebulous "usage and ratings portal".

>

> oscar

> McDonalds makes

> more money off their

> Real Estate than they do

> their food... because the

> Real Estate is worth

> Something... ;)

>

> On 5/30/07, Juan Gril <juangril at jojugames.com> wrote:

> >

> > 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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> > >

> > >

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> > >

> > >

> > >

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