Frankly, most developers seem to spend zero time coming up with the theme of their game. This is a huge mistake: It’s your first line of marketing, no matter your distribution. (Casual portal or own site.) Just as we all wrote up outlines of our papers in school before we began putting pencil to paper, it’s important to write an outline of the specific features and characteristics of your target audience.

Ideally, it’s important you identify your target audience before you make your game. If you don’t do that, you don’t know what kind of considerations to keep in mind while constructing your gaming mechanics and to reach the largest possible audience. However, sometimes that’s just not reasonable; an idea for a game can (and often does) come long before the marketing end of the brain gets a chance to play. Here’s what you should do if you choose to identify and appeal to an audience with your existing gameplay mechanic:

1. Who will find the core game mechanic the most entertaining?
   • Hardcore?
   • Casual?
   • Cats?
2. Coming up with a broad audience isn’t enough; narrow it down.
   • What other games targetted at this audience have a similar "feel?"
     • Luxor
     • Bricks of Atlantis
     • Karu
   • What are the major characteristics of these players?
     • More likely to be male
     • 30-40 years old
     • American
3. Extrapolate information and create an individual from that extrapolated data.
   • Born in 1971
     • Child of hippies
       • Exposed to alternative lifestyle at a young age
       • Imperfect family structure while growing up
     • Too young to remember Vietnam war
   • Pre-teen in 1981
     • Born into the age of computers
     • Probably didn’t have much direct contact with computers due to poor financial means
   • Teen in 1986
     • May have rebelled against parents’ alternative lifestyle
     • Well versed at "escaping" undesirable family structure by hanging out at the arcade playing shooters
   • Graduated in 1990
     • Puttered around a little while deciding direction to take life
   • Possibly graduated community or low-ranking college in 1995
     • Went for "safe" over "fun"
     • May have married high school or college sweetheart
       • Places a lot of value in the atomic family unit
   • Has first child in 2000
     • Wants to raise child better than own parents
     • Very calculated and intentional parenting
   • Has surprise second child in 2003
     • Addition of unplanned child emotionally upsetting
     • Feelings of being "out of control"
4. Infer this person’s motivations and emotional state from the timeline.
   • Just starting a family (3 and 6)
   • May own home
   • Cost of surprise child combined with housing bubble costs leave huge, burdening mortgage
   • Spends most of time in the office; games are a diversion
   • Feeling overwhelmed by responsibility of being sole worker in household; wife taking care of children
   • Slowly realizing rat race safe but not emotionally satisfying
   • What little time for amusement is given to games as a method of escapism
   • No solid time commitment for gaming
   • Never exposed to organized religion, so questions of spirituality and "Why am I here?" abound
5. What are this person’s media interests?
   • Movies
     • Family/clean comedy
       • Ice Age
     • Action
       • Saving Private Ryan
     • Some drama
       • Cider House Rules
   • Music
     • Likes contemporary rock
       • Michelle Branch
     • Dislikes classic rock (bad memories)
       • The Birds
       • Eric Clapton
       • Jimmy Hendrix
     • Dislikes rap/hip-hop and metal, as well as other "disfunctional" musical genres
     • Thinks techno is strange
   • Books/Magazines
     • Doesn’t read books anymore
       • Has fond memories of the Illiad and the Odyssey from school
     • Reads light business magazines (to little avail) and family/parenting magazines
       • Forbes
       • Good Housekeeping
6. From the outlined media interests, what purpose do they serve? What void are they filling?
   • Safe
   • Mature/Responsibile
   • Light-weight
   • Family oriented
7. Meet those needs and interests with thoughtful and appropriate theming.
   • Pre-rendered 3D, comedic characters, perhaps animals, light rock/acoustic guitar music
     • Pros
       • Appeal to greater demographic/rest of casual market
       • Music lends uniqueness
     • Cons
       • Not escapist enough; reminds of home
       • Expensive
   • 2D pen and ink, storybook-like, Illiad/Odyssey backstory, strong emphasis on unique characters (cyclops, etc.), orchestral music
     • Pros
       • Unique style for the audience
       • Great level of escapism
     • Cons
       • Story may be negative to coffee-break player
   • Pre-rendered 3D + photography, light hearted WWII, mature but not too serious, orchestral soundtrack
     • Pros
       • Very appealing to many males
     • Cons
       • Expensive
       • Strong chance of alienating women players
   • Retro-style 2D, simple blips/beeps, no soundtrack
     • Pros
       • Cheap as hell
       • Extremely attractive to arcade gamers
     • Cons
       • Alienate any but a core segment of the market

First, don’t guess about everything. Do some research; find out what interests your target audience share. You’ve only created an imaginary person. It’s important to realize that this person isn’t a perfect representation of every male ages 30-40. The idea, however, is to give yourself a solid understanding of the person (and thus people) you’re targetting. When you can understand their motivations, you can manipulate their emotive experiences to your benefit.

Second, this is a very limited scope of interests, primarily dealing with other forms of entertainment. Things that have been ignored but should be identified:

• Physical location
• Social structure
• Food interests
• Hobbies
• Anything else that helps you identify with your audience and provides inspiration for unique or original theming

As per our example, we’re left with a list of four themes of varying solidity. The more focused a theme is (retro-style), the more appealing it is to those it appeals to, but the more it alienates other players. The less focused a theme is (3D animals), the more it appeals to other gamers, but the less it appeals to those who find the primary gaming mechanic engaging.

It’s important to find a middle ground, with enough character to keep and hold fans of the game, but with enough draw to attract those who may not be interested in the first place. The WWII theme may attract many males, but it would certainly alienate a huge portion of casual gamers. The stylistic, hand-drawn Illiad/Odyssey theme can appeal to both men and women, and it offers a level of uniqueness in the crowded casual game space. In addition, it would be a relatively inexpensive production. This theme is the ideal choice, given the options.

Is this a process we don’t already go through? Probably not. Most of us go through something like this when we pick a theme, but often don’t do it consciously. It’s important to lay everything out on paper in an organized fashion so you can identify problem areas and further explore/expand the available options.

Why just choose "Atlantis" or "Space?" No other industry is that careless with their marketing and targetting!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 19th, 2006 at 2:35 am and is filed under Essays, Development, Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.