Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Note that while the graph does support the statement, “Men have a higher level of
interest in this game than women do,” in fact, a large area of overlap indicates that
a significant portion of the women surveyed are interested in the game as well.
Furthermore, the number of women reporting an interest level of 6 is about two-
thirds that of the number of men reporting the same interest level. In other words,
two-fifths of all the people reporting an interest level of 6 are women—far too
many to simply ignore.
This is only a hypothetical example. With some games, the level of overlap may be
small, and there is no point in trying to reach out to an audience that simply isn't
there. A game for five-year-olds won't appeal to many fifteen-year-olds. The point,
however, is that for most ordinary games there is
some
overlap among different
populations. It is foolish to ignore, or worse yet, offend a minority audience simply
because it is in the minority, without knowing how many people fall into that cate-
gory. If you ignore or repel a significant minority, you're throwing money away,
something your publisher won't thank you for.
STRIVE FOR INCLUSIVENESS, NOT UNIVERSALITY
You cannot make a game that appeals to ever yone by throwing in a hodgepodge of
features because group A likes some of them and group B likes others. If you do,
you will produce a game that has too many features and no harmony. For instance,
you can't make a game that appeals to action fans, to strategy fans, and to fans of
management simulations by combining kung fu, chess, and
Monopoly
—the result
would be a mess that appeals to none of them. On the other hand, you can include
a storyline in a fighting game so long as the storyline doesn't interfere with the
gameplay. The storyline adds depth to the game without driving away its key mar-
ket of fighting-game enthusiasts, and it might attract the interest of people who
otherwise wouldn't pay any attention to a fighting game.
Heavenly Sword
and
God
of War
are good examples.
Certain groups are turned off by particular content or features. For example,
women don't much care for material that portrays them as brainless sex objects;
parents won't buy games for their kids if the games are nothing but blood and gore;
members of minority races (and many in the majority too) are naturally offended
by racist content. These are the most obvious examples, but there are more subtle
ones as well. Women are generally more sensitive to the aesthetics of a game than
men are, and they are less likely to buy a game with ugly artwork. Some players
have no interest in narrative material and are put off if they are forced to watch it
in a genre that doesn't normally include narratives. (This is why the storyline in
the kung fu game, mentioned earlier, shouldn't interfere with the gameplay.) These
examples illustrate the effects of
exclusionary material
—content or features that
serve to drive players away from a game that they otherwise might like. Your goal
should be to make the best game that you can about your chosen subject, while
avoiding exclusionary material that reduces the size of your audience.
