Why accessibility is so important
There’s a running joke with older gamers which goes something like this:
When I was a kid, I couldn’t afford many games. Now I’m older, I can afford them but I don’t have the time to play them!
Time is a huge factor in people’s considerations. If they don’t find a benefit from something quickly, they won’t be likely to stick around. There are so many other forms of entertainment that they could enjoy instead, so you have to capture their attention quickly.
This same rule applies to accessibility. One of the large reasons people play games is for the great feeling when you beat a challenge. Too easy, and it’s not satisfying. Too hard, and they won’t be able to complete it. As a result, a lot of game design time will be finding the sweet spot.
Think of some very popular and successful games (mainstream, not niche). They might include:
– World of Warcraft
– Chess
– Angry Birds
A line that can sum all of these up is, ‘Easy to learn, tough to master’. World of Warcraft, on paper, looks like a very hardcore game demanding a great deal of learning and dedication from the audience. This is true for the higher levels, but the early levels couldn’t be much more simple; Talk to NPC > do easy task > return to NPC > reward.
Your game might ultimately demand a lot from the player in order for them succeed, but this isn’t to say it must be like that from the first level. If a player tries your game and it’s immediately far too complicated, they aren’t going to stick around. Your game might be amazing once the player understands it, but you have to keep it accessible.
A large part of marketing campaigns is keeping the barrier to entry sufficiently low to allow the majority of users to enjoy/interact with it. The exact same applies to your game. Always make sure that you aren’t making things too complicated.
I don’t know if that’s a joke…it’s certainly the truth for me! =)
One comment I’d like to make about World of Warcraft: I agree that it is easy to get into, and harder at the end…but in a way, I feel the way WoW is set up is also a little misleading. I know people who have enjoyed WoW at the early levels, but find the “end game” a little too demanding and difficult . I was once part of a “casual” raiding group that met twice a week for 3-4 hours a time…it’s funny that it’s considered casual when compared to other raiding guilds, I don’t think that’s casual for an average gamer!
I guess my overall point was, that while WoW does a great job of making their early game accessible, there really isn’t a good ramp up of difficulty that leads nicely into their end game, and I think that ramp is the middle is just as important as the initial learning curve.
Thanks for your comment Joe. I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but I think WoW does cater for the player that just wants to quest alone at the higher levels.
Admittedly, I didn’t do that. I was more of a fan of battlegrounds