Sunday, December 09, 2007
How Quickly Does a Game Have to "Hook" You?
How much time does a game have nowadays, in the world of downloadable demos, to "hook" you as a player and convince you that it is worth spending your hard-earned cash on?
About 30 seconds, according to indie game developer Ste Pickford.
And it's worse than that (from the perspective of a game maker): The player is only going to try the games he's already interested in, and would have - in the past - purchased outright. But in today's world of downloadable demos, the thirty seconds might be what it takes to convince him not to open the wallet.
It's great for the consumers, of course. You are far less likely to buy a bad game this way. Ste suggests that the brave new world of downloadable demos more resembles the days of the arcades:
"Coin-ops had the most brutal real-world evaluation system ever devised: coin drop figures. New coin-op machines would be wheeled into test arcades, and the number of coins collected would be counted at the end of the week. If they weren't high enough the developers would have to change the game and try again with a new version. This would continue until the coin drop figures were high enough for a full release (in other words the devs somehow made the game accessible and appealing to enough for players to keep putting money in), or the game was canned. There's no arguing with a system like that."
I'd suggest that the investment of time put into downloading the demo (and installing it on the PC) might justify a little more time than thirty seconds. But not a lot more. For a web-based game, I'd guess that you might not have more than about sixty seconds to make that awesome first impression.
At least, that's how I am.
How about you? How much time does a game have to pull you in before you exit and delete it (or leave the website, never to return)?
(Vaguely) related thinky-stuff:
* The "Red Line" In Game Demos
* "Red Line" Analysis of Mainstream Games
* How To Get Me To Buy Your Indie RPG
* The Rules of Game Design
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Labels: Game Design
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:22 PM (Permalink)
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30-60 seconds seems a bit short to me. I tend to give games about 5 minutes before forming any lasting opinions about them. If after that time I find something I don't like, it's typically time to uninstall and move on to something else. Most games fail the 5 minute test but I occasionally give certain games (especially indie games) a bit more leeway if I think it has potential. Granted, I'm not the typical Joe Gamer...
Nevertheless, this new trend is a bit scary and it's something I'll be dealing with very soon once Bit Battles is released. Being a multiplayer-only indie game I've already got my work cut out for me but having to impress a player right from the start else risk losing a potential customer just adds an extra layer of difficulty.
Nevertheless, this new trend is a bit scary and it's something I'll be dealing with very soon once Bit Battles is released. Being a multiplayer-only indie game I've already got my work cut out for me but having to impress a player right from the start else risk losing a potential customer just adds an extra layer of difficulty.
For web-based games, I think 30 seconds is about right. Even worse perhaps: if I can't figure out the basic controls in 10 seconds, I will probably give up right there.
I do indeed give stuff that needs to install more time, to try to make the game pay off: 5 minutes total, and basic controls in 30 seconds.
This can be stretched quite a bit if there is another compelling reason to stay (sequel to good game, pretty art, developer reputation, plot, etc).
Controls and instant action are key; what do I do and how do I do it? It's all well and good to explain how item inventory works or the deeper fundamentals of a good society, but I'd rather you point out whose face I need to smash or what structures I need to build first and then how to do it in 10 words or less. Tell me why later. Or better yet, hook me well enough and I'll be looking up why on my own time.
In medias res is an effective if overused method of accomplishing this.
There are a number of demos I've played (introduced through this blog even!), where I couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do (or it took way too much exposition in tiny font) and just quit. I did leave the games installed because I "might come back to it someday", but in all honesty, I will likely forget about them until I need to clear up HD space.
If a paid-for game fails the hook, I will try much harder to make it pay off but that's because my investment is much larger than a mere download.
I do indeed give stuff that needs to install more time, to try to make the game pay off: 5 minutes total, and basic controls in 30 seconds.
This can be stretched quite a bit if there is another compelling reason to stay (sequel to good game, pretty art, developer reputation, plot, etc).
Controls and instant action are key; what do I do and how do I do it? It's all well and good to explain how item inventory works or the deeper fundamentals of a good society, but I'd rather you point out whose face I need to smash or what structures I need to build first and then how to do it in 10 words or less. Tell me why later. Or better yet, hook me well enough and I'll be looking up why on my own time.
In medias res is an effective if overused method of accomplishing this.
There are a number of demos I've played (introduced through this blog even!), where I couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do (or it took way too much exposition in tiny font) and just quit. I did leave the games installed because I "might come back to it someday", but in all honesty, I will likely forget about them until I need to clear up HD space.
If a paid-for game fails the hook, I will try much harder to make it pay off but that's because my investment is much larger than a mere download.
I've been burnt too many times buying games based only on videos I've seen, so these days I always try the demo first. But I generally give it half an hour. Suppose it depends on genre. Arcade games, sure, 30 seconds. An RPG? I'd take longer than that in the character creation screen.
Yeah, I'm still one who gives a downloadable game a little more time than that, too. At least five minutes - beyond that, it depends upon if the game can hold my attention for just five minutes longer. And just five minutes longer. And just five minutes longer...
I try to give games at least 5 minutes to grab me. The good ones tend to grab me faster, though. A lot also depends on genre and game structure; Build Your Civilisation From Mud Huts To Spaceflight will obviously get more leeway than Instant Blood'n'Death III: Now even more instant, but in general, 5 minutes is enough for me to see if I'm going to get along with the basic gameplay mechanics, and usually enough to give me a feel for how much content there is.
As others have said, it really depends for me. If it's a game I was excited about, I'll usually give it a fair amount of time to grab me and even come back to it later.
Example: I wasn't immediately hooked by Eschalon during my first ten minutes, and I haven't had time to go back yet, but I'm excited about it conceptually, so in a few weeks I intend to sit down and give it the thorough play-test it deserves.
Example: I wasn't immediately hooked by Eschalon during my first ten minutes, and I haven't had time to go back yet, but I'm excited about it conceptually, so in a few weeks I intend to sit down and give it the thorough play-test it deserves.
if there is some bad interface flaw, I drop the game in no time.
This happened recently with frozen bubble:
I started it,
got annoyed by the music,
searched a way to disabled music,
found that no, apparently you can't disable music,
quit the game.
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This happened recently with frozen bubble:
I started it,
got annoyed by the music,
searched a way to disabled music,
found that no, apparently you can't disable music,
quit the game.
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