Impressed by some of the video games that are currently on the market? Have you thought about what goes into designing the best mmo games that you now see all around? The important objectives of a retail gamer is to make the games interesting, so that the reviewers love them and the games fly off the shelves within minutes of being launched. Here are some in-depth points that some of the best designers keep in mind when designing games.
- Cashflow: Yes as a game designer, you HAVE to think of the cashflow keeping in mind what will keep the players glued to your game and coming back for it more and more. If it is a subscription-based game you have to keep in mind that you want a player to stay on for a longer time in the game; the design has to have a never-ending progression, PvP with quests on a daily basis. And the questions that make the model of the game should rely on:
- What should be the registration cost?
- How to convert from registrations to downloads/installs?
- How many players stay over for a month?
- How many of them pay?
- Focus on building a service not a product: Take tips from other web service developers and learn how to build it. Many of them build a game with minimum content, reserving limited money for marketing and taking time to watch the pulse of the players. Yes these designers have learnt that it is best to lose some of the money than lose over 200+ hours of game. They have enough room fix their game and bring more people into it as and when required.
- Allow enough tools for players to play with others: As a game designer, you should keep in mind that a player is not a lone one. He or she prefers playing with others and giving them tools to do so would only make things better. Take a look at the interactions that players have with each other and how relationships are built from gaming together. How would you want them to be? Harsh, violent, evil games can sometimes spill over onto real life. Keep the games engaging enough to mimic real life relationships. So a bit of sour, sweet, fiery, dull should go into them.
- Make a good game: The initial free-to-play games are the barometers to test how your design survives the test of time. These free-to-play titles make you fully aware of who sticks around after interacting with them. They may or may not turn into subscription players but as a gamer keeps spending time, he or she makes a decision whether to stick around or quit. In short, it is you and your game that sells and not the marketing gimmicks that powder coat the game.
To sum it up make the games reasonable, beautiful, fun, interactive, addictive and most importantly socially relevant. Then and only will you truly see a well-designed game get the attention and praise that it rightfully deserves.
