Decision Paralysis
Jun. 29th, 2016 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI just read a great little essay (link) on the Tumblr blog Ask a Game Dev about how producers consider the "problem" of player choices, which makes a fantastic point about the practicalities of the matter...
Market research tells us that huge numbers of players new to games most often get overwhelmed by the number of buttons and skills they need to learn in order to play a game. By making all of the possibilities available, we’d lose huge numbers of players to decision paralysis. In order to combat Decision Paralysis, we need to provide compelling choices (not quantity) and offer suggestions so players feel more comfortable when making their decisions.
In Japan, there's a common criticism of a certain style of game design (especially in console-based open-world games) called "Zelda syndrome" (Zerudashō), which is when a player plunked down in a huge environment without any guidance decides that she would rather not play the game at all than play the game "incorrectly." I am intimately familiar with "Zelda syndrome" myself, although this could just be because I'm not a hardcore enough gamer.
As a side note, I think it's funny that the person sending the ask uses the term "videogames," while the actual game dev isn't having it. In my experience, it's almost unilaterally pseudointellectual dudebros who insist on using "videogames." Some people say "videogames" is a European thing while "video games" (or just "games") is an American thing, but really I think it's more about the "something more inherent to what makes the media that is videogames unique" mentality.
Market research tells us that huge numbers of players new to games most often get overwhelmed by the number of buttons and skills they need to learn in order to play a game. By making all of the possibilities available, we’d lose huge numbers of players to decision paralysis. In order to combat Decision Paralysis, we need to provide compelling choices (not quantity) and offer suggestions so players feel more comfortable when making their decisions.
In Japan, there's a common criticism of a certain style of game design (especially in console-based open-world games) called "Zelda syndrome" (Zerudashō), which is when a player plunked down in a huge environment without any guidance decides that she would rather not play the game at all than play the game "incorrectly." I am intimately familiar with "Zelda syndrome" myself, although this could just be because I'm not a hardcore enough gamer.
As a side note, I think it's funny that the person sending the ask uses the term "videogames," while the actual game dev isn't having it. In my experience, it's almost unilaterally pseudointellectual dudebros who insist on using "videogames." Some people say "videogames" is a European thing while "video games" (or just "games") is an American thing, but really I think it's more about the "something more inherent to what makes the media that is videogames unique" mentality.
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Date: 2016-07-01 01:32 am (UTC)