How To Argue Your Ideas? | Game Designer's Guide on Argumentation!

hello there MoonPie how are you doing today we are going to discuss a very important and interesting topic game designers argumentation and at the end of the video there will be a bonus mini video with information about writing documentation specifically a pitch don't miss it the thing is that game design is about decision- making and the success of the game whether it's financial success or the love of fans for your project will depend on how successful these decisions are and in our work we often have to defend these decisions to prove that it should be done this way and in no other way we can't just say hey folks this feature is cool because it's cool the truth is we don't know that we are guided only by our worldview which is very different for all of us so we need something to rely on and this is where argumentation comes in so what does a game designer's argumentation consist of and [Applause] [Music] [Applause] what the first thing we will talk about is the target audience identifying and understanding the target audience a clear understanding of their desires and needs will help to justify why a feature or idea will be attractive and useful for them we really need to understand who these people are and why they come to play this particular game assume what problems they might face when playing a competitor's game for example this way we can fix these problems and give the player a richer and more enjoyable experience in our own game so how do we identify and understand and the target audience of a game the first method is very simple but very inaccurate you need to find a game that is as similar to yours as possible play it and assume what kind of people play it and why make a portrait of this person their age gender interests what they like and what they hate What feelings are they looking for in the game these will be just hypotheses but we will already have something to build on and the second method is research large companies and individual experienced game designers often publish research and articles on this topic so at least you should look at it and draw some conclusions for yourself benefits for players when we have already analyzed the target audience of our game we can describe in more detail what we can give to players explain how the feature or idea will improve the game experience try to explain how it will increase player engagement convenience or satisfaction if you found any research you can attach links to it to support your argument this will add weight to your hypotheses and show how the feature has proven it itself in already successful projects if you are working with a finished project it would be helpful to describe the impact of your feature on the game describe how this feature will fit into the overall gameplay and concept of the game and what impact it will have on the balance and Dynamics for example describe how it will affect players technical implementation explain how this feature or idea can be implemented technically show that it is feasible within the available resources and Technology IES you need to take into account the company's capabilities we cannot offer a feature that will take a month of development and 20 programmers if we have a team of 10 people in total including the CEO and the janitor from the seventh floor ideally if you have the opportunity make a prototype this will not only show that it can be implemented but also give you and the team the opportunity to test the feature and determine whether it is interesting and suitable for your project comparison with competitors such comparison can indicate how your idea or feature differs from those already on the market you need to show that your game is interesting unique and valuable and that there is a potential demand for it it would be nice to highlight the parts in which your game is different from those already on the market and why these differences are good for the game how they can improve its chances of success and also highlight the parts in which your game is similar to them how this feature affected the success of the competitor's project [Music] business argumentation explain how this feature can affect the profitability of the game for example increasing sales attracting new players or increasing the play time accordingly here we can rely on the previous points with research and so on we must understand that the customer invests money in your project and hopes to make a profit from it for you it may be creativity and a way of self-expression but for him it is a business and we must be able to speak the language of business to convince such people that we can be reli Li on that we know what we are doing and our main goal is to increase his or her bank account even if this is not the case but you know don't tell them that testers or players feedback this is of obviously a special case but if possible show how testers or early players feedback confirms the feasibility and success of the game for this of course you need to have a working prototype but cases are different so I just had to add this point and now I would like to take this opportunity to add some information about the pitch document as the topics are related many thanks for the information to Mr Adam Barnes who wrote a very detailed comment and shared his experience of writing a pitch and look how sexy he is have you seen it damn such a hot young man so I'm going to hand the word over to Adam Adam hi I'm Adam and I've basically done pitches for internal purposes pitches for the next project to producer founder type folk for Publishers and for onboarding overview purposes I I've also recently done a high concept document which was a first for me and is essentially a onew pager overview of the game at a glance I gather it's popular with Publishers side producers to share with higher ups and anyone else interested who don't need the full scope and details I think the easiest is those created as overviews or for onboarding team members usually at this point the concept is nailed down and you're not trying as much to persuade anyone with it so you can generally have a bit more fun with it be more visual than informative from there the internal pitch needs to be a bit more serious though that obviously depends on the team you're in a small Indie team of 20 might not be so focused on having everything answered since there can be more targeted questions internally to see if it's an Avenue Worth exploring as a rule of thumb though you're trying to get your idea off the ground and so a lot of what you mentioned in the video is relevant for this version you can probably get away with a less visually LED pitch deck since the state of the game is likely just an idea in your head for this you can rely more on reference images from other games if you can compare your game easily to them and even diagram sketches or fakes if you have the skills I find it still beneficial to be visual with these things so even if you don't have any art to show you can still help persuade people with some visual content for most teams you'll likely know the people you're pitching to so most likely you can afford to be a bit hacky about it the point really is to get the idea out there I might get lynched for saying so but even a couple of AI images can go a long way for setting at least a Vibe or tone for the game though of course this shouldn't go into any official document it only tells people that your team can't make anything of Artistic integrity the publisher side one is unsurprisingly harder since there you're essentially asking for money there are a lot of good templates out there but you're basically trying to prove three things your game is interesting unique and valuable there is a potential demand for it either existing games prove it or there is a gap in the market that only you have discovered and your team are the only ones able to achieve it for this there are a few things you generally need something about your team overview of the core game pillars and gameplay Loop and some attempt at what you want to achieve with with the art style typical concept art will be enough or some high quality fakes but these days a lot of smaller teams won't really find success with Publisher funding unless there's at least something in engine to show a prototype or ideally a vertical slice if you're already at stage you can probably show off a bit of it too video clips would be perfect outside of that a lot of the content comes down to the game in question but the focus should be on highlighting what is new or compelling about your game worry less about the basics if you're making a 2d platformer you don't need to mention the movement mechanics unless they're particularly important to the experience and focus instead on highlighting what's going to get players intrigued competitor analysis can be super helpful it shows you've done your homework and if done properly you can really highlight easily to the publisher how safe they should be betting on your game it's important to use this as a metric to measure your game against it's worthless to say it's a popular genre if you can't point to why your game will benefit from that popularity it should be about comparison and obviously putting you in a good light another thing that can help is a budget and a time frame again to help answer the Publishers questions about their payoff before they need to ask it themselves in all cases don't be afraid of references these things should always be about making the strongest most compelling argument with as little information as possible don't fill the document with minute details or little things you think are neat be concise precise and generate Intrigue references will help with that since you can say more with less batro but in space says more than if you were trying to find complicated ways of explaining batro to the reader without actually using that name by the way I really like your idea of using voice alongside a design document I can really see a short video of someone going through their document to be a big Advantage especially if you can share footage audio Etc at the same time well Adam thank you for agreeing to tell us about your experience I think it was very useful so I want to remind everyone if you have something to say if you have any additions please write comments the most valuable ones may end up in the video also I kind of ran out of game design tricks so I decided to just insert quotes on game design at the end of the video so don't miss next valuable quote and have a great [Music] day your voice field the fire dreams ignite spark the wire in the field of creation it's a game designer Nation sketch is turnning into vises all thought fre decisions blueprinted animation your ideas are the foundation stand up for your ideas shout love no fears in this world of ination it's a g design ofation [Applause] [Music] a

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Length: 10min 36sec (636 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 04 2024