泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ What is the key factor of games success?

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

 

What is the key factor of games success?

 

 

An epic science fiction film Interstellar has surpassed the 10-million-audience mark getting huge popularity since another Hollywood blockbuster Avatar recorded over 10 million viewers in 2009, except animation Frozen in late 2014.

The Christopher Nolan movie shows many fundamental of modern physics to explain the abstract concept of the study and audiences can see signs of the director's effort in it. I'd like to talk about not modern physics itself but chaos theory which has popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. In the chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

This is another story. Recently I've ever had a conversation about key factors of games success with the CEO of a gaming company. What is the most important factor for games success? It's hard to find a unique thing in recent successful games why they are continuing to grow in popularity and making good money compared to other globally existing popular games. Are those successes only caused by external factors?

In conclusion, successful games are definitely fun and their success can be from one of the internal factors of the games or balancing from the element. Of course, making a good concept and tuning game rules are hard work and balancing is not inevitably needed. But we have seen a lot of cases where a game has been succeeded or ruined depending on its balancing. Even the most popular game over the years can let their users leave due to unsuitable patch and slightly wrong balancing and a newly released game can hugely hit around the world in just a few months with its proper variation, which means that balance is one of the most important factors of the game.

It is much easier said than done. The initial value of game design can have a decisive effect on the entire game and its success like the butterfly effect mentioned above. If the male leading role of Interstellar didn't tell his daughter to interpret a message from the ghost, the history of the world wouldn't have been changed. Likewise, a minor detail in balancing can have a huge influence on game success. Of course, there is no perfect formula for games success. If there is a formula for the successful game, nobody wants to invest in game development because it's not much different from saving up by installments. I'd like to tell game developers, who are still looking for the defined success formula, that game development may seem more attractive thanks to its uncertainties.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ A Unique and distinctive video game

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

A Unique and distinctive video game

 

Recently I participated in a video game-related event named investment market. In spite of the high-sounding title, through this event, investees introduce a game which is in the making and create a vision to raise money and investors listen to a presentation and see the displays to look for better investment destinations.

However, the question comes to mind whenever I attend this type of event is what the difference between a new game and existing ones is although every developer emphasizes distinction and uniqueness of the game. Some of them don't even talk about 'fun' which is the most important factor in the game.

 

"This product is small and light and easy to carry around. Also, it looks good with a pretty shape. Men and women of all ages can easily use it. Consumers can buy it throughout the country."

 

What do you think about the phrase in the advertising campaign for a headache pill above? It's meaningless if the tablet doesn't help you get better. The distinctions, which lack a fundamentally useful function of the product, are totally pointless.

We often hear that we should always keep to the basics. Nevertheless, there are many people whose words and deeds are in contradiction to each other as if some grown-ups who lack morals teach their kids to protect morality.

I still don't know what an amusement factor of auto-battle feature in an RPG game is. But everybody seems to regard it as an essential part of the game. Of course, it can be a suitable mode for mobile devices, but it doesn't suit my taste at least. Accepting the auto-battle system as a critical feature, developers talk about differences in it. There is nothing about the fun of the autoplay. Though I cited the auto-battle function as an instance, it's much more than about it.

There has been no discussion of the fun factor for some time and everybody are talking about a distinction. The distinction should be an element for fun of a game. Some well-made video games so-called a classic are still fun and exciting. In fact, it's not easy to differentiate between the classics and a lot of games released after when it comes to unique factors including graphics. Still, they are fun. Fun is the most fundamental element for a game. I expect to see many games that can appeal to players with their significant basic element, together with emphasizing on the distinction.

 

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ A legend of mecha design talks about pets

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

A legend of mecha design talks about pets

 

It has already been one year since I have written this column. Looking back the past year, a topic related to the article, which I wrote by this time last year, came into my mind. It was about a new challenge.

I'm a venture capitalist who specializes in video game investment. But the game is not the only one I invest in. Today I want to talk about other content.

Recently the domestic gaming industry thrives on stereotyped themes of games. The materials are like you've heard of them somewhere: fantasy, monster, magic, knight, evocation, auto-battle, etc. If a player reads an introduction of a game without image, it's even hard for the gamer to recognize whether he/she played it before or not.

I'm a fan of Shōji Kawamori, a Japanese anime creator. His new theater anime Animal Detective Kiruminzoo, which is about transforming into an animal, will be released soon. Some of the readers who don't know about the legend might ask what the animal-themed animation has to do with one-size-fits-all game materials. But a fan of the producer should have noticed why I suddenly mentioned the Japanese animation about animals. Shōji Kawamori was originally a mecha designer. He is not only a specialist but also a great master. The leading figure in mecha designing involved in various types of anime: Valkyrie in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, mechanical characters in Patlabor, The Vision of Escaflowne, Cyber Formula, and Ghost in the Shell and he also took part in a mecha-based video game Armored Core. Animal Detective Kiruminzoo is his first animal-transforming character design for children. I made a big, long explanation because I'm a big fan of him.

So cut to now, let's go back to the topic. The great artist's new attempt is refreshingly shocking to me who have wanted more than just the same old game materials. It was that the master in his mid-50s having reached the top of his field tried his hand at something completely new. Kawamori observed ecological habits of animals of the forest for months and interviewed hundreds of children to design characters for kids.

I won't give up hope to see a whole new local game which makes me so excited about. Expecting a sobering and challenging game with high quality, I'm going to the movies this weekend taking my nephew and niece who attend primary school to watch Animal Detective Kiruminzoo.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui