10 Things Developers Wrongly Think About Gamers

wilson-munday In the wonderful world that is nature, we have something called the ecosystem, where everything is interdependent on everything else. The wonderful world that is video gaming runs in a similar way. Game developers create games, game players pay money to play those games, and that money goes back to the game developers enabling them to start the cycle again. It's a beautiful thing to watch, it really is. However, there are a few hiccups in this marvellous symbiosis which sometimes cause the whole system to collapse in a mess of bitter reviews and bargain basement titles. Most, if not all, of the hiccups are caused by the developers failing to understand exactly what players are like, so here is my attempt to smooth over these troubled waters (and mangle many more sayings) by pointing out ten things that game developers wrongly think about players.

10. We All Live In Mansions

wii You€™ve all seen those adverts for Wii and Kinect. The happy people in their enormous, whiter than white open plan living room leaping about and swinging their Wiimote with gay abandon. Hands up who€™s got a house like that? Well, good for you Richard Branson, but for the majority of us our gaming takes place either in our living room or our bedroom. Neither of which resemble anything you see on television. The lounge is full of inconvenient obstacles like furniture, shelves, small children, that sort of thing, and as for the bedroom, you try a few lunging forehands on Wii Sports Tennis and your hands soon look like you€™ve gone ten rounds of bare knuckle fighting with a Weeping Angel. Plus there€™s all the interference for the sensor bar meaning that if you€™re more than two feet away, you€™ve got about as much control over what€™s going on as a supply teacher.
 
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Richard has been playing video games since the days of the BBC Micro, (and incidentally when is Chuckie Egg going to get a reboot?) He is currently available for the post of Head of Marketing at Nintendo, seeing as no-one else seems to be doing the job. He's also a major fan of fantasy/sf books and is just waiting for his novel about an assassin who doesn't wear a hood to get picked up.