Nostalgia as a UX driver on video games
Players miss what they enjoyed in the past
There are many different approaches to improve the User eXperience in video games. However, there is one point in common for many successful games and companies that we cannot obviate: nostalgia. Despite this, this UX strategy is not always the most correct and it will depend on the target audience. But for the moment, let us see in more detail how can UX on video games benefit from this human sentimentality.
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https://medium.com/drill/nostalgia-as-a-ux-driver-on-video-games-77f31479ea04
How does the nostalgia originate?
The word is a compound of nostos (return) and algos (pain). Nostalgia is associated with a strong missing of past experiences, places, persons or events. Even when it was considered something negative in the past, nostalgia was revealed to generate positive affectivity [1]. The house of your childhood, the stories of your grandfather or even the group of friends at the university can generate nostalgia. Music is usually a good nostalgia driver since we quickly associate the tone with the situations in which we used to hear it.
Nostalgia does not always require a long time to pass before revealing. It is more related to the change, that to the time. And it is something that video games creators can utilize when working on the experience of their users.
Video game market is constantly changing. Processing technology evolved exponentially during the transition of the XX century to the XXI and keeps increasing. This allowed exploring new functionalities, new graphics, new worlds. An originally little market led by Japanese firms is nowadays a billionaire worldwide industry in which thousands of companies generate new contents every day [2]. This makes the users, which we can call players or even gamers, to be constantly trying different experiences.
Moreover, some games can become something special for the user. For some reasons, a game can be a unique experience for the player and he will always remember it with affection. It may be because it was his first game, or they played it in the family house, or it was the first touching story discovered by the player. The feeling of nostalgia around that special game arises. This generates affinity for a genre of games, companies or franchises. And this is a powerful fact that can be used to retaining your customers since their experience will have an additional value when playing similar games.
The fact that video games are not only played by kids anymore [3] help us to identify the target audience more likely affected by nostalgia. Adult players, who may have started playing at younger ages, have probably enjoyed old games before and the missing of that special experience is something common in them. They are usually in the 18–35 years old since older users are commonly new players attracted by casual tile, puzzle and logic games that had not the opportunity to play them during their childhood. [4]
When developers identify the games that generated a strong impact on the audience, they can attract the attention of the players by launching new games with resembling characteristics to the old one. Then, they engage the customer with a similar feeling during the gameplay, that can be re-created by several factors: music, storytelling, characters and visual art among others.
Classical video-game franchises
There are many famous franchises that make use of this strategy to retain their common customers. Especially Japanese companies like Nintendo or Square-Enix are constantly recalling classic resources to make the players revive their usual feeling when playing new games.
Some examples of big franchises are the followings.
Super Mario | Nintendo
スーパーマリオ, in katakana, is probably the most famous series from Nintendo, featuring their mascot Mario and many other characters like Luigi, Princess Peach, Toad, or the charismatic dinosaur Yoshi. Most of the Mario games have been platforms games, even when the genre has evolved from almost guided 2D experiences to sandbox 3D worlds with multiples playing options.
Of course, Nintendo could have created different franchises to explore this platform evolution during the last decades, but they actually preferred to keep the same original feeling with any new release. How did they do that?
Super Mario series share a lot of common elements between all its games. The most important is the protagonist itself, Mario, and the other secondary characters as well as the antagonist Bowser. However, there are other details that make any Mario game recognizable and that make any player resemble the whole Mario series from its origins:
- Warm pipes, as a transportation method.
- Mushrooms, like power-ups and extra lives.
- Golden coins.
- Item blocks, typically activated with Mario’s head.
Sounds familiar? If you have played any Mario game, you will recognize all these elements and probably many others like the Fire Flower. If the players feel nostalgia for the first Mario game they played or that awesome first 3D world from N64, then they will be certainly attracted to any new Mario experience promising to revive that experience.
The Legend of Zelda | Nintendo
Another famous franchise in which the player controls Link, the green-suited hero who must save Hyrule and Princess Zelda from Ganon. The essence of the story remains untouched since the first game.
Again, we can find many common elements like the characters, the kingdom of Hyrule, the Triforce symbol, the rupees as the in-game currency, or the soundtrack. Any TLOZ fan rejoices when the main theme of the series starts playing on the new game, bringing memories from the old games.
Pokémon | Nintendo
Pokémon is another good example of a franchise making use of nostalgia. With any new generation of Pokémon games, they add new creatures and typically new regions to explore, but they keep the same game structure from its origin. It is the story of a young pokémon trainer who travels around beating the gyms and fighting against a terrorist organization, with the aim of winning the Pokémon League.
At the moment you receive your first pokémon from the scientist of your small town, you are recreating the same initial experience of all the previous games, and that is exactly what the players are expecting. In addition to this, even when you are discovering new pokémon creatures, you can also find the old ones in your adventure.
Final Fantasy | Square Enix
One of the most relevant franchises in the Japanese Role-Playing Game genre, originally developed by Square. Almost every Final Fantasy game is placed in a different world, with different characters and stories.
Nevertheless, there are still many common elements that create the original Final Fantasy feeling expected by the player:
- Creatures like Chocobos, Moggles, Tonberries and Cactuars.
- Summons or Eidolons like Bahamut, Leviathan, Ifrit or Shiva.
- Character classes like Black Mage, Summoner, Thief, or Warrior.
- Magical elements and spells.
- The soundtrack, which usually shares the main or the intro theme.
But the most captivating parts of the Final Fantasy series are usually the storytelling and the visual art, that vary along time but take care of the same details to keep the experience similar.
Any person who enjoyed playing Final Fantasy VII will be moved when he rides again a Chocobo in Final Fantasy X. When you first see the Eidolons in Final Fantasy XV, it is impossible not to think on the past experiences from Final Fantasy VIII or IX. Square Enix pointedly drives the player gameplay to remind the great previous experiences of the series.
Video-game remakes
Not only long-term franchises can benefit from this. With any new technological generation of video games, the opportunity of remaking old successful games shows up.
This has some risks. First, it can literally destroy the good feelings of the player if the remake is not properly done. In addition, it cannot reach many new customers if the product is strictly focused on the old players. However, remakes are a common trend nowadays, since at least some selling will be ensured.
Some examples are:
- Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, released in 2017.
- Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, released in 2014.
- Counter-Strike Global Offensive, released in 2012.
- Doom, released in 2016.
- Many Final Fantasy games, including the Final Fantasy VII remake, announced since 2016.
- Spyro Reignited Trilogy, releasing in 2018.
Cameos and guests
Another simple yet good option is to include cameos. Some games actually base their success on putting together a lot of characters from different games, like the Super Smash Bros series.
Finding your favorite character, or a good reference to him can be a grateful experience when playing something else. This is the case of The Last of Us, which includes images of old Crash Bandicoot games in some destroyed buildings. Other examples are the guest characters in the SoulCalibur series, which have featured celebrities like Link, Spawn, Heihachi, Darth Vader, Yoda and recently Geralt of Rivia. The Witcher 3 was one of the most acclaimed games of the decade, so fans of The Witcher games are eager to play Geralt once again, and SC VI brings them a new opportunity.
Mortal Combat is another series with guest characters, like Freddy Krueger or Predator. One funny cameo is performed by the creepers from Minecraft that you can find in Borderlands 2.
Conclusions
Some people think that nostalgia is actually killing the video game industry since developers prefer to keep releasing contents based on past successes than trying something new. Actually, there may be some truth behind that: the lists of most successful games of the recent years are coped with sequels and remakes. [5]
However, some developers still create completely new experiences by exploring new genres or just telling original stories, as in the cases of Player Unknown’s Battleground or Horizon: Zero Dawn.
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Moreover, great video games like Pillars of Eternity and its sequel are based on the classic RPG gameplay of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights or Planescape Torment. They make use of nostalgia once again, and these games are actually refreshing the market by bringing back the essence of role-playing to the players who missed it.
In the end, the video-game market requires a variety of experiences. Many users demand online games nowadays, but mostly single-player titles are still ranking the tops [6] in terms of user assessment. One of the reasons is that the players can recall the good old days, those in which they started playing in the living room after school.
Human feelings are something important in an industry based on providing immersive stories and social entertainment, and developers are aware of this.
References
[1] Sedikides, C. (2008). [online] Southampton.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/~crsi/Sedikides%20Wildschut%20Arndt%20%20Routledge%202008%20CDir.pdf [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
[2] Batchelor, J. (2018). Games industry generated $108.4bn in revenues in 2017. [online] GamesIndustry.biz. Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-01-31-games-industry-generated-usd108-4bn-in-revenues-in-2017 [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
[3] Statista. (2018). U.S. average age of video gamers 2018 | Statistic. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/189582/age-of-us-video-game-players-since-2010/ [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
[4] Anderson, G. (2016). Video Games: Attitudes and Habits of Adults Age 50-Plus. [online] AARP. Available at: https://www.aarp.org/research/topics/technology/info-2016/electronic-gaming-research-adults-50plus.html [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
[5] Forbes.com. (2018). The Best-Selling Video Games And Hardware Of March (2018) — ‘Far Cry 5’ Leads The Pack. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/04/25/the-best-selling-video-games-and-hardware-of-march-2018/#7be82e084aa4 [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
[6] Metacritic. (2018). Best Video Games of All Time. [online] Available at: http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/userscore/all/all/filtered?sort=desc [Accessed 30 Jun. 2018].
