A Holistic Approach to Game Making
I’ve seen plenty of frustration in game development, especially in making game design decisions. With so many different ideas and possibilities, it can be difficult to know where to start or how to create a game that truly resonates with your target audience, delivers the experience that you intended, and is commercially viable.
Start With “The Why-Kigai”
Based on my own experience making games and mentoring other game developers, many of the issues that emerged can be traced to one thing: Not understanding or not knowing “The Why.”
Let me explain.
When people start their projects, they immediately state the “What.” For example, “I’m making a farming sim,” “It’s a 3D FPS game,” “action platformer,” etc.
They may know “how” to do it, such as “use this engine,” “implement that algorithm,” “do it this way,” and so on. But surely, sooner or later, they start having doubts or confusion about which direction to take because they don’t have a clear understanding of why the game needs to exist, why people would buy it, and why it should be made in a certain way. And I’m not talking about surface-level reasons, such as: “because I like it” or “because it’s trending,” but a much deeper understanding.
The Golden Circle
Start With Why is a concept made famous by Simon Sinek, the American motivational speaker and author. Sinek says people are inspired by a sense of purpose (or “Why”) and that this should come first when communicating, before “How” and “What.” He calls this The Golden Circle.
- “Why” is the purpose
- “How” is the process
- “What” is the result
If you understand the purpose, you’ll know the right process to deliver the right result. In other words, you’ll have a clear vision, direction, and expectation for your project.
The Ikigai
Now, to make things even clearer, we can pair the Golden Circle with Ikigai, the Japanese concept of finding one’s sense of purpose.
Ikigai states that your true purpose in life is where four things converge: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
The Why-Kigai
However, for the purposes of product development, I think we shouldn’t only be asking the “what” but also the “why.” I call this combination of Start With Why and Ikigai: Why-kigai (Y-kigai).
- Why do you love it?
- Why you can do/make it?
- Why do others want/need (and therefore pay for) it?
- and Why it’ll make you stand out from your competition.
Somewhere inside the area where all four converge is the true reason why you should make the product/game. From there, you’ll know as clearly as day what you should make and how you should make it.
Finding The Why
Now that we have established that having a much deeper understanding of “The Why” is very important, the next question would be: How do I find it?
Use the 5-Whys method on the previous why questions.
What do you love? Why?
This part is the easiest. We already know what we love, but just like making any kind of commercial product, we don’t want to be the only customer. We want other people to buy our product, and to do that, we must also understand the customers we are aiming to serve — their wants and needs, daily activities and behavior, etc.
Even so, understanding yourself better can also help you understand your customers. I’d place myself as the target customer I’m trying to serve, knowing that there will be other people like me. After all, I don’t want to make a game that I don’t enjoy playing.
I’ll ask these questions to myself:
- What’s my favorite game or genre? What motivates you to play? Why?
example: I like tactical strategy games, such as game A, B, and C because… - Expectations — what do you usually do or expect in those games?
example: The mechanic should be easy to learn but have depth. The theme can be fictional or slightly fantasy but is relatively grounded in reality, etc. - Pains — what are your frustrations in those games?
example: Too expensive, too time-consuming, requires high-end hardware, too much text, etc. - Gains — what do you want more of?
example: I wish there were more mecha tactical games set during the Cold War. I wish more tactical games would allow me to attack different body parts. I wish there were more levels with endless replayability.
What can you make? Why?
The next part is knowing your capabilities and limitations. The knowledge, skills, and resources that you have will limit what kind of games you can produce. Limitations are not a bad thing, they’ll keep you grounded on what is feasible and viable while also pushing you to be more creative.
You should be able to roughly find the intersection between what you love, what you want/need, and what you can make.
From this point, the easy part is over.
What others want/need? Why?
You already have a rough idea of what you want or need. Now, you need to find out if there are other people like you, how many are there, and validate whether your ideas are viable.
You can start by interviewing people who have similar interests and play the same games as you do and see if they experience the same pains or want the same gains. Another way to do this is to check the user reviews on other games in the genre.
Try surveying as many people as possible and grouping them into Profiles based on similarities. Eventually, you’ll start seeing a pattern emerge.
What makes you stand out? Why?
You need to know if anyone else has tried solving the same problem. These other products would be your competitors or benchmarks.
Creating a perceptual map can help you identify gaps in the market and understand your product’s position in relation to other existing products in the market.
Try analyzing them by asking these questions:
- Did they succeed? If yes, what did they do right? if not, what went wrong?
- What have been tried? Is there a better or more interesting way to do it?
- Is there an untapped niche?
The Value Proposition
You should now be able to create a product with a strong Value Proposition, complete with a clear vision, unique selling points, and features that will hook your target audience.
You can utilize the Value Proposition Canvas to validate your product further.
Try returning to your target audience and pitching them your game. Then, ask them how much value they would put on each Pain Reliever or Gain Creator that your product offers or how much they are willing to pay for the product entirely. This will help you measure demand or how badly they want it. The higher, the better.
Closing
I hope this article has been insightful and could help you make the right decisions.
