“There are no seven wonders in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.”
Introduction
Interest is a huge factor in most games, and it’s often overlooked in a whopping variety of games. Whether through the long run, or short run, keeping a player interested in your game is critical to keep your game alive and engaging.
What is Interest?
Interest is the structure which holds any game that hopes to succeed together. It’s a force, though quite invisible, that urges those who play your game to keep playing. Interest is seen in logos, advertisements, and the very gameplay of your game—and for a good reason too.
→ So, if it’s so important, why do most games lack it? ←
Most games don’t completely lack it, and quite frankly a majority of games try to keep interest. Ironically this is the reason why games don’t successfully keep a player base engaged. They try too hard to engage an audience–and ultimately end up incorporating updates that will only keep players engaged for the short run.
This is where the main part begins to unfold, so you might want to strap in!
Knowing your audience—and understanding what they think of your game.
"Detection*. The human brain works in a very similiar level to the point where most actions, if you study them enough, are highly predictable. Most are obvious, others hidden. Detecting your game is not ideally the most important level of interest, but it’s one that we can easily point out and even more easily share.
Detection commonly starts like so…
→ The eyes of a viewer land on this advertisement, game logo, icon, or even description. This is where the viewers completely needs to see the point of the game in either a visual or even auditory way (through a trailer, etc.)
Lets focus on the Title for now, in the instance your viewers eyes land on it.
You can often assume which type of players you’ll be having in your game based on the very title of your game. Adopt Me will have children interested in a imaginative world of role play where they can have fun with friends, create families, and join other families. The very name shows this. If Adopt Me was named “Roleplay, Obby, and Pets” it would most likely not have as much as players as it does. (But why? Doesn’t that sum up most of the gameplay in a short way?) Yes, it does, but you have to understand that the name isn’t engaging at all. It shows the name in a great way but most audiences would skip over the name because it incorporates too much for the reader to care about. It’s the same for a game like Jailbreak. Knowing what your audience is looking for will make finding a name less hard. A game that has you conducting trains wouldn’t be called “Conduct and Stop Trains” because part of the player base would either think “huh?” or “that’s probably just another trash game.” Having it named “Train Haven” or “Train Catastrophe” makes it more easy to read and will radiate better interest. Your game’s quality won’t matter when the title doesn’t resonate well with your viewers, or when the title doesn’t interest them enough.
Alright, so now you understand your audience and know about the whole title thing, Now…what if it was possible to predict a course of actions that viewers would do…?
This is where we can imagine one out of three thoughts are boosted into the user;
|- “Woah! That looks cool, I wanna check it out.”
|- “Nice I might check it out later.”
|- “Eh.”
Staying in the top range is your best bet. Why? Because you want your players to feel interested in joining your game. No matter how much it relates to them they could have some memory of joining a very cool jail game that turned out to be trash. They might make the natural mistake of assuming your game is “eh” as well–or that your game isn’t enough for them.
How do I keep interest?
“But how do I stay in the top range?”
Good question. You stay in the top range by following a numerous amount of rules and overall morals.
Trust
“Nothing loses my interest faster than someone lying to me.” → If you promise something in your game you have to see through with it. Or players who joined because of it will be begging to see where it is. Bad trust can not only bring down how many players you have in your game, but it also greatly affects your like and dislike ratio. This isn’t just with promises either, it’s with trust that the game won’t be another pay to win. I’ve seen countless games that promise everything a fan of the franchise could want–and then you glance in the game passes tab and realize majority of what you wanted costs robux. It’s not that game passes are bad–it’s the pure abuse of game passes that make the game’s morality fail and the gameplay less fun. It’s the same idea of Jailbreak encouraging awesome prison escapes and police enforcing and then forcing you to purchase a keycard with robux anytime you want to escape–or making the entire Police team a game-pass.
Freedom
I beg of anyone trying to work on a group game or group only type gameplay to just pause and think about what you want. If you want awesome player count numbers and a good amount of daily plays then don’t force players to have to join a group and level up to succeed. I’ve seen games like this and they never ever succeed on the longer run, then again that’s completely fine if you want a small community! Just understand that most group only games require a discord, and most ROBLOX players aren’t always 13+. This makes it complicated for anyone wanting to be a very epic S.W.A.T officer and then realizing they have to go through a whole complicated process of tryouts, trainings, etc.
Hilton Hotels–I’m sorry but I have to call you out too. I get that an equal amount of your players are young and old. But if your goal is to achieve a higher amount of players the whole group-only staff process will hold you back a lot. I also get that there’s mini communities that enjoy attending trainings, etc, but it’s honestly asking for too much for kids who have to type of paragraphs of perfectly grammatical responses to questions. Interviews aren’t very fun for adults–especially when you don’t pass.
(How does this have to have anything to do with freedom?) Freedom is letting your players have the most reasonable amount of control over gameplay. Letting them choose who, what, and where they want to be is great for keeping them engaged. Forcing them to go through processes of joining groups to choose certain teams, along with making them purchase game passes is a hard complication that just isn’t easy enough to follow through with. Even making too many areas that require game passes can disappoint players. Games should feel smooth, enjoyable, and overall something you want to come back to.
Updates
Frequent updates are great. Too frequent updates will shred your game. (I’m here to say it; Jailbreak too falls to the concept of too frequent updates. )
How do I stay in the better range of updates?
The most ideal path is to make sure you are always checking reviews, like ratios, excitement sparks etc. with your game. Did that new gun update boost your gameplay? Did the new hunger concept resonate well? Try to have a group that players can talk in, and try to even have a review pathway–like a discord. Not all players will be able to review and suggest updates in this discord but most likely a good chunk of your player base will.
The best part of updating is that you get to choose how much is released. Too much and you’ll of wasted some ideas that could of been saved later and that would of fit in better (releasing a gun update, fuel update, twelve new maps, and a hunger system is known as a bit overboard, you can split that up more easily for the longer run). Too little and your players will thirst for more too quickly (example: adding ammo noises and a cool intro). The thing is–if you set up your structure properly updates won’t even need to happen. Of course bug fixes, etc. But if your game is properly structured you’re set. for a good enough time to relax, watch the income flow and even enjoy playing your game. This is what we explore next.
Structure
Your game should sit on a good enough structure that can hold for a proper amount of months (4-5). But where the heck do you start? Well, of course, with a blueprint!
Pull out a notepad, virtual or real, and start jotting down what your game is going to have. That way you even have pre-planned updates before your game even releases! (STONKS!!!)
The more you add to your game the more it’ll hold up. You got to keep true to what your game is saying it will incorporate (this is also why descriptions can be really smart).
Games like Arsenal and Phantom Forces are set up so well that the only thing that needs to be added are new maps, skins, and guns. These are games that can flow easily and quickly–which reminds me of our next and final rule.
Engagement
All of this (and I mean all of it!) helps form the most important concept of all–engaging your viewers.
What makes my viewers stay…and what makes that X in the right top corner stay it’s normal color? What can I do that encourages my viewers that playing this game is fun and worth it?
You can do a number of things…but start with passion. Putting passion into your games will oddly make other players be passionate about playing it. Seeing the cool things you (yes, you!) thought of and creatively added will make them want to explore that…and ultimately be the game changer. Often people who develop fail to realize that if they aren’t motivated players who play the game may actually radiate off of that. Players, however engaged or not, will often realize the smallest of details that YOU thought of, and that you too said “this’ll be a cool addition”. If you aren’t passionate or motivated then take a break! If you’re doing this only for the money–great–but can’t it be something more than just money? Are your players playing only to spend money or are they playing to have an enjoyable time? Try to balance the two, and you’ll see progress–great progress.
Finally I want to go over a concept that is very very very important (so important that it required three very’s!). Keep the game fair for new comers, and always incorporate tutorials.
Force the tutorials if you have to–but keep those tutorials fun and engaging as well. Because the littlest of time can make a switch and encourage the player to go try a different game.
If players find a certain weapon unfair, and keep losing too much unfairly in a certain way–do something about it! Don’t wait a few months, because sure enough those players will be long gone if they realize you aren’t listening. This even is the same thing for game passes as well. If others don’t like the game passes, they’ll say that! And most certainly the purchases will drop. Keep the game passes at fair prices and fair advantages.
Conclusion
There are so many more concepts and rules I really do want to share–but I’ll leave that for you to explore, and hey, maybe for another time.
The main take-away here is to always keep your players engaged with great titles, gameplay, and fair in-game purchases. Keep them out there and exploring, let the game’s boundaries not be the limit–let their imagination of what they can do be their limit.
And with that…I promise you’ll definitely see a great reward. For what you put in the game will always come out.
(P.S. Thank you for reading–this is my first community tutorial and I do hope it’s not my last, because these are fun to make!)