This past Friday, Sid Meier gave the keynote address at the weeklong Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. His speech, entitled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)", offered some insight into his personal philosophy in creating popular and influential video games. Here is some media coverage of the address:
There were some instances where Meier discovered unexpected psychological moments. For instance, the original prototype for Civilization was a real-time strategy game, not turn-based. But he found that players felt more like observers in a real-time strategy game, while they felt more like the star of the game with turn-based gameplay.
Meier also said, "Any kind of randomness needs to be treated with a lot of care. Whenever something random happens to the player, paranoia sets in. ... The player feels like the computer rolled that random number just to be difficult." Small doses of randomness, however can be helpful -- just make sure that it seems fair to the player so he doesn't feel cheated.
"Game play is a psychological experience," Meier said. "It's all in your head. I thought the more realistic you made a game, the more historically accurate, [the more] the player would appreciate it. In reality, I was wrong. You have to take into account what actually happens in a players head. I never get letters from players who say, I won too much in your game."
Meier said that the first 15 minutes of a game are key. Players have a need for instant gratification. If you don't hook them at the start, they will drop it quickly. Game designers should never waste a player's time by sending them down the wrong road or giving them too many options that distract them from the main object of a game.
One of the biggest skills that game developers can foster is listening to what players are really saying. This means you don't have to take their suggestions literally, but interpret them so that you know what they really want.
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