Stop Hiding Your Game!

One of the most common mistake I see in video games is the tendency to create a good game experience, then build barriers to keep players away from it for as long as possible.

Your first reaction is probably "Wait! Who does that?" The answer is almost everybody, but it's probably faster to just list off the ways it is done.

1. Hiding behind an easy intro

Think of the last strategy game you played. How long did it take before you actually had to, you know, use any strategy to succeed?

Sometimes, game developers are scared that if players fail too early, they will quit the game out of frustration. There's probably some truth in that, but I suspect it usually applies more to players failing and not understanding why. If you've created a game that involves putting in effort to overcome obstacles, then a newcomer isn't really playing your game until they have to put in effort.

A player who fails but has ideas about how to avoid failing next time will often become more engaged--not less.

2. Hiding behind rewards

This is most common among free-to-play mobile games, but I occasionally see it elsewhere.

"You have been awarded 500 gems!"

"You just unlocked a new skin"

"You received a platinum loot box."

"Just five more rewards and then you can start playing the game!!!!!"

Managing and understanding rewards takes time and energy that could instead be spent experiencing gameplay and/or story.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of game rewards. It is about rewards that are so early and/or intrusive that they interfere with the game experience. A player isn't going to be particularly interested in how many new emotes he unlocks until he knows whether he actually likes your game.

Rewards can enhance a good game, but until I'm convinced that the game is good, most rewards are simply barriers to entry.

3. Hiding Behind Story

This can be more difficult to get right, depending on your target audience, but I believe that more people will accept a bad story with good gameplay than bad gameplay with a good story. If your game is marketed as being story-first, it might be an exception, but otherwise, be really careful about this one. I see two common issues here.

A. Too much time on text/cutscenes before good gameplay is experienced.

B. Gameplay (especially early gameplay), that focuses more on moving the story forward than on being enjoyable.

My first time trying Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, I quit about 30 minutes in because I hadn't found the game yet. Years later, with enough positive recommendations, I tried again and found that with some patience, there was actually a great game hiding behind that long intro. But even for players who liked the story, they probably could have made some shifts to get you into the game more quickly.

4. Hiding Behind Minigames

I really enjoyed Zelda: Twilight Princess, but if I hadn't already been a fan of the series, I might have quit. Before even teaching the core combat gameplay, it taught me a minigame about how to catch farm animals rolling down a hill. Making players learn minigames before they even understand what your game is about simply asks them to pour more time and energy into your game before they get hooked.

Who does it right?

King's Bounty, Armored Princess: A great mix of turn-based strategy and exploration with RPG elements, this game gets to the meat of the gameplay very quickly. Early story sequence is short, and tutorial is both optional and lean. After that, you see an open world with easy fights (though not so easy that they don't require strategy) impossibly hard fights, and merchants with small, understandable inventories. You have options, you understand the gameplay, and you have a sense of what the larger game is going to be like.

Kingdom Rush: I know I've used this as a positive example before, but I think it's especially worth mentioning because it's a highly successful semi-casual mobile game that didn't fall into the traps that most of the others do. Only a few types of rewards are present, none of which players are pushed to use immediately. They don't push you into the cash shop (only gentle nudges after you've been playing for a while), and by the second map, you have to start thinking about which towers you are placing and where. They cut all the noise and focused on simply getting you into the gameplay.

Final Thoughts

What makes your game awesome? How much time and effort does your player need to go through before they start experiencing that? Could any of that time and effort be shifted to a later point in the game or removed entirely? Don't lose players because you put up obstacles to enjoying your game.