The Game Studio

Recently there has been some buzz about the importance of a players “First Hour Experience”, when creating your own game, partially because Linden Lab, a leader in 3D Worlds and virtual environments (the creators of Second Life) have begun research to improve their first hour experience. For many games a users first impressions of your game are what create lasting images and thoughts about how successful your game is. If you manage to “Wow” someone initially, you’re more likely to have an easier time keeping their momentum going throughout the rest of your game. But at the same time, it can be a pitfall to over shoot the first impression, making the most impressive scenes carry out within the first ten minutes of your game could leave your players wondering “What happened here?”

But just as you don’t want to over stimulate people in that initial, opening scene and game play, you certainly don’t want to lose, confuse, or completely abuse them (fun how that rhymes, eh?). While the first hour of your game is important in keeping people who have purposely sought out your game, and people who may have friends who actively hang around your environments, it’s not as helpful to people who are quickly downloading your client, playing around briefly, and deciding almost instantly whether or not the gameplay “feels” right. Let’s break it down for you.

Lose

Just as in the social world, we typically have a very brief 7-10 seconds to make a positive impression on someone we’re just meeting, you’re game has minutes (maybe seconds) to make potential users feel that the game is a good fit. Once you’ve snagged someone for that amount of time, you can then move onto impressing them and making their first hour experience a pleasant one. If someone enters your game, and the first environment they land in is overly laggy, packed with information, and in general does not feel welcoming, you’ll more than likely lose said player. My most recent example was when I visited the virtual environment Twinity. While I do understand that Twinity is still being developed, I felt like the rendering and handling of the 3D browser was clunky, and I had no idea how to make my character run (there were no instructions… anywhere), and so I was forced to walk at a snail’s pace. While these may not seem like big issues, they did frustrate me and led to a not so positive first impression of the client.

Confuse

Making your landing environment and user interface less confusing is going to work in your favor for the point about - losing less people. When new users enter an environment with too much swirling around them, whether its huge printed signs, popup messages, webpages popping up, and general noise, a person is very likely to become confused and flustered, whether they realize that it has to do with all the bunk around them or not. The best possible scenario you could setup for your user would be to make things either fairly cut and dry (lead them carefully, but not with an iron fist) along a tutorial, or some sort of welcome information that is concise and informative. The other option, which is becoming popular, is to plunk your new player in the middle of open space, with little around them but some props that reveal additional information to guide them through the game. Studies have been done that have shown that players who were hand held through a tutorial understood the game better than those who were in a more “free style” tutorial (one involving more free exploration). However, the same study showed that while the free style tutorial players felt more confused about the game, that they actually had more fun along the way.

Take the above as you will - but it is essential that in either scenario you cut out the fluff (okay, keep a little fluff for nice imagery), and guide them in a way that makes them want to discover more about your game.

Abuse

Abusing your newbies is a bad practice which has led to loses in our own games, and should be avoided at all costs. Just as your newbies are getting their bearings, it’s unfair to throw fireballs at them, or expose them to players with incredibly high stats who may be waiting to smoosh them. Newbie goo isn’t good for anyone. Treat your newbies like new customers that you’re convincing to buy your product because… well, that’s exactly what they are. I cannot tell you how many players we have personally lost because we allowed newbies to land in an area that, while safe, was too close to zones that allowed player vs player fighting.

Yeah… So?

Ultimately, when creating an online game of your own it’s important to keep these things in mind because every potential player that you lose, is lost money, lost input, and a lost member of your community (which does wonders for a game). It’s important to realize that while you may have a snazzy, shiny, and awesome game that deserves all the attention and patience it can get, that today’s consumer base is all about instant gratification. If you can’t at least appease that nature in some ways, early on, then chances are that as cool as your game is, that fewer people than you’d like will have the draw to stumble into and discover it.

- The Game Studio