Scott Steinberg: The Rules of the Game

The new rules of the game are simple. Every play element needs to offer players direct benefits, and every design choice needs to justify its existence by bringing more pleasure, business, repeat tries or, ideally, some combination of the above. All need to be actively monitored and assessed for performance, then enhanced, updated or abandoned based on direct user feedback.

To this extent, designers need to think like businesspeople, and executives need to think like designers as well. All aspects of your game should not only be as valuable and sensible as possible, but also enjoyable and interactive - no matter if they serve a practical, financial or purely artistic purpose.

While seemingly complex concepts and business principles to seize upon, the difficulty associated with implementation and ramp-up can be mitigated by encouraging lateral and open dialogue between departments and levels. A major first step includes initial design planning that accounts for key features that can serve as significant simultaneous value-adds, promotional tools and business drivers. (Example: Level or character creation toolkits, which expand game content while increasing player engagement and pass-along, and have served titles from LittleBigPlanet 2 to Spore well.)

Subsequent steps such as rapid prototyping, frequent meetings at which all team members' input is solicited and beta programs or soft launches which reveal which features best connect with users can further help. Learning from social games companies such as Zynga, Booyah and Playdom is advised as well.

Essentially, all play elements should quickly drive increased user engagement, viral pass-along or payment. Following reasonable experimentation with structure, pricing and set-up, don't hesitate to be swift and brutal at abandoning features that under-perform either. Life and fiscal years, as they say, are too short.

As more developers transition to become full-service independent publishers, it's also vital that they become smarter about picking their battles. Choose a niche to focus upon, a singular visual style for your game, key concepts that are quickly communicable at a glance, and one to three key features to execute well. You can't be everything to everyone. But if you can fill a void in the market, make it immediately obvious how and facilitate hands-on trials, uptake can be powerful.

Likewise, as more publishers work to bring franchises like FIFA, Dead Space and The Agency to social, mobile and online spaces, it's crucial that they provide experiences tailored to each platform's defining features. Companion utilities and spin-off adventures can all help promote brand awareness, or help build new entry points (eg cell phones, Web browsers and tablet PCs) to existing franchises. But all should offer actual value for play and tangible incentives for sharing, awarding extras and bonuses (say, an exclusive pet or extra in-game cash in the core PC/console product) for ongoing interaction or active recruitment of friends to help solve key in-game problems. In either case, it isn't simply enough to provide online leaderboards, Twitter/Facebook sharing features and swappable power-ups.