Perspectives #1:

Game Developers Flourish

by Sam Liu
2006-02-03

As the number of computer literate in the world grow, more and more people who once played games decide to make games of their own. They go off and some learn C++, Some JAVA, and others the simple web scripting languages. The number of games online grows every day. Some people undertake massive projects involving hundreds of people to make engines, making game-making easier.

But are so many games beneficial? The ratio of players to makers is rising constantly on the side of the makers. Game making has become a process that takes little skill at all. Many engines are available (for example 3D engines Irrlicht or text engines like the NOVA system). Simple configurations or map creations result in an awesome full blown gaming experience.

As a result of all this, many games sit on the web with few players. Some games are original and never get any publicity, while other games suck but do get many players. What is the reason?

The creator of the Utopia Webgame happened to make a statement pretaining to this: "If your game is good, It will get visitors. So dont spam our forums with your game..."

There is some truth to the statement. Sometimes good games will get good publicity. But there are good games that get completely ignored.

The truth is that there are too many things to entertain us and not enough time to play them all. The ratio of makers to players is reaching an equilibrium.

What does this mean?

What it means is that there is more to a game then a game. The elements of a good game are as follows:

a) Interactive Gameplay
- How good is your game?

b) Society
- How big is your game? Do I make friends by playing? Is there a public forums? am I spending all my time with computer players and AI only?

c) User Friendly
- Is the game simple enough to learn, but still have more strategy? Is the game easily navigated? Are Admins helpful?

d) Graphics/Display
- If there are graphics, are they good? If it is textbased, is it easily read? Is the layout good?

Having these elements allows a good game to be run. Now visiting a majority of games on an online game topsite shows me that some very good games are completely ignored!

The point of the study is to show us that gamers do indeed have a variety of choices and should care to find a "better" game that would be worth playing. If a game is not publicised, but you know it is good, is it not worth spreading word to friends?

More statistics on the next column in this series!

[ #2: Exploiting the Maker —> ]