2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

More than just one factor comes into play for making successful and long lasting game brands. If a 

company has a core competency that stands out, beyond simply striving for an excellent product, 

then they should find ways to strengthen that association throughout the company and brands.  

b) 

Entertainment Value 

Long lasting game brands must possess some kind of entertainment value. Spend the time needed to 

design a streamlined game mechanic that is fun and lends itself to habitual play.

Developers should also consider that what might be fun for a more traditional console playing game 

audience may not work for players who typically buy downloadable games. Games that seem to 

perform best in this space are ones that are considered relatively easy to learn but difficult to master.

For power players, a game should include additional features that increase the depth and complexity 

of interaction, should they seek it out. These additional features complement the need for simple 

controls and basic gameplay.

Examples of  power player

  type features: 

In the word game 

Text Twist

, there are several layers of playing strategy that players can 

adopt, depending on how `deep' they want to get into the game. For example, spelling a 7 

letter word automatically allows you to advance to the next level, and this requires a certain 

skill. Players who want an easier experience can still advance levels by spelling many shorter 

words to advance, and possibly not have to think as much about it.  

Gutterball 3d

 is a bowling game that gives advanced players the opportunity to customize the 

weight, speed and spin of their bowling balls to get just the right `feel' for bowling a game.  

Features that unlock over time or can be expanded upon through additional downloads, when 

part of an overall brand roll out plan, are another way to encourage a player's long term 

investment with a game brand.  

Finally, to understand what hold a brand may have over time, developers should take the time 

necessary to play test games with players who sign up to be beta testers. 

c) 

Accessibility 

Particularly with the casual online game market, accessibility is key to designing brands with longer 

lasting equity. A game has about 30 seconds to grab a player's attention, and games that fail to do 

this might lose a player forever. Following certain guidelines to increase the accessibility, results in a 

greater likelihood that players are going to bond, habitually play, and hopefully purchase, the games.  

Tools such as help, in game tips, tutorials and easy to find options ought to be easy to access so 

anyone picking up the game for the first time is effortlessly guided through the first few rounds of 

playing the game. Similarly, most players will not know where to look for the Options menu, so it's 

important to give users easy access to their options.  

Games should challenge, but not  kill  new players in the first ten seconds of play. Difficulty that 

ramps up over time allows newer players the opportunity to play and learn the game. Another option 

is to allow users to choose their skill level for a given game.  

Find ways to integrate all levels of communication to the user regarding how well or poorly they are 

doing in a game.  Do this both visually and aurally to make tracking progress transparent.  

For example: 

In PopCap's 

Bookworm

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 , a player knows their time is up if a  burning  tile reaches the bottom 

of the frame. This highly visual metaphor leaves no room for guessing how well a player is 

doing during a given game.  

Adveractive's 

Atomic Pongling

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 combines the familiar form of bowling with a breakout style 

metaphor. For players, scoring and game progress are visually implicit to the overall design. 

There's no question as to what a player needs to do or how well they are doing it. 

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