You’ve been dreaming of building a video game for years. But how do you build a successful video game? A good idea isn't enough. It might be the least important factor in your success. To make money (and lots of it) you need to consider these 5 tips before you get started on game design.
1. You need a game idea that’s easy to play and hard to master
When you’re creating a game, you need to make sure that you’re creating a game that’s easy to play but hard to master. This is a really important concept in game design. Fantastic games do not come along once in a blue moon.
These are the five basic tips that you need to understand to build any successful video game. Get your full list of tips in The Search Engine Optimization Workflow.
So You Want a Video Game
1) Create a Ridiculously Cool Concept
The coolest ideas come to us all the time from many places and often have little to do with what we think as an ordinary consumer may think. Consider this excellent concept about bringing animals together by creating bridges to cross the streams of the internet under the sea. This concept inspired one of the all-time great games, Tetris. I think we can all agree that the concept is very cool.
However, most of these are concepts that would be viable for a trivia game and not a video game. As a video game, you want to create a buzz of demand so that when you open your doors, you feel the enthusiastic group of buyers eating, drinking, and swearing like it’s their lives. This is particularly true with animated videos where reactions and emotions come forth in hot streams right as you’re about to play the game.
2) Choose a Non-Converting Game Concept
Non-converting games would be games that no one wants to play. This can be implied with the word “no” rather than “no one.” Crazy, I know. A game that no one wants and is therefore unprofitable, is not a good way to build a video game. Some non-converting games may work if you hide the “Offer” button until after someone has died and the game is over.
2. Make your game appealing to many different people
Tip #1: Optimize for Conversion
Consistently optimizing your website content to increase conversions helps you to gain popularity, increase customer value, and build your brand. Video games are no exception. To optimize a video game for conversions, you need to:
Be sure to use the game title field Insert a clear description Make sure that there's a way for the customer to sign up for your product/service Be sure to have calls-to-action on the purchase page so that the customer needs to register before they buy those games be sure to provide enough information regarding the game itself, its rules, monetization, and payment options be sure to have social share buttons on the page so that you can get the word out Be sure to optimize the page itself (TITLE, DESCRIPTION, etc.).
Note: There are some great free tools out there that you can utilize to make this kind of optimization work for you, including GppBlogger and ClickyStre.
Tip #2: Vary Your Product/Service Also
While the game industry uses different words and phrases to describe the same products, the basic strategies and philosophy can be applied to any industry. Being stylish is well and good but what's important to remember is that a product/service that's great for one person may not be fantastic for another. Developing your unique products and/or services opens you up to different sales channels, which opens your business up to a larger audience, a better chance for making money, and a larger pool of potential customers.
Tip #3: Focus On How the Game Could be played
The quality of your game depends largely on the objective it is to be the top platform in.
3. Don’t get too attached to your game idea, because you could be wrong; be open to new ideas
When you’re first starting, you will have a lot of ideas about what you want to make. But the thing is, your ideas aren’t perfect. You’re not perfect. And your game will not be perfect. So one of the most important skills you can develop is the ability to be open to new ideas. Being able to accept and incorporate feedback is the only way you can produce something impressive. If you ignore people and feedback, you will not be able to improve your game. If you think you know it all and can make a video game just by following online tutorials, you are dead wrong. If you want to succeed at making a good game, you will need to get your hands dirty. You will need to work on putting together a game plan. And you will need to identify the parts and pieces of the puzzle that will make your game great.
Here are 3 Tips and Resources You Can Use to Build Your Video Game.
1. Read the Internet For game design information, I recommend working through the following guides: What is Killer Games? PC Games: The Making of Nintendo 64; PC Games: The Truth.
2. Interviewing Killer Whales The best way to learn something new is to try out the strategies of other people who are already doing it successfully. You should read widely and ideally interview some people. Here are some questions to ask them. How did you start your career in the business? What made you leave your job? What problem were you trying to solve? In what particular field are YOU looking to invest your capital? Did you have any mentors in the business? What was your most important piece of advice? How does your family connect to your work? Is there one person you look up to in the business? Do you get nervous when you speak in public?
3. Recite your Goals and How you Will Achieve Them When writing down your goals is the best way to make sure you constantly work at achieving them.
4. Just like any other business, you need a business plan
Starting a business is a huge venture, but it doesn’t have to be as scary as it seems. You can start a business on a small scale, and build it up as you go. The best thing you can do is create a detailed business plan with a clear vision of your goals and a strategy on how you’re going to achieve them. It’s possible, most of the time, even possible to start before you get into design. I may have done it on a smaller scale, and survived, but only by luck. Like Dave Ramsey says, I’ve cut corners, just enough for me to survive and become successful. The rest you can build according to your vision as soon as you have it.
So if your dream is a game, or business, disaster if it’s "just a hobby" or nothing at all. Be confident in what you want to be and know that your chances of succeeding greatly increase if you start your business on the right foot and avoid the most common mistakes. Those come when having a dream becomes a poorly thought out plan run amok. 1. You’re a Don’t-Miss-Em-This is the first mistake beginner game designers usually make.
Don’t get me wrong, I'm not talking about getting the project started. If you pick up a notebook and paper and put some things in it, you will feel inspired about actually doing it. But, let’s be honest, there are simpler ways to start. If you don’t already have a client, you can directly sell yours to them. Be creative with your pitch. What you should say, though, is not the obvious, but the obvious way to do what you are planning to do. Not surprisingly, tips for marketing your services are the most common.
You can pitch companies, brands, or indies. Find contacts at schools, think of any corporate jobs, and offer to do some Internet marketing for them. Find small businesses or individuals with good ideas online and introduce yourself and you can start a project of your own.
Comments
Post a Comment