What do you mean?
People can, and will stop playing your game if they find it, boring, too difficult, or too repetitive. They might not even try it out at all if they don’t see it’s worth.
This isn’t to say that difficult or repetitive games aren’t good. Heck, RPG’s almost always have a “power cycle” that’s super repetitive:
Do a thing -> get EXP -> level up and get more powerful -> gain ability to do “more difficult” things -> repeat
The important thing to think about, is what your player will gain from whatever they do in game. For some players, this “power cycle” works for them, and they’ll enjoy playing it regardless; but we’re here to talk about the people who’s attention cannot be held, and even how you can make it better. So we’ll start with the value of your gameplay.
Value of gameplay
We live in a day and age where potential players are exposed to at lot of things in a short amount of time. From advertisements to reviews for games, every little thing will affect the sales of your game. Why should someone purchase your title if it costs $5, when they can play the latest FTP Battle Royale game at no startup cost? Why should they even begin to play your game?
Make sure that whatever is happening, it’s worth their time. Things such as the infamous “fetch quests” cycle may be fun to some, but an utter waste of time for someone else.
Something like this shouldn’t be a requirement in your game.
Always focus on your core mechanics, and make them shine above everything else. If your game is a fighting game at it’s core, then your fighting should feel as great, as you the developer intended. Only increase the scope of your project if you find that the current state of your game can be improved with those changes. Just adding more to a game, does not make it worth more money, or more of a player’s time. Everyone wants their game, to have every single feature imaginable, in order to cater to everyone. The problem with this is that people play differently, and you shouldn’t force things on people who don’t play games in a certain way.
Just because you find your game as a gem, something desirable, doesn’t mean that it is to someone else. You should always be designing your game with different “user personas” in mind, this is to prevent bias, especially for a game you want to see have commercial success.
A big thing that people often argue about is the discussion between “hardcode” and “casual games”. These different types of games are often debated as being amazing or boring depending on who plays it.
Difficult vs unfair
There are players who consider themselves “hardcore” and some who consider themselves “casual”. While your game can definitely cater to just one of these categories, it doesn’t mean you need to make it easier or harder, for either.
A difficult game, should make players really feel like they’ve worked hard to complete the task. The difficulty should come from player inexperience and skill with performing the task.
Example: Celeste
Celeste is a difficult platformer. Your protagonist doesn’t level up, you don’t buy new skills. You are only able to do, what the game allows you to do. In this game that’s, jumping, dashing, and climbing. The difficulty comes from the level design, with bite sized challenges, often a single screen at a time. This allows the player to digest what they need to do, and prevents burnout. You only get better with experience and skill.
An unfair game, is where the difficulty is forced upon the player. This can be due to poor controls, poor mechanics, and even just hard coded parameters the player can’t influence.
Example: Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
This isn’t a difficult game by nature, the originals were well loved, and these remakes were greatly anticipated. The problem with this remake was the controls in one of the games.
They tweaked the “coyote time” to be almost non-existant. Old players were then thrown into a game where the controls weren’t the same, and even if they had the muscle memory, it no longer applied.
This resulted in many failed jumps, and frustrated players.
Without proper balancing, and a good feeling game, your players won’t hesitate to stop playing, and do something else instead.
Moments
Moments in your game can give it a “let me play until the next area” feel. That feeling of wanting to go on, or even feeling like it’s a good place to stop.
Gris is a game that does this very well.
In Gris you solve puzzles, as you explore the land to reclaim the colours. The sections begin with a lush new area, and always end with a splash of new colour, or a magnificent monument.
At no point do these feel forced, and the levels are well paced.
Moments can also help your game feel a lot more memorable (crazy right). Your players will talk about it with others, be it good or bad.
Mass Effect 3 has a great reputation for having a terrible ending. It’s an ending that didn’t fit with the core mechanics of the game, and players voiced their opinions about it.
In the end, without these moments you’ll risk producing an experience that may not make it too far. It could even be compared others games as a heartless clone if you’re not careful.
DLC
Downloadable Content isn’t a proper way to keep your players engaged in your product. It should only be introduced if it already enhances the overall product.
Locking players out of content that’s core to the game they paid for is never well received.
In an age where everything about your game can be talked about before players even get a chance to touch it. Any negative news will affect sales.
Length
Bloating a game, just for the sake of saying that your game is 60+ hours, can bore your players if it isn’t justified.
Keep the levels short if possible, and true to the world. If it ends up being too long, test it to make sure it’s worth it. Make sure there’s stuff to do that’s worth your player’s time.
Glossary:
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Coyote Time: a game design concept that forgives human error when landing from a jump; even though the player should have fallen, the game will count it as successfully landing within a certain distance.
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Fetch Quests: a video game objective where you the player must bring an item found in location A to location B.
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Power Cycle: a cyclical game design system where the player does A to get more powerful to do B, where B gets increasingly difficult.
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User Persona: a person who has the possibility of using your product. These are built with certain assumptions of those users, and help with designing your game with them in mind.