Do you, as people of the general public, and as a gamer, really care about "buzzword" design tropes for games? My point being when someone says "this game is a soulslike." I don't really like this one-note sorta offhand denotion of a game. Do you care if an up and coming game is a "Soulslike" or "DMC style" action game? Do those keywords in articles, and sometimes even steam pages themselves, entice you to play the game more?
Making a game and wanted to ask people here a question...
- Thread starter ExtraWildGames
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No. But it'll help the media or socials communicate what your game is to a broader audience which can be good. As long as it's a representative label, it's a benefit.
I mean, is it actually like Dark Souls? If so then its fair to call it that, or JRPG-inspired if its you trying to make FFIV with black people, as seems to be all the rage these days, or third person open world if that is what it is. Now I have no interest in souls-likes so calling it one would be a turn off to me, but then if you don't call it that and I look at your game and see that the combat revolves around dodging then I am not going to buy or play it no matter what you put in the description.
Tagging your game is very important for visibility purposes. Particularly on storefronts like Steam, where you can filter out entire genres by the tags.
On a more general level, if you're a new developer, people will probably be very unfamiliar with your style of games. Most people will rely on tags to try to approximate an understanding of your game, so they can identify if it aligns with the types of games they usually play.
If your game is at least categorized in any capacity, it also makes it more likely to be featured on "themed" sales, like the Turnbased RPG fest on Steam recently.
I wanted to add a quick edit here, because I felt I didn't address your question about whether I personally care about tags. For me, I would say yes. I often doom scroll through Steam queues, and use the tags and art of games as a 5 second quick judgement on whether to spend time looking at the store page of a game.
On a more general level, if you're a new developer, people will probably be very unfamiliar with your style of games. Most people will rely on tags to try to approximate an understanding of your game, so they can identify if it aligns with the types of games they usually play.
If your game is at least categorized in any capacity, it also makes it more likely to be featured on "themed" sales, like the Turnbased RPG fest on Steam recently.
I wanted to add a quick edit here, because I felt I didn't address your question about whether I personally care about tags. For me, I would say yes. I often doom scroll through Steam queues, and use the tags and art of games as a 5 second quick judgement on whether to spend time looking at the store page of a game.
bro wtf are you talking about? FFIV with black people? Dodging and swaying to evade attacks, aka a common self-defense technique? Huh?
Wow. I'm actually surprised people do care about labels. I'll keep that in mind, but hopefully with the game's art direction, it'll appeal to folks.
Well if you label a game as a soulslike or DMC style action game then you will at least get my curiosity and maybe I would watch the trailer. Tags generally help to at least give a baseline of what to expect from a game so using them is almost always a positive rather than a negative.
The only buzzword that makes me straight hit the ignore button is "made for modern audiences"
Yeah I have no idea what that means either. How the hell are you gonna have a previous or future audience? Stupid fucking idiots at hollywood.
The art is definitely important. If the "cover art" of the game isn't good on a storefront, I move on pretty quickly before learning more.
If you map dodge to a button as opposed to just jumping or moving left or right to avoid attacks then thats lazy and crappy game design. Hope. That. Helps.
It isn't because of keywords in articles, but because of preferences over time. Keywords/buzzwords help players identify types of games relating them to something else they like.
There are trends, sometimes not only in games but also in movies or tv shows where during a limited period of time (sometimes a year or two) some theme or setting hits hard. Stuff like 'superheroes', 'western', 'cyberpunk', 'zombies', etc. often because there are one or two hyped hollywood blockbusters that hit hard, maybe around the same time that a huge game or tv show also hit hard. This make people who like that wanting more, and smaller games in that setting may perform a bit better than usual during that theme or setting.
But at some point people gets saturated and they stop working.
Similar happens with game genres: battle royale, souls, roguelike, hero shooters... they had a trend when they kicked hard that also benefited smaller games, until people got saturated and the hot trend started to be something else.
Game genres, like settings, still get an audience, a niche, outside trends. But normally heavily focused on the fan favorites and with a large competition, so it's difficult to compete. Normally games need something to standout like a super polished gameplay or a great/different/unique art style, some game mechanic and/or music style.
It is also common that when devs start to develop a game that is trendy (case of Concord in 2016) but when released the trend is over and tank (case of Concord), often because the game didn't know how to appeal that target user offering something unique that helps the game to be more appealing than the similar ones.
It is super hard to make really new and unique things appealing to the people, often it is a safer idea to mix stuff that works from different genres that appeal to a similar demographic. Mixed in a way that nobody (or almost) did before. As an example: Stellar Blade mixed hack & slash with souls-like in terms of gameplay/combat, and waifus and dystopian scifi in terms of theme/settings/aesthetics. Did it in a unique way that found its audience.
Others instead tried to make only soulslike with a traditional soulslike gameplay/combat and dark theme/setting, so felt just like a cheap copy of the FromSoft ones.
Elden Ring had the popularity of the devs and fans of the genre, but polished their formula and mixed it with the open world, a concept that also appeals that audience helping it differentiate and feel better than the other soulslike, and found a huge succes.
So it isn't buzzwords, but preferences and trends. Which in many cases are time limited unless they offer something extra that makes them stand out.
The terms are generally linked to positive and negative consumer sentiment at a certain time.
For instance... "Souls-like" is generally seen as a positive thing, implying a rewarding level of challenge and refined level design philosophy l, with a focus on boss battles.
So, you can leverage these terms to help you... As games like Lies of P and Stellar Blade or Wukong have.
But then you also have to look at your target market... Is the niche getting filled already? Does the term really fit the game? Etc....
I would be avoiding germs like "Live Service" and other divisive ones, obviously enough. You know the ones...
For instance... "Souls-like" is generally seen as a positive thing, implying a rewarding level of challenge and refined level design philosophy l, with a focus on boss battles.
So, you can leverage these terms to help you... As games like Lies of P and Stellar Blade or Wukong have.
But then you also have to look at your target market... Is the niche getting filled already? Does the term really fit the game? Etc....
I would be avoiding germs like "Live Service" and other divisive ones, obviously enough. You know the ones...
This.
Its a double edged sword. Some people love DMC, some people dont. Same as Souls
It helps to be succinct. If a game is in a specific genre or style, why beat around the bush.
I was watching a Planet of Lana revere the other day and the reviewer likened it to Limbo and Inside. Immediately perked my interest as I like those a lot.
I was watching a Planet of Lana revere the other day and the reviewer likened it to Limbo and Inside. Immediately perked my interest as I like those a lot.
These are all valid statements and logical deductions of the optics surrounding an up and coming game that has yet to be released. You can't really avoid the assumptions that, even if you show off a trailer, people will still label it as a "soulslike," even though it could be wrong.
I also heard it's better for a game to lean on its visual/unique flare.
For example Ultrakill. The game, literally for about a year, had the project name of "Devil May Quake." And it's basically Quake on Crack. Ultrakill is super influenced by its older, fast-paced boomer shooter peers, but still has its own unique flare.
I'm curious how you would describe your game, if you were to attribute a label to it?
Hmm... I'd say it's basically a 3d beat em up, but if I were to give it a label, would definitely label it as "character action" because you usually play one preset, predefined character with an extended move set. Like No More Heroes or Mad World.