Designing for Emotion

What Western F2P Game Designers Don't Understand

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To game designers, PMs, and game executives đź‘‹ ,

Many years ago, I was watching a documentary about KPOP and a famous US music producer was asked to evaluate a specific hit Korean song. He answered that from a technical perspective he thought the song was terrible, but ultimately he suggested that it didn’t matter:

The definition of art is how a song makes you feel.

I can’t remember the exact quote but even though I watched this documentary over 15-20 years ago I still remember the concept to this day.

I couldn’t agree more with this definition of art. In fact, the movies, music, books, or games that I love and will remember forever all associate with strong feelings. The definition of art is emotional impact.

Turn Down for What?

Sitting at over 1 billion views, one of the greatest music videos of all time is DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s Turn Down for What.

With only 3 distinct lines of 12 words in total, we can likely conclude the song’s success wasn’t about the lyrics:

Fire up that loud

Another round of shots

Turn down for what?

Literally, that’s it. And despite the deep, underlying societal and existential commentary from the song, I believe the success of this song and music video was driven by its emotional impact. For the viewer, it’s a mixture of insanity, shock, hilarity, and genius all at the same time.

By the way, the #1 watched music video of all time on YouTube is Despacito by Luis Fonsi at nearly 7.5B views. In my opinion, likely well watched for similar reasons, but much harder to parse as a lot is going on in that video.

Another great example of emotional impact: James Arthur. Does he have a great voice? Are the melody or lyrics to his songs great? Maybe. For me, it’s more about the emotion that he conveys through his performances.

As an example, I hear from this performance below a guy who’s been through some major shit in his life and is emotionally giving it everything.

Alright, let’s get to game design.

F2P & Western Game Design Philosophy

In my experience, Western game designers generally (obviously not all, but most) tend to focus on very specific approaches to game design that I claim fundamentally limit their ability to create great new game products.

In particular, the focus of Western design philosophy, in my experience, generally focuses on 3 primary approaches to design:

  1. “Finding the Fun”: Focus on trying to find gameplay mechanics that are “fun” usually through iteration and experimentation.

Plants vs. Zombies is a great example of an archetypal approach to “finding the fun.” The original developers basically created some core elements of what they thought were fun game mechanics and then kept iterating and refactoring until they landed on something they considered fun.

  1. Features Matrix: In very Silicon Valley tech fashion, create a matrix comparing different games and specific features.

In this approach, designers differentiate their games by focusing on additional features that make the game potentially better than competitive games.

Some people question whether this approach actually works for games. Well, sometimes it does.

Word on the street: After trying to “find the fun” and facing major delays, the EA/Capital Games team decided (or were forced) to just design matrix this bad boy:

  1. Player Profiles: More of the marketing-based view of the world in which designers try to understand the kinds of players playing their game.

This is generally executed through some form of psychographic profiling via player types (e.g., Bartles), common player traits, or motivational themes. Based on these player profiles, designers would then try to map features for the player profiles they believe those players desire most in a game.

One of the first popularizations of this approach was Bartle’s player types:

Each of these approaches is a specific point of view on how to design a game product for players. It’s not to say that these perspectives don’t have value, but that a fixation on these specific perspectives limits design. Games are not just about mechanics, a collection of features, or player requirements.

Console vs. F2P

That’s not to say all Western game designers focus on these approaches alone. Console designers probably think more about designing for emotion and we’ve seen some great examples of games that definitely have captured emotion in design very well.

Take for example:

Journey

Or God of War

Furthering the point on emotion: these two games that do seem to design for emotion are considered by many to be masterpieces.

F2P and mobile, on the other hand, have generally tended to design for compulsion loops and more of the traditional approaches described earlier. Further, the lack of fidelity, performance, and long session engagement by mobile devices relative to PC and consoles is limiting. This has limited designers’ capability to immerse players more emotionally in games.

Key Points

Let me get to the point more forcefully. Here are some of the key points I’m trying to make:

  • Western game designers generally design games using the above-mentioned traditional approaches which can be limiting

  • While some Western game designers may consider emotion, I claim intentional focus (like a specific practice) around designing for emotion likely doesn’t exist in most if not all major Western game studios

  • We do see some games designed against emotion especially in console games, but it is still rare and we see it even less so in F2P and mobile games

  • In conclusion, the focus on the typical, common design approaches is what’s leading to a lack of innovation in Western game design

Japanese Game Design Philosophy: A Different Approach

Unlike the typical approaches used by Western game designers, when I speak to Japanese game designers, they speak to me about 2 key concepts I have yet to hear many Western designers speak about.

These two concepts include designing games for:

  1. User Needs: Enable players to manifest latent human desires or needs within the game

Many Japanese game designers believe that human beings have latent human desires that exist and seek release. Hence, a video game can be thought of as a virtual context in which those latent human desires can manifest.

For example, they believe the desire to make progress, to socialize, sexual desire, and many other latent human desires can be expressed in video games.

Japanese game designers generally have some form of this framework below:

As the framework suggests, these Japanese game designers start with the objective of identifying and satisfying a latent human “user need.”

One of the greatest validations of this approach and theory behind Japanese game design came during the COVID pandemic last year. The human desire to socialize and interact with other people manifested in the explosion of multi-player games including games like Among Us, Chess, and the Roblox platform.

By the way, while I suggest that most Western game designers don’t understand this concept, some in fact get it. In my interview with Overwolf’s CMO Shahar Sorek, we discussed his similar concept of games as a way to self-actualize and as a “sense-making” mechanism.

Catch that interview right here:

  1. Emotions: Designing games to drive deep user emotions

Designing for emotion in games is very tricky and, as far as I know, only the Japanese have a structured approach against this form of design. And by the way, just to be absolutely clear, I’m not speaking on behalf of all Japanese designers, but, just based on my experience with the ones whom I have spoken to.

While I can’t reveal all that I’ve learned, let me leave you with some key takeaways regarding designing for emotion:

  • Obvious: Deeper emotion creates a deeper bond and player engagement with the game

  • The point is NOT just about strong emotions, but more importantly, you want players to experience an emotional journey of ups and downs over time. This is critical!

  • Low points of emotion are the best points to monetize players in F2P games although care must be taken to manage the ups and downs.

  • The systems that monitor and manage player emotions are where the Japanese designers have a lot more sophistication than their Western counterparts

  • Emotional design can be accomplished through the game or through the interaction of the people in the game. Most designers don’t get this. I learned from my time working with my co-founder Paul Leydon on King of Avalon. What creates the emotion in a 4X game? Just the mechanics in the game or the actions/interactions of the players?

  • The ultimate objective is to tie user needs to emotion. Fulfillment of user needs helps achieve emotional satisfaction.

Emotion Monetization:

User Needs to Emotion Framework:

Ok, folks, that’s it. Let me know what you think!

By the way, our game studio LILA Games is also designing our new F2P shooter game using this approach. We are designing against a user need that Paul has been talking to me about since the day we worked on King of Avalon together at Funplus: “How do we make somebody famous?” Our product success metric is also to make the most emotional game product we can.

Wish us luck! And if what we’re working on interests you check out some of our job listings below…

LILA Games is building one of the most ambitious shooter games ever designed! We are currently hiring aggressively in Bangalore, India. See below.

Visit our website!

If you know someone who may be a good fit, please contact me. Referral bonuses are given for closed candidates!!!

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