5/12/17 Episode 434: Twenty Lessons, Part 13--Fun

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

I’m pulling out of my driveway! We all know what that means! It’s time for another Drive to Work.

Okay. So today is another in my series, Twenty Lessons, or Twenty—sorry. Yeah, Twenty Lessons, Twenty Podcasts. That’s correct. Where I’m—this is based on my GD speech from—GDC speech from 2016. I’m speaking well today. Where I talked about twenty lessons I learned during my twenty years of making Magic.

So we’re up to lesson number thirteen, which is, make the fun part also the correct strategy to win. Okay, so I always start by talking about an example from Magic. Okay. So there was a product called Unhinged. So, I’d made a product back in 1996 called Unglued, that was a silver-bordered product that was kind of a fun—the idea of the Un-sets are, they break the rules and they, you know, they’re silver-bordered meaning they’re not legal for tournaments, but it allows me to just do crazy things, and, you know, make cards we can’t normally make in black border.

In fact, that’s one of the rules about silver-border cards is, I only make cards that we can’t make in black border. As not to waste—you know, save valuable black-border space for normal sets and then Un-sets get to just do crazy things that we can’t normally do.

So, in Unhinged, which was the second one, Unglued was the first one, I had a mechanic called “gotcha.” So, gotcha, the way it worked was, the cards had an effect on it, and then they had a gotcha effect. What a gotcha effect was is, if your opponent did a certain thing, a certain action or said a certain thing, then you could say “gotcha,” and you could get it back. So you could replay it again.

So for example, some of them were, oh, if you said certain words you could say gotcha. If you said a number. Some of them were like, if you  touch the table, or if you touch your face, or if you flick your cards, or if you laugh. If you laugh. If you laugh, your opponent can go, “gotcha,”  and get the card back.

Okay, now remember, the point of this product was to have fun. It’s a goofy, fun product. The whole point of the Un-sets is like, “Hey, Magic can be fun. Look at these fun goofy cards that do goofy things,” and, you know, there’s all sorts of just—it’s meant to be a fun set.

But, what I found was, what was the correct strategy to not fall victim to the gotcha cards? Well, if you might say something and get gotten, well, let’s stop talking. And if actions make you do it, well, let’s clam up and not do any actions. And like—heaven forbid you laugh. You know, like—the gotcha cards, the correct way to play it was to sort of withdraw from the game.

And the whole point of the Un-sets was to sort of make you laugh and make you have fun, and make you interact. And I made a mechanic that the proper way to play the mechanic, if your goal is just to win, was to sort of withdraw from all of that.

And so what I had done was, I made a mechanic that kind of like, specifically stopped what was the fun part of the game. That the correct way to win was to avoid the part that was fun. And that was a huge mistake. I don’t get to make Un-sets very often so it pains me deeply that I actually messed one up by making a mechanic that ended up being anti-fun.

So this is what I explained in my talk, which is, there’s a contract that happens. An unwritten contract, obviously. Between the player of the game and the maker of the game. And this is what the contract is. The maker of the game says, “Hey. I’m going to give you a game. You play the game I give you, and you’ll have a good time.”

And so the players will do whatever the game instructs them to do. And when I say “instructs them to do,” I mean there’s a goal to the game. I talked about this, that how every game has a goal and it has rules, and people will figure out based on what the goal is and what the rules are, the most efficient way to get to the goal within the context of the rules.

And the assumption will be, well, that’s what the game’s telling me to do, the game’s telling me to optimize the rules to get to the goal. And that they’ll do that. And if it’s not fun, they will blame the game designer. And rightfully so. Because it is not the player’s job to find the fun in your game. It is not like hide and seek where you hide the fun and they have to find it.

And it is not the responsibility of the player to go, “That’s not fun, I’d better look elsewhere in the game to find the fun thing.” That’s just not—that’s not the responsibility of the player. It’s the responsibility of the game designer to put the fun where the player can’t help but find it. So today we’re going to talk all about, how do I do that? How do I get the fun to where the fun needs to be? That’s my topic of the day.

Okay, so multiple steps here. So the first step is what I call, “Finding the fun.” Is, one of the things that you, the playtester have to do, and this has to do with the early part of playtesting is, you have to figure out what the fun part of your game is. What exactly about your game is fun? And in the early process, in early playtests, it’s fine to try a lot of different things.

For example, in Magic, one of the things we do early in playtesting is we will try playtests where I just load up with all sorts of different things. Just to sample things. Because I’m trying to figure out, “Oh, what is the fun thing?” You know. And that you don’t really know what is fun until you play with the game. I talk about playtesting all the time, playtesting is crucial. Playtesting is especially crucial when the goal is to try to figure out what is fun about your game.

Now, there’s two levels to playtesting, to figure out the fun. One is, you need to playtest. You, and—if you have a design team, you and the design team need to playtest, and figure out what makes you happy. You know. Where are you finding it fun?

Then, once you think you’ve found some fun, you want to bring in some other playtesters, outside people, people that aren’t emotionally connected to you, and have them—watch them to see if they find it fun.

Like, one of the things—and, let me say this. When I say “fun,” really what I mean is “the emotional output you’re looking to get from your audience.” There are games that are more about evoking other emotions other than enjoyment. There are a lot of games that are sort of cathartic or there are games—so when I say “fun,” I really kind of mean “the emotional outputting you want.” The majority of people want to create enjoyment for their games so I’m going to use “fun” for today. But when I say “fun,” really what I mean is, “Whatever emotional output you’re trying to get.” You know. You want to make sure that you have that.

Okay. So the first step is finding the fun. Figuring out what is fun about your game. And I will say this, that there are a lot of things that might seem like fun, but the reason you have to playtest it, and the reason you have to playtest a bunch is, A., is it fun at all, is it actually fun. Not is it conceptually fun, is it actually fun when you play? Is it fun in the context of the game? And 2., how long is it fun? Like, the reason you want to do a bunch of playtests is, is it fun the first time you do it? You know, is the fun based on novelty? And then with time it’s less fun? Or no, are you inherently doing something that is just fun to do and you can do it again and again?

Your game is going to fail if there’s no fun in it. You know, emotional response in it. If—the goal—I mean, one of the biggest mistakes I see when people make games is they feel like if the follow all the trappings of a game then they must be a game. Hey, I will take components I’ve seen in other games and put them together, and I theme them or something, and I’m like, “I’ve now made a game.”

Now, maybe technically you’ve made a game, but have you made a game that’s going to work as a game? You know, that there’s more to a game than having the trappings of a game. And the key component, the key thing that’s important and sort of my big lesson of today is, look, your game has to have an emotional output. Usually fun. Your game has to be something where players play the game and at the end of the game say, you know what? Either, “Wow that was a great experience,” or—they always want to say, “That was a great experience.” Often you want to say, “And I want to do that again.”—“That was a great experience, I want to do that again.”

Okay. So first thing you do, find your fun. And like I said. There’s a lot of playtesting, there’s a lot of analyzing, there’s a lot that goes into finding the fun. Sometimes you will find the fun right away. Sometimes you start with fun and build around it. But the key is, you want to find your fun.

Okay. The next thing is making sure that your fun thing, once you discover your fun thing, is the core to your game. One of the things that I—you know, people love to—there’s this false belief that the more I add, the better it is. And the reality is, that’s not true. That’s not true in any art form, that’s not true in—like, let’s take cooking, for example. It is not like I take a recipe and then just add in other things and somehow it gets better.

Even if the other things are things you like. It’s like, if I’m gonna make a pecan pie, I might not put other things in there that, you know, might be enjoyable foods if they’re not part of what makes pecan pie pecan pie. You know. That the key to making something is understanding the core of what it is, and then making sure that the core of what it is ties into where the fun is.

Like, one of the mistakes I’ll see is, somebody will make a game, have a fun component to the game, but then make the game about something that isn’t inherently about what that fun part is. That your fun part needs to be a core identity to your game.

So for example, I’ll use Magic as my go-to example. So Richard Garfield, creator of the game, one of the things that he was really excited by, the reason that he went to make a trading card game in the first place, is he loved the idea of a game that was bigger than the box. Meaning most games, when you buy the game, it’s always the same pieces. Every time you play, it’s the same thing. If I go to my friend Bobby’s house and play, same game. Go to my friend Susie’s house and play. Same game. No matter where you go, it’s the same game with the same pieces.

But what Richard said is, I’m going to buy the game, and the components I have when I buy the game are not the same components you have when you buy the game. Because the components to the game are bigger than the box of any one person.

And so, part of the fun of the game is the exploration. Is you learning about other cards. Like, you sit down against your opponent and they do something against you, you’re like, “Oh, I’ve never seen that before. Ooh, let me see that card. What does that card do? That’s kind of cool. Maybe I want to get that card.” You know.

And so Richard made sure that the very essence, the core of what the game was, which is the game of discovery, was built into it. The essence of building your own deck and, you know, the—all the main components of what makes Magic Magic are Richard understanding the essence of what made it fun.

And there’s—Magic actually has a bunch of fun parts to it, but you know, he wanted to make sure that the essence of what the game was matched. So you have to figure out what the core of your game is. And cut things that aren’t the core of your game.

One of the things I find all the time, and I talk about this a lot when I talk about my writing, I used to be a writer obviously, or I’m still a writer I guess, I used to—before I got this job obviously, I worked in the entertainment industry. TV writing for those that somehow don’t know that.

And one of the things you learn about writing is that there’s two parts of writing. There’s writing, and there’s rewriting. The writing part, the initial part is just come up with cool ideas. Just get it down on paper. And then the rewriting part is saying, okay. What is in service to my thing? You know. What part of my story is the important part of my story? Where is, you know, the fun of my story? Although obviously not all stories are about fun, but where is the meat of my story? That what’s the essence, what makes my story a cool story, and is it at the center of what I do?

That’s—in some ways, game design to me is just a form of art, where I want to do something, I want to have some message of some kind, I want the audience to feel something, I want to make sure that thing is front and center.

And there’s this desire in gaming that happens all the time, where people overload. Where they just put more and more things in the game, feeling like, “Oh, more is better. Having more things is better.” And while having exploration is important, you want people to sort of discover things in your game, I mean, there are definitely elements you want, and I’m not saying your game can’t have any size or depth to it, it should, but the things that are in your game should serve a purpose, and not just be there. Not just be filler. Not just fill out things.

And one of the major reasons of that is, if you’re trying to get your audience to find the fun, the more you pack in your game that is not the fun, the smaller percentage of your game the fun is. The harder the fun is to find. Don’t make the fun hard to find. You know. You want the majority of your game to be the fun.

Now, not everything in the game’s the fun. You have setup, there’s things you need to do to make the game work. I’m not saying that everything in your game needs to be the fun. But the more things you put in your game that aren’t the fun, the harder you make it to find the fun.

Okay, number three. You need to set up expectations. So another way of making sure people sort of find the fun that you intend is making sure people understand the essence of what you’re delivering. Okay, so my example here—I’m going to dig back deep into my childhood.

So I’m going to talk about a movie. I’m going to talk about a little metaphor here. It is late at night, I don't know, I’m in high school, I think, and it’s like a Saturday or something. And everyone’s asleep in my house. And I’m watching HBO or something, I assume. Some movie channel. And there’s a movie that comes on. It was like a teen sex comedy, which was big in the eighties, back when I was a teenager. So it was called The Last American Virgin. That was the name of the film. So I’m like, “Okay, teen comedy, okay, I’ll stay up. I’ll watch this.” 

So the premise of the movie is, there’s a guy. I don't know the names of the characters. But there’s a main character. And he has two friends, and he and his friends do stuff and, you know, it follows a lot of the tropes of the genre.

And in the end, one of his friends, one of his best friends, ends up getting together with this girl that he really likes. You know, a very traditional sort of story. “Ooh, best friend is dating my girl. The girl that I’m in love with,” and stuff.

And then, the best friend does something pretty horrible to the girl, they break up, and our main character like spends all his time and energy and money helping the girl, helping her overcome this sort of horrible thing that the best friend did, and really helps her cope, and you start to see there’s feelings between them, and then he spends like the rest of his money to buy her a gift, like, I don't know, a locket with her name on it or something. And the last scene, he comes in, and he’s gonna give it to her, and she’s back with the boyfriend.

And I remember I was so angry. I was so angry! And the reason I was so angry was that, look. I was presented with something. This was a teen comedy! This was something, like, it wasn’t like I went in to see a drama, where I’m like, okay, this is gonna be a movie about bitter truths, where it’s gonna be sad but real, and you’re gonna—you know. Like, was the ending of this movie realistic? Yeah, sadly it was very realistic. But was it what I expected or what I wanted out of the movie? No. In fact, it violated the essence of what I wanted.

And I probably have never been more mad at a movie. I mean, there’s other movies I’ve been mad at. But I feel like it gave me an expectation, set me up for something, and then when it didn’t deliver the thing it set up, I was so upset.

And the reason I bring this up, the reason I use this as a metaphor is, part of delivering the fun, part of making the audience find the fun is you telegraphing what the fun is. You setting up expectations. You setting up the perception. That your game’s gonna have a tone to it, and your game’s gonna have a feel to it, and the essence of what your game is, how your game is fun, is going to match up—like, you want to make sure that the tone of your game, the essence of your game, the creative elements of your game, that the things that are going to sort of give an idea to your audience what to expect is making them expect the right thing.

Now, I’m not saying there’s never a place to surprise people. I think there is a place for that. But not in false expectations. You have to be careful there. That part of providing the fun for the audience is making sure that they sort of are prepped for what it is.

And a lot of your early game, a lot of your prep to fun, is that you want to make sure that you’re leading in the correct direction, so that when they get to the fun, it’s what they expect and what they want. Because I will tell you that if you do the wrong kind of thing, you know, if you create expectations that don’t match what you’re gonna deliver, even if what you deliver is cool, it’s not gonna get the response you want. And so another important part here is, you need to understand of, okay, I have my fun, I need to now set up my game so that my audience is prepared for the kind of fun that I’m going to give them. That you want to match—you want your—that everything about your game to work toward what your game is about and where the fun is.

Okay, next thing. Number four. Don’t take too long to get to the fun. Another big mistake I see in amateur game designers is they make a game where like, twenty minutes in there’s the fun. And I’m like, “Twenty minutes in! What are you doing?” Like, you can’t make people wait too long for the fun. For starters, some people will quit the game. Like, if you play, there’s only so long someone plays the game that’s not fun, where they go, “Okay.” You know. You can’t wait too long for the payoff.

Now, that’s not saying—first of all, it’s not like your game has just one kind of fun. It can have multiple bits of fun. But it’s important that some fun happens relatively quickly. That you want—I mean, ideally in a game, you want them to hit some component of fun in the first minute or two. Like, right away. Very early on.

Now, I’m not saying—once again. When I say, “fun,” I’m not saying that it has to be a unified thing of fun. For example, with Magic, I think the idea of exploring is a lot of fun. I think, like, just looking at the cards is a lot of fun. I think there’s a lot of neat game interactions and card interactions. You know. There’s a lot of things about Magic that is very fun. The flavor is very fun. There’s a lot of fun things.

But, you know, some of it you get to right away. Like, when you draw your hand, like, your cards just look amazing, and look really cool. And you get to interact with that right away. And, you know, it’s set up so that the interaction with the opponent does not take long to happen. You want to get to your fun. Do not beat around the bush. Do not lollygag, if you will. You know, figure out what’s fun about your game, and make sure some of that is imbued really early.

For example, I’ll use my metaphor here from the screenwriting, I spent a lot of time, I took a lot of screenwriting classes, and one of the things they actually spent a lot of time on was the opening scene. Which is, you know—and the same is kind of for your opening paragraph in a book. Like, okay, I’m starting my story, I’m setting it up, well, I need to do a lot of things in that opening scene.

One is, I need to introduce usually the main character. Usually. Not always. But usually. I need to introduce the world, usually. And I need to introduce what about the story’s gonna be fun. Why do I want to stick with it.

And in Hollywood, one of the things is, they have what are called readers. So if I write a script, the executive who’s going to green-light it is not gonna read it right away. Because there’s so many scripts. So what’s gonna happen is, there’s gonna be a bunch of people who read scripts, and there’s gonna be, like—first you’re gonna be read by a generic reader. And then if you’re good enough you get passed along to maybe one of the, you know, the people who work there who sort of go through scripts. And like, you’re gonna go through a series of readers before you’re good enough that you’re gonna get recommended to be read by the people that start to matter.

And, one of the things about the readers is, they stop reading your script as soon as they are sure it’s not good enough. If that’s page two, they’ll stop on page two. I mean, normally they can probably give you ten pages or so.

And that’s why the opening is so, so important also, is just to sell your script is, you need to grab the lapels of your reader, of the reader right away, just like you need to grab the lapels of your audience. Like, you want to get them invested quickly, and games are no different. That whatever your fun is, get to it really fast. You know. That if you make people take too long, they will give up.

Or, just they, you know, there’s a point at which your audience, like their expectations turn. Like remember, when your audience starts playing, they expect to have a good time. They wouldn’t be playing your game if they didn’t expect to have a good time. If they thought it wouldn’t be fun, they wouldn’t be playing your game. Okay. Most of the time. Sometimes you’re dragged into games I guess. And so they come in with a positive experience. They want to enjoy the game. But there’s a point at which they start having enough negative experiences that that expectation turns.

And then they go from someone who is easy to please to being someone that’s harder to please, because once they’ve sort of deemed the game not something they’re enjoying, it becomes a lot harder to make them enjoy it. So do not dawdle with your fun. Get your fun right away.

Okay, number five. You want to make use of your goals and your rules. So I’ve talked about ten things every game needs, I’ve done a bunchof podcasts on this. So number one is your goal, number two is your rules.

So the goal tells the audience what I need to do. It is the bullseye that guides them. It is like, okay, I now have a direction, I know what I’m trying to do. It’s really important. Number two, you give them rules, to define what they are and aren’t allowed to do. And a lot of what game-playing is, is kind of using your mental capacity to figure out how through the context of these rules, can I achieve that goal?

So be aware that your goal and your rules, you have to keep your fun in mind. That one of the [ideas] is, you want to make your player do the thing—like, because the thing that’s going to encourage them in the game, the thing that’s going to define what they do and how they act, is going to be a combination of them working towards your goal through your rules.

So you need to make sure that your goal and your rules are aligned with what the fun of your game is. Like, don’t make the fun of the game tangential. Because what’s going to happen is, your audience is going to aim toward the goal through the context of the rules. And whatever that makes them do, they’re gonna do.

Like, one of the things, and this is the gotcha mistake. Is, when we were playing, we were trying to have fun. So what we did is, we didn’t shut up. We didn’t try not to laugh. We—like, what we did is, “Well, it comes out, you know, I’ll try to be conscious when it comes out. Like, “I’m just gonna talk, but when you play a card that says I can’t say Thing X or Thing Y, I’m just gonna be careful not to say Thing X or Thing Y.”

But as soon as I brought in a playtester, it was a guy named Rob who I brought in, he said, “Okay, well the correct way to do this is to just not say anything.” And he said, “Well, why shouldn’t I just shut up?” And I remember at the time, I said, “Oh, well, come on, it’s fun,” you know, “That’s not the spirit of the game.” And Rob had given me excellent, excellent feedback, which I did not listen to, sadly, which was, you have to think about how your audience is going to maximize what you’ve given them. Once again, they will do what the game tells them to do. Even if that thing is not a fun thing. They will actively have an unfun time. Even when fun is nearby, they will not necessarily seek out the fun.

For example, like, I’m one of the people that when I play games, I’m willing to bend the rules and change the rules. That if I play a game—I mean, normally I’ll play the game under the rules the first time. Usually. But if I start to realize the rules aren’t doing the right thing, I’ll change the rules. But most people won’t do that. I’m also a game designer. Most people are not willing to change the rules. That you told them something, and that’s it. That’s what this game is.

And so you need to be very careful in that—be conscious of what your goal and what your rules, what is the best way to do that? You know. And you want to bring playtesters in who, say to them, okay, try to win. Here’s the goal. Here’s the rules.

And what you’ll see is, really what game-playing is on some level, from a mental standpoint is, you’re put in a straitjacket and you’ve gotta get out. How do you get out? You know. I know what I’m trying to do, I know what I’m not allowed to do, well, how do I do it? And anything that’s not written down, anything the rules do not prevent, hey, that’s legal. I can do that.

And so the problem is, you have to be airtight in your rules and airtight in your goal, because people will go sideways if it’s not guiding in the right direction. And that’s the big thing is, when you’re playtesting and when you’re building, Make sure you keep in mind and be conscious of the fact that your goal and your rules are going to dictate the actions of your player. And make sure that those things are lined up with where the fun of the game is.

And, if that means changing your goal, if that means changing your rules, then you gotta do that. The goal is not locked down in stone. Your rules are not locked down in stone. If you have a goal and a set of rules, and what happens when people play that game is it isn’t fun, well, something’s gotta change. And usually, usually usually it’s the goal or the rules. Usually.

Okay. Number six. Understand how long your game is fun, and get out. So the other big thing is, I said before that one of the ways to make a negative experience in your game is to take too long to get to the fun. Another way to make your game not fun, in retrospect, is to not get out of the game after the fun quick enough.

So kind of what you want to do is get to the fun, have the fun part, maybe repeat the fun part, but then, you do not want a long gap between the end of the fun and the end of your game. In fact, ideally—so one of the things I always say is, you want your game to end before your audience wants it to end. And here’s why. That—let’s say my game, let’s say the attention span of a player is twenty minutes. I’m just making that number up. But let’s say it’s twenty minutes.

So if your game ends in eighteen minutes, and they’re wanting to play twenty minutes, it’s like, they left with still a little, like, they haven’t quite satiated everything they wanted. It’s like, “Ooh, this was fun, but oh, it ended, oh, it ended. I’m not—I’m still, I want to play more, I’m still excited. That it ended before I got my fill.” Now let’s say instead of twenty minutes I go twenty-two minutes. Now I’ve ended, and I’m ready and I’m full and I’m done, and now the last two minutes, I’m like, “Okay, when is this gonna end?”

So, one version is me going, “Ooh, I don’t want it to end yet. I’m excited.” And the other is, “When’s it gonna end?” Well, you want to quit when the audience is saying—you know, they’re not ready for it to end yet. You want to quit before they’re ready for it to end. And the reason is, one of the hardest things to do is get your player to play your game a second time.

So you want to get out while the audience is still excited and still has positive feelings. And if you stay too long, the problem you run into is, any fun you’ve provided starts getting tainted by what came after it.

And this is a really important thing to remember is, people always talk about first impressions. First impressions are really important. They have a lot of dictate on things. But there is also something called last impressions. Which is, if I do an activity, at the end of it I remember how the activity ends stronger than I remember the activity if the end of the activity was a negative experience.

So for example. Let’s say I go to the beach, and I have a wonderful day at the beach, and I have lots of fun, and the last thing I do before I leave is I step on a jellyfish. Okay. Did I have a good time at the beach? I did not. I stepped on a jellyfish. Now, even if I spent hours and hours and hours of having fun, the fact that I ended by stepping on a jellyfish, it was “the trip where I stepped on a jellyfish.”

And there’s a similar sense with the games is, you want to make sure that when you get to the end of your game, that, you know, you want your audience enjoying themselves, and then you want them—you want to end it with them leaving more. You want to end them with a positive experience.

So another thing about getting the fun is, get to the fun as quick as you can, after the fun, make sure you don’t spend too long. And I know there’s a lot of people that when they—like, one of my themes today, hopefully you’re picking up is that, as in any art form, there’s a conservation—you know, you want to cut out things that aren’t achieving what you’re doing.

You know, I talk in writing all the time that so much of writing is saying, is this advancing the plot? Is this advancing the character? It doesn’t matter if in a vacuum it’s a good scene, if it’s not serving the large thing it’s not good. Games have the same sense to them, which is, you know, are you servicing the greater good of your game? You know.

Like—and one of the things, like I said, that’s the hardest to notice but you’ll see this in your game is, don’t—and I’m talking about fun today. Make sure that the kinds of fun you have go with one another. Another mistake you can make is, saying, “Okay, I have a game, I have a feel, I have a sense to it.” And then I add in things, even fun things that are not consistent with that.

That if I add in—like, and this is the same example of adding in an awesome scene that just doesn’t make the movie work. Adding in a fun component that’s not consistent with the other fun components, that’s not part of the larger experience is distracting, and in the big picture hurts your game. And I know, you’ll go, “Wait, wait, if they’re having fun, what does it matter?” And the answer is, it’s not just about having fun, it’s about being consistent in what you are.

The thing to remember about your game, and this is true of any art form, but especially in your game, or—it’s true of any art form. Is, you want it to be about something. You want your game to have an essence to it. Like, you want your fun to be about something. And you want your players to feel like, “Oh, it has an identity. I get what it was.”

The reason you want an identity, the reason it’s so important is, A. If you want to sell your game, having a clean identity is important, B. Word of mouth and getting your game to spread. One of the things I haven’t talked too much about is the idea of how viral is your game. How easy is it for your game—how easy is it to make your game players want to make more game players?

A really viral game, what happens is, it’s so catchy and it’s so fun that people go, “Wow, I so enjoyed this, I need to share it with my friends because I want them to experience this.” And then what happens is, you turn your player essentially into a salesman for your game. That if your game is something that really speaks to them, they’ll share it with others. Because one of the things that people love to do is people love to share things that mean something to them.

So another reason that an identity is so important is, not just so you can sell it to the first player, but so that player can sell it to other players. You know, the key to successful games is—not that marketing isn’t important, but the real key to successful games is not the marketing your company does. It’s the marketing your players do. It’s the community they build. It’s the websites they make. It’s the—you know, that what you want is you want your player base to be so invested in your game and so excited by your game that they share it. That they expose  other people to it.

And the reason we say it’s viral is, if you’re doing your job, if your game’s really fun and catchy and cool, and you show it to one person, and they show it to other people, it starts spreading. You know. Especially if one person shows it to three people, who each show it to three people, you know, it grows exponentially.

And in fact, early Magic, one of the things about early Magic was, Magic had that kind of growth spurt where it was growing so fast we couldn’t print enough cards. Like, we kept getting behind on printing because it would sell out so quickly, you know, because it was growing at such a rate that we outstripped our ability to make more cards. I think it took Wizards like two years to finally catch up where they were able to print enough cards to actually match demand.

Okay. So I’m almost to Rachel’s so we’re going to wrap this up for today. So a lot of my point of today, a lot of, you know, make the fun part of the correct strategy to win, is saying, look. Understand the core essence of your game. What is your game about? You know. And why is somebody going to fall in love with it, and what are they going to experience from it? You know. What is the fun?

And what that means is, (???) walk through, okay. You have to find the fun. You know. So number one is find the fun, make sure that they, you know what it is, do playtesting, you know, figure out—you know, the early part of your playtesting, of your game design is finding what you have that’s special. Figure it out, isolate it, figure it out.

Number two. Then make sure that the game you build is making that fun thing core to the experience. Make sure that what makes your game shine is at the center of the game. Not a tangential thing, not a sometimes thing, not an add-on, that’s core to your game experience.

Number three, understand what it is and make sure you set up your expectations so your audience is getting the thing that they want. Make sure you are, you know, you are setting yourselves up so that when the audience finally finds the fun thing, that it’s what they’re expecting and what they want.

Number four. Do not take too long to get to the fun. Make sure that you get to the fun quickly. That people, you know—people only have so much patience, and the faster you get there, the more engaging the game becomes and the more people get invested in it.

Number five. Be aware that your goal and your rules are gonna guide your pathing of your player. That is what’s going to dictate where in your game to go. Okay? And so make sure you use them effectively. Make sure that—and playtest this. Make sure that—find people and say to them, “This is your goal and this is your rules.” People that don’t know any better, people that aren’t you, and see what they do. And then, this is the important part, listen to them. Listen to what they say. Don’t do what I did with gotcha, listen to what they say.

Number six is, understand, you know, get to the fun, get in there, have the fun, have the fun happen, and get out. You know. One of the things that’s most important is, anything that’s not the fun part of your game, that’s not, you know, either the fun part of the game or enables the fun part of the game, enables the game to function, if it’s not doing one of those two things, you need to pull it out. And make sure that you don’t overstay your welcome. Get in, have fun, get out.

And that you are—the player is the ultimate salesman of your game. That the key to a successful game is becoming viral, and part of becoming viral is having a clean, clear message that you are conveying that people can convey to other people as they share the game.

So if you do all these things, that, my friends, is how you can make sure that the fun part is the correct strategy. It is not, like I said—a lot of my lessons are the kind of thing that sounds real simple on the surface, but actually executing them is tough. And while this is one of those lessons that’s like, “Duh, okay,” actually doing it requires a lot more work on your part. So the reason I spelled all these things out today was so that you understand that and you got what you need to do.

But, I think that if you are careful and you understand—you know, if you really spend the time and energy understanding what makes your game click, you’ll be able to make it much better and much more fun.

Anyway, I am now at Rachel’s school. So we all know what that means, that means this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of making Magic, it’s time for me—sorry. Instead of talking Magic, it’s time for me to be making Magic. I’ll see you guys next time.