controller1.com

How to Make a Hit

Here are some surefire tips for game developers for making sure your game is a surefire hit. Follow these tips and you will see your game gobble market share and reach the tops of the sales charts in no time. NOTE to developers: These are more guidelines than steadfast rules. You should follow these guidelines with caution and seek legal and medical advice. Your mileage may vary.

1. Stick ‘War’ in the title. Warcraft, World of Warcraft, CoD World at War, God of War, Gears of War. All these games were mega hits. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest the reason is because the word ‘war’ is in the title. There are no other redeeming features to these games apart from the use of that word in the title.

2. Put guns in the game. The main difference between Oblivion and Fallout 3 is the fact there are guns in Fallout 3. If you’re making a platform game, take the platforming out and put shooting in there instead. It worked for Ratchet and Clank.

3. Coop. Let’s face it. Army of Two was pretty ordinary without coop. Resistance 2 is pretty ordinary without coop. Killzone 2 is without coop altogether. Do I need to draw a venn diagram?

4. Swears. Every popular game has swearing in it. The more you swear, the more the fun the game is. Just think how good Pikmin would have been if there was a little more casual use of curse words. Katafuckingmari would have been the bomb. “We’re sorry but the princess is in another castle, bitch!”

5. Levelling up. All the best games have levelling up these days as a way of making people with addictive personalities play shitty parts of the game just to get achievements and perks. TF2 would have been completely buried by Left 4 Dead if not for the achievements so you can make formerly unplayable classes into merely boring to play classes.

6. Tits. Even if your game doesn’t feature any human characters, you need to add sex appeal to your game. People who have time to play games to get all achievements in a game also like swearing like a docker and lusting after porn stars. So why not get the porn stars to do publicity for your game so your target audience can zip up their semen stained pants and catch the bus down to the mall to pick up Saint’s Row 2

7.Quick Time Events. Everyone says they hate these but secretly they love QTE’s. Shenmue’s failure to sell is in no way linked to the abundance of QTE’s. Shenmue’s failure is linked to the fact the game is a monument how not to spend $70 million. QTE’s can add value to your game. Look at Ninja Blade, where QTE’s are listed on the box. That must mean its good.

8. Hype. Get your publisher to tout your game as a *****-killer. Halo-Killers, WoW-killers, etc. Take the king of the genre- ie the game you’ve cribbed most heavily from- and tell the world that your game is better. Just look at how that worked for Hellgate London, Resistance 2 and Warhammer Online.

9. Stick Wii in the title. Worked for Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii-fit, Mario Kart Wii. Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best games on Wii but has been outsold by shit. If they only called it Super Mario Wii.

10. Unique controller. Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Buzz, Singstar, Eye Toy all have a controller. Rock Revolution doesn’t. Never mind it was shit.

With these simple rules, developers will never have to actually make a good game, they can just apply some or all of the above rules and make a killing. Works for Ubisoft.