Flash games and “impressions”
I was just reading an article on Gamasutra about researchers who were measuring “engagement” in first-person shooters. Using biofeedback, they graphed various physiological factors over time — finding that the tempo and pacing of cutscenes, combat distances, weapon interactions, all affected how engaged the user was in the game.
One of the things that immediately struck me was the time scales they kept mentioning. For example: “[…] long and boring tutorials delay the first moment of engagement, that critical moment when players realize they can indeed be immersed in this game. In some games we’ve tested, the first strongly engaging event does not occur until 20 minutes into the experience, a lifetime for a gamer who just wants to have fun.”
Twenty minutes?? In the Flash gaming world, twenty minutes is an eternity. From my decision, the average time between a user playing a new game and forming an opinion (or worse, entering a rating) is well under 5 minutes, and in many cases in the 60-second range. It can be very instructive to watch new games appear on Flash portals, especially when they only have a couple hundred plays, and how quickly they can be rated — often so quickly that the user wouldn’t have had to time complete a single mission. This creates a herd-like mentality, where users initially rate games very superficially, and ratings take 12-24 hours to converge towards a realistic representation of the game’s popularity.
Given this, successful Flash developers have to find ways to engage the user immediately, especially for games which contain non-trivial mechanics. Interestingly, on many portals, the highest-rated games are the ones with the most depth and replayability. This seems at odds with the previous statement; since to achieve that depth, most of these games have sophisticated underlying mechanics. To me, this signals that the games were able to “hook” the user with some sort of initial fun/graphics/technical interest, and then were able to smoothly transition the user along the usability curve, teaching them the gameplay mechanics along the way.
Big-name PC and console titles aren’t hit so hard by this due to a simple fact: the user has a monetary investment in the title. I have personally had the unpleasant experience of going to Gamestop, spending $50 on a terrible game, and then sitting on my couch thinking “Well, I spent 50 bucks on this, and it sucks. Maybe I should at least play it for a while, perhaps it’ll get better…”. In the web world, why waste time on a game you didn’t pay for?
Perhaps it’s just a matter of time compression — free, “bite-sized”, casual, web games operate in a very compressed timeline. They load quickly, they’re played in short bursts, and snap judgements are made about them. However, the upside of all this is a much bigger potential market.
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4 Responses to “Flash games and “impressions””
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Hi :]
First, i must apologize but my english suck :p
Second i want to thank you, Diffusion games, for the good games you made, especialy Mytheria (my Fav).
I want to react a bit about this article. I’m a strong gamer (maybe hardcore for some) and i personaly dont assimilate flash games to casual gaming, its not because you can beat the game in less than one hour that the game is casual( maybe ’cause im thinking that Casual only define a player type ).
For me finishing a game its always a sad moment (like finishing a book) flash games too. I’m only researching some fun and some good gameplay mecanism.
Im agree with the 12-24 hour range for the game score, but we cant change people’s mentality and force them to score the game like it deserve. But 12-24 hour stay ( for me) a very short interval.
Its true that tutorial are boring and i usualy skip them trying to understand the game while im playing. Teaching mechanics progressivly (dont know if that word exist) its a good idea but i think it made the game loss some depth/challenge because you must teach them in some easy missions and in certain case smoother than they must be.
Replayability is surely a strong key to have a high score in game rating (but a lot of people still rating after 2 minutes :p) like Multiplayer but their not essential(i think a good example of replayability is Phage war
= i dont want to advertise).
I’ve spend useless money in some stupid game who only look great (but i think everyone had in his game library some game he dislike) and its always frustrating…
Its sure that Flash games must be quicly loaded and quickly learned but i’m thinking its more a matter of player’s mentality than a “bite-sized” problem (because connection become more and more effective
or maybe i’ve not understand the “bite-sized” definition). I always try to go deeper in a game i judging for feeling all the work behind and for a better understanding of the mechanics (but everyone dont think like me).
For conclusion, i think than flash games like player’s are linked and must evolve together. For looking the flash game’s environment for long it appear they become more complex and complete (not because of technology) and i think they hit a larger player community at every evolution.
Thank you for reading me , it’s only my little judgement, i hope he dont hurt anyone :]
This text not really fit with what i’ve had in mind but my english skills are so poor and i must do with what i have.
I wish you all the best i can and i thank you again for the good games you’ve made so far (i was really sad when i’ve finished Mytheria :p)
and i will be happy to comment again on this blog later.
Have a nice day/evening/night (corcle the good answer) and see you soon maybe.
Ps: Sorry again for all the language mistake i’ve made…
Hi,
I love your game called,”Armor wars,” I love it because you are the best game maker. The game that is like chess was a game I played once, but I think you need to get just a teenie bit more improvements. I love your game.
P.S. I saw your website.