It's a tough time for the gaming industry. Here's how user research and going back to its foundation of 'empathy for the user' can help the industry move forward in the right direction.
There’s no denying that post-pandemic has been a turbulent time for the gaming industry. So far, we’ve seen more than 10,000 workers laid off in 2023 - up from 8,500 in 2022 - and this year alone, around 8,000 have lost their jobs since January. This, followed by news like; Playstation shutting down their London studio, sales targets starting to tank, the rise of AI and players who are now leaning towards mobile-based gaming, over traditional gaming consoles.
The gaming industry is at a crossroads, and the road it takes will depend on how much it is willing to work with players.
First, a bit of history.
At the start of the video games era, way back in the early days of companies like Nintendo, Atari and SEGA, the only people building video games were, really, engineers. They didn’t have big design teams - no concept artists, audio engineers or level designers. It wasn’t really until the 1980s when superstar creative, Shigeru Miyamoto (Game Director at Nintendo) came up with the idea that video games could be pieces of art and thus, should be designed as so. Only after his creative vision did we start seeing the creation of character led, narrative driven video games - think Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong. It was a forefront of an entirely new era of video gaming, and it changed the industry forever.
Miyamoto saw more than just the physical code and hardware. He saw the human element. He saw the characters, their stories and the drive for the player to succeed in that game. That’s what helped to revolutionise and really make the games. And no, he wasn't a user researcher - he wasn't user researching. But that human element and that understanding of what and how to engage a player - that, dear readers, is empathy. And empathy is a fundamental part of what we do in user research.
Games UX research can help breathe new life into the gaming industry. And it starts, you guessed it, with empathy.
Market research can tell us only so much about industry trends. It can tell us, one thousand times over, that players are increasingly turning to mobile phones, instead of gaming consoles. But, so what? Does that mean releasing the next AAA game on mobile-phone is the answer? No, it doesn’t. First, we need to understand players - much more than what we think we know now - and to do that, we need to build relationships with them.
Firstly, you can’t build anything for anyone without understanding them; an architect wouldn't build a house without understanding their client. You have to get to know their needs, challenges, the things they don’t like, things they want, what their goals are. It’s crucial. Everything you do from that point on depends on that understanding, that relationship. If you don’t understand them, you’ll end up designing or building something that meets your needs, not theirs. Miyamoto started doing elements of this at Nintendo - he stepped away from what the engineers wanted to build and show players, and instead, tried to see it from the perspective of the player. AKA: empathy (even if no one, even now, was calling it that at the time.)
Second, empathy in the game development process is key because it helps you to build trust with your players. With something as subjective as video games - where people are spending potentially hundreds of dollars to buy a piece of art and play with it - you have to listen to and work with them. That's why things like observation and play-testing are so important in the development process. It gives you that opportunity to build a relationship with your players. And in return, they’ll tell you what they think! They’ll be honest. They’ll help you, whether that’s by giving constructive feedback or pointing out things in a game that you hadn’t even considered. You can only build this honesty by building trust.
And what happens? Well, ideally, the player can then trust that you’re doing the best you can to build a high-quality, engaging and fun game. And the designer, in return, can trust that the player will work with them to help bring their creative vision to life - and support it when it's released on the market.
We know that, when done properly, user research can help create amazing products. It can take a concept all the way from inception up to it's release, and the evolution it'll take along the way will make that product the best it can be. We need to do the same with gaming. It can't any longer just be executives making decisions in board rooms, pushing creative and game development teams to do their bidding based on sales targets.
We can do that by understanding them, working together and building that trust.
So many have recently lost faith in the gaming industry and the direction it's execs are taking. It's time to give the mic to the players and let them help us, to help each other.
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