At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco California, developers discuss the latest trends in the video game industry every year. One of the big topics this year: the almost endless flood of open world games, which seems to master the western AAA market.
Most players don't want these worlds at all.At least Cameron Williams, former rock star developer for Grand Theft Auto 6 and Red Dead online, comes to this conclusion. Because large, open worlds would simply overwhelm many players. In the meantime, a real open-world fatigue has occurred at the community.
Why players Open Worlds don't like (more)
According to Cameron Williams, the main problem is that players would not like to explore from scratch. At a time when more and more games compete in an increasingly faster rhythm around the little time of users, fewer and fewer players are ready to ride across the map for hours, just to get to the next quest goal. Most would just travel fast.
Many secondary activities, viewpoints and question marks on the side of the path would also not change this, which should supposedly make the trip interesting.Because too much offer would rather deter people from discovering.
More jam, fewer purchases
Williams, who is now working on the Studio Absurd Ventures, compares the exploration of Open Worlds with the selection of jam in the supermarket. A study from 2000 showed that people in the supermarket were more willing to buy a glass of jam if there are only six flavors to choose from instead of 24. Williams calls this phenomenonPairiese analysis
.
Williams' solution: Developers should avoid giving the players so many opportunities that they lose orientation because of the oversupply. If you want to make players do side activities, they would have tomake sense in the gameplay and the story. As an example, Williams calls the Angel mini game.
I just want the main story
Another problem for open world games, according to Cameron Williams, are the so-calledBeeliner
. By this he means a player type that simply plays through the main story of a game and simply leaves all other content left. These people are very difficult to get to explore, even if you put the content directly in front of them.
You already know which player I mean: those who just try to ignore all your lovingly built content. They just want to have as little fun as possible with your game and sprint only from A to B.
− Cameron Williams, Absurd Ventures
In part, industry is also to blame for this anti-attitude, says Williams. Because with millions of question marks and countless senseless collection quests, the patience of the players may have been overused a little. It is therefore all the more important to create more side activities that feel significant and fit organically into the game world.
How do you stand in video games about open worlds? You are happy to explore a huge game world for hours or concentrate like aBeeliner
Purely on the main story? How do you see Cameron Williams' argument about the few available season? Please write it in the comments! In the link box above you will find even more exciting news about open Worlds.
