Applying Blue Ocean Strategy to Game Design : a Path to Innovation
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SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2013 Art & Design Track – Full Papers Applying Blue Ocean Strategy to Game Design : A Path to Innovation Gabriella A. B. Barros, Átila V. M. Moreira, Vicente Marco Túlio C. F. Albuquerque, Leonardo V. V. Filho Carvalho, Geber L. Ramalho Center of Informatics (CIn) Center of Informatics (CIn) Federal University of Pernambuco Federal University of Pernambuco Recife-PE, Brazil Recife-PE, Brazil {gabb, avmm, vvf}@cin.ufpe.br {mtcfa, lvc, glr}@cin.ufpe.br Abstract — Game industry is highly competitive, and however the addition of a narrator to game concept was innovation is an important aspect in making a hit. This is essential to make it an awarded hit. especially decisive in game conceptualization, the initial stage of game design, when basic game ideas are proposed. In Although conceptualization is such a crucial stage in game entrepreneurship, innovation and design literatures, various design, it tends to be devalued in comparison with other steps processes and concepts have been used to help developers in (e.g. level design) and is often done without a proper game creating innovative products and services. This is the case of the market analysis [5]. This little market influence can easily Blue Ocean Strategy and Personas technique, for instance. result in lack of defined target audience or market space. Despite their success, to our knowledge, these approaches have not been explored in designing games, particularly in the Thus, it is necessary to incorporate market information in conceptualization phase. This paper proposes a process that game design process. Usage metrics and analyses of available brings together Blue Ocean Strategy and Personas technique to titles are two ways of doing this incorporation. Outside game assist the creation of innovative games. This process was applied industry, different strategies have been proposed to assist in two successful games: Boney The Runner and Fruits Inc. innovation process while focusing on the market. Among such strategies lie Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) and Personas. Keywords—game design; concept design; innovation in games; BOS attempts to make competition irrelevant by creating a blue ocean strategy; personas new competition-free market space [6]. It focuses in generating products or services that are different from those already in the I. INTRODUCTION market, thus avoiding competition with a large amount of It is not novelty that the videogame business is an companies. Persona is a technique used in the initial step of extremely competitive multibillionaire industry. In 2011, it design process. Personas are descriptions of hypothetical users, moved $74 billion worldwide, and $112 billion are expected by containing characteristics, personality traits, likes, dislikes and 2015 [1]. Finding out what players want is essential in order to goals. They represent, in a single individual, a general type of make a great game [2], but it is often not enough to guarantee user [7]. success. As described above, incorporating market information in In such a hardcore industry, how is it possible to assure a the process of concept game design is a challenge. This paper title’s success, or at least improve its chances of happening? proposes a Blue Ocean Strategy based process to assist concept Wesley and Barczak enumerate a few cues in [3], from which design stage. Such strategy was never applied to game design. we can highlight innovation. In a market with massive and Our process also uses Personas to provide guidelines for user varied titles, a fresh and innovative game may ascend easier models. These techniques do not guarantee success, but than others. Such quest for novelty makes designers face a significantly decrease the chances of failure. The process was different challenge: how to create something new? used during the development of two games: Boney the Runner and Fruits Inc. Design processes are important tools assisting game designers’ creative method. Within game design processes, This paper is structured as follows: section 2 describes what there is a stage called concept stage or conceptualization. It game design and game concept are and summarizes related consists of generating and selecting main ideas for a game [4], works. Section 3 describes the Personas and Blue Ocean thus defining its fundamental rules and features. It is an Strategy fundamental concepts. Section 4 presents the proposed important step in game design, since a good concept can help process. Section 5 contains the description of two case studies, to make or to break a market hit. Recent independent games are while section 6 summarizes their results. Finally, section 7 good examples of this. For instance, Bastion1 may appear as consists of conclusions and future works. only a common hack-and-slash game with beautiful graphics; 1 Bastion, by SuperGiant Games http://supergiantgames.com/index.php/media/ 267 SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2013 Art & Design Track – Full Papers II. GAME CONCEPT: PROBLEM FORMULATION AND RELATED WORKS A. Problem Formulation The game industry evolution resulted in improvements in game design processes. Game design processes are responsible for game conception and project aspects. They commonly have analysis and evaluation, synthesis and document refinement phases [8]. With time, these processes became less artistic and Fig. 1. Method proposed by Zimmermann [11]. more efficient [9]. In general, these processes are composed of three major stages: conceptualization, refinement and development. Conceptualization is the initial stage of game design, when game concept is created. Hagen [10] describes the game concept as the collection of all important design ideas that define the game. It consists of two parts: the recycled part (ideas that were used in other games, movies or books, e.g. “this game is platform game”) and the innovative part (game Fig. 2. Adams’ process [12]. ideas that have not been used before). The creation of game concept is often done without specific methods. This is dangerous to the game’s development because it can result in games with basic flaws in design. Such flaws can potentially affect how the game will be received by the public. This paper targets the problem of providing a conceptualization process with focus on innovation to increase chances of success. In order to provide better chances of making a hit, conceptualization should attend the following requirements: Fig. 3. General model proposed by Araújo and Roque [13]. Innovation: tools or guidelines to guarantee innovation elements in game design. These elements are important Unlike Zimmermann’s idea of iteratively improve concept in order to make a game standout in the market; design, Adams argued that this is not viable in medium or big Market Information: incorporation of users and games [12]. He proposed a user centered process, also divided industry data. This is a crucial, although often in three stages: concept, elaboration and tuning stage. In this renegaded, aspect in making a successful game; process, shown in Fig. 2, initial choices, such as main concept, audience and genre, should be decided only at conception User-Centered Design: game design must be focused stage. They remain unchanged through the rest of the process. on players. This helps to develop games with higher Elaboration stage adds design details, prototypes and playtests. acceptance rates and increases chances of satisfying Tuning stage is about making small adjustments, but no new players. feature can be added in this stage. B. Related Works Araújo and Roque [13] describe a game design process containing the following phases: conceptualization, design and Although game design processes did not converge into a development; as shown in Fig. 3. Conceptualization aims at single principal method, they mostly are composed of three defining the game’s main concept. The game’s requirements, main stages, as stated above. Thus, these processes can be basic ideas, main theme and target market are proposed in this clustered into groups that follow common guidelines. This stage. This concept will be used in latter steps. If there is the section will present a few game design processes that represent need to change some part of this initial idea later, it is possible the main game design styles. to return to the first step. The concept will be transformed into Zimmerman [1] proposed an iterative method, that is a rule system in design step. This stage will produce a more appears in Fig. 1. It is based on repeatedly and cyclically robust game design document. It uses a process of prototyping, analyzing and refining the game design. In this development, prototyping and evaluation. Finally, development process, it is possible to go back and forward in steps, in order step improves and evaluates game prototypes until a to make necessary design changes. This methodology relies satisfactory product emerge. heavily on play testing. Thus, it is possible to adjust design to Luban [14] proposed a four staged process. First step testers that match target audience. consists of defining goals and organizing the team. It is focused on selecting people that will work in following steps. Second 268 SBC – Proceedings of SBGames 2013 Art & Design Track – Full Papers step is identifying parameters and their values. Parameters are III. BACKGROUND characteristics that will be used to describe the game, such as “marketing segment” or “background”. Example of values for A. Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) “marketing segment” could be “FPS”, and for “background” Kim and Mauborn [6] created in 2005 a management could be “contemporary, 20th century”. approach called Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS). They introduced Third step requires filtering ideas and defining preferences. the concept of a universe made of blue and red oceans. Red Since there are a large amount of possible combinations oceans are known markets. They are well defined and highly between parameters and values, it is necessary to narrow this competitive. Small and weak organizations perish in this scope.