Design
Designing a Safer Gaming Environment: How Developers Can Mitigate Real-Life Threats
Join industry veteran Sharon Fisher, Head of Trust & Safety at Keywords Studios, for an enlightening presentation about the untapped potential of community in game development. She'll share five key strategies for constructing a game through a community-centered lens. Learn why crafting your own moderation tools may not be the best strategy and discover how prioritizing community features throughout game design can increase player engagement and reduce real-life threat cases. You'll also gain in-depth insights into how robust community and meticulous moderation can elevate the gaming experience while boosting profitability.
Session Takeaway
After attending this presentation, participants will:
- Understand the importance of incorporating community health principles across all stages of game production to minimize the chances of harmful and illicit content translating into real-world dangers
- Grasp the difficulties associated with creating an in-house moderation platform
- Discover the influence of community features on enhancing player experience, brand reputation, and financial returns
Designing Surprise: Treading The Fine Line Between Delighting and Infuriating Players
Surprise is a crucial part of what it is to be entertained. It can elicit a range of human emotions, from amusement and joy to confusion and fear.
In games, surprise in storytelling is both a powerful and hazardous tool with the potential for a high positive or negative impact on the player experience. Conditions, intensity, delivery, and the players themselves are all factors that influence the outcome of the surprise and must be carefully considered to ensure the desired reaction is achieved.
As part of a Master’s Degree in Indie Game Development at Falmouth Games Academy, Morwenna carried out a research thesis into creating effective surprise and its effects on players, drawing on influences and theories across the sciences and arts, including biology, psychology, narrative, music and game design. The study tested a theoretical framework through a mixed methodology of practice-based and practice-led research and produced some thought-provoking results.
This session provides a fun and accessible overview of the research findings. It proposes a new theory to explain the study findings and a practical model for the intentional design of surprise to understand, identify and minimise the risks that high surprise events can create.
Session Takeaway
- Some of the key physiological, neurological, and behavioural impacts of surprise.
- Some of the ways the human brain interprets sensory data to create assumptions.
- How 1 and 2 may affect and be leveraged in creating engaging experiences.
- The effects of high surprise in contexts of high uncertainty.
- Identifying potential areas of risk in your game.
- Ideas for how mitigate these risks.
The Longest Game – EVE Online’s Blueprint for Resilient Communities & Enduring Games
How do gaming developers and publishers think about their long-term strategy for success? For Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CCP Games’ CEO, the longest game is exemplified by the power of strategy, innovation, and teamwork to create lasting entertainment experiences. In this talk, Pétursson will showcase how CCP focuses on community building and nurturing a positive culture through EVE Online’s growth and evolution with its players over time. By examining these principles and tools, Pétursson will showcase how to plan for the future while maximizing the present, ultimately creating better art and entertainment for all.
Session Takeaway
- Best practice for (and importance of) collaborating with players on the development of live titles.
- How to leverage and apply the inherent nature of MMO games as friendship-building engines to improve and enhance both your product and its community.
- The ingredients and grit necessary to create, sustain and grow a longtail game universe with the potential to go on forever.
Tips and Insights on Narrative Design from Leading Writers
Award-winning writers Rhianna Pratchett, Charles Cecil (Revolution, Broken Sword), Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Marvel) and Judi Alston (Dreaming Methods) share their experiences, insights, learnings and tips for creating high quality narrative games with Dr Jackie Mulligan (Game Republic). The panelists will explore how to make narrative games on a budget, techniques to explore character, using new technology like AI and VR to enhance storytelling in games and trends in narrative design in particular stories being interpreted across multiple media. The session will also include a Q&A.
Session Takeaway
- Ways to create story-based games on a budget
- Techniques to develop characters in games
- Opportunities and challenges of taking stories into different media