Don Daglow Dissects the American Online Gamer

[The Wooster]

Don Daglow Dissects the American Online Gamer

Veteran developer Don Daglow details the differences between European and North American online gamers.

Don Daglow, a pioneering American developer often credited as the founder of the sports, RPG and god-sim genres, offered a humorously scathing breakdown of North American online gamers for the benefit of European developers. In a tongue-in-cheek talk at GDC Europe, Daglow painted his fellow Americans as historically ignorant, self-obsessed, easily-distracted and easily-discouraged by failure. He then went on to explain how developers can create games that account for, or cater to, those traits.

The first point he made is that American schools emphasize the personal growth of students, rather than immediately pit them against an academic assault course. Success is rewarded, but failure isn't punished or noted. Students aren't exposed to the idea of academic failure until they reach 17 and begin applying for colleges. Daglow argues that this inclines American users towards seeing in-game failure as a problem with the game, not a product of their own mistakes. The solution, apparently, is to simplify the gaming experience, show the audience rather than tell them, and reward success constantly.

His second point is that modern Americans are awash in competing information sources, which has shortened their attention spans. The solution is that games need to get their point across as quickly as possible, capturing the user's attention within the first few seconds of play in the same way an advertisement or a movie might.

He then goes on to argue that Americans crave individuality, hence the success of monetized avatar customization options, and that games need to treat players "like a celebrity."
Finally he points out that Americans tend to have a limited knowledge of world history due to the way the subject is taught in US schools. "Americans know who Steve-O is but not Stalin," he remarked.

He then went on to offer a brief tongue-in-cheek summary of the American understanding of world history:

[ul][li] Romans Vs. Barbarians.[/li]
[li]Dark Ages, nothing happened.[/li]
[li]Renaissance, then we got cars and planes.[/li]
[li]Stuff was going on in China and Japan, too.[/li]
[li]US got Independence, had Civil War over slavery.[/li]
[li]Lots of big wars in the last century.[/li][/ul]

He then summarized his presentation with six tips on how to sell games to American online gamers:

[ul][li]Craft the opening minutes to hold attention.[/li]
[li]Use a simple, clear interface.[/li]
[li]Minimize text: show, don't tell in tutorials.[/li]
[li]The player is a celebrity, give them unique customization.[/li]
[li]Recognize that we're in the queue and the user is the master.[/li]
[li]History rarely sells and is often unknown.[/li][/ul]

Daglow has been making games since the early 1970s. One of his early titles, 1975's Dungeon, is widely credited as the first computer role playing game. He also worked on the original Neverwinter Nights, which was the first graphical MMO. He worked for Intellivision and EA in 1980s, before founding Stormfront Studios [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormfront_Studios] in 1998.

Source: Gameindustry.biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-13-what-european-developers-need-to-know-about-american-online-gamers]





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[Don Reba]

That title is quite an eye-catcher.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Oh wow, I just don't know what to say about this.
I mean the offensiveness of this guy rivals internet trolls.

Because surly ALL American gamers are drooling idiots who only care about guns and instant gratification, who don't accept failure and don't know who Stalin is despite the fact that quite a few shooters are set during WW2.

The bad part is, most of the points for making the games are actually good (with exception for the last point),
but his reasons to support those points are completely nonsense.

-Craft the opening minutes to hold attention.
-Use a simple, clear interface.
-Minimize text: show, don't tell in tutorials.
-The player is a celebrity, give them unique customization.
-Recognize that we're in the queue and the user is the master.
-History rarely sells and is often unknown.

He doesn't seem to understand that gamers are composed of more than just ten year olds screaming obscenities at each other over Xbox live.

EDIT: I understand this is meant to be a joke, but he's treading dangerous ground, there's a fine line between what can be taken as a joke and what's taken as offensive.

 

[Zhukov]

Well, that's not going to piss off anybody at all.

Funny thing is, a lot of those points are actually pretty good advice.

I'm a bit iffy about the idea of games "treating the player like a celebrity" though. That sounds like pandering.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Huh. I'm an American and I went to an American school and I know quite a bit about the things he said we don't, and for the most part his points are completely off target. Maybe he's only talking about dumbass little kids.

But it's possible world history might be a little shaky in general. When you're not surrounded by other countries there seems less need to learn a lot about them.

Also, I've never heard of this person.

 

[matrix3509]

Too bad listening to Daglow give advice on how to make games is like listening to Chris Crawford give advice on how to make games

Daglow hasn't been a relevant figure in gaming for over a decade.

Watching him try this pathetically to regain some spotlight for himself is just about as bad as Crawford's Dragon Speech was.

 

[ecoho]

Huh. I'm an American and I went to an American school and I know quite a bit about the things he said we don't, and for the most part his points are completely off target. Maybe he's only talking about dumbass little kids.

But it's possible world history might be a little shaky in general. When you're not surrounded by other countries there seems less need to learn a lot about them.

Also, I've never heard of this person.

Im kinda with you there. I know more about the dam Gothic age(real name of the dark age)and Renaissance then i care to write about. Yet i cant seem to figure out who the hell this guy is and why i should give a dam what his opinion is.

 

[Bazaalmon]

It's both hilarious and disturbingly accurate. It seems to me that my generation is convinced that they can do absolutely nothing wrong, and when they screw up, something other than themselves is always to blame. I'm sure not all young adults/adolescents are like that, but it seems to be a growing trend.
Perhaps I'm being to cynical. But then again; MTV.
Seriously, turn your television to MTV and you can feel yourself getting stupider.
If you take offence to this, don't. You're one of the good ones. The rest will have stopped reading before getting this far.

 

[BrotherRool]

Guys, this is a joke and it's meant to be a joke

Huh. I'm an American and I went to an American school and I know quite a bit about the things he said we don't, and for the most part his points are completely off target. Maybe he's only talking about dumbass little kids.

But it's possible world history might be a little shaky in general. When you're not surrounded by other countries there seems less need to learn a lot about them.

Also, I've never heard of this person.

I'm pretty sure that that's the whole point, he was being absurd and silly for humour value and then hiding decent gameplay advice behind it.

 

[iniudan]

Gothic age(real name of the dark age)

Gothic would be High and Late Middle Age not Early. (Or if I go with my culture classification, would be Lower Middle Age not Upper Middle Age). Since cultural objects classified under Gothic style are from the 12th to 16th century.

 

[Kargathia]

It's both hilarious and disturbingly accurate. It seems to me that my generation is convinced that they can do absolutely nothing wrong, and when they screw up, something other than themselves is always to blame. I'm sure not all young adults/adolescents are like that, but it seems to be a growing trend.

Also definitely not exclusive to the US - this trend has very much reared its ugly head in Europe already.

Gothic age(real name of the dark age)

Gothic would be High and Late Middle Age not Early. (Or if I go with my culture classification, would be Lower Middle Age not Upper Middle Age). Since cultural objects classified under Gothic style are from the 12th to 16th century.

Not to mention that it's really only a style in architecture (mostly churches), and art (also mostly religious) - not a general designation for a sub-section of the Middle Ages.

 

[Falterfire]

Baffled that he thinks these two are anything other than basic good design:

Use a simple, clear interface.
Minimize text: show, don't tell in tutorials.

Is there any reason you'd want a complicated, difficult-to-understand interface? Is there any reason you'd want to bury the user under a wall of text in a tutorial? Both of these seem like things that lend themselves to good design regardless of who you're designing for. There are elitists who will claim that the game is too dumbed down if you can figure out the interface in under three hours, but most real people prefer that the focus of the game is on playing it, not finding which button does what you want.

 

[dangoball]

I know more about the dam Gothic age(real name of the dark age)

Eh... No, Dark age is called so because there are lot of "dark" spots in historical records for that era. Gothic is a style of architecture. That is not to say your knowledge is lacking, just that you might be confusing some terms.
And I'm fairly sure Europeans know way more about Middle Ages than citizens of USA, simply by the virtue that most European countries had some moment of glory in that era. Likewise we don't know as much about Civil War in the US or The Warring States era of Japan.

Captcha: I think so
See? Even captcha agrees

OT:
Well it was said several times in the article that all he said was "tongue in cheek". That means "don't take what I say completely seriously, just a bit". Therefore I see no reason to be offended. Granted, I em not an american gamer, so I might not take it as much.

 

[Mike Fang]

I admit it's been a while since I studied world history, but I think I have a bit more understanding than -that- of world history (i.e. Stalin - Soviet Union communist party leader in the mid to late 20th century. Steve-O - some @$$hole who runs a 'reality' show where people deliberately hurt themselves just for the opportunity to get seen on tv). Personally I think Americans at large are a bit more varied in terms of education and maturity, though I'll admit too many of them are on the lower end of the scale.

From what I've heard about the education system today, it's true it does tend to coddle students too much; I wouldn't say failure should be "punished" but it shouldn't be glossed over. Students should be told where they need to work harder and given the proper guidance to improve themselves. They don't need a slap in the head every time they get something wrong, but they do need to hear "That's not right, here, try doing it this way," or "I know its tough, but you need to keep trying because nothing gets better if you quit."

As to this guy's tips on marketing an online game to American gamers, call me stupid, but outside of that last point, I don't see how those other ones are necessarily choices pandering to the ignorant and lazy. Efficient interfaces aren't meant to require little skill, they're meant to allow players to act faster. I personally don't mind reading, but tutorial content is more effective by demonstration sometimes. Craft the opening minutes to hold attention...as opposed to what, telling the gamer "stop playing this, it's crap"? And I don't know about treating the player like a celebrity, but allowing customization appeals to everybody's desire to be an individual with their own, not-so-average (if perhaps not one-of-a-kind) appearance.



As for his tips on developing an online game for the