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trashb • today at 1:46 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

  > They assume their own experience is more or less what everyone else has, including their players. A sort of dabbling, disinterested experience, flowing from one piece of content to another.
Actually with games this is a huge problem that players and even creators have. Due to the different play styles and player types it seems very hard for people to understand that there are other player types. This is one of the main drivers for conflict in the gaming space. People think all players experience games the same, they are not. One classic example is in MMO's like WOW where you have a clear distinction between the PVP and PVE playertypes, PVP players are usually "Killers" while PVE players are usually "Explorers". (Bartle taxonomy of player types)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_type...

You can extend this to the amount of interest in games, casual vs competitive gamers.

Replies

pigpop • today at 2:25 PM

"If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one"

This isn't to say that games (and other media) should always be laser focused on one type of person but you do have to use good judgement to decide who your audience is, what they like and what you should leave out of the game. MMOs show some natural segregation of players when they have private servers, you end up with many PvP only or PvE only servers along with many other variations of things the game mechanics and mods allow e.g. strict role play servers.

There's even terminology directly related to your quote, casual gamers vs hardcore gamers and it should be well known by now that if you make compromises in your game to suit both you'll end up being disliked by both. It's better to lean in to one play style a measured amount. If you're making a game with PvP as a core mechanic make sure the PvP experience is good but not so hardcore that it alienates people who are new to PvP. Don't sacrifice important parts of the gameplay because you might also want to attract PvE only players.