Most players will not go through your game to the end. This is not a tragedy, but simply a feature of the design of video games. Ubisoft creative director Jason Vandenberg tells why this is so.

Advantage : As a game designer, you are more free to create a game ending than any other part of it.

First, the presence of the ending is completely your choice. You do not need it? Wonderful! A game is a cycle, and if you do not want to complete it, you will be in good company. No one has yet been able to "pass" poker or football.
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But in games with the ending only a small part of the players will see it. As representatives of the gaming industry and culture, this is still confusing. With a low percentage of passing games, we are worried. The player who put the controller to the end of the game, gives us a vague feeling of spitting in the face of the development team.

However, the ability to stop the game at any time is an integral part of this art form! This is not bad at all; on the contrary, it is good. This is a feature of game design. If you learn to insist on compulsory passing less, and instead focus on the advantages that this way of playing gives you, you will understand: there is no more freedom in creating games than in creating an ending.

The question is: how to take advantage of this freedom?

We learn to flounder

In the late 1990s, I lived with eccentric friend Dylan for several years. Dylan was a scout, a lover of swords and theatricality, a real collector of impressions, and also an insatiable "originator" of video games.

Dylan played dozens, maybe even hundreds of games a year, and that was before the Internet, so they were mostly bought in the store. But despite his passion, I never saw him spend more than an hour on one game. He bought them, tried them, he liked them ... after which he put them off forever. It was a man who stopped playing Diablo after an hour of play (!). Even more strange, he always looked pleased with his purchases and never showed the slightest sign of disappointment at not seeing their end.

He never did that to movies or books. Never.

Watching Dylan’s strange relationship and games, I learned the following: you don’t have to complete the game to appreciate it.

This is normal

You may remember how CNN published an article by Blake Snow (Blake Snow), telling the Internet that only 10-20 percent of players go through the games completely.

Therefore, when we see that our game is completed by 30-40 percent, we sing hosanna to the developers and open champagne. Such indicators say that we managed to create truly irresistible content and smooth out all the roughness. Very few games reach this level.

But I have an objection to the unspoken assumption of this, and many similar articles. Here is how the author of the article expresses this assumption:

“Let's think about it for a minute: out of 10 people starting to play the Red Dead Revolver, only one of them completes it. How so? Shouldn't such a highly valued game capture people? Or the players' attention has the limit of strength? ... Who is to blame for this: the developer or the player? Or maybe our culture? ”

My objection is that it is completely normal to stop the game before passing.

If you quit the game before the final scene of the denouement is not a sin. This is an integral part of our art form.

Unfinished

I never went through the first BioShock, although I deeply enjoyed this game. Grim Fandango? Also did not pass it. But I use it as a great example in design discussions! I did not pass a single part of Z, but they were very funny (usually).

There are a bunch of games in which there are not even endings. In most arcade games and MMO there is no finale. Sims have no end. Poker? Chess? Football?

In fact, the vast majority of classic and favorite games are specifically impassable to the end. One game in Sudoku flows to another, and that to the next. From the point of view of game design, even the addition of the ending to the game is optional. And we know that. It is obvious. Then why do we grit our teeth and tear our hair out when only 20% of the players reach the end of our story?

This is not a movie

I think these are the roots of this delusion in our approach to other forms of media. If someone leaves the cinema to the end of the film, disconnects the series on TV or postpones an unfinished book - this is a clear signal of displeasure. For these forms of art, the promise of such actions is completely clear: "I am not so interested in this story to continue."

However, when a player stops playing, the reasons may be more diverse:

"I would like to continue, but it takes too much time."

"I liked the beginning, but now it’s too much grind, and I don’t like it."

“It's a great game, but I'm tired of the game subculture, so I’ll do something else.”

"My friends stopped playing it."

This is not necessarily the designer’s fault. Gaming is not only entertainment, but also a lifestyle, and if the games have no place in the user's life, he will stop playing. There is no tragedy in it. This is one of the features of the environment in which the designer is located.

Therefore, instead of guilty of looking at the statistics of the past game and fantasizing about the world in which 99% of players reach the last scene, let's turn the perception and see what benefits we can get from this fact.

We turn perception

More than half of the players will not finish the game. You know it, think of it as a design restriction! What does this mean to you?

Firstly: the deeper the content in your game, the more likely it is that the players who continue the game enjoy it. They are already in it. They bought it. You have received a certain amount of trust from them, and they probably want to know what else you have on your sleeves.

Secondly: your producers and various "bumps" know the statistics of other games, and understand that the efforts spent by developers on the ending of the game will be appreciated by a very small number of players. Therefore, they will prioritize the team accordingly. This will increase the likelihood that they will allow you to "push through" your crazy idea for the final.

Thirdly: the players themselves know that the complete passing of the game happens infrequently, because they themselves go through the games completely not so often. Each player did not complete at least a few games. If they decide to go through the game, then (we hope) they will consider this a kind of medal for bravery. Therefore, they are psychologically aimed at receiving some thanks for their work. To the very end of the game, the players with burning eyes look expectantly at the designer, ready to accept any final as an award, while the producers do not really care about the final.

Tell the truth

I have only one piece of advice for this case: tell them the truth.

Give them everything you have in mind, everything that first attracted you to the creation of this game, spend your credit of trust on it. Try to bring the truth to the players.

In the first part of Modern Warfare there is a great example of this: the last mission was an absolutely impassable madness festival. There were almost no explanations in it, and they weren’t required (“PLANE! TERRORISTS!”), And that’s just fine. The last level was a celebration of the passage of the game with a salute from all the cannons, the cherry on the cake, which was completely optional, but became legendary.

One of the most convincing endings for the games I've played is the final of The Darkness . He exposed the whole truth about the fantasy created by the developers and gave me the full right to punish the evil that I hated. The truth was a continuation of the plot, but it was the drama invented by the authors that made the last scene sincere. I hated the main villain of this game, and at the end of it, my hand did not tremble for a second (after the door closed behind me). When I executed my revenge, it was I, and the act of retaliation stayed with me.

But, probably, the best demonstration of such a strange developer freedom was the end of the first part of Metroid. We could end the game by forcing Samus Aran to raise the blaster in victory. It was a reward for an already wonderful game. Heroic pose! However, instead, Samus got out of his battle suit, solving the riddle of his gender and turning over the stereotypes of 8-bit players. It is still one of the most famous endings in the history of games.

Let's invent an example

Let's try to apply these principles to my article.

So, you are still reading it, so, most likely, it is interesting to you. We are almost done, so you probably think what to read after, or do something else. Perhaps you are expecting an internal reward from the "tick" for the last read line of the article.

Final gives you freedom

Here is my truth about endings: I make them memorable, use them for reflection and, if possible, thank the people who influenced my life.

You, as a game designer, have more freedom in honing the final than in any other part of the game. Therefore, in the end lay out the whole truth. Say as much as possible and as best you can. And you will find out if you created something that will remember the world.