Kasey Clark
Richard Sykes
Simulation and Game Design
9/12/2015
There are many games out there to choose to
purchase. Denominations ranging from
games for kids to games for seniors, male or female or in-between. Deciding
which to buy or which will keep you entertained can be a difficult task at
times. When picking a game it’s good to keep in mind what denomination the game
focuses on and your own personal motivations and personality traits.
The game “Fallout 3 New Vegas”, has a lot of
different features to consider. In the game you are a customizable character
that ventures out on a post-apocalyptic journey across Las Vegas. There are
plenty of side quests that change the dynamics of the game and weapons to
choose from to destroy the countless enemies that block your way. Although
there are alternative ways to get through some missions, most of the time you
get the sensation of being a powerful person. With those aspects the games
denomination is mainly towards 18-24 males. People within that denomination are
generally more attracted to the fighting, destruction and challenge the game
offers.
There are plenty of games
that focus on a single denominations while other games try to focus on several
denominations. When designers are making a game they take denominations into
great consideration. However it’s not an easy feat. To understand the
denomination the game is for, the designer must understand how the brain works
in each denomination. By understanding how the brain works, designers can predict,
to a point, on how their audience will react to different aspects of their
game. For example, if you were making a game to appeal to young men and women
you would have to know what both generally like and apply it in a way both
would enjoy. By knowing the mind of the
audience, the designers can also adapt certain aspects of the game early on.
When trying to figure out
the audiences mind there are many tools a designer can use. One of the most useful in today’s standards is
a personality chart known as O.C.E.A.N (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism). Jason Vandenberghe, a game designer from Ubisolf,
has done a study on this calling it the “five domains of play”. He released an
article on it May, 2012 in the “game
developer magazine”. In this study
he connects these personality traits to an individual’s motivation of choosing
games depending on a high or low score to each individual categories of
O.C.E.A.N. Jason Vandenberghe goes on to
explain “Your score in each domain in the Big 5 is actually something
like a weighted average of your score in six “facets” that that describe
specific preferences within that domain.”
(Jason Vandenberghe “The five domains of play: Mapping psychology’s five
factor model to game design”, http://www.darklorde.com/the-five-domains-of-play/, May 2012, blog, September 13, 2015)
Within
all these aspects there are many ways to make out what type of game to choose
from. If you know yourself and find games within your denominations you are
bound to find plenty of games to enjoy.