Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design

Motivations That Influence Design

Why build a computer game? The answer probably seems obvious: because it's a fun thing to do, to sell the game for money, or both. That's why most people get into the game industry—and probably why you are reading this book. But, in fact, there are a variety of reasons for building a game, and motivation has a powerful effect on the way a game is designed. Sometimes a game is built for several different reasons at once, and they're not always compatible with one another. Different motivations tend to pull the design of the game in different directions, which requires someone (usually the designer or the producer) to make a decision about which reason is most important.

Market-Driven Games

Most of the computer ...