Games are played by everyone- but they’re often designed with few sorts of players in mind. Despite games hitting the mainstream, many people still find them dreadfully boring. In this talk we’re going back to the basics of video games: Why do people play? Who do we call ‘gamers’? What even is a game, anyway? I’ll explore what it means to make and play games in a world that’s slowly realising not all gamers are 18-year-old American boys, and how I design games with empathy so that everyone (and their mum!) loves to play.
About the speaker
Gamers are not who you think
Games are played by everyone- but they’re often designed with few sorts of players in mind. Despite games hitting the mainstream, many people still find them dreadfully boring. In this talk we’re going back to the basics of video games: Why do people play? Who do we call ‘gamers'? What even is a game, anyway? I’ll explore what it means to make and play games in a world that’s slowly realising not all gamers are 18-year-old boys; how I design games with empathy so that everyone (and their mum!) loves to play; and how you can bring playful, empathic design to your work, no matter what you create.
Caitlin Goodale is a self-titled design dilettante, working across user experience design, illustration and user research. After studying Computer Arts at Abertay University she moved to Malmö to work as a UX Designer at King, where she helps to craft mobile games with mass appeal. Having worked on everything from Paint3D and Hololens at Microsoft, to Minecraft’s console editions, she is passionate about accessibility and bringing play to everyday interactions. Outside of the office she’s an avid rock climber, yogi and Antiques Roadshow enthusiast.
Favorite quotes from this talk See all
To me i'd say game UX is about balancing effort and ease
when we actually think about what games are as a medium and what they could be, it's so much broader than these digital products that we would think of immediately
if games are broader than we thought they might be, then gamers must be broader as well.
Compared to the fact that it's almost 50/50 of people playing games; the fact we're not really that diverse at all when it comes to people making them gets to be a problem.
The games industry is not just skewed in terms of genders, it's also skewed in terms of race, in terms of class, in terms of age and also in terms of the types of games we like to play.
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