“Why are we creating 100-hour experiences for players when there are still a billion people who have never had a 100-second experience?” asks Alex Johansson, kicking off his Hyper Talk at AMAZE Sheffield.
Johansson is an award-winning experimental designer, educator and game creator who creates LED gaming experiences for marginalized groups. He is the creator of Bright golfa minimalist and accessible sports game that asks players to complete randomly generated golf courses (arranged along an LED strip) using a custom-made controller. The title is being tested in nursing homes and special needs centers to explore how video games can become more accessible by challenging convention.
New audiences demand new ideas
Untangling how to create experiences for new audiences who don’t fit the narrow definition of “gamer” is something Johansson has been wrestling with for a while. “A real throughline of my career has been interacting with new people in public spaces, and the thing that really stuck with me was giving people their first experiences with games,” she says. “There’s nothing that comes close. I love it.”
Johansson recently decided that “gamers” will no longer be her primary audience going forward. They are more than welcome to enjoy her work, but she has “given them 10 years, and that's enough.”
“So why seek out new audiences? There are two key points: expectations are much lower than in this damned industry. We are choking to death and we need to lower the standards. An easy way to do that is to ignore this [more conventional] audiences and consider new ones. The other half, which interests me much more, is that you can really challenge what you think is intuitive,” he says.
Johansson suggests that breaking free from convention means abandoning interfaces and controllers that have become “inherently hostile.” For example, he suggests that most controllers and gamepads are stagnant and oppressive, preventing those unfamiliar with those ubiquitous inputs from entering the digital playground. To change the narrative, he believes designers should actively engage with new audiences to figure out which interfaces work for them.
To drive home the point, Johansson shows an image of a racing game he designed with an older woman who had never played a video game before. After working together on control schemes, they came up with the idea of dragging a coin between two touch points, a motion reminiscent of peeling the foil off a scratch card. It may seem like an unusual pitch, but Johansson says it worked because the interface “resonated” with her.
Glow Golf incorporates a custom “putter” controller
“The real lightbulb moment for me was the idea that if you can get those inputs out of that audience, you can potentially create inputs that resonate with that demographic. So you’ve just unlocked the way that that demographic can interact with games,” he continues.
“As part of this, [you might ask the question] Why should we consider older people? This is something that is very close to my heart. As an industry, we have generally ignored older people, or ignored them or demonized them, in our attempt to engage younger people. That is no longer the case. Game developers are dying of old age. In 20 years, people who grew up with arcades will be in their 80s or 90s, or dead. So we need to engage that audience.”
Defying all doubt, Johansson claims that a 96 and 85 year old couple won a Wii Bowling tournament in France just last year (Thanks Eurogamer). For him, it’s a fact that shows the industry needs to start making an effort to create experiences that cater to marginalized, overlooked, and underserved audiences.
He accepts that it's a pivot that won't guarantee success, but with the industry in dire straits, why not take a chance? “I've been making games for 10 years and at this point it's only sustainable for me, with help. But the truth is that games right now, as I'm sure many of you will appreciate, are barely commercially sustainable. If that's the case, you might as well take a chance on something new,” he continues.
“As for where to start: both with alternate controllers [games] and with the design coming up is to keep the scope really limited. More than anything, just ditch the keyboard. Keyboard, mouse, and gamepad are just obsolete inputs. If you can do it in an exhibition, it's a perfect format for that.”
Ultimately, Johansson says the most important question designers should ask themselves is this: “How do you reach a new person who has never played games before?” If you can figure that out, there’s a good chance you’re on the right track.
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