The Family that Plays Together

"It's so hot here in Sheffield...

How hot is it?

It's so hot here in Sheffield that I think the wireless service in the Showroom took a brief nap.

In any case, here are two brief bits from the session on family gaming -- "The Family that Plays Together":

In response to an audience question on parents' being uneager to play games with their kids because the children are so much more accomplished (or simply skilled), one panelist noted a change in game design strategy: "The fundamental change in gaming in the last 10 years is that we used to focus on frustrating the player if necessary; now we want to make the player feel smart. Even if you don’t do well, the idea is that you're not humiliated and something happens."

Session producer and moderator of Atomfire Productions responded that his company is designing a “Play Together” game for the Wii, in which the screen is splits, and two players of differing ability can each contribute to progress by completing tasks of different difficulty.

#showco09