Ideally, a hook should be something that makes the game unique and that you can show on a TV commercial to make gamers everywhere salivate. What hooks them is something amazingly cool about your game—something they probably haven’t done before in a game (or seen before anywhere else—not even in a movie) or something that makes the game very intriguing/alluring. A great hook is that element of the game that the players, the press, and the retailers can all recognize instantly, without much explanation. (You just know the press will be itching to talk about it!)
Remember, games are fantasies for sale; there are plenty of hooks out there, so don’t give up quickly. This is the DNA that can take you from being a good designer to being a great designer, when you can approach familiar subject matter with really fresh ideas.
If you really want to get a game published, you will nearly always need a hook. Games are going to get more and more difficult to pitch for funding in the long term, and you need a way to differentiate your designs from all others. However, I must caution that hook does not have to mean risk in the eyes of a publisher, but certain hooks will mean just that. So always consider who you are going to be pitching this to.
“It will have the most amazing artificial intelligence ever” sounds like a hook, but in reality there’s more risk than hook on offer there. It’s not specific, but just a promise of some technology and not how it’s implemented or what makes it a hook. The risk is in placing your reliance on “the most amazing” anything, where it may not be relevant to players or it may be superseded by some better technology.
Recently, Electronic Arts has started calling this Feature IP. (By the way, IP stands for intellectual property.) It sounds better, but it’s just a hook. They’ve also announced that if you want to pitch a game to them, it had better have some new Feature IP. (For the industry this is a good thing, as it will help pull us away from copycat games.)
In this chapter:
So what are some benefits of a hook?
It’s an easier pitch to the publisher. (It’s something to focus on.)
You can test it with your audience. (Did they like it or didn’t they?)
It gives you something to focus your advertising on.
It gives your team a goal upon which to base daily decisions—meaning, “Will this new idea help or hinder our main goal of delivering our hook?” (Remember that the hook is the crown jewel.)
It gives the press something to write about and sets your game apart from other products.
Gamers will buy your game to experience it for the first time.
Picking a giant seller, let’s talk about Grand Theft Auto. What was the hook? Killing people? No, that’s old news. Stealing cars? Maybe—it did add to the experience, but any driving game could add that feature, and I still don’t think it would be GTA. In my personal opinion, the hook was freedom, something we are always begging for when trapped in a world of linear games (especially linear driving games!). The unparalleled freedom offered in GTA was fantastic—even the giant maps let us roam around without loading every two minutes. Do what you want, when you want, the way you want to do it. The game just had to handle it and simulate a somewhat credible response.
Another driving game I enjoyed was the original Driver, from Atari. That game made it really fun to be chased by police around a city. It was a great way to get you to push yourself to drive more crazily than ever before, by putting numerous police cars right on your rear. In GTA IV, the driver is real, meaning it’s not just a car you’re driving—there’s a person in it, and when you crash you literally end up out on the street. That idea of real people (when we generally accept the convention that there’s nobody “really” in the car) is the beginning of a new hook.
In evaluating the strength of your proposal, look for the hook. You’ll rarely get anybody really excited by going in and pitching a game that’s “just like X or Y” (where X or Y is some existing game). If your hook is that X was a hit game and your game is better, it should be 10 times better, not just one tiny little idea better. (I know that sounds obvious, but trust me, I get those pitches all the time.) “You know StarCraft? Well, my idea is just like that, but there’s a certain weapon with a hit ratio of 45 percent, and my game will be much more fun at a 75-percent hit ratio on that kind of weapon.” (Yes, I do get these pitches.) But you’ll notice people’s eyes light up when you suggest something unique—something they haven’t heard of before.
For example, which would you invest in?
“Hi, my new game is called Super Car Racer. It’s as close to Gran Turismo as we can make it. We’ve got all the cool features in there, and the graphics are at least as good! Our hook is that our cars on average go 15 miles per hour faster than their cars! They have 700 cars from 80 manufacturers, but we have 732 from 82 manufacturers.”
“Hi, my new game is called Beast Racer. A community of several thousand people got together to discuss the topic of their dream racing game. Within weeks they had come up with a hook that your vehicle is actually a living, breathing beast that you can raise and train. Yes, you literally feed your ‘car’ and grow it into a monster. You can cross-breed it, upgrade it with battle armor, and race in different styles of circuits where the ‘cars’ can even fight, and you can actually rip apart a competitor’s ‘car.’ Would you like to see it?”
How do you identify a hook? One way is to examine your concept and look for what makes it unique. Then ask the following questions:
Is it unique? Has anybody done it before?
Is it really fun and will it remain fun for the full game experience?
Does it tap into something universally felt by your target audience?
Can you show it in a TV commercial?
Is the target audience large enough to make this a worthwhile project?
Can you pull it off technically? Legally? Financially?
If you really want to evaluate your hook concepts, try filling in the following information. These are the questions you should ask yourself to see how strong your game proposal is.
Grade each one “Yes” or “Heck yeah!” and write it down. (A “Yes” is worth 1 point, and a “Heck yeah!” is worth 2 points, so if you score more than 30 points, you are on to something good.)
Does the target audience already respect the developer of this game?
Does any aspect of this game design bring back fond memories or nostalgia for the target audience?
Are the graphics generally likely to be better than rival/competitive products?
Are your artists going to be able to make this subject matter look breathtaking?
Based on the story scenes, do you expect people to want to watch every minute of the cinematics? (Get a point if there are no cinematics in your game.)
Will the game feel new/original/fresh?
Will it be easier to play (easier to get into by design) than competitive games?
Is the functionality/depth/range of features planned for the game more impressive when compared to other games in the same genre?
Do you think a player would be perceived as “cool” by his friends if he introduced them to this game?
Would most people (not just hardcore gamers) be able to play your game and get into the most fun parts relatively quickly?
Does the game have a cool-sounding, easy to remember/easy to say/easy to spell name that suggests or reveals what the game is about?
Is there an exciting feature that can be saved for the Limited Edition version?
Does the game potentially have any collectable value? (Is it part of a series, for example?)
Can the owner play the game with his friends sitting on the sofa next to him?
Can the owner play the game with his friends through the Internet?
If playing through the Internet, can the player chat with his friends easily while playing?
Can the player share or trade his success (his spoils of war) with his friends?
Can the game be customized or personalized?
Is the game going to be presented by a respected game designer/programmer or producer?
Will the game star a really well-known celebrity character, actor, or actress?
Will the soundtrack be crafted by a very (globally) popular or famous composer or band?
Is the story written by a famous or respected writer?
Is the focus on a subject matter that the target audience is really excited about these days? (One that hasn’t already been done many times before?)
Will people be amazed by the visual effects?
Does the global gaming audience really love this game genre?
Is there any controversy regarding this game that the target audience will hear about?
Is there a way to make the price lower than that of your direct competitors?
Do you have any clever plans for marketing the game?
Will the game engine have a way to avoid long boring periods, long load times, or other elements that try a gamer’s patience?
Are you sure people won’t think this game is weird or strange?
Will gamers playing this game laugh out loud at any time while playing?
Would it be possible to reveal the unique hook in this game in a television commercial of 30 seconds?
Can you play this game without ever reading a manual (by design)?
Will you have movie-quality sound effects/ambiance/speech in the game?
Will the game offer immediate replayability?
If a player gets stuck, will the game detect this and help him out of this problem?
Will the game have interesting “very memorable moments” (high points), as opposed to repetitive gameplay?
Will the story have an exciting start?
Will the story have a surprising ending that will compel people to talk about it?
Will the game have a fun and interesting learn-as-you-play in-game tutorial?
Why do this?
Say you have four ideas, and you just can’t decide which to really flesh out and start working on. Run them through this test and then go with the winner. Or, run the test, get the score, then try to add 10 more points to that score. Go back and read the questions for inspiration on how you could add those 10 more points.