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Cross-Demographic Techniques

If I thought there was a magic pill, I wouldn't have written this book, for it would mean that everything you'd need to know about making games that were emotionally immersive could be summed up in a single technique.

Certainly one way to try to increase game sales is, when appropriate (and it's not always appropriate), to reach a range of demographics . Various films and TV shows have succeeded in appealing to both kids or teens, and adults as well, such as:

The Lord of the Rings films
The Terminator films
Pirates of the Caribbean
Star Wars — Episodes IV, V , and VI
The Matrix (At the time this book is being completed, it's too early to say whether the sequels will have the same cross-demographic appeal as did the first film.)
The Austin Powers films
The Simpsons
The Toy Story films
The Men in Black films
Shrek
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angel

These films and TV shows appeal to multiple demographics, and they do so because they use what I call Cross-Demographic Techniques .

The General Idea

The general idea to making a game with an appeal that crosses demographics is, first of all, to figure out a game that would appeal to the younger demographic you want, whether that's kids (as in Toy Story ) or teens (as in The Matrix ). Then layer in those elements that would also make the game appeal to adults. There are many such elements. Let's look at a few.

Self-Deconstructing Humor

This is humor that, with an implicit "wink-wink," makes fun of itself. Kids laugh and adults laugh . The Simpsons uses this technique quite frequently.

For instance, in one episode, a friend of Bart's begins using dirty language. His parents recount the list of dirty words he's been using to Marge, Bart's mother, and declare that their son must have picked the words up from Bart. It's the only possible answer, they conclude, for their son couldn't have learned these words from TV. The joke, of course, is that we just saw the words used on TV. The Simpsons has always been filled with this kind of humor.

Another example from the same episode: Bart and his class are about to go on a field trip to a boring box factory. Bart deals with it by escaping into a daydream. But the only image he can conjure up is the fantasy of himself going to a box factory. He wakes up from his reverie, angry at television for destroying his imagination .

Giving NPCs Character Arcs

Giving the character you play in the game a First-Person Character Arc (see Chapter 2.20) or giving a Character Arc to a major NPC (see Chapter 2.9) won't turn away a younger player, but might help grab an older one. Adults enjoy the emotional sophistication of a character growing emotionally.

Trendy Comedy

Adults and kids like trendy comedy. I say trendy comedy because comedy, by its nature, tends to be trendy. Many TV shows of the past that seemed hilarious, witty, or cutting-edge when new no longer seem quite as funny . These include I Love Lucy, Remington Steel, M*A*S*H, Cheers, Northern Exposure , and even Seinfeld . Comedy tends to date.

It's to the credit of the writers and other creative talent behind The Simpsons that they managed to keep it alive for so many years .

Grand Theft Auto III used a style of comedy popularized in such films as Pulp Fiction .

How can you predict the next trend in comedy? There's no formula. But one thing you can do is pay attention to the trends, and watch which trends seem to have the most staying power. ^[2]

^[2] People often say that humor is hard to weave into a game. There are quite a few types of comedy that would work in games. I suspect that one of the reasons we haven't seen more hysterically funny games is because very few A-list comedy writers have worked in games. Of course, even if one was to try, he or she would still need to surmount all problems delineated in Chapter 1.4, "17 Things Screenwriters Don't Know About Games ," and would need to figure out how all the various game structures discussed in Chapter 2.16, "Plot Interesting Techniques," could become tools for comedy.