GDC08: Critiquing mobile games (and how it applies to all gaming)

When we first walked into the session, "10 Things Journalists Hate About Your Game," we were excited to hear an insightful debate between reviewers and the developers who have been on the worst end of their words. Two minutes into the session, we realize the session is completely focused on mobile games, and 95% of our readership loses interest.

Despite the mobile focus, we still feel like mobile-centric journalist Stuart Dredge outlined concerns applicable to the entire games and game review industry.

So what do journalists loved? According to Dredge, variation, attention to the little details, free-roaming and replayability are good traits, among others. He praised instruction-free titles that provide alternatives such as first-level tutorial (he cites GameLab's library as a good example). Also lauded were frequent awards (achievements anyone?), a plot or some content-centric reason to pursue the game to the end, and side-depth, also known as the "easy to use, hard to master" game mechanics. Dredge talked about simple controls and how they typically score very well in reviews.

As for the hate, Dredge cites derivative genres, unfair and stupid AI, band sound and stupid/unfair AI. We liked his talk of brand usage. "I don't think journalists don't like brands ... but we are strict on them," he said. Our favorite story from the session was a time when Dredge was trying to describe to girls at a pub a simulated wet t-shirt contest game he was reviewing, which reminds us of having to write impressions for DOAX2.

Concluding the session, Dredge "turned the table" and presented a list of five things game developers hate about game journalists. With commentary from us:

• "You get things wrong and miss best bits of our games." Dredge said playing guides are starting become more prevalent.
  
• "You focus on the big publishers."
• "You're too hardcore." How can we fairly rate a Hannah Montana game when we're most assuredly not the target audience?
  
• "You print the wrong screenshots."
• "The games you like don't sell." And yet we'll still push Psychonauts and Zack and Wiki.

He also provided a list of games he recommended to try, purposely leaving out titles from the "big 3 publishers:"

• Critter Crunch (Disney)
• Sola Rola (Eidos)
• Emergency Mayhem (Player X)
• Blades and Magic (Fishlabs)
• Cuzzle Mobile (PopCap)
• Playman Extreme Running (RealArcade)
• Urban Attack (Vivendi)
• Mobile Battles: Reign of Swords (Punch)
• Crazy Window Cleaners (DChoc)
• Table Tennis Star (Player One)