Emotional Journey

character or story.” Anna C. Webster explains, “I think story is critical for a game, but I know there are others that disagree. There’s always going to be someone out there who says “meh, I was just in it for [mechanic]” – and that’s okay!”

Remo expands on this, suggesting that it is less about the attachment between the player and the character, but the player and the game’s overall setting. “Given the nature of the player character is somewhat fuzzy, it is critical that the player find the environment and setting to be believable and that they are able to fully situate themselves within it.

“To what extent is the protagonist an authored character that exists independently of the player, and to what extent are they an expression of the player’s agency?”

“At least for single player games, people may play the mechanic - but afterwards, most will remember this as time they spent with the characters.” Fonnesbech thinks developers should be thinking about the impact an emotive connection can have on longevity: not only the longevity of a game, but the longevity of a series of games, and even the longevity of a studio, “If you want to make something that lasts [emotional attachment] is important. Think about Don’t Starve or Hitman. When people see those characters, they know instantly what they’re in for and how it feels. People recognise and relate to characters. They become anchors for the whole project.”

“For investors and publishers, the characters are a huge part of the potential value they’re investing in, when they invest in your game.”

LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS

Creating characters with lives and personalities that feel real, that players can see themselves in, can be a key goal for any designer, developer, or audio engineer looking to take their audience on a journey. We spoke to the experts about how to start thinking about this emotional connection from the very beginning.

Kanaris-Sotiriou reflects on his time with awardwinning adventure Röki, and the process the team used to create a story described as “absorbing” (The Guardian) and “cathartic” (The Indie Game Website). “The simple act of driving the player character’s actions (making them walk, run and respond to player input) goes a long way to initiate this connection but it is important to respect, grow and nurture that fragile bond if the player is to truly care about a game’s story.

“Some of this is about leaving room for the player to project onto their player character, to encourage them to place themselves in their shoes. For us this connection is not elicited from a shared physical resemblance to the real-world player but a shared humanity.”

Fonnesbech too agrees with this sense of ‘shared humanity’, “Having relatable emotions is about your character being up against things that are recognisable to people from their own lives. Of course you can have wizards and spaceships and Cthulhu monsters - but there should also be emotions in there that people recognise.”

Webster also confirms this vital step of the process, “People often unconsciously look for “themselves” in a story somewhere. People need a sense of connection or relatability to others (whether in real life or fictitiously) as a way of making sense of the world around them.

“Subsequently, for me, finding this relatability involves creating a character or plot which has a callout to a very human experience (such as a struggle with grief, a complex or nuanced relationship, or a conundrum about loyalty/obligation). Seeing a character grow and change is very satisfying, especially when this growth happens in a very human way.”

LINEAR VS OPEN

Story-led games, as we know, can be presented in a multitude of formats. Are there particular drawbacks or

benefits in terms of player connection through open narrative structures, rather than linear?

Remo, game and story designer of the BAFTA-winning narrative adventure Firewatch, considers the approach used by himself and the Campo Santo team, “The degree of linearity in a game’s story is hugely important with respect to how the story will be told, and therefore ultimately what kind of story it will be.

“When we started making Firewatch, we imagined it would be much less linear than it ended up being. What we ultimately made was a very linear story told inside of a relatively nonlinear world — and [that] in turn allowed us to tell smaller nonlinear stories around the margins of our larger central linear one.

I think it’s perfectly possible to enrapture the player with either style of storytelling, but there are elements of storytelling that are

better suited to different points along the spectrum of linearity to nonlinearity, and you must be willing to adapt the story as such..”

Kanaris-Sotiriou too acknowledges the complexity of this question, “There is clearly a great potential in non-linear open narratives where the player is an active agent in driving the story structure. The game world will feel more alive and rich with possibilities and the illusion of life can blossom with the freedom the player has.

“However the pitfalls are greater; the illusion of life is more easily shattered (as there are more plates to spin) and wider meaningful player choice necessitate the need for ‘more story’ and for that story to have an emotional impact that distinguishes itself from the other narrative paths.”

“It hurts my head just to think about it so I’ve got a lot of respect for folks creating in this area.”

Lucy Ann Jones is a senior marketing manager at Game If You Are, a UK-based agency that offers video game marketing solutions specially crafted for small studios, solo developers, and indie publishers.

The experts’ choice

Lastly, we wanted to round off our discussion by checking in with our participants, and asking these experts of spinning player journeys - which characters tugged at their heart-strings?

Christian Fonnesbech - Zagreus in Hades - “I’m very drawn to his battles with family and patriarchy. Food for thought, that. And of course the fatherson relationship in God of War - it’s a beautiful example of relatability.”

Anna C. Webster - Fran Bow, Fran Bow - “I love characters of young women, particularly children, as I think they remind me of a younger version of myself. I am still very connected to my inner child, so when I see a young character standing strong to battle a scary world... Who doesn’t know what that feels like in some capacity?”

Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou - Ico and Yorda, Ico / Henry & Delilah, Firewatch - “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the characters that have drawn an emotional response from me have close in-game relationships to other characters.”

Chris Remo - the classic LucasArts protagonists (Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle) - “It’s really the settings that stick with me more than the characters themselves: the murky pirate nostalgia of the early Monkey Island games, the film noir art deco underworld of Grim Fandango, the retro-futuristic biker wasteland of Full Throttle. It’s rare to encounter settings that remain as vivid in my mind as those.”

THE DIVERSITY FRAMEWORK

How EA is representing diverse voices in games.

Tülay McNally, director of inclusive design and product development at Electronic Arts, guides us through the work EA does to ensure its games remain accessible and representative of all its players

Tülay McNally, director of inclusive design and product development at Electronic Arts

WHILE DIVERSE VOICES have always been in games, the growing popularity of gaming over the years has resulted in a more diverse audience for games than ever before. Making sure you’re representing these groups in your work, and removing the barriers around games can be difficult but important work, and that’s why EA has created the first-ever Inclusive Design Framework: a core set of filters designed to help EA studios develop more inclusive characters and stories across all of its games.

The framework has now become a core part of EA’s culture, and was used for the successful launch of the Mumbai Fashion Street Kit for the Sims. Through the Inclusion Design Framework, the team at EA worked with cultural consultants to keep the content respectful and authentic to Indian culture and heritage.

Instrumental to the creation of that framework was Tülay McNally, director of inclusive design and product development at Electronic Arts, who takes us through her work in this area.

What can you tell us about the work your team does, and why is it so important to remove barriers around games?

We believe that games have the power to transcend society. The characters we create and the stories we tell can positively impact the world around us. As director of inclusive design and product development, it’s my role to make sure that belief becomes a reality and to support the creation of inclusive, diverse and accessible play experiences for everyone. By involving diverse perspectives, amplifying the voices of all players, and ultimately helping to build muscle memory with game teams, we make sure everyone in our communities feels welcome.

You were an instrumental part of the creation of the first-ever Inclusive Design Framework – What can you tell us about that? What are the filters, and how do they help develop more inclusive characters and stories in EA’s games?

Inclusive Design is about designing for as diverse a range of people and abilities as possible. It is a philosophy that encourages us to consider how gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, socio-economic background, culture and customs, body-shapes and sizes, religious beliefs and other characteristics shape the way we interact with the world. The work my team does challenges our developers to think about the experiences they build for players through these filters, every time. We then build our products and services in light of this understanding. It’s an ongoing process that is entirely built on reflection, dialogue and collaboration.

Why is it so important to improve the diversity of characters and stories in games, and why does EA want to be a leader in this area?

In 2021, we’re very proud to say our audiences are more diverse than ever. We believe the videogames industry has a responsibility to reflect the communities we serve in the games we create. It’s why we focus so heavily on inclusion and diversity; from our commitment to every developer that our accessibility-centred technology patents will be available for use royalty free, to the characters we include and promote in our games. We recognise that every action carries an impact in the wider community, and we’ll keep pushing ourselves to improve in this area for our players.

Left: The Tampa Bay play calling screen in Madden NFL 21 with colour blindness settings set to deuteranopia, simulated as seen by someone with red green colour blindness. The technology helps to distinguish between the different types of routes to make it easier for the player to choose the right play, enhancing the gaming experience

Below: The Ping Menu in Apex Legends™ is accessible by holding down the assigned Ping key, providing players with various commands to communicate information to their team. This includes marking the location of an enemy (top right), or an area to attack (bottom right), defend (bottom left) or keep an eye on (middle left)

What kind of success have you seen with the framework so far?

The framework has had an incredible impact, and it’s been really exciting to see how the filters and processes we’ve established have started to come to life in the games coming out today. One of the things I’m most proud of is that it feels like we have created this movement, a developer community around the topic of inclusion, diversity and playability. We’ve found a lot of allies and passionate people around the company, creating a shared language, sharing best practices and engaging with the topic.

What can you tell us about the Mumbai Fashion Street Kit for the Sims, and how was the Inclusive Design Framework used here? What was done to ensure the content was respectful and authentic to India’s vibrant culture and heritage?

For Mumbai Fashion Street Kit the development team collaborated with fashion expert Shruti Sitara Singh to cocreate a comprehensive and authentic wardrobe of pieces. Born, raised and currently based in Mumbai, Shruti Sitara Singh is an art-meets-fashion curator. She has also worked with the Fashion Design Council of India and led the launch of India’s first-ever digital fashion week. Her expertise and knowledge of Mumbai’s fashion scene made her a perfect fit for this project. Sometimes the work we do with teams is simply about connecting them with the right partners, and this was a great example of that!

EA’s Inclusive Design approach covers a wide area – taking into account gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, socio-economic background, culture & customs, body shapes and sizes, religious beliefs and more. How do you successfully build accessible products for such diverse groups, each with their own different needs?

It can be easy for our industry to fall back on what has always been done, what we think we know and who we perceive our audience to be - unfortunately, that is often white, slim, young and male but we know that’s not the case. A study from the data platform Newzoo last year surveyed players across the US and the UK and found 45% of video game players are women, 30% have a disability, 33% are black, Hispanic or Asian, 13% identify as LGBTQ+. We need to have the courage and the patience as teams to challenge each other, consider gameplay through different eyes, and think about the impact of our games on our players, no matter who they are or how they identify. From my experience it all really starts with inclusive leadership.

How do you best ensure that players with disabilities aren’t excluded from your games?

We have a responsibility to meet the needs of our community and, importantly, that includes the needs of those with disabilities. It’s why earlier this year we announced the Patent Pledge.

The pledge includes five patents that make our most innovative accessibility-centred technology designed to help players with vision, speaking, hearing and cognitive disabilities, publicly available for all developers in the industry - royalty free. Our hope is that developers across the industry implement the technology offered in these patents to break down barriers in their own games for players living with disabilities or medical issues.

It builds on previous initiatives including the launch of the Electronic Arts accessibility portal where players can learn about the accessibility features in Electronic Arts’ games, raise issues and make suggestions for improvements. Electronic Arts also has longstanding partnerships with charities like SpecialEffect to help break down barriers in video games and the industry.