Player Journey

While it’s common to talk about the ‘Target Audience’ when planning a game, we tend to forget that this audience changes as they play. A beginning player is not the same as an experienced player; not only in terms of skills and knowledge, but their expectations, pain points and even the mechanics they interact with change too. It is up to us, as game designers, to guide that player evolution through our design, smoothing it out so there’s always something pulling the player deeper into the experience.

The Player Journey is a way for us to visualize this evolution. It is a grid that consists of two elements:

• Player buckets — A bucket is a grouping of players defined by the game designer; for example “beginners”, “experts”, etc… For player journeys, the buckets are typically defined by the time spent playing the game (i.e. 0-15 hours or 1-2 weeks), but this is not always the case. In titles where game sessions are more sporadic (for example mobile games), it is also common to use leveling as a proxy to divide players (i.e. < level 5 or level 6-10). The important part is to know how many buckets you’ll consider and how you plan to define them. These are placed on the x-axis of the grid.
• Vectors — A vector is what we are tracking throughout the player journey. These are usually placed along the y-axis of the grid. The types of vectors vary wildly, but some of the more common ones include:
  • Mechanics — What mechanics players are engaging with the most? I.e. crafting, raiding, exploring, etc…
  • Progression — How do players at this stage measure their progression? I.e. XP levels, eso rank, gear level, etc…
  • Motivation — What is the main drive for players at this stage? I.e. To pass a level, to complete the story, to rank up the leaderboards, etc…
  • Pain Points — What are the main elements hindering their progression or blocking fulfilling their motivation? I.e. lack of a certain resource, skill, level-gated content, etc…
  • Social — What is the main social element for players at this stage? I.e. clans, gifting items, clan organization, etc…
  • Retention — How are players retained at this point? I.e. daily rewards, appointment mechanics, seasonal events, clans, etc…
  • Monetization — What is the main touchpoint for player spend in this bucket? I.e. starter packs, season pass, gatcha, etc…

Different types of games will have different vectors. For example, most premium games won’t have a monetization vector, as it doesn’t change along with the player. By the same token, certain charity games could have a “social impact” vector, where the manner in which players engage with the topic at hand evolves as they play.

Other designers have explained their versions of this tool (for example, James Portnow at Extra Credits), however I have not been able to find the original source for Player Journeys. If anyone knows it, please let me know!

1. Decide how many buckets you plan to use.
2. Define them, be it by time, XP levels, or other metrics
3. List out the vectors that you are interested in.
4. Start filling in the grid with your thoughts on each vector

The two things to watch out for are gaps (empty cross-sections) clusters (cross-sections that have too many ideas in them). The former is more dangerous than the latter, as a player might not be able to cross a gap. Clusters are more of a production danger; the resources making these systems might be better used in another part of the project.

Personally, I suggest defining motivation, progression & pain points first; a lot of the decisions on when to introduce mechanics are based on how we want players to feel at any given time. Look into the MDA framework for more information.

Let’s imagine we’re working on a mobile hidden object game such as Pearl’s Perils:

The game is meant to be easy to get into, but keep players engaged for months afterwards. They generally include a deep story with tons of characters to keep players engaged. As a designer, you want to know how players will be engaged throughout so you can direct them from one part of the game to the next. Together with the design team, you make a player journey grid.

From here there are a couple of conclusions we can reach. We see that the mid game is weak. Not only are there gaps in the retention for mid players, but a lot of the progression & mechanics rely on unlocking new areas. This would be fine if there were any new mechanics in those areas, but so far it seems to be more of the same. We can also find a cluster in the elder game; a lot of work will be put into making events, clans and leaderboards; Would this effort be better placed elsewhere?

With this in mind we can start making some changes. We’ll introduce the character narratives earlier to players in the mid bucket and move clans up to the late players. Alternatively we could also drop an elder mechanic such as clans, and instead use it to make something for the mid players, such as a ‘house customization’ system. This would lead to a more balanced player journey.

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