game UI

[svero]

How important is a game's front end? The buttons, options screens etc...

I know we all like fancy menus with slick buttons, but at the end of the day do those screens and the time spent working on them have any effect on a game's sales?

For instance.. suppose zuma had an entirely DOS console style front end. Just plane courier text. Press 1 to play, 2 for options.. that kind of thing. How much would that have affected sales if at all? Is it worthwhile spending much time on the UI?

[Ricardo C]

The UI is important in that, like everything else in the game, it tells the user whether the game looks "professional" enough or not. While I don't think anyone would say "the UI!" when asked what things factored in his/her decision to purchase a game, I think words like "polished look", "professional look", "sleek look", etc. would show up in such a survey.

If I saw a game with a DOS-style UI, I'd probably say "ok, wtf happened here, did they run out of money? For Pete's sake, man, even a polished metal texture with embossed text would do!" and be less eager to play through the game to see its true quality.

[EpicBoy]

I think it's important and I also think it's something you can write once (properly) and not have to revisit for 2 or 3 product cycles. If you write something skinnable, I think you can get away with using it for several products in a row.

[Jack Norton]

Depends on game type... for my kind of games the UI is very important (infact I'm trying to make a nice one for every game).
For arcade game even a key to start the game would be ok, but the graphic aspect shouldn't be poor like a DOS prompt :D

[C_Coder]

First impression matters. Even if the installer of the product is horrible, it will immediately put off people from installing it! Let alone the game UI! :eek:

I didn't want to spend a lot of time in the UI but then it came clear that I need a polished UI to work with. :D

[Linusson]

Menues that are hard to navigate (don't use the "standard" ways, ie mouse, left mousebutton and arrows keys with enter/space) maybe could affect sales a little bit. But if the interface is easy, intuitive and/or maybe have some easy-read instructions, then I don't think it matters much how it look.

But I must admit that courier might be a bit to much. :)

[cliffski]

its vital.
especially for sim/management games.
it depends how much time the player looks at the GUI. in my new game, its ALL GUI, there is no 3D or even 2D world.
so for me the GUI is aboslutely the most vital thing, and its been hell to design.
I think its worth spending at least 25% of your time/budget on the GUi regardless what kind of game it is.

[Tom Cain]

Interface design is important if positive reviews are part of your marketing strategy. Many reviewers will break out the interface as a review bullet item, and they won't necessarily differentiate between front-end and in-game. If the interface isn't good they will give it a low score, which will lower your total review score. The negative paragraph they write about the interface will also impact the tone of the whole review.

This is just one of many reasons I think it is important and worth spending time getting right. Considered interface design has been one of my software's standout features. I know from customers that it has driven many sales.

[princec]

Since trying both styles of GUI, I've decided that "ultra simple click to play" is the way to go. The simpler the UI, the better. No more options or volume sliders or any of that crap.

I might put an extra log in Flux to see who alters the settings.

Cas :)

[ggambett]

I know we all like fancy menus with slick buttons, but at the end of the day do those screens and the time spent working on them have any effect on a game's sales?
I think it does. Imagine Collapse or Zuma without anything but the very essential elements of the game, ie, colored squares or circles.

Even being the same addictive game, with exactly the same gameplay tunning, it would sell much less. Why? I think offering a pleasant visual experience makes the customer want to like the game. Maybe it's what other call "customers say 'it is very polished'", but I think it's never so conscious from their part.

[Matthew]

Using Zuma as the example, I think it's very different for the casual/mainstream markets. In my opinion it's almost impossible for that market to seperate the concepts of presentation and gameplay distinctly. They're almost the same thing. The presentation is such a huge part of the experience that it's part of the game itself to them.

In other markets, though, I think you can get away with much less-polished UI. Chronic Logic is well-known for their minimalistic UIs, and as far as I know their sales have been decent.

[Sillysoft]

In other markets, though, I think you can get away with much less-polished UI. Chronic Logic is well-known for their minimalistic UIs, and as far as I know their sales have been decent.That may be, but I bet they have lost a bunch of sales because of their UI. Maybe you can 'get away with it' if your game is really good, but there's no reason to not have an easy to use UI.

[Hamumu]

I know I hate the Chronic Logic UIs! They're awful! They really make the initial impression of their games be a cross between "slapped together freeware crap" and "college project" (the intense physics elements of their games adds on to that latter sensation).

I think it really helps a lot for your UI to be like your game visually. It doesn't have to have any fancy details, but whoever does the art for your game, give them an extra nickel to slap together some of the game elements into a simple title menu, and it'll give your game a much better first impression. And definitely allow both mouse and keyboard input (if the game is all-mouse play, then you can allow mouse-only, but never do keyboard only, like I did in the past in an effort to be "console-like"... that's just lame and lazy, which describes me well).

[Diodor Bitan]

Even if the conversion rate of a game with console ASCII user interface would be exactly the same as a slick graphical UI, the success of a game will always be influenced (possibly depend) on people who assess the quality of the game from a professional point of view (as opposed to customers - who only care about enjoying themselves - so _may_ not care about the good looks of the UI).

The media (online/printed), the portals, the affiliate sites, the download.com review team, various other publishers, all have to make decisions on games, without really playing them. I suppose a high level of polish should be helpful with them.