About Session
Everyone wants to make games that are easy to learn, yet also inventive and original. These goals are inevitably in tension: the more you innovate, the harder it becomes for players to learn your game. But the reverse is also true – games that teach effortlessly by doing nothing new are quickly forgotten. Balancing these extremes is a crucial skill for game developers.
This tension reframes the long‑standing friction between game designers and marketing teams. Designers push for inventive changes that marketing often struggles to position as selling points. Meanwhile, designers feel constrained by marketing’s preference for aligning with familiar styles, which can feel unoriginal. Both sides genuinely value originality – they just define it differently.
Designers need to learn that marketing’s instincts aren’t wrong, they’re just poorly communicated. Returning to the original meaning of ‘unique selling point’ offers a way to deliver innovation while keeping the learning curve manageable. The trick is to ask a different question: which player practices are we borrowing…?
