Here's how you can stay relevant in game design for the future with industry knowledge and research.

Sometimes, Jesse Schell shares a story about a juggler he met. This juggler was amazing—so good that others tried copying him but just couldn't. Jesse observed this juggler for a while and tried a few of his moves to no avail. The juggler stopped and said to a fascinated Jesse, "Look at them. They try to copy me, but they can't. Why? Because they can't copy my inspiration." This world is amazingly interconnected, so be open to embracing ideas and changes that come from experiences outside of games.

Keep on the lookout for newer games. Best is to play them out, be it online or tabletop. Check out local stores for newer arrivals and also Amazon/Flipkart for board/card games. Similarly checkout online websites. Try to experience yourself first hand and also read reviews and try to correlate what makes the specific games tick

Get involved with game design communities, online and in person. Playtest other designers' games and have them playtest yours. Contribute to discussions about game design, ask questions, share resources. Share and play games together, both the tried and true classics and new releases. Communities will help you hone your craft, solve problems, and finish projects. To get the most out of your experience with any community, I recommend giving at least as much as you get. The relationships you foster this way will be a lasting multiplier on everything you do.

To stay relevant in game design, it's crucial to continually update your industry knowledge and engage in ongoing research. Start by following leading game design blogs, podcasts, and industry news sites to stay informed about the latest trends and technologies. Participate in online forums and social media groups where professionals discuss innovations and challenges. Attend industry conferences, workshops, and webinars to network and learn from peers. Additionally, play a variety of games to understand different design approaches and player preferences. Invest time in learning new tools and software, and consider taking courses on emerging technologies like VR, AR, and AI.

Mediums change, and so do people's needs. Gamers have a subconscious history of the evolution of gaming and their mediums. As a result, their need for stimuli demands either more, or different. In this constant change, a gamer may also get a feeling that what they enjoyed the most has evolved out of the global system, and so much so loses interest in adopting new games. You may have experienced it when scrolling through Netflix figuring out what to watch. It's important to consider the history of gaming to predict the trajectory of your next project.

If people don't know who you are, or what you've done, that is the complete opposite of "relevant". And vice versa - if you don't know what others are doing, you aren't staying up to date with the industry. Showing face and keeping up with everyone, even when you already have a job and aren't looking to move, makes it easier to make that move once you're ready. Additionally, networking outside your discipline or even industry is extremely helpful for innovation.

Networking is extremely important and more so for game designers, since a lot of creativity is involved and that happens by numerous connections. Be it virtual online forums, professional platforms like linked in or in person conferences, webinars, use the opportunity to meet new people and interact with them, read articles and also contribute. This is the sureshot way for enrichment. I have benefited a lot by attending conferences like TiE, NASAGA, MASAGA and also participating in LinkedIn a lot

What if we networked outside the gaming industry? There's a huge opportunity to employ gaming in a spaces that could use a higher level of engagement, fun & learning for its own well-being. Industries such as fashion, healthcare, finance etc. have a potential to use the laws of game-making to increase engagement in their products. You will get a fresh outsider's perspective on how non-gamers look at the topic.

Not everyone is a networking wizard or has the outgoing personality and patience to cope with it. Make sure you connect with the right people. Visit events, make eye contact. Let people get to know you for who you are and not the persona the internet portrays. Authenticity is key to networking. Just like everywhere, not everyone will like you or want to keep in touch so don't get discouraged.

Networking é extremamente relevante para o mercado. Se envolver com outras mentes criativas, ter ideias, compartilhar feedback e impressionar e ser impressionado por projetos de outros é uma das melhores formas de adquirir experiência, contatos e amigos durante a jornada do game design. A melhor forma de se fazer network, em minha opini?o, seria em participar de eventos de tecnologia, tais como Campus Party, Gamescom, BGS, dentre outros.

If you are anticipating the needs of the audience and staying player focused you can adapt your designs and approaches to feel interesting, fresh, and satisfying to the player base. What do they care about, what do they love, what are the skills they are carrying. Fortnite was brilliant to respect the spatial and build sense from a generation of Minecraft players and translating it into a competitive game. Design answers player needs - and respects the things they need to learn about the world in order to thrive; if you can keep providing value to groups of players you will keep making relevant games no matter the tech or social changes.

Mais do que estudar os jogadores a partir de métricas e pesquisas disponíveis no mercado, busco priorizar pesquisas próprias para projeto e colocar o jogador no centro do processo de design. Ter clareza do perfil do jogador é um primeiro passo para em seguida fazer sondagens qualitativas e depois aplicar questionários no intuito de validar as defini??es em maior escala. E, de preferência, fazer testes constantes com usuários desde o conceito, passando por protótipos de baixa e alta fidelidade até as vers?es finais do jogo ou sistema gamificado.

As you study gaming companies, you will see patterns & trends of game-making - you will see different meanings in what they wish to achieve from creating a gaming community. They may not be what you seek out of game-making. It's important to consider your priorities & objectives when considering competition, and not fall into the trend-trap.

Frequent playtesting sessions and a regular QA Tester looking after the project are the easiest ways to keep relevant to the players. Research into similar titles and their communities are also extremely rich knowledge sources. Testers are the closest game development professionals to the target audience and they love what they do - working with QA and seeing them as allies instead of enemies was key to many spectacular success stories.

This is extremely crucial anywhere. How does the game fit into my business needs. What problems is it associated with. What value is it delivering either in making it simpler or more fun and engaging. If its just a game for entertaining it will not sustain for long.

Making a good game is always the best marketing strategy, but there's more to it. Design and distribution are two sides of the same coin -- sides that are very easy to miss in favor of the other. Overmarketing a bad game won't net you ROI, but creating an incredibly polished, appealing, and well-designed game can still lead to failure if the right people don't see it. Make sure to extensively plan how it can reach the eyes of your target audience by applying to festivals, reaching out to content creators, growing a social media presence, and anything else you can think of using your sense of what players like you want to see.

Ask your friends and family what games they purchase and which ones they play. If you stumble upon a community through friends of friends, ask more. Understand the needs in your vicinity firsthand, get a clearer global picture afterwards. This will help you understand how people and their needs are connected - in turn improving your business acumen later.

Without the knowledge about the competition, market situation and potential risks to your project, you won't be able to make your game unique. Everyone thinks they've just had the best idea ever and I've personally met a few people who believed in their uniqueness so much they forgot to do any research. Can't say their games did well on the market. Those constantly digging for inspiration and knowledge about their competition have done much, much better.

Em minha opini?o, as tendências globais costumam acompanhar jogos grandes, porém n?o é porque "tal jogo" está em alta que seu próximo jogo precisa seguir aquele estilo. Agradar grupos de jogadores f?s de um estilo que lhe agrada, e adicionar alguns elementos que est?o em tendência pode funcionar e causar um efeito t?o agradável quanto seguir as tendências por completo.

Analyze to find gaps. Companies that you study may turn blind to obvious opportunities due to ongoing internal processes. From a third person's perspective, you will see how you can position your product so it stands out as well as remains interesting.

Some go with the flow and use trends as design must haves. Some go against it and put the current trends on the no-go list. Either way, trends need to be known to either follow or avoid them.

In my experience, its important to keep a tab on newer emerging trends. AR/VR/Immersive games are on the rise. They will continue to grow too. So important to know. Having said that, whats the context we are operating in and whats the applicability, budget and infrastructure constraints. Thats key to watch too. While looking to the future trends, one should not get carried away by newer technology alone. At the same time, its unwise to keep sticking with same technologies, even if they are giving good benefits today. Technologies and user preferences can change within a few months drastically.

Continuous learning is a must. But what I increasingly find relevant in todays distracted world is a lot of bytes of learning happen on the fly in moments unexpected. A Whatsapp forward or a LinkedIn post leads me to something Wow. And the other source is sharing things and discussing with like minded group members leads to newer learning. Of course formal learning is there like Udemy/Coursera and other forms, but the ones that I have stated have worked for me best

Absolutely, keeping your knowledge up-to-date is a must, especially now with AI shaking things up. It's not just about formal education—there’s a wealth of info out there from discord groups, forums, and social media. For game design, it’s crucial to always be on the lookout for new trends and ideas. Staying curious and constantly learning from a variety of sources will keep you ahead, Just remember to keep your eyes and mind open.

1. Work with professionals from different fields (e.g., artists, writers, sound designers) to broaden your perspective. 2. Playing a wide range of games can provide inspiration and understanding of different game mechanics and genres.

1. Some games have their own mechanics that players tend to lookup for. e.g. FPS players tend to look at different ways to make the bullets "accurate", or Open World players tend to look at the "minor details" the dev worked at. That being said, make sure what you brought to the design "matters" to the players of certain genres. 2. You can do research by talking directly to the target players, try to bring up "what makes certain games more appealing" in "what genre". Therefore you'll have only the important information you'll need to design a game.