Understanding Game Design Choices

tim-cain game-design player-preferences design-philosophy bifurcation

Abstract

Problem: Why do games ship with design choices that some players dislike or disagree with?

Approach: Tim Cain walks through the fundamental economics and psychology of game design decisions, explaining how every feature choice inevitably splits the player base.

Findings: Every design decision "bifurcates" players into those who like it and those who hate it — and even offering options as a compromise creates its own group of detractors. The driving force behind which side a designer picks is money: maximize the group you please, minimize the group you alienate.

Key insight: You cannot please 100% of players with any feature set, and the goal of commercial game design is to minimize the group you displease — which is why games exist that you personally don't like, and that's not a failure of design.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWvSaAGt9N8

The Fundamental Rule: Every Choice Bifurcates

Tim Cain's core thesis is built on two premises that he considers self-evident:

  • People like different things. Chocolate vs. vanilla. Marvel movies vs. art house cinema. This extends directly to games.
  • Everybody has money, and they spend it on different things.

From these two facts, everything else follows. Every single design choice a developer makes divides the player base into two groups: those who like it and those who hate it. This is inescapable — it's why no game, movie, or book has ever achieved 100% positive reception.

The Options Trap

A natural instinct is to sidestep the problem by offering options — let players toggle features on or off. Tim explains why this doesn't solve the bifurcation problem and actually makes it worse:

  • Some players hate options themselves. They see it as the designer failing to commit — "pushing the decision off to the player" rather than having a clear vision.
  • Some players will choose the setting they dislike, then blame the game. Tim notes commenters who've said things like: "If you let me save anywhere, I'll save-scum and hate your game. If you let me pick easy difficulty, I'll find it unchallenging and won't like your game."
  • Some players hate if you don't provide options.

The Complete Venn Diagram

For any binary design choice (A or B):

  1. Some people hate A
  2. Some people hate B
  3. Some people hate that you offer a choice between A and B
  4. Some people hate that you don't offer a choice between A and B

There is no escape. No amount of cleverness eliminates the split.

It's All About Money

Tim's recurring answer to "why did they make this design choice?" is simply: money. Designers try to bifurcate the player base so that the largest possible group is satisfied. This means:

  • If you're in the smaller group that dislikes a popular choice, that's why the games you want don't get made — there aren't enough of you to fund them.
  • The people who like games you dislike aren't stupid, naive, or ignorant. They just have different tastes and they spend money too.
  • The sheer volume of games on platforms like Steam exists because developers are trying to serve many different demographics.

Advice for Developers and Players

For aspiring developers: Accept that every decision you make will be loved by some and ridiculed by others. There is no design decision that won't bifurcate your audience. If you're getting into game development — good luck.

For players who want niche games: Tim encourages them to make the game themselves. He won't promise it'll sell well or review well, but it's the surest path to getting exactly what you want.

For everyone: You can't get a world full of games you love without also getting a world full of games you don't. That's the unavoidable duality of a market serving diverse tastes.

References