The games industry is changing. It’s a business which has always been driven by technology but, for many years, this meant that the gee-whizzery and eye candy aspects of games soaked up all the time, attention and column inches. more polygons at higher frame rates and ever more elaborate rocket launchers were the order of the day. And many developers were perfectly happy with that state of affairs.
However, time and technology stand still for no man (except Dr Who) and we now find the entire games market has evolved into an entirely different beast. Developers can no longer focus solely and wholly upon making games. Developers now have to market their titles, find distribution channels, support ongoing updates, figure out exciting new business models and explore what exactly players want from them.
This last activity has spawned more discussion, debate and fury than any other debate in recent years. The idea of driving game design through data analytics and user behaviour has struck some developers as a hideous inversion of all that is good and true and right within the games world.
However, the reality is that developers who are producing any sort of content for an increasingly crowded market are going to have to explore and understand exactly what players want, how they’re playing the games and what they will respond to over a much longer period of time.
Kudos to Denki then, for their latest recruitment post, which outlines a role that stretches the definition of ‘game developer’ out into new areas.
The company is looking for a Player Champion…
…So much more that we now need our very own customer compass to help us get it; someone to ensure we’re no longer just delivering great games but, instead, delivering the right games and then scaling them into sustainable services through rapid, measured iteration.
Can we make the leap from award-winning ne’er-do-wells to chart-topping-game sensations? We absolutely believe we can because we know how we can. More importantly, you know we can – because you have the quantifiable evidence to prove it.
How do you know? Because you are Denki’s Player Champion!
It’s a challenging role, but one which promises a lot for the right person…
Your focus will be to run customer-focused experiments, reality checking our games against players and the marketplace then feeding the results directly back into development.
Skills including conceiving, facilitating, executing, measuring and drawing actionable conclusions from field experiments are mentioned, along with a challenge to show Denki exactly what you can do, combine to create one of the most interesting roles we’ve yet seen advertised.
Denki is the creator of a multitude of very good games from Denki Blocks! and Juggle to Quarrel. They’ve won BAFTAs. They very occasionally write blogs. You’d like them. Write to them and tell them you can help.