 So a big thanks to everyone who left a comment in the last video it was a lot of fun to read through all of your experience and perspectives and it looks like that most of us are actually on the same page in that you would probably spend most of your resources trying to please your dedicated audience over the average audience. Now that being said I do think it's important to point out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with targeting the average audience either because there are actually good reasons and benefits to making a game for casuals. It tends to be a pretty low risk low reward type venue and there's always a chance that a hardcore audience will emerge from the casual audience unexpectedly. One of the best known examples of this can be seen in the history of the game Super Smash Bros where despite the devs attempt to make it just a party game there are thousands of players around the world that dedicate their life to just practicing this game. So there's a good time in place for games like Angry Bird, Candy Crush, Fruit Ninja, Farmville and the like. I just think that the rules for game design change a little bit once you have a fan base and have dedicated gamers that expect a certain flavor from your next work. But when you're starting out and nobody knows who you are and you have zero following that's actually kind of a fun moment because at this point you can really take the project in any direction you want with very minimal chance of getting backlash because simply put nobody's expecting anything from you yet. So if you don't have a following or really an audience yet you should see that as an opportunity because once you get to the other side you don't really have that kind of freedom anymore. Now when it does come to having a really strong dedicated audience I think the best real-time examples you can find for when developers miss or hit the target audience can be found by just looking at the difference between Blizzard's Diablo 4 and from Software's Armored Core 6. So let's take a look at both of these situations as game developers and see what we can learn because I believe that from Software has a proven technique to reliably and consistently deliver what their target audience wants while also slowly making it more accessible to a wider range of players and I say this as someone who has played Armored Core religiously for 23 years. It's my favorite game ever and I can tell you firsthand that every time from Software releases a new Armored Core game I have always received exactly what I expect and want in a new Armored Core game. So from Software knows what they're doing. It's not luck when you nail something 16 times in a row. It's a strategy and it's a strategy that I think more developers should be aware of but before we talk about how developers nail this let's talk about when developers miss this. When you have such a massive hardcore fan base ready to support you and some of the best art programming and animation talent in the world could buy on your team how do you lose more than 80 percent of your players in the first few months. Well I'm pretty sure it's a combination of multiple things but personally I think it all makes sense if you just watch the devs play their own game. Now I don't know about you but when I was watching this as soon as I heard this I don't know it kind of depends like that one of the cool things about our dungeon group is that we all kind of have like different games that we like and different games that we're good at you know some of us are a little more casual some of us are a little more hardcore and it's kind of cool because then we can try and find this like balance between all of our stuff. Everything about the state of the game made sense the devs are all over the place and they're not prioritizing the player experience when they're building this stuff they're prioritizing their own experience between the hardcore and casual staff on the dev team so if you're a hardcore player then by definition those words tell you everything you need to know of course it doesn't feel like it was made for you you weren't the priority balance between you and the opposite of you was the priority when you're in the triple a world it's not like being an indie dev anymore because it's not your game anymore it's the player's game it sounds like the devs just made what they want and whatever the player wanted comes second and the weird part about all this is Diablo was never a casual game like gamers who enjoy playing candy crush farmville and fruit ninja are not going to wake up one day and suddenly want to dump hundreds of hours and money at a game like Diablo four it doesn't matter how easy or balanced you make it the everyone audience is simply not the kind of audience that's going to come fly halfway around the world to fill seats at your events that's something only the hardcore audience does so when you treat the hardcore audience like this you should not be surprised that you end up with an empty stadium all by yourself which brings me to the biggest lesson here which is the importance of direction the reason more than 80 of the hardcore audience gave up on the game's future is because of something called leadership and direction no amount of talent skill or experience is going to fix a game that is aimed in a direction that your players do not want when you see the team leaders of the developers straight up say things like and find this like balance between all of our stuff any confidence that the players have that the direction of the game is going to change evaporates so now that you know how to make your audience feel like this we don't have any plans at the moment to do a pc let's talk about how to make your audience feel like this now unlike a lot of game series out there armored core is one of the few games where the main hardcore fans have always been a priority focus for the developers and of course there are drawbacks to this strategy mainly the fact being that because you're targeting such a specific audience you're not going to have a big audience which is the reason why literally no one in the world had ever heard of armored core before last month but as someone who's played armored core for their entire life let me tell you I as a gamer have never felt so catered to in a game then when I play armored core most triple-a companies will try and change the game as much as possible until the players get mad from software on the other hand takes the total opposite approach now we don't have a lot of footage of the from software dev teams talking about how they build their games but I can tell you with 180 certainty that this is what the meetings for armored core basically look like okay we have to make a new armored core game for the ps2 but how do we do it in a way so our old players like the new game uh sir I have an idea timmy I told you that's too risky hold on jim it's important that we give the interns a fair hearing go ahead kid thank you sir well what if we just made armored core two just like armored core one with better graphics Jesus timmy do you have any idea how boring that sounds now that's a very bold move kid sir I'm sorry I've told him a thousand times that we have to push boundaries and pioneer new gaming landscapes hold on there jim timmy are you sure that's what the players really want well I don't know sir but I believe they would at least tolerate it and also that's what I would really want from a game I enjoy well we don't have a lot of resources if the players at least tolerate it then maybe we can make enough to keep the series going let's do it okay now we got to work on armored core three what do you got team well sir I have another bold idea timmy we talked about this let the kids speak jim thank you sir okay what if we made armored core three just like armored core two with more weapons sure let's try it all right team it's time to make armored core four timmy what do you think we should do um sir shut up jim yes sir well sir what if we made armored core four like armored core three with more intuitive controls let's do it this has literally been from software strategy since day one in 1997 and I'm surprised I don't really see other companies use the same thing more often you see the key to keeping your target audience for your game happy in the next game is to not change the game it's to keep the game the same with improvements armored core two is just armored core one with better graphics armored core three is just armored core two with more guns and better graphics and last month I can confirm as a dedicated armored core player that armored core six is just armored core with better graphics more guns more customization better controls and a better story that's it it's just everything I know and love about armored core done better cleaner faster and more intuitive and that is how from software has done it for the past 23 years they do not change what the player already loves about the game they preserve it with respect dignity and honor and the things they do change are usually features that most people would agree generally just make the entire game objectively better to the point where even if armored core isn't your cup of tea if you just want to play a good game there's a pretty good chance that you'll enjoy your time with armored core because armored core is just a well-polished good game it's definitely not for everybody but it's a good game so if you've completed a game before and you have a small dedicated audience I would highly recommend that you just make your next game like your old game but with some improvements maybe clean up the UI fix the controls remove some glitches improve the graphics make more customization make more weapons smarter AI bigger bosses more bosses these kind of changes are usually a pretty safe way to improve the game without changing what the players love about it of course use your best judgment and make the best decision based on your own experience but overall I think it's a pretty safe strategy that more people should be aware of so I hope that helps thank you so much for watching man as always hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around