New Interview on AMFP - "Infection" Mechanic Was Cut

[Dikiyoba]

I think the point Ash was making is that the work shouldn't require the author to anticipate whether or not the audience will reach the end at all, nor for the author to alter the work accordingly. It shouldn't even be a consideration.

Dan intentionally making the game less scary so that people would stick with it to the end is an example of how wanting to keep people on board for the whole ride affects the overall work in a massive way. His initial vision, which was apparently much more frightening and Amnesiaesque, was shelved in favour of something else, for no reason other than wanting to ensure people got to the end. That's no way to approach any piece of art.

I also echo Ash's interest in finding out where this idea about "most" people not completing the game comes from. Sounds dubious to me, given how massively popular TDD is. For a game "most" people haven't finished it's sure done pretty well for itself, financially, critically and culturally! I'm not being flippant here, I would really love to know how anyone could possibly know the completion rate for TDD.

What's really strange about focusing on the low completion rates of TDD and changing AMfP because of it is that all video games have a low completion rate. Maybe the players didn't like something about the game, maybe they got distracted by something else, maybe they didn't ever have the time, maybe their computer crashed and they lost their save, maybe they only bought it because it was on sale and never had any real intention to play the game. There are lots and lots of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with the quality of the game itself. Maybe some people couldn't finish TDD because it was too scary, but that's balanced out by the number of people who were attracted to the game only because it was so scary, and pales in comparison to the number of people who didn't complete it for other reasons that have no connection to the content of the game at all. Changing the game in an attempt to make more people complete it is futile. You're better off making a high-quality, interesting game and market it appropriately so that you attract a large (or at least devoted) audience who will recommend it to their friends and return for future titles. You're better off with an audience of 100 of which only 30 people ever complete the game than you are with an audience of 30 but 28 of those people complete the game.