“What we’re trying to do at ForthStar, as we did at Playdemic, is to unashamedly make
products that will resonate with the mass market. We want to entertain millions of people”
to succeed?’” He adds quickly: “That’s not because we believe that AI will replace people – because we don’t, but we do believe that AI can rapidly speed up and enhance processes that we think are important, whether that’s focus testing, economy creation, customer support, community management… We’ve done quite a lot of work on that already in ForthStar’s short life and I’m pretty excited.”
SURPRISINGLY FAMILIAR “The other area of innovation, of course, has to be in game design and gameplay,” says Gouge. “You can’t bring something to market in this incredibly competitive space that is exactly the same as something else. I know that sounds counter to some data points and people can point to eight different match-3 games that are all the same and that all make money, but I think what is missed sometimes is the nuance of innovation. We have a phrase that we always apply to mass market endeavours, which is ‘If you’re going to create something surprising, make it familiar. If you’re going to create something familiar, make it surprising.’ What we’re trying to do at ForthStar, as we did at Playdemic, is to unashamedly make products that will resonate with the mass market. We want to entertain millions of people. But to do that, yes, it’s got to be familiar and accessible, but it’s got to be genuinely surprising. With Golf Clash we did something a little bit different. We had an interesting control mechanic. We changed the way you played to just single holes of golf. We changed the way that the courses were structured, and we changed the way that the clubs were put together from many other video games and from traditional golf. Small innovations, that when
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