Play to Win - Defining a Winning Strategy

Overview

Making an optimal choice on 'Where to Play' is the first step to building a strategy for your game. By intentionally selecting a genre, we’ve already begun making decisions that maximize our odds of success.

The next step is defining 'How to Win'. We start with these three steps:

1. Analyze the genre and its audience

2. Identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement

3. Define core game components and innovations

This process gives us a deep understanding of what players care about in the genre, what problems and opportunities exist, and how that translates into what we aim to build.

Important: This work should be done by a cross-disciplinary group. Each discipline contributes a unique lens, helping the team form a more complete, shared understanding. The goal is to reduce ambiguity.

Genre Analysis

As a Player

We start with deep dives into high-performing games in the genre. Each person plays ~10 hours per title across at least 3 games. Focus on how the experience feels; what engages you, what frustrates you. Take notes.

This is a divergent exercise: everyone plays and reflects individually, then brings findings back to the group. The goal of discussion is to begin mapping where the team sees value and friction.

As a Developer

Now, shift into observation. One person plays while others spectate. This becomes more like a build review, focusing on parts of the experience in detail. Discuss why certain features work, where they fail, and opportunities to improve.

Note: Use drawings or visuals where possible. They’re less ambiguous than words and help build alignment faster.

Opportunities

Wrap up the analysis by creating a list of genre-specific problems, needs, and wants. What truly matters to the audience? Use this as fuel for discussion and to set up the next step on game components.

For example, in Hades, some players may find that their out-game choices result in them 'fishing' for in-game builds. This might be viewed as unsatisfying or limiting variability. We'd add this to our list of opportunities.

Components

Every game is a collection of components. Take the time to define which ones matter to the genre you’re working within. For example, the below image highlights some components from the Roguelite genre:

Then, go deeper. What does each component do for the player? See the image below for a refinement of Roguelite components:

Not every component needs to be in your game. A big part of strategic differentiation is choosing what to include and what to leave out. Binding of Isaac emphasizes 'Exploration'; Slay the Spire does not. That’s a deliberate strategic difference.

The outcome of this step is a shared understanding of what components you’re targeting and what they mean in your game’s context. This structure constrains creativity in a good way, as it allows for focused, intentional innovation.

By the end, you should have:

1. Shared insights on genre benchmarks

2. A list of prioritized opportunities

3. A map of core components and their function

Building a Thesis

With a shared understanding and a refined component list, it’s time to draft a thesis. Why will players choose your game over others? What is your draw?

Ground this in both the current and future market. Especially in emerging genres, where new competition is heavy, be careful to ensure your thesis is defensible. It should have a strong selling point but be something that others can't easily duplicate.

Example Thesis

An example thesis for a Tower Defense contender might look like this:

In-game variability driven by randomization and a-sync PvP to create more interesting resource management than current competitors.

This example tells us that the team will emphasize in-game variability, which is a significant weak point in most tower defense games. The assumption is that players want a more dynamic, challenging puzzle, versus the current status quo of a more deterministic style puzzle. They may point to games like Legion TD or other successful mods within the Starcraft 2 Arcade as evidence for the underlying need. Others might counter this point by looking at more traditional games like Kingdom Rush to emphasize the point around determinism, arguing that players instead want more progression or deck building to drive variability.

Ultimately, the best theses emerge from cross-discipline discussion. For example, Garena’s Free Fire built a thesis around accessibility, targeting markets other Battle Royales couldn’t reach by running under 1.5 GB of RAM. That thesis shaped every downstream decision.

Bringing it Together

You’ve now made a series of deliberate strategic choices, defining Where to Play and How to Win. You’ve selected a genre that gives you the best shot at success and defined a clear, competitive thesis aligned with your business goals.

You’re heading into pre-production with confidence, not just in the product, but in the team. You’ve built a shared understanding across disciplines, giving everyone the clarity they need to make aligned decisions quickly and independently.

But strategy isn’t something you build once.

It’s a shared understanding you continuously refine. As the market shifts and your game evolves, revisit the choices you’ve made and continuously stress-test them.

The goal isn’t to make perfect decisions. It’s to make better decisions, faster, with more alignment.

That’s what strategy unlocks.

You are now Playing to Win.