“Itchie”, a Japanese programmer and producer who used to work at game companies like Square and SNK, recently took to X to reflect on a fallacy that tripped him up earlier in his career as a developer. The post has since set off a discussion about tutorials in games – especially gamers’ inherent dislike of them.
“Back when I was developing mobile games,” Itchie wrote, “I once noticed a high player dropout rate, and suspecting that players were getting stuck during the tutorial, I decided to add extra explanations. However, after closely examining logs, I realized that players were barely reading the instructions in the first place. The reason for the high dropout wasn’t because people didn’t understand, it was because they were made to wait too long without getting to touch the controls.” Upon realizing this, Itchie revised the game’s instructions and shortened the tutorial section by 30 seconds, which led to a visible improvement in player retention.
“It was an example of a failure caused by the developer making assumptions about players’ comprehension instead of measuring it,” he recalled.
In response, game developer Shimaguni Yamato added, “People in management tend to say, ‘Add more explanations!’ but I’m always reluctant to do so. I think it’s better to give players that sense of thrill right away, rather than giving them instructions. Game systems are a pain, so players will prefer to learn about them after they’re already hooked.” Addressing criticism of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – which, despite its popularity, is known for having pretty dense tutorial sections – they emphasize that tutorials are best introduced mid-game, preferably in bite-sized portions, with a clear distinction between core game rules and non-essential ones.
Hiroyuki Matsumoto, CEO of 3D model outsourcing company Flight Unit and character designer of well-known franchises like Atelier, puts things more bluntly, commenting, “Players just want to play the game no matter what, so they hate tutorials.” He backs this up with his own experience as a gamer. “I play all sorts of games every day, but honestly, even if they explain the basics at the start, I never remember or understand them. Even if I play like crazy, I’ll forget everything after stepping away from it for a while. All I really need is a red circle to guide me here and there and a quick prompt before I’m about to spend an important item.”
On the flip side, the discussion has prompted many to praise the ways of Nintendo when it comes to explaining game mechanics without dumping information onto the player. As Indie-us Games lead Alwei comments, “Based on my experience, the conclusion is that players don’t read manuals, skip tutorials, and won’t even try to look for instructions until they absolutely have to. Nintendo has been the best at this so far, introducing controls through gameplay in a way that doesn’t feel like a tutorial. And lately they’ve even gone so far as to omit tutorials altogether, like with Mario Kart.” In response, players have highlighted titles like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the more recent Donkey Kong Bananza as titles with the “ideal” tutorials.
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