Who are we making games for?

Highly recommend people making games to listen into this episode of The Game Design Round Table with Mark Rosewater. The quote below highlights one of the biggest challenges I have seen indie and seasoned developers struggle through of making a game, but not understanding who the audience is. Very inspirational speech at the end, for me it highlights the importance of everyone in a studio understanding the target audience and not just the designers.

Mark says:

"There is a moment when you realize, that you are not the audience. I think when you first start designing, the impulse to design when you begin, is wanting to make the game that I want to make...

That is a great reason to start, but if you want to get into game design as a career, one of the things that is really important to understand is that the vast majority of players want something different. Part of being a good game designer is doing the work of learning who is your audience, what do they want? why do they want it?...

That is the biggest breakthrough in game design. Realizing that you are making things for people who are not you."