GDC Talk: Why Dark Souls is the Ikea of Games

Video game producer Justin Fischer discussed the strategies that can be applied to game design and development and analyzed the strategic design of Dark Souls making an analogy with the IKEA business strategy.

In a very easy and understandable way, Justin covered the core basics of strategic thinking and its principles, applied these to IKEA, and highlighted the chosen customer’s audience, cuts, fits, and trade-offs. Then, he moved to Dark Souls and broke down the same aspects of the title. Showing Dark Souls as the game with no cutting edge engine used in the production, sparse music, no tutorials, and limited multiplayer mode, Justin explains why these details brought success to the game.

Justin also compared Dark Souls to Resident Evil 6 which is a complete opposite to the FromSoftware’s title.