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Know your competition

There is another reason why a game concept is such an important milestone in starting to create a new game. Once your game genre, audience, and platform are defined, it is possible to take a look at what's out there in the market: your competition. Understanding games similar to the one you will be developing is crucial to the project's success. It is very likely that the developers of those other games have already faced and solved (or maybe not!) many of the problems you will encounter at some point during development.

Communities of players already playing those games might be discussing them in depth online. This is an invaluable resource for you, as you will be able to fix known problems or add features to your game, based on what real players are willing and hoping to play.

Other ways of gaining insight into the competition include game postmortems (first-hand reports on what went right and wrong on a particular game project), user research, analytics, and industry press.

Your competition also defines the state of your game's genre, giving you a clear direction regarding your design. Once you have analyzed your competition, you can ask yourself questions such as:

Is my game too similar to what's already out there?
How is it different?
Does it offer a better and novel experience to its target audience?
If I was a fan of my competitor's game, would I be interested in trying out this new game?

Answering these questions honestly will help you establish and test your USPs.