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How ‘feeling focused’ could make your game more awesome

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Mariya Yao is a mobile product designer and founder of Xanadu

When game developers brainstorm a new product idea, they typically start with a simple mechanic and build their game around it. It’s common to take a classic puzzle type or trendy social mechanic and simply slap on a new set of themes and characters. After all, proven mechanics sell well and game studios need hits to survive.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.