Topic: Some interesting tidbits from random japanese developers

[Ian Sane]

Remember when Nintendo said that it was strange that so many people watched tv, but so few played games? Nintendo is the one trying to broaden and grow the videogame market, just like the music industry that has the widespread appeal (i.e. blue ocean) you say can support different demographics and niches Ian. Viewed from that sense, Nintendo is, well, helping to protect gaming.

Their attempts to grow the market however involve dumbing videogames down, at least from my perspective anyway.  While this will increase the market size I'm not so optimistic about it truly providing widespread appeal and supporting different demographics.  I figure it will just make 80% of the game market the non-gamer crowd and THAT is what will get focused on.  The core gamers that used to have like 90% of all videogames targetted at them will be the niche market struggling to find games that interest them.  I think the Wii being this uber console that equally satisfies the old and new markets is a pipe dream.  I think this for a couple of reasons:

1. Nintendo's idea of appealing to everyone has always involved making games that everyone can like.  They don't make five games that each appeal to one of five people.  They'll make five games that all five people COULD like and as a result two of them like it a lot, two of them think it's okay but aren't thrilled with it and one doesn't like it at all.  Nintendo doesn't provide variety.  They don't understand the concept.  This is why Nintendo stuck to family friendly games.  Mature games are innappropriate for kids but a cutesy game with good gameplay is technically appropriate for everyone.  The fact that 18-25 year old males get tired of playing cutesy games never occured to them or they didn't care.  Making something everyone CAN like is good enough to them.  That's why they "casualized" Mario Kart.  That's why they told us a glorified remake of Animal Crossing was for core gamers.  Any past attempts by Nintendo to truly provide variety has always been a token effort.  I think they just don't care provided they make a profit.

2. I truly believe that videogames require too much active participation to be truly as mainstream as film or music.  Nintendo's solution to this seems to be to decrease the amount of effort or skill required to enjoy a game.  But I see this more as making a game-like product.  It's not bringing videogames to the masses, it is compromising the very nature of videogames to make them mainstream friendly.  To me it's like a completely different product and thus will not benefit the creation of "true" videogames.  But because the same companies are involved it will just increase the focus on non-games since the market for them is bigger.  The console model with third party licencing is also too restrictive to allow true demographic representation.  You can't just waltz in and make a console game.  Independent film and music truly allows for demographics in those mediums.  Console gaming is like the old studio system.

3. Third parties are not reacting in the way we want them to.  Deguello is always pointing out how the Wii third party support SHOULD be better than it is.  Him and I, well, rarely see eye-to-eye but I agree with him on that.  Last gen and every gen before it it was all about supporting the market leader.  But the suits making the decisions interpretted the Wii's success in an entirely different way than we expected.  Nintendo got ahead by selling to non-gamers.  The publisher doesn't think "hey we can sell [awesome game x] to way more people on the Wii" they think "hey we can just release total worthless shovelware on this console and all these rubes who are new to videogames will buy it because of their ignorance!"  And that's what we get.  Deg points out that some Wii games are selling better than their 360 counterparts despite being phoned in.  Well that's part of the problem isn't it?  We see that as a reason to provide your best stuff to the Wii.  The suit sees it as an opportunity to make money with less effort.  So if you're working for a third party and your awesome PS3/360 game is getting creamed in sales by some throwaway junk title on the Wii.  If your boss tells you to start working on the Wii do you think he's going to ask you to make your next GOTY masterpiece on it or some throwaway junk that won't cost much to make and will sell regardless of poor reviews?  Does he even NEED you when talent is not a requirement for success.

The Wii really comes across as the shovelware console.  If it's the future of gaming does it mean that the Wii is going to get better or shovelware is the future?  If you're scared that the Wii's dominance will result in a shovelware future then I can totally understand why you would see the success of the HD consoles as some duty.  Some of these guys likely have a delusional view that they have to save gaming by not supporting Casualintendo.

[Deguello]

Other than wondering exactly what you mean by "casualizing Mario Kart," my main point with your post is with your third point, where you seem to have this idea that shovelware actually sells on the Wii.  It really doesn't.  It may be profitable to make because it is so cheap to make, but it's not like it's topping the charts all the time.

In fact, the top 5 games for the Wii are (Not counting Wii Sports or Wii Play, as one is a pack-in and the other is obviously being bought for the extra controller) Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Smash Bros., Mario Galaxy, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.  None of these, outside of maybe Olympics due to the re-use of some material, were games that were "phoned in."  They all took a long time to make.  They are not shovelware.  The highest selling "Shovelware" title for the Wii is Carnival Games, at about 2 and a half million, and the highest selling "shovelware" title for the PS2 was The Simpsons: Hit and Run at about 4 and a quarter million.  Until a shovelware games reaches that point, I'd say the Wii was free of a supposed shovelware problem.

The reason I want third parties to support Wii, other than the obvious common sense of it all, is because I'd actually like them to stick around and not die because one or two developers wants to waste all their money on one 360 game.  Nintendo is literally free to make all the money this generation, and that's going to spell trouble when Nintendo expands greatly and 3rd parties shrink to the point of being easily bought out for peanuts.  These guys really need to start thinking "big picture" here.

[Kairon]

Their attempts to grow the market however involve dumbing videogames down, at least from my perspective anyway.

There are people who share that opinion for movies and music too Ian. I mean... it's not that hard to find someone who sneers at the thought of pop-artists, or popcorn movies. But films have survived: my netflix list is chock full of films that are guaranteed to depress me in some way or another. Music has also survived, despite the market expanding to segments that don't listen to traditional hardcore oldschool classical music... anyways, I think the new classical music of today is in movie scores.

Making something everyone CAN like is good enough to them.

I see what you're saying... but seriously, what's wrong with making a game that people can like? I mean, isn't this what Nintendo's been about since absolutely forever? It's certainly nice to have people like Suda 51 who make what he terms "punk" games (games that have distinctively unique styles, I think, by his definition), but Miyamoto has his own artistic vision, and who are you to fault him for that?

And seriously... what makes you think that Animal Crossing is a game that ANYONE can like? It's a game that has a core fanbase of people with VERY SPECIFIC TASTES. I mean, there's absolutely no other game like Animal Crossing out there. It's totally one-of-a-kind, and, if I may say so, extremely niche.

2. I truly believe that videogames require too much active participation to be truly as mainstream as film or music.

Ahh... so then you don't agree with the basic premise behind the Wii at all then? That's a pretty fundamental philosophical disagreement with what Iwata's doing then isn't it?

Nintendo's solution to this seems to be to decrease the amount of effort or skill required to enjoy a game.

Well, I don't have Wii Music yet, but from my recent obsession with reading up and watching videos from the game, it seems like Wii Music may be easy to pick and play, but requires epic amounts of skill and dedication and even practice to master at all levels of depth and enjoyment.

The console model with third party licencing is also too restrictive to allow true demographic representation.  You can't just waltz in and make a console game.  Independent film and music truly allows for demographics in those mediums.  Console gaming is like the old studio system.

Yeah, this is probably true. I mean, you even need to be a Nintendo-licensed developer for WiiWare. There's a reason that PC gaming is still held in high-esteem, after all, by many hardcore gamers.

3. Third parties are not reacting in the way we want them to.

Yeah, I know. I think that's why there are those wondering when a third-party die-out will occur. Third parties are slower at maneuvering, but worse, they may be indicative of the worse aspects of that old-hollywood era "studio structure" you talked about, and may outright have their heads in the sand.

Deg points out that some Wii games are selling better than their 360 counterparts despite being phoned in.  Well that's part of the problem isn't it?  We see that as a reason to provide your best stuff to the Wii.  The suit sees it as an opportunity to make money with less effort.

You paint a grim picture here Ian, but you also have to agree that a smart third party will increase Wii Support and effort as a result. Just look at the examples of both Guitar Hero and even Rock Band. There are positive outcomes as well as negative ones.

Does he even NEED you when talent is not a requirement for success.

YES. If there's anything that Nintendo's non-gaming successes have shown, it is that if you put your BEST talent on these challenges, you can reap the rewards. Nintendo's best teams made Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Music even. These are deep games with huge technical challenges that needed to be overcome, and they came out with flying colors. Yes, even Wii Music, which has already found a hardcore fanbase that is crazy about it and has the potential of the evergreen sales that are a result of QUALITY, not phoned-in efforts.

Any company that thinks that you don't need your best, most inventive, most pioneering people on these sorts of games is making a big mistake. The Wii's market is a frontier, full of challenge and adventure, and rewards, for those willing to explore it.

[KDR_11k]

Their attempts to grow the market however involve dumbing videogames down, at least from my perspective anyway.

Definitely a perspective thing. To PC gamers consoles have been dumbing everything down for years already and the fault lies mostly with the HD consoles (and their ancestors, of course) whose games overlap with the PC's.

They don't make five games that each appeal to one of five people.  They'll make five games that all five people COULD like and as a result two of them like it a lot, two of them think it's okay but aren't thrilled with it and one doesn't like it at all.

Well, there's logic to that. Let's say the ones who like it somewhat have a 50% chance of buying, that means on average 3/5 people buy it while the specialized games appeal to 1/5. Each game costs about the same to make (well, if we're talking about fractions within the old or new market, not the split between the two since the old market demands like 10x the budget) and its sales must be optimized to get those dev costs back. Also at the rate Nintendo is puting games out they can't afford to target each at a different niche (in your example everyone would get one game out of a five game dev cycle, they'd complain about a lack of games immediately), with wide appeal at least most users will like most of the games that come out and get a decent number of games. Hell, you're already complaining now that Nintendo is fracturing their output into two types of games, imagine they made even fewer games that appealed to you.

I truly believe that videogames require too much active participation to be truly as mainstream as film or music.  Nintendo's solution to this seems to be to decrease the amount of effort or skill required to enjoy a game.

Yes because actually swinging the Wiimote around like a bat is much less effort than pressing a button when the on-screen indicators line up. The ones who go towards less skill and effort are the ones who make movie-like games where the gameplay is just an interlude between cutscenes. Hell, in the latest PoP you can't even die, how's that for no effort or skill? Movie games can't allow the player to fail because noone wants to repeatedly rewatch scenes from a "movie" in order to best a challenge, they want to watch the movie to the end. Hence difficulties are dropping everywhere in the hardcore games.

Or are you thinking that Wii Music is the only indicator of what Nintendo is doing? It's a productivity application (what some call a "non-game" which is a weird label anyway, categorizing something by what it isn't rather than by what it is? Is non-FPS a genre?), of course there's no "game over" screen.