Topic: DICE: Targeting Tomorrow's Consumer Today

[Bloodworth]

Four marketing VPs on one stage, including Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan.

Although gamers' focus on the DICE Summit is the Interactive Achievement  Awards, the summit also features two full days of seminars for developers.  Since Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan was speaking, PGC attended the  second seminar this morning, entitled "Targeting Tomorrow's Consumer Today".   Moderated by Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, the panel featured marketing vice-presidents from  EA, Nintendo, THQ, and Ubisoft.  

The discussion actually dealt less specifically with gearing up for the next round  of hardware than with a number of current marketing issues, such as demographic  trends and the timing of release schedules.  Kaplan kept to the standard  Nintendo responses throughout the session, and often managed to slide in  GBA sales numbers, mentioning that it was the best-selling system of 2003 and  that the new Pokemon games in Japan (Fire Red and Leaf Green) have already sold two million copies.  

Once again, Kaplan showed the big difference between Nintendo's attitude  towards online gaming compared to the other companies.  The other  representatives were all very excited about the potential of online games, and they were very clear that players should pay for extra content and the extra development effort that  would be spent on online games versus traditional offline games.  EA's representative  pointed out that while it may be difficult for PC gamers to accept new payment  plans, there's still time to establish the business side of online games for  consoles.  Kaplan again stated that Nintendo is not interested in charging  gamers more money for games they've already purchased, and she brought up the  potential of connecting wirelessly as was implemented with the recent  Pokemon releases in Japan.

Another part of the discussion dealt with promoting interest in older games, since  the movie and music industries generate a lot of revenue based on catalog  sales.  Player's Choice programs were commonly seen as one of the best  measures to promote sales, as classics cannot compete at the same price point  as newer games.  One interesting concept that came up was generating interest  in new titles by adding trailers of upcoming games to a game when it takes on  Greatest Hits status.  Perrin said that Nintendo classics generally do very well,  and that they have been trying similar strategies -- possibly referring to the  various bonus discs Nintendo released last year.

Timing was another important issue, with more and more  games coming out during the holiday season.  Beyond Good & Evil was  specifically brought up, and while Ubisoft admits that the game got buried, Tony  Kee expressed that since it is such an artsy game, it's not clear that it would  have done better in another quarter.  The panelists all generally agreed that  gamers only have so many dollars and so many hours in November, and there  have been more successful releases outside of the fourth quarter timeframe in  the past few years.  Kaplan also mentioned the importance of other times of the  year that can be taken advantage of, such as when school lets out for the  summer.

PGC will have more coming from DICE and the Interactive Achievement Awards  as the summit continues.

[uramario]

not trying to bring the whole online thing back, but i still dont really enjoy nintendo's stance on the subject, can understand but dont like. What really catches my  intrest though is how they say they dont like the idea of charging extra for online content while everyone else on the subject was more then egar to jump on the idea.  

[mouse_clicker]

I swear, can we put a cap on discussion about online gameplay, or at least limit it to one thread (I won't post in it, I promise). I may be one of Nintendo's biggest supporters in this regard, but everything that can be said has been said, and until new information is brought to light I don't see any discussion of the topic progressing much at all.

[Bill Aurion]

Don't get me started on online... >=(

[Djunknown]

Quote
The panelists all generally agreed that gamers only have so many dollars and so many hours in November, and there have been more successful releases outside of the fourth quarter timeframe in the past few years. Kaplan

Finally! Some common sense is sinking in! Nintendo for the 2nd year in a row is using a dry month that is March, and has some high profile releases (Metal Gear, Pokemon Colessum, Harvest Moon, etc).

This 'Let's give them ALL our good stuff during the 4th quarter' campaign has to end. Other wise, as mentioned earlier, some really good games will get buried.

P.S Is BG&E really considered 'artsy?'

[nemo_83]

BG&E was not artsy.  I didn't really enjoy the game, but that aside the character designs and personalities were pretty stock as far as I'm concerned.  A jovial pig and a clever MTV vj didn't realy motivate me to get the game; it was all of the rave reviews.  I felt the game was overrated while other games like FZERO (which isn't very much on the creative side of art either) were judged too harshly last year.  The only thing I liked about BG&E was the whole gov't conspiracy (I'm a bleeding heart liberal and just ate that up.)

And lets do talk about online.  If we don't Nintendo may get confused and think we really want to stay away from online even though we go online on other platforms to play games already.  

[KDR_11k]

Well, then. Tell us how Nintendo could set up an online environment without losing money on it.

[Bloodworth]

Seriously guys, don't feel like Nintendo is trying to rip you off. They're just really against subscription fees.   These other guys are partly interested in the creative potential, but were very clear that in the future of online games, "You're gonna pay!" (That's a real quote from Ubisoft by the way.) That includes stuff you're currently getting for free like FPS games. Their justification is that if you spend $40 on a game that lasts 40 hours, then why should you get a game that lasts hundreds of hours for the same price?

I don't buy that logic, and it doesn't seem Nintendo does either.

[KDR_11k]

Sounds like they want compensation for the time we don't spend buying new games... And I say the price must go DOWN, not UP!

[Don'tHate742]

$50 is ludacris already and there thinking of jacking up the price?! One of the best reasons for games not become as commercial as movies and music is becuase it costs too damn much.  Even with people willing to buy something for 50 bucks theres alot of better ways to put that money to use. They need to make the price $30 for GC and GBA $15.  

[darknight06]

You do realize how much time and work go into those games on average do you?   I'm willing to believe the only reason they aren't any higher is because of the storage medium used.

[mouse_clicker]

No, the only reason prices aren't higher is because people would stop buying games if they were. I recognize the incredible amount of effort and hard work that goes into a lot of games, but I'm not rich, and I can barely afford to pay $50 a game, much less $60 or $70. Publishers and developers are just going to have to realize that we don't have bottomless wallets, and won't pay for the same game over and over again when we didn't want to pay as much as we did for it in the first place.  

[Don'tHate742]

"You do realize how much time and work go into those games on average do you?"

And how does that differ from anything else? Movies take a long time and effort to make, as does music.....you don't see movies or music priced at $50 dollars do you?

Making games cheaper would be a very smart business move. Like mouse_clicker said not many people are rich and can afford to pay $50.

[thecubedcanuck]

"And how does that differ from anything else? Movies take a long time and effort to make, as does music.....you don't see movies or music priced at $50 dollars do you?"

I am sure if movies were 20 hours long they would cost more as well.

Get over this people, entertainment just costs more now a days.
For the all the people who cant afford a game there is one who can. Marketers dont care if you can afford it, some one can and that is all that matters.

"Making games cheaper would be a very smart business move."

no it wouldnt be. Charge whatever the market will bear. The market says $50 is fine, then $50 it will be. Lowering prices when you have already established an industry accepted norm is just plain dumb. Take an economics course or two for christs sake.

[mouse_clicker]

Quote
Get over this people, entertainment just costs more now a days.
For the all the people who cant afford a game there is one who can. Marketers dont care if you can afford it, some one can and that is all that matters.

Marketers want EVERYONE to buy their games, and that includes those who don't have as much money as everyone else. Why the hell do you think Gamecube sales skyrocketted when Nintendo dropped the price? People will stop buying games if prices get any higher. You're not even in the same league as most of us- you told me yourself that money was not an issue for you. If marketers adopted such an attitude as yours game sales would drop tremendously. You don't need any economics course, "for christ's sake", you just need common sense.  

[ruby_onix]

Here's my take on "online".

We may all scoff when Yamauchi or Iwata says it, but the videogame industry is doomed. Not right away, of course, but the time is getting ever-closer when the game makers will be unable to put out better games than the ones they have before.

Now, that won't exactly kill anyone, I mean, look at the book industry. You can have a masterpiece like Lord of the Rings sitting around, abundantly available for decades, but that doesn't stop the next Harry Potter from coming out and being embraced. But how many book publishers can say that they're riding high, as one of the biggest, most successful companies in Japanese history.

When people stop paying for newer, better graphics, game makers will have to come back down to Earth. But is it even possible to make current and future games without the Hollywood-style production values we've all grown accustomed to?

So game companies are reaching for "online" as a life raft. I saw a breakdown a while back about what all of Square-Enix's internal teams were supposed to be working on. Their second-biggest team was listed as "working on FFXI". A game that's already come out. And they're gonna keep working on it, as long as people are playing it. That's the life raft. They never "sell you" the game. They never stop working on it. They just "rent" it to you, and their job is to "maintain" it.

Online is cool. It's multiplayer. A little less personal. Sometimes laggy. But you don't have to worry about split-screen. And thanks to the internet, you can almost certainly find a friend to play with, no matter what your situation or preferences happen to be like.

But Nintendo doesn't want to charge us for it. They've been willing to embrace four-player multiplayer, on a creative, and a hardware level, but not online. They just don't think it's worth the money, and aren't willing to pay for it (and nobody else is either, free online console gaming is just a hook for now).

My main beef with Nintendo regarding "online" right now though, is that they have a solution. Old school. Peer to peer. Let the user's individual internet connection bear the brunt of the work. That's what it's for. But Nintendo's not implementing it. We shouldn't need to be looking to something like Warp Pipe to take our multiplayer games like Mario Kart online. Nintendo has the software to do it, ready and waiting. But waiting for what? I can only guess that they're hoping get the timing of their impact better, and introduce their online solution with the N5. Or maybe, just maybe, important allies like Square and Sega are saying "Hey, you may think it's just a life raft, but stop rocking out boat already!"

[Don'tHate742]

Quote
Originally posted by: thecubedcanuck
"Making games cheaper would be a very smart business move."

no it wouldnt be. Charge whatever the market will bear. The market says $50 is fine, then $50 it will be. Lowering prices when you have already established an industry accepted norm is just plain dumb. Take an economics course or two for christs sake.

Hahaha just plain dumb huh? A cheaper price allows more people to buy the game, and not be shunned away by the glaring $49.99 price tag. These people will create a larger base of game consumers who are now willing to buy games....easy logic.

More people paying less money > less people paying more money.  

[KDR_11k]

The less you charge, the more will buy it, but the less you make per sale. The point is to find the balance between sales and per-unit income.

Now, if we take a game like Serious Sam: The game in itself isn't that great. It's repetitive and has almost nothing that hasn't been done before. Everybody notices there's no way this game will sell like the big hits. What do they do? Retail the game for 30 bucks, not fifty. That way people think "well, the game isn't the best, but it's cheap enough to be worth a try". The result? One sequel released, one coming, two console knock-offs, ...
Lesson learnt: You have a greater chance of selling your not-the-best game if you just lower the price.

Here in Europe we pay EUR60 for a game. That's about 70-75 USD. Import games cost less than games in the stores INCLUDING 20% tax & customs and shipping! PC games sell for 40-45 Euros. That's why the PC people often make fun of consoles, their games are just too expensive.

[Don'tHate742]

this calls for a BOYCOTT!

We need some gamers coallition or something.

[Ian Sane]

If they raised prices I think it's fair to assume that doing so would really hurt game sales in other markets beyond the US (and Japan I assume).  For example in Canada a brand new game usually costs about $70.  That's like $52 US so it's comparable.  However if they raised the prices to $60 US then new games in Canada would cost $80 and although technically it's the same amount as the US people would generally regard $80 as too expensive and I think it would seriously hurt Canadian game sales.  In Europe and Australia the prices are already too high as they are and higher would only make things worse.

If games are getting too expensive to make here's a solution: make less games.  Why release 10 average games in a year when 3 classics would likely in total make more money?  With less games on the market in total each game would sell better.  Plus if developers make less games odds are they're going to make those games count a lot more and would thus put more effort into them.  Every year I see a lot of games that just didn't need to be made.  There's a lot of generic junk that just poorly copies a popular game.  We don't need a bunch of lame GTA clones that add nothing to the formula.  There are also a lot of sequels to games that were not that great in the first place.  Was there any reason for Midway to release Spy Hunter 2?  I don't recall Spy Hunter tearing up the sales charts or having a hardcore fanbase demanding a sequel.  If companies concentrated on making original content and only making sequels when there's considerable demand they would probably be more profitable.

If game prices are raised I assume that some companies (Nintendo likely one of them) would use the strategy I just mentioned and sell those games for the usual $50 and thus absolutely cream those other companies.