Games are in the content business just like books, movies, and newspapers. User generated content means degenerative and unconsistent content. No one watches user generated movies or reads user generated books except for free on the Internet. Some people think the content should be ‘message’, as in a ‘social message’ or ‘political message’. This makes the business producing content they want the customers to absorb rather than creating the content the customers want. And this is the main reason why newspapers are dying.
Blast Works-
I saw it in the bargain bin getting a gift for someone. It was like $20 or less.
Spore
People will say this didn’t bomb because of the millions of sales. I disagree. Most of those sales were hype sales, people buying the game based on hype. No way how you look at it, Spore has been a massive disapointment.
So why was the game so anticipated? Aside from Sims designer Will Wright behind the game, the anticipation behind Spore was about the content. When people think of space stage, they think of Master of Orion. When people think of civilization stage, they think of Civilization. When people think of RTS stage, they think of Warcraft. In a way, people saw it as five games, while not having the depth as the stand alone games like Civilization, but still standing on their own.
All the criticism of Spore is centered around the lack of content in the game. In the Pac-Man mode, there is no ‘area’. It is just openness. Ironically, the strength of the RTS, Civilization, Master of orion, and even Pac-Man games came from their maps and the player conquering the map. The gameplay of Spore was fine. But there was no content. It was like eating cotton candy. It tastes good, is very sweet, but instantly disintegrates in your mouth, and doesn’t fill you up.
Ocampo’s IGN review said, “While Spore is an amazing product, it’s not just quite of an amazing game.” Alas, the customers purchase games, not “products”. ‘Amazing product’, translated from reviewer-speak, means “good production values”.
PC Gamer said that it wasn’t right to judge Spore in the context we view other games. Why not? The truth is that Spore failed.
When I hear people who don’t like Spore strangely apologizing for it, they do so on the basis that it is a CASUAL game. I’ve always joked that the industry views casual games as a label for any game they think has no depth (for retard gamers). But it is with Spore that I realized that the ‘casual’ label is slapped on any game that has no content. There is a difference between reducing complexity and reducing content. One of the reasons some industry people are so excited about ‘casual games’ is because they get to stop making as much content as before (wrong).
Wii Music
Wii Music, overall, is fine. But the main weakness of the game is its user generated content parts. Gamers who feel frustrated by the game aim their complaint arrow at the only visible content: the song selection and number of tracks. They are aiming at the wrong target. They should be aiming at the ‘user generated content’ focus of the game for the reason for the void.
Little Big Planet
This game was so hyped that developers were even saying that it would change the nature of gaming itself (phhsshh ba hahahahaha). Sony called Little Big Planet its ‘killer app’. The ‘killer app’ essentially bombed out during the red hot holiday season.
The entire reason for Little Big Planet to exist is to sell more PS3s. It didn’t get the job done.
The Type of User Generated Content Customers Like
Think of some legendary games in your youth and today. These games you love because of the content inside the games. Who doesn’t love Super Mario Brothers, Quake, Half-Life, Final Fantasy, and others. Game editors, such as PC modding and map editors on Starcraft to Lode Runner to Wrecking Crew, are awesome not because of user generated content. They are awesome because people LOVE the content of the games and they want MORE of that content. Alas, games are finite. A simple map editor allows customers to experience the content of the game in more fun ways and keeps the replayability high.
In other words, Starcraft didn’t sell because of its map editor. It sold because of the content that was Starcraft. The map editor made the replay value practically infinite.
So if Nintendo is making a 2d Mario game editor, the game will not sell unless there is great content already there in the first place (i.e. Super Mario Brothers 5). People don’t buy games as tools to ‘unleash their creativity’. They buy games to consume professional content.
I’ve been perplexed this industry wants to push innovation everywhere (graphics, gameplay, internet, sound, etc.) except in the content. The same cliche plots, characters, and settings are recycled. Remakes, reimaginings, and more remakes.
Curiously, these ‘user generated content’ games, including Wii Music, never focused on its included content to be top notch (or to carve out any mythos which is what killed LBP). The included content was nothing more than an easy example of how to make more content.
And why do customers desire certain content over others? Games are a way for customers to embrace a different mythos (successful books and movies rely on mythos the same way). Mythos means the game universe that the game exists in. The mythos of Super Mario Brothers is not accurately ‘Mushroom Kingdom’ but ‘Alice in Wonderland’. Zelda isn’t really ‘Hyrule’ but the celtic wonderland expressed in countless myths. Metroid isn’t really metroids but the expression of fear and strangeness the movie ‘Alien’ created.
The Warcraft series relies on a mythos. One of the unstated reasons customers buy the game is not for ‘story’ but for continuing to explore that mythos. Naturally, Starcraft has a mythos as well as Diablo. Blizzard developers, of course, do not use the word ‘mythos’ but do call it the ‘universe’. They know they cannot, for example, use the Warcraft artstyle (which is exaggerrated) for Starcraft (which is gritty). Blizzard doesn’t really make games but lets us explore these universes more. My favorite PC game company, Origin, once had an amazing slogan of: “We create worlds.”
And this comes to the big problems with Nintendo’s core games. Twilight Princess was a good game, but it didn’t really develop the mythos any further. It was as if it were recycling it from Ocarina of Time. So the game didn’t excite like Ocarina did. Super Mario Galaxy, superbly made in every aspect (for a 3d Mario game), ran borderline in shattering its mythos. The game is stuck in space, and the Mushroom Kingdom seems far, far away. When Mario has to light four torches to go further, it smacks more of Zelda than Mario. Galaxy will provide no new staples to the Mario Universe aside from Rosalina. Compare how much mythos the first Mario game established and how SMB 3 and SMW really expanded that mythos (even SMB 2’s Doki Doki Panic contributed). I can’t think of any significant way the 3d Marios have expanded the Mario universe.
When I look at the sales charts, I see the ‘flagship’ games of user generated content either bombing or being massive disapointments. And when I look at the sales charts again, I see the best selling games almost always being focused on unique content and a significant amount of that content.
Gameplay is just the way the customer experiences the content. If there is no content, the excellence of gameplay won’t matter. Gameplay is overrated when it overshadows the content of the game itself.
Do you know what the secret to World of Warcraft’s success and why it stays a success where competitors keep failing? Competitors keep attacking WoW based on gameplay or ‘innovating the MMORPG’ or some other such nonsense. The real secret to WoW’s massive domination is CONTENT.
Blizzard spent four years creating WoW and its initial content. The US Government’s project to make nuclear bombs, the Manhatten Project, by comparison, took three years. WoW was FULL of content when it first appeared on the shelves. Even Blizzard was stunned at how fast it shot out of the gate.
I expect many customer reactions were like mine. I played the beta for a couple of days before it got shut off. I think I got to level 11 which was nowhere in the game. I was stunned by how much sheer content there was in the game. And I bought the game at midnight when it was released (as many others did). The expansion packs and updates to WoW are referred to in context of content by the Blizzard team. Their goal is to create more content because their customers consume it so quickly. So while they are fighting to keep current customers, new customers appear and have to be gobsmacked at how much massive content is in the game and how it keeps getting larger and larger.
The original Legend of Zelda wowed because the player was stunned at how much content was in the game. Ocarina stunned for similiar reasons. But the Legend of Zelda sold to everybody back then, not just hardcore players.
The mad dash to get to the expanded market, from all companies including Nintendo, has moved their eye off of the content. Tragically, we are confusing complexity with content. More content doesn’t mean more complexity. And more content doesn’t mean ‘long games that drag on’ (such as Twilight Princess). Content means ideas. The entire point of games is to consume content. It is like Newspapers moving their eyes off of ‘news’ to focus on ‘innovation’ and wondering why they are no longer selling.
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