Wada from Marvelous has an interview at Edge Online.
Simply put, I think the population of gamers in Japan is shrinking fast. Every year, we see the number of active core gamers decreasing. I think this is due to the industry.
I really hate how everyone, including game developers, make no difference between ‘gaming’ and ‘game industry’. The two are not the same. Kudos to Wada for differentiating the two.
“Game Industry” defines itself by revenue. But Gaming is defined by the gamers. The “Game Industry” does not measure itself by the number of gamers out there, only by the amount of revenue. It is possible that revenue can increase while the number of gamers decrease (such as with raising prices for game products).
This is why it is common for any ‘industry’ to be entering decline when it achieves rapid revenue success. Since the number of customers are decreasing, the revenue falls very dramatically.
People say, “This is Japan’s problem, nowhere else.” Population decline is going to hit Europe. In America, the situation is a little different. The population is not in decline, but the “Game Industry” in America is cannibalizing PC gaming for console gaming. Games like ‘Halo’, ‘Call of Duty’, ‘Fallout 3′, these are PC games and were originally developed for the PC. They have been re-tuned and put out for console. This modern ‘hardcore’ gaming is really casualized PC gaming. It is good for these PC game companies as they have their sales go up and the console is its own DRM. But this success is only going to be temporary. PC Gaming never dies because it is a hotbed of innovation. Moving PC games to consoles removes them from this ‘hotbed’ (and from things that can help innovate it like mods and PC Gamer communities) and ‘industrializes’ them where they become little more than a milked series. This ‘industrializing’ them, this constant milking, ends up destroying the franchise. In America, I see the “Game Industry” trying to fill the void by hurling PC Gaming onto consoles but this is simply a bandage and not fixing the infection of disinterest that is rapidly turning into terminal cancer for the “Game Industry”.
Publishers, developers and creators alike are not trying hard enough to bring original creations on the market.
I disagree with this. The problem is that the “Game Industry” has removed ‘customers’ from the equilibrium. User Experience is not the prime objective. When customers protest about something, such as digital distribution, the “Game Industry” tells the customers to ‘shut up’ because ‘that is the way it is’. They forget that the “Game Industry” operates only at the pleasure of the customers. Customers do NOT operate at the pleasure of the “Game Industry”.
A trend has been many smaller game companies, such as Marvelous, proclaiming themselves to be the savior of gaming by producing ‘original content’. This ‘original content’ is nothing more than doing whatever the developer wants. “I want to do quirky, weird stuff!” “Wahhh! Why do my games not sell?”
It is Human Nature for people to do what they want to do and later invent justifications as to why they are doing it. Marvelous isn’t making games for themselves, oh no, they are trying to SAVE gaming with original content!
Wada is right that the “Industry” is the problem with gaming. But I believe he is using that to justify the company’s eccentric games rather than having customers justify the company’s games (which is what sales are).
I have the feeling that those gamers are feeling bored, that they have had enough. At Marvelous, it is my ambition to make new and original games that are not only appealing to those gamers. I wanted those users to look at our games. The objective was by answering the needs of those gamers so they would find video games fun again. Doing so, we would see the population of gamers growing again.
Wada is identifying the problem correctly but his antidote is incorrect. What makes new gamers is not quirky content but mainstream content. Wii Sports is about sports. Wii Fit is about fitness. Grand Theft Auto is about gang warfare. Madden is about football. Donkey Kong is about King Kong. Super Mario Brothers is about Alice in Wonderland. Sims is about a dollhouse. Warcraft is about Lords of the Rings Tolkien stuff. Starcraft is a pot full of sci-fi cliches.
Consumers buy games when they can associate with the content. This is why license games sell despite how bad their gameplay is. Consumers understand Spiderman so they buy the Spiderman game.
Strong IP, series or popular characters are the main focus today. They are seen as secured elements in a very risky environment. Publishers and developers have used this for years, leaving little place for originality and new contents. I think this is why gamers are leaving video games. I believe that variety is the only way to bring more people into gaming.
Gamers are leaving because the “Game Industry” is no longer about gamers. It is about game developers making games for one another, about ‘new business models’, and gamers are recognizing that the ‘industry’ is nothing more than how to squeeze every cent out of them as possible. Gamers say, “Do I look like a cow to be milked? I am supposed to be the king, I am supposed to be served. If I am not respected as a consumer, I will go somewhere else where I am respected.”
What was the reaction of Japanese gamers to your message?
It was quite negative. Of course we had some positive messages pushing us to deliver more original contents, supporting us. But many criticised the fact that such a high-ranking person from a video game publisher is telling those things in public.
Nintendo also was very public about the decline of Japanese gaming. And their message was, and still is, univerally ignored from all the gaming press. Analysts are either pretending Nintendo did not say what they did or are not reporting it.
There seems to be elements out there who do not want to admit that the “Game Industry” is in decline and are doing their damnest to potray it otherwise. Investors will not be fooled.
I still think that there is a very important relationship to develop between the industry and its users.
This suggests that there is NO relationship between the “Industry” and customers. This would explain why the “Industry” will say something like…
INDUSTRY: “Digital Distribution is the future!”
CUSTOMERS: “Hey, I don’t think so! I don’t like not being in control of my games.”
INDUSTRY: “Shut up! That is the way how things are going to be so just shut up and get used to it!”
CUSTOMERS: “Well, screw you! Some of us will just say screw gaming. Other people will respond to your insolence by pirating your games more. Remember what happened to the Music Industry in how the customers gored that.”
INDUSTRY: “zOMG, piracy! Quick! Add more DRM! Online only singleplayer!”
OTHER CUSTOMERS: “Hey, why is all this DRM being thrown into my gaming?”
INDUSTRY: “I must protect myself from evil pirates!”
OTHER CUSTOMERS: “Screw you! These pirated versions, that have taken out the DRM, is a better customer experience than the real thing! You failed, Game Industry.”
This is the current ‘relationship’ between the ‘Game Industry’ and the customers. Touching, isn’t it?
How do you compare the Japanese market with the overseas?
I find the current state of the video game market outside Japan not that healthy but it is certainly due to the sub primes and all the financial stress these brought.
These ‘sub primes’ and ‘financial stress’ is directly linked to declining birth rates. In other words, the real estate schemes and other financial schemes cannot work forever unless more new payers are brought in. The population pyramid has turned into a diamond which is a main factor in esculating all these problems.
The financial and, mostly, political corruption has always been there.
Ironically, the ‘Next Generation’ way of doing things relied on population growth and assumed economic growth. Game development, as well as the consoles, have increasingly gotten more expensive. Now that things are beginning to contract, companies like Sony are finding themselves on the wrong side. They are stuck with a high costing PlayStation 3 and the market is not there to buy it.
But overall, I find the overseas market much bigger, which does not come as a surprise. I mean in terms of demography, you have populations that are bigger than in Japan, which translates also in the number of gamers.
Obviously. Decade or two from now, the “Game Industry” will be mostly about India and China since that is where most people are.
Some of Marvelous’ latest titles had positive reviews worldwide but this did not translate into sales. What are the reasons of this? Do you think the choice of the Wii as a gamer platform is one key element?
I don’t think it is about the platform. Of course it can’t offer the same level of performance and HD visuals of the other high spec platforms. Having the possibility to display 100 characters on screen where you would be limited to 30 on the Wii won’t make the game any more fun. This is not where the essence of video gaming is. I remember having some incredible fun on the very first black and white GameBoy. Today, you have plenty of beautiful games that are not very fun to play. So it is not about the hardware.
Talk about the questioner trying to lead the interviewee! Wada didn’t take the bait.
I take the ‘high reviews’ of the games are not an indication of its quality but its lack of it. With the exception of extremely heavily marketed games, the higher the game reviews mean the worse the game tends to sell. Games that got a ‘meh’ from reviewers such as Wii Sports or Wii Play ended up being massive hits. Even Mario Kart Wii was panned.
If I was a game developer and reviewers loved my game, with their current track record, I would be very worried about my game. Game reviewers do not reflect the mainstream view of the market anymore.
The reason why our games are not selling as much we would like could be found in the name of our company. Marvelous has just reached the point its games are getting noticed and getting good reviews. But we are not a major name yet. The Marvelous brand is still associated to some not so good titles we made in the past. We are yet to gain the brand value of companies like Nintendo, Capcom or Square Enix. Even if you don’t fully understand what a title is about, because it’s branded Nintendo, Capcom or Square Enix, you feel like ok to buy and try it. A Marvelous game has yet to gain such recognition and trust from users. Now, if you consider the big but very light population of casual users, they don’t know about Marvelous at all. This population is by far the majority on the Wii. So in that sense, you could indeed think the Wii factor is working against us. But at the same time, if you consider games like Umbrella Chronicles, Biohazard 4 or a Tales Of RPG on the same Wii, you find that those games sell more than 200,000 or 300,000 copies. So there is a gamer market on the platform. I’m sure there are potentially about a million of them. So we need to gain the trust of these users.
The problem is the content, not the ‘brand’. People really don’t care about the company name when they purchase a game. Not even with Nintendo. Companies like Capcom and Konami became what they are today precisely because the content of their games connected with gamers. People loved Castlevania and Megaman.
I remember of the huge creative explosion that occurred when the first PlayStation and the Saturn were launched. There were tons of new ideas and concepts thrown on the market. It was an exciting time and many came to video gaming. That time and today are very different. I’m sure that gamers who have left video gaming today were among the ones that were very excited and very active on their PS or Saturn.
This is categorically untrue. Let us seperate the Saturn from the PS for a second. The Saturn didn’t attract any new users. Sorry. It just didn’t…
Many people confuse the PS of then with the Wii of today. What the PS did introduce in the console market was a mass game library. Never before had so much software been flooded onto a console. This was not done earlier because of fears of crashing the market. Nintendo adopted measures to prevent this as did Sega. For evidence of this, look at the total software released for 8-bit and 16-bit consoles and then the PlayStation. Most of the software was garbage, but the greater amount of software means the greater probability of surprise hits. Nintendo has adopted this approach with the DS and Wii much to Sony’s frustration.
The growth of new ‘gamers’ in a particular territory was not really increased by the PlayStation. But since everyone just looks at worldwide sales, and do not factor out population growth and multiple console ownership, this myth will continue.
Each time, we have a core idea that defines what we want to deliver with a specific title. Arc Rise Fantasia was about the tradition of the JRPG, Little King’s Story was about innovation while Muramasa: The Demon Blade was about the best 2D graphics you could deliver. Getting that wide variety of contents on the market is the only way you can appeal to a variety of people that are into videogaming.
It is not about what customers want delivered. It is about what HE wants to deliver. The bold reveals the problem at Marvelous.
We are still making the games that we feel fun. The challenge for us then is to convince users that this game is indeed fun and that he/she should buy it.
It is all about what Marvelous thinks is fun, not the consumers. Since consumers disagree, Marvelous wants to ‘convince’ users that their game is fun.
Fun games are also fun to watch. Marvelous games are not fun to watch.
In the past, you had few forms of entertainment available and videogaming was the star, getting most of people’s attention and time. Users did not feel they were wasting their time in playing videogames. Today, you are flooded with various forms of entertainment. The TV offers hundreds of channels. Checking the huge information that is available nowadays is already requiring lots of time. So little time is left for videogaming.
Excuse me? The bold is laughable.
He is ignoring the fact that television and movies are in stagnancy and decline.
In most of the big companies or developers involved in high spec projects, you find a couple of teams or lines capable in undertaking such projects. In overseas, you have a strong PC culture that made many teams and companies ready for the HD revolution. In Japan, we were involved in standard development for too long. When the HD arrived, overseas developers and publishers were ready with the adequate experience and skill. In Japan, we found ourselves suddenly far in the back, struggling to fill the gap.
This ‘PC Culture’ is nothing more than placing PC games onto consoles.
Anyway, I’m glad this guy is speaking out on the problem of the shrinking “Game Industry”. Maybe the analysts and all can stop spinning and let us look at reality.
