One of the weaknesses of the disruption theory is that Christensen and his acolytes only apply it on industries that deal with technology (for the most part). Disruption has never been applied to content. Yet, disruption does occur in the content industries.
The newspaper is a good example of this. Everyone is getting the death of the newspaper as the Internet disrupting the newspaper. This isn’t true. The newspaper isn’t dying because of the Internet, the newspaper is dying because of the content that is on that newspaper. These newspapers kept relying on an age old formula. They also don’t care about satisfying their customers. This is why newspapers would LOVE to become ‘non-profit’ which really means ‘non-customer’.
You can see that tired old formula in magazines. It isn’t that the Internet, like a big bogeyman, came from nowhere and disrupted the print media. It is that the print media, which had enjoyed a monopoly, got used to not caring about the customer. Magazines on the Internet desperately want customers so they try very hard to get them. The Internet broke the old monopoly, but what is truly killing the newspapers is the content.
When these same newspapers put their content on the web, what happens? Still, no one wants to buy it. It is clear to me that content is the reason why this medium is dying.
Over twenty years ago, another medium was said to be dying: radio. FM radio was considered OK but AM was becoming more irrelevant. AM radio was considered dead. Twenty years later, radio becomes a primary way how Americans get their news. How did this change occur? Content. Instead of talking about gardening and carrot cake recipes, shows appeared that began to go into meatier stuff from politics to finance to law. Radio had the benefit that it could be played in the car where TV and newspapers were unable to be consumed by American drivers.
So what is the major change of online gaming going to be? I think we are seeing a similarity between Core Gaming and newspapers. Many of the core gaming side think that online distribution and online gaming will save them. This will not be the case. Online didn’t save newspapers because online isn’t what destroyed newspapers.
I think the Core Market’s problem is that they don’t realize they are in the ‘content’ business (this includes Nintendo’s problems with the Core). When customers keep selling their games to the used game store, companies do not question their product but attack the customer instead! When the content of the game is good, customers tend to keep the game to fit in their collection.
The Core Market has become anti-content lately. Obviously, there was the crusade for the user-generated-content which fizzled in products flopping despite intense hype. Now, there are constant ‘remakes’ and ‘bring-back-old-franchises’ which is recycling old content. With HD systems, the price of making content has gone so high that many HD games feel somewhat short, empty, which really sucks since the price is $60. And, of course, there is the tired predictability of a ‘franchise’ spitting out clones. Let’s remember that there have been more franchises that have collapsed than there are evergreen franchises.
It is interesting to look back at some old games like Dragon Quest 1, Super Mario Brothers, and Legend of Zelda. All these games are so simple that a five year old can play (and five year olds were CONSUMED by these games). Their gameplay could, today, be described as ‘casual’. Yet, the content in them was so massive, that they are titans on the gaming landscape. Even Tetris, whose Russian mythos and amazing music, resonates through the decades due to its content.
Today, content is bland, and games rely more on style than substance to make the sale. As the style wears off (it always does), the game goes straight to the used game store. There is a great hunger for content which gamers want to place beside their prized collections. I can’t think of any game that had the impact of those early titles in the last five years… or perhaps last ten years. OK, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, etc. certainly had that impact and they did fill the bill with the content (lots of mini-games). World of Warcraft could be another example whose strength, of why people subscribe, is due to the game’s massive amount of content.
Many games feel like new movies: bland, formulaic, too many explosions and ‘special effects’, with lots of ‘wouldn’t it be cool if..” (like throwing in katanas in the movie for no reason).
Content didn’t have to be focused on since the game industry was moving at lightning speeds in the upgrade of graphics. 8-bit went to 16-bit in a few years and then you had the 3d revolution with upgrades on that. Now, graphics and style are no longer going to make up for weak content like they did in the past.
To be crystal clear:
Content is not data space, art and sound assets, or the size of the game world.
Content is the ideas of the game, of what the player feels. The content of Super Mario Brothers is the Alice-in-Wonderland Mushroom Kingdom with its villians that came like a breath of fresh air to gaming so long ago. Nintendo has been able to make different “Mario” games from that same content.
When a gamer complains about World War 2 FPS or Space Marines, they are really complaining about the content. The ‘franchise fatigue’ is really a ‘content fatigue’ where the company keeps recycling the old content in new combinations for the player.
I suspect the cause of ‘content fatigue’ is due to developers being raised on games begin to emulate those games. The original developers of Generation Zero had no prior games to emulate. They looked to board games, to movies, to books, to sources that were not gaming. The so-called ‘genres’ of content have been like photocopying a photocopy for the last couple of decades. Despite better graphics and more sophisticated gameplay, the content feels like it is getting weaker.
It could be argued that I am just getting older and more cynical. Maybe. But I do suspect that ‘content’ is the beef to gaming just as beef is to the hamburger. Not ‘innovation’. Not ‘gameplay’. Players will invent their own gameplay. Witness the constant ‘speed trials’ or challenges like in Zelda to beat the game with only three hearts. It is the content, the universe of the game world, that people crave.
I saw a new iPhone game that is Tower Defense but… on a 3d plane. It has nicer graphics and all, sure, but I look on with an odd amusement. Do we really need yet another tower defense game? The iPhone would be perfect for an adventure game (think Secret of Monkey Island) or simplistic strategy (Master of Orion 1 comes to mind) or even a platformer with touch (such as Kirby’s Magical Paintbrush and no, there hasn’t been a true equivalent to that on the iPhone yet).
Iwata has talked about ‘evergreen titles’. Twenty years later, I am still impressed with many NES, SNES, etc. games. One way to get an ‘evergreen’ title is to attract new users (like Wii Sports or Wii Fit). Another way is to concentrate on content (like the Blizzard games which don’t stop selling).
The change to online retail won’t solve the problems of the core industry. Unlike the change to CDs, games won’t be able to hide under increased cinema and other special effects. The game industry is going to have to focus on generating new, interesting and passionate game content…
…if such talent still exists.