I hate to have to do this, but I don’t really have a choice here. You are alienating many of your readers lately, with lengthy posts that are more emotionally driven analysis than genuinely interesting logical discussions. I understand that you’re experiencing more than a bit of strain, what with game developers and their dedicated followers on the internet weaving a false reality to hide behind, but really, did you expect to dissolve their wall of ignorance with nothing more than words of wisdom combined with careful analysis? I certainly hope not, as history has shown time and again that people as a whole do not learn from the mistakes of their forefathers or even of their own making. A one-man crusade against ignorance is ignorance itself, and I’m certain that’s not what you were after to begin with. You regularly mention your desire to better understand Nintendo’s strategy, but now you seem content enough in your knowledge now to seek out chinks in the armor Nintendo has crafted, and to allow yourself to become overly attached to the continued ignorance that surrounds us all on the internet.
It would benefit no one to ignore mistakes Nintendo makes especially when they are reflected in the market. For example, I was initially enthused about Wii Music, even liked how the hardcore were going ballistic over the game, but as soon as I realized it was ‘user generated content’ focused, I quickly changed my tune. How could I have confidence to do this? Isn’t Iwata smarter than me?
I do have knowledge about other industries, and I use them as well to shed light. Rules of success in one industry can shed light on another. For example, young Miyamoto looked to movies to find out how that entertainment medium moved people and replicated it in his games. Before the Wii came out, when Iwata said that the rule is to aim for ‘surprise’, he was quoting a general entertainment industry maxim that is gospel in the movie industry and elseware to “surprise your audience”. The rules for one entertainment industry holds true for almost all entertainment industries. Iwata also used the analogy of bookstores to compare the gaming market in that, “Would you go to a bookstore if all they offered were huge encyclopedias?” as he is pointing out that too many games were trying to be ‘epic’ and ‘huge’.
I could confidently say that ‘pursuing a user generated content strategy is a big loser’ because user generated content has no appearance in any entertainment industry, there are no ‘user generated content’ books, movies, or music. Some people might try to point to YouTube or the local club where neighborhood bands play. But there are no customers in those examples, no one is paying to hear them. And besides, YouTube is nothing more than billions of dollars of red ink. But more importantly, gaming is in the content business. Why do people trade money for a game? Is it graphics? Is it technology? It is the content. World of Warcraft is very illustrative in that. Blizzard is furiously creating content and those WoW players, especially the diehard ones, DEVOUR it as soon as it goes up. I think that is the big secret to WoW’s success: content.
No one reads a book for the ‘writing style’. They read it for the story, for the information, for the content. As Hollywood is finding out, people don’t watch movies just for the special effects. They watch movies for the narrative, to see heroes win over villains, for content. All these things made if very easy for me to say that Iwata (and the games industry nonetheless) were wrong about user generated content. The poor sales of these ‘user generated content’ games illustrate that content is what gamers want. A ‘user generated content’ game is like a writer handing out blank pages to people telling them to write stories for him and pay him for the privilege of doing so. It is not hard to see why that won’t fly.
I have guesses as to why Iwata chose the path Nintendo did on Wii Music. One, there was huge hype within the games industry (but not among consumers) about Little Big Planet which was supposed to ‘change everything’. Iwata, being a former developer, likely fell prey to such hype. Second, Iwata looks to technologies and how people interact on the Internet to help see what the future is. User generated content is very popular on the Internet, and one could argue the Internet itself is ‘user generated content’. Wikipedia is ‘user generated content’. You have to admire how some ‘user generated content’ sites such as Slashdot make money off of other people providing all the content! No wonder the games industry jumped up and down at this thrilling possibility: of making customers create the content for them!
The problem is that much of what is on the Internet is not in entertainment but information. User generated content can make a fine encyclopedia, but it would make a crappy novel.
The best way to learn painting is not to sit and stare at the painting while shouting, “Hail! Hail! Hail majestic painting that does no wrong! The longer I stare, the more secrets I shall absorb!” No, the best way to learn about that painting is to paint alongside it. I am in the museum of greats, I have pulled up my stool and blank canvas next to the masterpiece, and I am replicating and following stroke by stroke.
In other words, I am trying to play Iwata’s game with him. What would I do in his place? I place my decisions, and I watch what he does. I learn because when I make a wrong decision, it is obvious. User Generated Content was the first major time my strokes moved correctly and Iwata did the wrong move.
Disruption literature says that as the disruptor is pushing toward the expanded market, a fire often breaks lose in the core market. This core market must be contained or put out or else it will collapse the disruptor’s efforts before the shift has completed itself.
Want to know a good example of a ‘core market’ that is on fire? Newspapers. Newspapers haven’t figured out how to get the revenue they need from the expanded market (i.e. internet).
It is obvious that not only is Nintendo’s core market on fire, so is the core market for the rest of the industry, for PC games, Xbox 360 games, and PS3 games. The general sense is that they know something is wrong. This is why they complain so much about used games sales and desire digital distribution. The value of core market games is plunging. Why is this?
I think a main cause of the fire is because games industry doesn’t think they are in the content business. Rather, their context of content is different from the consumer. A publisher would think of content as in how many assets it needs. A developer would think of content as how long the game is. The customer thinks of content very different. To the customer, content is the richly textured world (and I don’t mean graphics here). There is much ‘innovation’, much ‘gameplay’, much ‘graphics’, much ‘gritty realism’, but the content isn’t there. Or, rather, the content is not enough to justify paying $50 to $60 for the game.
Let’s apply ‘richly textured world’ backwards through time. Each and every classic game is strikingly a ‘richly textured world’. Pac-Man, despite crude technology, is a richly textured world with the ghosts and all. Super Mario Brothers is a richly textured world. Super Mario Brothers 3 is often said to be a ‘better game’ than Super Mario World. Why? One reason might be that SMB3 is a richer textured world than SMW despite being 8-bit graphics. The early Mega Man games also were ‘richly textured worlds’. Sonic was a richly textured game. They had to be richly textured or else all those games I mentioned couldn’t have been made into numerous cartoons. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series are richly textured worlds. Who would deny Grand Theft Auto 3 as a richly textured world?
This perhaps solves the question as to why gaming had graphical and power updates in the first place. The early Atari 2600 games were very abstract; they had to be. As jumps were made to 8-bit, then to 16-bit, then to 3d, and then better 3d, each and every time games became more ‘richly textured worlds’. There is absolutely no comparison between an Atari 2600 adventure game and NES Legend of Zelda as to which game world was richer. But those who play Ocarina of Time as their first Zelda often cannot play the previous 2d Zeldas perhaps because 2d Zeldas are no where near as richly textured worlds (and are more abstract) than the 3d Zeldas.
The Core Market of gaming was escapism which relied on rich textured worlds for people to melt themselves inside. Why do people like Star Trek or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? Same reason: richly textured worlds.
Aside from games taking too long to play and requiring tutorials and scary controllers, I think the High Definition wave, which arguably should have continued the trend, began to make the pendulum swing the other way is because High Definition is not generating ‘richly textured worlds’. The content in the games is less because it is more expensive to make.
On the Wii, I suspect the problem isn’t that there are no ‘hardcore’ games, but it is that the games have little content. What has been disastrous for the Wii Core Market is mistaking that customers want simple, uncomplicated games to mean that customers do not want richly textured worlds. To use a sci-fi analogy, it would be like hearing a complaint that sci-fi uses too much technobabble and is boring to interpret to mean that sci-fi should revolve around hot babes wearing leather, laser fights, and stunts. No! People want the rich worlds. They just don’t want the BS that comes with them.
Blizzard games are extremely rich textured worlds which is why they keep selling for a decade or more. Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo are rich universes people can escape in. Instead of there being games with universes (unfortunately called ‘franchise’ by industry talk), with Blizzard the games are set in those universes. And you can have a completely different game set in that same universe (such as World of Warcraft is a MMORPG and Warcraft 3 is a RTS). Blizzard even has board games, books, and dolls all because of that richly textured game world.
This is why series such as Mario and Zelda became so popular. There isn’t a Mario world in a game, rather, it is a game set in the Mario world, and they don’t have to be the same. Kart racing works just as well as a platformer. To those who follow the Zelda series, you wait for each new installment to see an expansion of that richly textured universe. You make timelines and try to fit it all together.
The point is that the richly textured universe came first and the games came second. The games were nothing more than how to experience this richly textured world in the best way possible. Unfortunately, suits get it backward and think of the universe being confined to the game so if it sells well enough it becomes ‘franchise’, and they can crank out games obeying a formula. Customers don’t’ see ‘franchise’. They just see kickass game world.
Is World War 2 a ‘franchise’? Of course not, it is piece of history. But it is a richly textured universe, is it not? It is no wonder so many games, from FPS to strategy to even shmups, use the World War 2 as its richly textured universe. All the licensing of various cartoons or movies is simply the permission to create a game in that richly textured universe. What customers are buying isn’t the game, per se, but what the game does: interaction with this richly textured universe.
I apologize that my email response turned into a long post about something else (of richly textured worlds being my current theory as to what will put out the fire in the core markets). Now, it could be wrong, it could be right. But you ask how I could question Nintendo. But I ask you how can you learn without questioning the teacher?
One is never done learning. There is inevitably more to Nintendo’s plan than you’ve realized thus far; no company so successful for so long and so consistently can have their entire strategy disassembled so easily. There is always something overlooked, some piece that you cannot explain with what you know now. So I propose, as a means of escaping your “game industry fatigue”, that you rightfully abandon all pretense that it matters what is said by these people who cannot or refuse to recognize the success right in front of them, and focus instead on better understanding that success yourself. Many of us started coming to your site and reading your articles because you were a genuinely different and logical voice amongst a sea of self-righteousness and self-delusion, but you yourself have begun sinking beneath those waves. Rise above the temptation to become emotionally attached, and remember where you were going with all of this.
It is far more educational to learn other industries as they will reflect things on this industry we don’t know. I’ve written hundreds of pages about Nintendo over several years. What more do you want? Keep in mind that this site provides no revenue drains my time away to maintain.
That is my advice, take it or leave it. I know we haven’t exactly had stellar rapport in the past, but I had to try. I’d rather not see you get burned out by an industry that refuses to see the elephant in the room no matter how big it gets. Come back to us and laugh at them for their lack of hubris like you used to. We all miss the cheerful Malstrom who told us tales of oceans blue and wrote for us those disruptive chronicles.
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Sky Render
The economic situation has drastically changed things. I need to direct my attention in other areas. The games industry is now a low priority for me.
One thing I forget is that you (and other readers) cannot see what I have on my harddrive. There is content to come. But if I didn’t use the blog to speak about, say, that game association going nuts over Epic Games soon, it would be strange to talk about it months or a year afterward. The blog is used for more time sensitive stuff while the articles are for subjects that aren’t time sensitive.
I’m still debating whether to do the Mythos section.
As for me, I intend to use 2009 to wrap everything up on this page. Disruption Chronicles will be finished this year. As for Mythos, well, we’ll see. I’m tempted to write it just to see if I have the ability to write such subject matter.