However, everyone is getting it backwards. Instead of saying, “What is good for gaming is good for the ‘Game Industry'”, they are saying “What is good for the ‘Game Industry’ is good for gaming.”
Take EA telling the hardcore to shut up and like motion controls.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com during the recent Shine Week in London, EA UK boss Keith Ramsdale has said the advent of motion control technology should not be viewed as a threat to the industry.
The key word here is ‘industry’. Not ‘gaming’.
Commenting on the recent unveiling of Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s wand-based motion controller, Ramsdale said:
“I think they’re really interesting,” he explained. “What Nintendo have done is shown a fabulous interface for a mass market population. The appetite for video games has grown significantly because you don’t have to button mash. It makes the whole thing much more accessible. You’ve only got to watch who doesn’t play games as a hobby, who plays games casually, their ability to get straight into a game on the Wii is far greater than when they have to press buttons.
While the above is all true, accessibility is only a sliver of what the Wii is about. The keyword above is ‘casually’, i.e. the Birdman Argument: ‘retarded games for retarded consumers’.
“It seems a logical step for Microsoft and Sony to have motion sensors or visual sensors to enable that interface with the games. It’s fantastic. It will work particularly well on some genres, maybe not so well on others, but overall I think it’s going to be a great benefit to the industry. Nintendo have shown just how it can be exploited.”
Key words here are ‘industry’ and ‘exploited’. What this quote illustrates is that EA respects Nintendo, not for what it is doing for gaming, but in how it is ‘exploiting’. EA sees the Expanded Audience not unlike mercantilism of centuries ago of how they saw America: as a continent to harvest.
EA’s story this generation is most spectacular. At first, Wii development was stuck in some tiny, separated studio in Canada where all of EA’s resources would be for ‘Next Generation’. Now, Wii development is inside the main studios and is about 50% of what EA does. All the ‘new IPs’ that EA made just bled red ink everywhere. ‘A Mirror’s Edge’ is an apt metaphor as you do little more in that game than jump skyscrapers, bounce across walls, all following the red line which is what Next Generation has been doing this generation: following the red line.
Addressing concern amongst certain vocal hardcore gamers that motion technology is damaging to the industry, Ramsdale said the reality is quite the opposite.
Hardcore care about ‘gaming’ not so much as the ‘industry’. EA is giving an ‘industry’ argument, not a ‘gaming argument. The hardcore are wrong on both.
“People look back too much instead of looking forward,” said the UK boss. “What these devices and mechanics bring, a lot of stuff we haven’t even figured out yet. We’re going to be doing that over the next few years. The opportunities are much greater by having numerous interfaces between the player and the content. Your opportunities become so much greater.
“Is there a threat to the industry? No, not in any way, shape or form. Complete the opposite. This allows us to go into an area of entertainment that isn’t thought of.”
Unfortunately, the hardcore do not want any exploration of entertainment. They want the same exact type of games being made until Doomsday.
However, motion technology doesn’t signal the end of traditional ‘core games’ points out Ramsdale, so long as the audience is there.
“… while there remains an audience for certain traditional types of core games, and it’s a financially viable audience, companies are still going to make those games,” said Ramsdale. “Of course they are.”
This is not what the hardcore wants to hear. Ramsdale is saying that Core games will continue to be made so long as there is a financially viable audience (which will not be too long as the macro economic patterns hold true).
What struck me about the Wii back in 2005, 2006, as well as the DS, was that it reminded me when gaming was a movement. The movement, of course, was to EXPAND and EXPLORE gaming as much as possible. Game developer and gamer all wanted gaming to expand as far as possible, to as many people as possible. Both the game developer and the gamer wanted to explore new types of gaming.
This sense of gaming as a ‘movement’ ended in the 16-bit generation (but appeared to continue somewhat with PC gaming a little shortly after). Then, gaming became an ‘industry’.
In the ‘Industry’ mindset, the gaming world is seen as finite. The market is seen as a Risk board in which consoles or games ‘conquer’ territories or demographics. In the ‘Industry’ mindset, revenue is the most important number while with the ‘Movement’ mindset, the number of customers are the most important number.
Once upon a time, game developers were really excited about making new types of games and eager to make new content. Today with the ‘industry’ mindset, all I hear game developers talk about are demographics and business models. Alas.
The constant references of the “Games Industry” to mean “gaming” and that what is good for the ‘industry’ is good for ‘gaming’, I find ridiculous and self-destructive. Customers must be made at the center of things. I am sure these “Industry” talkers believe they are talking about customers, but they really aren’t.
I know a man who, at the age of 25, was retired after creating and selling a handheld computer business. He was able to do this when he was young because he was a son of a business owner and his dad paid off the initial debt of the business (how I wish I could have that!). He was also from Europe and, in America, went about things that Americans did not. Many Americans are sucked into the ‘Entertainment vortex’ that they spend their off hours watching TV, movies, playing games, just wasting their time until the new work day. Like many immigrants, he wasn’t and could clearly see what opportunities there were.
One of the things he kept telling me was that he kept getting all these Business School guys who kept spouting off “business models” and “demographics”. As founder and CEO, he shut them up real quick. “It is about the customers, not about the prattle you keep talking about.” They thought they were talking about customers, but he clearly made it seen that they were not. “You guys never talk about the user experience.” He would fire these gentlemen.
And this is why the ‘industry’ mindset needs to end. The modern “Game Industry” needs to be creatively destroyed. To the marketer, gaming does not revolve around demographics. To the publisher, gaming does not revolve around revenue. To the game developer, gaming does not revolve around YOU and your eccentric tastes. To all, gaming revolves around the customers. By customers, I mean customers that are currently playing games and those who are not currently playing and may soon do so for the first time.
To hell with the “Games Industry”! What is ‘good’ for the “Games Industry” is NOT good for gaming, and by gaming we mean the customer. It is this ‘industry’ mindset that is giving us price increases, DRM, horse armor as downloadable content, to even not allowing customers to own games anymore but to ‘rent them indefinately’.
If the “Game Industry” wishes to prosper, it should let its customers prosper.