Hi Malstrom,
I’m sending you a link to an article entitled “Immersion,
Accessibility, and the Evolution of the Video Game Industry“:
The last sentence caught my attention:
“One can only hope that quality in gameplay and design remain at the
forefront of the video game industry, instead of accessibility and
immersion.”
Seems that the entire article is based on the assumption that the
appeal of the Wii is an attempt to provide more “immersion”, while
citing examples of an academic project similar to those virtual
reality caves where the player is isolated from the real world and
instead take part on a virtual one. Then it calls immersion a fallacy
(isn’t it ironic from a hardcore point-of-view?).
After reading some of your posts, I started to notice the usage of the
“game industry” expression. This text is another example where the
author asks what is good for the “industry” first, and then “gamers”
second (and only once). Reading articles like these is somewhat
creepy, as if people have been brainwashed to only understand gaming
through “sales numbers”, “business models” and “the industry” without
ever having a second thought about all that.
I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to spot thought patterns inside this
article better than anyone else.
You are clever to catch the “game industry speak” (mind if I steal that term? :) ). As someone who likes language and how we use language, it is clear that there is a type of “Industry Speak” that everyone seems to do. It didn’t use to be this way. It seems more like a recent phenomenon.
Industry Speak is people blurting words like ‘demographics’ or ‘business models’ and all but don’t use the words correctly. Remember prior to when the consoles came out and everyone would place ‘Next Gen’ in front of every noun? “Next Gen” consoles! “Next Gen” games!” I think software next year for the Xbox 360 will be “Next Gen”. I am a “Next Gen” player. My cat is “Next Gen.” My wife sucks, she isn’t “Next Gen”. I got some bananas, they are “Next Gen.” “Next Gen” is a word that has clearly been abused and is much more fun to use in non-video-game ways. “Next Gen” pancakes. “Next Gen” shower curtain. “Next Gen” toothpaste.
Let us look at ‘business model’. The best way to illustrate what a ‘business model’ is to imagine walking into a McDonald’s. The hamburgers really suck at McDonald’s. I can make a better hamburger then they can. Even you, the dear reader, can clearly make a better hamburger. But neither one of us could make a better business model. The hamburger is just the product and quite a lousy product at that. But everything else going on, from the trucks shipping in the french fries, to hiring teenagers willing to work for low wages and need low training, the entire buzzing process from when the customer orders to when they get their ‘hamburger’ (if you can call that a hamburger), all of that is the business model. Anyone can make a better hamburger, but no one knows how to make a better business model. This is why fast food companies are successful.
Seeing game developers talk about ‘business models’ is insanely bizarre. They are employees whose job is to make the games. You don’t see the young kid at McDonald’s start talking about ‘business models’. And there haven’t been too many changes to the business model of gaming over the years anyway. Delivering hamburgers inside the restaurant or the Drive-Through Window is still the same business model. Business model is how is the business set up? Digital distribution is not a ‘new business model’ so much as a new delivery system that goes around retail.However, MMORPGs are a new business model. Blockbuster (stores) and Netflix (mail) are different business models. Shareware games (remember those?) used a different business model than boxed games. Flash games use a different business model from boxed games.
The word business model keeps being thrown around because the speaker is trying to sound ‘sophisticated’ on business matters but is clearly showing he doesn’t know what he is saying. I’ve known movers and shakers in various industries, real business men. They talk like truck drivers. It is nothing like what they say in business school. I bet Bill Gates swears all the time behind closed doors. In business school, they talk like they do with their (in their belief) “sophisticated” language because they are academics. In the real world, businessmen don’t talk like that. They are very direct, very to the point, rarely use flowery language, and tend to use metaphors.
‘Demographics’ seems to be everyone’s favorite ‘Industry Speak’ word at the moment. Demographics are used to find out about a population such as their income levels and all. But Industry Speak is using demographics as “segregation-as-analysis”. Let’s look at the article for some examples:
With an increase in accessibility and immersion comes an increase in demographic and market size, and ultimately an increase in profits.
What does ‘increase in demographic size’ mean!?
As motion-control becomes increasingly popular, both inside and outside the video game demographic, profit-driven video game companies will naturally move resources away from creating and improving traditional experiences to establishing footholds in the burgeoning markets.
Video-game demographic? What the hell is that?
If the word ‘demographic’ was replaced with ‘population’, the sentences would make more sense.
Demographics is just breaking down a population by various traits. Throwing ‘demographics’ into any analysis, unless you are specifically studying the population, just doesn’t make any sense. On message forums and all, you’ll clearly start hearing someone say, “This demographic over there is pew pew, that demographic over there is whoo whoo,” and what are they trying to get from this? They’re just going in circles. I suspect since most people on game forums are students, they think it is correct to sound this way.
Anyway, Ninendo does not sell to ‘demographics’. What Nintendo does is look at products in a jobs orientated way. The job of Wii Fit is to get fit, right? It is a very different job than what Bioshock is trying to do (immersion). Since women also want to get fit, Wii Fit is attractive to them while Bioshock is not. Wii Fit wasn’t aimed at women so much as the product had a different job, a job that women also wanted. Brain Age’s job was to make a healthy brain which is something older people want. And that is why Brain Age sold to older people. It was “Product as a job to be done” and not “Product as demographics” which is why Wii and DS became so successful.
Nintendo has actually come out against immersion. It was Nintendo reps who point blank said that Home would not work right when Sony was unveiling it. When Iwata talked about Touch Generation games, he clearly states that these games were successful because they were connecting to people’s lives, not replacing them. All these new gamers came because they were not immersion.
As I read this article, I find its argument constructed this way:
First, it is stated that the Wii became successful because of greater ‘immersion’ (due to motion controls).
Second, it is followed that Sony and Microsoft are following Nintendo into motion controls because the trend is toward immersion.
Third, it is said that Immersion is a Fallacy and quotes people saying that. “Play” is very important than the flood of the senses as is stated. Quotes Blezinski in saying how he doesn’t want Gears of War to use Natal (haha, I would love to see the look on the hardcore’s faces if IT DID!!! hahahaha)
Fourth, his article concludes that the Wii’s sustainability is in ‘question’, cites the falling Wii sales lately.
His premise for his article is entirely incorrect, though. Wii’s success, as is with Touch Generation series, is not about immersing the player. It is about connecting to the player’s life, not replacing it. That is why there was a Touch Generation brand in the first place. Nintendo would be more likely to agree that immersion is a fallacy than say Sony, who made Home and thought it would be the best thing ever.
The article ends in the most predictable of places: that Nintendo is doomed.
The question however, might be a moot one. Despite overwhelming hardware and software sales for the Wii, its sustainability remains in question.
This is not new. Wii’s ‘sustainability’ is always in ‘question’ ever since it came out. It is the desire to look at Wii as an aberration in the market instead of what it is: the future.
Why is Core Gaming’s ‘sustainability’ never questioned? It is Expanded Market games that are dominating the software charts, not Core Market games. If a Core Market game does appear in the software chart, it is gone within the next chart. Core Gaming’s costs keep going up while their customer base are stagnant or shrinking.
The entire business reason why the Wii and DS were made is because Nintendo believed the Core Market to be unsustainable.
So it is inevitable to ask whether the Core Market is sustainable. Yet, no one is asking this. Why?
“It is because, Mr. Malstrom,” a snobby person replies, “hardcore gamers always play games and will always buy the latest games.” You are not describing customers but zombies. Zombies will keep marching forward, no matter what, but customers have limits.
What a generation! The ‘casual gamer’ is a retard and the ‘hardcore gamer’ is a lemming! “Let’s put all our games on digital distribution. Hardcore are lemmings, they will buy ANYTHING!” Yeah, you just go and try that. “We can keep raising our game prices because the hardcore will keep buying it! They are lemmings!”
These are lemmings.
These are gamers.
The hardcore are slowly awakening to the fact that they are being used as saps and are not respected by the “industry”. Your dollars are respected, but the hardcore gamer as a customer is not. In the end, they become similiar to the so-called ‘casual gamer’ whose dollars are appreciated but not the customer, not the person.
In private, the “industry” thinks the ‘casual gamers’ are a bunch of retards. In private, the “industry” also thinks the ‘hardcore’ are a bunch of lemmings.
This “industry” cannot die fast enough.
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