Hi there Sean,
It is pretty clear the game concept was ‘inspired’ from something on the Internet. That is the point of my Anti-Content post was not just user-generated content but personality content and creativity content. Since no one on these websites appears to have really played this game (and frankly, what guy wants to play that?), we’re still somewhat in the dark about it. But Nintendo sells it as a ‘personality’ type game for girls.
I also don’t like Nintendo’s recent moves for making (or rather pushing) games for certain demographic groups. Women’s Myster Club? That female shop game? This doesn’t sound like ‘Everyone’s Game’. Games like Mario Kart, Zelda, NSMB, Wii Sports, Nintendogs, etc. all are more universal.
In the Iwata Asks interview about it, Iwata and Miyamoto are practically ‘giddy’ about it and user-generated content. It was stomache wrenching.
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This is something I’ve been suspecting. Much of the Wii madness was the expectation of Wii’s features, like motion controls, will translate to new types of content. Reading many of the reviews on Amazon and elseware, it seems many people expect DSi’s other features like the camera and all to be used for gaming… sometime… somehow (gaming more than just WarioWare). They are going to be very disapointed when they discover that Nintendo has no plans for such features since Nintendo views it as ‘Creativity Fun’ while the customer is thinking, “When is the real stuff going to happen?”
DS-Ware is definately the big draw for the DSi. But what has been released on it that really justifies the purchase of a DSi? There are some games, but nothing on a real content centric level. Nintendo selling clocks and calculators for it is giving a bad name to the service.
Yeah, that isn’t too surprising. It also shows how old that Flip Note Iwata Asks was because Miyamoto (or was it Iwata) were gushing about how ‘excited’ they were for this new WarioWare. Apparently customers were not excited at all.
It is shocking that before testing this concept of ‘anti-content’ with a lead balloon game, Nintendo had revamped the entire company toward this direction with other games being made with ‘anti-content’.
All Nintendo had to do, to continue their momentum, was to continue and build on their 2006/2007 Era direction. The 2006/2007 Era was the belief that the Core Market was in trouble so there was to make Core Market games to ride out that decline, make Expanded Market games to carve out new growth, and make Bridge Games to bring the Core over to the Expanded Market’s values in games like Mario Kart Wii. In the 2008/2009 Era, Nintendo got arrogant from their huge Wii success, thinks the process of what goes on in the Internet should be combined with gaming, and begin to sail in an anti-content direction. Games like Wii Music weren’t even really Expanded Market games. After all, Expanded Market games even have content. Games like Wii Music and other user-generated content/personality software/etc. are more like digital shells where the ‘fun’ is supposed to be generated from the player. But players do not want to generate ‘fun’, they want to consume it.
In a blow to the Blue Ocean Strategy, Nintendo is following Sony in this directon of Anti-Content. This user-generated content is going to hurt Sony as it continues to go on this path but they don’t realize it yet which will be fun to watch.
For some reason, game developers go absolute ga ga over ‘user generated content’. Both being game developers, it is as if Iwata and Miyamoto’s developer ‘personalities’ rose up and eliminated any common sense from them. You can’t go around selling games without any content! That is madness. I wonder if the ‘ga ga’ part of user-generated content, of the belief that it is ‘revolutionary’, is just game developers in awe of changing up the process. Gamers only see the end result, of course, which is the content. We don’t care about ‘process’.
User-Generated Content, even if it worked, would lead to depressed sales in other games because people would buy that game and that game only. A User-Generated Content game would be cool only if that is the only game you ever buy.
Most customers don’t have the TIME to go through all that mediocre garbage that is ‘user-generated content’. Most people would rather buy a new game, or even a used game, and get professional content than wallow in amateur garbage. I thought the entire purpose of console companies was to get people to buy as many games as possible. How is user-generated content performing that goal at all?
What makes no sense is that a Nintendo premise this generation is that customers no longer have much time to play games. But user-generated content games require MORE TIME than even the most epic games for both the creator and player of user-generated content. It takes MUCH TIME to create the content to one’s liking. It takes significant time for the non-creator to wade through lots of garbage to find those few kernels of quality content.
Frankly, I think most customer behavior shows that they would rather spend money to buy more professional content with another game than spend time in mediocrity content.
The problem is not that Nintendo is making a few ‘anti-content’ games but that the entire company does not see itself in the content business.
A main reason why the Core Market is in trouble is not just because the high hurdle of a learning curve. It is because costs have become so high, it is too risky to experiment with new content.
Bad controls do not necessarily make a bad gaming experience. One of the reason why people like watching the Angry Video Game Nerd is because, long ago, bad games used to be fun. It was like watching a campy movie. Bad games are not fun today because so much time is wasted. Even good games aren’t as fun because they still demand so much time to play. Even to this day, the 8-bit and 16-bit library is fun to explore. Take a really bad game, say the NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first one). No one really got past the second stage where you disable underwater bombs. The game was seriously broken in many ways. Yet, it was very popular back then because of the game’s content. People loved the turtles and didn’t care the game was broken. The main drive to the fun in the game was the content, not the gameplay. This is why poorly done license games sell today. People want to interact with Spongebob or Harry Potter which is why they buy the games.
A very real criticism of Nintendo, that they have been dangerously shrugging off, is remaking the same games again (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc). This is a criticism of content creation, of course. Nintendo is very good at generating new gameplay ideas. Apparently, the reason why it has lost the art of content creation is that Iwata and all do not see video games in the content business. (Newspapers and magazines do not see themselves in the content business either. This is why they are going out of business today. To this day, they still believe that the “Internet” is what killed them. Rather, it was that the Internet offered superior content to what you found in newspapers and magazines.)
The criticism of Wii Music and Animal Crossing Wii, one game for the Expanded Market and the other game for the Core Market, is the same exact criticism. Wii Music was just a shell of no content. Animal Crossing Wii presented no new content for Animal Crossing fans, nothing substantial.
The entire point of reducing costs in game production was to present new content propositions. Coddling Mario/Zelda/Metroid when not utilizing the console’s lower cost to create fresh content (since the other consoles won’t) is disappointing. One game of each series is good enough for each Nintendo system. Nintendo wouldn’t be getting anywhere if they began making multiple Mario Karts for a system as an example.
Even the Expanded Audience is hungry for content. While games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit would be new IPs, they present more in gameplay and controls than they do in content.
If you ask someone why they like Wii sports Resort, they will reply, “The game just has so much content!” which is an answer to the greater question. The Expanded Market crowd will devour WuHu Island. And of course, they will want even more content.
The business of World of Warcraft is the business of content. The game launched with more content than I’ve ever seen any game launch with, and additional content keeps being streamed to the game. This is why people keep paying $15 a month for it.
The content is the bait, the gameplay is the hook.
Nintendo’s failure to generate a new Tetris like game, I believe, is underplaying the notion that content was not a factor in Tetris’s success. So while Nintendo is presenting great gameplay propositions of little games, it feels they are missing the other half which is the content.
When you hear people talk about Wii Sports Resort, they don’t really talk excitedly about the gameplay. They do talk excitedly about WuHu Island. I think this reveals what matters most in the customer’s world.