As I think about what compels people to buy this thing called ‘video games’, which itself is worthless as a video game cannot be eaten, cannot be worn, and has no real practical value, it all comes to two different forms of purchases.
One of the reasons why I’m better at taking the temperature of the gaming market than others is because I greatly detest spending money on this thing called ‘video games’. It’s a waste of money and time. However, there are certainly temptations. All consoles currently out have enough games on them that the idea of having all the consoles and living in some Shangri-La of entertainment is interesting. But I don’t need all these video games. So I easily resist the temptation and avalanche of marketing these game companies keep firing at me.
What compels me to buy a video game is based on some gut need. Like when I saw the Wii, I said, “I NEED THIS.” And need means I was so frantic that I had to pre-order and fight to get it (and it was a fight). Clearly I wasn’t alone as the Wii was sold out for three years in the United States. Other people felt this ‘need’ as well which created a different gaming purchase move than the usual temptation that the Game Industry routinely uses.
When the original Super Mario Brothers came out in 1985, I looked at it and declared it was stupid. I pointed to my Commodore 64 and said, “That’s all I need! I don’t need that!” What attracted my attention to the NES was actually the light gun and Duck Hunt. Computers didn’t have light guns! I was shooting ducks and said to a friend, “This game is going to be big!” He corrected me and pointed to Super Mario Brothers. “No, it is THIS GAME that will be big.” And he was right.
I had no need for Super Mario Brothers or a video game console until I played it. The game was so much fun that I had to keep playing it. And there was all these other games on it too like The Legend of Zelda. It was a gut need that propelled me to buy the system and the games. It wasn’t because of some gadget or entertainment temptation. I needed Super Mario Brothers. When the sequels came out, I did everything I could to grab my hands on them. And you know what? So did many other people. It was a mania we call ‘Mario Madness’. What Nintendo executives refer to as the ‘Social Phenomenon’ is actually just a game activating that gut need.
When I purchase a game console, what games do I get for it? After thirty years of history by using myself, the pattern is the same. I always buy games to fill out the need impulses. My game library is not filled with one type of game but with a wide variety of games that perform different jobs. For example, on the NES I bought games specifically for multiplayer since Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, and Metroid were not multiplayer games. Hello Contra. Hello Life Force. Hello Double Dragon 2. I NEEDED a multiplayer game. But I can’t have all action games. I NEEDED a more passive game. How about an RPG? Hello Dragon Warrior. Hello Final Fantasy.
Nintendo is basing much of how consumers purchase video games based on novelty or ‘difference’. If every game out there is a first person shooter, then why make more? The sales may look like the customer is purchasing something because it is “different” but actually because it fulfills a different need. People I know with Xbox 360s were excited about Oblivion or Skyrim because it satisfied a different need than Call of Duty 4. It is that need that propels the big sales.
This is in sharp contrast to the temptation gamers who are in every gaming message forum.l These gamers enjoy the idea of having many games or the idea of gaming as a lifestyle. They admittedly buy games they do not have the time to play. These customer habits are never a good thermometer for the gaming market because the idea of gaming or the idea of the gaming lifestyle is largely created by industry marketing. The customers who purchase games based on ‘need’ cannot be swayed by the marketing. If they don’t need the game, no amount of ‘lifestyle marketing’ will persuade them.
In the same way, think of restauranteurs. Some people go to a restaurant because they are hungry. But there are others who go to a restaurant because they like the idea of going to a restaurant and the ‘lifestyle’ of it. The restauranteurs enjoy the ‘atmosphere’ of the restuarant. I don’t give a damn. I just care about the food. I often skip restaurants and just have my meal at the places the locals frequent. I’ve found I get better food this way.
The 3DS’s 3d output animated the temptation customers but not the need customers. People like myself did not need 3d output to satisfy ourselves. It seemed like more trouble than its worth. However, the Wii might have confused some of the temptation customers (not the Nintendo fans who buy anything coming from Nintendo), but the need customers saw it as a way to connect to their family and friends.
Nintendo doesn’t see these need customers or temptation customers. All they see is ‘integrated hardware and software’. If the DS and Wii were ‘integrated hardware and software’ and sold well, shouldn’t the 3DS? Not seeing this has caused Nintendo to enter the Eighth Generation with a broken jaw after the cold reception the market had to the 3DS.
Over the decades, I routinely replay Super Mario Brothers 3 and 4 (and even 2). I do not play Super Mario Brothers 1 often. Why? It is because the need, that hunger, was extinguished with Super Mario Brothers 3 and 4. It is also why I do not routinely play Donkey Kong.
If Super Mario 64 was successful (as in being a sequel to 2d Mario), it should have replaced my hunger for Super Mario Brothers 3 and 4. It did not. I still had to keep replaying Super Mario Brothers 3 and 4 to satisfy that hunger. None of the 3D Marios could satisfy that appetite. So when 2d Mario reappeared on the DS and Wii, we saw an eruption there because NSMB and Super Mario Brothers 5 were like food given to a starving man. We had no alternative for around twenty years. This appetite also gave a pass to NSMB’s poor quality.
Will 2d Mario keep selling? Of course because there is still a hunger for it. There is a gut based need in it. People recognize it when they see it and will purchase it.
But let’s look at Metroid for a moment. Like others, I routinely replay Metroid and Super Metroid. Apparently, these games satisfy a hunger other Metroid games do not. (The Metroid Prime games feel like such a hassle to go through and too slow paced.) Now look at Metroid Other M. Does this game satisfy that appetite? It does not. Giving Other M to a Metroid fan is like giving steak to my cat. The cat looks at me like “WTF are you doing? Give me food that satisfies my appetite. Not food that satisfies YOUR appetite.”
Let’s look at Zelda. I keep routinely playing Legend of Zelda, Zelda II, and Link to the Past over and over again. Apparently, it is satisfying some need that keeps me coming back. And Aonuma Zelda obviously isn’t satisfying that need. This is why I can be 100% sure that a more classic approach to Zelda would be big because there is a massive Zelda appetite out there that is being unfulfilled. Just like there were millions of hungry Mario fans starving for a new 2d Mario, there are many Zelda fans starving for an actual Zelda game (not an Aonuma puzzle narrative).
One issue is that people like myself are vocal only about the appetites that remain, not about the appetites that are fulfilled. Once upon a time, shmups were the bread and butter of console gaming. I try to go back to these shmups, get amused for a little time, but then shrug off the game. I have no desire to return to Gradius. I suspect the reason may be due to the appetite has been fulfilled with other shooting games. Today, the bread and butter of gaming is first person shooters. Apparently, the FPS satisfies that appetite that shmups did decades ago.
In fact, this may destroy the idea of a ‘classic game’. What is a classic game but a game that keeps satisfying an appetite that modern games are not? Many of the best selling games of the past are unknown today because they fulfill no present day appetites. Why play Madden on the Genesis when Madden today satisfies the same need? However, every game we call a ‘classic’ is always a game that has no modern substitute. The ‘classics’ end up becoming games that weren’t big sellers when they were released.
Games like Star Control 2 or Paradroid are classics because they fulfill an appetite that a modern game has not. No game like them has ever been made since. However, should a game come along that satisfies that appetite, no one may remember them. They would ‘vanish’ as classics as their role in satisfying an appetite no longer exists. We saw how Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World became ‘less relevant’ when Super Mario Brothers 5 was released.
When I praise the classics, I do so not in some nostalgic view of the past. I praise the classics because I wish to destroy the classics. I want the classics replaced with modern games that satisfy the existing appetites. The Game Industry has learned that these classic brands still have considerable selling power. The reason why is because the definition of a classic is a game that satisfies an appetite that a modern game does not.
I am not here to praise Classic Zelda but to destroy it. The way to destroy it is to make a better game that satisfies the existing appetite.
This is why I bash developers’ obsession over creativity so much. Creativity is saying that gaming revolves around developer’s appetites instead of gamers’ appetites. Metroid: Other M was designed around Sakamoto’s appetite, not around gamers’ appetites.
You may laugh about the idea of games selling to appetites, but look at how Wii Sports or Wii Fit just exploded. It did satisfy an existing appetite. Or Super Mario Brothers 5 also satisfied an existing appetite. The marketer will say, “But I created that appetite with my marketing.” No. People had no need to buy the Wii until they played it. People were sold on Super Mario Brothers 5 before any marketing because of the previous 2d Mario games.
Consider Minecraft. The game erupted out of nowhere. Why? It did so because it satisfied some need. That was what pushed me to buy it. I certainly resisted the idea of buying the game at every step of the way.
The easiest way to get a customer’s money is to satisfy an existing appetite. If the customer knew what it was, this would be very easy. But the customer doesn’t know and so the process begins.
What we do know is that the existing appetite cannot be found by copying existing games. This is not because “different is better, LOL” mentality. This is because more of the same cannot satisfy an existing appetite. If you get steak all the time, you might have a big desire for soup but not realize it. The idea is not that soup is different than steak, but that soup satisfies an appetite that constant steak wasn’t providing.
Making more 2d Mario defies all logic to Nintendo. “I made that game before,” Miyamoto says, “and I do not wish to make it again.” However, he strangely doesn’t say that about 3d Mario. Constant 3d Mario games are not going to satisfy like a 2d Mario game. 2d Mario seems like a breath of fresh air in an environment of constant 3d Marios.
Right now, the poor Nintendo gamer is flooded with Aonuma Zeldas. If Nintendo truly believed in trying something different, why not try a Classic Zelda approach? I suspect those poor souls who do enjoy Aonuma Zelda games (and poor souls they are) actually do have an appetite for Classic Zelda they do not realize (in the same way 3d Mario fans had the 2d Mario appetite even if they didn’t realize it). Appetites are not realized until the food is sitting right in front of you.
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