Reading your email, I got to think more and more about the editing process. There is a saying for writers that a good writer is someone who thinks they are the best and worst writer in the world. They think they are the best when writing because they need that ego to propel them to complete their manuscript. But when it comes to editing, they need to think they are the worst writer in order to properly edit their manuscript.
I grew up in the era before the Internet. My brain sees products as finished when they are placed on the shelves. A novel, a CD, a movie, or a video game is expected to be ‘finished’ when placed on that shelf. The makers have to be in a big dilemma about how much time should they devote to editing and tweaking? The business suits want the product out there to bring in money. But as we’ve seen in the gaming industry, if developers had their way all the time, many games would be in development forever.
In the Age of the Internet, novels, movies, music, and video games do not have a physical form. There is no shelf to put it on. They are in a constant state of change with updates. The editing process continues after the customer has access to the product.
This greatly bothered me at first. But then I learned to make a distinction. Someone patching a game after the game was released just so they could push the game out earlier is not trying to deliver a good customer experience. However, a patch delivered after the game released can fix something completely unforeseen (perhaps a multiplayer imbalance bug or a hack). This would be delivering good customer service.
But it is too often when we say, “This is new! Never before have we seen this before!” but there is nothing new under the sun. Even as these products were material goods, they did get ‘patches’ included with them when the next shipment was sent to the store.
For centuries, these mediums have never had a fixed center. How many versions of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is there? Back in that time period, the play was performed and then it was edited. It was performed again, and it was edited again. Perhaps the reason why the plays ended being so good is the constant tweaking that was done. Yet, we see those plays as ‘finished products’ when they were actually in a state of constant flux.
How many editions and revisions have there been to The Bible? There you go.
With some games being online only (like a MMORPG) which you can never actually own and is in a state of constant flux, there are some gamers I know who think they could never bring themselves to play them because they aren’t “finished products”. But when video games came into existence, you couldn’t buy them either. The arcade business model has more in common with the MMORPG than with console gaming today. I could never BUY Pac-Man. To me, the arcades were such a huge social experience where you could compete over scores and hang out with friends. Some of these online only games are fulfilling that same thing.
The future of the video games revolves around customer service. There is the Blizzard model where they keep patching and updating a game to make it last forever (Starcraft). And there is the Electronic Arts model where they cease patching and updating a game to let it die. EA is in big trouble doing this because eventually people are going to cease to buy the games because games will stop being seen as a ‘finished product on the shelf’. Customers are going to demand customer service with their game services. They are going to demand multiplayer be balanced and that hacks are removed.
Video games are shifting from a product business to a service business. Since arcades were a service business, it is perhaps more interesting to ask how gaming turned into a product business in the first place.
Or perhaps the ‘product business’ was an illusion. I contend that video games have originated and have always been a ‘service business’. The business of game consoles revolves entirely around service. “You mean the hardware?” No. I mean the software. It is what Nintendo calls ‘making momentum’. A console demands consistent software releases or the console sales will fall.
When you, the amazing reader, purchase a console, you expect a service in the form of constant software to be released. The reason why E3 is so anticipated by consumers is not so much to see ‘what comes next’ but more of “How is this company servicing me?”
The absolutely worst thing a console company can do is to treat their console like a ‘product on the shelf’ and think they have to do nothing after you purchase it. This, perhaps, may explain the many bodies in the console graveyard.