I am DYING to hear your reaction to the social media crap in the Super Mario Bros Wii U game.
Am I the only person who found that 2D background with ugly 3D stacked on top of it to be outright hideous?
I think the ‘social media’ shown in Super Mario Brothers 6 is an example for ALL Nintendo Wii U games. Mario Kart 8 will have it as well. And so will Zelda. (hahaha, I can’t wait to see that.)
Back in 2006, my first article for the Wiikly was titled “The Theory of Cycles””. This article was released before the launch of the Wii.
The Game Industry has a herd mentality that is more sheep-like than any ‘fanboy club’. By the ‘industry’, I am not saying gamers but the publishers and the designers who work for them. Emerson said, “Imitation is suicide,” but within this industry, one might say: “Imitation is law.”
The Game Industry both intentionally andunintentionally is a play of musical chairs of copycats. By intentionally, when one game sells very strongly, many publishers will clone the game. Recent examples of this include Grand Theft Auto III and the Brain games. By unintentionally, when games adopt a certain technology and style of gaming, the industry sees that as THE standard of gaming and automatically follows it. A recent example of this is the cinema style of games (long introduction, various cut scenes, a ‘story’, etc). Only within ten years ago, thanks to the introduction of large storage formats such as the cd, was this possible. The industry automatically followed into cinema style games and the industry began to mirror the movie industry. Now that the trend is turning against the cinema style games, those that grew up or were used to the style complain today that these ‘new trend’ of games are not games at all. “They are non-games.” What these people do not realize (and I place many of the professionals in the industry as well) was that their ‘definition’ of a game was but a temporary trend whose salad days do not last much longer than a decade. A new trend of gaming occurs and the entire industry will change with it. Those who anticipate the trends will ride the wave. Those who buckle it will watch their companies and careers be swept under the tidal wave. The Game Industry is a sea bed full of fossilized companies who were once movers and shakers. Designers who were once red-hot and momentarily famous became petrified by the sun and salt water. This is what happens when you fail to ride the currents and are left in the open ocean.
Theory of Cycles
I made this image in old Microsoft Paint. The theory was that the Game Industry’s herd mentality kept overcompensating. Another hit game appears and the next cycle begins.
In 2006, I wrote Interface/ Social Cycle as the period we were entering (we were in the transition between Cinema and Social Cycles) because I didn’t fully know whether the future would totally be about interface or social or both. Social won out.
We are in the midst of the full blown Social Cycle.
In 2o06, Sony and Microsoft were thinking of gaming in the context of the Cinema Cycle. They thought combining playback of movies and gameconsoles (HD DVD, Blu-Ray) was a ticket to success. They thought games imitating Hollywood movies was the ticket to success.
Companies like Nintendo succeeded not because they said, “The future is Social Cycle!” but that they had an honest analysis of what people expect from games and correctly made the product to fit those expectations. The Wii was a slam dunk hit. But as the Game Industry and Nintendo were surprised by the Wii’s dramatic success, they tried to ‘analyze’ it and came up with ‘Social’ as the one word answer to its success. Ever since then, every game console and video game is trying to be ‘social’.
I remember people being upset about Theory of Cycles back in 2006 because they never DREAMED the definition of a video game could be anything *but* a cinematic experience. But if you look at video games in their full history, we find that they definitely had different phases and influences. Cinema was a recent one. In 2006, we were transitioning out of Cinema and no one knew it until the Wii hit. Social games that were popular could not be identified when the Game Industry kept using a Cinema definition to video games. Therefore, the Game Industry called them ‘non-games’ and then ‘casual games’ until they became ‘social games’.
The DS is a good example of this change. Aside from the interface changing, the DS incorporates social gaming within its model. Games such as Nintendogs, Brain Training, and Animal Crossing DS not only use the new interface but the games’ multiplayer is more intimate. Inviting someone to your town in Animal Crossing is a far cry than shooting them in a FPS. This social gaming is rapidly pulling in female gamers. The new interface is allowing non-gamers such as the elderly to play whereas before, the many buttons created a ‘wall’ which prevented them to play.
A better example of this cycle would be World of Warcraft. Now, World of Warcraft is a very boring game which can be summed up as: “Welcome to Barrens! Kill raptors!” “Welcome to Arathi! Kill raptors!” “Welcome to Stranglethorn! Kill raptors!” “Welcome to Un’Goro Crater! Kill raptors!” But World of Warcraft is so phenomenal because it is not about Arcade Style gaming or Cinema Style gaming but about social gaming. Most people play WoW to hang out with their friends. For guys, it is like a game with a chat room. For girls, it is a chat room with a game. “But what about the interface change in WoW? See? There is no interface change!” The biggest surprise with WoW is the custom interfaces that people make. Even casual gamers will create the most complex interface on their screen (which has surprised many developers). When a new patch arrives on WoW, cries from gamers spread on the Internet because their customized interface no longer works and must be patched independently. On both PC and console, the shifting to the Social/ Interface Cycle is clearly happening.
I wrote the above in 2006! 6 years ago! The above words were very controversial then. Today, no one will disagree with them.
The biggest change in the console companies has come from Nintendo. Nintendo is no longer an Arcade Cycle type company. Re-constructed with a new president, Nintendo is firmly placed in the Social/ Interface Cycle and is on the good side of the trend. The DS has been massively successful (when most gamers, caught in the cinema cycle, predicted it to fail). The Wii, also mocked by cinema gamers for not having HD visuals or super sound output, will also be surprisingly successful.
I never tire of hearing myself be correct.
In 2006, we were at the transition to the Social Cycle of gaming. In 2012, we are in the middle of it.
My own disgust and other gamers with all this ‘social gaming’ signals that the Social Cycle, like all cycles, will end, and its peak may be over. I expect a gradual decline and increased disinterest in ‘social’ games.
What will replace the Social Cycle? To answer that, we have to see the future five to ten years from now. We only have one clue: cycles shift to something the prior cycle wasn’t providing. Tabletop gaming isn’t very bursty or exciting. So it was defensless when the Arcade cycle took over. But Arcade gaming can be very tiring after a long period of time. This vulnerability allowed Cinema gaming to steamroll it in popularity. But in Cinema gaming, you are always alone, isolated. This allowed Social gaming to destroy it.
What are the weaknesses of Social gaming? Those weaknesses will be the foundation for the next gaming cycle. Whoever sees it first will make the next Wii phenomenon.
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