The game industry needs to grow up.
It's young and as a medium, games provide so many opportunities that aren't being taken.
I think the industry needs the gaming equivalents of Driving Miss Daisy and Life is Beautiful, but increasingly, it seems gamers and game developers, when considering making games that appeal to "grown ups" are limiting themselves to Saving Private Ryan. That narrow-minded approach is perhaps causing players and designers alike to completely ignore one of the most amazing titles of the year, Wii Music.
Movie = Observed, Game = Involved
On the way out of Disneyland last week I was talking to my kids about the new Toy Story ride. The ride is like a video game with 3D screens and a gun (cannon?) that you use to fire at various targets. It's an amazing ride that is a lot of fun, especially for someone who really enjoys games.
I told my 5-year-old that she should tell her Mom all about it, and she stopped me and said "But Dad, you told us not to tell Mom about Movies." It was a great moment for me to stop and think. For her, she couldn't see the difference between a movie and a game. She'd been told many times not to tell Mom about movie endings so as to not ruin the movie, and she thought this game/ride was the same thing.
Of course the ride is nothing like a movie. In describing it, I wouldn't talk about the story, and there is absolutely no way I could ruin it for you because you have to experience it to understand it. While there are some games like movies, I think the greatest strength of games is the fact that they are an 'experience.'
A 'Mini-Rant'
However, it seems that despite interactive being an integral part of games, when attempting to discuss how to make games that tackle more 'grown-up' issues we often limit our approach to that of movies and other observer types of media.
Books, movies and music are all bad comparisons with the whole of what video games offers as a medium. They all make statements to the audience instead of involving the audience in the statement. Interactivity is what gaming offers that makes it the most amazing form of entertainment and media of our time. Interactivity can provide a way for people to experience things and broaden their minds in ways that no other form of media can do. I believe gaming will struggle to be all it can be if we only consider a narrow band of what gaming can be.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 has become the favorite system for gamers. (at least in the US if no-where else) The type of game given the largest advertising budget over the 4 Christmases it's been available, has been amazingly constant:
2005 - Perfect Dark
2006 - Gears of War
2007 - Halo 3
2008 - Gears of War 2
That list I find amazingly disappointing because the approach is all in the same little box. Where Microsoft is putting its top advertising dollars is a very strong statement about who the gaming industry is. I don't want to take anything away from the games, they are great. The problem is, when we look at our efforts to make the industry grow-up or better appeal to adults, placing so much focus on such a narrow slice of gaming, hurts the industry. If we limit ourselves to trying to discuss weighty matters that are of real significance within such a small approach vector, we are condemning video games to a limited role in society.
So why the rant?
After watching E3, I scratched WiiMusic off my 'get' list. I was sure Nintendo and Shigero Miyamoto had lost their collective minds. In the weeks leading to the game's release, I watched the occasional video and read snipits on gamer blogs about the game, trying to grasp what the point was. During that time, it was easy to join the 'haven't played the game, but somehow understand it enough to hate it' mass that seem to define gamers of our day.
The first crack to my shell came from reading a piece from Stephen Totillo on MTV Multiplayer talking about the moment he 'got' the game while playing Every Breath you Take. I'm a fan of Sting and of Stephen's honest writing style, he had me interested.
Then I watched a video from JC Rodrigo on YouTube. I was further interested and thought the game would be worth a try at least and since I had a $25 gift-card to use, so it wouldn't be like a full-priced game anyway.
I've put in over 10 hours on WiiMusic in the short time I've owned it, and I feel like I haven't scratched the surface. It is a game unlike any other I've played, the closest thing that comes to it is WiiFit. (another much misunderstood and much maligned game by "gamers") WiiFit has made me think about myself and my health in a way that I never got out of a movie or any book. By being an experience I was having instead of something I was observing, it much more strongly impacted me.
Another tangent - WiiFit
Simply weighing myself every couple of days and doing simple exercises changed my perception. I became aware of how I balanced my body on my heels and started mentally trying to correct this. I realized how positive an impact exercising (outside of the game) had on my weight. I also had fun in a new and different way. I came to love several of the balance board games and looked forward to playing them for a few minutes as a reward for doing some of the exercises. I didn't play the game daily and play it much less now that I've had it for 6 months, but it has impacted my life. It has changed my perception of myself and my health and has done so by being a video game that pushed the boundaries in a way that made most gamers uncomfortable and has brought it under a lot of scorn. I bristle when I hear such things. If I never play the game again, I can say it impacted my life in a positive way, in a way that no other form of media could, and I'm pretty amazed by that.
So back to WiiMusic.
I've enjoyed singing in choirs and when I was younger I played in bands. I play piano pretty badly, but not horribly (which is how I play guitar). I like music and enjoy a wide variety of it (my interests are far from satiated by the play lists in Guitar Hero and Rock Band). Despite coming from what I thought was a pretty solid music background, WiiMusic made me 'get' music in a way I'd never gotten it before.
The game includes a few music lessons, and in one of them, you play each piece of a band on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It seemed dumb, and I was somewhat affronted by playing such a silly song, but no-one was watching, so I played on. Playing each piece, one at a time, seeing how different they were, and then seeing how it all came together to make something that sounded so rich and full was really amazing to me. All the parts were so diverse, but all the sounds jelled together so well. I of course had understood this concept before, but actually playing every part, made me understand it in a way I never had before. Ever since, as I hear music, I'm picking out the parts and thinking about them in a different way that I can't quite explain other than to say I feel like my mind has been awoken.
Of course that was really just the beginning of my love of WiiMusic. Playing the songs in the game, it turns out, is really a challenge. Though most people I talk to think they get that each part is different, in practice, everyone just waves their remove or presses buttons like a mad fool, creating noise, lots of noise, and very little music that sounds interesting.
Playing a song well, at least my definition of well, which isn't quite Peter Gabriel, but nonetheless pretty intense, is hard, really hard. I played Motzart's 'A Little Night Music' over and over with my wife. Each time we'd finish and either she or I would say that we'd messed up on timing or in rhythm that made one part of the song or another sound garbagy, like we were a band learning how to play together, which in fact is exactly what we were doing.
Then there came that moment, after an hour plus of rehashing and playing the same song over and over again, where we really did jell together. It created the same sensation of accomplishment that I got when doing piano recitals and band concerts years ago. We really sounded pretty good. However, in watching the video, we saw areas where we could do better.
That's just one of the great moments in the game. An even more amazing moment comes as you push past making a particular song sound great and start making it sound like it is yours. That's when my creative side starts tweaking things, changing parts, timing and rhythm. Out of that, something new is created and I feel alive. It's the main reason I make games for a living. I love that feeling. WiiMusic provides an amazing workshop where you can create and tinker in a way that has never been done before, and in a way that only video games can do. It has opened my mind to a new world and left me humming my own favorite remixes of tunes that I created.
For me, I am really saddened by the negative reviews and comments that I've seen by the game. Based on the game's low sales, I'd guess that most of the people commenting about it haven't played it, or if they have, it was a brief experience at a friend's house.
WiiMusic isn't WiiSports. The first little bit may be fun, but it's not immediately accessible in the way WiiSports is. It takes time and experimenting, and a little bit of putting yourself into it to understand it. One I 'got' it, it changed my perspective about what games for adults should be like.
Some games can change the way you think and act by giving you information that you can only learn by experiencing it. WiiMusic did that for me. The fact that games are an experience is one of their greatest strengths! WiiMusic, I think, really capitalized on this.
...and it did it in a mature way, at least the way I think of mature -- that of expanding your thinking and changing your perceptions.
For any who have considered the game but passed on it, I hope you'll reconsider.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Off-topic: Microsoft Movie Maker and making software for the masses
I recently made my first DVD viewable on my TV through my DVD player. The process took nearly a year.
In going through it all, I found myself frustrated at Microsoft for the same reasons I'm always frustrated with them, and wondering why so few people are mentioning the problems I saw (and why there doesn't seem to be a solution through Movie Maker!?).
So the short of the story, we have a miniDV camcorder and I was able to easily bring my video recordings of Disneyland and Birthdays from a single 60 minute tape over to my computer. I thought I was half done in taking my movie from the camera screen to the big screen...but boy was I wrong.
The next step was easy enough, I used Movie Maker to splice up my movie, at cut effects for transitioning and even add some music at different spots to liven things up. I then tried to burn the movie to DVD. You have one option to do this in Movie Maker with not ability to control the quality of the output...and so I burned a DVD and watched the movie and it was, in my personal opinion, horrible. It was agonizing to watch the tape through the camera and see a crisp picture on the screen and then go to Movie Maker and have the movie turned into refuse. I gave up the project for 9 months and started back into it last week...6 hours of web searching and trial and error later I finally had my movie.
So let's get back to where my problem was. It isn't how Movie Maker makes amovie. In fact Movie Maker makes great movies! If you save the movie to your hard drive at a high-quality setting (for some unknown reason you only have that option WHEN saving to your computer) you will find that it comes out looking like a champ. Using Windows Media Encoder 9, you can even create your own profile and save the movie in HD and it will look fantastic. (seriously!)
...but if you try to have Movie Maker save the movie to your DVD, it lowers the quality...and there is simply no-way around it (short of swapping the files that Movie Maker writes to the DVD...while it is writing, a horribly stupid process!).
Using Movie Maker to make your DVD will ruin the perfectly good video you made by lowering the quality with pixelation and somewhat washed out colors. You can't change the save to DVD settings, there is no options to choose or ability to change it. Microsoft wants you to do it a specific way and you will do it the Microsoft way!
This lead me to another tirade about what I call Microsoft's Communistic Commands. Often in the name of helping customers out, Microsoft will decide there is a best way to do things...and then absolutely force that on the customer. For example, ClearType in IE7, which can help the Internet be more readable on monitors using DVI. It is turned on by default despite causing huge problems for anyone not using DVI (I was ill after upgrading and was looking quite desperately for a solution...). Microsoft nonetheless forced this option to be enabled by default in IE7 fearing that if they didn't turn it on by default, people wouldn't know it was there. My opinion has always been that if what you are doing is really valuable, they'll find out about it and use it. At worst an option could have been given during the upgrade process that enabled it by default, but gave the choice to turn it off.
Of course my opinions often don't matter when it comes to the way Microsoft does things. When a communistic command comes down, I can fall in line or get another program (which I have been doing increasingly often). In Outlook, for example, only certain attachments will come through your email. When you get an email with a non-allowed attachment, Outlook will happily tell you that it blocked the attachment, like a dog looking for applause after digging in the flowers. Outlook won't give you any option to access that attachment, even if you were waiting for it desperately. It will just tell you it blocked it and show you the attachment icon for the email that no longer actually has an attachment. You can't go into your options/settings and make it allow that attachment type...no the only solution is to go into your registry and manually allow the attachments.
So when I found that I couldn't change the quality of the output to DVD, I was frustrated...but unfortunately not all that surprised. To reach wider audiences, you have to simplify the interface of programs. For example, giving the customer no options after they click save to DVD. However, when the option to save at different quality levels IS available if I choose to save to the computer, I'm just at a loss.
In the end I was able to make a higher-quality DVD using DVDFlick and ImgBurn after first making the movie in Movie Maker and then saving the high quality version to my PC.
The long process to burn to DVD frustrated and fascinated me as I consider what making software for the masses entails...and what it should entail!
In going through it all, I found myself frustrated at Microsoft for the same reasons I'm always frustrated with them, and wondering why so few people are mentioning the problems I saw (and why there doesn't seem to be a solution through Movie Maker!?).
So the short of the story, we have a miniDV camcorder and I was able to easily bring my video recordings of Disneyland and Birthdays from a single 60 minute tape over to my computer. I thought I was half done in taking my movie from the camera screen to the big screen...but boy was I wrong.
The next step was easy enough, I used Movie Maker to splice up my movie, at cut effects for transitioning and even add some music at different spots to liven things up. I then tried to burn the movie to DVD. You have one option to do this in Movie Maker with not ability to control the quality of the output...and so I burned a DVD and watched the movie and it was, in my personal opinion, horrible. It was agonizing to watch the tape through the camera and see a crisp picture on the screen and then go to Movie Maker and have the movie turned into refuse. I gave up the project for 9 months and started back into it last week...6 hours of web searching and trial and error later I finally had my movie.
So let's get back to where my problem was. It isn't how Movie Maker makes amovie. In fact Movie Maker makes great movies! If you save the movie to your hard drive at a high-quality setting (for some unknown reason you only have that option WHEN saving to your computer) you will find that it comes out looking like a champ. Using Windows Media Encoder 9, you can even create your own profile and save the movie in HD and it will look fantastic. (seriously!)
...but if you try to have Movie Maker save the movie to your DVD, it lowers the quality...and there is simply no-way around it (short of swapping the files that Movie Maker writes to the DVD...while it is writing, a horribly stupid process!).
Using Movie Maker to make your DVD will ruin the perfectly good video you made by lowering the quality with pixelation and somewhat washed out colors. You can't change the save to DVD settings, there is no options to choose or ability to change it. Microsoft wants you to do it a specific way and you will do it the Microsoft way!
This lead me to another tirade about what I call Microsoft's Communistic Commands. Often in the name of helping customers out, Microsoft will decide there is a best way to do things...and then absolutely force that on the customer. For example, ClearType in IE7, which can help the Internet be more readable on monitors using DVI. It is turned on by default despite causing huge problems for anyone not using DVI (I was ill after upgrading and was looking quite desperately for a solution...). Microsoft nonetheless forced this option to be enabled by default in IE7 fearing that if they didn't turn it on by default, people wouldn't know it was there. My opinion has always been that if what you are doing is really valuable, they'll find out about it and use it. At worst an option could have been given during the upgrade process that enabled it by default, but gave the choice to turn it off.
Of course my opinions often don't matter when it comes to the way Microsoft does things. When a communistic command comes down, I can fall in line or get another program (which I have been doing increasingly often). In Outlook, for example, only certain attachments will come through your email. When you get an email with a non-allowed attachment, Outlook will happily tell you that it blocked the attachment, like a dog looking for applause after digging in the flowers. Outlook won't give you any option to access that attachment, even if you were waiting for it desperately. It will just tell you it blocked it and show you the attachment icon for the email that no longer actually has an attachment. You can't go into your options/settings and make it allow that attachment type...no the only solution is to go into your registry and manually allow the attachments.
So when I found that I couldn't change the quality of the output to DVD, I was frustrated...but unfortunately not all that surprised. To reach wider audiences, you have to simplify the interface of programs. For example, giving the customer no options after they click save to DVD. However, when the option to save at different quality levels IS available if I choose to save to the computer, I'm just at a loss.
In the end I was able to make a higher-quality DVD using DVDFlick and ImgBurn after first making the movie in Movie Maker and then saving the high quality version to my PC.
The long process to burn to DVD frustrated and fascinated me as I consider what making software for the masses entails...and what it should entail!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Take it Easy on Me - Difficulty in Games
In finishing up Airport Mania, one of the things that was really a struggle was the difficulty. As the designer/producer of the game, I had played it a bizillion times by the time we were ready to go to beta. I used my scores as the starting baseline of what a 'good' score was to be on a level. (if you haven't played it, every level of the game has 4 skill levels that are based on your level score and are shown to you real-time as you are playing)
After putting together my baseline, we went to beta and I started gathering back in the results of how the players did and of course (for those who have done something similar) I found that most people were scoring about 1/2 to 1/3 of what I scored on each level. The highest score on any level was 60% of my score. Unfortunately I'd set the high scores on each level at 75% of my best scores. There was a pretty big gap.
So of course I moved the score needed to 'excel' down...a lot, and I kept tweaking the score goals all through our 6 week beta. In fact, by the time we released I'd dramatically changed all 4 skill levels at least twice on every one of the game's 84 levels. In the end I thought the game was incredibly 'easy,' but then I had played it a bizillion times.
Once we released I started reading player reviews and found that while some people found the game to be easy, some still found it to be impossibly too hard. I was certainly sad that the game couldn't be all things to all people, it only underscored the difficulty in getting the difficulty level in a game right.
While in hindsight I might have liked to add a second difficulty level, I have to say that I think making the game 'easy' was the right way to err. (honestly, based on sales, I'd say we definitely went the right direction for this particular game)
The similarities between movies and games fascinates me. One great advantage that movies have over games is that they control everything. Everyone watching a movie sees the same thing and regardless of whether the audience understands things or not, the movie will end and resolve the plot (unless the movie is just horrible or trying to be artsy).
Movies don't have to worry about whether or not the people in the theater are of different abilities. The people in the audience don't have to fight to save Endor or to save the White City themselves, it's all done for them. Unless they walk out of the theatre, movie goers get the whole experience from start to end.
Most people who play video games don't go all the way through most of the games they play. I can't count the number of people I've talked who start games, proclaiming their adoration of the title, and yet haven't finished the game...nor do they have any plans of doing so. (and of course I'm a member of this club)
Why don't people finish games? Well it's a topic big enough for 2 semesters of coursework, but one of the reasons people don't finish games is the difficulty.
I was talking to a long-time gamer last week who gave up on Mario Galaxy because they just wanted to play and hated the challenge of the boss fights. My own experience with the horrific 30-minute boss fights in Metroid Prime 3 is similar. I often consult guides and gamefaqs to figure out bosses...I have zero interest in figuring it out...I just want to move on to the next piece of the game. Boss fights are often like that lull in a bad movie when you wish they could just get back to the plot.
Like when I see a movie, I want to see the whole game. I like the story and the set and the characters...there's just parts that don't thrill me. If the game was a movie, I'd wait it out, knowing that a bad scene can only last so long. But in a game, I tend to quit, and the game joins the hundreds of others on my shelf that are unfinished despite how good I thought they were. (how many GREAT unfinished games are there on your shelf?)
Of course...at 34 I'm old for a gamer (as I'm often reminded) and I'm not very good at games (though I was VERY close to cracking the Top 10 in the last Mario Kart Wii Tournament).
I also work increasingly in casual games, which are focused on making it easy for players to immediately play. So clearly I'm biased towards easy...
...but I'm also clearly not alone in my desire. A very healthy percentage of players of Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2 are playing Half-Life on easy! Fairly or unfairly I label Half-Life players as a very hard core group. One that eats wild animals for breakfast and calls a 3-inch cut a mere flesh wound. They're the ninja masters of gaming. ...and nearly 20% of them like their games easy. It's like watching an army field general do ballet in front of his troops. (not that there is anything wrong with that!) It's amazing to see the ninja masters of gaming looking for their games to be easier.
With Airport Mania, I made it easy. Part of that comes from my belief that the majority of people who play casual games are looking for relaxation, not metal taxation. Part of it comes from my own experience in thinking that most games, even those made for kids are much more difficult than they should be. (THQ...seriously? what is up with the difficulty of your games...take a note from Travelers Tales...please!)
A lot of players aren't playing games through to the end. They are giving up very early on. Developers who have played the game over and over don't realize just how much harder it is for the average player to do what has become second nature to those who created the game. I think hard difficulty levels for those who are looking for the challenge and apparently have nothing to do all day but play games are great! Just be sure to include the easy difficulty level when you make your game. I want to see how it ends!
After putting together my baseline, we went to beta and I started gathering back in the results of how the players did and of course (for those who have done something similar) I found that most people were scoring about 1/2 to 1/3 of what I scored on each level. The highest score on any level was 60% of my score. Unfortunately I'd set the high scores on each level at 75% of my best scores. There was a pretty big gap.
So of course I moved the score needed to 'excel' down...a lot, and I kept tweaking the score goals all through our 6 week beta. In fact, by the time we released I'd dramatically changed all 4 skill levels at least twice on every one of the game's 84 levels. In the end I thought the game was incredibly 'easy,' but then I had played it a bizillion times.
Once we released I started reading player reviews and found that while some people found the game to be easy, some still found it to be impossibly too hard. I was certainly sad that the game couldn't be all things to all people, it only underscored the difficulty in getting the difficulty level in a game right.
While in hindsight I might have liked to add a second difficulty level, I have to say that I think making the game 'easy' was the right way to err. (honestly, based on sales, I'd say we definitely went the right direction for this particular game)
The similarities between movies and games fascinates me. One great advantage that movies have over games is that they control everything. Everyone watching a movie sees the same thing and regardless of whether the audience understands things or not, the movie will end and resolve the plot (unless the movie is just horrible or trying to be artsy).
Movies don't have to worry about whether or not the people in the theater are of different abilities. The people in the audience don't have to fight to save Endor or to save the White City themselves, it's all done for them. Unless they walk out of the theatre, movie goers get the whole experience from start to end.
Most people who play video games don't go all the way through most of the games they play. I can't count the number of people I've talked who start games, proclaiming their adoration of the title, and yet haven't finished the game...nor do they have any plans of doing so. (and of course I'm a member of this club)
Why don't people finish games? Well it's a topic big enough for 2 semesters of coursework, but one of the reasons people don't finish games is the difficulty.
I was talking to a long-time gamer last week who gave up on Mario Galaxy because they just wanted to play and hated the challenge of the boss fights. My own experience with the horrific 30-minute boss fights in Metroid Prime 3 is similar. I often consult guides and gamefaqs to figure out bosses...I have zero interest in figuring it out...I just want to move on to the next piece of the game. Boss fights are often like that lull in a bad movie when you wish they could just get back to the plot.
Like when I see a movie, I want to see the whole game. I like the story and the set and the characters...there's just parts that don't thrill me. If the game was a movie, I'd wait it out, knowing that a bad scene can only last so long. But in a game, I tend to quit, and the game joins the hundreds of others on my shelf that are unfinished despite how good I thought they were. (how many GREAT unfinished games are there on your shelf?)
Of course...at 34 I'm old for a gamer (as I'm often reminded) and I'm not very good at games (though I was VERY close to cracking the Top 10 in the last Mario Kart Wii Tournament).
I also work increasingly in casual games, which are focused on making it easy for players to immediately play. So clearly I'm biased towards easy...
...but I'm also clearly not alone in my desire. A very healthy percentage of players of Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2 are playing Half-Life on easy! Fairly or unfairly I label Half-Life players as a very hard core group. One that eats wild animals for breakfast and calls a 3-inch cut a mere flesh wound. They're the ninja masters of gaming. ...and nearly 20% of them like their games easy. It's like watching an army field general do ballet in front of his troops. (not that there is anything wrong with that!) It's amazing to see the ninja masters of gaming looking for their games to be easier.
With Airport Mania, I made it easy. Part of that comes from my belief that the majority of people who play casual games are looking for relaxation, not metal taxation. Part of it comes from my own experience in thinking that most games, even those made for kids are much more difficult than they should be. (THQ...seriously? what is up with the difficulty of your games...take a note from Travelers Tales...please!)
A lot of players aren't playing games through to the end. They are giving up very early on. Developers who have played the game over and over don't realize just how much harder it is for the average player to do what has become second nature to those who created the game. I think hard difficulty levels for those who are looking for the challenge and apparently have nothing to do all day but play games are great! Just be sure to include the easy difficulty level when you make your game. I want to see how it ends!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Rant: Innovation - to love, to fear
With WiiWare launching today I've been feeling like a kid again. I only got a short play session with Lost Winds, but I was just thrilled with the innovative game play. I was playing something unique and fun that continually made me smile. However, the truth is that most people won't be playing Lost Winds today or anytime soon because they'll have trouble comprehending it simply because it is so different. They complain that the wind is just a little too difficult to control or wonder why you can't just press jump like EVERY OTHER PLATFORMER for the last 25 years. The point of course is that Lost Winds isn't like all of those other games. It takes what you are used to and changes the play to something you are not used to. I hope that everyone will get a chance to play this little gem, but again, I fear most people will skip it.
From a MSNBC article today on WiiWare:
From running GameTunnel for 5 and a half years now, I have a little experience on the topic of what people think of 'different.' Though I wish they were wrong, I think MSNBC nailed it on the head.
Innovation in games is like 2nd Life. Everyone is always talking about it, but it doesn't make enough money to be anything more than an interesting discussion piece.
That's also the definition of lip service.
Lip service and innovation have become too good of buddies over the last few years. XBLA was supposed to be the Sundance of Indie games. I work for the company that made Wik, one of the first games on the service. I've been told by many people that Wik is still the most innovative title on XBLA. That doesn't surprise me. After Geometry Wars struck it big Microsoft wanted more of the same. Big explosions, mind-number particle effects. I heard that from Microsoft myself as we were pitching our 2nd XBLA title to Microsoft, just 5 months after the 360 had been released. I don't blame MS, they did what every other other company in their place has done. They used the words like 'innovation' and 'indie' to get newspaper noteriety, and then gave the public what was selling well...more of the same games we've been playing for the last decade.
I'm not saying that there isn't any innovation in Halo 3 or COD4 or Guitar Hero 3 or Assault Heros or Undertow or Uno. There is.
But it is a different type of innovation than you get in Lost Winds or in Wik. One is trying to take the familiar and improve it, the other is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. Tower of Goo is a great example of this as it takes bridge-building physics and recreates it in a way that feels totally different than any construction game you've ever played with a style that just as unique.
Not lost in all of this is a third type of innovation, which core gamers find the most frightening of all. That is where you take the totally unfamiliar and present it to gamers. It's fodder for another post, but Nintendo has become masterminds at doing this. Which is more innovative WiiFit or GTA4? It's apples to oranges, but if you are looking for something that is totally unlike what you've been playing, WiiFit is what you are looking for. GTA4 is innovative in the sense of taking what you know and making it better. WiiFit gives you an experience unlike any other game yet released.
As much as we love to talk about innovation, my experience tells me core gamers are scared to death of it because it doesn't look like what they are used to. Innovation looks like WiiFit, and core gamers just don't know how to react to it other than to attack it the same way they would an alien in Halo.
Increasingly I find myself not only frustrated at companies like Microsoft who are using 'Innovation' and 'Indie' to meet their own goals without providing what I think of as innovation, but I'm also frustrated at the gamers who pass over interesting games like Wik and who instead of loving the new gameplay offered by the Wii have long lists of reasons why they hate it.
I'm hoping, as I have for many years in running GameTunnel, that gamers will give innovative WiiWare games a chance and that games like Lost Winds and Tower of Goo will sell by the bucketload. I've been doing GT long enough to make me to recognize the truth in what MSNBC said, but I hold out hope for gamers embracing the unfamiliar and innovative works of those who are setting out to truly give us a different experience. The fact that the Wii is selling better than any console in history gives me hope that maybe this time, innovation will be embraced and that everyone will be able to enjoy these uniquely fun experiences.
From a MSNBC article today on WiiWare:
It's whimsical. It's smart. It's different. But in the games biz, "different" isn't always a good thing.
From running GameTunnel for 5 and a half years now, I have a little experience on the topic of what people think of 'different.' Though I wish they were wrong, I think MSNBC nailed it on the head.
Innovation in games is like 2nd Life. Everyone is always talking about it, but it doesn't make enough money to be anything more than an interesting discussion piece.
That's also the definition of lip service.
Lip service and innovation have become too good of buddies over the last few years. XBLA was supposed to be the Sundance of Indie games. I work for the company that made Wik, one of the first games on the service. I've been told by many people that Wik is still the most innovative title on XBLA. That doesn't surprise me. After Geometry Wars struck it big Microsoft wanted more of the same. Big explosions, mind-number particle effects. I heard that from Microsoft myself as we were pitching our 2nd XBLA title to Microsoft, just 5 months after the 360 had been released. I don't blame MS, they did what every other other company in their place has done. They used the words like 'innovation' and 'indie' to get newspaper noteriety, and then gave the public what was selling well...more of the same games we've been playing for the last decade.
I'm not saying that there isn't any innovation in Halo 3 or COD4 or Guitar Hero 3 or Assault Heros or Undertow or Uno. There is.
But it is a different type of innovation than you get in Lost Winds or in Wik. One is trying to take the familiar and improve it, the other is taking the familiar and making it unfamiliar. Tower of Goo is a great example of this as it takes bridge-building physics and recreates it in a way that feels totally different than any construction game you've ever played with a style that just as unique.
Not lost in all of this is a third type of innovation, which core gamers find the most frightening of all. That is where you take the totally unfamiliar and present it to gamers. It's fodder for another post, but Nintendo has become masterminds at doing this. Which is more innovative WiiFit or GTA4? It's apples to oranges, but if you are looking for something that is totally unlike what you've been playing, WiiFit is what you are looking for. GTA4 is innovative in the sense of taking what you know and making it better. WiiFit gives you an experience unlike any other game yet released.
As much as we love to talk about innovation, my experience tells me core gamers are scared to death of it because it doesn't look like what they are used to. Innovation looks like WiiFit, and core gamers just don't know how to react to it other than to attack it the same way they would an alien in Halo.
Increasingly I find myself not only frustrated at companies like Microsoft who are using 'Innovation' and 'Indie' to meet their own goals without providing what I think of as innovation, but I'm also frustrated at the gamers who pass over interesting games like Wik and who instead of loving the new gameplay offered by the Wii have long lists of reasons why they hate it.
I'm hoping, as I have for many years in running GameTunnel, that gamers will give innovative WiiWare games a chance and that games like Lost Winds and Tower of Goo will sell by the bucketload. I've been doing GT long enough to make me to recognize the truth in what MSNBC said, but I hold out hope for gamers embracing the unfamiliar and innovative works of those who are setting out to truly give us a different experience. The fact that the Wii is selling better than any console in history gives me hope that maybe this time, innovation will be embraced and that everyone will be able to enjoy these uniquely fun experiences.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Does the Picture on the Box Matter?
I'm a big fan of what Nintendo is doing. I think their focus on Innovation and Fun is right on the mark. So, I rarely make any effort to note where they are missing the mark, but with WiiFit mania soon to come upon in the US, I can't help but think Nintendo has made a mistake.
The box on the right is what WiiFit looks like in Europe and Japan. I love it. It says so many things without cluttering up the box. The sense of exercise is quite strong, with a focus on silhouettes.
The box on the right is what WiiFit looks like in Europe and Japan. I love it. It says so many things without cluttering up the box. The sense of exercise is quite strong, with a focus on silhouettes.
Why?
The box says toy.
I think a lot of the success that Nintendo has had in the US, which of the 3 regions appears to be where it has the most success, has been due to the Wii being purchased by many groups of people. This box tries to capitalize on that by putting many groups of people on the box. There is a problem with doing that. By putting everyone on the box, you for sure put something on the box that makes someone feel like they don't relate.
In this case I think the box makes the Wii less mainstream and more kid. It feels more like boardgame boxes from 10 years ago that had the family all around the game smiling. There is nothing wrong with that image, but it does preselect a specific group. In this case, it selects against people who want to pull the game out with their older friends. A group of all 40 year or 20 year olds doesn't want to pull out a board game at their party where on the box half of the people are kids. By putting faces to the box you've started selecting groups, which makes some people feel less inclined to be involved.
The Japan box doesn't have these issues b/c it skipped them entirely. The US box is likely to make Mom just a little more likely to refer to the Wii as a kid's toy...which is exactly the opposite of the message that Nintendo has been successfully conveying for the last 18 months.
I'm sure the US will still sell many copies of WiiFit, but I worry that if this approach continues, that the Wii will become a kid's toy in the US, which will ultimately keep it from reaching the marketshare it could otherwise reach.
The recent ads for Mario Kart Wii, only serve to make me more concerned that Nintendo of America may have lost its way when it comes to marketing their very popular console.
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