The WiiSports Resort bounce?

I'm curious to see how the new Wii Sports does.

Well ok, I'm sure it is going to do well, but I don't know if it will be #1 game of the year well or #5 game of the year well.

Certainly it is following up on one of the biggest games ever released, but...and this is a big but...it's actually a very expensive game.

WiiMotion Plus is $20/unit.
WiiSports Resort is $50 (includes one WM+)

Altogether it's $110 (which is cheap compared to Rock Band, I know...however...)

I have two general concerns about how the public will react to the game.

#1 - I wonder if the public will 'understand' the add-on. Add-ons are big business. Wheels, Guitars, Guns, and of course the Balance Board have become very dominant in the Top 10 charts. However, each of those add-ons has something that WM+ lacks. You can look at it and immediately understand it.
Guitar/Drums - got it, you play it like an instrument
Gun - pull the trigger, easy
Wheel - turn it like a wheel, all-good
Balance Board - stand on it like a kitchen scale/snowboard, makes sense
Now the list goes great right up until you add in WM+, which plugs into the Wii Controller. It's like a peripheral, but not like the current peripherals dominating the market. Will the average consumer understand it when they see it? Or will it just make them raise questions that they didn't know they should have "You mean the Wii motion isn't very accurate current?" Will grandma be excited about it or say, "I don't understand that new Wii thing, what does it do?" In fact, I've wondered if Bowling wasn't included in WiiSports Resort for just to try and convince Grandma.

I'm interested to see how it turns out though as it's quite unlike the normal peripheral, and I'm interested to see if the public 'gets it.' That will be hard to measure as it is following one of the most popular games of all time, and the sales will probably be initially strong. However, if they aren't, I'll circle back to this post in a few months and say...I wonder if this was partially right?

#2 - I often hear that the Wii is the cheapest console, but in my mind it is one of the most expensive. Here's the math:
$250 - Wii
$40 - WiiMote (x3)
$20 - Nunchuck (x3)
$10 - One copy of WiiPlay with WiiMote

That's $440.
Of course many people will point out that two games were included, and it would be more to get a similar set-up with Xbox or PS3, but the difference is that less people buy 3 extra controllers for those consoles. The Wii is selling a lot more controllers as people are playing it in groups and families. So when looking at the average set-up, they become a little closer to parity.

It becomes more interesting with WiiSports Resort. Nintendo believes the game will be a system seller, and that is, in part, why they have not decreased the price of the console. However, if you add the $110 for WiiSports Resort and 3 WM+, you are now at $550!

I honestly don't know if $550 is going to be a price that people can handle. I do believe the game will sell systems, but I wonder if most of those systems will be bought b/c of WiiSports Resort, but not actually with WiiSports Resort. It seems to me that Nintendo by virtue of making a controller that costs $80 (Wiimote + Nunchuck + WM+), is pricing itself a bit on the high side and that it is likely to decrease the rate of adoption.


Paired together, I see these two reasons and making WiiSports a very interesting release for Nintendo. If it doesn't strike gold right away, I would expect Nintendo to look at a way to bring the console cost down either by WM+/game bundles or a price reduction to the console itself.

Either way, Nintendo is making an interesting gamble on what turns out to be a very high-priced entertainment machine, and I'm very curious to see how it plays out.

They're called games

Finding Neverland is a movie about J. M. Barrie, his life, and his creating of Peter Pan. I always found one of the moments in the movie to be poignant. Frohman, Barrie's producer and financier (played by Dustin Hoffman), is talking to Barrie (played by Johnny Depp) after the failure of a recent Barrie play.

J.M. Barrie: It was never meant to be taken seriously.
Charles Frohman: You know what happened, James, they changed it.
J.M. Barrie: They changed what?
Charles Frohman: The critics, they made it important..., what's it called? What's it called?
J.M. Barrie: Play.
Charles Frohman: Play.

I don't want to get into the fact that seriousness can be, and has been wonderfully done in plays, though certainly it could be, has been, and will continue to be discussed to the end of time (in fact Peter Pan is actually incredibly thought-providing itself). The points are all there to be made, and it's very valid to discuss. It's just a different topic.

Instead I want to talk about a another similarity/parallel that scene has with our industry.

What are they called?

Games.

Games.

When I look at the industry around me I'm often very disappointed, and I think it comes from that singular point.

Games are amusement at heart, they are entertainment. So why is it that so many people seem to not be having any fun? Why is there so much anger and resentment among people playing games? Why is a 'gamer' someone who treats other people with disdain?

Shia LeBeouf: This is how in a simple way you can find out if it's a
gamer you want to play with. Ask them if they have a Wii. If they say yes, get
the f*** out of there.

They're games. Why aren't we having fun?

Why is it that there are fights back and forth over consoles with people going way beyond saying they simply enjoy one console more than other, to attacking the people who play the other consoles?

Belittling the people and their intelligence for playing something you don't enjoy yourself is not a sign of intelligence. In fact it's quite the opposite. Attacking other people on such grounds shows a basic and fundamental lack of respect for other people. I for one look at my industry, the games industry, and our involvement in not only spawning such behavior, but also furthering it, with our own disrespect towards one another, and I'm really disappointed.

Why do we criticize each other for having fun? Why is someone enjoying a different game than us seen as a negative instead of a positive? Why do we feel we are a 'mature industry,' making games that we hope will interest adults, but behaving like mal-tempered children? IGN's

Daemon Hatfield: ...the Wii is stupid...any games that are
coming out for the Wii are going to be dumb.

Perhaps including review websites in the games industry is a bit of a stretch, but it is all furthering the same approach that lacks in intelligent debate, and instead turns to playground name-calling.

In this generation the attitude of malice has been most prevalent in regards to the Wii and its players. (Notably the Wii has received a lot of negativity among gamers who admittedly aren't even playing it. Hatred towards something like a video game console is bad (silly?) enough, but hating the Wii without actually playing it is simply bewildering...but I digress.)

Of course the Wii is just the today example. Last generation the PS2 got plenty of flak with many verbal and written flamefights over the 'type' of people who play it. In our industry it seems that wherever there are people enjoying themselves there are other people trying to pick a fight, or find some other way to stop the fun.

Honestly, I could understand starting a ruckus if there were some life-threatening evil occurring, or the forceful removal of people's rights, or the subjugation of millions, or even the subjugation of one...

...but they're games.

Games, made to be fun, engaging, exciting, challenging, and occasionally mind-opening.

Why is someone having fun with a game you don't like somehow a threat that must be beat down by constant belittling of that person and what they are enjoying?

I'd call on the industry to reconsider its approach and to start enjoying itself a little more. I'm convinced doing so can only positively impact both the sales of games, and the games themselves!

Maybe we can start by discussing things with a little more open-mindedness, civility, and consideration instead of being dismissive, and jumping to name-calling of those who play different games than we do. Perhaps we can stop thinking that someone else's success somehow equals our failure.

People are different, and that's a good thing! If they weren't different we'd all be making the exact same game. Thankfully we have diversity in both the people and the games. But instead of cheering it, the general approach is to despise those who aren't thinking like us. (Just listen to how the console makers speak of their competitors, it's enough to make you wonder if there is any sanity in the world)

I know the same issues exist in just about every industry, but I'm not making movies or talking politics on TV. I'm not involved with those things. I make games.

Games.

If there is any industry in the world that should be having loads of fun, and devoid of hateful behavior and angry attitudes, it's ours.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

I've been unable to post recently, but wrote-up a psuedo-review of the new Indiana Jones Wii game on my other poorly updated of recent blog.

http://dustfreewii.blogspot.com/

Listening to the Wrong Voice

I'm unabashedly a huge fan of the LEGO games. There are absolutely some problems with them, such as re-spawning you on the edge of a platform after you miss a jump, a location where your character will slide and fall off the edge if you don't immediately move, but overall, they are just good fun.

LEGO Star Wars has been my favorite of the series. Once two games, each with its pluses and minuses, they were made into one game, and it's the best use of the Wii remote speaker yet. Pulling the trigger on your Wiimote and hearing that familiar laser blaster sound emanate from the controller makes me feel like a 6 year old running around outside with a Han Solo blaster in my hand.

The LEGO games have taken their lumps when it comes to reviews, with each new game getting lower review scores than the last. This is partly due to reviewer fatigue and partly due to the developers getting a little of sequelitis. (that's the need we feel to make the next in a series somehow bigger and better than the previous)

LEGO Batman is a game that I just got through GameFly and it's been interesting. The theme is wonderful. As someone who worked at a comic book store through high school and has a big geeky collection, LEGO Batman hits the spot more often than not.

Unfortunately though, it misses the spot a lot more than it should. A few of the problems:
- The game is more complicated than it should be
- The game is more difficult than it should be
- The game tries to be different from other LEGO games more than it should

The LEGO games are great co-op games. I have no idea if they are good as a single-player game, I have never played them alone. Before getting any further, I want to say I think LEGO Batman is also a great co-op game. Good enough that we'll probably get a copy.

The problem with Batman is that it really needs two 'core' players. It's as though the developers decided that they were tired of the nitpicks from reviews and decided to make a game for 20 and 30 somethings instead of a game that kids and adults could play. Within the first 30 minutes, it was clear that my son, who had played through LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones with me wasn't going to be able to play through LEGO Batman without a lot of help.

He runs into problems with platform jumping and Batman is full of jumps, and not just any kind of jumps, but often very difficult jumps. Batman has a power-up that lets him 'glide.' However, it doesn't work like R2-D2 in the Star Wars series, instead he moves with big turns, which makes it hard to change directions. This makes the long glide jumps for Batman often a huge pain.

Added to the gliding issues is the commonality of needing to jump in 3D to small platforms. 3D jumping is at best difficult for the average person. My wife, father and father-in-law have all tried playing 3D games with us at our house and when it comes to having to jump, they immediately hand the controller to someone else. LEGO Batman has this problem in spades, partially because the levels are so dark that it is really hard to see your shadow when jumping, which makes it hard to orient yourself. The other cause of this problem, again, is that there is just a ton of jumping from platform to platform or to safety zone in the middle of giant puddle of deathly goo to the next safety zone. It's something a 'core' player will find challenging and a young or casual player will find impossible.

A new addition to the series is the batarang. This is always available to players and works into many of the puzzles. Holding down the 'B' button and then pointing at the screen will allow you to highlight objects to throw at if they are available. This set-up is clunky and I often forget about it (while my son can't even get it to work). It is a part of why the puzzles in this game get a little frustrating at times (which actually is still probably a step up over Indiana Jones where they felt tedious, but it's still a step in the wrong direction for anyone but a 'core' player).

Overall, it feels like the developer decided to make a game to address the critic's points with previous games in the series, but I think that was a mistake. How many 20 year-olds are bragging about playing a LEGO game? LEGO games aren't made for 20 year-olds!

The critics don't represent the audience of LEGO games. My son does. All changes and improvements should be made with him in mind, not the critics and the people they represent and speak to.

Again I think we'll probably pick up the game, so it's not all bad. In fact the motion controls for fighting are surprisingly satisfying. However, LEGO Batman is a great cautionary tale for developers. A good critique is valuable, but only when the critique represents your audience.

Is gaming relevant to adults?

Gamesindustry.biz just posted a great interview with Jenova Chen (flOw, Flower).

It hit on a lot of points that I've mentioned about the industry in this blog, and it was interesting to see a known industry developer discussing some of the same points I've been thinking about of late in relation to 'adult' gaming.

When talking about games for adults we're not talking about Gears of War (why does a 'M' rating and 'Adult' content make people think a game is for grown-ups?), we're talking about games that 'old' people might like to play, and the issue of making games more relevant to males over 40. Some quotes:

I don't play a lot of new games because I feel that games have to be - for adults like me - more relevant to my life. When you go out to an art gallery or go to see a movie, you're expecting the film [or art] to either inform you on an intellectual level about certain aspects of life or entertain you on a deep emotional level.

I think a lot of games fail to educate you on an intellectual level, and the emotions they evoke are relatively primal. They are too shallow. Games are very good at making you feel excited, feel thrilled, and feel addicted, but these are the feelings that are very primal - that younger kids or teenagers will respond very well to. As adults we expect to feel something more complex and more sophisticated.

Wonderfully stated and I liked the usage of the word 'primal.' It's a word I think I'll have to adapt to, and use more. The danger in such a statement is that by trying to bring awareness to a problem all games tend to get lumped together, and there is the occasional 'core' game that accomplishes what Jenova is talking about, but I'd love to see more ;).

Another quote:

I'm not against the traditional type of feeling that gaming evokes. Empowerment is a great experience. Even Hollywood has the equivalent in those super hero movies. But what I feel [games] are lacking is the complexity of feeling and the other hues of feeling. If nobody tries to evoke these other types of feelings, then the game market will be very limited.

My goal is to make a game that is this complex flavour. It's like cooking. The best food is not just with one flavour, you have a lot of secret ingredients that, when mixed together, create something very unique that you cannot forget. For me, if you play Flower from beginning to end, it is not all just peaceful. It has peace, it has wonder, it has twists, it has despair, and it has a catharsis.

What of course makes Jenova Chen different is that he is actively working to make his vision a reality. Perhaps much like anyone else, he is trying to create the type of game that he wants to play, but unlike much of the industry, I think he's got a much more 'adult' centered focus.

At a minimum, he's increasing the diversity of gaming, and as I mentioned in my last post, I'd love to see more planets of the gaming universe.

I've often pondered why the game industry is over 25 years old, but there are very few 40 year olds in it. I believe with more developers taking the angle of Jenova, there would be more 40 year olds both making and playing games (and that takes nothing away from the younger teen and early 20-something audience, in fact I'd say they are probably much easier to please, which if nothing else ensures games will be made for them until the end of time ;).