The Age of Noise
Bart showed the crowd a list of 56 firstperson and thirdperson games currently available and asked the people on what they base their purchasing decisions. Ranging from Batman: Arkham Asylum, Fallout 3, Uncharted: Among Thieves, Dead Space, inFamous, Fable 2, Killzone 2, Borderlands, Modern Warfare 2, Saboteur, Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age: Origins to Resident Evil 5, the list was long and diverse.
The explosion of media has made it nearly impossible for consumers to keep track of all the content being released. On top of that, having to cherry pick quality titles leads consumers to purchase products that are pushed with expensive marketing campaigns, sequals to existing franchises, or word of mouth. Purchasing a game blindly and finding out that it lacks in quality, gameplay or originality can lead to buyer’s remorse. Because consumers don’t like to risk wasting their money, it becomes increasingly difficult for the small game developers to showcase their gems.
This is not just happening to games. It is happening to music, books, reality shows, television series, movies, Console/PC-and-mobile games and websites. The problem with the AppStore is that big marketing campaigns generally don’t pay themselves back. There aren’t many existing native franchises that can be exploited well because iPhone game developers tend to be bad at building intellectual property. Games like Flight Control are the exception. For most developers, that leaves word of mouth as the only viable strategy.
Winner Takes All
With so many games available, it’s hard for companies to claim a big stake over the free time of gamers. There are only so many worlds the player wants to familiarize himself with. A noticeable trend is that the increase in game offerings shorten learning curves and gameplay becomes watered down and more forgiving. It is what I refer to as the ‘casualization’ of games.
The competition for time, commitment and money on the iPhone is even stronger. With 55 different console and pc games, the list Bart displayed is already more than most people can keep track of, but at the time of the keynote there were around 108000 applications on the Appstore, of which the majority are filed in the entertainment category, 1930 times as much as what is being offered on consoles and PC’s combined. What’s worst, is that the majority of games lack in production quality. Selling games even at a low price as $1 still leads to buyer’s remorse and sets the precedent for consumer backlash. An increasing amount of gamers rely on word of mouth and reviews which make it very hard to market new games on the iPhone. The ones that become successful usually get to that stage through viral marketing, not because of expensive campaigns. This is one of the reasons why highly ranked games tend to be disproportionately more succesful than those that do not show up in the rankings.
Facebook’s Grave Consequences
Bart continued outlining some of the risks facing the casual and mobile games market for the future. Zynga’s CPA offers were compared to Jamba’s SMS subscriptions. Jamba! alienated its consumers and negatively influence the public opinion on Premium SMS’s by tricking them into hard-to-cancel subscription plans which severely damaged consumer trust. This practice had grave consequences for the industry as a whole. The danger is that Zynga’s CPA offers could lead to a severe industry-wide crisis in the casual games space, because consumer trust is hard to regain once lost.
Deja Vu
Now that we know the current problems and risks, how do we deal with it? The answers lie in the past. Much has been said about the infamous videogame crash of the 80ies. Looking back, the industry reached a boiling point where the low quality of games couldn’t sustain the market anymore. American developers didn’t understand the value of building strong intellectual property. Most of the games on the Bally Atrocades, Coleco Visions and Atari’s are forgotten. In fact, for many of you the list may not be longer than Pacman, Pong and Space Invaders for that generation. While the American home arcades were tanking, Europe and Japan received some of the oldest evergreen titles that have survived the test of time.
The Legacy of Konami
Unlike the Home Arcades, Europe was all about Home Computers. The MSX in particular was popular in Europe and Japan. Konami was the reigning champion of the MSX, and well deserved.
Konami understood how to build and nourish IP. It is responsible for so many industry defining games. It was one of the first companies to make compelling sequals with Gradius, originally released in 1985. Gradius Rebirth was launched in 2008/2009. Konami created the fighter genre as we know it today with Yie Ar Kung Fu. The moves and character designs from Yie Ar Kung Fu have been reused by other companies 25 years after the first release. Gryzor, or Contra, was and still is an immensely popular run and gun game that has even appeared in Little Big Planet 22 years after its first release. Castlevania, Ganbare Goemon, and Metal Gear are succesful franchises so many years after they were originally released during the glory days of the MSX. If there is one thing to learn from Konami, it is how to build games franchises that can stand the test of time.
Referencing the earlier generations, we can identify the difference between the games that were released on the Home Arcades and the Home Computers. In fact, Bloomsix’s design philosophy is largely based on the lessons we’ve drawn from analyzing the infant games industry. Looking back is the best way for us to understand what works and what doesn’t. We choose to look at the early days because most of the innovations occurred in the beginnings, the same way the human body develops most when it is still young.
Technological constraints forced developers to focus on the game quality, rather than utilizing expensive graphics and music. Developers couldn’t hide behind the millions of dollars poured into normal-mapped eye candy and orchestrated soundtracks to wow the players. If a music score sounds good as a chiptune, it will probably sound better when you use more recent technology. But using the latest technology to create a new soundtrack doesn’t assure the soundtrack will be good, because it completely depends on the artististic ability of the composer. If a soundtrack doesn’t sound iconic on a 3 voice soundchip, it will probably not become a timeless masterpiece. By going back to the basics, we peel off the shell and get a better understanding of building IP.