You may remember a couple weeks ago I sat down with game journalist extraordinaire, Leigh Alexander, to get her take on the industry, the media, and the games she loves. Now, we’ve got the second part of her interview ready to go (part one’s right here). This time, she speaks about the industry—from the Fat Cats to the have and have-nots of DLC to open-source development. And if this interview’s not enough Leigh for you, check out her wonderful Kotaku article investigating the cathartic appeal of GTA IV’s Liberty City for the residents of New York’s rougher neighborhoods.
So, without further ado, part two of our interview.
Hardcasual: Over the past two gaming generations, big-business game studio’s like EA have developed a negative image over tentative buy-outs, employer relations, and license exclusivity (in EA’s case, their ownership of the NFL license). What are your feelings on the mega-studios’ role in the industry?
Leigh Alexander: One of the things I’ve never bought, whether in the videogame industry or anywhere else, is this idea that big business, “big corporate” always has to be evil. People always dump on EA, but if you were to walk in there, you’re not going to see Darth Vader sitting in the Death Star. I think you’d see a building full of game developers who care about the work they’re doing, individual people who want to do a good job, and who want to make enough money so that they don’t lose their jobs. They’re working 80-hour weeks—yeah, of course they want to make money. They’re people like we are. People write to me who work on these games, and they’re good people like us who like their games and like their work. It’s true there are decisions being made with investors in mind before the audience is in mind, but that’s how the world works. It sucks, but they’re not your friends - they’re there to do a job.
The thing that gets me is whenever there’s not a scandal going on, the topic of discussion on the Internet is “how can we make games deeper?” We say, “It needs to be richer, it needs to be better, we want it more immersive, it needs to be more realistic, we want more explosions, we want more, more, more, more.” More multiplayer, there are not enough maps, et et cetera.
Guess what? It costs money to do that. It costs the developers a lot of money. In fact, it costs them more than we realize. I know nothing about the actual pound for pound cost of making games, but, at the least, I know it costs millions of dollars. Well, these companies can’t lose money on the games they make, because their stock will devalue, they don’t turn profits, their investors sell and then they have no development budget. Any given game company, even if it looks like a fat cat billionaire, could just as easily be a hair away from in the hole. It’s enormously volatile even over short periods of times. Look at Atari. [Mimes a downward spiral]. Look at Activision [Reverses it]. Some people think [Activision's] bigger than EA now. This can turn on a dime.
[These companies] start at the books before they even go into development. They say, “this is how much we need to make to be risk averse.” If the game does not do as well as they planned, developers lose jobs, budgets for the next game get cut, things get delayed. Things we don’t like happen when games don’t make the money the companies set out to make. It’s not like John Riccitello [EA's CEO] is going to roll your money into a cigar and smoke it. Lots of times vilify companies like EA, but they’re very carefully planning “is this a good investment or not.” The thing about the industry being that volatile is they have to naturally be risk-averse. They have to make games they know will sell. Things that are very different don’t often make it through in this market. It’s not worth the risk to the game company. It’s not just enough to make a good game; they have to make good decisions too. That’s their responsibility to their employees and their investors, and just because that comes before the audience sometimes doesn’t mean the people behind these companies are evil warlords.
Downloadable content, open-source development, and the need to make a buck after the jump…
I believe my Nintendo Wii came with an invisible contract. Up front, I agreed to spend an exorbitant amount of money on two controllers (three, if you include the classic), and, in return, Nintendo would never require I buy another peripheral. The Wii-mote provides plenty of innovation, making silly things like light-guns, racing wheels, and the Sega Activator obsolete. Sadly, two major upcoming Wii releases, WiiFit and Mario Kart Wii, took this contract, rubbed it in dirt, and thrre it to the dogs
This spring, Nintendo will package two new controller SKUs with popular games. Mario Kart Wii will arrive with an aesthetically pleasing, but ultimately useless plastic driver’s wheel. If you’re into $150 balance boards, WiiFit’s your perfect game, but you better run to your Gamestop and pre-order—don’t underestimate Nintendo’s inability to keep products on the shelf.
Last year, Nintendo tested the stagnant peripheral waters with the Wii Zapper, a plastic attachment that latches onto a Wii-mote and transforms it into a gun, and you into a moron. Nintendo sells it as a novelty item. Fine by me, as long as the Zapper isn’t necessary to enjoy any games. Mario Kart Wii’s Wii Wheel peripheral a different beast. Recently, Kotaku confirmed the classic and GameCube control schemes for Mario Kart Wii are crippled, a move that handicaps traditional and hardcore players, while subtly benefiting those with the Wii Wheel accessory. While one Wii Wheel comes with the game, more are $20 a pop. Across the Pacific, the WiiFit has taken mandatory peripherals a step further, winning over a handful of Japanese publisher–one of their releases, WiiSki, is the first game to require the WiiFit balance board.
Unlike Sony and Microsoft who have other motivations (i.e. digital media delivery), Nintendo has pursued a profit from the get-go, and these peripherals show no signs of Nintendo letting up. But, with that in mind, is it possible for the Wii peripheral market to super-saturate? Just as the Sega Genesis’ 32X and Sega CD created a detrimental hierarchy of players, could the same happen with pricey peripherals like the WiiFit?
It’s silly to rant about Nintendo’s innovation, and no one’s forcing my hand to pick up every piece of Nintendo gear, but it disappoints me that the device than can do it all, the Wii-mote, needs a lot of help from friends.
The life of a former SEGA fanboy is hard. My childhood memories are sown with the brand’s hills and valleys: a very merry Genesis Christmas, a birthday slump with 32X. Often, I will irrationally return to the old systems with fond thoughts, like remembering a childhood crush, but when I boot Sewer Shark I forget the good times and only remember the heartbreaks. The nightmares.
I refuse to remember my childhood as a time of delusion, so to save myself, I have chosen to make gold from lead. Welcome to another experiment blog series: What I’ve learned from SEGA.
I present the Sega Saturn’s SCUD: The Disposable Assassin.
SCUD is based on a 1990’s comic book of the same name. We play as Scud, a disposable assassin (natch) sold in vending machines, and forced into a rather precarious life. Once purchased, SCUD must accomplish a given assignment—in this case, assassinate a monster named Jeff. But upon completion SCUD will receive no reward, rather, our robot hero’s programmed to self-destruct. So SCUD, strangely smart and self-interested for a robot, finds Jeff, beats him around, and ships him to the nearest hospital. All’s well, until Jeff’s medical bill arrives. It’s then our story truly begins, when our penny-less bot must become a freelance assassin to pay medical bills that keep Jeff, and concurrently, himself, alive.
Like all comics, there’s plenty of lesser characters: a sidekick named Drywall, who’s zipper laced body offers infinite storage; a rival and (possible love-interest?) Sussuido, who craves blood shed; and many other bizarre, early 90’s characters. Think Tank Girl meets Short Circuit.
You still need more SCUD? Catch yourself up with this steaming marketing mess.
What I’ve Learned from SCUD
Gimmicks Sell: It’s a simple side-scroller with a twist—the ability to play with a light-gun, both alone and co-op. As a kid, this play mechanic absolutely convinced me to save a couple months’ allowance, add some summer chores, and make a purchase. Was it worth it? No.
Good Ideas Rise to the Top: In co-op, the light-gun froze enemies to help SCUD. This mechanic received enormous praise, not for SCUD, but ten years later in Super Mario Galaxy.
More SCUD-ness and lessons learned after the jump…
Welcome to our weekly thanksgiving for all our supporters, temporarily dubbed ‘Turkey Sandwiches.’
Sexy Video Game Land: Leigh Alexander is not third, nor second, but first on our list. She’s a columnist for many established game websites (GameSetWatch and Variety, to name a couple), but calls SVGL home. If you haven’t already, check out her write-up on Super Smash Bros. Brawl that made a few fanboys second-guess their fresh Olimar tattoos. And when you’ve purged your bedroom of Captain N paraphernalia, check out her rebuttal. To herself.
LevelUp: N’Gai Croal is like our Soccer Mom: loyal, kind, and damn proud he helped make us who we are today. The man has linked us twice, which makes him our biggest fan. As he should be, since we ripped our blog’s title straight from his headlines. This week, he began a no-holds-barred match with another HardCasual favorite, Stephen Totilo. This bloodfest focuses on the PSP’s new game du jour, Patapon. HardCasual enjoys the game vicariously, since they have no money for such a lovely portable device (unless someone at Sony’s reading, then we would love some sweet swag—nudge, nudge).
But enough about us and our BFF’s. It’s time to pay It forward with links to our favorite articles this week.
A New Taxonomy of Gamersat Insult Swordfighting: I can’t believe I missed this article a couple months ago, but, lucky for me, I found this nugget buried in the comments at SVGL. Besides writing reviews for Paste magazine, Mitch Krapta finds time for a dissection of gamer types, including our namesake. He also likes sports.
On Being Gross at Save the Robot: Every week Kotaku posts a new ZeroPunctuation review, and every week their comments section fires up. Many readers hope to be the first to mark the day Ben Croshaw jumps the shark. Chris Dahlen doesn’t seem worried about Croshaw jumping the shark, but videogame reviews as a whole. Influenced by Croshaw’s gross-out gags, what will come of our future reviewers?
Call of Jihadi Interview at Eurogamer.net: What happens when someone re-skins a Pro-Iraq War game titled Quest for Saddam, and molds it into a virtual attack on George Bush? Night of Bush Capturing, that’s what. Chicago based artist, Wafaa Bilaal, famous for his website performance piece, ‘Shoot an Iraqi,’ recently digitized himself into NoBC, dubbing the mod of a mod Virtual Jihadi. He discusses his commentary and intentions with Eurogamer.
Have an awesome article we should read? Hit us up! Want to be our BFF? Link us!
Wedbush Morgan’s game analyst, Michael Pachter, expressed my feelings on the ‘iPhone as gaming messiah’ in a simple point.
I don’t see it as a viable gaming platform, due to the cost of owning one. The iPhone costs $400 plus an AT&T wireless subscription for voice and data, I’m guessing this is $80 a month, so the addressable market doesn’t really fit the core gamer demographic.”
My issues with the touch screen, Apple’s inexperience, and bland game releases, all mean nothing compared to the all-mighty dollar.
Will you pay a $400 buy in and $80 a month for portable Spore? Or will you avoid it like the Noid?
Did you respond to a single point I made? Your counter-points sound like cut/pastes from flame wars. You don’t like buttons because of the N-Gage? Try out an NES emulator on an iPhone. The lack of physical response undermines the platform.
Sure, the iPhone is not built for old school games. It is suited for games yet designed. But if you’re telling me bread and water indie companies can afford to try out complicated new mechanics—mechanics that feel responsive and finessed—you’re sorely mistaken. Wii games have found success on novelty, but more and more designers dread the time and money required to develop intuitive controls for an exclusive Wii release. Why waste that effort, when casual players will pay the same price for Gingerbread Warrior or any other release equivalent to a flash game? I think better companies might soon head for better pastures (i.e.: Suda 51), and leave smaller studios to publish the vomitware. If not for Nintendo’s own releases, the system would resemble the ill-fated Atari 2600.
Do not be surprised if this novelty issue happens with the iPhone.
As for criticizing the Skate 2 idea and Fable, I figured you would extrapolate the example yourself. Of course, Sam, all portable mini-games won’t be level grinders. There are many different ways to accomplish connectivity, and you named a great one: the VMU Chao from Sonic Adventures.
Like many Sega ideas, the VMU was far ahead of its time, and you can thank it for many iPhone and DS design choices. But let’s focus on the Chao. You ignore the popularity of products like Webkinz. A smart developer would put a Webkinz app on the iPhone that could connect and directly affect the Webkinz on the family iMac or PC. Kids would beg their parents to buy the app, funneling even more cash into the massive Webkinz industry. So I’ll agree the iPhones not so bad, and you’ll agree about the Chao.
Yet, to keep this short (after your long-winded hubbub), I feel you doubt the power of the game medium. It is odd that you seem to believe there’s an impassable gulf between regular gamers and casual gamers: people who will play on the sofa and those who’ll never step out from their safe Minesweeper corner.
I think you do the industry wrong, and have subconsciously propagated the myth that there are gamers and there are normal people. We both know that’s not true. Simply, I believe in the next five years platforms like the Wii and iPhone will spread gaming, but it will flourish on consoles. As I said, casual games are the seed for gaming habits, much like cartoons and newsreels were the seeds that helped launch the film industry from novelty to a respected medium and art form nearly a century ago.
I concede, the iPhone will find success; I assumed that the moment I learned of the SDK. But that wouldn’t make for a good argument, would it?
Yet, I’m not prepared to call the iPhone God’s gift to gamers. I think it will please iPhone owners, and might persuade those on the edge to finally make the switch. I do not believe, though, gamers will pick up the iPhone as a new portable console. While it will find success as a great phone with wonderful options, I do not see players putting away their Zunes or DSs or PSPhones. They especially won’t as the line between gamer and casual player diffuses; as gamers, as a whole, shift from a minority to a majority; and while three of the strongest names in game refuse to share their pie.
Kotaku recently posted that Jason Ocampo, a Gamestop reviewer, has chosen to leave for greener pastures. A quick search through Gamasutra shows Gamespot, under the Cnet moniker, has already begun a search for his replacement. Are they trying to plug the employee floodgate? Are they hiding under the Cnet name? Do they offer dental plan?
EDIT: Please note this article was posted before Kotaku’s Activision article using the same lame “Make, Money, Money” joke. I would like to believe they stole it from me. Moving on…
I appreciated Ken Levine’s comments last week about the “meathead” gamer. In the past decade, a rift has continued to grow between the hardcore gamers and the casual, “Madden” gamers. I say rift loosely, because it’s one-sided; only hardcore gamers care. They fear that their niche of RPGs, adventure games, and fighters will be abandoned for casual releases.
And it appears the hardcore have reason to be afraid. In Japan, the casual market expanded rapidly, continuing to grow with WiiFit and various SingStar (karaoke) games. Their studios struggle to finance hardcore games, and now must rely on American studios to bear the torch—Japanese games like Silent Hill and Dead Rising have been signed over to American developers for their sequels.
But I don’t blame casual games. I blame development costs.
It’s important to consider that games were originally created as toys. During the Atari days, these toys were simple and cheap to produce, allowing for massive amounts of releases in a business’ fiscal year. This format is not unlike that of the Wii, with it’s outdated graphics and user-friendly control scheme. The goal of most retro studios and many Wii studios is to make as much money off of the cheapest development possible.
But the PS3 and Xbox360 games are entering a new terrain. These games are so detailed and complex that they are more than toys, they’re unique experiences. I truly believe videogames have found themselves in the next generation. Yet, these experiences require studios to accumulate ridiculous development costs. While these studios aspire to tell interesting stories or offer unique experiences, they must achieve their one ultimate goal: to sell a product.
I know lots of comments, posts, and class discussions deal with the artistic integrity of the medium. But I think it’s important to remember the people who pay for the development of your games, the 500,000 people that make it a success, aren’t like you. They’re the meatheads.
