Political disruption

I’ve posted in reference to Sean Malstrom’s writings before, but something in one of his recent news posts, EA versus Ubisoft; Purpose Brand Vs. Birdmen, caught my eye. Here’s what he said:

When Xbox 360 gamers protest, Ubisoft replies, “You guys don’t know business. We must appeal to the demographics of the system.” You only appeal to demographics if you are running for Congress. Politicians pander. Businesses make products. If your product’s differentiation is just pandering, it won’t sell. If the product’s differentiation is better performing a job, it will sell.

And this is what made me stop and think. I didn’t even finish reading the article (I will after posting this), because I was too inspired to focus on reading.

Why do politicians pander? Why do people running for congress, or political appointments in general, appeal to demographics?

A Change is in the Air

My last three posts spoke of the way that third parties are treating the Wii, and how they can actually be successful on the Wii. However, in the last few weeks, something has started to form.

This “something” is a noticeable change. It began, as I see it, with the announcement of a new engine, aiming to give the Wii graphics comparable to standard-definition Xbox 360 or PS3 graphics. The company that made the announcement was High Voltage Software, and the engine was Quantum3. To go with this new engine, High Voltage Software also announced a new game, called The Conduit, which has caught the interest of many avid gamers.

With this announcement, many avid gamers released a massive breath that they had collectively been holding since not long after the Wii was launched. Finally, a third party developer looked to be treating the Wii as a serious system that deserved quality content. Of course, I exaggerate slightly - there were already a number of developers who had made quality titles, including Capcom, Konami, and Sega. Capcom stands out amongst this list, with quality ports (Resident Evil 4), new quality IPs (Zack & Wiki), and new AAA titles (Monster Hunter 3). However, The Conduit and Quantum3 stood out - this was a company making a statement: The Wii is a quality platform, worth making quality games for.

The Conduit, however, was just the beginning.

To Wii game developers

Gather around, because I am about to reveal to you how to be successful in making games for the Wii (or, indeed, for any system, but for the Wii most of all).

Let us begin with a simple listing of the four key rules that one must follow in making a Wii game, if you want that game to be a success. These four key rules will be elaborated on further below, but for now, let’s put it in terms simple enough for even the slowest amongst you to understand.

1. Set a reasonable budget for the game. Don’t skimp - you may be able to eke out some sales from a low quality game, but you’ll see far greater returns if you give the game a bigger budget.
2. Give the game a reasonable development timeframe. 2 months is never sufficient for a game.
3. Advertise and hype the game until everyone in the appropriate demographic knows about it. Make sure the advertising and hype are appropriately targetted.
4. Set quality requirements, and if a game isn’t of sufficient quality at the end of its development timeframe, delay the game. A bad game that is delayed can become good. A bad game that is released immediately will always be a bad game.

These four key rules are essential to success on the Wii. These same four key rules can be seen to be applied to almost every game Nintendo makes, and this, not Nintendo’s popularity, is the key to Nintendo’s first-party success on the Wii, on the DS, and in anything else they do. Even Nintendo have their flops, occasionally they produce a game that fails significantly on one of the key points, but their greatest games are always controlled by these rules.

Let’s delve a little deeper, now, and see some evidence supporting these key rules, as well as going into greater detail on the workings of these rules.

On people’s lack of understanding of Nintendo

You hear it all the time - people speak about how Nintendo are aiming at a different target, are trying to capture  non-gamers and casuals instead of core gamers, are winning because of some fad effect, etc. I spoke about some of the issue with this in my last post, where I talked about the writings of a man named Sean Malstrom. This man’s writings should be on the “required reading” list of anyone who wants to talk about the videogame industry. While I don’t agree completely with everything he says, most of what he says is spot-on, and he talks about things that too few people are interested in saying. He is clearly both knowledgeable and highly intelligent. But enough about Mr Malstrom, let’s get back to the post.

As I was saying, people talk extensively on what Nintendo is doing, and yet, very few actually understand what Nintendo is doing, to the extent that they make outrageous claims and demands. And it is this that I will be talking about in this post.

I will start with the very point which inspired me to write this post - Wii channels.

Why developers keep tarring and feathering themselves

There is a very interesting article written by a man named Sean Malstrom, titled Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy, about Nintendo’s disruption strategy, and how other developers are misinterpreting both Nintendo’s strategy, and recent patterns in gaming.

In simple terms, Nintendo’s plan is to first get non-gamers, infrequent gamers, and lapsed gamers playing their systems, then gradually moving these new gamers up from the simpler, ‘casual’ games towards the complex, ‘hardcore’ games. Meanwhile, other developers are failing to understand Nintendo’s strategy, and instead think that Nintendo’s success has come from some casual ‘fad’ that those developers want a piece of. When these other developers then fail with their casual titles, they blame it on Nintendo’s dominance on their platforms, claiming that third-party games don’t sell on Nintendo’s platforms.

Mind the Body

OK, time has come for the first update to my body stats. You all get to see any improvements I’ve made, or any instances of my stats getting worse.

And so, onto the measurements (and basic other data):

Age: 24 years, 44days

Height:  180 cm (about 5′ 11″)

Weight: 81.5 kg (up 1.4 kg)

Body Fat Percentage - removed from list as scales are crap.

Bicep/Tricep: Right: 35 cm (up 1 cm). Left: 33 cm (down 0.3 cm)

Forearm: 28 cm (up 0.7 cm)

Chest: 107 cm (up 0.5 cm)

Waist: 88.5 cm if left neutral (up 0.5 cm), 82 cm if sucked in (no change)

Hips: 95 cm

Upper leg: 54 cm (down 2 cm)

I can’t figure this out - perhaps my method of measuring is wrong, but the changes seem to constantly contradict each other, as well as common sense. My waist increased for neutral but not for sucked in… but does that mean an increase in fat, or in muscle? My legs are definitely more powerful, yet they seem to have shrunk; am I not accounting for fat loss from the legs, or are my leg muscles actually shrinking? My right upper arm grew, but my left shrank, even though they appear to be about the same size, and my left arm seems to be gaining in strength. Even my hips seem to have widened, which doesn’t make any sense at all to me (I didn’t bother including the change, because of the aforementioned nonsensicality of it).

Note: these measurements were taken at 11:00 PM on a Sunday. As measurements can vary throughout the day, this doesn’t represent exact figures.

With body out of the way, it’s time to talk about the mind. In particular, on the strangeness of the human mind when it comes to debate.

A change for the better?

OK, time has come for the first update to my body stats. You all get to see any improvements I’ve made, or any instances of my stats getting worse. Fortunately, it turns out that I’ve made great progress, so far.

And so, onto the measurements (and basic other data):

Age: 24 years, 23 days

Height:  180 cm (about 5′ 11″)

Weight: 80.1 kg (up 1.2 kg)

Body Fat Percentage (as per scales): 22.5% (I’m convinced the scales are crap for BFP)

Bicep/Tricep: Right: 34 cm (up 0.5 cm). Left: 33.3 cm (up 0.3 cm)

Forearm: 27.3 cm (no change)

Chest: 106.5 cm (up 1 cm)

Waist: 88 cm if left neutral (no change), 82 cm if sucked in (down 1 cm)

Hips: 95 cm

Upper leg: 56 cm (down 1.5 cm)

Well, I think progress continues to be made. I’m pleased so far. I do think that the amount of fat on my gut is shrinking.

Note: these measurements were taken at 5:50 PM on a Sunday. As measurements can vary throughout the day, this doesn’t represent exact figures.

A warning to EA

I just wrote this, and sent to Electronic Arts.

A step in the right direction

OK, time has come for the first update to my body stats. You all get to see any improvements I’ve made, or any instances of my stats getting worse. Fortunately, it turns out that I’ve made great progress, so far.

And so, onto the measurements (and basic other data):

Age: 24 years, 9 days

Height:  180 cm (about 5′ 11″)

Weight: 78.9 kg (up 1.2 kg)

Body Fat Percentage (as per scales): 21.7%

Bicep/Tricep: Right: 33.5 cm (no change). Left: 33 cm (up 1.5 cm)

Forearm: 27.3 cm (no change)

Chest: 105.5 cm (up 1.5 cm)

Waist: 88 cm if left neutral (down 3 cm), 83 cm if sucked in (down 2 cm)

Hips: 95 cm

Upper leg: 57.5 cm (up 3.5 cm)

Well, I’m certainly pleased with results so far. My left bicep is catching up to my right bicep, my chest is bigger, my waist is smaller (in spite of gaining a little over a kilogram), and my upper legs are bigger.

Now, I need to start working on my abs, because that’s the one part I’ve been neglecting. I also need to get back into the habit of walking, because I’ve been naughty and neglected it for the last couple of weeks.

Note: these measurements were taken at 3:15 PM on a Sunday. As measurements can vary throughout the day, this doesn’t represent exact figures.

And just to lighten things up a bit further, here’s a mathematical joke: “What do you get when you cross a mountain climber with a mosquito? Nothing - you can’t cross a scalar with a vector.”

Letter to the Publisher

I will be sending this to the major publishers very soon. OK, it has been sent to the following addresses:

Ubisoft: susupport@ubisoft.com.au
Atari: customerservice.australia@atari.com
THQ: enquiriesau@thq.com
SEGA: info@segahelp.com
EA: OZsupport@ea.com Had to re-send via their webpage, due to error message
Activision (via their lucasarts email): lucasarts@activision.com.au