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.
The problem with this perspective is that Nintendo’s success hasn’t come from making casual games – any company can make a casual game. Nintendo’s success comes from their dedication to their games; when they want to have a game sell well, they put their best teams onto the development (notice how it was Miyamoto who made Wii Sports and Wii Fit, as well as Nintendogs). Third parties, on the other hand, put their third- or fourth-line teams on making casual games, thinking that they’re cheaper and easier, so there’s no need to actually put quality teams on them. As a result, these lower-quality ’casual’ titles flop.
Mr Malstrom even explains this in a concise manner: the industry thinks that ‘casual’ is a synonym for ‘retarded’, and thus consider casual titles to be titles designed for idiots. And so, rather than making games that are simple on the surface but deep underneath (as Nintendo does with their casual titles), these developers instead make shallow titles, and are subsequently surprised when these titles fail (which again, they blame on Nintendo dominance). One only needs to look at cases where developers have actually had higher-level teams working on their casual titles to see games that are successful; Rayman Raving Rabbids and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games are both games that are deceptively simple on the surface, but provide much more when you dig deeper, and they’re both made by higher-level teams.
And yet, when reviewers rate games, they only ever consider it from the perspective of the established gamer. As a result, Rayman Raving Rabbids has only been rated an average of 76.9% (according to GameRankings), and Mario & Sonic only 67.7% – not ratings you would expect for million-seller titles (in the case of Mario & Sonic, 3.5 million, making it the best-selling third-party title so far). The other casual third-party title to sell over 1 million on the Wii is Carnival Games, which managed a paltry 58.4%… so why did it sell so well?
Well, perhaps IGN’s review will be a bit revealing. Here’s the explanation for their ‘Presentation’ score: “It feels like the carnival, except for the smell and constant feeling you’re going to get scammed. Unless you count the purchase price, of course…” So the only thing that isn’t good about the ‘presentation’ is the price… and that’s enough to make it only a 7.5. Their ‘Graphics’ score was explained: “Textures and animations leave an element to be desired, but the art direction succeeds in its own right. The Wii can do much better.” So here again, they judge things unfairly – the art direction is good, but because it isn’t technically great, it gets a miserly 6.0. And their ‘Gameplay’ score: “Some control schemes work better than others, some games are far more fun than others, but there are still a few gems that keep the game from falling too far into the abyss.” And how does this become only a 6.5? And their ‘Lasting Appeal’ rating: “It can be fun, but the novelty will wear off. “Over 25 games” may sound like a lot, but the quality games are only a fraction of that number. No online play?” which gives it a 6.0, strangely enough. The game wasn’t designed to be played for hours at a time, as it gets played during a standard review, it was designed for the short-burst play that is more common amongst the newer gamers.
The problem, you see, is that IGN, and all of the other reviewers, rate these games on the wrong measures. Where they should be rating games according to who it’s targetted at, they instead rate it for the ‘hardcore’ gamer. Meanwhile, the new gamers see these games as the quality games they are, and thus are buying them in great numbers. Some older gamers, such as myself, also attest to the quality of these games, and typically get shouted down by the more stuck-in-the-mud gamer – the same gamer that denounces Nintendo’s so-called ‘casual aim’, even though Nintendo has never had a ‘casual aim’.
And thus, we come back to the article, which explains quite clearly – Nintendo isn’t targetting casual gamers, because there’s no such thing as a casual gamer. Nintendo have made casual games, because such games introduce people to gaming, and Nintendo then bring them gradually up to the ‘better’ games. It’s a business strategy that is incredibly effective, and the result is that Microsoft and Sony get driven into niches as they fail to compete against Nintendo with their amassed following, and Nintendo moves gradually up further, pushing MS and Sony further and further into their niches.
And it seems that some of the developers are finally catching on; Ubisoft have scaled back their FPS development, and are redirecting that effort into, it seems, casual games. What Ubisoft are doing, you see, is taking a leaf from Nintendo’s book, and actually building up new loyal gamers, who will be buying more Ubisoft titles. If Ubisoft really get Nintendo’s strategy, their next step, once their current batch of ‘casual’ titles has come out and run its course, is to move up to the next ‘tier’, to the games like Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii, or Guitar Hero – games that appeal to newer gamers, but are somewhat more difficult, more immersive; a new Rayman adventure title would fit the bill, for instance. They should also ensure that they put their best developers into these games, both when they’re working on the ‘casual’ and what Nintendo have dubbed the ‘bridge’ titles.
But Ubisoft also have to take care to avoid the pitfall of running in Nintendo’s shadow, the worst of which being that what was a ‘Blue Ocean’ for Nintendo is now being targetted by other developers who think that the blue ocean is casual gamers and casual games. The Blue Ocean is the new gamer, the one that Nintendo has reintroduced to games, and the Blue Ocean moves with them – meaning, the Blue Ocean goes where Nintendo takes it. If Ubisoft wants to target the Blue Ocean, they need to keep up with Nintendo, rather than falling into their shadow; this means that Ubisoft need to start right now on making not only the basic bridge games (comparable to Galaxy, Brawl or Mario Kart), but on the next tier of games, which include the more complex action-adventure (such as Legend of Zelda), seemingly-simple RPGs (like Pokemon), and creative little titles with a lot of personality (for instance, Chibi-Robo).
These are the titles that will be coming from Nintendo in bulk through 2008 and 2009 – there will be other titles, like Disaster, aimed at the hardcore gamer, but such games will continue to be sparse until at least 2010, when the newer gamers will be ready for those sorts of titles, and Nintendo will be there with them, feeding them just what they’re ready for. If Ubisoft see this, the best thing they can do is start working to keep pace with them, and in the meantime provide a few other titles to keep the more ‘hardcore’ amongst us happy – with games like Red Steel 2, for instance, they can do this easily.
The same basic tactic is actually in use by a few other companies, too; Blizzard has been using it within their World of Warcraft series, Will Wright plays by these rules with the games he makes, and there have been others. Not only is the ‘Blue Ocean’ strategy about targetting people who haven’t been gaming much recently, it’s also about giving the gamer not what they say they want, but what they don’t realise they want. It’s about creating the demand for games where the demand didn’t exist. To extend the ‘Blue Ocean’ metaphor, if you keep fishing in the same place, a blue ocean will turn red. The only way to keep fishing in the blue ocean is to keep changing, keep moving, don’t fish in one place for too long.
No doubt those who didn’t read Malstrom’s article are confused as to why I titled this entry as I did – it’s because of Malstrom’s analogy, which he lifted from Professor Christensen of Innovator’s Dilemma fame – those who try to mimic the actions of an innovator are like the birdmen of centuries past, those men who, wanting to fly like a bird, created wings of various forms, thinking to emulate a bird by emulating the wings of a bird. These ‘birdmen’ made the mistake of paying too much attention to the wings and feathers of the bird, and not enough to the way they moved, the physics behind them. Those who wish to be successful need to emulate not Nintendo’s actions, but their strategy – the ‘Blue Ocean’ disruptive strategy. Nintendo aren’t playing at fads, they’re working at becoming the dominant force in gaming by the most effective method available.
And yet, all of these developers who are just now hopping on board the ‘casual’ train have already missed the time to do it, and are doing it in entirely the wrong way. The only ‘casual’ titles that Nintendo have on their way now (that we know of) are Wii Fit and Wii Music – not the great ‘casual focus’ that people seem to think Nintendo has. They’ve hit the casual target, the water is no longer blue, it’s time to start moving to the nearest blue area – bridge games. Other developers need to decide either to emulate Nintendo’s strategy directly, by starting their own blue oceans (as I suspect Ubisoft are doing), or they need to keep abreast of Nintendo’s movements, and predict Nintendo’s next move. Yet so far, most developers seem to instead be trying to outfit themselves with feathers for flying, and as a result are tarring and feathering themselves.
Tags: Birdmen, Blue Ocean, Casual gaming, Disruption strategy, Nintendo, Ubisoft
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