From My Ivory Tower…
Look how smart I am. Look!
With August here, we find ourselves in a barren wasteland of video game titles.
Which isn’t so bad because the weather is so surprisingly nice, you should be outside anyhow.
Nevertheless, titles that I hoped to review for this column either are unavailable to me (”Wii Sports Resort”), have broken code in desperate need of a patch (”Fat Princess), or release at the end of the month (”Batman: Arkham Asylum,” “Madden 10″). As such, there’s not a whole lot to talk about until the next few months where there will be too much to talk about.
Which gives me room to espouse thoughts and philosophy on an unsuspecting audience for where I think this industry is headed and where it needs to go. Undeniably, video games are a major pillar of entertainment- generating more sales than box office sales and music. But the industry is still in its infancy compared to mediums like film, books, and music- there’s a whole lot farther we have to go until we get a “Citizen Kane,” an “Odyssey,” or an “Abbey Road.”
And so, I present the top three ways to improve the video game industry for business and consumers:
1. True Variable Pricing
Virtually all games for consoles retail at $59.99; last generation console games retailed mostly at $49.99. Consumers still pay nearly the same amount for a game that they payed ever since the entire industry switched from the cartridge-based game to a disc-based game, despite the cost-cutting measure of being able to press a game onto a disc. Yet the retail cost of games slowly creep upward with “special edition” titles starting at $69.99 and skyrocketing to $129.99 for a single game.
Activision suddenly realized that gamers would be daft enough to spend over $120 regularly on games with built-in peripherals and so have a version of their “Tony Hawk,” “Call of Duty,” “Guitar Hero,” and “DJ Hero” games this season, each with over a $120 price-point. Activision recently announced the “Renegade Edition” version of their freshman title “DJ Hero” that is estimated to retail for a sticker-shocking $200- $50 less than the price of a Wii console.
With development costs soaring into the multi-millions, publishers justify these higher prices in order to recoup the cost of their investment into development. But pocket-books can only afford so many $60 games- consumers need more affordable games, not less affordable.
Variable pricing on games would allow developers to compete financially with bigger-named titles, while growing an audience in the hope of establishing a franchise that would warrant a higher-priced game. Instead of taxing a development studio to pad games with boring additional levels or broken multiplayer, publishers should encourage shorter, tighter gameplay, cut the fat, and sell a $40 experience as a $40 experience, not a $40 experience with $20 of junk in order to look like a $60 experience. Not every game can compete with a “Call of Duty” or a “Halo” at the same price-point, so why bother?
A classic example of variable pricing was the end-run Sega performed when putting its “NFL 2K” series up against the “Madden NFL” juggernaut and released its $50 experience for $20. Not only did this cause the sales of the $20 “2K” to skyrocket and establish an audience that would normally not have purchased two football titles for $50 each, but it performed so well that it caused EA Sports to pay for the right to use the NFL license exclusively in order to shut-out Sega from competition.
The problem is that there is pressure on developers by publishers to create a “fuller” experience by adding extras into a game that no one wants or needs. Why was there a multiplayer mode in “Condemned 2?” No one played it, no one cared about it, and it was terribly implemented- but it was there. The multiplayer mode helped justify the $60 price tag of “Condemned 2″ when it launched, but development resources that went into making a half-hearted multiplayer in “Condemned” takes away from the resources that can go into polishing a great single-player experience.
The direct-download space has allowed for greater variable pricing in downloadable content- seeing great games like “Geometry Wars” for $5 was an unbelievable deal for gamers when the Xbox 360 launched, and it established a franchise that warranted “Geometry Wars 2,” at its current $15 price, to still be a great deal. Publishers needs to embrace this philosphy when it comes to retail releases in order to get more games into the hands of consumers with the hope of being able to turn a solid profit.
2. More Story, Less Game
My lovely wife, no matter how much I hope, isn’t crazy about video games. She does, however, enjoy sitting beside me and helping me figure out more cerebral, slow-paced games with good stories- “Silent Hill 2″ being her favorite. What I’ve learned from gaming with my wife, is that some people love to play games, and some are content to experience a good game as its being played.
Twitchy, shooter-happy games that involve loudly destroying every enemy on the screen isn’t the type of entertainment that makes someone want to snuggle up beside you; but a quality interactive narrative that two people can take in together makes a pretty good substitution for another movie night, or hours of reality television.
As gamers get older and audiences grow, room needs to be made for a “less gamey” game- one that has elements of interactivity to it, but used primarily to draw players deeper into the narrative. With the advances in graphics and technology, the dream of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style of interactive story is available, but more developers need to be willing to experiment with this genre.
Quantic Dreams, developer of the upcoming “Heavy Rain” has been approaching this type of game since releasing the critically successful “Indigo Prophesy” in 2005. “Prophesy,” which presents as a story told from multiple characters, followed an unconventional style of gameplay that most critics found refreshing. “Heavy Rain” looks to improve upon the technology and seemlessly integrates cutscenes and in-game action, making the presentation an uninterrupted story with interactive elements. Players will, again, play from the perspective of several characters in a murder-mystery and make the choices of how characters respond to elements while directing the narrative through how the game is played.
In addition to pushing the medium of video games as a story-telling device, these games encourage multiplayer connections without having to build a game that requires multiplayer controls: my wife and I can experience this game together, she can choose to direct how some characters will respond to situations, and I to others. We get to play together- I get the benefit of holding the controller and she gets the benefit of not having to hold the controller, but still play along side of me. Games like this can encourage non-gamers to actually pick up a controller in the future because they’ve already cut their teeth on an interactive narrative and now want to take the next step in gaming.
And if nothing more, it’s a nice break from all of the gunfire and explosions, without having to resort to sports or games built for kindergarteners.
3. Episodic Gaming
“Episodic Gaming,” the idea of disbursing a game in short segments and over a period of time, was the catchphrase of developers a few years ago. Developing and distributing a game over the course of several months caught most recognition in the industry when mega-developer, Valve, announced that it was developing episodes for “Half Life 2.” Unfortunately, Valve, notorious for taking its sweet time to release anything, took years in between releasing Episodes 1 and 2, and still hasn’t released Episode 3. Titles like “Siren,” “Alone in the Dark,” and “Alan Wake” present themselves as episodic by chopping up their levels into “episodes,” but still release as a full game.
Episodic gaming is a great idea, but if the development cycle takes years, we might as well get a full game out of the deal. The best reason to have episodic gaming for the consumer is to be able to get a satisfying-sized portion of game, while staying hungry for the next installment- take too long for that next course to come out, and gamers will have moved onto an entirely different meal.
Developer Telltale Games, has gotten the model for episode-driven gaming down with the release of the “Sam & Max” point-and-click adventure series. Each “season” of game has approximately six episodes lasting a few hours each. Combined- a season is the same or a little more than a full-released title. The model works well for gamers because they can pay in installments for their game- no more having to plunk down $60 for a game all at once, they can pay $10 per episode over the course of a season. This benefits the player as well by being able to try out a portion of the game to see if it is their type of game, without having to spend the entire amount for a game.
For developers and publishers, Episodic Gaming works for the same reason- people who would normally not pay full price for a game are now willing to pay for an episode because of the lower cost of entry. Likewise, pre-selling season passes for a game to fans, puts money in the bank earning interest before the later episodes are finailzed- helping to defray the costs of development on the current or future seasons. Telltale had so much success with “Sam & Max” that they have become exclusively an Episodic developer- putting out additional seasons of “Sam & Max,” as well as point-and-click titles based on the “Strongbad,” “Wallace & Gromit,” and the recently released “Monkey Island” series.
Why stop with adventure series though? True episodic gaming could be as compelling as a season of “Lost” and equally as competitive in the marketplace. Hollywood has seen success with selling viewers of “The Sopranos” the ability to watch episodes first-run on HBO, and then sold other customers the DVD of the season on the back-end, who’s to say that the game industry can’t take the same approach by selling episodes to those willing to pay top dollar for the first-run experience as it airs, and then sell to a whole new audience by compiling the episodes into a full game release? If episodes of a shooter or action game had the pacing and story of an episode of “24,” players would be foaming at the mouth to get the download and play the next episode.
The recent success of Nintendo’s “Wii” ushered in an entirely new audience that would never have considered themselves “gamers,” causing the industry to explore new avenues for game content and a new barometer for what is considered a “good” game and what makes a financially successful game. Old standards for game design and release windows need to be cast aside with emerging reliance on downloadable distribution and an aging audience that has more responsibilities and less time to spend playing games. Taking these factors into consideration of how the business of games can change makes the industry even more competitive and lucrative than where its gotten already.