EEDAR's Jesse Divnich
On the death of the music genre, why Natal will be the next gimmick to capture the casual gamer and why you can always rely on the hardcore
At the Montreal International Game Summit last month, Jesse Divnich of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research presented a session that looked at the the correlation between review scores, game quality and marketing – with data that proved both insightful and controversial.
In this follow up interview, Divnich discusses some of the trends of the current generation and how they are coming to an end, what will replace the most recent 'fads', and how the William Goldman quote – "Nobody knows anything" – applies to the games business.
I got a lot of positive feedback. It can be depressing, but it's the truth. I'm not here to instil false hope into developers, they need to know the truth. We are bombarded with over 1000 new games every year and while having a high quality product certainly helps in contributing to a game’s commercial success, it is far from the only factor. In fact, of the 1000 games released this year, 100 of them will receive a quality score of 80 or higher. The only way publishers and developers can distinguish themselves from their competitors is through branding and marketing. Developers and especially students need to be aware that simply designing a good game is only half the battle.
It’s a lack of innovation. 2007 had Guitar Hero, a very innovative product and 2008 had the Wii Fit, and throughout those years Wii games like Mario Kart, Carnival Games, and Mario Party introduced gaming to a new audience. But what about 2009? Aside from the Motion Plus and EA Sports Active, there hasn’t been much innovation on the Wii. The casual audience needs some sort of gimmick to entice them on making additional purchases. Releasing sequels with minor upgrades does not work in this realm.
For example: Brain Age vs. Brain Age 2, Wii Fit vs. Wii Fit Plus, Guitar Hero III vs. Guitar Hero World Tour vs. Guitar Hero 5, Rock Band vs. Rock Band 2. These are instances where the sequel, which had better quality and more features, should have outsold the original on the Wii or DS, but in each case, they did not. This goes completely against our core assumption that as long as we add some new weapons, race tracks, levels, features, etcetera and throw a roman numeral at the end of the title, it will outsell its predecessor. The casual audience gets their fill on a game much quicker than the core audience does (and this is true in most industries). As odd as it sounds, it sometimes requires more work and aggression to keep the casual and non-traditional gamer happy than it does for the core gamer.
It's going to be huge. I think it's going to be the greatest thing for this industry since the Nintendo Wii. Because consumers out there are already addicted to motion-based gaming, but we've realised the limitations of the Wii and we want something more. We want something more evolved and more sophisticated and I think Project Natal is going to deliver those on two fronts. One, it's going to resonate with the casual side. And two, you've got commitment from the core development community.
If I had to summarize 2010, it will be that motion based gaming will again save this industry and I don’t expect this to be entirely driven by the Natal and Sony Motion Controller. They would both be foolish to think Nintendo will take this lying down.
Definitely, and that's the old business model that the PS2 had. When the PlayStation 2 first launched Sony targeted the hardcore, and the early adopters, then once the price began to drop they went for the casual market. SingStar and EyeToy helped, and games like Harry Potter and Cars got the younger audience, and the price sensitive consumer. That's why I think Natal is going to be a huge, huge deal. The success behind any peripheral is the software support and we know that Natal has great support from every major publisher in the industry.
No, it is probably uphill from here. The price cut clearly rejuvenated sales and now the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 are having competitive month to month battles. The PlayStation 3 had a very rough start, certainly not what Sony anticipated and I believe there is an important lesson here. Consumers, while they want to be loyal, are not monogamous. I do anticipate that most PS2 owners will eventually buy a PlayStation 3, it just might not occur at the higher price points, but instead when the PlayStation 3 is priced below USD 300.
Nintendo probably hit the nail on the head with its marketing campaign. Their campaigns not only showed the game, but showed people interacting with that game. Emotions are very contagious and we can’t help but feel some form of internal enjoyment from watching others having a good time. Modern gaming didn’t start until 2000, and since then we’ve been throwing Jello at the wall to see what sticks in terms of marketing.
For Sony, they certainly have tried every end of the spectrum from high-definition cutscenes/gameplay to babies levitating consoles to mainstream comedic commercials. Honestly, I don’t know of the right answer and there isn’t likely a standard format all gaming commercials should abide by.