Part 1 – What Have Wii Become?

I had been aiming to write something like this but found some of the key points I’d touch on already addressed in Alex’s “A Second Video Game Crash?” I suppose I’ve got enough to say that makes it worthy of its own article so without further ado; here is my take on what’s happening in the game industry…TODAY.

While I may not be some sort of untouchable, game industry guru, I, like many of you, carry within me a passion for video games that burns so strongly we believe it can guide us through the stagnant and uncertain time our hobby faces.

The Wii is plagued with shovelware so abundant that some would try and use it to define the system. Microsoft and Sony have been practically offering the same thing they have been for the past few years and while this may not sound like a bad thing to some people, those that have developed the insight to think ahead will see the problem with this sort of planning.

I’m going to focus on matter of the Wii before I address the potential folly of Microsoft and Sony. The Wii has been a ridiculous success. With the least amount of graphical prowess it has become the best selling console, like the PS2 was last generation, and sold so well that Nintendo can even boast that Wii Sports has sold even more than the original Super Mario Bros. On this silver cloud of new exciting things is a dark lining of reluctant publishers and confused developers that are not only unsure how to approach the Wii but don’t seem to understand the audience that have carried it to victory.

I’m talking about the casual market. Casual games are designed to be simple, enjoyable and easy to pick up and put down. A casual gamer isn’t likely to be parked somewhere for hours at a time playing a game. That is not casually gaming. As Nintendo hacked away at the brambles and lay down the ground work of a road that seem to pave itself with money developers misinterpreted “casual” as “childish” or “mini games”. They made the mistake of trying to copy something they did not understand. Brain Age is not marketed as a childrens’ game (yes, it’s on the DS but it’s part of the Touch Generation) but we’ve got plenty of Brain Age knock offs because developers think that by picking and choosing the features and ideas that seem to work they can put it all together in an easy to sell package.

This idea has slowly choked our industry and cursed us to sequels. For years, game companies have gone back and forth, taking ideas from each other, improving them incrementally and combining other ideas just to edge out the other. This habit of heavy “recycling” has become common practice for the game industry now. To better understand the situation you can think of this as a doctor treating symptoms, or identifying characteristics of profitable games, when he or she hasn’t made the effort to diagnose the illness, or what really makes the profitable games good. Publishers impeded by fear of risk or driven by greed, rape ideas that work until the beauty and wonder has vanished and all that is left is a shallow experience. Look no further then Activision’s Guitar Hero series to see what I mean. I’d go in detail about Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but that’s probably an article of its own for another time. Make no mistake about it though, Gentle Reader, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are casual games.

With everyone eager to get a piece of that casual pie, buggy shovelware games that are much smaller, cheaper and easier to program (I’ve seen some that were literally made in Flash) than your standard epic adventure are congesting stores and making plenty because there are now MORE uninformed people buying games. The Wii has been saddled with the burden of the most popular console and carries on its back an even larger stock of shovelware fueled by an even bigger and more profitable game industry than the PS2 had seen. Game publishers holding the purse strings might see Wii Sports or Brain Age clones going out by the truck full, as easy money only a fool (or an altruistic gamer) would turn down.

Amongst the shameful pile of ill conceived games that litter the Wii shelves are jewels we must mine and spread word of if we hope to see things change for the little white box. We can hope that developers will eventually do more but if you must do more than hope (And you should) speak with your money. If you feel your purchases aren’t speaking loud enough, then you can carry it farther and inform those that walk into game aisles confused and lost. Even if it’s as little as telling someone that not all developers put out great titles, it is a step in the right direction.

It is my opinion that there is three ways this surge in casual gamers is going to end. They are going to forget and stop playing (as a casual it’s not that big a deal to them), they might keep playing and inject a steady flow of money into the industry that outlives us but eventually dissipates or they will become deeper invested in video games. In the third scenario, they become us. They may find joy in playing video games and adapt the ability to think resourcefully and manipulate their controls to learn more complex skills. I have a hard time seeing the second scenario coming to be and believe it will either be the first or second.