In the Game Over column from Mar. 29 Morris talks about the aim of Nintendo to keep the price ceiling were it is and personally, I’d back that. I have bought a lot of gaming dreck in my life, and on occasion payed full rack for games that I thought were must haves when they hit the street. Fact of the matter is, I am hard pressed to justify the prices in that the perceived value is not there for me. The exceptions to that have been Elder Scrolls, both KoTORs, Tales of Symphonia, and Animal Crossing; those games became incredible value propositions as I sunk many, many hours into each of them. Games like Fable and Jade Empire, while enjoyable, did not deliver in the same fashion and I was left feeling like I over payed.
Granted, I am aware that production costs are spiraling for games but I’m not so sure that what is currently being sold warrants those lofty budgets not to mention that those prices are likely to marginalize casual gamers. Iwata is on message, yet again, in that keeping to ceiling low is another method by which they anticipate differentiating themselves from the competition. the message along is that gaming needs to return to its roots, that the reason we play is to be entertained and the best hook is to have good gameplay, that graphics alone do not make the game.
The gaming industry appears to be putting some much faith in creating “Blockbusters” by upping the polygons and adding name brand voice talent but it is as the expense of producing a quality game. Anderson over at The Long Tail writes about the overall decline of the blockbuster movie and while many different ecological factors play into that–Internet, home theater sales, and satellite/cable TV narrowcasting–the games industry could be following the same path. For all the bigger budgets, less movies, higher prices revenue is still flat. Driv3r might have enjoyed brisk sales for a bit but it left a bad taste in the mouth of many gamers and Atari might have been better served with lower budget, high quality games that targeted smaller markets. If you need evidence of what a small, high quality title can do look to Katamari Damacy.
Nintendo could be wrong and I could be way off base, particularly seeing how the most popular titles are ones from “pump one out every 9 to 12 months franchises” like Madden or “drop it in a new era but leave the same broken ass game mechanics” GTA. People are sheep and they are going to buy whatever MTV tells them is hot but it would be nice to dream that people might be getting fatigued from the endless sea of sameness that plagues the retail shelves. I’ll tell you what, yet another WWII FPS is not worth $60 no matter how cool the physics engine is or how realistic the blood spray because it is the same tired on rails design that ushers the players from point A to point B shooting at pop up targets. Meh.
