13th May 2007, 11:36 AM
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/96/19
An interesting article. However, I think a very obvious point seems to escape a lot of opinion articles. I keep hearing "they say they want innovation but they never want to plunk down the cash". However, there's something a lot more basic behind it. People don't KNOW about these amazing original games, especially in the white noise of terrible original games.
Someone already knows what to expect with a Final Fantasy game, but no one's ever heard of Okami. For all they know, it might totally suck, and in all likelihood, it probably is if one considers just the odds. The majority aren't running around reading news posts on gaming web logs like us. Further, there's the issue of money.
People WOULD spend the money on Okami if they could know beforehand that it was a good game.
So no, don't assume this is some artistic/political statement just like you always "KNEW" about the masses and you're totally so much more enlightened than they are. Most likely this has nothing to do with your crusade and it's just a lack of information on these newcomers.
In all honesty, you do it too. I never even considered TRYING Ty the Tazmanian Tiger, because it just looked like "yet another" platformer, you know, the churned out hundreds of boring platformers? In fact, I say that's the VERY REASON Psychonauts didn't sell well. Every person I talk to says they didn't think it would be a fun game not because "it was too original and different looking" (no one ever says or thinks that EVER), but the opposite, it looked "just like any other boring platformer". It took playing it myself to realize it actually WAS a fun game in it's own right and NOT just a boring clone.
In short, it's not that people "don't want an original game", it's much more likely that they just don't KNOW it's an original and fun game to begin with, and how WOULD they? No seriously, in the end that's the question we need to solve. How do you "tell the people"? I guess the first part would be convincing the advertisers to spend the money on these new games, but they did that with Psychonauts. Maybe the commercials should show gameplay and not just have "witty narrator dialog" and completely unrelated real world jokes. I think above all that, downloadable demos.
An interesting article. However, I think a very obvious point seems to escape a lot of opinion articles. I keep hearing "they say they want innovation but they never want to plunk down the cash". However, there's something a lot more basic behind it. People don't KNOW about these amazing original games, especially in the white noise of terrible original games.
Someone already knows what to expect with a Final Fantasy game, but no one's ever heard of Okami. For all they know, it might totally suck, and in all likelihood, it probably is if one considers just the odds. The majority aren't running around reading news posts on gaming web logs like us. Further, there's the issue of money.
People WOULD spend the money on Okami if they could know beforehand that it was a good game.
So no, don't assume this is some artistic/political statement just like you always "KNEW" about the masses and you're totally so much more enlightened than they are. Most likely this has nothing to do with your crusade and it's just a lack of information on these newcomers.
In all honesty, you do it too. I never even considered TRYING Ty the Tazmanian Tiger, because it just looked like "yet another" platformer, you know, the churned out hundreds of boring platformers? In fact, I say that's the VERY REASON Psychonauts didn't sell well. Every person I talk to says they didn't think it would be a fun game not because "it was too original and different looking" (no one ever says or thinks that EVER), but the opposite, it looked "just like any other boring platformer". It took playing it myself to realize it actually WAS a fun game in it's own right and NOT just a boring clone.
In short, it's not that people "don't want an original game", it's much more likely that they just don't KNOW it's an original and fun game to begin with, and how WOULD they? No seriously, in the end that's the question we need to solve. How do you "tell the people"? I guess the first part would be convincing the advertisers to spend the money on these new games, but they did that with Psychonauts. Maybe the commercials should show gameplay and not just have "witty narrator dialog" and completely unrelated real world jokes. I think above all that, downloadable demos.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)