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Gamasutra's Best Of 2009: Top 5 Disappointments
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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December 21, 2009
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[Continuing Gamasutra's 2009 retrospective, Kris Graft looks at the top 5 major disappointments of the year -- spanning game retail failure through approval process difficulties and beyond. Previously: Top 5 Biz Trends, Top 5 iPhone Games, Top 5 Controversies, Top 5 PC Games, Top 5 Handheld Games Of 2009, Top 5 Console Downloadable Games, Top 5 Major Industry Events, Top 5 Developers and Top 10 Indie Games.]
2009 brought many welcome surprises and accomplishments that the video game industry can be proud of -- whether it's the ever-broadening definition of "gamer," the proliferation of risky indie video games, or just the higher profile that the industry has today in general.
But not everything in 2009 was worth celebrating -- some very notable shortcomings occurred this year, from continuing third party issues with the Nintendo Wii, to slowing retail game industry sales.
Perhaps the worst thing about our top five picks for disappointments is that all of them are still open-ended problems that have yet to be solved...
5. Ongoing Third Party Wii Hurdles
For some time, Nintendo management has been fighting a PR war against the perception that Nintendo platforms are inhospitable for third parties. In 2009, Nintendo honchos continued to wrestle with that perception. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata noted in January this year that there were 30 third-party Wii titles that have sold over 1 million in the U.S., up from just 12 in March 2008.
At the time, he predicted a trend that third-parties would become increasingly successful on the platform -- a prediction that occurred just months after Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime said, "I will be able to say our licensees 'get it' when their very best content is on our platform. And with very few exceptions today, that's not the case."
We'd venture to say that Fils-Aime still wouldn't think third parties "got it" in 2009, with "very few exceptions." We saw third party Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles regularly top the charts, but we never did see a third-party Wii game lead monthly sales this year in the U.S.
2009's high-profile M-rated Wii third party titles didn't seem to fare that well. The sales performance of Madworld, House of the Dead: Overkill, and Dead Space Extraction not only cemented the console's reputation as cold towards third parties, but also seemed to show that the console, like previous Nintendo platforms, isn't friendly towards more adult-focused content.
What third-parties do get the Wii? Capcom apparently gets the Wii, releasing successful iterations of Resident Evil. Take-Two gets the Wii with Carnival Games. Before it went into bankruptcy, Midway got the Wii with Game Party; Activision with Guitar Hero; Ubisoft with Rayman: Raving Rabbids; Namco Bandai with Wii Ski and Active Life; and THQ with Big Beach Sports, apparently. All of these are million-selling third-party Wii titles -- some of them not exactly known for their high-production values.
Who "got it" this year specifically? Electronic Arts had success in the West with EA Sports Active, which released in May this year. The workout game has sold around 1.8 million units and is the publisher's best-selling Wii game to date. EA CEO John Riccitiello insisted: "Third-parties can do a lot better on the platform with the right support from Nintendo. They've always been first party-centric, and they're learning how to be third party supportive. The Wii is not gone."
However, the EA CEO added, "But if [Nintendo] maintains a $199 [price] and doesn't innovate, they're going to have a hard time competing with what's already been announced from Microsoft and Sony [their motion controllers]." And seems like there may already be issues, as Gamasutra's Matt Matthews recently illuminated with a study of U.S. retail game sales.
Matthews noted an estimated 34% Wii market share of all U.S. retail games in November 2008, dropping to 29% in November 2009 -- as the Xbox 360 overhauled the Wii, rising to 37%. If you consider that Nintendo's own first-party games are included in that 29% total, and the relative flood of Wii titles thanks to ease of development, it looks like the Wii game market may be markedly tougher going forward.
4. Clunky Digital Platform Approval Processes
In 2007, industry stalwart and Space Giraffe developer Jeff Minter described Xbox Live Arcade's extensive approval process as "soul-crushing." For many other XBLA developers, it might not be quite that dramatic, but the process for gaining approval to many digital services -- including the iPhone App Store, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, and others -- certainly could have done with continued optimizing in 2009.
There's a contrast in the issue, but it tends to be strict, specific technical requirements that trip most developers up. Surprising holes can open up -- such as an issue with the Unity engine for iPhone -- that can exclude or disapprove entire classes of titles.
For the much more exclusive Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network approval processes, developers have to jump through various greenlight hoops and meet strict technical requirements before hitting the storefront for each release. This stops poor quality or significantly broken games from appearing, but leads to extremely long approval processes at times -- sometimes difficult for indie studios to afford.
But let's not just pick on console approval processes. The iPhone App Store, with its 100,000-plus Apps and more than 22,000 games, has an approval process that is "starting to crack from the seams" thanks to the sheer amount of content flowing through it, Kimmo Vihola, CEO of Minigore developer Mountain Sheep told Gamasutra this year.
While the barrier to entry is much lower, the result of the 'gold rush' on iPhone is that approval times for the App Store can range from a couple days to six weeks, he said. In addition, games do get 'stuck' in the approval process at times, it appears.
And as digital distribution becomes more prevalent, these issues look like they're going to persist for some time.
3. Devaluation of Games
The App Store made the term "Race to the Bottom" a common phrase among video game editors covering the iPhone gaming market. But might that just be rank snobbery from those who don't understand Apple's radical free market approach?
We're not just talking about the avalanche of 99 cent software, although that is at the root of the predicament of value perception on iPhone. We're also seeing impressively fully-featured games that might sell for $20-$30 on a PC or other platform sell for a measly $5-$10 on the App Store.
Ian Bogost, video game designer and academic, wrote about this skewed value perception earlier this year on Gamasutra. He said that a person may buy a $5 magazine, read it for a bit, then leave it on an airplane with no qualms. Or a badly prepared coffee might cost $1.49, and you'd just trash it without much of a second thought.
But people buying games off of the App Store have different value expectations for games as opposed to a cup of coffee, and in 2009, that skewed perception was not in favor for higher game prices, much to the chagrin of iPhone developers. A September analysis by UK site Pocket Gamer found that the average price for a top-100 iPhone game was $3.20; a top 10 game was $1.89.
But what else should we expect? The App Store encourages this Race to the Bottom with its storefront, which lists games according to unit sales. Of course, when a game is listed at 99 cents as opposed to $10, the 99-cent game is already at a distinct advantage over more expensive games, and likely to land a higher billing. (Apple did add a 'highest-grossing games' chart with a lower billing in 2009, however.)
Obviously, low price points can be great for consumers, and there are games that have seen admirable success at the 99 cent price point. But even at rock-bottom prices, consumers still aren't guaranteed to bite, and the market becomes even more hit-driven than normal, as devs cut prices to vault into the Top 100. As Bogost noted, "Apparently 99 cents is a risk worth taking on a cup of coffee, but not on a sophisticated, long-form video game worth ten times more on another platform."
2. Market Broadening Is Hit-Driven
The "Long Tail" was supposed to be a driving factor behind the expansion of the video game market -- more people would play a wider array of games across easily accessible digital platforms, and everyone could make a good living satisfying those niches.
While we continued to see an expansion of the video games market, it turned out that the Long Tail had a limited impact on the games industry's broadening in 2009. Companies that had enough marketing and advertising resources to turn a game into a hit are the ones that drove expansion.
Even in a digital world, it's the sales-leading companies that grab more market share. Just take Activision Blizzard with World Of Warcraft, Zynga with Farmville and Mafia Wars, and even -- on a more conventional retail front -- Nintendo with Wii Fit (and just about all of their other internal titles).
Just because there's more choice doesn't mean that people will buy games more evenly, as consultant David Edery has been pointing out and a recent The Economist article defined particularly well across all creative media.
As the magazine noted, under a subheading called 'The Tyranny Of The Hit': "As sales become ever more concentrated, it is becoming both more urgent and harder to establish a foothold near the top of the market. A book or film that fails to attract a mass audience tumbles quickly into the depressed middle."
It's this danger that even larger games are increasingly falling into, which is why you're seeing executives like Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick recently commenting: "The demand for top-tier products is okay. The demand for lower-tier products is not so clear... The safest place to be is in triple-A."
And if you think the same thing isn't happening on digital platforms - check out the swift hit status of Zynga's latest Facebook games, thanks to heavy cross-promotion with existing hits like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, as well as Electronic Arts and Gameloft's domination of the iPhone's top revenue games charts.
1. Retail Video Game Sales Down
We started this year well aware of 2008's ugly economic environment, confident that video games could weather -- or even flourish -- during tough financial times in the new year.
Early in 2009, there were reports that video games would even benefit from the credit crunch, as people may opt to stay home for cheaper entertainment, rather than venturing outside for expensive trips or meals out.
That seemed to be the case at first. January U.S. game retail sales were up, as were February's. NPD called it a "fantastic start." But that growth would not be sustainable, as the next six consecutive months would see U.S. retail video game industry sales revenues decline. The excuse of tough year-on-year monthly comparisons, while legitimate to an extent, couldn't explain the ongoing shortfalls.
The recession was affecting even the resilient games industry. Through November, video game sales were down just over 12 percent from 2008. NPD analyst Anita Frazier said following the results for that month that "Breaking even [with 2008] seems more out of reach."
But 2008 video games generated a record-breaking $22 billion at U.S. retail (up 23 percent from 2007), which does make for a truly a tough comparison, particularly when the economic odds are stacked against this and virtually every other industry.
In particular, the rise of the online game and digital distribution -- not tracked at all in these high-profile retail charts -- has birthed suggestions that social network gaming (FarmVille), free-to-play online games (MapleStory), digitally distributed titles (Steam), and subscription MMOs (World Of Warcraft) are more than compensating for the retail slump.
But in an industry that has gotten so used to such strong growth over the years, recording an annual retail game decline can be labeled as nothing other than disappointing -- and it is in no way clear that digital is completely making up for the loss.
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No.
That's clearly not feasible in the console sector in particular where spiralling costs and small install bases have created a decade of narrowing selection. Consoles are becoming like blockbuster cinemas, with only room existing for mega-buck hits. Even the online offerings of consoles are too managed, tailored and all about the brand of the console rather than the developers to really let the creative cats out of the box.
The Long Tail of games does exist, however. It exists in back catalogue games, iPhone games, social networks, Steam (sort of) and many other venues. This year has been anything except a disappointment for a great deal of flourishing new games and new game content. The console sector is proving too resistant to change, so the answer has been to go elsewhere. And elsewhere the developers have gone. In droves.
This one aspect of video gaming has been pushed to a new level in 2009. The ability to store items In Dragon Age: Origins should have been a free patch, not a day one DLC for consoles. This same game had a code for DLC quests that unlocked them from the disc with no actual download. This would seem unjust to people without said code, knowing the quests are on the game they just paid for but cannot play.
DLC is being tested by developers as an added revenue stream but the value and method of some of the material in 2009 may raise more ire than desire. Alternate Street Fighter costumes that need a paid code to unlock from the disc, paying for stat boosts in FIFA 10 that are only temporary, etc... hark back to the horse armour for Oblivion: not so good.
There were some great DLC in 2009 (see Fallout3's Broken Steel) but there were just as many cash grabs that disappointed gamers and may hurt the industry's attempt to extend gameplay beyond initial sale.
But in defense of game developers and their publishers, I feel that the root of the problem comes from gamers themselves. It may sound incredibly stupid to try for a cheap cash grab by being able to put some sparkles on your horse's butt, yet what's even stupider is that the gamers are willing to pay for such content in the first place. You can't really blame the supplier if the consumer base is providing a demand for trivial knick-knacks. From a gamer standpoint, it's easy to see it as being selfish, greedy, and milking dry x franchise. But from a basic capitalist standpoint, it's just supplementing the demand presented by their market. People want silly trinkets, they'll get silly trinkets.
By the way, your Fallout 3 example is spot on. I loved every single DLC pack, even the Mothership Zeta one. That is what I personally believe DLC should strive for in regards to content and quality.
In this case, I feel like that's a fair enough justification for having day 1 DLC. It's also an interesting marketing idea: users who buy a new copy of the game get the "$15 value" DLC included, but anyone who buys the game second hand will have to pay another $15 to get the quest line, if they choose. From a developer's perspective, I think that's a smart way to get some revenue from the second hand games market, and from a consumer's perspective, I personally like the idea as well. I buy new copies of the games I really look forward to in order to support the developer as well as get the game as soon as possible, and this scheme rewards that action more than games without "free" DLC included.
Sean's Dragon Age reply adds much clarity on this one product and it was an incentive for me to purchase early and ensure I got an initial copy (not all of them have the extras, mine also had armour outfit for Mass Effect 2). It all comes down to "value" as perceived by the consumer: if we see it as worth our money and the developers/publishers see an avenue in the marketplace than it is a benefit to those who buy it.
That's why my post is not all about the negative aspects. I have seen great DLC and hope we see more material that keeps fun games in our consoles/PCs longer. I just wanted to say how disappointed I am when DLC doesn't involve actually "downloading" any content or it fills a hole that poor game design created. I was also hoping to spark a thread on what disappointments others had experienced beyond the article's 5 topics. Take care.
How many games ran from the Modern Warfare 2 release? They ran to Q1 2010. From the numbers we saw it might be a good thing for those games that they ran, but I wonder how long the industry can last with huge blockbuster games that suck up 90% of the attention. With 6 or so of these games a year, with huge replay values that are demanded it seems like the industry is headed for the same 'Blockbuster' driven model movies are already doing.
Edit (added):
Only now the 'Long Tail' is claimed by GameStop and other pawn shops. I don't see DLC fixing the problem either because one of the reasons 'Long Tails' exist is because the price drops on the way out. Other than 'Deals of the Week' has any console DLC price dropped? If it has, no one notices and it doesn't happen enough like the retail market.
Unless you are one of the blockbusters that succeeds you are done, or you have to cut your budget so far that you clearly get overlooked in the huge amounts of releases out there.
I don't think Duke Nukem Forever would've gotten a mention since we've been predicting the game's eventual cancellation since 2006. I also don't consider it so much a 'disappointment' for the lawsuit that followed, seeing as there hasn't been any evidence of actual productivity on the Duke Nukem Forever project since the early 2000's.
Now if we were making a list of the top 5 disappointments of the _decade_, well then...that would probably get a nod somewhere. =)
Same here about Dragon Age, at least for the collectors version on the PC. I had to download the extra content and items after I input the codes on EA's site.
Alan,
Rare was good at one time, but even towards the end of the N64 age they were loosing their edge and I recall they were loosing money and missing deadlines. Nintendo probably made a good choice by selling their share of Rare to MS, as that company hasn't produced anything really worth mentioning since the N64 days and some of its key members have since left the company.
This is a quote from Nintendo of America executive vice president Peter MacDougall when questioned about the sell;
"in looking at the company's recent track record, it became clear that its value to the future of Nintendo would be limited. In other words, we passed on this opportunity for very good business reasons."
Also, they didn't sell off their most beloved characters, Nintendo still has Donkey Kong and I'm sure some will argue for Star Fox. :)
And one last bit, Rare was a second party developer for Nintendo.
Regarding the DLC situation, it is going to get worse. Much much worse.
Probably the worst example of the way the situation is destined to go was was with RE V this year. The MP mode was reserved as DLC -- which in itself is justifiable I suppose, but not the way Capcom dealt with it. They said that the MP mode just could not be completed and incorporated into the full release of the game. Which some people believed until the MP DLC mode came out quickly after release and it was like only a 350kb download. :( It's possible that that 350kb is worth $5 but I don't know... the more DLC that people buy, it seems the less will be expected to be included in the initial release of the game IMHO.
If you have some game that costs 10s of millions of dollars and you need to get it out, sometimes it's easier to remove access to something, release the game and then finish it and unlock it with DLC.
I don't understand the backlash against DLC, sure it costs more money, but if you like a game an extra 7 bucks is worth it. Why wouldn't people want the life of games they enjoy extended? Sure, if you don't like the game don't buy it. I've only bought DLC for 2 games, Fallout 3 and L4D. Both were great bargains that extended the life of games I really liked.
If the future involves sometimes buying a 1 chapter game and then buying the DLC for chapeters 2-10, that's fine with me.
The Nintendo 3rd party bit really caught my attention. In SNES/SFC days Nintendo embraced companies like Konami, Rareware, Acclaim, Midway, Squaresoft, Enix, Activision, EA, Etc... but it appears the shift in corporate strategy that took place during the late 90's effectively shunned out and alienated most of those companies because they were not making "family games." It would be two consoles (a decade) later until Nintendo once again opened its arms to 3rd party developers for more-mainstream games, however, it seems the devs are still weary of Nintendo's overall strategy.
Differentiating yourself from the pack is a good thing, as is innovation, but burning bridges with devs and publishers isn't, and it's going to take time and a lot of hard work to build new ones.
yeah i dont know why its not on this list! pissing off a handful of pc gamers, many of who bought it anyway, is more than enough reason!
"Tadhg, I don't know that the long tail _does_ exist - at least not to the fabled extent previously suggested - in iPhone games, digital download games, and social network games - if anything they are also becoming more hit driven. We've added a paragraph to that section to reflect your comments."
I think that just means you're noticing the short heads more. Of course there is Farmville, for example. But there are also thousands of other applications on that platform and significant chunk (at least the top 300) are individually profitable and many of the smaller ones are part of suites of applications that developers aggregate themselves. It's a similar case on iPhone.
"Hit driven" does not take away from long tail possibilities. Movies are hit driven, but Netflix finds and exposes the long tail of movies. Books are hit driven, but Amazon finds the long tail there too. Indeed in order for a long tail to exist there must also be a short head.
Hit-driven in the context of console games means "heavily marketed to hopefully generate enough interest to create a word of mouth hit" but word of mouth/virality feature much more heavily on Facebook and iPhone because they're more sharing-oriented than the fuddy-duddy retail based console games industry. So all in all I'm pretty confident in saying that the games long tail does exist and is healthy. It's just not on Xbox.
Sure movies suffer from the same 'graphics drops' as games in some cases, but the price of entry is $1 for a Redbox, or less with Netflix if you get a lot of movies... New games on the other hand settle at $20, or are only available at a pawn shop (eg. Gamestop) for less, which developers never see any of anyhow.
Yeah I don't think there will be a decline in the selling of used gaming anytime soon. Unfortunately sellers of used games are probably way more busy than most retailers this time of year. Gamestop itself has basically defined game reselling as a great thing. Not only can I trade in old games to drop the price on a new one (because who honestly has $60 for every new game release out there), but I can also find the exact same game I'm looking for, cheaper. As much as I love the game makers, I will never buy a new game versus a used game because I am, like many gamers, living on a low income and generally living paycheck to paycheck. It is also the reason I have to pass on most games no matter how bad I want them. So yeah, I feel for the company, but what drives the market for them is the consumer, and that won't end anytime soon.
As far as piracy, once a company can actually release a secure device that can also detect when its been modified even with hardware, then you may stop it, or at least for a little bit. Unfortunately, these pirates act just as fast, sometimes faster, then the product makers themselves. I myself own a jailbroken iPod Touch, and every time there is a Firmware update out there, within a week the crackers have a new program to break it again. I agree that for games to be a truly lucrative business piracy has to be zero, but we have to accept the fact that it will never be. There is no way to track them all, there is no way to prosecute them all. They will NOT be leaving anytime soon. Sure you can 'crack down' on it but the second you put a process into place, they will find the back door and you will be none the wiser.
Now speaking in general, I too dislike a lot of DLC issues. I have purchased extended levels, packs that add on bonus features, and song packs for Rock Band. I do however hate the feeling when I spend upwards of $10 to purchase some stupid cosmetic upgrade. This is very much like the Avatars on XBLA. The avatars when first released had free updated wardrobes and were a way to express yourself. I also love the addition of avatar trophies unlock from achievements in game. Then of course Uncle Microsoft-Moneybags sees the popularity and throws it into a market place. No more free avatar clothes. We're going to charge them now. It's as disappointing as being told that you can't have the free add-ons that PC gamers get just because you bought the Xbox version (L4D). I know Valve felt for the customer, they are the ones that wanted it free-to-download so bad. Yet again its all about money. Microsoft reaching out their hand to their customers, reaching right into their wallets. I mean if I'm paying for everything else on XBL, then why am I still paying monthly for the service too?