WILL Talks GAMES: Less can be More

I can't believe I'm writing about this.  It's so obvious,
yet so many people don't realize it...

When I talk to people about games and stuff, usually people will share with me upcoming games they’re excited for.  Nine times out of ten, these gamers are nuts for the next game in their favourite series – they’ll back up their claim with, “It’s got updated graphics, lots of new features and game modes, and the developers promised monthly DLC!”, and they’ll blabber on and on and on about the game, singing its praises for as long as they can for as many reasons as they can come up with.

…Remember when you wanted to play a game because it looked “fun?”

Am I the only one who remembers the raw fun of Mappy?
Yes?  Yeah, I figured...

Seriously though, as a kid, that’s all we ever cared about.  We didn’t care about how the game looked, how many features were in the game, how long the game was, or how much extra content or sequels we were going to get – we were satisfied as long as the game was a fun game.  That’s what a game is:  you play a game, so it should be fun to play.  And I mean, if people who hype up games like this still find the game fun, then that’s fine – if you’re genuinely satisfied with a game, then what is there to complain about?  My problem is with people who are alienated into thinking that having more is instantly beneficial.

In the games industry, this is almost never the truth.

A game, as I perceive it, is a form of art.  As a piece of media, its built from the ground up in order to cater to a certain demographic, and in turn make the business-suit-wearing guys upstairs lots of money so they can make another game and do the same.  Game publishers nowadays are animals – like with the current state of Hollywood, big companies are ravenous entities that want nothing more than to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, for as cheap as possible.  They’re marketing geniuses, and that’s what make them so threatening to the industry as a whole.

You have two kinds of industry workers when it comes to video games: developers and publishers. 

WayForward's newest project, Shantae: Half Genie Hero,
is a labour of love funded by the fans, for the fans. I'll talk
more about this...but next time.

Developers are the people who, well…develop the game.  They are made up of several staff workers whose job is to use their specialized skill to fulfill the director’s creative vision.  Developers are akin to the band for music, the studio for movies (studio is used interchangeably for games as well), and the author when it comes to books.  For these individuals, they’re given orders by the director and producer, as approved by the publisher, to create the game to their liking.  Developers, for the most part, are gamers who want to use their skills to create a quality product that they would want to play.  There’s a lot of passion in these development studios, let me tell you – watch a studio tour for any developer, and you’ll either see the staff really hard at work, or smiling and having a good time. It’s hard to come across people who love their job so much!

Developers are usually not as well-known to the public as the publishers are.  The exceptions are the companies successful enough to develop and publish their games, being completely self-contained.  Examples of popular developers are DIMPS, Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and WayForward.

If WayForward was the positive extreme, EA's the complete
opposite.  Gaming Politics 101 - EA are money-hungry pigs.

Publishers, on the other hand, are the more manipulative and well-hidden of the two industry workers.  Publishers are the business-suit-wearing big guys upstairs – it’s their job to fund the developers to create the game they want to sell.  They’re the guys with the money – essentially, it’s a publisher’s job to hire developers so that both parties can turn a profit and provide a product.  Examples of publishers are Electronic Arts (EA), Ubisoft, Activision, and Nintendo.  It’s also important to note that most publishers are also self-contained developers in order to keep more money within easy reach.

Many people criticize publishers for being immoral and unethical toward developers from a business perspective.  The assumption is rightfully so at times, as there have been many cases of rushing out products, on-disk DLC, and focus groups affecting the creative visions behind potentially great games within this industry.  Publishers enforce these business practices because they know consumers will buy into it; developers have no choice, quite honestly.  They’re the ones being given money – in an ideal world, publishers would trust developers to create a game that people would think is fun, but in the business world, the publishers are the ones who know what people want.  They’ll study sales, DLC reception, game length, difficulty; whatever they can study about their audience and the game to find a correlation.  When a connection is found, they’ll capitalize on it.

Take a look at a video game trailer, and what do you see?  You see animated cutscenes from the game, with camera angles meant to mimic cinema.  You’ll then hear deep, edgy voiceovers explaining the basic premise of the game’s story.  After that, the commercial will throw a montage of new features, pre-order bonuses, and other bells and whistles that are desperately trying to grab your attention.  At the end of the commercial, it finally tells the consumer what platforms the game is being developed for in the form of game boxart.  As a consumer, shouldn’t we be made more aware of what the game will be available on?  Or maybe common store locations for where we can get the game?  Heck, a release date would be nice – game commercials seldom show these anymore.

A classic example of video game spin: this cinematic
camera angle for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 looks
 really cool, right? You'll never see this in the real
game; it's purely for show.

So why is it big companies that can afford commercials are more concerned with advertising the game itself and the downloadable add-ons you can rather than the concrete information?  The answer’s pretty obvious: the big companies want more money out of less effort.  If they can release a game that lasts a long time and has extra features you can charge for separately later in the year, then by all means those companies are gonna grab for that easy cash.  It’s basic customer manipulation. 

What they don’t realize, however, is that less is always more.

What’s the solution to a game that doesn’t last long enough?  Do you pad the game out to make it last longer?  And I suppose a book that’s only 200 pages long should have filler content thrown into the middle of it to stretch out its length too.  What about games with DLC?  Should the DLC be optional content, or crucial to the story?  Oh, they should be crucial?  Well thank you EA – I’m glad a company like you feels entitled enough to make your consumers pay an extra 10 dollars just to see the ending of your game! And how about focus testing groups?  Who needs creative vision when we can just ask a biased sample of people what kind of games they’d want to buy. Why the hell not.

Doom is commonly seen as the pioneer of the first-person
shooter. It was made by only 11 people, and all they wanted
to do was make the game feel like an immersive action movie.
The game is hailed as one of the greatest, released in 1994.

It’s not all that necessary to throw so many bells and whistles onto a game.  Most of the critically-acclaimed games in recent years were short, sweet games that delivered a satisfying experience without going overboard!  Games like Journey, Hotline Miami, The Last of Us are modern examples of the benefits reaped from staying true to a director’s vision and delivering nothing more than that.  Classic examples like Super Mario Bros., Pac-Man, Frogger, and Doom were creative and unique video games whose only goal was: “Hey guys, I’ve got a cool idea for a fun game. Wanna try making it?”

No DLC, no customer pandering, no flashy commercials – they were made because developers wanted the games to be that way.

Publishers, quite honestly, know nothing about what it takes to make a fun game; all they know is how to make money.  They exploit the fragile gullibility of the average consumer, throwing on hidden costs and overbearing price points for games and extra content in order to milk as much money out of a single that they can.  When the milking runs dry, then what?  Make a sequel and repeat the process, of course.  Cut those corners, you slimy businessman!

You may get a lot of lot of cash sunk into your company as a result of all this corporate faffing about, but I can tell you one thing: less will always be more in the long run.  An honest, sincere game with a polished presentation and standalone appeal will always fare better than any large franchise with loads of sequels DLC, map packs, and any other crap.  You'll look back on all that money spent and wonder why you bothered.

Don't worry, Chef - I'll release the DLC in a couple months!

It's like a pizza: you can be fat and greedy and order a pizza with every topping available, just because you can.  It's possible, but it's still probably going to taste gross and make you sick.  Or you can order a signature pizza with toppings that make sense.  Why overindulge when you don't have to?  Publishers need to figure this out, and the ones that are constantly experimenting with new ideas, such as Sega and Nintendo, are the publishers that balance good business with good PR.  It's just common sense.

Less is more, game developers: think small but ambitious.  The fans that appreciate your product will be what makes your game big.