Are there Really Niche Products?
Dragon Age had many skeptics pre-release. It was seen as a throwback niche product, attuned to hardcore RPG fanatics that were hidden in some dungeon somewhere, rolling dice for the last decade. An antiquated, hardcore RPG couldn’t really be successful in today’s sophisticated and streamlined market, could it?
Now that we know Dragon Age sold 3.2mm copies since its release date, putting it on pace for over 5 million, we have to ask whether there are any niche products anymore. I believe there’s no good product that won’t find an audience. If your game doesn’t sell well, it’s probably because it was crap, not because there’s some missing audience for your phenomenal game.
Failed ‘niche products’ are just crap games
Developers frequently complain that they focused on an audience that doesn’t exist when their game fails. Take a game like Madworld, or House of the Dead: Overkill, 2009’s ‘mature games’ for the Wii. A frequent criticism of the Wii is that there is nothing for adults and it’s all Link and Mario. Along comes Sega with their mature offerings, ready to appease the masses.
How could nobody have wanted to play House of the Dead Overkill? Maybe because it looks like horseshit?
These games sold approximately 4 copies each (accounting for rounding error). They can only be described as abject failures. Sega complained after the fact that the audience simply wasn’t there and everybody was clamoring for mature games when in fact all they want is Wii Sports Resort.
I would argue that the marketing was shit, and the games themselves were total shit, and that’s why nobody bought them. Not only were they terrible games, but they had no visibility with which to trick people into day 1 sales before reviews come out. If these games were the second coming of Modern Warfare, they would have sold like hotcakes. News flash: they weren’t the second coming of Modern Warfare.
What defines a niche product?
I don’t understand what defines a niche product to the industry. Something like the Eye of Judgment is seen as a niche product. Come on: it’s a card game that uses the Playstation Eye; who is going to play that?
The Eye of Judgment is the future. It's the most incredible idea in the world. Damn you people for not buying it. Forget about bridges, there are products that need stimulus already
I could just as easily say that there is another card game called Magic: The Gathering that requires arguably an even greater financial investment that has 6 million players worldwide. There are a lot of nerds like me out there who are happy to interact with a product that activates the imagination, even if it doesn’t have the newest, flashiest graphics.
Everybody said DJ Hero was going to be a niche product because it was expensive, but so was Guitar Hero when it first came out. Why was Guitar Hero more successful? Maybe because it was far more fun.
There’s an audience for everything
Developers like to cater to an existing audience: they want to make a first person shooter game, or a real time strategy game. Innovation is risky, however, not because you’re potentially making a product for an audience that doesn’t exist, but because you’re trying something new. You have no guidance for what works and what doesn’t; you have to guess.
While this is a risky strategy, it also has the highest reward. A competent FPS isn’t going to sell well, but even a mediocre (in hindsight) product that introduces the consumer to a new genre or genre combination that they want will be rewarded.
6 million players out there. Richard Garfield is a goddamn genius
Who knew a role playing shooter was going to be so well received before its release? When we look back on it, Borderlands might be a mediocre first entrant into the FPShooter genre, but it was still rewarded for its creation of a product the consumer wanted. Guitar Hero games have come a long way since the first offering, but additional success has been small at best.
There was no ‘peripheral rhythm game’ indicator. The consumer doesn’t know what they want; you have to tell them. Much like everybody thought they wanted more power in consoles and then the Wii outsells the other offerings combined, consumers don’t know what’s good for them.
Developers need to realize that if one of their games failed, it’s not because they didn’t target the right audience, or an audience didn’t exist, but because they created a terrible POS game.
