Let’s talk about sex, baby. Let’s talk about you and me

Yes, this is a videogame sex line. You can choose what woman you want to play with, whether you want the encounter to be ‘flirty’ or ‘dirty,’ and what game you want to play. The current game choices include Halo 3, GTA IV, MW2 and Gears of War 2 as well as Yahoo Game classics such as chess and checkers etc.

This goes beyond the standard Lara Croft or Dead or Alive exploitation in games. This isn’t just a game that focuses on sex; this isn’t Leisure Suit Larry. Finally, somebody is using the communicative abilities of videogames for sex.

Dead or Alive: We thought this was as bad as it would ever get. We were wrong

While some of the women available for an encounter are of questionable quality at best, the reaction from the game community and general mass media community is confusing to me.

Why are most condemning gamers because of this? Sure, there are plenty of ‘oh my god, that’s so pathetic’ comments, but why is that the natural reaction? It’s not like people think the phone is a pathetic piece of technology despite the fact that there are tons of sex chat lines.

It’s not like people think the internet is embarrassing because of the way a number of people choose to use it. People have that reaction to gaming because they innately associate gaming with ‘loser.’

Scam alert! Russian trannies are trying to scam money out of you

Nearly 50% of US households have a videogame console, however. Pretty much everybody plays games in some way. It’s just like using a phone. I think the fact that game machines have finally graduated to ’sex chat hotline conduit’ suggests an increase in legitimacy.

Scam artists and sex fiends from Russia have finally realized that videogames are big, here to stay, and can be abused for money. We have hit the mainstream, ladies and gentlemen. Watch out.

A new game called Ribbon Hero attempts to turn learning and practicing Microsoft Office techniques into a game. This is just the first step: soon everything will use games to teach.

Games used to teach? Outrageous

Games used to teach in the past were fairly limited. We all probably used something to learn to type, either Mavis Beacon or Mario Teaches Typing or something along those lines. Sure, Mario Teaches Typing is far more of a game (and far less useful at teaching kids to type) but they were more useful than rote drills pressing various keys.

How many kids played Oregon Trail in lower school history? All I really took from that game is that dysentery is hilarious, never try to ford the river unless you have oxen to spare, and shooting buffalo is hilarious and the solution to every problem. I didn’t, however, learn much about US history.

Oregon Trail, like you've never seen it before. Bierstadt edition!

Games are used in the form of simulators to train the military and pilots. Games are used to teach learning disabled children exercises in focus. Games are used for many things, but for the most part they’re entertainment. Entertainment and work don’t traditionally mix.

Enter Ribbon Hero

Ribbon Hero aims to change all that. It’s a game that accumulates points when you do certain tasks in Microsoft Office. Did you just modify the formatting of that paragraph? 2 points! There are even challenges that you can perform specifically, most of which probably aren’t in your repertoire of skills. In this way, the game is teaching you what else the programs can accomplish.

Sure, this sounds kind of stupid at first. Who is going to play the Microsoft Office game when you can play Halo? This is obviously not for a leisure time situation. This is an extra boost when you’re doing work, or just need a second to focus on something other than the essay you’re writing.

Mario Teaches Typing ... poorly

Don’t underestimate the appeal of online leaderboards and competitiveness to encourage somebody to do something. A game like Farmville isn’t really all that different from learning Microsoft Word: you perform the same rote activities over and over, and your reward is a visual representation of progression, and competition with your friends.

80 million people play Farmville. Imagine how many are out there using Microsoft Word. You get higher points and a chance to compete against your friends through Ribbon Hero. Game designers know that they can tap into people’s natural desire for that feeling of achievement.

Is this man wearing a uniform to vacuum? Is he some sort of vacuuming cop? Or is this some weird sex game

Soon this could be implemented in many things. Maybe vacuuming turns into a game; I have to vacuum anyway, why not get some points out of it? Besides, you don’t want to be that guy that is made fun of all the time for having a disgusting apartment because his vacuuming score is the lowest.

It’s not something that’s going to happen this month, or this year. But it’s going to happen. Then we gamers will finally take over. So far we’re only taken over Korea.

PSN likes to push that it offers greater value because there’s no subscription fee. Is $5/month really that crippling? Is the worse functionality offered by PSN worth the savings? Hardly.

Missing the forest for the trees

Xbox charges a $5/month fee, or various packages if you sign up for longer periods of time such as $40/year, and there are also tiered subscription packages. Sony has long held that their PSN offering is much more valuable because it’s free.

Are you really going to care about paying the equivalent of 2/3 of a game for a better online experience for the year? Most gamers purchase 6-7 games per year for their console, so you’re talking about a required 10% increase in game experience quality on Xbox Live vs. PSN to repay that difference.

The real reason Xbox is better? Ground FX

PSN has come a long way from its early years. The store front is about comparable to Xbox Live. The internet functionality is about the same (although who really cares or uses a console for that?). The friends list is comparable.

PSN falls short in two specific areas: voice chat and developer support.

Nobody has a mic?

Cooperative has come into its own in the past 5 years with the expansion of online console functionality. While it’s possible to execute well in free for all deathmatch without voice chat, and even to do some team deathmatch without voice chat, it’s very difficult to coordinate with other players online without being able to speak to them.

On a computer you can type messages if you’re fast enough. On a console you merely have to sit silently. I was playing Borderlands for the first time online with a friend and we were using Skype to chat back and forth because neither of us had a PS3 mic. It was a revelation. I had given up on Borderlands other than in solo play because it was simply too hard to play with everybody when we were all silent. Being able to speak changed all that.

I know PS3 has their own proprietary mic although functionality is spotty at best and it’s horrifically uncomfortable. In addition, it’s ridiculous to have to listen to either a mic or the game sound. Turtle Beach is a hugely influential gaming headset manufacturer, and until recently they didn’t even offer a unified PS3 voice chat and sound headset. The demand simply wasn’t there, because voice chat functionality on the PS3 is laughable.

I'm jealous of all these Trials HD players. Sure, I can play it on the PC via Steam, but the controls are horse balls

PS3 simply falls short compared to Xbox in the voice chat department, and all the PSN store front changes or improvements in PS1 offerings online aren’t going to close the gap with Xbox Live. This is one of the few areas where I’m jealous of Xbox owners.

Developer support

The other difference where Xbox Live really wins vs. PSN is in developer support. Think back as recently as this past summer where the Summer of Arcade was happening on Xbox Live. Not only were there some great offerings like Trials HD, Splosion Man and even Shadow Complex, one of the most highly regarded games of the year.

I chose a PS3 over an Xbox because  I prefer the exclusives. I like Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Uncharted and InFamous over Gears of War and Halo. That being said, had I known the online functionality gap pre-purchase, I might have changed my mind.

Shadow Complex: Not just online game of the year, but contender for overall game of the year. Sadly Xbox only ...

PSN is making vast improvements, they’re just not in the areas that count. They need to step up their voice support and create some incentives to go into the store beyond Critter Crunch to really close the gap. They claim they have a value offering. Sure, it’s cheaper, but is cheap necessarily representative of value?

You know what’s also cheaper than PS3? Not buying a PS3.

Activision has tasked Sledgehammer games (run by the former developers of Dead Space) with making the Call of Duty game for 2011 which will potentially be in the action-adventure genre. Activision believes they have created a self-sustaining franchise separate from the individual game quality, the same mistake Electronic Arts made with their sports franchises. Call of Duty, meet Madden, the ghost of Christmas future. 

Call of Duty vs. Medal of Honor

The top Infinity Ward brass got their chops in the FPS realm with Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. This was an Electronic Arts franchise which had seen a ton of success and which EA believed was well established with consumers.

While Allied Assault scored in the low 90’s on Metacritic, subsequent games by different developers have scored in the 70s and even 60s, and sales have fallen off a cliff. This is to be expected; gamers will only give a loved franchise benefit of the doubt for a single flop or if lucky, two. After a sustained trend of crap games, FPS fans looked elsewhere for their fix.

MoH: Allied Assault is still regarded as one of the finest WW2 games ever made. Infinity Ward strikes again! Coincidence? Doubtful

Fortunately for them, the Infinity Ward guys were at Activision working feverishly on CoD4: Modern Warfare. This was the first modern Call of Duty game (a decision that Activision management believed to be a mistake). Call of Duty was a successful if not ground breaking franchise for Activision at the time. Modern Warfare changed all that.

It became the fastest selling FPS game of all time and went on to sell nearly 15 million copies worldwide. Call of Duty joined some of the largest game franchises in the world like Final Fantasy and Mario. Infinity Ward became the toast of Activision.

So what went wrong?

Call of Duty is an annual franchise, and yet a game takes more than a year to develop. Activision therefore has two teams making Call of Duty games and they alternate release years, allowing for a 2 year development schedule. The other team is Treyarch, and they are sadly known as the shit team. The ‘Treyarch years’ (2010 for example) is a terrible time and gamers everywhere lament their misfortune that these hacks are allowed to touch the Call of Duty franchise.

World at War's big hook was Nazi Zombies. Treyarch strikes again! Goddamn Treyarch is shit

CoD5: World at War sold well, although not as well as Modern Warfare. That being said, it was still a success because gamers identified the franchise with quality. This was solidified with CoD6: Modern Warfare 2 which came out in November and became the fastest selling videogame of all time and yet another smash hit. It was developed by Infinity Ward.

There was a huge jump in sales from the previous Call of Duty games to Modern Warfare, and that new tier has held up reasonably well. That’s because Modern Warfare was revolutionary and its success flowed through to the subsequent games in the franchise. This isn’t sustainable if the game quality goes from great to shit. Treyarch can’t properly execute a Call of Duty game.

The original Modern Warfare was a groundbreaking title for its multiplayer perks. Infinity Ward strikes again! Coincidence? Doubtful

There’s no reason to believe Sledgehammer games can bring something new to the table. Sure, Dead Space was great, but the shooting mechanics in that weren’t exactly the highlight, and Call of Duty isn’t known for its moody atmosphere. Infinity Ward was the keeper of the flame, and Activision just fired them for what appears to be a disagreement over money.

Infinity Ward is going to go to a new studio and develop what will undoubtedly be a great FPS game. Sure, it won’t have the sales of Call of Duty, at least initially, but eventually it will get that traction. Quality shines through.

Publishers don’t get it

Publishers believe they know how to sell a game. They give gamers CGI trailers and ridiculous promotions. They believe ‘brand management’ is what sells a good game. Gameplay, and real gameplay footage specifically, is what sells a game. Quality and innovation sells a game. Gamers don’t care about the latest CGI commercial, they want to see Quick Looks and behind the scenes videos.

No Ken Levine, no problem? Actually, no Ken Levine = big problem as Bioshock 2 rides the coattails of its predecessor

Publishers believe that because new AAA games have teams of hundreds working on them that no one person can be that important. Why, then, do the same people come out with great games time and again? Why value Sid Meier, or John Carmack, or the team at Rockstar? Why value Ken Levine, or the Blizzard team? Because they’re the best, that’s why. Bioshock 2 didn’t have Ken Levine working on it, and its Metacritic scores dropped 8 points (and will likely drop more) compared to the original. Sales will no doubt follow suit.

Infinity Ward reportedly wanted to go in a different direction from just making Modern Warfare 3, and Activision management balked. They resisted the vision of Infinity Ward during the development of Modern Warfare, but eventually gave in, and look how that turned out? I’m sure the new ideas IW had were the next leap forward in FPS, and fortunately for us gamers we will still see it, just not under the Activision banner.

Their loss.

While the home console changed the face of gaming forever in primarily positive ways, one negative side effect was the death of the arcade and the emergence of the fat loner slob videogame stereotype. Can new 3D games reinvigorate the arcade scene?

Too expensive for home consumption?

Films have had an issue for the past decade or so that home entertainment systems are replacing them as an event. Since the spread of large-size HD screens, consumers have increasingly decided that they can get the cinematic experience at home, and don’t bother with the theater.

Avatar changed all that in the mind of film producers. While you can replicate the standard experience at home, you can’t have the same 3D experience. It’s clear from the box office results of Avatar that consumers are willing to pay for this experience.

The next hot accessory from Calvin Klein

Gamers have embraced the home experience for far longer than film lovers. Console gaming is the norm in terms of gaming experiences, and with internet connectivity it’s no longer the isolated experience it was in the previous decade.

Gone are the days of 4 player split screen co-0p on the couch. It has been replaced by MW2 matches and even some epic MAG 256 player fights. With friend lists, gamers can even play with people they know. That being said, it’s not quite the same experience as the arcade.

If console gaming online with a couple friends is the equivalent to hanging out at your house with a couple friends, then going to an arcade is like going to a convention. You don’t know everybody there, but you have something in common.

In the past, that hasn’t been enough to keep gamers going out to the arcades. 3D film is working for theaters, might 3D games do it for arcades?

Hot: Split screen Goldeneye. Not: Sausage fest

3D gaming

Metal Gear Arcade is getting new 3D goggles and head tracking equipment. While you can get head tracking at home, there is still going to be a several year gap before the 3D technology is widespread in homes. Is this going to provide enough of an opening for arcades to flourish again?

The answer in the US is unfortunately no. There isn’t even the infrastructure available anymore and one of the big advantages that games have over other forms of entertainment is their cost advantage. Even if you’re going to only play MW2 and you don’t have a console, you can buy an Xbox and MW2 for $250 and play for thousands of hours.

Playing at an arcade on the other hand requires costly time based playing due to the need to repay the initial equipment investment. It’s just not feasible.

Next year's pro gamers or next year's pro KILLERS?!! CNN Reports on this shocking trend at nine ...

In Japan, on the other hand, where arcades are far more widespread, there might be a resurgence in popularity. As long as it’s just adding a few additional games that offer a completely unique experience, that might lure some traditional console gamers out of their homes and into the public.

It will be interesting to see if the old social gaming scene reemerges or if the ability to meet new players not through the internet is a lost art.

While Blizzard is almost as notorious as id or 3D Realms for taking their own sweet time to complete a game, this still raises the question: do we find out about games too early?

Can you maintain the hype?

Films have refined their hype cycle to a science. Film trailers traditionally come out several months before the release of a film for an ordinary event, 6 months before release for a blockbuster tentpole release, and in rare cases trailers begin to show up a year in advance.

It’s tough to keep somebody excited about a product for too long. It’s possible to build hype to a boiling point for several months, but let’s say George Lucas said Star Wars is going to release in 5 years! Tough to get excited when it’s very likely you’re dead by then.

George Lucas' new Star Wars masterpiece will literally build the franchise up one block at a time

Videogames haven’t quite mastered this marketing art, as games are frequently announced years in advance of release. While part of this is due to game delays being far more unpredictable and frequent compared to film delays, it still demonstrates amateur marketing mismanagement in a relatively young industry.

Has anybody executed this successfully?

I’m going to exclude annual releases from this section as it’s not too hard to advertise for the new Madden game or the next Call of Duty at the right time. Come hell or high water, it’s going to hit its release date, even if massive quality sacrifices are required.

Think back to the release of Half-Life 2, however. It was announced in the spring with a planned release in the fall. This was perfect, except for the fact that the game was subsequently delayed and lost much of its momentum.

When Diablo III was announced, the anticipation was palpable. Unfortunately, it quickly fades considering the release date is sometime in 2024.

Diablo III's release date has been pushed back until 2165. Blizzard regrets the delay but wants to release a polished product

Do game developers really believe they need a year or more to hype up the public about a game? Sure, it’s nice to have time to get preorders in, but that requires months, not years.

Is anybody learning?

That’s not to say there’s no hope. For every Valve that goes radio silent after hyping up their Half Life 2 episodes is a Naughty Dog properly spacing out Uncharted 2’s demonstration early last year and it’s November release.

Sony hasn’t made a huge marketing push for God of War III yet, although I’m sure closer to release we’re going to see it.

I find it hard to believe that a developer doesn’t know when their game is 3-4 months from release, and when it might take 18 months. Small one month delays of the type experienced by Dragon Age: Origins because of unforeseen polishing issues are acceptable, but I just don’t understand how a release date can be affirmed 3 months in advance of release, only to slip by a year or more.

Games could use more marketing like this. Not just this compelling, exactly like this. Wayne Rooney loves his Modern Warfare

EEDAR studies have shown that marketing has far more of an impact on sales of a game than review scores (which theoretically at least loosely track quality). Until the industry figures out how to properly manage a release on non-annual games, sales and therefore growth and innovation will be hindered.

Modern Warfare 2 is a phenomenon no doubt, but it doesn’t hurt that its marketing blitz was the largest ever seen and awareness was both at a high, and due to proper scheduling, peaking at the right time. More developers should follow suit.

This is a fallacy that takes advantage of consumer inability to judge value at the very low end of the price scale. Relative to the price of a game, DLC offers terrible value, and gamers who want more from a franchise would be better served by encouraging developers to start on a sequel rather than by paying for subpar DLC. 

How did we get to where we are?

Gamers are notoriously impatient. Waiting 2-3 years for a sequel to a well loved game is extremely difficult and not the ideal solution. While some criticize annual franchises, and we’ve seen backlash towards Valve for releasing Left 4 Dead 2 so soon after the original, that’s only because gamers assume they can’t be offering a true sequel.

If developers were able to put out Uncharted 3 in a year, and it had all the improvements that we have come to expect in a sequel, I’m sure gamers would eat it up. This isn’t possible of course, so the compromise is DLC.

While developers made some poor decisions at first (Bethesda $5 horse armor, for example), they have since realized what gamers see as legitimate for $5. A map pack that includes 3-5 new multiplayer maps is acceptable DLC. A small mission pack or campaign segment is acceptable. Some DLC packs are must have items such as those that raise a level cap. Developers know what will stimulate demand.

WOOOooooOOOOoooo HORSE ARMOR!! It's a brave new world out there ... a better protected world

Red flags

Developers have relatively few potential missteps to avoid when releasing DLC. Gamers don’t like paying for elements already on the original game disc. When Resident Evil 5’s new DLC was only 2mb (an insignificant download), gamers concluded that it must simply be an unlock file for content already on the disc.

While I have argued in the past that there’s nothing wrong with this practice, that doesn’t mean it is received warmly. The bottom line is that almost anything is acceptable at $5.

Resident Evil 5 DLC: Bringing you more racist white cop slaughtering African zombies for the low low price of $2

Consumers cannot differentiate between value increments at the low end of the price scale. A gamer can judge whether something is worth $60 to them when making a game purchase decision; $5 is relatively trivial, however, so marginal quality differences relative to price are almost imperceptible.

Much like cash register impulse items, gamers will buy almost anything for $5, and that is their undoing.

Oh no, they knew my weakness! Some people impulse buy overpriced DLC. For me, it's mini rods. Once you pop ...

No value?

Take a recent game like Dragon Age: Notoriously epic in length, the regular campaign has 6 origin stories and numerous side-quests that make up its nearly 50 hour running time. All this can be had for the super low price of $60.

Some of the DLC, on the other hand, costs $5 and adds a single quest line that can be completed in under an hour. I’m not some sort of mathemagician but even I can tell that doesn’t quite add up. And yet, I own all the DLC packs. $60 of DLC at that rate would result in a game comprised of 10 hours of gameplay and 12 quests, which would be unacceptable to most consumers.

I think DLC is a good thing. I like new content for games I’ve completed and enjoyed, and it certainly increases the lifespan of existing products. That being said, they don’t increase game value across the board, especially given the relatively exorbitant price of some offerings when their content is taken into account.

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening. Increasing Spectral Dragon content by 100% over the original. That's why I prefer expansions

Hopefully Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, the new full expansion from Bioware, can usher in a return to the traditional expansion pack with a substantial amount of content, and move us away from paltry DLC.

Developers can’t possibly keep pace with the acceleration of technology given its current trend. What can be done to help them out?

Interminable development timelines

Games are taking longer and longer to make. In the halcyon days of id’s shareware distribution, game schedules were measured in months, not years. Developer teams were measured in single digits, not hundreds, and game budgets were measured in the thousands of dollars, not millions.

Since then we’ve seen Final Fantasy XIII taking hundreds of developers multiple years to complete. Even given that team size, their port to the Xbox 360 which comes on 3 DVDs is hugely compromised compared to the PS3 version given hardware limitations and code conversion difficulties.

Behond the result of 100 million man hours

We’ve seen Bayonetta released on the PS3 in a crippled form compared to the Xbox 360 as it wasn’t even ported by the game developers; the publisher had to take over as the developers didn’t know how to transfer the code efficiently (neither did the publisher, apparently, given the results).

We’ve seen the team for Assassins Creed 2 span three countries and number over 500, as that was the requirement for getting the game out in less than 2 years.

What will the next generation bring? Will a game like Duke Nukem Forever and Half Life 2: Episode 3, be the norm and not the exception, assuming development timelines that stretch towards a decade? This is clearly not a sustainable situation.

This remains the only thing from HL2: Episode 3 seen in the wild. I maintain Valve took their money and moved to Peru to live like kings

What are the hangups?

Development requirements have increased across the board. Map designers can no longer put one detail feature in a room, they need hundreds. Texture designers can’t get by with 256×256 textures, they now need high definition textures. AI subroutine complexity has increased exponentially.

While games don’t take longer to play (a criticism from gamers), the work required to create each feature is hugely increased. Imagine what it took to make the environment in a 2D side scrolling game vs. what it took to create some of the environments in Uncharted 2.

It's almost photorealistic

Not only does this added complexity make things much more difficult and expensive for developers, but it has destroyed the casual modding scene. I used to make maps for Half-Life, but once engines p rogressed to Doom 3 level and beyond, the detail required in each room was simply too much for a casual creator.

Is anybody trying to help?

The solution is clear to me: automated design. Take web design as the template: the simplest things are so standardized now that a program such as Dreamweaver can automate them. If you want a highly advanced website, of course you’re going to need to go into the raw code and tweak things, but window positioning etc. can be fully automated.

id Tech 5 is going in that direction with their megatextures. Their engine optimizes art elements for cross-platform development, so there are no adjustments / lead platform concerns involved in a game developed on id Tech 5. While this is just a starting point, technologies such as this and even a unified platform such as OnLive would go a long way towards cutting down on cross platform development concerns.

We're behind you id Tech 5 ... engines need new buzz words like megatextures. I miss voxels and mip mapping

I can envision a day when scripted sequences and artistic components could be dragged and dropped into game sections such as brushes in Photoshop. Modders could collaborate and resources could be reused. While a premiere AAA title is likely going to require the same personal touch seen in the best websites today, automated functions would vastly reduce requirements for games that aim for solid but not innovative gameplay content.

I don’t really care what it takes to make a compelling game. As a consumer, I make my purchase decision based on what package is offered and at what price. I understand, however, that developers are falling behind the curve, and the only outcome is that technology will focus on making development easier, development schedules will get longer, or prices will have to go up to support larger teams.

As a consumer, option A is clearly the optimal outcome, so everybody should be hoping id Tech 5 succeeds and catalyzes a trend.

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.

Game designers have tried to manufacture mascots, and forgotten mascots are continually brought back to life, such as the recently announced Sonic 4 in a desperate attempt to take advantage of a preexisting fan base. This is foolish; game mascots don’t become or remain popular because of some easily identifiable character design, that’s a thing of the past. All it takes today is a high quality game.

Mascots used to be a stamp of quality

In the past, videogame mascots were a stamp of quality. Everybody was going to buy a Pac-Man game, or a Mario game, or a Mega Man game, because they knew it was going to be good. You understood the style of gameplay that you were going to receive, and didn’t have to take a chance on a new IP.

This was a required element of a popular game because game media wasn’t as well developed as it is today. Most consumers didn’t really know that much about a game before a purchasing decision unless it was running on a machine in the store or was a popular arcade re-make. There was no massive videogame blog community. There was no free monthly Game Informer publication for anybody who buys games at Gamestop. There was just this huge unknown swath of games that were for the most part shovelware.

Mario's over dilated, dead eyes are one sign that he signed a contract with the devil to have such continually impressive sales. In fact, it might just be the devil wearing Mario's skin like a suit

Who are the mascots of today?

Look at the highest selling games in recent years: Call of Duty, Uncharted, Halo and Assassins Creed games. Yes, Master Chief is Microsoft’s de facto mascot now, but he isn’t the reason for which those games are popular.

Most people can’t even name the characters from Modern Warfare; they don’t care. Nathan Drake has only become so popular because the Uncharted games are popular, and from that is born the cult of Nathan Drake and Nolan North. Assassins Creed has the iconic assassin outfit, but other than Desmond (arguably the least well liked character), the protagonists change from game to game.

Soap McTavish: the epic main character of Modern Warfare games. Soon to be in plushie form!

Mascots aren’t required for a game to be popular anymore. Even though a consumer isn’t familiar with the mascot of a game, they don’t need this type of signal to understand what type of game they’re getting. They have likely seen advertisements online. They have probably watched a preview video of a game, or even a 10 minute Quick Look type preview. There is so much coverage that the protagonist doesn’t need to be more than your avatar.

What about Mario?

Advocates of using a mascot will point to the constant success of Mario games. This is not so much because people love Mario, however, a concept reiterated by the success of Bowser’s Inside Story which didn’t even star Mario. People can do without the character as long as the continually innovative and solid gameplay is present.

Mascots are good for one thing: crossover sales. Accessory manufacturers love selling Master Chief action figures to children worldwide. Yoshi plush dolls are a mainstay of Korean industry, and I personally think those ripoff saturday morning cartoons should make a resurgence.

In addition, there is the occasional fan service videogame that can leverage mascot popularity like Smash Brothers. This is only because it’s a way for fans to finally settle arguments about who would win in a fight between Link and Samus (Link by the way; Samus is stupid).

FALCON PUNCH!

Mascots are not a necessary evil for game success in today’s content saturated market. While they can give that extra little push or first day sales boost, the longevity of a game would be better served by spending less time on branding and more on gameplay development.