the_bloodwalker said:
It made it hard for the "big" devs/pubs because they are not taking it as seriously as they should. To understand it better we should look a developer or publisher's shoes and we will see why there are many mistakes on Wii games. I will stereotype in this case (there are companioes that do not fall in any of these): common "blind" medium/big developer or publisher: These companies have been making games for multiple plarforms and/or PC and have established themselves in the business for the benchmarks in their games. As the hardware was getting better in raw power with a resul of better graphics and sound. It is understandable that a though that the games they will release will be much better than the ones they did last generation, that they can trully realize their visions and have less limitations. They see themselves as "evolving". It is not sin but simple logic: "you have the budget to fully use high powerred hardware, why not use it"?. With the Wii not being as powerful in raw power, it collides with their business and game development strategies.Whan a company falls into the logic that better hardware = better games, they do not see the Wii as a huge opportunity for them. This is why they do not release games for it or the games they released.... well... you know better than I. Because of the bad sales or weaker than the HD counterparts they blame the Wii gamer and do not learn from the feedback, they just don't care to do so because they do not see a common Wii gamer in their list of customers If we change the term "Game" to "Software Application" that does a job, if your software does not sale it's because it does not perform the job that is intended to do in the way the consumers want, so it's your fault, not the customers.... And the Irony is: a game is a Software Application This is not the case with handhelds because is a different model than consoles.
common "blind" small developer or publisher These companies do not have the same budget and resources to directly compete agaisnt the medium or big ones and they games are relatively "under the radar". These companies in order to start growing are starting small, with small hardare requirements and as many platforms as possible. These companies have a desire to grow (which doesn't?) and have a known place in the market as a great innovative game creators. The most common and logical approach is to start small and then evolve with each iteration of grouth. The Wii has become, for many, the best step towards that goal, chaper to develop, new kind of customer, innovatice control mechanism, and taht the big/medium companies have not exploided it yet, so they have a better chance to grow. However, there is also a logic that better harware = better games, and because they see the Wii as their stepping stone they make the Wii game like they would do for an HD with the difference of motion controls. This in result has a gave with an overall quality better than the ones released by the "big" companies, but perform poorly in sales because they do not want to see the values these new customers have. They based on assumptions.
There is a common feature taht a few companies share, no matter the size. I they see the wii as the platform for easy income (profit) with poor excuses of games they label as "casual"... we have shovelware |
I suspect if anything the Wii would allow certain niche developments to occour for consoles, but in reality its probably prolonging the death of a lot of poor business practices. I would say that theres a clear distinction between those who get it and those who don't and the developers in the latter category will find themselves pushed out of any console platform, the HD consoles just make that process a lot quicker. The shism in the market between the Wii and HD consoles limited the market for many games and caused the pain to come quicker and harder, otherwise the painful losses would have come later. The Wii accellerates the pain for the large developers/publishers and delays it for the smaller ones.
A game developer like Valve, Bethesda, Epic, Infinity Ward could be successful on pretty much any platform so to blame the platform for the success or failure of a game is pretty asanine. Whether a platform is crowded or not, whether a platform is expensive or not to create on, these things don't really matter for the truely successful developers. The thing with creative content like with movies, music, games is that the best tends to rise to the top and anything that the market doesn't aprove of sinks very rapidly to the bottom.
Innovation is irrelevant, either the game is good or it is not. A game isn't made better because it is innovative, it is made better because its a better game to play. If a game is better because of the Wiimote and more people find enjoyment from it then in that case the Wiimote is a successful interface for that game. Looking back on the innovative games, often aside from a feeling of nostalgia the games which last the test of time are the games which nail the fun to play aspect and are not praised for their innovation. A successful innovation has little shelf-life looking backwards as other games tend to incorperate the successful elements into future games.
Tease.
