| HappySqurriel said:
In a general sense the most obvious example of this in recent history is the housing bubble, as people made a lot of money over many years only to lose it because they didn't realise how distorted the market became; but it can also be seen in the videogame industry as many individuals and companies bet on the success of the PS3 and PSP because they met all the ideals they associated with the success of the Playstation and PS2. In the case of Malstrom i believe his values are a proxy for a more important consideration of creating a distinct product that is desireable. While Nintendo has achieved amazing success with 2D platformers that is primarily because few 2D platformers are made by anyone else anymore and people still desire the gameplay; and it would be equally as foolish for Nintendo to produce more 2D platformers in an evironment where all third party publishers are releasing 2D platformers as it would be for Nintendo to focus on "Mature" games in the current environment (where every third party publisher is focusing on them). |
For your first two paragraphs, you may be right, but as I noted in that post, what does that mean for the analysis quality of the majority? The examples you cite are actually the opposite of what's going on here, since in those cases the person is simply betting with what the majority is going with, and as we've repeatedly seen sheer weight of numbers can help overcome reality for a fair amount of time. Malstrom is not going with the majority, though.
As for your last paragraph, I think you're giving him far too short a shrift. He called on Nintendo to make more 2D platformers, although that's far from the entirety of his thinking, but you're brushing that success aside far too casually. You're pinning that success on the lack of 2D platformers in the market, while not giving him the credit he deserves for pointing out that said market is still quite strong and completely unserved.
More importantly, you're overlooking the fact that there's more to Nintendo's success than simply targeting genres that no one else is: platformers and action/adventure games were a dime a dozen during the 8 and 16 bit eras, but that didn't stop Nintendo's games from outshining all the rest. Their 3D platformers were arguably the only reason the N64 moved as many units as it did, yet that genre wasn't exactly starved during its era. It may be a mistake for Nintendo to target the "mature" audience, yes, but that's because they've never specialized in those types of games, not because of genre saturation.
But we're drifting from the main topic now. I can agree that Malstrom's main point is that companies should create "a distinct product that is desireable." That's the goal of roughly every company that ever existed in any market. Where the unique value of Malstrom lies is in his thoughts on what makes a videogame distinct and desireable. I haven't seen any other blogger that's called for the same things he has.
