For a peripherial that is copying litterally EVERY Wii trick in the book (albiet halfassedly), you would sure figure that MS wouldn't manage to completly miss the essence of what makes the Wii so successful. Looking through the games of the Kinect launch lineup, it seems to me I am getting a feeling of Deja Vu. These games seem frighteningly similar to the bottom of the barrel Wii shovelware poured out by 3rd parties who *also* didn't quite "get" the Wii. It is clear to me now that all over again, just like with the vast majority of Wii's 3rd party library, companies are about to fall victim to what Sean Malstrom describes as "The Casual Fallacy." Essentially, they are making "toy dogs" instead of making the real dogs. It may look like a dog, but it is not a dog. It doesn't have the complexities or true essence of a dog.
These companies, including Microsoft, are about to find out the hard way as the Wii 3rd parties did, that these types of games did not work on the Wii, and they certainly won't work for the Xbox 360.
To understand the Casual Fallacy, it helps to first examine the true essence of what makes the Wii so appealing. Let's look at some of Wii's most successful games... These games have all sold over 10 million, or in the case of Brawl, close to it:
Wii Sports
Wii Play
Wii Fit
Wii Sports Resort
Mario Kart Wii
NSMB Wii
Smash Bros Brawl
What do most of these games have in common? Is it motion controls? If you notice, most of these games do not use motion controls as the center of gameplay.. some barely use them or don't use them at all! Is it simplified "casual" style gameplay? Many of these games are actually quite complex in their gameplay mechanics and can be quite difficult.
So why did these games become successful? It is the same reason games like Pac Man, Super Mario Bros, Zelda, Sonic, and Halo are successful. I believe the reason is that these games are the essence of pure, complex gameplay (note I did not say complex stories or controls). These games trim the unnesseccary junk of cinematics, tutorials, epic storylines, and just focus on why people play games in the first place, and that is to play fast placed, non linear gameplay that gives the user the freedom to do anything.
If you look all of these games (with the exception of some components of Wii Fit), these are all "arcade stlye" games. They offer non stop, action packed gameplay that users can jump right into, yet at the same time, provide complex mechanics, variety in how the game can be played, and often difficult experiences that keeps the replay value high. It is about gameplay that is easy to play, but difficult to master, and thus often reward the player and give them a sense of accomplishment for diving deeper into the games. Of course the social gameplay aspect is huge as well, and is another component of the arcade style gameplay.
These are qualities I simply do not see in most of the Kinect games. Look at Kinect Adventures.. Where is the complexity? Where is the freedom? Where is the variety that will keep gamers coming back to experience it in a new way? I look at the mini games of Kinect Adventures like the linear jogging or the raft game where you are limited to moving a few feet back and forth down a linear river, and I see the OPPOSITE of Wii Sports. Wii Sports had complexity (albeit in a subtle manner). Kinect Adventures, and most others, simply do not seem to have this. It is difficult to imagine many people playing that raft game more than once, because there is simply no depth to it.
Micosoft is also marketing this device as a social experience, but yet you can only play with 2 players. In the NES days this was fine, but in 2010, trying to make a social device that only allows for 2 players will simply not cut it.
Microsft does the same thing that most 3rd parties on Wii were guilty of doing. They look at the cutesy simplified appearance, and seemingly simple gameplay, and they think "oh, so casual gamers want dumbed down, shallow gaming experiences... bring out KINECTIMALS!" The problem with this mode of thinking is it misses the point, and it underestimates the intelligence of this expanded audience. Regardless of whether or not these people play games as much as the core gamers, they can still recognize quality, and they still yearn for complexity and depth just like core gamers; they simply ask for it in different ways, whereas core gamers often yearn for this in the form of epic storylines and huge cinematics. Microsoft is going to be in for a rude wake up call when their poor quality shallow games recieve poor sales. If you treat your customers like dummies, they will respond accordingly.
I believe that the KEY reason as to why people play games is for the gamer to feel a certain freedom/variety, as well as a sense of accomplishment. Most of the Wii's most successful games offer this. The Wii took off because it backed away from movie-stlye games, that largely shackle the user, and returned to these roots of gaming. Many developers of today seem to have gotten lost in graphics and cinematics which often limits the complexity of the actual gameplay and makes them increasingly linear. As they focus their resources more on horsepower, the diversity and quality of the gameplay itself suffers as a result. This left an opening for Nintendo to exploit this, and esentially puts the user back in control of their games. Kinect, with its awkward controls and limiting gameplay, seems to be doing the opposite of this. Nintendo simply sees motion control as a means to an end, and unfortunately Microsoft sees it as the end.
