Market vs Marketing
The following is a letter I originally sent to The Hatchet Job Show, a videogame podcast hosted and produced by a friend of mine (who goes by the online moniker 1Dgaf). In it I refer to Peter Molyneux’s recent press conference, just prior to the release of Fable 2, wherein he asked the industry at large not to concentrate of seperating the mistaken concepts of “casual” and “hardcore” for the good of the industry as a whole.
In episode 17 you discussed Peter Molyneux’s talk with journalists about the perceived divide between “hardcore” and “casual” gamers. During your conversation, SomeGuy mentioned “markets” and I think this is something which may be the root of the problem. And then later in the discussion, 1Dgaf made mention of not putting up with “shittily produced” casual games.
In the last 2-3 years there has been a conscience effort, by publishers – and indeed the appearance of bespoke “casual only” developers – to target this perceived “casual” sector of gaming with specifically tailored products. It’s my feeling that this is a somewhat misguided effort; why the recent positive discrimination? There have always been parlour-style videogames, like Windows’ Solitaire and Minesweeper — tiny games that have been bundled with Windows since the 80s. On the other end of the spectrum, there have equally been titles with the complexity and depth of Elite available to play.
I think what Molyneux was really doing is making a plea to developers and publishers, that pigeon-holing your game is unnecessary. I would go much further and argue that some developers use positive discrimination, regarding intended audience, because they have knowingly built a game that is tailoring to the needs of a specific niche, with as little effort to engage anyone other than experienced players. Quite often, this is because they rely on cheaply cloning gameplay and control mechanics from a successful title, and so are only interested in courting players of that successful title.
To me, this is a defining aspect of the perceived “hardcore market” as defined by publishers and advertisers. But for me, this also falls under the 1Dgaf’s category of “shittily produced” and something I hate about contemporary videogames. Even though AAA titles do cost (potentially) millions and millions of pounds/dollars to make, we still drown in great swathes of copycat titles which add little – and more often detract – from gaming as a whole, whilst almost always making no effort to engage anyone outside of their very targeted market.
And it’s this, I think, that Molyneux was talking about; he’s making a plea that people stop wasting money, time and effort producing throwaway content at horrendous expense that does nothing to broaden the market or further the medium.
