Pint-Sized Playability
August 24th, 2009OK, one more brief thought on Shadow Complex while I’m on the subject: one of the most common recurring themes in game reviews for the title is that SC represents a “great value” because it includes a full-sized game in an Xbox Live release. The thought occurs to me, however, that this might not be a good thing for developers.
The basic problem, as I see it, is that if Xbox Live simply becomes an arena for discounted AAA titles, it hurts everybody. Developers will be forced into an arms race to produce cheaper but high-quality games, essentially lowering the starting price point for new games and squeezing their profitability. Gamers who, like Michael Abbott, are drawn to “bursts of [streamlined] fun,” will have a harder time finding the more casual titles they treasure, because they’ll be sandwiched in between more premium titles. And hardware manufacturers, who responded to this issue first with the Wii and Live/PSN, will find themselves in much the same predicament as they did before the current generation.
I’m hardly one to bemoan getting more for less. But I do become concerned that the more we blur the lines between the delivery of AAA or hardcore games and casual titles, the more we actually end up hurting ourselves. Definitely think of this more as a thought experiment if this trend were carried to an extreme, rather than a complaint about Shadow Complex, which I like quite a bit: is it possible that segregating our games by type and channel is actually beneficial?
Posted in Business, DLC, Geoff, Microsoft, Mobile, PSN, Wii, Xbox Live |
August 24th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
SC is a great game with great production values, but I still don’t see it competing with the bigger, full-priced AAA titles. For one, there’s no multiplayer, which obviously not every blockbuster has, but it certainly helps. Secondly, it still doesn’t have the graphical punch or depth that a AAA game like Gears of War might have today.
As for squeezing out casual games… I highly doubt it. People play those games because they like them for what they are, and therefore developers will keep making them. Just look at PopCap… their games aren’t exactly expensive technological powerhouses, but they sure sell a ton of games at the $15-$20 price point. Not every game that people buy has to be a “Shadow Complex”-like value.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I agree with the first point, although I was suggesting that SC blurs the line a bit rather than crosses it.
With respect to the latter - I didn’t mean that people would stop producing them, just that having so many more titles occupying prime Live advertising real estate would make it hard to locate valuable indie/casual games and thus make it harder for them to succeed.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Yeah, so I played the demo last night. I really enjoyed it. I’ll be picking this up for sure. And not just because I’m a big Orson Scott Card fan.