As I read both coverage and discussions of many modern amenities but particularly the technology we use to entertain ourselves, I am constantly reminded of this new famous Louis CK rant:
Though I feel there’s nothing wrong with having a gripe when a product or service you purchased isn’t acting as advertised, he’s completely right. Entitlement culture drives me nuts. People have become addicted to being upset and angry and latching on to very minor negatives to fuel that addiction. Failure has almost become a drug to our society and culture.
This past week, the PlayStation Vita launched and I bought one. I’ve been using it every day and I’m loving it. It’s not without fault and like most Sony products, it has a few head-scratching design choices. Overall though, it’s an amazing piece of technology and frankly I think it was a steal at $250. I have a 3DS and like that too but this has hooked me much more and will definitely be my first handheld of choice. However, were you to check with many video game enthusiast podcasts or forums, you will see waves of people nitpicking minor issues with the system as proof that Sony still doesn’t “get it” and how it’s a sure sign the product will fail and how iOS is taking over the world:
“Why are there multiple ways to go back in screens?”
“Why does tapping an icon bring up a launcher? I don’t want to launch my games twice!”
“Why does the wi-fi turn off in certain games?”
This is a small selection of what I’ve read. As someone whose job often involves teaching technology-challenged people, I facepalmed quite hard at hearing the level of stink being made about these points. These are all things that have reasons behind them and which are trivially easy to deal with once you’ve experienced them once. They require absolutely no additional time or effort and ultimately cause no inconvenience. I could sit my Mother down with the Vita and show her how to use it as well as I can within moments. Yet, these are treated as game breaking points by many. Forget that every competing device has its own quirks and frustrations, the focus is on how these minor issues–all of which can and probably will be fixed in future software updates, one of the great benefits of modern technology–mean the Vita is doomed.
The following sentiment is the most choice of all:
“Oh in a month, we’ll all be talking about how they’re all just sitting on shelves because you’ve gone back to gaming on your iPhone.”
This is always said by someone who doesn’t own a Vita and probably never will. Rather than just abstain from a conversation about a product they aren’t interested in, they always have to duck their head in just long enough to take a dump on those who do believe in it. This is done solely out of a desire to validate their choice by demeaning someone else’s. The enthusiast press is as guilty of this as anyone else. The Vita can’t succeed, even at its very competitive price because “the handheld market has moved on.” This is said with no empirical evidence beyond the fashion trend based, unsustainable growth of mobile gaming. I bought into the Vita not just because I like it but because I believe there’s a market for its kind of device and it’s a market I want to be a part of.
As someone who takes gaming very seriously, I would love to see a world where every medium can thrive. PCs, consoles, dedicated handhelds, mobile phones, social media, more games in more places is a good thing for the industry and the players in my opinion. But there seems to be a large and increasing number of people who want less choice and want only the things they like to succeed. If you’re not into the Vita, I totally understand that but how does its failure improve your life or your hobby and why spend time and energy being a cheerleader of its demise?
I use the Vita as the most recent example relevant to me but this exists everywhere across all things in modern culture from technology to politics to celebrities. There’s a sick sense of pleasure many seem to get by watching things fail and I think it’s a disturbing trend. What has happened in society that has made us so constantly angry, so spoiled, so entitled and so disturbed that we crave for things and people to lose? I have no professional or academic knowledge of such things but I’m sure it in some way involves people feeling better about themselves by revelling in the failures of others. But as someone who was depressed for many years and fixated on negativity (something I will discuss in another lengthy post some day), that never really helped me. I wonder if that was just in my case or if people do in fact improve their emotional standing in this way.
I think one facet of an ideal world is a bevy of choice, having things that cater to everyone’s wants and desires and being able to partake in the things that make you happy and ignore the rest. If I’m into something you’re not and vice versa, that’s great because having both available means everybody’s happy. But that’s not good enough anymore. People can’t just do what they enjoy, they can only be truly happy if everyone else is also into “their” thing and if everything else fails as proof that it was the one “proper” thing. It sounds eerily religious and though I don’t care for religion in general, I think those tenants applied to things as ultimately trivial as entertainment products is even more disturbing.
It causes you no more harm as a person nor takes any more effort to just hope for the best and that everything has a chance to succeed, including the stuff you aren’t into. That’s not to say that legitimate faults shouldn’t be pointed out and discussed or that people shouldn’t state why they won’t partake in something. However, I think rather than being stated in the context of how every minor issue is a sign of failure to delight in, they should be stated as how improvements can be made. A fault shouldn’t spell immediate demise, it should be something that can be improved so everyone’s happy.
As much as this post sounds like I’m putting myself on a pedestal, I’m really not. I say these things as someone who used to be a prime example of revelling in failure and who even now when I’m actively trying to break the habit, makes mountains out of molehills on a semi-regular basis. I’ve tried to cut back the amount of trivial whining I do and it’s tough sometimes because old habits die hard. This isn’t a new phenomena and maybe I’m starting to notice it more elsewhere because I’m trying to eliminate it in myself. It saddens and worries me to see our society so focused not just on seeing people lose but latching onto trivial concerns and actively encouraging it so we have more things to feel superior to. Happiness is ultimately found in improving one’s own life, not in tearing down others.
People need to try saying “That’s too bad.” when something fails rather than “See, I told you so!” I think we’d all be happier in the end.
So this happened. Followed shortly after by this. For the latest, you can check this. I won’t recount all the details since if you follow video games at all, you surely know about it. The night my Twitter starting lighting up with news of this, I was thrilled to see what Double Fine was doing and the crazy response they were generating. Without a second thought, I immediately kicked in $100 to the project, even though the reward for that tier doesn’t really equate to the contribution. I don’t care about that, I just cared about helping amazing people make a game in a genre I love that many thought was dead and buried. I have absolute confidence that I will greatly enjoy what they eventually release and that I will not regret the amount I pitched in.
Along with others, I began to think about what this means for the future of independent game development and if this could signal a major shift for how games are funded and produced. Should traditional publishers be worried about this? Could we start seeing major triple-A releases getting funded this way? Is it a sign that their business models are becoming obsolete and that they’re destined to go the way of the big record labels? While I’m sure they’ve all been watching this was surprise and interesting, I don’t think they’re worried. I think it has the potential to be a big deal for a certain class of game but I think it is a very uphill battle the the stark reality is that Double Fine’s case while fantastic, was definitely an anomaly.
One has to look no further for evidence of this than what was likely the thought process of many who decided to contribute to the project. My own went something like this: “Holy crap, it’s Double Fine and they want to make an adventure game?! Shut up and take my money!” Had it not been Double Fine–a company that has pretty consistently produced games I love and which is helmed by one of my favourite game designers ever–I likely would have either contributed much less or just went “Well, that’s a nice idea but I don’t know these guys.” Funding a Kickstarter for a project that has the aim of producing a physical product is much easier because you know what you’re supposed to be getting in the end, what it’s supposed to do and often, there’s a prototype already made to demonstrate it. When it comes to creative endeavours like a video game, it’s much harder to gauge the end product, particularly when the description is as vague as “it will be a point-and-click adventure game”. The reason so many people were willing to kick in so much money is because it’s Double Fine behind the product and their track record gives a strong indication of what kind of game it will be and what level of quality to expect. There’s a reason the bands that have had success with “pay what you want” crowdfunding models are usually huge established names like Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead. When you start to talk about an unproven independent team that has no history and can’t demonstrate a nearly finished product (and if they could they wouldn’t need Kickstarter in the first place), it becomes a lot harder to expect people to kick in hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund it. That’s not to say it could or hasn’t happened but it definitely isn’t occurring at a rate that keeps pace with new game releases. There are tons of problems in the game publishing industry today, particularly when it comes to taking risks. Indeed, Tim Schafer said the reason they had to go to Kickstarter for this project is they knew publishers would laugh them out of the room if they came in with an adventure game. However, publishers are not just good at bankrolling games, they are often good at finding stuff that sells and which can have mass appeal. They’re very good at sifting through numerous pitches and filtering out the junk. We never hear about that because it’s not what they talk about. With gamers as fickle as they are, all it would take is a couple of Kickstarter projects to burn their contributors by releasing a crappy game (whether due to lack of experience, lack of effort or something else) for the concept to break down. Like publishers, gamers will not want to put their money towards bad ideas and it won’t take much for them to become skeptical.
Secondly, I think it’s important to get a little perspective on the true size of Double Fine’s contributions. Don’t get me wrong, this is a monumental event that has marked a historical turning point in the games industry. But take a look at the numbers: At the time of this writing, they’ve raised $1.8 million from around 53,000 contributors. That sounds impressive–and it is–but Schafer himself has said that their two “smaller scale” downloadable titles Costume Quest and Stacking cost over $2 million each to develop. These were not triple-A games, they were small downloadable titles for consoles that were produced and shipped quickly. So that means that even with their Kickstarter campaign having left their initial goal in the dust, they still haven’t raised enough money to produce one downloadable game of the calibre of Costume Quest or Stacking. Needless to say, the total is still light years behind the $20-30 million dollars you need to develop a triple-A product and that’s before any marketing money is spent which is critical to having a hope of making back your investment. Also, while 53,000 contributors sounds like a lot, it’s a very small number of people when you consider the size of even the hardcore gaming audience and sales numbers like that would be considered a flop for almost any title. Obviously people beyond those who contribute to Kickstarter will buy Double Fine’s game and there’s still lots of potential money to be made beyond this initial campaign but to be able to regularly fund titles to the degree that it could make traditional publisher obsolete will require far more involvement than this and on a consistent basis. Say what you will about publishers–and I can say plenty–but they have deep pockets and that’s what you need to make even relatively small games these days.
While I’ve been throwing around a lot of sobering reality checks in this post, I should reiterate that I’m really high on this idea and I think it’s awesome. A project from a highly respected developer is exactly what was needed to firmly impact the idea of crowdfunding into the gaming public’s consciousness. Other big name developers are already talking about the idea in the same way Schafer has, using it to revive old series and genres that publishers wouldn’t touch but that they know there’s a niche demand for. I want to see more of this and plan to contribute to it whenever I can. If the ball doesn’t get dropped too often, I could see this reaching a critical mass where games of the $1-3 million scope of Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network releases could be funded by it. If this makes for more innovation and less of the same regurgitated crap, I think it can serve two purposes. Firstly, it can simply cut the publishers out of the equation for certain titles which is great for creativity and secondly, it can show them that there is money to be made in niche genre titles and that maybe it’s worth taking the occasional risk on something that isn’t the next big military or space marine first-person shooter. Even if publishers remain a big part of the game funding equation (and I think they will for the foreseeable future), there is still a lot for them to learn from this and the smart ones will take those lessons to heart and that can only make things better for us as game consumers. I wish Double Fine all the good fortunes in the world from this and I really hope gamers stay tuned in to this new model. I’m excited and I’ve got more money I’m willing to throw at those who can show the can do meaningful things with it.
I have a weird relationship with handheld gaming. I’ve owned all the portable Nintendo platforms since the Game Boy Advance, a PlayStation Portable and come the 22nd of this month, a PlayStation Vita that I pre-ordered some time ago. There’s also a good chance I’ll be splitting the cost of an iPad 3 with my girlfriend but that’s another topic. Each of these platforms have specific strengths that make them unique not only when it comes to mobile gaming but gaming as a whole. The Nintendo DS introduced a touch screen long before it was a thought in any mobile phone maker’s mind, the PSP brought us console quality titles and online play on the go, the 3DS introduced glasses-free 3D before any home display and tablets have ushered in a whole new era of inexpensive games that can be gobbled up in quantity. But here’s the weird thing: For as much money as I’ve spent on these platforms and as much as I enjoy them, I don’t tend to play them very much. I drive to work, I work out on the treadmill which doesn’t really support holding a system with buttons and when I do have down time at home, I have a PC and consoles. I nonetheless find these platforms and the experiences they offer fascinating and while I don’t end up buying a ton of their catalogues, I still get enough fun out of them to justify my purchase of the hardware.
Trends in the handheld gaming space have been thrown around wildly the last couple of years due to the introduction of high end smartphones and tablets. I’ll be discussing this at length in a later On Gaming’s Future post but the gist of the point here is that many people believe that mobile gaming is poised to eat the lunch of dedicated handhelds and is indeed doing so already. Many in the gaming and tech press wrote off the 3DS and the Vita sight unseen because they believed the market for those systems has “moved on” to mobile platforms where the games may not be deep or even high quality in most cases but are countered by being cheap and plentiful. The 3Ds has bucked the trend to a point but apparently software sales for it are still tepid. Many believe that the Vita has an even tougher road ahead because though the system is very powerful and well made while also selling for a surprisingly reasonable price, its games are almost as expensive as those you would get for a home console. Not an easy case to make in the era of $1 smartphone games. Many third party publishers have made no announcements of forthcoming Vita releases and seem to be waiting to see how the launch goes before they even start making anything for it. After what ended up to be a very weak launch in Japan (largely due to the launch line-up containing very few titles which appeal to a Japanese audience), the naysayers dug their heels in further saying that this proved the system was doomed and that Sony should just give up now before they take an even bigger bath. The enthusiast press always has to write about how something is the loser and they jumped at the chance to put the Vita on that pedestal.
While the system doesn’t officially launch until next week, the review embargo is up today and many sites covered it. With the exception of a couple of hack reviews from the usual suspects like Gizmodo–a site people shouldn’t trust for anything, ever–the opinion is generally that it’s a very solid, powerful system that is currently the crowning achievement for hardcore gaming on the go. However, almost all this coverage contains the caveat that no one knows how the platform will fair in the new “post-iPhone world” and that no matter how good Sony makes it, there may no longer be a place for $50 portable games on a dedicated device you have to carry around in addition to your phone. Though there is no doubt a lot of iCultism infecting the press right now, I can understand where that trepidation is rooted to a point. Portable gaming is in an upheaval right now, one nobody saw coming and which has happened faster than anyone thought possible. So why would I not only buy into this platform with excitement but even go so far as to pre-buy into it?
My main motivation for this is that I like deep, complex games and I welcome the opportunity to have them on the go when travelling for work, on my lunch break or indeed just at home when I want to play something different. There are plenty of cool mobile and tablet games out there but with few exceptions, they are all timewasters with little depth or memorability. This is by design. I’ve played many of the most acclaimed ones and while I like a good time waster once in a while as much as the next guy, as an enthusiast of this medium and not just a soccer Mom playing Angry Birds while in line at the grocery store, I often want my games to have story, memorable characters, complex mechanics and gameplay that encourages longer term advancement. This is something rarely found on a mobile device but it’s where dedicated handhelds shine. Beyond that, there are many types and genres of games that are simply not possible to do well on a touch only device. Titles like Uncharted, Resistance, Wipeout, Super Stardust, Mario or Zelda simply don’t exist on mobile devices and they don’t appear to be on the horizon. Beyond Angry Birds (whose flash in the pan tendencies I’ve discussed before) there is no franchise that is cemented in gaming culture as the crowning representative of the platform.
I don’t think the significance of this can be understated and while the mobile fashion trend has definitely captured the minds of the mainstream, hardcore gamers like myself are still the driving force behind this industry. We are the ones who buy more than a couple of games a year, we are the ones who don’t mind reaching into our bag for our games instead of just our pocket, we are the ones who drive gaming trends and awareness, indeed we are the ones who initially made games like Angry Birds the phenomenon they are today. For us, gaming isn’t just a way to kill time, it’s a passion. I believe there is still a significant market for people like me who appreciate all types of games, including the bigger and more expansive ones when on the go and I believe this market is big enough to sustain dedicated handheld platforms like the 3DS and the Vita. I’m not naive enough to think either will ever be as big a market as smartphones and tablets which also do a multitude of non-gaming things and neither should Nintendo or Sony be. However, I do believe these devices can serve both as a complimentary device to a hardcore gamer with a smartphone or also to young people whose parents may not want to give their kid a $700 iPhone that’s largely made of glass and will need to be replaced every year to stay current. There is incredible creative potential in the various options the Vita hardware offers, it simply must be given a chance to show this.
I chose to buy into the Vita early partially because I’m fortunate enough to have the disposable income to afford it but also because it’s the early adopters that will determine the viability of the platform. If there’s a large number of people who believe in its virtues but decide to sit back and take a wait and see approach, it will be doomed out of the gate not because of lack of interest but because everyone waited for someone else to buy in first. Every success has to have the people who try it and drive it. Try as the press might to convince us otherwise, hardcore gamers are legion and we have a chance to demonstrate that gaming the way we like it is indeed doable on the go. If there are indeed that many of us who believe this, we either have to prove ourselves right now or we will lose by own gun shyness. Maybe I’m wrong and perhaps most hardcore gamers are content to just play on their iPads. If so, I consider that a great shame because if all handheld gaming becomes Angry Birds and Infinity Blade, it is a sad trend for the medium as a whole. Only time will tell but I figure if I want to say that I believe hardcore portable games can be viable, I need to say it with my dollars and not just my blog. I hope I’m right.
