Nintendo President: The Free Market Is Not A Game We Like To Play
from the no-cheat-codes-in-the-real-world dept
Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aime really has a way about trying to suggest that perfectly reasonable and consumer-friendly market developments portend the end of video gaming. Two years ago, we wrote about his attempt to convince people that used video games were bad for consumers (yes, he said that) and his latest, via Slashdot, is to claim that cheap games are a risk to the entire video game industry.His main concern, it appears, are games for mobile phones that run a dollar or two. He's complaining that these games:
Create a mentality for the consumer that a piece of gaming content should only be $2Darn those consumers for actually going where the market goes, when Nintendo apparently would prefer to keep things priced at what the market doesn't like. Welcome to the modern world, Reggie, where prices change, and businesses adapt. I'm sure the last laptop you bought cost a lot less than the one you bought a decade ago, but that didn't herald the end of laptops. It's a digital age: prices get cheaper, and the only companies that are really at risk are those who don't adapt and don't learn to be more efficient. Oh, wait... perhaps he's telling us something about his employer...
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Filed Under: business models, competition, pricing, reggie fils-aime
Companies: nintendo
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Was it developed by one guy in his spare time or by 2000 salaried programmers working under a 50 member even-higher-salaried management team?
Was it completed in 3 weeks or 30 years?
"Development costs remain the same" is a statement which simply isn't true.
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Silly fear, I think. I don't see Ditka's Steakhouse going crazy over McDonald's $1 menu. Totally different products with totally different market expectations....
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The first case is less a danger to the "Ditkas" out there; it's those developers shooting themselves in the foot by devaluing their own product. As they grow, costs are going to rise while the tech they're on will stay essentially the same. Quality will go up art-wise and content-wise, but mobile game customers value gimmicks over polish, so their higher-priced follow-up game is going to be in a tight spot. With a decentralized market that has no authority behind it, it becomes very difficult for devs to just decide "okay we've enticed our customers, now it's time to sell our product for what it's worth" when that shift isn't happening around them. 'Divided we fall' and all that.
In the second case, it's bigger devs will less of a stake in this market (these are the real McD's and Burger Kings - dollar menus are loss leaders after all), helping to perpetuate a culture of devalued content. There's a reason you don't see independent burger stands that sell hamburgers for a dollar. Or I could go with a Walmart analogy or something. It's similar to that, except in this case, the small devs are too naive to realize there's a problem here yet.
Yeah, Nintendo sounds whiny here and I have little sympathy for them. This is really just them preemptively inventing an excuse for their shareholders, when it turns out the 3DS is way too expensive for the demographic it's going to be sold to. But just because Fils-Aime is full of it doesn't make the mobile game pricing problem nonexistent.
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Cliff hangers can be addictive if done correctly...
Just a thought
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People pirate your games or simply pass over your system period.
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You see, as a consumer, I can only maintain one idea in my head at any given time, and today that happens to be a piece of data called "price", so I have absolutely no spare brain power to use in making value judgements that don't begin and end with that number. HURR DURR! I R CONSUMAR! PLZ SAEV ME NINTENDOH!
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The market will not expect them to develop for the same cost at 1/40th of the price so long as that development cost is justified, provides something you can't easily get elsewhere and the end price is in line with how much people value it.
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Even if you have to mail someone something by FedEx, it would actually cost you LESS in the long run to do that than to do the regular things, especially since now the CONSUMER is paying for the shipping.
A lot of games out there should be 20 dollars tops. Even Dead Space 2 (which me and my friend put our money together to buy) is not worth 50 dollars on PC. It's worth about 20 from what we saw, how short the game is, etc.
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These game apps are a way for a company to start out in the business with relative ease and get their feet wet.
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i believe the implication is more that something simple, like a castle defender, vice something complicated, say a Zelda game are two different levels.
you shouldn't expect Zelda for $2, nor should you expect a flash game for $30.
so perhaps the concern is that newer gamers are associating these small games at $2 with all video games.
just a hypothosis.
oh and the market seems to like $60 games just fine, mike. for evidence, see call of duty. but then again, COD isn't just a castle defender. or even the sacred angry birds. there is a difference.
i suspect the problem is more vocabulary based. think of it it in terms of the written word. there is a difference between: novel, short story, chapbook, pamphlett and multi-volume epic. each brings to mind size, scope, and price.
you would not expect to get all of the wheel of time books for a dollar. yet you can get many short stories for that, or sometimes even a book on sale for that.
but on the same notion, $100 for a short story? that better be some high value, low print collectors item. and even then...
so (yes i am rambling, sorry) if there were better ways to describe the tiers of video games, i believe this quote wouldn't sound so, well, bad.
my two cents.
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and perhaps that's what the Nintendo guy is talking bout, eventually those games will be an issue.
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That's reasonable, except there are a lot of free Flash games that are as big as Zelda. So what then?
Anyway, I don't know what the context is either, but I strongly suspect that he's bracing for a weak 3DS launch by finding something to blame beforehand. That way he has an excuse he can point to for his shareholders.
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To quote Mal in one of the outtakes from "Serenity"
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Small correction
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That said, the direction Nintendo has been drifting in lately is disconcerting; not as bad as what Sony's been up to, but still painful to watch.
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I give two weeks for pirates to shatter their dreams.
And I want anti regionalization dammit!
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In any case, there's no reason for Fils-Aime to be complaining like this, since Nintendo will most likely have a much tighter hold one digital game prices in its store than Apple or Android. If they say digitally downloaded 3DS games must be at least $10 or $20 dollars, the devs must oblige (probably without complaint). So his speech is all bluster.
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- which is a stupid strategy by the way. But when is a response to jailbreaking ever smart?
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Lower Your Prices
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The real test will be if Nintendo can recognize that consumers clearly enjoy these small, cheap games, and diversify its own product line to accommodate that - not only creating their own "mini games," but opening up their gates a little so 3rd parties can, as well. I don't think handhelds like the 3DS can compete in the long run against smartphones if they don't create a gaming marketplace open to all developers, like Apple's app store. Through branding they could clearly distinguish the difference between this marketplace and their own big-budget games. And I guarantee they'd make a lot more money than they currently are on their incredibly lackluster digital download store.
Hardcore gamers will always be there for the big console companies. I think what Nintendo's really miffed about is that they made huge gains in opening up gaming to a casual audience with the Wii and DS, but now that the same casual audience can play Angry Birds on their phone for a buck, their Wiis and DSs are collecting dust. You'd better adapt, Nintendo, or that "blue ocean" of yours will dry up.
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Reggie, or Nintendo?
Piracy is over
"Speaking with CVG at the Nintendo 3DS event in Amsterdam, Nintendo UK general manager David Yarnton and marketing manager James Honeywell said that not only did the 3DS have Nintendo's most sophisticated anti-piracy deterrents yet, the age of the pirates had peaked."
Yeah, I give it two weeks... anyone else betting cookies?
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The most sophisticated anti-piracy deterrent yet could be broken in 2 days or 2 years who knows, what I do know is that it will be broken.
About piracy peaking, I believe he is right who wants to pirate anything when you can get all you want for free or very cheap legally.
Foobillard
VDrift
Tremoulous
Performous
Yay!
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Hello
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Note to Self
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Analysis: World of Goo’s iPad Launch
When the iPad came out, we thought we’d try again, this time with a fresh round of confidence that the bigger, more powerful device would be able to support a console quality port of World of Goo. We started working with Ron’s brother, Gil Carmel, in November 2010, who finally got this project done. There is nothing all that remarkable to tell about the development of World of Goo for iPad, but this being our first App Store title, the month leading up to launch and the month that followed were very interesting times, as we gathered information and lessons about the App Store market that we hope will be of use to other developers.
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Except on the DS download store, where games range from around $2-10. But hardly anyone uses it, because it's DSi-only, a pain to use, under-promoted, and not open to all developers. Apple became a gaming powerhouse - and is driving this market push towards cheaper games - because they have a great, tightly-integrated app store that's open to basically anyone who wants to make a game. That kind of access to developers has led to a booming market of innovation, variety, and quality that makes Nintendo's download store look like a joke. Some people rag on Apple's app store for not being truly "open," but really, it's pretty damn open, especially compared to how closed off game consoles have always been.
Nintendo has always been at least a generation behind when it comes to the internet, so it's going to be a long time before they figure this out and adapt. Even Xbox has indie games, which are free to try and give Xbox Live's marketplace a hint of that mass novelty that smartphone app stores have.
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Stupid Prices...
You can "imprint" consumers the other way as well, Reggie. Sure, a lot of this is taxes and cost-of-living, etc. but people are still happy when gas falls under $3/gallon because it seems like a bargain compared to last week's run up towards $4.
I'm not sure what point he was trying to make and I'm even less sure about mine, but the free market doesn't ONLY drive prices down to unsustainable levels.
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CLT had it right.
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Nintendo, DRM, and your game saves
It gets worse. Some games straight up refuse to let you back up your game saves. I bought a game for the Wii called Ghost Squad. I played it for a while, unlocked a bunch of guns.
Then I decided to go to my buddy's house. Seeing as how I earned those guns, I wanted to take my game save over to his Wii so we could pick up where I left off. When I tried to copy it over to the SD card, I got a message about how that save is copy protected.
Excuse me? Since when is Nintendo allowed to tell me that I can't back up my save game, or take my save game to a friend's house? Seriously, WTF? I ended up getting a Homebrew Channel application that allowed me to remove the Copy Protection flag from saves. Thank you, hackers, for once again freeing the device that I own so that I can do what I want with it.
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Basically, rent Zelda Twilight Princess, save a game, move to SD card, download hack save game from internet, copy back from SD card, load game and boom, crash, reboot and Homebrew Channel installed for you.
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System Menu 4.0 finally closed the Twilight hack, but it didn't use the Copy Protection flag...instead, the System Menu deletes the save if it finds it, and then analyzes any save from the SD card before copying it over, refusing to copy Twilight Hack saves. Bannerbomb was then the exploit of choice, since it didn't even require a game to launch. Bannerbomb was finally closed with 4.3, and now we're back to savegame exploits like Indiana Pwns, Return of the Jodi, Bathaxx (apparently all Lego games can be exploited), Smash Stack, etc.
Besides...the implementation of the copy protection flag on game saves existed at launch, long before the Twilight Hack. And it doesn't affect all game saves, only some of them. You can still copy Twilight Princess saves to your SD card, even with 4.3
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Here ya go Nintendblow
Half Life series
Bio-shock series
Max Payne series
Deus Ex
Alice
Assassin's Creed
Doom series
F.E.A.R
Far Cry
Grand Theft Auto series
Prince of Persia
Splinter Cell series
Velvet Assassin
And yes even the Zelda series.
All games I wont hesitate to pay full price to own.
How bout concentrating on making good games?
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But how the hell could you not include the Final Fantasy franchise? If you want an example of a big game done right, one that is clearly worth a bigger price tag due to the player's want, nay NEED, to replay it several times, Final Fantasy 7 is still the prime example....
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#6 - awesome
#7 - likely best game of all time
#8 - wierdly awesome
#9 - blech
#10 - almost as good as the hype around it
Played 7? If not, do yourself a favor and get it ASAP....
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Is this where you WANT games to go?
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Nintendo: it's for breakfast now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcayngErSMg
Also, I think they missed a serious opportunity by not naming the cereal Nintendough and including cookie dough instead of stale marshmallows.
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I'm not surprised
Video game producers are nothing but government whores, which is why all video games fucking suck these days.
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