Before I begin I would like to apologize for several things; I am sorry for taking all this time to update the blog and I am sorry for not publishing the "Little Big Planet" article as I promised. I intend to provide an expose` on the LBP incident however; my sole opinion doesn't necessarily represent the opinions of Middle Eastern gamers. The LBP article will eventually be written once I have done some proper research.
To start the article, I'd like to throw out an ideological hypothesis that is; people would be much happier with less choice than more when buying a singular product. Crazy right; but just go with me on this!
Today's article will discuss the mass market free economy and its effect on the video game market. In a free capitalistic economy, consumers are given the ability to choose from an array of the same product. For example, if a person wants to buy a humidifier, they will have a multitude of brands to choose from. As freeing as it may sound, I personally find it constricting and hindering on a consumers ability to effectively choose what they want. It may be true that the more choice a consumer has the happier they are, but is it truly happiness if you have to spend a considerable amount of time deciding if one brand is better than the other. I bet most people have fallen in this dilemma and not necessarily in buying humidifiers; different technological brands (laptops and phones), cars and even video games can be applied.
People may question how video games apply to such a hypothesis and I will hopefully do my best in explaining my hypothesis. If I were to go to a game store today and ask for a shooter I would be given a multiple of choices ranging from Gear of War, Resistance, Halo, Haze and so forth. It would be ridiculous to assume that all gamers buy a game on its release date and I like many other gamers, I wait for a couple of months before buying a certain game. Now, by the time I attempt to buy a game from the shooter genre a new game would be out, which may be different aesthetically, but is fundamentally the same underlying game.
Let me explain my point a bit better. If I were to buy a shooter, most of them will have the following characteristics; It would most probably be set in a post-apocalyptic city/world, the color choice would range from gray, grayer and grayest, You can sustain multiple hits while enemies die from a single shot regardless of difficulty, weapon choices are always the same and only differ in their name, and you rarely get the chance to play the story line as the no-good doers (aka. Bad guys!!!). Such intricacies may not affect the mainstream gamer, but seeing how video games are only starting to become a more fordable mainstream medium (the wii effect) most avid gamers will likely be aware of the mechanics of different games before they are released. Therefore, how should a gamer make the choice on which shooter to buy if most of the games are presenting the same product but the wrapping is a bit different!
This is also true for genres other than shooters. Take for example mini-games; this particular genre has been up and coming since the introduction of the Wario Ware games on the gba and has now multiplied in variation and games thanks to the Wii. The Wii market has been saturated with mini-game products many of which are low in production value; with its oversaturation it has become quite difficult for consumers to make a choice on which particular game to buy, especially since most of the games require you to just waggle the remote, the only difference being in the way the waggle is presented.
Platformers have also presented a similar problem. This specific genre may have not saturated the market such as shooters and mini-games, but in premise they have never really changed. Platformers have mostly consisted of a basic storylines with the protagonist hoping from point A to B and collecting as many doodles on the way. These basic concepts have been in existence since Super Mario World and the first Sonic game, and not much has changed since then. Most platform games still hold true to this formula, whether it is Mario, Sonic, Ratchet, Jack, Nights, etc. The problem therefore is not having too many options to choose from, the problem is having too little differences between the games, which is really the undertone of the hypothesis.
To try and conclude what I have said; video game publishers should put more effort in trying to distinguish their games. Consumers are very rarely given the choice to choose a completely unique game that is separated from its competitors by more than gimmick (Galaxy = gravity, Sonic= super Sonic, and many other gimmicks in different games which I can't remember at the moment).I as a consumer am put off when I have an abundant of games to choose from which are very similar in play style, look, mechanics, and have most probably come across the same kind of game within my gaming life span.
My point is not to bog down the free market economy or video games. Choice is great; however, it becomes a hassle when you are given the same product but in a different wrapping. Many games have however proven my hypothesis incorrect, such as Call of Duty 4, Psychonauts and Mirror's Edge; but there are too few games that individualize themselves and too many that stick true and trident to the trend.
I hope you enjoyed my article; I apologize if my writing is not yet up to par, hopefully it will improve with time. Please feel free to comment, this article is of my subjective reasoning and I would like to hear your comments regardless of whether it is for or against my hypothesis.
Till next time;
Middle Eastern Gamer
