The secret to what gamers want rests inside this jar of extra chunky pasta sauce yum yum I love me a some of a the pasta
and the answer is!..
Flappy Bird, Goat Simulator, and
You again.
[intro music plays]
Hello internet,
Welcome to Theory of Games
The show that's practically "Game of Thrones":
Similar both alphabetically,
and in the sheer number of gratuitous boobs
we show per episode.
Actually I did the math,
they average about 5 per episode?
We're more like 1.7...
so..uhh....yay us?
Anyway, we've spent the last two episodes-
Well, there was that episode about the aforementioned... 'bewbs'
talking about what gamers don't want
they don't want monocromatic 3D action
they don't want a tablet controller
and contrary to what we all say, they don't want innovation
but there's a slight hole in that theory, well lots of holes in that theory
holes that go by the name of, Minecraft, World of Warcraft, the Wii and many more
innovative games and systems that broke with the established mould and went on to sell tens of billions
completely changing the gaming industry
So innovation works, sometimes
and when it does, holy cow does it really work
which begs the question
succeed and another one fail how does
the Virtual Boy flounder while the
oculus rift is everyone excited in 20
years what is the secret sauce that
separates what works from what doesn't
well the path to our answer begins with
another type of sauce tomato meet Howard
Moskowitz he's not a game designer he's
not a game developer or even a tester
know the name of his game is food food
optimization food optimization
revengeance return of the green tomatoes
anyway what's food optimizer mean well
how he uses data from taste tests to
determine the perfect combination of
flavors to make a food appeal to the
most people but he hit a snag when he
was hired to find the perfect level of
sweetness for diet pepsi the numbers
made no sense they should have fallen
into a bell curve with some people
liking it sweeter some people liking it
less sweet but most people falling
toward the middle accept the numbers
didn't go that way the data was a mess
it wasn't until years later than cancer
finally dawned on him
been asking the wrong question they were
trying to find the one perfect Pepsi to
appeal to everyone instead they needed
to look for the perfect Pepsi's there
was no one formula to appeal to everyone
but instead multiple formulas to appeal
to clusters of people Vlasic hired him
to perfect their pickle he told them not
to touch the regular version but instead
make a zesty option sales took off the
solving Vlasic pickle pickle but how his
biggest claim to fame was in pasta sauce
where he found that people broke down
into three categories the ones who like
straight marinara the ones who like it
with some spice and the ones who like it
extra chunky but at the time every sauce
was thin no one was selling a chunky
sauce why because when researchers asked
focus groups no one ever said that they
wanted a chunky sauce think about it
this way do you drink coffee I'm more of
a team and myself but whatever if I
asked you what type of coffee you liked
what would you say studies show that
most of you would say something like a
rich dark roast great but if I then gave
you a taste test Howie's data shows that
only twenty-five percent of you would
actually choose the rich dark roast
quite the contrary most of you would
like it milky thin and weak practically
me at coffee form but when asked no one
ever says that in general Howard
Moskowitz a--'s research proves that
people don't know what they want until
they have it so cool story bro but
what's any of this got to do with games
well it's true for both pickles and
pixels think about it here's a
conversation that would never happen in
any focus group ever you know what I
want my next-gen gaming scene an open
world rendered in retro graphics where I
dig ah dig an what now sir that's it I
just punch trees and I dig dig for
minerals and are you looking for buried
treasure or there's a princess in an
underground cast nope just digging right
Oh make
of that minecraft motion controls these
things are the chunky pasta sauces of
the gaming world things that people were
craving but didn't realize they were
craving and with that knowledge in mind
going back to episode 1 of this series
the reason why it's so important for
Nintendo to keep pushing the envelope by
producing virtual Boyz 3d esas wheeze
and we use is that they're finding those
chunky sauces the things people want and
gaming without knowing it that's also
why the indie scene is so crucial so the
answer to what gamers want is that we
don't know nope there's definitely an
answer that explains everything we've
talked about so far why the Virtual Boy
flopped why the Wii U is under selling
why cod games and non innovative sequels
oversell and why it's so difficult to
predict the next trend flappy bird
flappy bird flappy bird flappy bird
flappy bird flappy bird explains it all
there have been tons of articles written
in the wake of flappy bird success
everyone wants to crack the code of how
this game took flight yeah that was a
lame bird pun so sue me don't really sue
me though that was just a figure of
speech and well the articles have
theorized everything from fake reviews
to bots downloads the real answer that
no one's talking about is PewDiePie
here's the google trends chart for the
relative searchability of flappy bird as
the line goes up that's when more and
more people are searching or talking
about that thing looking at the chart
you can clearly see things start to ramp
up around here January 27 let me circle
that in my meaningless onscreen calendar
now let's take a stroll over to the
bastion of brofist his video flappy bird
don't play this game was uploaded it's
the same day seriously though while this
man is out there fisting the world he's
also setting trends so give him some
credit industry writers through your
research it's not that hard at 25
bajillion video views give or take a few
it's no understatement to say that the
pude
influential and his role in flappy bird
blowing up exemplifies the essence of
what gamers want we want to belong we
want to do things that are friends and
people we look up to are also doing
PewDiePie fills that role for tens of
millions of gamers don't believe me
there's actually a theory not related to
games I don't know how such a thing
exists but whatever called diffusion of
innovations theory which explains how
ideas and technology spread through
culture basically it says that there are
five types of people innovators early
adopters early majority late majority
and laggards about 2.5 percent of people
are innovators they're the first people
to adopt a new thing they tend to be
very social they're willing and able to
take risks because they can handle any
potential losses to illustrate let's use
YouTube and pewdiepie as an example he's
the biggest channel on YouTube by far
his videos get millions upon millions of
views if he takes a risk on a video and
it doesn't work it'll still do pretty
well and he has enough other videos and
views that he can sustain the loss so
PewDiePie does a video on flappy bird
people start to check it out seeing that
beauty pie did something other people
start to follow along people who value
his opinion people who want to ride the
trend this next 13.5 percent are the
early adopters they're still super
influential helping to set the trends
but tend to be a bit more picky in what
they choose to endorse than the
innovators markiplier and smosh games
are two great examples from youtube
they'll accept some of the innovators
ideas flappy bird impossible quiz goat
simulator but not all of them these top
two categories are the ones that set the
trends and their combined social power
is what starts spreading the word this
in turn motivates the early majority to
join in if there's enough momentum you
crest that hill and it's all downhill
from there at that point to the late
majority and the laggards it seems like
everyone is talking about this great
flappy bird thing so they download it
now you have people who've never even
heard of PewDiePie markiplier or Smosh
raging at their phones trying to get
past six pipes just because they heard
about it from a friend who heard about
it from a friend who heard about it from
a friend who saw it on PewDiePie's
channel and that's the key PewDiePie and
flappy bird are just easy
amples they're the catalysts that get
the ball rolling but ultimately it's all
a popularity contest don't you want to
get the games that your friends are
playing or the ones that you know
everyone is talking about right now
we're trained to trust the majority
because we don't want to be the one left
out of the conversation if everyone else
is doing it I guess I should too it's
actually an evolutionary instinct and it
provides us the answers to all the
questions we've been asking throughout
the last three episodes why two sequels
seem to grow and grow in the numbers
it's because they've already established
a significant following putting it well
into the early majority meaning each
game needs less and less energy to crest
that early adoption Hill why can't you
predict what's gonna trend next it's
because nobody knows what the pubes will
focus on and then what the rest of the
early adopters will choose to pick up
and run with why did the Virtual Boy
fail there weren't enough early adopters
saying that it was cool setting the
trend trust me if neck pains an eye
strain were considered to be the fad by
influencers like the pubes the sales
story around the virtual boy would be
much different and finally bringing us
all the way back around why has the wii
u been slow to grow the same reason
there's not enough start of momentum to
push it over that early majority hill
and create the buzz needed for it to
become the next smash hits and why
doesn't that buzz exist here's the big
reveal for all of you sticking around
this long it's all related to Nintendo
being anti YouTube and its copyright
policies believe it they're killing
their own momentum by stifling the
voices of some of the most influential
people in the gaming space right now
youtube gamers video game website
traffic right now is trending downward
because everyone's moving to youtube for
their news and entertainment but
Nintendo's policies have made YouTube
gamers afraid to talk about their games
for fear of getting copyright strikes
and that cuts off the first critical
fifteen percent of people who set the
trends for the rest of the gaming
community you don't want us to talk
about the new smash brothers fine we'll
go play goat simulator instead and is
that perhaps the big reason why the ps4
with its built-in online sharing ability
is crushing the sales of both xbox one
and
we you may be but hey that's just a
theory a game theory thanks for watching
hey you should subscribe to this channel
we're pretty awesome around here now
with that business out of the way
welcome back to the super amazing end
card tournament where last time smite
gods and goddesses clashed for your
clicks in the end it came down to two
neath and Aphrodite but with 10,000 more
votes it was Aphrodite who took the
cheesecake this time something a bit
different in honor of Howard Moskowitz I
asked you which pasta sauce do you
prefer regular spicy or chunky click on
one to choose but as we learn today you
probably don't know which you like well
at this point you probably do because
they make all these varieties but who
knows maybe your favorite is something
like marinara marshmallow fluffer tomato
basil and gummy bears anyway all this
food talk has made me hungry so if
you'll excuse me I'm gonna go make some
cheese fondue more like cheese fun do
cuz it's fun to do wow lame puns today
OOP so bad