There's someone out there... killing the video game industry and that person
is YOU
(Game Theory Intro Theme)
Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory,
the show that choosy moms choose along with JIF
Creamy obviously. Last time I gave Nintendo a hard time by saying the Wii U's
rushed, expensive, poorly integrated tablet controller was hurting
the company's financial performance and that even though the system sold better
than the ill-fated Virtual Boy, it's severe underperformance was like history
repeating itself.
I placed the blame on Nintendo saying they hadn't learned from their past
mistakes but honestly they're not the root of the problem
the hard truth is, us gamers, we're a bunch of liars
nerdy little liars. So what am I talking about? Well go to any gaming website and
there will be article after article, forum post after forum post, bemoaning
the lack of innovation in video games nowadays. "The video game industry must
innovate if it wants to survive," "Gamers want innovation," "Valve frustrated by lack
of innovation," GameStop blames console decline on lack of innovation,"
Call of Duty, like some Antichrist of game
creativity, is always the one getting
blamed for this supposed stagnation of video games as every other company sees
the franchise's success and pushes towards the FPS middle ground.
Games like Dead Space and Resident Evil abandon their survival horror genre in an attempt
to claim their piece of the pie. Uninspired yearly sequels hit the store
shelves for shameless cash ins and all the while we lament on the twitters and
the Tamble grams that we want something new,
something different, something innovative.
Well stop it. You don't know what you want and your lack of self-awareness is
single handedly killing Nintendo.
Quite frankly, gamers don't want innovation.
I know that's hard to believe.
How sick are you of seeing the same cookie cutter
sequels on the shelf year in and year out.
Judging from the online user reviews on sites like metacritic and overall
discussion surrounding various franchises,
I'd say you've had it up to here.
Video games, at this point, are looking more and
more like horror franchises reaching fifth and sixth installments, the numbers
so high
now that's what i call music is starting to feel threatened.
There's only so many times something can be revenged, revelated, or remastered,
that we're back to playing Tomb Raider.
Someone called the AVGN! You would think
that in this glut of sequels and subtitles this seeming recycling plant
of ideas that, if we really wanted innovation in our games, sales would
decline but here's a chart tracking the sales of each new Call of Duty.
Wow that is a strong growth curve but maybe Call of Duty is just a fluke.
How about it's rival battlefield?
Nope, okay well how about something that isn't a shooter?
Assassin's Creed eight, nine, and twelve million copies sold across the first
year for the first three installments.
Ok let's go for broke and try something with even less yearly fluctuation, Madden.
Wow, that's a name that's never appeared on this show.
Theorists, this is probably a new realm of beginning world for you so let me
explain.
Madden is a game series meant to simulate an activity known as football
in which a prolate spheroid meant to mimic a pig's inflated stomach is tossed
from Player to Player until reaching what is known as the end zone.
It's a foreign concept I know, for our scientific purposes,
all you need to know is that the franchise's yearly release is often
equated to a glorified expansion pack of updated team rosters and yet look at the
sales chart we see drastic growth there too.
If innovation was something we were
truly looking for in our games, COD's latest shooting gallery or Madden's
yearly pigskin palooza wouldn't see such tremendous growth and yet they do but
there's a pattern there right?
All these games can be grouped into bro games.
These are the people playing innings of Madden, uhh its innings right?
No? Uhh frames? Frames of Madden? No, that's, that's bowling ...
Uh playing touchdowns of Madden in between bouts at the beer pong table or
at least that's the portrait painted by a large swath of the gaming community.
According to them, these aren't the true
gamers who grew up on Mario and Zelda and have since come to hail Shadow of
the Colossus and Okami as some of gaming's artistic high points and if
that's truly the case, clearly there should be a difference in the buying
habits of those gamers accept that there isn't.
Here's a chart tracking the sales of major releases in the Super Mario
franchise chronologically.
The first thing to note here is Mario's declining ability to sell, but let's look
at the chart a different way
let's clear way the 3ds and Wii U game since those systems are still new and the
sales numbers for those games are still coming in and instead let's order the
games from highest-selling to lowest and see this is where the pattern really
starts to get interesting. See it?
Come on? You don't see it? It's an exact replica of my road trip from Ohio to
California flipped over the vertical axis,
Duh! Incredible, right? Oh I suppose you wanted me to point out something related
to the Mario games, huh?
Look at the games at the top of the chart Super Mario Bros, New Super Mario
Bros, New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario World,
Super Mario Land, Super Mario Bros 3 what do they all have in common?
I mean outside of having Super Mario in the title? They're all 2d Mario
platformers, a formula as old as the first game.
Now look at the ones on the bottom of the list Galaxy, Galaxy 2, Yoshi's Island,
and Sunshine.
What do they have in common?
They're all games that were praised for being new,
fresh, innovative entries in the series that clearly break from the typical
Mario formula and apparently despite all that praise they're games that, relative to
their more formulaic counterparts, couldn't sell but it's not just on a
games level either.
Look at the game cube which is perhaps the greatest system for innovation apart
from eco-friendly Mario, you also have Metroid Prime, Zelda Wind Waker, Resident
Evil 4, games hailed as some of the best in their franchises, ones that bravely
broke the boundaries of what their respective franchises stood for and
that's not even mentioning the innovative new IP on the system,
Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Beyond Good and Evil, Eternal Darkness,
amazing cutting-edge games that were trying new things and what actually sold
on the system?
Melee and Mario Kart. Nothing even came close and the Gamecube quickly became
Nintendo's worst-performing console.
Well with two exceptions which shall remain nameless but not faceless shown
up on the screen Ronnie.
I don't care if you're loyal to Mario or Sonic, Master Chief or Soap,
the fact of the matter is innovative games just don't sell. List off the top
of your head some of gaming's most critically acclaimed titles, games that
have shaped the industry. One that comes to my mind? copies
Portal. Eight million sold.
If you add up both Portal 1 and Portal 2 .. ehhh not bad.
Bioshock is another one, 4 million Bioshock Infinite another 4 million.
Half-Life 2,
12 million since 2004.
Now don't get me wrong, a million of anything is a ton.
Take it from me, a million subscriber channel, humble brag,
by the way thanks guys, and those numbers I just listed off are significant sales
numbers but compare Portal's 8 million sold or Half-Life's 12 million sold to
the sales figures for the eighth installment in the Mario Party franchise.
It sold eight million copies and that puts these numbers in perspective and
the kicker is that these games are the better performing ones what about the Okamis,
No More Heroes, and Psychonauts of the world, the Dreamcast?
Here's the sobering
figure, Legend of Zelda Windwaker, for all the praise heaped upon it, receiving
perfect scores from gaming magazines, sold three million copies.
Three million. Ocarina of Time sold 7.6 million.
Sorry, in case you forgot,
Mario Party 8, eight million, Ocarina of Time 7.6.
Must not have had a water temple minigame in Mario Party, huh?
Then what about those so-called dumb down games,
the games accused of selling out.
Well they are selling out,
on store shelves. Look at Resident Evil,
a series that's received a lot of flack
for abandoning its survival horror roots and becoming more of an action thriller.
Sales have been staying steady.
Final Fantasy 13, a game considered one of the
weakest in the series for removing player choice.
It's the fourth best-selling of the franchise, crushing the sales of Final
Fantasy 3 and Final Fantasy 6 combined.
You see that's a joke because they're technically the same game anyway, any way
you look at it,
the data is overwhelming.
Sequels with increased sales, new ip's with decreased
ones, games that break their molds don't sell but ones that fall into established
formulas do.
For as much as we'd like to deny it, budget spent and creative risk
taken are usually inversely proportional. Meaning a bigger budget means less
creative risk and the numbers prove that that's the smart choice.
Why waste money reinventing the wheel when releasing the same wheel with a new
paint job just still gets you more,
which brings us all the way back around to the original issue of the Nintendo
Nintendo is that they're willing to take risks,
push gaming in directions no one's considered.
They understand the fine
balance between innovation and shameless money grabs. For every Pikmin,
there needs to be a Brawl to fund it. For every Wii U,
there's a handheld that will deflect the losses while other systems compete for
the graphics to cram more arm hairs on to every NPC character,
Nintendo questions the fundamental issue of how we control our games.
It's a huge risk and when it doesn't work, it fails spectacularly and in their
push for innovation they sometimes strike it big.
Take for instance the U less Wii. The thing made more money than you could
shove into a giant's wallet and the motion control idea completely changed
the face of gaming forever
so what is the secret? What works and what doesn't?
Well, in part three of this what gamers want trilogy,
we seek to find the answer and instead find Flappy Bird,
so until then I leave you with this try something new
you just might like it but hey that's just a theory ...
a Game Theory! Thanks for watching.
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(Outro Music)