This Is What Wii Want

You see what I did there? I am the new Noel Coward.

Moving on....

I've been thinking a bit about gaming recently, specifically gaming on the Wii, specifically after reading this article on Destructoid. What stands out of course are the frequent mentions of those old, tired, yet shockingly ill defined terms "hardcore", "mature" and of course "success". Now, I'm not expert in the intracacies of the video game industry and it's demographics, but I am on the internet and thus fully qualified to opine at great length about pretty much anything based only on my own opinions and biases. So, here we go...

Firstly, is there a market for "mature" games on the Wii? Yes. Hello. That would be me then. But what do we even mean by "mature"? Near as I can tell it's all about the swearing and sexual references. Violence is largely taken for granted, especially in video games. I'm not saying it should be, far from it. But let's face it, kill the alienzombieterrorist is basically a staple element of a rather high percentage of games.

Indeed, one of the major reasons I decided to buy a Wii in the first place was simply that it had a selection of games that didn't involve mindless wholesale slaughter.

But just adding a few expletives and a pair of pixilated breasts hardly makes a game mature, does it? It make it unsuitable for children (conditional of course on temprement, upbringing, enviroment and other such factors), but thats as far as it goes. House Of The Dead: Overkill, good as it is, is hardly overflowing with sophisticated subtext. And that's fine as far as it goes, but really when you're labelling something as intended for mature audiences I'd expect it to have little more meat on it than the metaphorical equivilent of shouting "BUM!" in the playground (I'm looking at you Torchwood).

Next let us address the whole tedious "Hardcore" vs "Casual" issue. What exactly is the difference? Like most of these sort of things it's really just a self imposed label designed to bolster feelings of superiority in one party at the detriment of another. Though I suppose you could also classify it as oone group who plays games for fun, and one who plays games as work. Different people will look for different qualities in games, regardless of how much time/effort/self respect they invest in the hobby. No, someones mum probably wouldn't like (insert latest generic flavour of the month fps). So what? She may well own at puzzle games, or point and click. Frankly I'd rather be someone who's not very good at a game but enjoying themselves. These are, after all supposed to GAMES. Played for their entertainment value.

Now success is only ever really going to be measured in one way. How much money the game makes. For all I, or indeed anyone else, can  rave about how fantastic something is, if it doesn't make the publishers a profit then it's simply not succesful. However there is an interesting comment in the article regarding the timeframe for said return. Most games look to make a return in the first three weeks? That seems to me to be a pretty short timeframe for the shelflife of a title. Yet on the Wii it's longer. Why? Perhaps it would be more sensible to ask why everyone should be expected to rush out and buy everything as soon as it's released. Whilst obviously there are going to be certain titles that people want to play immediately not every game for every player is going to fall into this catagory. And for some people (by which I of course mean me) who have a list of new and upcoming titles they'd LIKE to play, but are actually busy playing something else right now. This goes back to the whole casual vs hardcore thing perhaps. You'll have those who regard gaming as an occupation who absolutely must have the latest titles to impress nobody with, and then you've got those who will get around to playing it when they have the time/money/inclination/whatever.

What's really interesting however is when this brings us to COMPARATIVE success, franchises, and multi-platform releases. Afterall, when gauging success people don't look at the percentage profit (which let's face it is probably classified anyway), it's all about how many units more or less than whatever other title. Myself, I've never thought bulk numbers were much of an indicator of actual quality in anything. Let's face it, the state of modern cinema proves that quite conclusively. It's this sort of focus that makes it hard to accurately judge success for the more niche markets. I mean, you can make a nice percentage profit, sell out your print run and have a game that people hang onto and play the shit out of, but if you're not shifting X million units nobody will even notice. It's the implication that companies are not satisfied with anything less that is quite forboding. There is undoubtedly a niche market for mature games on the Wii. And since that market exists it can be exploited. But to expect a niche market to behave in the sameway as the mainstream seems a little naive.

Now the issue of franchise based games is briefly brought up, and expounded upon somewhat in the comments (at least as far as I read) with some reference to the difficulty of developing cross platform titles for the Wii due to it's unique control style and comparitive lack of power. The argument going along the lines that the Wii looses out to the 360 or PS3 in these sort of titles since it's too much hassle to port them across. Lacking the big name franchises it thus does not attract the "mature" gamer.

So, did I miss the memo where it was decreed that all consoles must be exactly the same? Even down to having the exact same games? As far as I'm concerned the whole POINT of the Wii is that it doesn't have all the same titles as everything else. That it does something DIFFERENT. Trying to shoehorn the standard games available on everything else seems fairly pointless. Similarly, not every machine must have a version of whatever umpteenth sequal is coming out. Indeed, one of the most agravating things for any fan of a particular franchise is when it starts jumping around systems. You don't really want to have to buy a whole new system every time just to keep up, do you? Rather than relying on the tried, trusted, stale and increasingly generic names of yore surely you should be looking to develop new titles of your own? Play to the strengths of the system, rather than just trying to replicate. Just because it's on the xbox doesn't mean it also needs to be on the Wii. They're different machines, designed to do different things. Indeed, I have a few cross platform releases, and those that have come from elsewhere do give of a distinct vibe of "this would be better with a regular controller". I'm not saying their bad, I'm not saying it impedes your enjoyment. But it's there, even if it's only subtley.

Basically, at the end of the day if someone wants xbox style games they'll buy a goddamn xbox. Many people will have multiple consoles as it is, further undermining the neccesity of multi platform releases.

The Wii CAN do regular games. It's just that's not what it's BEST at.

So, what SHOULD they be doing with the system? Ultimately what any developer should do with any system. Make good games. Sounds obvious really. Develop original titles with interesting gameplay and decent stories, and for the love of god STOP DUBBING THE DIALOGUE. The Wii has wierd freaky controls. So USE that. Don't be a slave to it, and don't try to ignore it. Integrate it. You don't need sixty buttons to make an decent game, neither do you have to spack out swinging it around to do anything. There's lots you could do, but please don't stop just because you don't instantly make umptymillion. There are many levels of sucess, and you don't need to be a billionaire to make a living.

Oh, and could somebody PLEASE start making H games for the Wii? Just THINK about how much fun you could have with that. If nothing else Onechanbara has proved how well the Wii handles jiggly. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life. SO why not a little sexy for after the violence?