Recently, I had a conversation with Nick about the business of console download games. As you know, I like the business model, especially for the developer starting out, but I began thinking more about commonalities between the three console offerings, and what I believe would improve the experience for the consumer, and in return, benefit the developer. The following are my conclusions.
1) Better support for user-generated content
Microsoft does a great job at supplying robust libraries and a tight platform for development, but as far as I know, all three consoles have no unified way of supporting user-generated content for their downloaded games. The usual answer is for the developer to supply their own server, but considering the security and authentication requirements to do so, this is simply not an affordable approach for a small budget game. I don’t believe the blocker here is the cost of hosting on the platform holder’s side — all Xbox LIVE users have a small amount of user space online, for example; you just can’t use that space to share content readily and easily.
Instead, the issue is legal and political — how do the platform holders protect themselves from offensive user-generated content? The answer is the same way any other online networking site does it — via EULA’s, and easy levers to report and control offensive material.
I’d like to see a simple way for downloaded games to be able to post even a small amount of data for sharing in the game; available even when the owning player is offline. If any platform supported that, I believe you’d see incredibly creative games flowing directly from that — in the meantime, only games that have a large budget (and probably a different agenda than a typical arcade game) have the luxury of such a feature, and all other games with user-generated content use crippled features such as sharing levels only with friends, and only when they’re online.
2) Less focus on retro games and advergaming
Let’s be honest — when you download a game that’s twenty years old, you had great memories of it and are expecting to be thrust back into the nostalgia. Instead, the game is incredibly difficult, and man do the graphics suck. When your new downloads page is filled with these offerings, or poor quality advergames, you’re going to be skeptical about coming back to try new games; you may even miss that great original indie title you’ve been waiting for.
In a nutshell — the poor quality games are drowning out and hurting the very games that the platforms are trying to push.
To be fair — I think the Virtual Console is making great use of their awesome back library, and WiiWare is a nice separation between retro and original games (although in general the Shopping Channel is pretty clunky and slow).
3) More focus on instant play value
Even though I understand Microsoft and Sony’s strategy of promoting their download offerings as a source of creative and “new” types of games, I somehow feel they’re doing at the expense of certain potential. New styles of play on an old interface (the controller) often necessitates a learning curve, and this learning curve creates a barrier for customers. Instead, I think they should be focusing on games that are instantly fun — exactly as Microsoft’s name calls for — consumers want arcade games!
I believe that Sony and Microsoft have a captive audience begging for more games that are instantly engaging, regardless of the genre. They do have an appetite for the unconvential, quirky game, but those games need to be interspersed with arcade racing, fighting, sports, puzzle (etc) games. I’m not talking about Project Gotham Racing — I’m talking about Rock N’ Roll Racing. Less depth — more fun.
So, in my humble opinion, combining these three factors would create a download service filled with fun titles that everyone in the family would want to try out. They are high quality, instantly fun, don’t require a deep knowledge of old games to enjoy them, and every once in a while, incredibly creative. As an owner of a next-gen console, you’d be encouraged to show these games off at parties and play with your friends — after all, there’s almost no learning curve to most of them. What’s not to like?
Thoughts?
