Sega Boss Stresses Fun Factor, Simpler Games

Thanks to Video-Fenky for their translation of an interview with Hisao Oguchi, the new boss of Sega. In it, Oguchi argues that less "grandiose games" are the way to rejuvenate the games market, referencing titles such as The Sims, Animal Crossing and Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin as good models for doing this, and saying: "Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users. We can't have people balk at sitting in front of the TV and playing games because it's too tiring. All games are made to be fun for the people playing them, so in the next generation especially, making content that doesn't feel tiring to gamers will be very important."

Comments

Complicated games != Shrinking Market Share

[acxr is wasted]

Complicated games mean a stable audience, however this is not what game companies want. It's important to keep this article in context.

Sega is in quite a precarious position at the moment. The road to becoming a strictly software company has been rough, and stems from the fundamental problem that no one is playing their games. Quite logically, a company with a small market share wants to expand its audience. The simplest way to do this is to create simple games that have mass appeal. Now, this is not some geek-elitist opinion of mine; I am not calling the masses "simple." However, it's much easier to capture a customer by giving them a simple challenge that doesn't take much learning.

Despite Sega's new "design philosophy," there will always, always be a place for complicated and difficult games. Despite the fact that the population-at-large will statistically prefer the "easy" game to the "hard" one, there will always be a sect of hardcore gamers: people with experience on many consoles that enjoy controller-busting challenges. Just as the game industry needs to grow, it also needs its zealots, too. These are the people that are more open to trying new concepts, and will eventually show companies which direction they ought to follow. While a new gamer may be scared by difficult controls, or a non-standard interface, a more mature gamer can look past the learning phase into the real meat of the game, seeing the experience for what it's really worth. This is evolution at work within the game industry, and natural selection has given us analog controls, lock-on targeting in 3d games, and even standard mouse and keyboard controls for first-person shooters.

Really, it is not the games themselves that are complicated, but rather their interfaces. This is something Nintendo understands quite well, and they've taken a lot of flack for it. The Gamecube's controller design oozes simplicity. (Simplicity in that your fingers know precisely where to go.) Certain buttons makes themselves very clear that they are important, and to what degree that importance is. While this works well when all your games follow this standard, third party titles can (unintentionally) muck this whole system up. When playing a Gamecube game, it's very clear whether the game was designed with Nintendo's system in mind, or simply as a cross-platform port. A perfect example is Madden, or any football game, for that matter. When your quarterback goes to pass on your PS2 or X-Box, the buttons for each receiver are very obvious and equally important. A quick glance at either system's controller shows that, clearly, all of the face buttons are just as important as one another, just as each receiver is equally important on the field. Nintendo's pad, however, while perfect for Metroid Prime or Super Smash Bros., simply sucks as a football controller.

Now, the paradox has become apparent. At what point does game simplicity break down from lack of control? When does complicated become too complicated? Who, exactly, is to blame for shoddy control? Is Sony responsible for making a pad that's very open-ended as to which buttons are considered important to a game? Is Nintendo responsible for not giving developers enough freedom in their controls? Is Electronic Arts responsible for not using the Gamecube controller to its fullest extent?

online complications

[imperator_mundi]

"Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users."

Say that you like to play games, say that you would like to play online because playing with/against other human being is more fun/challenging/whateveryouwant... say that maybe you also have a life... would you really log once in a while in some ultima online or diablo server and hang around as the very weak guy that could be crushed anytime by any hardcore semipro online gaming addicted who can and usually do stay in the game 24/7?

Donthinkso, just let people log in and start having fun as fast as a coin slips in an arcade machine... call me old fashioned