PlayStation: Hirai - Casual Gamers are Fickle
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Topic started: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:17
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Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:36
PreciousRoi wrote:
Its quite clear that your education and knowledge concerning the United States involvement in Viet Nam and the war with Japan are lacking, as any comparison between the two of the is utterly ludicrous as the only thing the two have in common are fanaticism and east Asia. Also, your assumptions concerning the arcade industry in the United States are equally deficient and incorrect.
OptimusP wrote:
it's not about ideology or politics, it's about the military structure used combined with supporting economics. Both didn't differn between WWII and the Vietnam war. The US had more means, could out-produce both, but it fought a symmetric fighting foe in the Japanse and then the conclusion is made beforehand. The Japanese knew this as well before Parlour Harbor, hell belgian industrialists in 1940 predicted Hitler couldn't win because of its lower economic production as soon Britain could acces the US economy for aid.
And thats where you fail. It might not be about ideology, but it manifestly is and was about politics. Politics which affected strategy. You've narrowed the scope to areas you feel comfortable with (economic structure, I suppose), and in my estimation your original assertion was based on a trite "common knowledge" myth. But you're still completely wrong. The War against Japan was a primarily naval, "total" war fought against a sovereign power. It was politics on both sides that originated the conflict, and the Japanese belief that with a sufficiently stunning victory at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines (which we never really wanted anyway) they would be able to force America into a peace agreement leaving them in control of what they considered their rightful "sphere of influence". Viet Nam however was a primarily land conflict, fought on one side by proxy, the US picking up where the French left off on the other, it was also for political reasons an experiment in limited war. But your trite assertion that the US strategy was "bomb everything twice" is as insulting as it is completely inaccurate...to begin with due to political considerations, everything was not "on the menu" for US bombers and attack aircraft, in fact, target lists and R.O.E. came from bloody Washington-based civilians, not commanders in the field. As a heinous example, SAM sites which were under construction were off-limits as targets, because politicians feared the consequences of attacking places where they knew it was likely Soviets might be found.
OptimusP wrote:
In Vietnam they fought a asymmetric foe that fought in an complete different way (geurilla warfare) were the difference in means is neutralised and the US couldn't cope with it because they were stuck in their tradtional military thinking.
Oh I see, the VC were too disruptive, eh?? Bullshit, more traditional military thinking would have WON in Viet Nam, it was political considerations and the utterly disastrous management of the war, courtesy of the Kennedy Administration, specifically Robert McNamara that got far too many American GIs and aviators killed or captured for no good result. Sorry to fly in the face of what you obvious consider to be "common knowledge" but the US was actually winning (and certainly, freed from political considerations would have done much better) when we pulled out of Viet Nam. OptimusP wrote:
Fact: in mid-1982 the American videoarcades went into a crisis, read the Ultimate Vidoe Game History by Steven Kent, read Phoenix by L. Herman
Fact: in 1978 Nolan Bushnell started Pizza Time Theaters, by early 80's it's a huge franchise chain. It used videoarcades and midwaygames
Fact: midwaygames became more and more the focus of restructered videoarcades a la Pizza Time now called fun parlors, mostly present at shopping malls , JoyStick Nation by J. Herz has chapters aimed at this phenomenon. midway games disrupted videoarcades by taking huge chunckstheir recruting layer: kids.
Fact: videoconsoles in the 80's received ports of arcade hits.
Reasoning: using disruption theory, you could say videoconsoles disrupted videoarcades by making it easier accesible and cheaper then the real thing because it did a "good enough" job of translating the expercience. Not pixel perfect, but the succes of consoles have shown that a lot of people didn't seem to care. Consoles were only dead by 1984, in 1983 there were more consoles and games sold then in 1982, Phoenix shows this.
But lets start with the arcades themselves. There were three basic types, the "game room", the dedicated "pure" arcade, and the "Pizza Time" model. But since you brought them up, and its an inderesting phenomenon we'll focus on the "Pizza Time" model. These locations avoided the social stigmas and other problems (what happens anywhere you attract large numbers of teens and pre-teens) that became associated with game rooms and "pure" arcades by intentionally distancing themselves from older patrons. What you call "midwaygames" are called in the industry "redemption games" (for the tickets that they dispense and that can be redeemed for "prizes", Midway Games at the time was and had been a major player in the arcade game industry), and they became attractive primarily due to the rising cost and relatively shorter "shelf life" of newer, larger "arcade pieces" like the sit-down drivers and large CRT multiplayer units, which emphasized and exaggerated portions of the "arcade" experience which could not at that time be duplicated on the home console. A bank of Skee-Balls and Whack-a-Moles therefore having a much higher ROI than having to rotate in new videogames. These games also appeal to younger audiences, which were the primary target for the "Pizza Time" model in the first place.
The "arcade game" (coin-op videogame) industry itself was already in decline, only partially due to the pressure from home consoles, it was essentially IMNSHO a victim of its own success. Outside of the arcades themselves, the industry operated in a 4-tier system, Manufacturers, Distributors, Operators, and Locations. The success of games like Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, and the ultimate decline in the industry were based on ubiquity. Ms. Pac-Man specifically was EVERYWHERE. Forget the arcades, despite being attractive and the home of most of the later shiny toys like the abovementioned sit-down racers, most of the actual machines that made it the legendary success it was were in bars, laundromats, convenience stores, restaurants, and "game rooms". It was a windfall for these locations, providing an alternate revenue stream for which they only had to contribute a few square feet of space, and (usually) half of whatever licensing fees applied. But Ms. Pac-Man didn't last forever, and the locations demanded newer machines, and pity the operator who wouldn't (or couldn't) supply fresh ones (leading to the emergence of "conversion kits" which allowed an operator to put a new game in an old cabinet, and systems like the Nintendo Vs. System, which provided many of the earliest and best NES titles), despite being unable to justify their ROI, there was always someone with deeper pockets, or new to the business willing to poach the location out from under you. Another severe body blow to the "arcade game" industry ouside of the arcades (which were always a very limited portion of the actual market during the period of greatest success) was the emergence of "gray" video poker and slots. But I've rambled on enough for the present...
p.s. I don't have to read about it in some book, I was there for most of it, if not onstage, then I had a backstage pass...
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The thing is, when a market for a certain product is created it goes on a certain path driven by its sustaining innovations because the processes of the companies are geared to making those sustaining innovations.
In the gaming industry that path consists out of
1) implementing new technology to create better visuals, bigger worlds blahblahblah
2) incorporating more themes from the real-world, books, movies and so forth :Space Invaders made the use of sci-fi popular, Super Mario (or Dragon lair very literally, take your pick) cartoons, Ultima (and earlier predecessors) phantasy, sports and racing with the Playstation and so forth. EA made it's FIFA/Madden based empire then, even if the two did had roots in the 16-bit era.
3) always aiming to a older male audience using the two above. NES aimed at kids, Megadrive aimed at teenagers, Playstion aimed at 15-25 and so forth. It is the "natural" thing to do in the gaming market.
A disruption deviates quite heavily off the established path because it seeks out marketlayers not serviced by the established companies because of the path it follows as described above.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
2) a new type of product starts of first in the lowest layer and trough sustaining innovations adds in quality and moves up the layers which promise more customers and higher profitmargins.
I disagree almost entirely here. Unless early adopters are less demanding than the casual marketplace? People buying the early consoles were not casual in any way. I see this more as technological progress being applied to the product.
Put it this way; if we had never had a console until 2009 and Nintendo, Sony or whoever made one. Would it be as simple as an Atari 2600? Or a NES? Or a PS1? I'm thinking it'd be at least PS2 quality, more likely PS3/360 level tech.
How do you know that the people buying the early consoles were not casuals? They were the first consoles...everyone is then the "casual" (which actaully shows the limits of the use "casual"and "hardcore" then anything else really). The first movie-audiences were wage-laborers who couldn't read or write, i don't think they decided to be "hardcore movie buffs" the moment early movies arrived.
But your second point is valid and this is linked with that people do adapt to increasing levels of technology, but at a a rather low rate. So if a consoles were to arrive today, the audience will expect a certain minimal level of tech. The SNES or Playstation would bomb if launched today with no prior consolemarket.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
4) A disruptive product then introduces itself into the lowest market layer, adding more ease-of-use and a lower price for the customer (very important, the customer is central here, not third parties or anyone else). The disruptive product then creates comparative advantages structure for itself trough those factors and also uses it own sustaining innovations to move up the market with the high chance of pushing the established product and company out of it.
If you accept point 2, then this is "just" a new product using the "new market" approach in an existing market.
The rest of the points seem to just be further explanation of the conceptual model, so I'll accept them. Except this, which is your own comment.
And you know what, Christensen defined two kind of disruptive products, the one you described above and one that creates an entirely new market on itself (the internet is a big example of this). The thing is, a lot of these "new market" approaches inside an existing market troughout history have cost the established companies a lot.
Example:
the electrical mini-steel mill have made a lot of traditional coal steel mills go bust or forced them to merge. How, the electrical mini-steel mill was 20% more efficient then the traditional one but could only make low-quality products, in its initial stage. Trough sustaining inovations it started making a lot more high-quality stuff. By then it starts following the same path as the traditional one, but because it went back to the very first step in the path, it actually deviated from the established path in a huge manner. Making it an disruption.
Nintendo did went to the first step in the path, when gaming wasn't restricted to the established path and asked itself, how the bloody hell are we going to make this work. It will be interesting what path Nintendo will follow from now on.
I know, Sony sent down some probes to get a feeling of the casual market, or better, expanded market. But by then its processes and values were honed to still prioritze mainly on the established path. A lot established companies do that, make products that are actually disruptive, but not release them at all or at full because the market they serve is so small (from their point of view) or enterily not their priority. A lot hard-disk companies made flash-cards before the flash-card market has even started, but still a lot of them got caught by surprise by the actual dedicated flash-card makers.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
In Nintendo's case, it is its unique software-hardware integration. This allows it to make products established companies can't make.
Sony can re-make any Wii game with their motion controllers. And none of the current companies is more "established" than Nintendo in the console market.
Sure, but that is copying, everyone can copy. What I meant was that Nintendo's processes allows it to make stuff before anyone else and implement it properly at the same time. It's like how that one someone said in these forums that Brawn GP found a way to circumvent a restriction, making its cars perform far better then the competition. Everyone copied it but the gap remains. Brawn GP made it first and made it so that you can't just copy it and expect the same results. That's because of an unique something within Brawn GP. Nintendo has such a unique thing too which allows it to make WiiSports first and properly done at that. With NIntendo it is that software-hardware hybrid thing it has going.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
The theory focuses on how a product is made by the internal values and processes of a company. Not by what some marketing t**t thinks what should happen.
That's not what I meant by marketing. I know there's "market research" and "advertising" bundled up in marketing, and I meant the latter when I referred to Sony's marketing campaign. They had a product and decided to broaden the appeal of the product by advertising it to "other" sectors of the population. They didn't get a focus group together to decide what the product should be.
I'm gonna snip most of the rest of your comment, because you're explaining stuff I believe I already understand. I take your point on the US' Japan and Viet Nam wars - I don't have enough knowledge to comment on its historical accuracy. However, I'll point out that the US won against Japan (or at least hastened the end of the conflict) by using a very "disruptive" new weapon.
Good point, but Sony just continued the path that SEGA set with advertising to a broader set of people (in this case, primarly more and older males).
Also, the atomic bomb wasn't a disruption, it was a radical sustaining innovation (i know, what the crap did i just pull out of my ass). A radical sustaining innovation is an innovation within a existing marketstructure (i know, explosives as an market, very weird) that uses huge amounts of high-tech and money and can potentially shift marketpositions considerably. The Manhattan Project had more then 100 000 people working on it, took four years and a lot of money (2 billion$, calculating inflation, that's 24 billion in 2008). If it was a disruption, it would be cheap and everyone would have nukes 10 years after the first one went off.
And before you ask, there are two more types of sustaining innovations. The Displacement is an innovation aimed at a certain part of an product. Example: a small company making a very new kind of car-brake. And then you have the incremental sustaining Innovation which is your standard innovation without really changing the product, just adding more of the same. Like faster processors and so forth.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
uhu, and who likes techy stuff the most? Boys! ^^ it's our gender guilty pleasure, things with buttons and flashy stuff, preferably to blow other stuff up.
You're talking about boys being attracted to the tech, not the tech being marketed at boys. Nobody sat there and decided to make the process of setting up a console overly complicated because "boys love this stuff". This again is technological progress and early adopters, not the gaming industry being dead set on only marketing to tech-savvy young males.
Indeed, it wasn't dead set on only males, that's why i said all the exceptions, even in the early stage. Nolan Bushnell wanted videogames to become as wide-spread as possible, not quite limited like now. But because games are primarly made by young male engineers, subconsciencly, they will be made for a samey audience.
I think it started with Space Invaders when the game-industry went this path, started, it was not dead set in stone then either.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
On the other side, watching a movie costs 10 bucks, buying a game costs 50 bucks, both industries have equal size, who attracts the biggest audience? Yeah...
How many people buy the same game more than once? How many people watch the same movie more than once? How many times are "classic" movies re-released into the cinema? How many more hours do you get out of a game versus a movie?
Those points might not make up the whole difference in viewer figures, but they point out that you're talking about different products. The point remains, the games industry's yearly takings are at about the same level as the cinema industry's box office takings.
It wasn't about the earnings, it was showing the difference in impact on society. Yes they are different products, but no, not that different in their core. They're both content-driven and both aimed at entertainment. But one had a bigger social impact after 25 years of maturing then the other. It's about damn time someone broke this (this is a general statement, not aimed at any game-company).
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
Actually, both of these togheter was my original point (was it really? don't know anymore :p). Yes the casuals are fickle, but that's a constant in every industry. The hardcore are also fickle, but to a lesser degree.
Your original point was this;
OptimusP wrote:
Sheesh, if you say the casual gamer is fickle and always looks for the next big thing...the hardcore gamer is even worse!
So you were saying the hardcore are more fickle than the casual gamer, now you're saying they're less so.
yeah, thank you! Right remember now. It's again use of definition. My original point was in a context of inside the game-industry were the hardcore looks for the next big game more then the casual. Outside it, you're right, the casual can more easlily shift from gaming to hiking to reading cooking books written by David Beckham's wife.
[quote:tyrion]OptimusP wrote:
From 1985 to the '90's the cartoony platformer ruled the game-industry, now we have the space marine shooting stuff dominance. Maybe I should use that to assume the hardcore are fickle bastards...the real hardcore plays platformers with cute humanoid animals you t**ts! You space marine casuals will destroy gaming! It's a lot more gray-tinted then that, that was my actual point...i think...
That's old-timers versus newbies. The casuals back then were playing the same cartoony platformers and the casuals now are playing the same space marine shooty games.
Hardcore has nothing to do with it when a genre dominates, if anything, the hardcore are more likely to go for the less dominant genres. Look at how many hardcore Quake players hate the "casual" Halo and all its done to change FPSs in general.
And you're right, but my point was to show some nuance to a quote like mister Kaz made and how it will be received. the "hardcore" will say he's right and then go on and on how Nintendo is destroying the industry with not aiming at them. While they can be correct, the industry will fall on itself if it does only aim at them.
And also, is a person who has only played Halo and calls himself a "hardcore" really a harcore? Really were trowing around hardcore and casual and assume it means something that everyone knows, but it seems that something can differ A LOT.
[quote:PreciousRoi]Its quite clear that your education and knowledge concerning the United States involvement in Viet Nam and the war with Japan are lacking, as any comparison between the two of the is utterly ludicrous as the only thing the two have in common are fanaticism and east Asia. Also, your assumptions concerning the arcade industry in the United States are equally deficient and incorrect.
Well, you could have said why, not it's just like "look, isaid so with no backing at all, so it must be true".
it's not about ideology or politics, it's about the military structure used combined with supporting economics. Both didn't differn between WWII and the Vietnam war. The US had more means, could out-produce both, but it fought a symmetric fighting foe in the Japanse and then the conclusion is made beforehand. The Japanese knew this as well before Parlour Harbor, hell belgian industrialists in 1940 predicted Hitler couldn't win because of its lower economic production as soon Britain could acces the US economy for aid.
In Vietnam they fought a asymmetric foe that fought in an complete different way (geurilla warfare) were the difference in means is neutralised and the US couldn't cope with it because they were stuck in their tradtional military thinking.
Fact: in mid-1982 the American videoarcades went into a crisis, read the Ultimate Vidoe Game History by Steven Kent, read Phoenix by L. Herman
Fact: in 1978 Nolan Bushnell started Pizza Time Theaters, by early 80's it's a huge franchise chain. It used videoarcades and midwaygames
Fact: midwaygames became more and more the focus of restructered videoarcades a la Pizza Time now called fun parlors, mostly present at shopping malls , JoyStick Nation by J. Herz has chapters aimed at this phenomenon. midway games disrupted videoarcades by taking huge chunckstheir recruting layer: kids.
Fact: videoconsoles in the 80's received ports of arcade hits.
Reasoning: using disruption theory, you could say videoconsoles disrupted videoarcades by making it easier accesible and cheaper then the real thing because it did a "good enough" job of translating the expercience. Not pixel perfect, but the succes of consoles have shown that a lot of people didn't seem to care. Consoles were only dead by 1984, in 1983 there were more consoles and games sold then in 1982, Phoenix shows this.