Nintendo media day: The gaming press gets left behind
Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 8:55pm by Jack
Did anyone else get the impression that Nintendo’s big media day was kind of like one of those meaningless photo ops that politicians do these days just because they “have to?” (bear with me, I’ve been sunning it in the Outer Banks for the past week and I’m playing Infendo catch up today).
From Game|Life:
One longtime mainstream journalist who I spoke to was really disappointed in the lineup. Many of the enthusiast press members felt the same way — I’m sure you’ll read similar impressions coming from some of them later tonight.
There were more just like that one, but don’t bother reading them. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but every blog I read about the event read like it was cut and pasted from the previous blog entry I read. “Nintendo didn’t give us what we think we deserved. Waagh waagh waagh.” And so on. The whining was as far-reaching as it was intense. Luckily, savvy blogger Blake Snow kept a level head about him and Infendo did not delve into the world of self-aggrandizing and entitlement that gripped the blogosphere last week.
Last week was again a prime example of the gaming press taking general, vague information from Nintendo and making a mountain out of a molehill. Exhbit A, see the Wii’s price tag. “Under $250″ quickly became $199 (and less) not because of Nintendo, but because a handful of vocal people took what they believed would be the best price and started saying it would make or break the new system.
Now we have this delectable press release from Nintendo arriving on the mainstream media’s doorsteps promising what? Not much really, but just enough to get them there with laptops open and minds as closed as they have been about Nintendo for a while now. And what better way to get a “mainstream” media that has become slightly biased toward the hardcore sect over the years to a Nintendo show, right? What better way than to take a page from the Art of War and issue to the press a series of vague promises of some first party IP hands-on time. The same vague promises that will surely balloon into the gossip and rampant unchecked speculation that has, in my opinion (and mine alone), polluted the mainstream gaming media for some time now. With one masterful stroke, Nintendo was able to promote the casual titles that the media would not have been caught dead covering if they knew entire truth about the media event beforehand. Does anyone really think the gaming press, as it exists today, would have showed up otherwise?
This is the same media that now criticizes Nintendo for its secrecy and “media blackouts”; and how Sony is now making a comeback that will overtake Mario and Company if they don’t start talking to the mainstream press. Rubbish. Blackouts don’t hurt Nintendo, they hurt the media. They lessen the role of this elite hardcore media and the influence it plays in dictating the direction of gaming. The proof is in the execution; in what’s already come to pass over the past six months. Instead of hyping their product through the traditional channels (Gamespot, GamePro, IGN), Nintendo chose to let the people who would be buying the product do the talking. When your product virtually sells itself, and with the people playing it serving as the salesman, the gaming press, such as it is, takes the second seat.
But this isn’t to say the mainstream media is going to just dry up and disappear. That’s crazy talk. As the industry takes notice of Wii sales and begins to shift resources (this is already happening), so too will the media outlets that cover the industry. I imagine review scores and commentary will begin to shift in the coming year to reflect not only the wild success of Nintendo, but of the casual gamer genre overall (Halo 3 will still get all 10’s, however). This is not to say casual games = only kiddie/family/puzzle fare. I imagine that the most successful developers out there will manage to combine each of those components into very robust titles that appeal to large swaths of the gaming community.
But back to the media and its perpetual bellyaching last week… If they don’t shift resources and get an attitude adjustment, they go away. Simple as that. Nintendo is getting too big and influential right now for them to simply bitch and moan about their style or press conference game plan and expect to get away with it. That might not sound fair, but in the end this is all a big business, not a hand holding seminar.
And from the looks of last week’s bitching and moaning, that “going away” period could begin very soon.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
hmmm
May 29th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Oh man, you are really a good editorialist, this has to be the finest gaming article i`ve read in a long time. I`m not a regular poster here but because of this article i`ll come more often.
And yes, Nintendo is being insanely clever, not stupid as every gaming columnist is making them to see.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:14 am
I think they all got their panties in a bunch because they didn’t get shown the games they wanted to see.
What they don’t seem to understand is that their bs is the reason why E3 is no longer how it was, companies simply don’t want to put tons of resources into putting on a song and dance routine for a bunch of whiny fanboys that parade around calling themselves journalists.
Personally I’m happy to know some release dates, the Mario strikers has nice online features and that brain age 2 is coming out.
May 29th, 2007 at 5:54 am
If Nintendo has their way, which they just might, and gaming becomes as mainstream as music and movies, the gaming press will not change, they’ll just become as irrelevant as car enthusiast magazines.
The gaming press like what they like, as myopic as that is, and just can’t cope with the idea that someone might like Minesweeper, but not God of War, or Nintendogs, but not Halo.
May 29th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Jack’s back!
May 29th, 2007 at 10:20 am
To add to what Doc_R had to say I would offer that the game industry has become as mainstream as music and movies. It is bigger than both industries and a daily part of life for a majority of people in developed countries.
It is not about the niche that Sony and Microsoft are still catering to, it is about the wider market. If you argue that catering to the hardcore is a valid strategy (as seen by sales) I ask you to look at the bottom line. The more consoles that Sony and Microsoft sell, the more money they lose. Nintendo is not only the best selling console, it is the only one operating in the black. Sony has already lost enough on the Playstation 3 to negate any profit on Spiderman 3. Ouch.
Nintendo has embraced the new demographics of the gaming market. (Aging gamers, casual gamers and mobile gamers.) This demographic has very differnet needs than the hard core sector and Nintendo is the only one catering to them right now. The gaming media is still deeply rooted in it’s hard core demographic roots. Until they learn to embrace the new gaming market and its preferences, there will continue to be a disconnect with their commentary and what is going on in the real world.
Chris in TN.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Jack, I had to go back and read this a second and third time. It’s so nice to see someone address this. (I’ve had trouble verbalizing it..)
Look at IGN’s editorial board.. aside from the Wii/DS editors, many there don’t take Nintendo seriously, going back a number of years. Read or watch the editors’ roundtable discussions - there’s some real venom on display. Most recently, Mr Cassamassina has admitted that Twilight Princess wasn’t even given a chance by a number of editors in their GotY considerations.
Or check-out some of 1Up’s podcasts. The vast majority of all Wii mentions are done so with a thick layer of derision; other times, the Wii is just outright ignored. And they’ll do blanket coverage of Halo 3, (dedicated podcasts, etc.) but how much in comparison will we see of Smash Bros Brawl or Mario Galaxy coverage? Wanna venture a guess?
(an aside: who wants Luke Smith to make a guest appearance on 1UpYours so that he can publicly eat some waggle-flavored crow?)
Think we’d ever see Wii Sports 2 on the cover of GameSpot? Ha!
What happens if the industry shifts in one direction while the media covering it refuses to budge? We just might find out. I hope that Nintendo succeeds in marginalizing the influence of these stalwarts/elitists.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
I don’t think it’s fair, what Nintendo implied vs. what they delivered, but I do agree that the backlash has been nothing but a mutual whinefest of “I didn’t get to play Metroid Prime 3 and nerdgasm” — for the online media, at least. Did any of the print folks feel slighted? If so, they weren’t very vocal, which proves that everyone expected this to be the “Metroid Prime 3 Summit” — I can picture everyone waiting to put Samus on the front page. Still, I don’t think the move to show casual games was as deliberate or as forceful as you’re making it out to be, but maybe it is.
I do acknowledge that it’s good either way, though, as I’ve always felt that the gaming media has given courtesy scores to “casual games” rather than actually enjoying them. IGN’s Nintendo-covering staff seems the most genuine about it, though. Strides have been made, but nothing more than GameSpot giving Nintendogs a 9.1, really. A good review score is one thing, but it’s not like they’re hyping or recommending the game — in fact, the review score seems like a glaring excuse not to do so. Just throw a good score on it, and their hands will be clean — never have to speak about it again. That’s exactly what it seems like to me.
I agree with HylianTom, also. 1Up, who I’m guessing are structured more like IGN than GameSpot (IGN being different staff for each system), have some writers who are vehemently against the Wii, and by the way they speak about it, I don’t even think they’ve ever even touched one — at least not for an amount of time that’s necessary to judge the system fairly. Heck, they may have only seen screenshots. That would actually be typical of gamers (in fact, there’s a joke in Super Paper Mario about it), but that’s no excuse.
Also, there’s a lot of sly slipstreaming in some Wii software reviews where reviewers will let their distaste for something to do with the system itself (rather than the game or even how you interact with the game) affect their reviews. GameSpot is definitely guilty of it. I think IGN has been the best in this regard; they seem more concerned that developers are using what is there to its fullest extent, which is what we should be worrying about.
I think the biggest step forward would be to just fire some people. If they can’t show respect for other companies and write PROFESSIONAL reviews, can ‘em. I think it’s sad that other fields of work would look down upon that, but here it’s commonplace and accepted. I mean, you don’t see IGN’s Nintendo-covering staff saying that Halo is overrated, even though some of them may think so (and it is). So why is it accepted from the other end?
So, back to Nintendo’s media summit, I think showing casual games — and forcing the gaming media to take notice, as you put it — was a good idea, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a big payoff. Besides on Nintendo blogs and sub-sites, I don’t recall any front-page coverage of a first party title, of which there were only casual games available to the online media. That really says something… Stubborn pigs.
May 29th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
About Game magazines (both online and offline):
I think the Wii concept (not by coincidence named Revolution) just doesn’t fit most magazine’s style, since they have propagated the graphics (and with it the screenshots/videos) as the ultimate indicator for Game Goodness for years now. Other stuff like Controls or Sound Effects just have to work or be there at all, same goes for load times and user interface and other marginals.
And maybe it’s not the magazines fault alone that they got that way, since gamers and even people in general just got very visually fixated in our times.
But people caught on, bought Wiis en masse, bought crappy-looking games and had real fun with it and hyped the whole Wii-thing, surprising most magazines and their staff…
May 29th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Good point paddy, which is why video blogging may catch on as a niche news medium for the Wii and DS. Just a guess on my part though.