Games: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As someone interested in entering the game industry, I have good reason to be happy about good news, sad about bad news, and annoyed at idiots. Today has a little from column A, a little from column B.

The Good

A German survey indicates good news for the game industry - 40% of respondents aged 14 to 64 spend time gaming. The percent generally increases as the age range shrinks towards the younger end, but those younger people have had immersive games for a larger portion of their lives. These are uplifting results. It means the industry I want to be a part of has a healthy demand. In all likelihood, that demand will increase as those 14-19 year old kids grow up to become parents and give games to their kids.

I was a little surprised to find the report on this survey in The China Post, but news is news, I suppose. I'll have to look harder for more details about the survey (update: I found a PDF on the survey; warning: the PDF is in German), but what I found really interesting from the TCP article was this:

The most popular are logic games, followed by strategy, racing, action and shooter games. However, youths had almost opposite tastes, with action and adventure games outpacing intelligence games.

The [Potentially] Bad

Gibson, in a possibly very boneheaded move, is suing Activision and several retail chains over Guitar Hero. We don't yet know the results of the back-and-forth litigation, but if it goes Gibson's way, I think it may set some bad precedent for future licensed games.

On the one hand, Gibson is relatively small, when compared to the companies they're trying to sue (Activision, Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Amazon.com, Toys 'R' Us and GameStop). Many legal battles depend on the quality, quantity, and duration of lawyer you can bring forth, all of which cost extra money. Extra money which Gibson may not have, but the other companies may. Aside from that, Guitar Hero was released in November of 2005, and it's taken until now for Gibson to do anything (not to mention shooting themselves in the foot after the deal they originally made with Activision for the game). Gibson doesn't appear to have a very strong case, but IANAL.

On the other hand, if Gibson does manage to win the case(s), what's that going to mean for future games with licensed content? Entering an agreement with a game company and suing them about it three years later may not seem like an intelligent business move, but doing so would cost the game companies money, which either means they continue making licensed games but lose money, or they stop making licensed games. I'm all for original concept in games, but using known quantities also has it's place. And as far as the publishers are concerned, whatever has a better chance at money is the one that gets developed. The producers know that things like Gibson guitars and Spiderman draw customers (note to self: Start programming GuitarSpiderHeroMan - money will be made!), so licensing is a good thing.

Update: Thinking about it, this might just be a money grab, hoping the companies they sue will just settle out of court. If that's the case, well... Gibson just sucks.

The Ugly

Some people are just stupid. Here's the dig: if a kid does something they saw in a video game, they probably would have done it if the game never existed. Some individuals in Canada are trying to ban Bully: Scholarship Edition, with the reasoning that kids playing the Bully game will become bullies themselves. The same occurred with the violent stuff in games like the Grand Theft Auto series of games.

But any kid playing these games should be able to tell the difference between reality and fiction. Here's a question to parents: Are you letting your kid play games that are rated above their age range? The ESRB exists for a reason. If your child can't distinguish between life and fantasy, you need to take away their games (all of them) and have a good discussion with your kid. Get them out into the real world, too, because they probably don't have many friends aside from anonymous strangers they've met online.

If there is any kid out there who was normal and well-adjusted, then played Bully, and started emulating events in the game in his school, I'll eat my words. But in every instance of a kid blaming things on a game, the kid wasn't normal beforehand - the game is either a scapegoat or the last straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm not really sure why such a game came out

-Robert Frenette

It's quite easy to think why the game came out. Someone came up with the idea, someone else thought it would make money. Time was spent developing it, and money was spent producing it. And now it is available for sale. Quite simple; just economics. There's nothing sinister about video games, or the people that make them.