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Midway defines "the great game" |
Listed in: PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC Gaming Tags: Midway Games
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In the second part of an essay submitted to Outsourced, chief marketing officer of game publisher Midway, Steve Allison began to talk about changes needed in game development, especially in the next generation era. According to him, a game is considered a success if the game itself performs exceptionally well in sales.
In his own words, Allison said, "A great game is one that is a commercial success. Period." According to him, review scores do not reveal the commercial performance of a game. In fact, he states that consumers "review games with their wallet." Allison said that creative games tagged at "$ 59 a pop" don't get to sell a million units unless plenty of people really love the developers' work.
He mentioned in passing that a game's sales potential is strongly within the strength of the game's overall concept and the only difference between the estimate and the final result is the way the game marketing is executed. Probably "picking bones" with game developers and their games that just pass off as visually appealing and realistic, Allison also said:
Sure, your craftsmanship may be amazing. But if your concept is not a powerful and relevant male fantasy, executed in a timely fashion, at a level that delivers on the promise of your core idea, you've probably just delivered the videogame equivalent of an art house film.
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Comments
On the flip side, there are games that are revered as some of the best of all time, but marketing and poor advertising meant no one ever even heard of them. Take Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, for example. Both are extraordinary games, but most people have never even heard of them, and, at least for Ico, the sales were pretty lousy.
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Silly, silly remarks about a great game needing to appeal to the whims of a male audience can be utterly ignored. I suppose Mr. Allison wants to write off over half of the human population (women).
Lastly, he seems to disparage art-house films. If it wasn't for so-called "art-house" films, cinema would atrophy under the weight of what 13-year-old boys want to see. That's greatness in a nutshell, isn't it? Yep.
This guy is a real corporate horse with blinders on. He can only see what is relevant to his job, according to the quotations cited here.
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