Peter Moore on Long Tail gaming

[UPDATE: See Microsoft announcement at bottom]

I call it "hitism" (or "headism"); Peter Moore calls it "elitism". In either case, it's the sin of seeing the world only through the lens of megahits. At a games conference this week, Moore, the former Sega US boss and now Microsoft Xbox chief, talked about how to take the game industry into a world beyond the blockbuster.

Here are Moore's first seven rules "to confront elitism and open the doors of our industry", which could just as easily be called Seven Rules Of Long Tail Game Development:

1. Beyond The Boys In Their Bedrooms.  Appeal to a much wider audience.
2. Don’t Pass The Buck On Rising Development Costs.  We need to find ways to reduce costs and restructure our revenue models.
3. Rebel Without A Platform:  Bring Aspiring Developers Into The Fold. For too long we’ve expected the developers of the future to claw their way up to us … we have to start coming to them and proactively develop a farm team of future stars.
4. It’s A YouTube World:  Embrace Community Created Content. We’re control freaks when it comes to how games are delivered to consumers.  We need more spaces where garage designers can get noticed.
5. Set Us Free.  We should look at delivering new IP in new ways that recognize how powerful a concept shaping your own gaming experience is.
6. We’re Too Cool For School:  Make Ourselves More Approachable.  Games are more powerful, but less approachable.  We need to make more games for more people.  Expand demographics, online gameplay, strong family settings. 
7. Lower The Total Cost Of Ownership With Choice.  Consumer should have choices, starting at entry level, purchases should be upgradable, don’t lock consumers in.

It's worth noting that Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade platform, which is an on-demand marketplace for small and inexpensive casual games, many of them created by small teams on even smaller budgets, is a great example of the Long Tail of games. In an industry where the cost of developing a traditional console game is now measured in the tens of millions of dollars, a way to reach those same consumers via a online marketplace with infinite shelf space and a place for niche titles of all sort (include re-releases of classic titles from gaming's past) is a perfect way to "scale down" to the market lost to the hits.

UPDATE. Today (8/14) Microsoft announced XNA Game Studios Express, designed to stimulated exactly what Moore was talking about. From the press release:

In the 30 years of video game development, the art of making console games has been reserved for those with big projects, big budgets and the backing of big game labels. Now Microsoft Corp. is bringing this art to the masses with a revolutionary new set of tools, called XNA Game Studio Express, based on the XNA™ platform. XNA Game Studio Express will democratize game development by delivering the necessary tools to hobbyists, students, indie developers and studios alike to help them bring their creative game ideas to life while nurturing game development talent, collaboration and sharing that will benefit the entire industry.

Thanks to Gamerscoreblog for the transcription of Moore's presentation.

Comments

[steve Rosenbaum]

Of course he's right... the question is there any evidence that big companies can embrace micro-markets with any enthusiasm. They are so in love with (and addicted to) their 'bigness.' Network TV execs used to brag endlessly about the size of their...audience.... when poking at cable.

Now, not so much.

Record labels aren't really doing much to foster or embrace niche categories or small artists. Its' partly an ego thing. and Partly the realities of their overhead and distribution model. In the end, the long tail is about far more than aggregating content by major distributors into a collective mass market.

It's about empowering consumer and pro-sumer creators, the emergence of micro markets, and the inevitable decline of mass merchandising of culture.

All of these things are good. Unless you're the guy at the top of the food chain with a huge overhead and a business methodology based on inflicting hits on the market with overwhelming media firepower.

I suspect that media companies will remain focused on bigness. And i'm pretty sure that game platforms will as well. Meanwhile people will shift toward micro networks of film, tv, games, info, etc. (and of course some will sell to media co's). But the long tail reflects a power shift from mass to niche as well...

[felipe santos]

It's a natural andersonism evolution. Internet access grows with all its broadband, interactive and edu-tainment opportunities within, how can you imagine that a more talented, educated generation will still be reigned by the media conglomerates mega-blockbuster XX Century lifestyle ? Digital andersonism uprising in a very near future is inevitable.

[dwlt]

I actually disagree that Xbox Live Arcade represents a Long Tail market, for the simple reason that it is closed.

Microsoft control very carefully what content is released there (one game per week), and there's also a limited number of slots available. For example, there will only be one chess game ever made available since they don't want to fragment the audience. It's likely that they will only have around 100-150 games available there at any given moment, and they also plan to retire older/poor-performing games out as new games come along. This is exactly the same approach taken by games portals such as Real, MSN and Yahoo, and by the mobile phone companies who provide game downloads.

[Chris]

I find it somewhat funny that the Xbox chief is talking about how they need to lower development costs and expand their audience. This is the _exact_ tack that Nintendo is taking with their Wii console - except they actually are walking the walk. If Moore realy believes in those bullet points, he may want to study how their competition is actually embracing them.

[Greg]

This is for people who work in the game industry. I'm a 30 year old male. I work in 3D graphics, modeling and animation. I just graduated with a BFA from a school with an animation program. I've read Penny Arcade, my friends get it but I don't. I only get the recursive ones about web comics and 3D graphics geeks. Note that the characters in Penny Arcade are my age exactly. I don't own a game system. I haven't owned one since the NES. I would rather buy an NES off of Ebay than buy a new game system. My attitude is that I already have a computer. It can play a lot of good games, I understand how it works and can modify it and find mods for games that run on it. I'm not about to buy another piece of hardware that works by different rules. Maintaining and upgrading my computer is expensive enough. I would like to work in games. I was already trying to learn 3D animation when I bought Diablo 1 and I wanted to do cinematic scenes like that game had. Today however I am hearing a lot of stories about how people work long hours for little pay when they are hired on at game companies. I am hearing that to get hired on at games you have to already have modded a game or be all about games, that being all about 3D graphics is not enough. Its enough to turn someone towards industrial animation instead.

In conclusion; It makes me happy to read Peter Moore's 7 points. I think he understands why there are people out there who feel like I do.

[Allen Sligar]

Moore is right.

The collision between the gaming industry and current market trends is happening faster than many in the industry care to admit. It represents a troubling and unknown set of issues to an industry that has done a good job of treating its consumer base badly at time.

That old-mode industry thought process should be changing shortly....very shortly.

[adventure games]

I think it's quite amazing to see how much the gaming industry has changed in the last 2-3 years. Peter Moore is right, and games now reach a broader audience. The wii is a good example, even if it's only the beginning, it manages to convince people that were just not interested in gaming before. Everyone likes to play, as long as they feel that learning how to play is worth the game itself.

[gifts for men]

Thank you very much. I am wondering if I can share your article in the bookmarks of society. Such a great post i must say .