Lies, Damned Lies, And Gaming Statistics

Thanks to the IGDA for pointing to a recent Chris Crawford-authored piece discussing the unreliability of statistics that reveal an ever-more diverse gaming public. The piece cites a recent Entertainment Software Association study and suggests that, because they don't reveal their methods or sources, "...the ESA results are unscientific. We can't place any confidence in them because we have no idea what they really mean. It doesn't matter how representative the sample is or how large it is or even if the researchers wore white lab coats." The ever-controversial Crawford goes on to argue that "Games people are smarting about the tawdry, unhealthy image that their industry suffers", and then offers a way out: "What's especially sad about this is that the solution to these problems is obvious: start making respectable games."

Surveys of your friends

[ElleyKitten]

This is why you can't take surveys of your friends. If I did the same thing, I'ld get the reverse results, because almost everyone I know plays games more than they read books or go to the movies. Granted, maybe the people I know are wierd since most of them never see movies, but no wierder than his friends, many of which said 'never' to the video game question.

He does make a good pointabout how the ESA survey is flawed, but then he tries to make his survey sound better, and then he falsely accuses the game industry of being 'tawdry'.

For every Betty Bigtits there's a Mickey Mouse [movie]

There are plenty of Mickey Mouse games, way too many I'ld say. Go to Gamestop, look at the PS2 shelf, and count how many Disney games there are. Then count how many "Betty Bigtits" there are. There's one that comes close, BMX XXX, and it's probably not on the shelf anymore because it sucks. It was the game equivalant of "Gigli" for its popularity. There's no other games (Right now, the Lesuire Suit Larry series and the Atati porn games count as much as a 20 year old porno) that come close in terms of 'tawdryness'. Ok, there's Dead or Alive beach volleyball, but there's no nudity, and, unlike any porn movie, it provides fun besides just looking at the girls (girl who played it for months talking her!).

Finally he talks about how the game industry doesn't have enough independent games. While this is a problem, it can't be solved just by telling the game companies to support independent people. Where a book, or even a movie can be made by someone on their own, a game, a full-fledged mainstream competitive game, cannot be. Anyone can write a book, and, to a lesser extent, make a movie that could be competitive (watch "Clerks" sometime, you can tell that the guy had no money when he made it, but it's still a movie you'ld rent from Blockbuster like any other, unlike an independent game you'ld pick up because it's cheap). Untill any random person can make a game, there will be no good independant games.

Re:There is a pretty big indie games scene.

[tigermonkey]

I do not think that is so true. There are a few independant groups which make wildly popular games. eg Doom, snood, various other 'indies'. Over the last few years the indie game scene has really taken off. I think these people make games for a lot of people not into the mainstream games.

Yeah, but wildly popular in terms of those who have access to the 'Net, and know where to look. How many indie games do you see sold in mainstream stores (like the big retailers) or even specialty stores (like EB or Gamestop)?

Most, if not all, of the games stocking the shelves are from established publishers, or from large corporations (primarily, Microsoft, but once upon a time, IBM did sell games); until indie games can be picked up with some frequency at some place like Target or EB, I don't think indie games will be able to assume a 'mainstream' presence, and I think this is what Mr. Crawford was talking about: making the smaller games more visible at retail level.

Using movies as an example, big studios do distribute smaller, more experimental films; there are also new studios which are willing to take a chance (IFC Films springs immediately to mind). The situation in video games is not the same: either a large publisher is publishing your game, or your game gets buried in a 'shovelware' pack.

Without a big game studio behind an indie game, I don't think the good indie games are going to get the kind of exposure that, say, an indie film or indie music group/album would get. You have whole channels devoted to promoting new, not necessarily mainstream music (MTV2 springs to mind) and new, not necessarily mainsteam film (IFC and Sundance, for example); in the gaming world, you're limited to something like G4...which will only talk to you if you're a big studio or a console developer (at least, I haven't seen a game from, say, Garage Games or Matrix Games on that channel yet). And I think there is enough of a game-playing public which doesn't log onto the Internet religiously which will miss out on the indie game scene, unless they somehow find out where to look for indie titles...

And if a big studio's PR/marketing efforts got behind some kind of clearinghouse for indie titles or some kind of collective of smaller game studios, I think that the gaming public-at-large would have a much better idea of where to start looking for indie games...as well as improving visibility on the retail level.

monkeynova