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Sega Boss Stresses Fun Factor, Simpler Games 31

Posted by simoniker from the fist-of-fun-is-curiously-orange dept.
Thanks to Video-Fenky for their translation of an interview with Hisao Oguchi, the new boss of Sega. In it, Oguchi argues that less "grandiose games" are the way to rejuvenate the games market, referencing titles such as The Sims, Animal Crossing and Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin as good models for doing this, and saying: "Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users. We can't have people balk at sitting in front of the TV and playing games because it's too tiring. All games are made to be fun for the people playing them, so in the next generation especially, making content that doesn't feel tiring to gamers will be very important."
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Sega Boss Stresses Fun Factor, Simpler Games More

Sega Boss Stresses Fun Factor, Simpler Games

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  • Here Here! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by svallarian ( 43156 ) <svallarian@h[ ]ail.com ['otm' in gap]> on Monday August 25, 2003 @04:11PM (#6787780)
    Now someone pass this on to squaresoft...Why they won't allow you to skip the 5 minute spell-casting screens...How many times do I need to see Knights of the Round??? Once!

    Steven V.
    • So why not fire everyone who didn't understand this in the first place, so they aren't allowed to devolve games to this point ever again?

    • Re:Here Here! (Score:2, Informative)

      by paulcammish ( 542971 )
      Actually, The 'Summons' in FF10 are long the first time you use them, then are edited down on subsiquent calls, as you get bored of them. It works so well, I didnt really notice until about the 20th time I called up Ifrit or whoever... I have an odd feeling that FF8 and FF9 were the same, too - and I DO know that the KOTR summon was WAY longer first time thru than later times...
      • FF8's Guardian Force summoning scenes weren't skippable because they were there for a reason... you're supposed to hit certain buttons repeatedly during them at certain times to trigger the Boost effect. Forgot what it was now, but I think holding down the Map button shows what button to hit and when to hit it. (YET another crazy button mashing puzzle type thing, that wasn't even documented and I discovered on accident while trying to get the animation to stop)
        • Ah yes, that was it... For some reason, all i remember from FF8 is Rinoa, and the Bit in the Ragnarok, and all I have of FF9 is the odd-wizard-guy-with-no-face, like the guy from He-Man.
    • How many times do I need to see Knights of the Round???

      Knights of the round what?
  • The guy understands the secret to enjoyable games. Right now, games are super-elaborate to please the under-20 crowd, who have lots of time to spend on such things. However, the older, more wealthy segment of the population just doesn't care to learn the 400 odd special moves in Tekken Tag Tournament, they have better things to do with their lives.

    Enter simple games.

    The problem with this is, grandiose games are easy to market. "It will blow your mind!!!" etcetera. If another tetris-like breakthrough c
    • How does what he's talking about have anything to do with Linux being a viable distribution model? He's just saying that games are too in-depth for casual players and Sega is looking to do something about it.

      -1 Offtopic
      • LINUX has the best distribution model for GAMES that are actually EASY and FUN. The article is about games that are EASY and FUN. I also talked about distribution models that SEGA might acutally be able to use.

        -1: Read The Fine Post

  • Someone in Japan gets it! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @04:34PM (#6788065) Journal
    We're actively developing our business overseas, of course. The North American marketplace, especially, is twice the size of Japan's. The first fundamental of our overseas strategy is: if the title's meant for North America, then it's Americans that make it. There will always be a culture barrier that we can't completely bury. For example, Japanese people wouldn't understand what a player should say when he's tackled in a football game.

    OMFG! Someone over there gets it. I'd expect no less from the Japanese company founded by an American.

    See, all joking about Nintendo aside, they don't make things with Americans in mind. They make products, then decide what the Americans are likely to buy. And that is why they are increasingly niche in this country. (Ok fanboys, please notice increasingly, compare the NES to today...) See, when they made the NES, it was designed largely by Nintendo of America. It was significantly different from the Famicom because the markets are significantly different. Today there is no difference between a Japanese and an American Gamecube outside of region encoding. The result? The Gamecube is a non-standard size and does not fit in the standard American entertainment unit slot. And thats just one example, but it isn't my main point in this post...

    I'm concerned because he ackowledges the differences and explains Sega's solution (different developers for different regions as appropriate), but goes back on it when talking about simpler gameplay. The thing is, the numbers indicate Americans want more complex gameplay. A sampling from the PS2 SCEA greatest hits list:
    THPS3
    Metal Gear Solid 2
    WWE Smackdown
    SOCOM
    Max Payne
    NBA 2k2
    NFL 2k2
    Grand Theft Auto 3

    Not a dance title in the bunch. Sure there are a few examples of Japanese style games in the whole list, but these are really the exception that proves the rule. The fact is, that as the American mainstream embraces gaming more and more, the Japanese and American markets are becoming more different than ever. And thats ok. I just hope Sega and Nintendo and the others can learn to embrace it like Konami has (they make MGS even though it only ever does well Stateside) and target completely different games for the two completely different audiences.

    One wouldn't expect the games on the list above to do well in Japan, why does one expect that their games will go over well with the US mainstream? Sure Nintendo will always have its fans. And thats ok. But if they want to hit the mainstream, they might want to consider thinking different.
    • All games are made to be fun for the people playing them
      He's not the only guy in japan who gets it. If I'm not mistaken, Mssr Miyamoto has been saying the above for a while, and has been derided by industry types for saying so.
      My brother in law has been salivating over the advertisements for John Madden 200X for a while now, and I've sat him down with (NFL2k3). As much as he loves the graphics, and the idea of a realistic video football game, he invariably gives up in about 10 minutes. "It's too much wo
      • Clearly, you don't get it in the way to which I was referring. Your boy Miyamoto #1 has not been directly involved with the development of a game since the SNES days and #2 no longer gets it. The "IT" that I am referring to here, is that what the typical US gamer wants is different than what the typical Japanese gamer wants. And again, thats ok. What I am interested in is that Sega realizes this and is trying to cope.

        Nintendo may come around yet, but they are living in 1989 when they had monopoly pow
    • While I agree with you to some extent, there are a couple of points that were missed:

      No Nintendo (and most other consoles) has ever fit in a standard entertainment unit slot. This is especially true of top-loading systems (SNES, N64, GameCube, Sega Dreamcast). Even the front-loading systems usually don't fit because consoles tend to be made much smaller than A/V components (except maybe the X-Box which has an odd top surface).

      The top 10 games in North America for the week ending Aug 19th included 3 Ninten

  • Wait a minute... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Monday August 25, 2003 @04:57PM (#6788270) Journal
    Games should be.... fun?

    HERESY!!

  • Complicated games != Shrinking Market Share (Score:4, Interesting)

    by acxr is wasted ( 653126 ) * on Monday August 25, 2003 @05:24PM (#6788539)
    Complicated games mean a stable audience, however this is not what game companies want. It's important to keep this article in context.

    Sega is in quite a precarious position at the moment. The road to becoming a strictly software company has been rough, and stems from the fundamental problem that no one is playing their games. Quite logically, a company with a small market share wants to expand its audience. The simplest way to do this is to create simple games that have mass appeal. Now, this is not some geek-elitist opinion of mine; I am not calling the masses "simple." However, it's much easier to capture a customer by giving them a simple challenge that doesn't take much learning.

    Despite Sega's new "design philosophy," there will always, always be a place for complicated and difficult games. Despite the fact that the population-at-large will statistically prefer the "easy" game to the "hard" one, there will always be a sect of hardcore gamers: people with experience on many consoles that enjoy controller-busting challenges. Just as the game industry needs to grow, it also needs its zealots, too. These are the people that are more open to trying new concepts, and will eventually show companies which direction they ought to follow. While a new gamer may be scared by difficult controls, or a non-standard interface, a more mature gamer can look past the learning phase into the real meat of the game, seeing the experience for what it's really worth. This is evolution at work within the game industry, and natural selection has given us analog controls, lock-on targeting in 3d games, and even standard mouse and keyboard controls for first-person shooters.

    Really, it is not the games themselves that are complicated, but rather their interfaces. This is something Nintendo understands quite well, and they've taken a lot of flack for it. The Gamecube's controller design oozes simplicity. (Simplicity in that your fingers know precisely where to go.) Certain buttons makes themselves very clear that they are important, and to what degree that importance is. While this works well when all your games follow this standard, third party titles can (unintentionally) muck this whole system up. When playing a Gamecube game, it's very clear whether the game was designed with Nintendo's system in mind, or simply as a cross-platform port. A perfect example is Madden, or any football game, for that matter. When your quarterback goes to pass on your PS2 or X-Box, the buttons for each receiver are very obvious and equally important. A quick glance at either system's controller shows that, clearly, all of the face buttons are just as important as one another, just as each receiver is equally important on the field. Nintendo's pad, however, while perfect for Metroid Prime or Super Smash Bros., simply sucks as a football controller.

    Now, the paradox has become apparent. At what point does game simplicity break down from lack of control? When does complicated become too complicated? Who, exactly, is to blame for shoddy control? Is Sony responsible for making a pad that's very open-ended as to which buttons are considered important to a game? Is Nintendo responsible for not giving developers enough freedom in their controls? Is Electronic Arts responsible for not using the Gamecube controller to its fullest extent?
    • At what point does game simplicity break down from lack of control? When does complicated become too complicated?

      These two questions are pretty much the same, but it all comes down to making a judgment on a game-by-game basis, and also shows where ports break down. If a developer could spend adequate time testing the controls of each console with their title, they might make adjustments to the interface to account for it, but overall it comes down to conditioning, and maybe they're just using the same tes
    • When you take a look at say, any 10 or 50 games, and take a look at how those games are played, you will notice that for the vast majority of those games, you are using one or two buttons much more often then the others. In a shooter, your mostly shooting. In a platformer, your mostly jumping. Also, in the games menu system you are tyically using one button to confirm and another to cancel / back out.

      Having a controller where all the buttons are equal in size only makes sense when all the buttons are go
  • "Developers can't force their game worlds and huge stories on users."

    Say that you like to play games, say that you would like to play online because playing with/against other human being is more fun/challenging/whateveryouwant... say that maybe you also have a life... would you really log once in a while in some ultima online or diablo server and hang around as the very weak guy that could be crushed anytime by any hardcore semipro online gaming addicted who can and usually do stay in the game 24/7?

    D
  • Years ago I would have plenty of time for epics like Civilization or SimCity. But no more...

    Now, I'm quite content with the simple games. More often than not, the online games over at Yahoo. Simple way to burn 10 minutes.

    That's not to say that complex games are bad or no longer going to sell though! It's just a realization that the "gaming" market is big and diverse. Not everyone has the time or interest to "learn a game".
  • The deeper you look into the past, the more you see the game industry as a niche. Game developers were catering to that niche, by making more and more complex games in order to ensure the die hard gamer (their target) keeps seeing something new.

    These days with 13 year old girls and the like entering the console market, Sega is just doing the logical thing and retargetting a broader audience. Hopefully this wont mean those of us that have propped the industry up for the past 20 years are sacrificed on the
  • We are going the way of TV, when we almost got away from it.

    When people watch TV, they just sit there, and vegetate. They dont really think. They dont have to think hard, strategize, manipulate, orientate. They just sit there and be amused by what is on the television.

    Computer games should be different. I hate it when I come home for a week and my sister, a dumb blonde with probably no future (I'm nothing if not honest), sitting there playing mindless arcade games like you'd find on neopets.com.

    Compa

  • Diversity, please. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Cychwyn ( 225527 )
    Surely we need both? I play "simple" games (such as "Wario Ware"), or games with a good save-function for those spare ten minutes waiting for the bus, or for a break from work. When I happen to have a spare weekend, I like something more complex that will draw me in Friday evening and not spit me out until Monday morning. Yes, the "just one more go" type game could do that, but something slightly less repetetive is more fun in the long run. I *like* a good story and a huge and strange world to explore (and
  • I personally don't feel that complexity it an issue with games today. A bit of a challange is a good thing. The problem I am seeing with games is that they are no longer about playing a game and having fun, and more about the producer trying to tell some story. Now, storylines are fine, and good, we need them to hold the violence together, but I start having a problem when I am spending more time watching cut-scenes than I am actually playing the game. A great example of this is the Final Fantasy series

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