When the Game becomes more important than the Gamer..

We eagerly waited for the clock to strike 4:30 p.m. and hoped on the school bus to reach the local cafe just in time; for it was WAR!! We tore through the enemy forces to successfully plant the bomb with pitch-perfect coordination which would have made a special ops agent blush. If the ‘gentlemen’ had homework and left early, the cafe became host to split screen fights and races. The sheer joy of shouting and jeering as you tackled your opponent’s car and just made it to a photo finish couldn’t have been possible without you and your friends physically being present in the same room. Sadly work, education, responsibilities and even technology has pulled us apart and ‘playing in the same room’ was restricted to old classics and Indie-games. Gone are split screens, offline matches, and free demos to be replaced by additional paid DLC, early access copies, micro-transactions, and online-only multiplayer games.

Game development has indeed become a business in its own right, giving the film industry a run for its money. The growth has been well justified with the daily consumer demanding better graphics, game-play and other immersive features to connect with the gaming community. The promotional campaigns have drastically changed from game demos and trials to big event promotions and game-play trailers to generate the much-needed hype. As many consumers are ready to board the hype train, a well-established developer need not release a demo. Free trials for products have been unable to establish a firm relationship with the customer in the past and game demos became a factor for rejecting a product rather than playing and then selecting. With games being unveiled on global platforms like Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) or Tokyo Game Show (TGS), the number of audiences reached and buzz created far outweigh the need for a demo. Another feature that has significantly come down are split screens which are restricted to old favorites or games from new and small developers. Apart from the need for more than a single copy of the game, modern games have steep hardware requirements and it could be logical to divert all the performance required toward singleplayer or online multiplayer. But what it does rob us of is the feeling of “beating your friend and savoring the victory”, of laughing together at the goof up and the excitement of being together and playing together.

Another outcome of the rising video game business is the concept of ‘Pay to Win’. With EA making recent news for micro-transactions, this unfortunate turn of events has sadly made the consumer shell out more money to win easy. Instead of grinding through the levels for that special price, consumers can simply perform an additional transaction and purchase over-powered equipment which could easily turn the tides in an online match. If game developers wished to cater to all types of gamers – those with more money than time, then the concept of fair-play is lost and the consumer reaches the burnout stage of the product where the product is no more challenging to him. When the product reaches this stage of decline, the consumer will no longer return for the experience. Game developers can restrict micro-transactions to cosmetic changes or charge for additional content only if the content is significant enough eg. DLC

In spite of the changing demand and widening product categories, consumers have successfully been able to pick out a good product from a lot of many half-baked games. A good game should constantly challenge the gamer but at the same time reward him/her for persistence and perseverance. Pokemon-Go being a simple free to play game managed to bring more gamers together from all ages than what million dollar sequels of popular franchises couldn’t, even if the product life-cycle was short. Great gaming moments are had when the gamer and the game become an equally important part of the experience. And thus, there is a need to bring back the golden age of gaming where the consumer is of equal importance as the product.