Tag: video games

Not worth the effort: the inertia of the undifferentiated internet

Chris Sutcliffe 7th March 2020

One of the most common criticisms of the internet as a publishing medium is, ironically, also one of its greatest strengths. The fact that anyone can publish inevitably leads onto the fact that many people do publish. That creates an undifferentiated landscape, where the value of any article or video is effectively the same as any other, with no consideration given to the amount of time or research involved in its production.

Less? More?

That is exacerbated by the fact that digital advertising has historically rewarded the production of huge quantities of articles instead of rewarding quality. If you’ve ever despaired at the idea that newspapers’ websites will indulge in churnalism, producing articles that are mutually contradictory, that’s the cause.

That is beginning to shift slightly, as many newspapers’ priorities change from chasing advertising revenue to limiting the number of articles they publish to better serve members and subscribers. However, for generalist titles who have little chance of developing subscription products (usually the tabloid papers), the age of churnalism is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

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Gotta please ’em all: Nintendo and DLC

Chris Sutcliffe 6th February 2020

I was away travelling for six weeks from August to October. While I (mostly) had an incredible time, there was a large part of me that regretted not having brought my Nintendo Switch, if only to potentially score some points with Nintendo UK’s PR team by tweeting a picture of me playing it at Thorong-La Pass.

Three amiibos

Since I returned I’ve been playing catch-up with some games that came out while I was gone. The PlatinumGames-developed Astral Chain, for instance, is a hybrid action/police procedural with a complicated action system that doesn’t quite live up to its former titles. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s own remake of Game Boy classic Link’s Awakening has been a little joy, if a little disappointing in how little it actually adds to the title beyond new visuals and physics. Daemon X Machina is a fun action game that feels tailored to those of us missing the Armoured Core franchise.

I’ve also been playing the post-launch downloadable content (DLC) characters for its flagship fighting game Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, which recently took the title of best-selling fighting game of all time. Despite that success, and the undoubted financial contribution that DLC has made to Nintendo’s bottom line, the adage that ‘you can’t please everyone’ has proven true, as each newly announced character has polarised the fanbase in one way or another.

Its most recently released fighter – Terry, a guest character on loan from SNK’s Fatal Fury and King of Fighters franchises – was subject to criticism from a proportion of the fanbase who were a) unhappy that he was a more difficult fighter to use effectively than the rest of the cast, and b) decided that he was an obscure character who had ‘stolen’ a slot from a character who was better known outside of Japan.

Despite that, and to my surprise – given that I’d played the game to death already before I went away – it’s Super Smash Brothers Ultimate that I’ve played the most since I came back. Its smart approach to DLC – by making it absolutely optional yet supremely desirable – demonstrates that despite having made a slow entry into the DLC space Nintendo understands that their consumer base doesn’t owe them anything (a lesson developers like Bethesda should probably have learned by now).

That said, it was a hard-won lesson. Originally Nintendo locked some content behind its amiibo toys (see picture). This has the dual disadvantages of costing far more than most DLC, and being limited by how much physical stock could be found in stores as well. Notoriously, amiibo sell out far faster than they can be produced.

As regulators begin to crack down on lootbox mechanics, since it is effectively gambling, it’s worth remembering that the best performing games of last year were those that eschewed lootboxes entirely. The most highly awarded ones, like Devil May Cry V, were in fact seen as a return to the glory days when games could be released complete, and DLC was seen as a valuable add-on rather than necessary to complete a released game.

Chris Sutcliffe

enquiries@trippassociates.co.uk

Martin Tripp Associates is a London-based executive search consultancy. While we are best-known for our work across the media, information, technology, communications and entertainment sectors, we have also worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on challenging senior positions. Feel free to contact us to discuss any of the issues raised in this blog.

Streaming is the future – but not for all media

Martin Tripp Associates 7th October 2019

Streaming content is the natural endpoint for entertainment content. The many conveniences that come from streaming outweigh the concerns about a lack of ‘ownership’ for the consumer of the media they consume, data throttling once net neutrality is a distant memory, and the quite justified concerns over subscription fatigue due to the sheer amount of streaming services on offer.

The reality is that ease of use trumps all of those, particularly for casual consumers, and as infrastructure and internet penetration improves further the proportion of people using streaming services will only grow. Last year Ofcom reported that nearly half of UK households now have access to at least one television streaming service, as the number subscribing to the most popular services “increased from 11.2m (39%) in 2018 to 13.3m (47%) in 2019”. That doesn’t take into account the number of households that also subscribe to a music streaming service like Spotify, either.

The Google Stadia proves streaming works for games – in precisely the right circumstances

However, that isn’t to say that streaming is necessarily a good fit for every medium. It works well for low-data, passive mediums like audio and television. Even Netflix’s ambition Black Mirror special, Bandersnatch, which was effectively an experiment in interactive television content in the vein of an adventure game, was possible through Netflix’s infrastructure. But the reality is that the technology and infrastructure to stream many video games isn’t there yet – despite some serious investment from big players.

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Will in-game advertisements backfire for video game companies?

Chris Sutcliffe 4th January 2019

The most recent statistics from the Entertainment Retailer’s Association reveal that the UK video games industry outperforms the music and video industries by a significant margin. Combined physical and digital sales of games reached £3.86bn for the year, a significant improvement on last year, where physical and digital sales for music and video achieved £1.33bn and £2.34bn respectively. That effectively means that games are responsible for over half of all UK home entertainment sales for 2018, a testament to the increasing numbers of the public who have grown up with games as a medium.

Macho nachos.

Monetisation opportunities around games have similarly increased as technology has enabled more ways for consumers to support game developers and publishers. Where once one-off purchases were the only way to support a game, the rise of free-to-play (F2P) games and paid-for downloadable content (DLC) have paved the way for many other models. Despite publishers being ever-more hungry for sources of incidental revenue from their titles, one potential form of revenue – in-game advertising – has never really taken off in the West. But that could be about to change.

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E3 – Has Microsoft Done Enough?

James Dodd 11th June 2018

With PlayStation and Nintendo holding most of the cards when it comes to popular video game exclusives, people have not only been questioning the worth of owning an Xbox, but whether there was any point in Microsoft making another one.  So, all eyes were on Microsoft’s E3 conference last night.  Some considered it a do or die

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Show me the games!

James Dodd 18th April 2018

We have long argued that the games industry should be treated as seriously as those other pillars of the entertainment business, film and music. Government seems to be getting the message, and – as we reported last month – the figures certainly stack up.

But perhaps the BBC is still struggling with the idea of games as a grown-up industry in its own right. When the industry does get coverage (on the Today show, for example), the presenters are typically as well informed as, say, a US senator facing a Facebook Chief Executive.

And then there was last week’s broadcast of the BAFTA Games Awards ceremony. If there is one thing

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