Will Wright, and Why Wii Developers are Doing it Wrong
Most “core” gamers look down on the Wii with shame and distaste. We mostly point to the shovelware and bad ports that are killing the system, and the medium. There are a few gems, though. When we think about the next big thing we’re usually talking about the next brown third person shooter, or comparable in time to rebuilding an antique car RPG.
Will Wright has other premonitions, however. Saying that “most of the Wii games I’ve enjoyed felt more like toys than like games” in this interview with Industry Gamers. A lot of what he talks about makes sense. Not only about what the Wii has to offer, but what the current cycle of consoles has to offer too and how business models have changed.
The Wii, though, has quite the potential for these “toy games”, as Wright says it. Some of my favorite games on the Wii definitely have this feel (the Bit.Trip series, Warioware, and Wii Sports/Resort). It’s a unique experience, and you can’t really argue with the creator of The Sims about casual games. But a lot of them are a bit forgettable. Not really engaging or particularly impacting like Passage or Shadow of the Colossus, but still definitely “fun”.
It all goes back to the age-old argument of “what is fun?”. We can’t seem to get artistic expression out of the games that are “fun” (The bad FPS ports and Arcade-y games that people who shun the Wii seem to point at when degrading the system). However, when a game that tries something different in terms of subjective meaning and expression of ideas through gameplay (Shadow of the Colossus and Braid come to mind) people immediately point to the negative parts of those games when saying “Well, the camera control in SotC made it unenjoyable for me” or “THE PUZZLES IN BRAID ARE HARRRDDDDD”. Which are perfectly valid points, but they’re poor arguments when arguing that those small design imperfections make a game a failure as an artistic endeavor.
So my ‘”very obvious’” advice to Wii developers: make games that target the main demographic of the system, everyone. Wii games ought to be, as Wright says, easy to “pick up and start playing in five minutes”. As much as I enjoy a 90 hour JRPG with the most complex battle system ever, or using an excel spreadsheet to find which gems and enchants maximize my damage in World of Warcraft, I do love me some Peggle in my downtime when I’m waiting for people to come over.
Editorial, Article Tags: art game, Bit.Trip, Brown, Shadow of the Colossus, Wii, Will Wright
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Couldn’t agree more. Things like Tetris, easy to learn, hard to master. Games with an “Easy” mode and “Hard” mode for those that want it. The Wii is not your typical console, so you can’t just make a typical game and expect it to work well.
And for those that say the Wii has bad graphics, how much graphics do you need to make a “fun” game? We all had fun with NES and ATARI games didn’t we? Why does a game have to have “High Def” graphics and cost billions to make for it to be fun?
@TheGeek: Definitely. Thats the problem with some devs currently. They dump insane amounts of money into graphics, completely disregard gameplay elements, then wonder why their game tanks.
An MMO for Wii would be awesome, but it’ll never happen.
A competitive rts for Wii would be aweseome, but it’ll never happen.
If someone other than ninty ever sat down and tried to take appropriate advantage of the mouse-pointer/Wiimote the Wii would be bliss.