Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Tone Rebellion: Unique Theme
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1 Comments:
Thank you for your comments, I find them always very intriguing. I agree almost with everythig you said, so everyhing I can do is just to add something to your thoughts.
I think mechanics of target groups and "familiar" themes are incredibly complex. It may be true that people, who hate Sci-Fi may be attracted to rather "realisitic" themes. But a bizzare and unique theme can be "realistic" as well, think of something like Franz Kafka, for example.
I think concerning target groups, it gets more and more difficult to use "The Tone Rebellion" as the only example because, although its theme is quite strange, it has generally some paralells to traditional Sci-Fi Themes. You have space, aliens etc.
What about games like "Myst", which were quite surreal and were quite popular with older players.
Also, as you have mentioned, you need to establish some "first contact" to new target groups. I completly agree! That didn't happen in "The Tone Rebellion". I don't know so well about "Myst" but I remember that it was being sold and used as a demo in rather serious PC (and Apple!)Stores.
If you want to adress new customers, don't even think about such things as them going in a store and skimming through names and pictures. People, who don't play games simply don't cosider playing a game, they will never set foot in a games store. Even if they did, they would be instantly driven away by the intimidating atmosphere. Imagine your parents in a local EB Games, they would be lost and confused. You have think about how to meet such customers somewhere else. At a theatre, in a books store, in a museum, while waiting for a train, etc.. What you want to archieve is a stituation where they wouldn't realize that they are about to play a computer game. You have to challenge their views and prejudices of what a computer game is. I think a unusual theme might be quite helpful at doing so.
As for what is "really revolutionary": Communication in general is based on recombination and transformation of already known elements. On the other hand, everything we percieve is always judged and evaluated by comparing it to previous works. I think the term "true innovation" is overused, overhyped and simply misunderstood. It fits well to what you said at the end. I agree that just being "unique" for the sake of it is quite short-sighted. But then again, so is blind immitation.
Innovation shouldn't be a goal to work towards. It should be rather part of what you do. You can see in "The Tone Rebellion" that the unique theme isn't just something that has been tacked-on. It is an integral part of the game and I believe that the game would have been more successfull if Logic Factory had been consequent enough include even marketing in their strategy.
Avant-garde vs. Mainstream, has been discussed for years and I doubt we will come to a conculsion here. I would like to add some last thoughts:
So far, games have been quite market-oriented. I think this is what keeps them from gaining much attention as part of our culture. We have to change that. I believe that goverment funding for games might face game designers with the question of what they want to archieve with their games. Just because some stuff sells well doesn't mean that it is a good and valuable idea.
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