Phil Therien, a game designer from Ubisoft, declared that the company would no longer focus on developing hardcore FPS titles. According to an article at Destructoid, via an interview at GamePro:
Therien went on the comment that the market for shooters had become “too narrow”, and that compromises had to be made in order to appeal to all consumers in the gaming market.
Colette Bennett, the commentator at Destructoid, expresses confusion at this change in focus:
The funny thing here is, I feel as if FPS is the genre that most non-gamers would be open to (at least, as far as young men are concerned.) While the meat of Ubi’s concern is obviously financial, I can’t help but think the FPS genre has suffered since the superstar ascent of Halo has saturated the market with other titles trying to seek out similar claims to fame. What’s your take: good move on Ubi’s part, or glaring error?
I think it’s certainly a good move for Ubisoft to look at what game types non-gamers are most likely to play. Any young man who is open to playing first-person shooters is, in fact, a gamer in the traditional sense. The traditional gamer demographic is 18-35 year old males, and while that is a desirable demographic to have on tap, it is not the breadth a company like Ubisoft aspires to.
Young men are beside the point for gaming companies these days, and I’m surprised that Bennett doesn’t realize that fact. The same gaming companies can continue to make the same types of hardcore games that the traditional gamers will play and worry over some small fraction of that market share, or they can look to other demographics. Gaming companies don’t need to win over young males. Their support is assumed. If Ubisoft continues to put out a few Tom Clancy or FarCry games every once in a while, they will have sufficient brain share of the core gaming market.
Ubisoft wants to expand beyond that demographic to game types that more readily appeal to the casual gaming demographic. If you haven’t heard, that demographic includes your grandparents, your parents, and your little sister. I don’t know about your family, but my family does not find first-person shooters to be intuitive. If you give them a Mario game, they will readily figure out what they’re supposed to be doing. This demographic did not cut its teeth on Doom or Goldeneye. What appears to be straightforward and clear to the young men in the audience–I am generalizing based on demographics here, not suggesting that women do not like these types of games or are incapable of playing them–requires a gaming re-education.
There is only one other game type that I know of that is as impenetrable as the first-person shooters currently in the market today: real-time strategy. The fact of the matter is that this shouldn’t be the case. First-person games, whether or not shooting is the focus, should be the most intuitive gaming experience on the market. It is the experience closest to our own. The issue with first-person shooters is the shooting. If Ubisoft wants to appeal to a casual gamer with games other golf or tennis on the Wii, they would do well to take what works from the first-person interface and combine that with game elements that are appealing to the casual market.
You know what the solution is? Portal. I know I just started talking about the game because I beat it about four months too late, but that combines the best aspects of a first-person experience with platforming and puzzling. If you add collecting doodads and whatchamacallits to the game, you’ve got mass market gold.
So the memo to Ubisoft should be: a little less hard and a little more core, but the first-person stuff is just dandy.
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