quote: Original post by Sneftel

Myst was one of the best-selling computer games of all time.

>In a time when computer games were simply not main stream, which by definition _not_ mass market. Mass market means main stream.

quote: Original post by beantas
I''m a bit confused on what this means. I''m not sure why, by its definition, a mass-market game would need to have never-before-seen gameplay/content.

>Because when one creates a new market, for example, the mass market game market, the act of innovation itself requires a redefining paradigm of previous perceptions. It''s kinda like the first law of empirical science which states that with every advance you must be prepared to accept that everything you knew before was wrong. In this case, I think we can say when that kind of game comes along, all previous paradigms of what games are will have to be obsolesced. Techies are comfortable with obsolescense much more than the masses.


I can understand if you''re saying that is one of the factors that causes a game to become a mass-market game. I guess I agree with Sneftel. I believe Myst was a mass-market game. Myst meets all of your requirements except for this one about never-before-seen-gameplay.

>With the exception of one key and mass market game defining criteria, proving it is not a mass market game: It didn''t sell in the sheer numbers the new paradigm trends out too; sure, it sold a darn tootin lot - if memory serves, it sold a coupla million units shipped over a two year period, where most of us tend to thing a successful game is some hundreds of thousands of units shipped; my assertion is that the first mass market game will ship tens of millions of units rather rapidly, not as a result of popularity spread out over a couple of years or more, but rather by design in the first several months. *Note: ''darn tootin'' was used with the express written permission of the flavor of the tread under discussion.


It also became a media event. It made the 10 o''clock news as this new game that everyone was playing, even your dentist or grandson.

>A media event and making the news are the difference between a rare steak at the trailhead and some beef jerky in the rain. Ugh.

I am not going to be an absolutist about all this, some of the things you raise are cogent, insightful and extremely valid, and I could quite frankly be wrong in entirety. But I do suggest that when it occurs, we are all going to be quite surprised at how a, we could not predict it to the point where we never saw it coming except in saying ''one day we knew it would come'', b, it''s going to be in a format that redefines what is considered "a game" and "a game designed for the computer" and "a gaming entertainment experience" and c, it will likely be the result of the old marketing adage, "In any given market at any given time, only one bold stroke will work."

When this thing comes, it will be huge, revalating and gonna slay, and I''m an agnostic.

Addy

quote: Original post by ThoughtBubble


Now, care to explain what you mean by "How would writing apply?"

quote: Original post by Impossible

In that case Eminem isn''t mass market music...

>It''s definitely not. In fact the main reason it made so much money was that it was targeted very narrowly toward a specific demographic, and we ain''t talking grey hairs and salt and peppa hairs (yours truly excluded, I''m bald and I saw it.)

Generally it takes a while for mass market franchises to become mass market, unless they have a huge marketing campaign behind them.

Generally anything targeted for a mass market, franchise design applied to the model or not, has a huge marketing campaign behind it, one part for brand establishment, one part for brand recognition, and one part for brand memorization (all subsets of positioning)


In my opinion a game isn''t mass market just because it sells a lot, it''s mass market once it becomes part of the rest of popular culture.

>But how? Does it become part of popular culture via popularity or acceptance over time (I don''t think so, that sounds more like nostalgic acceptance to me), or does it become so if it becomes part of popular culture because it is a trend that became a penetrated purchase and use by spectrumatic demographics in a short period of time, shorter than it takes for nostalgia to form.

Popularized does not necessarily mean culturalized. The macarena swept the world really quickly, and everyone heard about it and you saw it on endless media (for about a week) and we can say that never became part of popular culture. Personal computing, in contrast, became part of popular culture unequivocably, albeit slowly, as was mentioned, and perhaps that is part of the formula for the qualification, though I think not.

In that case, games like Doom, Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, Pacman, Pong, Mario, etc. are mass market, even though some of them aren''t selling at all right now, most people that know what a video or computer game is would know at least one of these games. Tetris and Solataire are definitely mass market.

>I still assert (I have no real facts to support this basis, it''s just my opinion) that the first mass market game is going to be like the NFL, or the NBA, it''s going to be a game played nationally and internationally, it''s going to have millions and millions of fans who will play the game for a very long time, there will be media specifically dedicated to it (think Game Developer magazine cubed, webbed and televised), it will become part of the conversation in coffee shops, on break in blue collar machine shops, around water coolers on the executive floors, at beauty parlors, in post offices, restaurants and schoolhalls.

None of the titles mentioned herein or to date have met this test, yet I submit for urgent consideration to my peers in the development areas of this community that indeed is the very scale and nature of the opportunity before us, and we should step up, we need to step up. The mass market game just might change the planet for the better and make unprecedented piles of cash simultaneously.

We need to create this kind of game because frankly the society needs it. They are addicted to entertainment (and education is part of entertainment; remember educate, entertain and enlighten from your entertainment curricula?), they require the format for their edification, and how many examples can you name in the NBA, the NFL and the Baseball league that every child or adult in america or internationally can actually look up to and identify with, and walk away with a real example of how reality is or something they can aspire to realistically.

Our culture is obsessed with the grooming and adulation of princes and princesses to the detriment and exclusion of the masses. Games have the power to ennoble everyone who interfaces and interacts with it, and that is what really scares a lot of institutions who are primarily interested in controlling how society serves them and resisting change because it threatens the status quo. This is why our industry gets a lot of flack from a lot of right wing organizations and their media machines and moguls.


And frankly (as well as hysterically ironically), we are the very people who have that power. My design is as responsive to that potential as I am creatively and techically capable of, and I submit to all of you that is how impactive and positive an effect we can _permanently and positively_ have on not only popular culture, but society and civilization itself. These kinds of designs do not require gunplay at the heart of the gameplay.

If you don''t think that the game industry is going to own the entertainment and education markets in twenty years or sooner, you should, or have we all forgotten that old adage that rings so true that has been in game development for decades: "you may not like computer games now, but you will."

Shucks, ppl, there has never been such a great opportunity to change civilazation, and never a more powerful tool to do it with. We really ought to stop pissing around and organize a political agenda and begin advocating it, but then, that would require putting our personal agendas aside sacrificially, wouldn''t it? Or do you think times have not changed forever that complacency and self-indulgence will be able to survive for more than a couple more generations?

Sorry bout the soapbox, but we should stop trying to prognosticate and qualify what the mass market game is or isn''t and go to work and build the thing so we can help this planet and shrug off this flack and retrogression from the people who want precisely zero change and progress.

And yes, I''d be honored if you joined me, but I would be dishonoring you if I couldn''t pay you for your hard work.

Addy

quote: Original post by kseh
I don''t have a lot of time to write, but I want to get this out.

Is the whole appeal of a western the "frontier factor?"

>I suggest that it was the period of time in history where one person could have amazing influence for good or evil, evil and good were as clearly defined as black and white are, strangers would come to your aide where today they would drive by, it was both a dangerous and miraculous time. Snake oil salesmen were run out of town tarred and feathered, but last week the San Jose paper showed 40 dot coms where the CEO''s took out millions and the share value dropped an average of 99.99 percent. Women found the ability to assert their identity, influence and rights on a one on one basis, we created heroes out of calamity (custer is a good example), an individual could live in integrity and perfectly happy solitude in stunning awe inspiring settings without relying on a single other person for money or resources, self reliance was probably higher than in any other time in our history, somebody could build an empire, or just as easily choose to open a general store that didn''t make a lot of money but fed and fit a community on credit so a town would survive, it was a time when sacrifice for community was rewarded with what people were able to do in return based on what their sense of appreciation was, not on what they could afford or had the time to do. It was an amazing time, and for a hundred and fifty years afterward, children everywhere played cowboys and indians and cavalry until ''soldier'' came along and replaced it as an archtype. A person could carve out their own kingdom by the sweat or thier brow and their own wit, or they could live simply and happily with just what they needed handily near by.

It was quite a standard that was set that is the standard we all labor under in one sense or another still. We are not going to frankly be able to stride into the future until we process the past out of popular culture.

The idea that there''s opertunity and danger out there. Populations are usually sparse, but people in a community are closely knitted. Doesn''t this more or less apply to a lot of game storys? Doesn''t this sort of thing show up a lot in most writing simply because it makes a good story?

Most particulary so in plot designs where resources are so sparse. This was the methodology of great writers like Chekov and Miller. The story really is in our hearts and our lives. Now that is a computer game I would like the masses to play, that precious feeling has been stripped out of them by the media and the out of the box off the rack lifepath. baa!

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Anything that romanticizes the bond between a person and a horse can be done better with a fantasy animal like a Companion or a dragon.

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Basically IMHO the western genre is obsolete.

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
I might consider writing a western/fantasy hybrid, but I''m just not interested in writing a pure western.

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
OTOH... the western genre would probably make for excellent horror/suspense adventure games, train-empire building strategy sims, comedy adventure games, and MMORPGS.