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Metroid: Other M — no game this year, in my opinion, has started such a storm of controversy about reviews, critics, and gamers themselves. The story of Metroid: Other M became the story itself, nearly overwhelming (and possibly undermining) any discussion about the design and mechanics.
Yet, this isn't the discussion I want to start, either. This isn't going to be about whether I loved or hated Metroid: Other M and why you should as well.
The cut-scenes became a low point for many critics and ignited an Internet firestorm, which means a lot of fans cried for a minute and yelled for 10 more. While cinematics themselves are a small component of video games, they represent a huge problem…and the media may be to blame.
The public seems to ignore so many good, new games — as evidenced by the observation that the same titles appear at the top of NPD sales charts month after month — but probably not for quality reasons. It's mainly prices. I've always believed that console games are just too expensive compared to other mass-media products.
But one of the reasons publishers have justified these prices is the high cost of production. As someone who's worked for a publisher on-and-off for two years, there's a lot of truth to that statement. Publishers invest a lot of money into creating a game, yet any game made today is really no different than those from 10 or 15 years ago.
Sure, it looks a lot prettier, but gamers are still given tasks to complete, goals to get, and levels to finish. None of that has changed with more powerful technology, so none of the money is really going into creative gameplay — just graphically enhanced clones.
Money is going towards production values: flashy cut-scenes, glossy polish, and voice acting. No company exemplifies this more than Activision. And no company values higher profits, at least publicly and obsessively, than Activision. Here's a quote from CEO Bobby Kotick on the lack of advertising in their games:
"We've seen our margins and audiences expand from providing more appealing gameplay. I think why Call of Duty has been so successful is because we're delivering extraordinarily high-quality gameplay, production values, and interactivity at great value."
There's a lot of corporate speak in there that gives away why Kotick (and probably other CEOs) is okay with selling games at high prices: production values. There's been this sentiment since the beginning of this console generation that it's okay to sell a game for 60 bucks because they'll all have motion-picture-like cut-scenes and voice acting — components that are probably the most forgettable.
Many gamers will play a title with no cut-scenes or dialogue if it's really fun to play. In fact, there's a genre that does hook a gamer longer than any lengthy role-playing game: puzzles. Just the mere fact that the puzzle games can have many addicting titles and be impossible to put down sort of proves that the medium doesn't need this expensive flash, and it definitely isn't necessary to make it part of the budget.
What does this have do with Metroid: Other M and game prices? Well, considering how many critics overreacted to the cutscenes and voice acting, Nintendo could be forced to take away focus these devices, which would be a defeat and retreat creatively. Or worse (but highly unlikely) — it could make them spend more on a writers, actors, and a special team just for creating future Metroid cut-scenes. That's money that could be better spent on adequate advertising, programmers, character artists, level designers, and game directors: people who make the gameplay tick.
Unfortunately, other publishers would take the flashy-style route for the quick one-month cash grab. And this leaves rather good games buried in the sales chart, only to be touched when prices drop. Publishers would forget that a solid game is just a playable as one with tons of money and hype thrown at it, which turns game making into an arms race of "production values" as a main weapon that not every developer should use.
However, publishers might not have to go that route if critics weren't so incessant in wanting that kind of quality. I've read review after review where voice-acting and cut-scenes became a major craw in the foot of critics. And yes, publishers do take note of the criticisms and work like hell to fix them. This is a major problem because it makes publishers focus on really nit-picky crap that doesn't make games any better.
Look no further than Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, one of the best 3D platformers ever made: incredible level design, charming story, and great character development. Yet, so many critics couldn't let go of the seemingly repetitive combat, whiny lead character, and lack of boss battles.
So Ubisoft focused on those "flaws" and churned out Warrior Within, a game with lots of combat, a female lead whose deisgn would make a whore vomit, and just whole lot of pointless brooding that nearly buried the platforming and soul that made Sands of Time soar.
Need another example? How about No More Heroes, an honest to goodness great game on the Wii: very flashy and solid combat, wicked dialogue, campy characters, and an over-the-top goofiness that made it enjoyable from beginning to end. Yet critics couldn't let go of the open-world drabness and bizarre minigames. So what happened to No More Heroes 2? Now an open-world game that focused on tighter comabt and more of it, which zapped the wacky spirit away from the original.
When critics are unable to look at games as a whole, they come off as uninformed and ignorant — they're nothing more than a whiny focus group who just want games to be art and respected like films.
My big beef is that this does a disservice to what games are at their core: interactive. And anything that takes away from playing the game doesn't help the industry, gamers, publishers, developers, or retailers. No one gets respect by making carbon copies of something else, so critics, please — stop wishing for games to look like movies and criticizing them when they're not up to your own standards.
But until critics become okay with games being games, expect publishers to keep throwing money at the wrong areas because they believe that this all we want: expensive movies with moments of button pressing instead of games that overflow with good ideas. All the while, smaller games get left in the cold.
Publishers will probably want to charge for the cutscenes next, isn't that right, Mr. Kotick?
"My guess is unlike film studios that are really stuck with a model that goes through theatrical distribution and takes a signification amount of the profit away, if we were to go to an audience and say, 'We have this great hour and a half of linear video that we'd like to make available to you at a $20 or $30 price point,' you'd have the biggest opening weekend of any film ever.