The Rights and Play Needs of Minorities

Commercial game development is driven by capitalism, by the desire to generate wealth. This is why development becomes increasingly geared towards the mass market - as it is here that the greatest volume of wealth can be found. But is the greatest volume of wealth an ethically sound goal state?

One of the essential problems with our current systems of capitalism, is that the goals are unbounded. Acquire wealth is a nice clean mission statement, but it is open ended... the assumption for good or ill is that the acquisition of wealth is a goal in and of itself, which from a certain perspective is fair enough. However, increasingly I find myself in a position where I feel as individuals we have a duty to take only what we need.

I have no problem with mass market games - in fact, I think it's wonderful that we are finally making some games which meet the play needs of a wider audience. (We still have a vast distance to travel, but a journey of a thousand steps...) However, is it prudent to target only the mass market? And furthermore, is it ethical to neglect the play needs (and, from an economic perspective, profit potential) of minority groups?

In art and media, quasi-governmental organisations exist to ensure that the broadcasting and expression needs of minority groups are not completely ignored. Not so in games... There exists little or no funding for "minority games" (putting aside any issues of what constitutes a minority in this perspective).

From the point of view of the game audience, what used to be the centre of the market has moved to the fringes. This applies in particular to the Hardcore clusters which, in our DGD1 model, we identify as H2 Managers and H3 Wanderers and (to a lesser extent) the H1 Conquerors. The C1 and C2 clusters - and in particular the male members of these audience clusters are where the mass market cash can be found, and it is here that much development is targeted. The Hardcore clusters are now, from a certain perspective, a minority. And as such, there is unquiet in their ranks (particularly among the vocal hardcore) that their play needs are no longer being met.

Now it must be said, much of the discussion among the vocal hardcore is not couched in these terms - they may lament that there are "no good games", or that "they don't make them like the used to" or what have you, or harken back for a specific era. Nonetheless, there is the feeling that among certain minorities in the game audience, the titles are not being provided that meet their play needs.

But I don't believe it's necessary (yet) for external intervention. These particular minorities represent niche markets which, in principle at least, should be serviceable markets. All you have to do is curtail the development costs commensurate with the audience. Witness, for instance, the continuing existence of Nippon Ichi games - innovative turn based strategy games delivered to PS2 on a shoestring budget. They keep making them, and keep exporting them from Japan to the West - I have no reason to believe (especially given the relatively low production values) that they are not making a profit at their own scale. These games are meeting an H2 play need which is overlooked elsewhere - because strategic/tactical play isn't really a priority for the mass market.

Similarly, one assumes that Alien Hominid is meeting the play needs of H1 Conqueror players who yearn for the days of the viciously hard arcade shooters... Games that you played twice a day for months and months, because that was the only way to acquire the necessary skills to get decent enough to complete them. The mass market lacks the patience for such a challenge - but there are players out there in a niche market, and Alien Hominid presumably meets their needs. (I look forward to seeing if it turns a decent profit).

There may come a time when it is necessary for intervention to support minority play needs, but for the time being this doesn't seem to be an issue. The Hardcore market is out there, and it may be smaller than the mass market, but it does seem viable to meet their play needs on a smaller budget. All we have to do now is find that sweet spot between development budget and expected returns, and an 'art house' games movement might begin in earnest.

Such an option probably doesn't seem like a great investment for a company like EA which has largely leapfrogged over the Hardcore and left them behind in its multimillion dollar dust, but there are plenty of other publishers out there at all scales. All we need to meet the play needs of minority Hardcore niches is to discover the balance point at which it is profitable to do so.

In the wider scale, of course, we have to believe there are people out there who do not fit into the Hardcore market segment. The Hardcore's needs can be services because they are game literate, and they seek and find the games they like. What about minorities which are not game literate. Do we have an obligation to meet their play needs?

If we do, it seems we cannot count on the publishing world to do so. Motivated solely by profit, there is no space in the mission statement of a giant publisher to meet minority play needs, is there? Except, of course, that by striving to meet the play needs of minorities, publishers can uncover new markets and, crucially, corner the market there. Would EA be where it is today had it not hit upon the idea to license sports stars for its 1983 game Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One - a game which in effect paved the way for the sports franchises which are the backbone of EA's cashflow even today.

Electronic Arts is currently the largest publisher by turnover, but they have the smallest investment in original product of any big league publisher... I personally think this is bad business, since innovation and adaptability go hand in hand, and it can only be a matter of time before EA is caught out by a sudden shift in the market (of course, it could be a very long time...). In the same way that other multinationals invest in charities, should not the big publishers invest in meeting minority play needs? Could 'art house games' not find their funding from big publisher philanthropy? This is not just a humanitarian goal - it could transpire to be a sound economic investment.

Minorities only have rights because we, as ethical creatures, have belief systems which support the notion of rights and obligations. If minority groups with specific play needs do have the right to have games made for them, then someone has the obligation to meet those needs. And it may even be profitable to do so.

Comments

[James]

I don't get it. In the previous post you posit that programmers have an obligation to cater to the profitable mass market for their company; now they have an obligation to cater to the niche? This dualism seems ever-present in the industry - as a game design student, and from reading comments by developers, we learn that we can't make games just for ourselves; yet if we only make games for 'other people,' how can we possibly expect innovation? If artists painted only for the benefit of their audience, would we ever see the bold experimentation from expressionists and concept artists that we do today?

[Chris Bateman]

Thanks for voicing your concerns, James. I can see why it seems I'm contradicting myself. :)

What I'm saying is, if you are employed by a commercial developer, you have an obligation as an employee to make money. If your company targets the mass market (i.e. you have a AAA budget), then you have an obligation to take the mass market play needs in hand.

What I'm simultaneously arguing, however, is that niche markets can be profitable, and that we need companies that target these as well as companies that target the mass market. Innovation will be much easier in these niche markets.

The example of artists is a good one, but it is important to remember that almost all of the great masters were employed by a patron who made them paint portraits and so forth to make their bread and butter money. That they achieved the creation of masterpieces was often because their talent made even these commercial projects into something special (Rembrant is a good example, I believe).

The other thing to remember is that the truly innovative artists made no money during their lifetime and died in poverty (like Van Gogh). If we had people who cared about innovation in games enough to work on their projects for free, we would see more innovation... except, of course, most games require multiple people to make them happen.

I think we can achieve a culture of innovation without having to live in poverty - I hope I'm right!

[James]

I understand the distinction you make now; however, I still feel it is wrong to instantly write off the 'mass-market' to game design Jerry Bruckheimers. To me, game developers have more of an obligation to create a good game rather than to simply make money. I would say that the market is not as smart as Smith would think, and that the market doesn't necessarily know what it wants. I think by advocating the separation of mass market money and niche innovation, we necessarily engender a culture or verisimilitude in the mass market. If we only allow ourselves to think that the mass market will buy game archetypes x, y, and z, we won't ever move beyond marketing those archetypes. Eventually, a gutsy company will make new archetype q (e.g. GTA) and all of a sudden the industry is forced to accept this new innovation and regurgitate it ad infinitum alongside tried-and-true archetypes x, y, and z.

I guess the point is, we shouldn’t blame consumers for the lack of innovative titles by saying that it’s irresponsible to spend the publisher’s money on something other than a guaranteed success. The public is more than willing to buy well-executed, innovative titles; the lack of innovation is rooted in the development and production side of the equation.

Now again, as a student, I realize this is all very nice looking on paper but probably doesn’t correlate to reality very well…

[Chris Bateman]

Yes, there is a certain idealism in what you are saying, and a certain pragmatism in what I'm saying. :) I think it's great that there is new blood coming into the industry that can sustain their idealism - it will be people like you who will help lead the market forward.

We have come to believe that the upper market is the place for refinement - not the place for innovation - but this in part is our pragmatism in respect of the utter conservatism of the publishing community.

It's interesting that you cite GTA as your example for innovation in the mass market, because of course the first two GTA games only hit Hardcore clusters (less than 500K unit sales). Only when it was an established brand did it explode into the mass market.

However, the bottom line is that the $3-10 million dollars required for a AAA game these days is a substantial sum of money, and someone must foot the bill. I don't believe it is unreasonable for publishers to not want to risk these sums on innovative ideas - but I do think it is scandalous when they don't invest money in any innovative projects at all.

[gamefiend]

As a minority gamer, I feel my needs are easily met. It's simple -- more and better minority characters. There's been a boost of "urban" games that have been released for quick cash, but other than GTA San Andreas (say what you will about it's ultimate values, they put a ton of passion and care in recreating that time and creating those characters)all those games have used minorities (specifically African Americans in this case) as the "hook" to cover up gameplay lamer than putting Professor X in the NBA.

I prattle on this a little further at my blog:

http://omnivangelist.net/wp/?p=43

[Chris]

Thanks for the comment, gamefiend! There is a slight irony in that when I wrote this post I did not have a conception of which minorities I was talking about, and I was not necessarily thinking about *ethnic* minorities. I was specifically thinking about minority *play styles* (c.f. our book, 21st Century Game Design). The arguments I advance here are best understood in this context.

I have, on occasion, lamented that I did not make this more explicit, actually, because it occured to me months after posting that most people will read this post in the same way you did - as referring to ethnic minorities. It is a strange quirk of my mind that I tend not to think in terms of gender and ethnicity. I just think in terms of people. :)

I've added your blog to my curiosities list.

Thanks again for the comment!