Marvel not doing 'crappy' movie games anymore, says exec

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Marvel Executive Vice President of Global Digital Media Group (wow, long title) Ira Rubenstein tells Joystiq that Marvel is done making "crappy" movie-based games.

I'm amazed at these kinds of quotes.  I've heard them a few times over the years and the same questions come to mind.  I'm sure that Mr. Rubenstein wouldn't mind answering them... well, with my help anyway.

AMG:  So does that imply that you intended to make all of those crappy games before?

IR:  Well... umm... no one wants to make crappy games

AMG:  So you knew they were crappy but released them anyway.  Is it your policy to release games you know are crap?

IR:  Crap is bad um...

AMG:  What exactly are you going to do to make the new games not crappy that you couldn't or wouldn't do before?

IR:  Umm... is it warm in here?

AMG:  Do you have some magic juice that's poured on "good" games that you forgot to pour on the crappy games?

IR:  Juice... can I have a glass of water?  A Twix maybe?

AMG: Did you not pour this magic juice on the crappy games because you figure that the gaming public is so dumb that they'll buy any game with "Marvel" on it so it doesn't really matter what you do?

IR:  Love gamers.... they... have.... money....

AMG: Has it occurred to you sir, that the buying public has figured out that you make crappy games, and now they don't just automatically buy your games so this is just some PR stunt that's an attempt to fool these same game buying people into buying more of your crappy games?

IR:  Is this 60 Minutes? Where's Andy Rooney?

AMG: Please remain seated sir, calling "uncle" or for your "mommy" will not get you out of answering these simple questions.  Can you tell me exactly when the crappy games initiative started and who started it?

IR: I think it was someone else and before I came to the company.... are we done yet?

AMG:  Almost.  What's your favorite color?

IR:  Red... no, green... no...

With that he flew out the window... I think its up to us to cross this bridge on our own.

Mac

P.S.  No Ira Rubenstein did not actually answer these questions, but I wish he would!

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Define "Casual Game" please

When someone asks me what kind of "gamer" I am, i rarely say "hard core".  But by most definitions I most likely am a hard core gamer.  But I think of myself as a casual gamer. I don't have a huge library of games, sorry to disappoint you, and it takes a lot for me to buy a game at full price.

But there's another definition, a casual GAME vs a hard core game.

Are casual games the type of game where we don't care about the winner?  Is it that we don't keep track of wins and losses, or is it a game where we don't obsess over the little things that make us better at playing it.  Or is it how difficult the game is to play?

If you use the last one, when does a game become too difficult to not be considered casual?

LAst week I spent a good part of my Saturday shooting zombies in Left 4 Dead.  Normally I'd call that a hard core game... but... all you do is move and shoot.  Is there an easier game to play?

Or casual might refer to the subject matter.  One of my favorite games to play is Uno.  Its very simple and really easy to teach people how to play.  But if you have ever played this game on the XBOX using the camera, well, its not casual at all.  (I think I'll do an entire post on what people do on that camera)

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The most common distinguisher that I have heard is a simple question: "Would your Mom play this game?".  Which for some small number of Moms the answer to the question with Left 4 Dead, is yes... My mom hates zombies. In her mind Left 4 Dead is a casual game.

But I think most of game developers don't look at it the way my mom does.  We think of Uno, or Bubble Spinner (from AddictingGames.com) as more casual games.  A game we can leave in the middle of and not feel bad that we left our hard fought progress.

If we say that a casual game is one that's easy to get into, the rules are easy to understand and we can leave quickly and easily with no remorse... how does World of Warcraft not qualify? With some 13 million people playing it I think we can assume that there are plenty of Moms, Dads, kid sisters and Aunts playing daily.

Can we use the program size?  If its a downloadable game, does that normally mean its casual?  Again WOW qualifies, but lets keep going.

Program size certainly isn't apparent to the game buying public.  My mom has no idea how big a program is, she only knows it either comes through the Interweb or on a DVD.

Can we use price?  That would make every iPhone game made, and a few on XBLA, casual games.  We know that's not true.

How about development budget?  Again the public doesn't this figure, but it is a good indicator of depth.  If a game takes a long time to develop, there must be a lot of something in there.

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Lets explore that depth idea.  Depth isn't about a game that ends vs. a game that doesn't.  There are also theoritical endings, in Bubble Spinner you could just keep popping bubbles forever.  But there is a limit to how long you can expect to be successful.

But depth of game play is our most likely dividing line.  Using depth we can see a clear division that makes sense.  WOW, Left 4 Dead (my mom aside), any game by ID or Sid Meir, these are not casual games.

Uno, Monopoly, Bubble Spinner, Tetris, these are all casual games using depth as our divider.

But where does SimCity land?  How about The Sims?   I realize, I just opened another can of worms.

So how do you define casual game?

Mac

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EA Learns Lesson From Rough Holiday '08, Will Spread Out Releases This Fiscal Year

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Did anyone else find this odd?

"One of the learnings we had from FY09 was that we bunched up too much into the Q3 quarter (October-December). Where some of our titles crowded out the competition, they were crowded out by other EA titles."

How long has EA been around and just now they learned the lesson that you can't release all of your products at Christmastime and expect them to sell well? Is there any industry where you can do that and the result is different?

As an EA stockholder, I'm worried.  What other lessons don't they know?  Spit into the wind? Bird in the hand? Two wrongs don't make a right? I could go on.

I'm not selling my stock yet, but I don't have high hopes for it. 

Mac

Update:  9:30

In another interview, this one at Industry Gamers, the EA CEO had this to say:

He also noted that recent delays for some big holiday titles have made the usually crazy calendar Q4 "less competitive," which he feels is a "good opportunity" for EA. Riccitiello added that EA plans to allocate additional marketing dollars for certain titles to better position them, and EA is "making cost cuts in other parts of the business to fund these initiatives."

So lets have a little talk about learned lessons.  It sounds like he's so happy to see that this Christmas will be "less competitive" which means he'll make sure there are plenty of EA titles that hit at Christmas time...  wait, didn't we just go through this?

By my count, that "lesson" lasted about 20 minutes before it went out the window.  I feel like I'm sitting front row at a Gallagher concert.

Mac

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Microtransactions kid based? (link)

Today on IndustryGamers.com there was an interesting story about successful microtransaction companies.  They listed a bunch of sites and titles that have suceeed in making a game that works well with microtransactions.  This certainly is the norm in Asia, but really has not taken off here in the US.

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The basic sticking point is that in Asia they want to buy things to make their avatar look cooler, but in teh US we want them to make us win!  But game designers here don't want to fall into the trap of: "He who has the most money wins".

But the thing that struck me about the sites and games listed... only 3 of them were for adults.  All of the others were aimed at kids. 

I think that's making a clear point that gamers have not taken to microtransactions but kids who want their avatr to look cool have.

Care to disagree??

Mac

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Is Fantasy Football a hardcore game?

As we know Fantasy Football is a million dollar business, but is it a game?

Its coming up on my draft day and I see the same look in the eyes of my fellow team owners, we want to win.  It has nothing to do with teh money... well, a little to do with it.  But mostly its about getting to hold on to that plaque for a year.

I've been to teh Super Bowl teice in my league, I'm 1-1.  I also had a 1 win season, and that was awful.  I felt that anyone could run the team better and several times that year I was asked if I was still playing.

But what kind of game is this.  Is it casual?

Is it a sports game?  Seems like it to me. If EA can say that Madden is a sports game, than any fantasy football game is a sports game.

But is it a hard core game?

I'd define hard core as a game that most people would never play.  They'd look at it, and wonder why people bothered and what interest could it possible contain.  I think by that definition, its a hard core game.

But... had to be one of those around here somewhere, do you really play it?  My league gets togeether once a yerar to do a draft.  Its great fun for a few hours.  But after that, we really don't have much contact.  The same year that I went 1-12 I could have gone 9-3 had I just played other people that week. 

But "played" is the wrong word.  My scores are COMPARED to the other teams score and who has the high score wins.  I don't think you can call a game wher you only compare scored to be a hard core game.

Do you play fantasy football?  Fantasy any sport? (How they play fantasy golf is beyond me)

Mac

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