RE: Chime In – Selling Third Party on the Wii
I started writing a response to my chime in post yesterday, which has now gotten entirely too long and resulted in this second post – so, here’s my additional thoughts and the view gathered from the roundtable that got me started.
We had a university professor there with us, who has actually been researching the Wii and its audience – what makes it such an attractive system for the masses. And he’s come up with some interesting points that I want to add, specifically about how motion is used on the Wii.
With the Wii, the game isn’t just played inside the TV, but in your living room too. Take Wii sports for instance -
You can play Tennis by just waggling the remote while laying on your couch, and that’s probably why we never play Wii Tennis alone. But if you have friends and family over and you decide to play Tennis, people will be standing up, getting into the game, doing big swings and such, even though the only action required is a small waggle.
Same for bowling, I’ve seen people, including myself, take the steps you would normally take before throwing the ball. So the game isn’t just inside your TV anymore, it’s also a game of “showing off” to your friends.
But let’s look at other Nintendo titles and their use of motion.
Mario Galaxy, what motion did it use? Waggling. You could use your pointer to move that star to gather stardust, but that didn’t require much movement at all. And there was also Zelda TP, where players used waggling for attacks, and the pointer for aiming the bow. The point is that both these titles make really simple use of the motion controller. But why?
We had some guys from EA around the table, some of whom had worked on SSX Blur for the Wii. SSX Blur was basically a launch title (February 27, 2007), and Nintendo told them they had to use the Wii controller to its fullest. So they did, here’s a description of the controls from Wikipedia:
The game control uses both the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk controller. Movement, speed, and jumping is controlled through the Nunchuk, while, when in the air, the Wii Remote is used to perform tricks. The Wii Remote is also used for throwing snowballs at targets or foes during a race.
But then, that same year, Nintendo launched Mario Galaxy (November 12, 2007) with the controls mentioned previously. So why tell developers to use the controls to its fullest, while barely using them for their own titles?
Some games have some overly complicated controls, the idea being to get the most from the motions, but the result often having a negative effect on the gameplay. So the question that developers need to ask themselves is – “Will the enhance the experience of the user? Will it immerse the user in the game?”.
We probably all had this problem with one game or another on the Wii. We’ve tried to do a motion to perform an action on-screen, but the result was a completely different action or none at all. I was a big fan of Cooking Mama on the DS for instance, so when it came out on the Wii I bought it, for me and the wife – but returned it the week after because we couldn’t get half the actions to respond correctly.
Okay, I’ve talked enough, now it’s your turn.
Edgar - November 18th, 2009 - 
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the.maverickk on November 18, 2009 at 11:40 am
I’m a tad lost on how motion controls discussion fits in with the title of ‘Third Party Selling on Wii’ but I think I get what is being said here.
Lets face it, people just aren’t that into full motion controls. Whether or not they work or don’t. I mean even in titles that make better use of full motion and require a player to be fully into a game, it only tends to eventually work against the game as the player becomes fatigued with too many over pronounced motions. Games like Wii Sports (before people realized you could play with small motions) and Wii Sports Resort are played in small jaunts… much like described in the article already. When family comes over and such, or in party situations.
In the long run though for games you want to sit down and play for several hours, to have such motions being consistent throughout a game would become tiresome for a player. It’s something that has been argued against the Wii against the so called ‘gaming purists’ since the Wii’s launch. They don’t want to flail their arms wildly about, they want to be able to simply be able to play a game with the least effort possible, which is through the use of buttons.
The ‘waggle’ is the Wii’s way of still having motion controls for those gamers who don’t want to expend too much energy. It acts like a button, executing a movement that is closely similar to the minute movement. Mind you again this has it’s down side as it’s also become one of the main criticism against the Wii. Whenever you hear the term ‘waggle’ it’s like some prejudice insult towards a game and is in general a negative term.
Basically you can’t win with the Wii… if it has motion controls that make use of a variety of motions and require you to do them in a very pronounced fashion, that’s too much to ask from some players, and for some that requires too much work in order to play a video game. Yet in contrast if there isn’t enough motion controls built into a game, people complain as well. Any motion controls that don’t require very precise movements are so small that they likely can be read with waggle.
So you can see the predicament right? What is the solution? How do you strike a balance to make a great game? Who knows… even though we are on the advent of motion controls becoming more and more prominent, I’m not sure we will really see an improvements in how motion controls are handled.
quicksilver on November 18, 2009 at 12:02 pm
The biggest asset the wiimote has over conventional controllers is the infrared pointer. Take some of the wii’s best games: RE4, Okami, Metroid Prime, World of Goo, even Boom Blox. Of the rest of the best, almost all of them could go without motion (accelerometer) controls and we wouldn’t miss much – Zelda :TP and Okami would actually benefit since a button press is BOTH more responsive and less tiring (ever tried the demon gates in Okami). RE4 is an example of how best to use waggle as a button replacement since it is rarely used, intuitive, and responsive, though they did add auto knife aim…
Zach and Wiki is one of the few great games that requires the accelerometer, though while playing it, I often wished the motion controls were more accurate/responsive.
Maybe the the wii motion plus will change this, but we haven’t seen the release of a high profile plus enabled game that shows this either way.
Carl on November 18, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Speaking of Zak and Wiki reminds me: I did buy that and No More Heroes… after they had been out for months and price dropped to ~$20 or $30. So one issue for 3rd party games is that frugal gamers are rewarded for not buying them by seeing them drop in price a lot and getting them cheap. It’s a shame though, since it doesn’t reward the developers as much.
the.maverickk on November 18, 2009 at 1:54 pm
@ Carl
I can’t help but agree with you more. Great 3rd party games often drop in price 2-3 months after release if they don’t sell phenomenally and a lot of gamers know this and specifically hold out buying a game if they know they can get a deal.
Yet in the end it hurts the developer and even worse discourages them from releasing games again on a system, or in the same franchise even. I think a lot of gamers especially are reluctant to buy a game that are new IP’s which have yet to build a reputation. All these factors work against 3rd party developers I find.
wiiboy101 on November 18, 2009 at 6:04 pm
blaming nintendo for the industry iv seen that before ON THE TINTERWEB-NET-THING…..
backswards thinking hardly core’s
metroid prime 3,twilight princess,wii sports,wii sports resort’s…
Wii sports=nintendo showing the world that includes the 3rd party’s
wii sport resort nintendo again debuing wm+ to the world including 3rd party’s
ITS UPTO 3RD PARTY TO THEN RESPONED
nintendo has always done this
mario 64 introduced analog stick and user movable cam angles in 3d space
theres loads of nintendo core in development IDIOTS nintendo to blame for a DICKWODE industry shut the fuk up they themselfs are to blame
Paul on November 18, 2009 at 6:32 pm
“people just aren’t that into full motion controls”
That´s one of the biggest misunderstandings that the whole “Wii analisys” led people to.
When the general people bought the wii, they did it on the promise of Motion Controls. Of being inside the game.
When the first early adopters got the Wii, NO ONE thought that 3 years later the biggest game for the system holyday would be a old school 2d mario.
“Hey, but games with motion control dont sell!!!”
THINK for just a second: ever since the release of Wii Motion Plus, how many games were released that supported the device, and got 1-on-1 motion recognition out of it?
2 games
*Wii Sports Resort
*Tiger Woods
Two big hits.
All this stuff about “people arent into motion controls” is BS.
People got the wii for motion controls. They´re still waiting for it.
But they want GOOD, RESPONSIVE, 1-ON-1 motion controls!!!!
Not waggling or terrible Cooking Mama.
The first publisher to release a Gears of War kind of game with full body control for the wii will be a rich publisher… and will laugh above all the others.
Block on November 19, 2009 at 7:37 am
@Paul
can’t agree with you more.
I bought the wii on the thought of something different to a thumbstick and 4 buttons, unfortunately the wiimote alone is just not good enough to make real motion a pleasurable experience.
I expect that the 3rd party devs found it incredibly difficult to translate the wiimote data into useful data for movements so they essentially gave up.
hopefully WM+ will solve this but as with most nintendo peripherals, requiring it for your game to be good reduces your customer base, not something a small 3rd party wants to do.
perdevious on November 19, 2009 at 10:06 pm
It’s not so much that third party developers are unsuccessful on the Wii, I think… It’s that Nintendo’s phenomenal first party success overshadows third party success. In essence, Nintendo makes them look bad by doing so much better. That’s my take on it anyway.
Also, I agree with Paul and Block. I’m sure there’s plenty of interest in 1-on-1 motion controls in the type of game that would stereotypically be expected on another console.
ALH on November 29, 2009 at 8:02 pm
‘Basically you can’t win with the Wii… if it has motion controls that make use of a variety of motions and require you to do them in a very pronounced fashion, that’s too much to ask from some players’
I dont think that the issue is player lazyness- the popularity of instrument based games is enough to attest that, you REALLY have to shred like the wind on the harder tracks across the hero/rock band games, and there are plenty of examples of button based games which require anything but lethargy – fighting games for example.
The problem with wii is that theres no feedback when you make your big movements, and up until recently the wiimote hasny been the most accurate of systems- samba di amigo wii is unplayable unless you spend hours trying to figure out the exact angle and shake that it wants you to do to distinguish between each ‘hit’, and even then its hard to know if you’re pointing/shaking it correctly.
Making one end of the wiimote significantly weighted, or adding rumble which lets you know when you’re moving it ( like in wario ware twisted) would both help with this.
In the meantime everything is waggle, or ‘ would have been better on a controller’, its harder to innovate than it would be because of the restrictions of the controller- and lets face it, if this wasnt a huge problem they wouldnt have released motionplus.
I suspect we’re more likely to see intuitive gestural controls out of Natal than wii, if not just because its easier to know when your own body is twisted or pointed in a certain way than a controller. No need for accelerometer feedback, its already built into your brain