Facebook Indie Games

I wonder...

If the riots had occurred 20 years ago, when I was about to enter my teens, I would have had no clue what to do. I had no practical experience that I could bring to bear in a situation of mass lawlessness, even if I could see from afar that it would be fun to get involved. Confronted with a risky, unknown situation I would have run away.

Games are great ways to teach us. The strongest proponents of games are very keen to tell us what marvelous educational tools they can be. Violent games might not encourage me to be violent, any more than playing Bejeweled encourages me to move bricks around on the floor. But they do help us learn what to do in situations where violence -- or matching 3 coloured blocks -- is called for. If the opportunity for violent fun arises, players of realistic violent games have the advantage over those that don't. Perhaps that gives them the confidence to get stuck in, whereas a non gamer will watch from the sidelines, unsure of what to do even if the tendency and desire for violence is just as strong.

If violent games and movies teach us what to do in lawless situations, they also make these situations seem less risky. They teach us a pattern that violent action is followed by reward, not punishment. Even though we KNOW a game is a simulation we can't stop ourselves matching the pattern from a game ("I drove at 100 MPH in a built up area and nothing bad happened") with the same situation in real life. We are remarkably bad at not learning from "fake" situations: to the point that we find sitcoms with canned laughter funnier even when we know it's canned: we can't stop ourselves finding laughter infectious, even when we know it's fake. Many rioters fell victim to their own sense that they were in a low risk situation, posing for photos with their stolen loot -- as if they were about to claim a new high score for their escapades, not a custodial sentence.

So while games might not encourage us to be violent, for those who want to be violent for other reasons (i.e. because it's fun and you get free stuff) games make a difference:

1. Train us in how to be violent successfully
2. Reduce our sense of fear in an unfamiliar situation
3. Teach us that the consequences of successful looting and violence are usually positive

The strong attachment players have to the Nintendo IP comes from the IP always being together: Mario and Zelda are both Nintendo and exclusively Nintendo, and various other IP such as Pokemon, Donkey Kong, Metroid and Star Fox are either exclusive to or closely linked with the Nintendo brand. Once they're on an App Store alongside Angry Birds, Plants vs. Zombies, and Cut the Rope the uniqueness of the IP will disperse quickly and Nintendo will become just another iPhone game publisher. The Nintendo brand will cease to be a big deal because there will be nothing tying all these different IPs together in the mind of the player.

Consider Nintendo's 3 major income streams:

1. Hardware sales -- Nintendo is the one console company that doesn't sell loss-leader hardware
   
2. Selling its own exclusive IP games
3. Licensing 3rd party games to run on Nintendo hardware
   

From both a brand and revenue perspective, launching games on iOS would be suicide.

What, then, are Nintendo's other options? They can either move away from hardware but still try be be a "platform", or they can remain a hardware company as they are now.

If Nintendo is going to go software only then they need to run their own software platform. Everybody needs to know that if you want Mario or Zelda then you have to go to the Nintendo platform, even if that doesn't mean you have to purchase their hardware. It could be that you have to subscribe to the Nintendo club, or visit Nintendo.com and sign up, or whatever else. The point is Nintendo needs to own the platform and find another way besides exclusive hardware to provide a walled garden around the Nintendo experience.

If Nintendo wants to stick with hardware then it needs to figure out what its hardware is for, particularly in portables. Nintendo's position has always been that it's the most fun console maker. The Wii is the perfect example of a console that is fun. Nintendo made a mistake thinking that 3D was a path to more fun in handhelds: it's a gimmick that for many players undermines fun, excludes young kids, gives devoted gamers (the ones who want to play for hours at a time) a headache, and is something that smart phones can replicate quite easily. Bad move.

Nintendo needs to find a new standout hardware feature for its next hand held... just as the Wii controller was a break through for consoles. These are the requirements:

1. Something that adds a LOT of fun.
2. Something that can ONLY work on a games machine, and can't be copied on a general purpose mobile device.
3. Something they can build cheaply.

I'll let Inside Social Games do the talking:

Zombie Farm (Social Update) —Zombie Farm is another older, and popular app that also received a significant update. Currently ranked at #12, the game, which allows users to build a farm and grow their own army of zombies, is now social. Updated July 28th, Zombie Farm lets users connect and play with their friends viaFacebook, email or username. Beyond visiting one another’s farms, players can now send gifts, receive daily rewards, and even engage in a game of “zombie tag” with their friends’ zombies. Monetizing through in-app purchases, Zombie Farm is developed by California-based studio, The Playforge, told us they have more than 20 million players for Zombie Farm.