LOS ANGELES -- Video game manufacturers must do a better job of reaching the mainstream with mass-market products and pricing, said Douglas Lowenstein, president, Entertainment Software Association, Washington, during last month's Electronic Entertainment Expo here.
In a state-of-the-industry speech unique for the way an association executive challenged the companies that ultimately employ him, Lowenstein spoke strongly on what it would take for the video game business to overtake other forms of entertainment, such as the movie business.
"First we need to continue to broaden the game audience by making more games with mass-market appeal," he said during the expo, which is better known as E3Expo.
Video games have existed for 30 years, yet in that time, have yet to match the penetration of competing media like movies and television, he noted, asking, "What do they have that we don't?
"A partial answer is they have done a better job developing products that have truly mass-market appeal at mass-market prices. That is not to say they create better entertainment, necessarily. It suggests, instead, that they are better at creating content with wider appeal," Lowenstein said.
Citing the example of the Mel Gibson movie, "The Passion of the Christ," he noted that it was the third-biggest money maker of all time, generating $612 million worldwide and $371 million in the United States. "The film revealed something Hollywood was missing, that there is an audience that had been largely unseen or ignored who would swarm to cineplexes if they featured movies of particular interest to them, in this case, with openly religious themes," he said.
"I mention 'The Passion of the Christ' as an example of the powerful market-expanding potential inherent in making games for less traditional audiences than we're accustomed to," he said.
Significantly for the supermarket trade, Lowenstein asked, "What if more games were shorter and thus less expensive?" Customers could have the choice between a game for $49 with 150 hours of game play, or $10 for 10 hours with lower development costs.
"Imagine the potential to sell far more units at this lower price point. In fact, ESA's research found that 60% of Americans and 57% of gamers said they would be more likely to buy more games if they were considerably shorter in length and priced significantly lower," he said.
"Of course, part of the problem is that the inbred game culture itself will look down its nose at such games. Game reviewers will likely ignore such offerings as limited, simple or shallow. But that is the point: We need games that are limited and simple and shallow, just like we need movies that don't tax our intellect and psyche but do provide a few hours of forgettable pleasure," Lowenstein said.
The video game business has made progress in expanding its market, Lowenstein noted. "In the last decade, since the launch of the original PlayStation, video games have grown up from being the sole province of teenage boys to being embraced by a far wider universe of consumers," he said.
It has been well-publicized that the average gamer is 30 and that a majority are adults, he noted. Additionally, the Yankee Group, Boston, reported last year that 52 million Americans between the ages of 13 and 34 play video games, and about a third to two-fifths of the 147 million Americans between 35 and 50 play video games -- another 56 million players, Lowenstein pointed out.
Meanwhile, ESA's annual consumer research indicated that 66% of gamers between 18 and 25 have been playing games for at least 10 years, and nearly 100% of gamers between 12 and 17 have been playing since age 2. The average gamer of any age group has been playing for 9.5 years, and gamers over 18 have been playing an average of 12 years. Also, 41% of the most frequent game players said they are playing more now than three years ago, and 54% report that their passion for video games comes mainly at the expense of TV, Lowenstein said.
The game industry sees the potential to add to these numbers, Lowenstein said. One underserved audience is women, who now make up 30% of those playing on game consoles and 40% of computer game players. "We need a cultural shift so that young girls and women feel that playing games is not a testosterone-monopolized hobby reserved for their boyfriends and husbands," he said.
There's a need for more socially and politically relevant games, as well as investment in games that are not intended to be rated M, for mature. "If we want to broaden the market, it's critical that the industry continue making a full spectrum of content," he said.
Games also need to provide more emotional impact, better stories and a more complete game experience, he said. "Many of today's games are amazing creative and artistic accomplishments, and many are incredibly fun and absorbing, but we have only scratched the surface of what games can be," he said.
NEW GAME SYSTEMS ON THE WAY
LOS ANGELES -- The video game industry is gearing up for another new generation of higher-technology consoles.
New game devices from Sony Computer Entertainment, Foster City, Calif.; Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash.; and Nintendo of America, also in Redmond, were unveiled before and during the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo here, which is better known as E3Expo. The show attracted 70,000 people from 79 countries, and about 400 exhibitors occupying 547,000 square feet of floor space, according to the Electronic Software Association, Washington, which owns the show.
"E3Expo has consistently been the exclusive venue to launch the products and showcase groundbreaking innovations that shape interactive entertainment," said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the association.
Sony announced details of its PlayStation 3, which will include Cell, a processor jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, and will use the Blu-ray disc, a high definition successor to DVD. Like the PlayStation 2, the new unit will be backwards-compatible with games designed for earlier PlayStation generations. It is expected to hit the U.S. market in the spring of next year.
Microsoft said it will launch Xbox 360 in this year's holiday selling season. The Xbox 360 is designed for high-definition, widescreen televisions, and will also be backwards-compatible with older Xbox games, Microsoft reported. The units will also have progressive-scan DVD movie, CD music and photo playback support.
Nintendo will debut its new Compact Console, which, in a departure for Nintendo, also will be backwards-compatible with the Nintendo GameCube. It will have a bay for an SD memory card that will allow consumers to expand internal flash memory and also provide access to downloadable catalog games produced for earlier Nintendo hardware products. Nintendo also unveiled a new, smaller design for its handheld Game Boy Advance, called the Game Boy Micro.
