Games "miles away from mass market"

By Robert Purchese Published 25 April, 2008

Buzz! dev has Corrie as benchmark.

Buzz! developer Relentless Software believes videogames are still "miles away" from captivating the mass market.

Speaking exclusively to GamesIndustry.biz, co-founder David Amor said that although the "just for boys" stigma surrounding the industry is dispersing there's still a long way to go.

"Videogames are miles away from mass market still, and although it's great to see some of the recent successes, there are 20 million people that watch Coronation Street in the UK, so the idea that we're truly mass market is not the case yet," Amor told GamesIndustry.biz.

"But I do think that some of the stigma that was attached to videogaming is going away, generation by generation. I mean, the PSone took some of it away, it was positioned as a cool device, and PlayStation 2 has seen people recognise that the system isn't just for boys.

"So the stigma's gone away, people are realising that it can appeal to a wider set of people, mums and dads are playing Brain Training, Buzz!, SingStar, so it's certainly going in the right direction, but we're a long way off real mass market," he added.

UK-based Relentless found fame in 2005 with its PS2 quiz game Buzz!. Shaky sales soon solidified and demanded the developer grow from a dozen people to the 70 it currently employs in order to meet demand.

Relentless sees its game as one that will help broaden the appeal of PlayStation and videogames, which is a key area it feels competitor Microsoft is neglecting.

"If you only appeal to a certain section of people, you can't get the hardware sales beyond a certain point," offered Amor.

"I think that's something that Microsoft has suffered from - they've done great at targeting the core gaming market, but they're not getting anything too much wider. I think Sony has a wider view than that."

This is just one of the reasons Amor feels the PlayStation-surface under his feet is stabilising, after what he describes as an unsure start to this generation.

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz to hear more from Amor about development difficulties with the PS3 and the future of Buzz! on the console.

Buzz! Quiz TV is due out on PS3 this summer. Pop over to our Buzz! PS3 gallery to see how it's shaping up.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (46) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Dizzy #1 4 years ago

    Do they need to be?

    I can find hundreds of popular "hobbies" that are not "mainstream".

  • bushwod #2 4 years ago

    Um, has anyone told this chap about the Wii and DS?

    No?

    Ok, Playstation is the mass market console, sure, whatever you say mate.

  • LHH #3 4 years ago

    Well the sooner they start making shitty fucking games with shitty fucking sexual inuendo whilst making all male characters come across as a bunch of retarded poofs who can't do anything right, then they'll capture that mass market of fat lazy arse single mothers who sit at home watching shitty fucking programs on tv.

    Edit.. Or housewives, they're not all single I guess.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 09:43

  • bad09 #4 4 years ago

    people who watch corrie (or any other brain numbing soap) should be shot! tv providing gossip for people with nothing to gossip about.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 09:43

  • wadgem #5 4 years ago

    By the time this generation has grandchildren, playing videogames will be as normal as watching TV. It's that simple, no CEO's or analysts needed.

  • jglover4 #6 4 years ago

    "Um, has anyone told this chap about the Wii and DS? "
    Brain Training is clearly mentioned in the article; although, obviously, given the platform they develop for, much of the conversation will have been regarding Sony.

  • menage #7 4 years ago

    Good, Let's stay that way.

  • Xerx3s #8 4 years ago

    Why is everybody under the impression that games becoming mainstream is a GOOD thing? Most films and music is mainstream. It's all shit. The only good things that I can think off isn't mainstream. Mainstream means bland, uninspiring and appeasing the stupid masses.

    I'd like my games to stay cult and niche tyvm.

  • haowan #9 4 years ago

    of course, cult and niche tv is a myth

  • Ryze #10 4 years ago

    Well - it's all down to marketing and titles released.

    If 'interactive entertainment' steps up to the plate and offers complete social gaming experiences, then it can become mass market. I'm talking Sun Bingo in association with coronation street - if that's what's going to get Mum playing the Wii. It would be nice if it could interact with broadcast TV.

    The PS3 would potentially be able to do this - where the TV prog is recorded, and quizzes, games, puzzles, etc are thrown up during the ad break, or in some other creatively impressive manner.

    As for the blockbuster games - many of them are already mass market for under 25 males. The right type of games need to be produced for the other demographics.

    There are some issues with current games:

    £40 for a new game - not happening amongst many sections of the population - it needs to be in smaller episodic chunks. Sega Rally would have benefited from this approach.

    Incomplete online / social experiences - Needs sorting. The online functions of these games and consoles are woefully incomplete. Only the 360 approaches greatness in this area, and even that can be improved many times over. I'm talking about seeing how many people are playing any game online at a given time - with the option of putting custom filters on this info. a spectator mode for every game, which allows one to speak to the other spectators, and arrange games while watching others play. I should also be able to challenge the current players, or jump into the next round / race directly from spectator mode.

    Some games have already done much of this (PGR3, Forza), but there's so much more to be done in terms of tying the online experience in with the experience generally.

    Hardcore controls - I've pretty much stopped playing all FPSs on the 360 because aiming with the right stick is not something that I've grown up doing, and not something that I'm finding it easy to adapt to. This holds back games, as I won;t be buying many FPSs or 3PSs for the 360 due to this. Release that pointing device, quick-smart.

    Death and repetition - too much of it in too many games. When paying £40 for a game, many people feel that if they don't see the whole game at least within a few months, then they're being ripped off. There should be an unlockable super easy mode that becomes available when you're - for example - being pummelled time and time again in God of War, Ninja Gaiden, etc. These game s have actually done something similar, but it needs to be extended for Hard/casuals who just don't have the time to learn a million moves for each game.
    Edited by 2 at 25/04/08 @ 10:29

  • LOLLERS #11 4 years ago

    "Mainstream means bland, uninspiring and appeasing the stupid masses. "

    You are the coolest person on the internet.

  • moggsy #12 4 years ago

    @ Xerx3s

    'Mainstream means bland, uninspiring and appeasing the stupid masses.'

    Books are mainstream, so do all books fit into your description?

  • LHH #13 4 years ago

    Joan Collins does.

  • T4RG4 #14 4 years ago

    Hmm, Buzz! Great.

    Anyway, Corrie fans arent usually the type to be found playing any type of videogames, let alone being able to use a PC/control pad or microwave. With each generation of machine, we get a new pool of people who can use 'puters and stuff!

  • Mashum #15 4 years ago

    Show an average FPS game to your non gaming joe public and they will start out laughing at the puerile storyline, then they will gradually back away towards the door as they realise the game is essentially about being a mass murderer.

    Most game storylines makes an episode of Corrie look like flippin' Shakespeare. Perhaps it's time to ask something a bit more than that, rather than lolling at people.

    edit: personally I'm a sucker for an average FPS, though I'm under no illusion about how ridiculous they are.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 10:59

  • Moz #16 4 years ago

    Is he having a laugh! there have been nearly 10 million PS2s sold in the UK, taking into account that a number of though will be shared by a family!!

    I'm sure across all platforms thats at least 20 million people in the UK play computer games at least once a week.

    And haven't games been out selling DVDs in the US for a couple of years now?? If that's not mass market then what is?

  • Quint2020 #17 4 years ago

    This is so stupid, just like any medium, let's take films for example, SOME examples of that medium are mainstream like say a big Hollywood blockbuster like Transformers but a lot are not mainstream like foreign language films.

    This guy is an idiot.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #18 4 years ago

    there are 20 million people that watch Coronation Street in the UK

    ... almost 20 million at its all time high in 2003.

    Wednesday night's viewing figures for Corrie (the highest rated show, ahead of the Apprentice) were a more sedate 8.4 million.

    [link url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr/24/tvra tings.television
    ]http://ww w.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/apr...[/link]

    GTA:SA looks to have sold somewhere over 2 million copies in the UK, from what I can scrounge off Google. Not bad for something that costs 30-40 quid versus something that's essentially free.

  • Quint2020 #19 4 years ago

    @ moggsy

    No books are not mainstream some books are, people seem to be confusing a medium with actual examples of that medium, would you call a Harry Potter book and say a Phillip K Dick short story the same thing?

  • moggsy #20 4 years ago

    @ Quint2020

    No books are not mainstream some books are, people seem to be confusing a medium with actual examples of that medium, would you call a Harry Potter book and say a Phillip K Dick short story the same thing?

    Is that not my point? Cos I thought it was...

  • Rash' #21 4 years ago

    Re. Why do we need mainstream?

    What a load of self absorbed twats concerned only with their own interests. God, you all sound like a bunch that lock themselves away from the rest of the world, not interested in developing or expanding your horizons beyond the gaming hobby you've become comfortable with. You're the type that feel threaten by Ninty's new approach because it dares to do things differently. I despise you because of your arrogant disregard for growth and development. You seem happy to remain stagnant and stigmatized, well I'm not. I want gaming to get better and quite frankly gaming has a long way to go before it will get better. Gaming has no fucking cultural relevance and clearly many here feel that's fine. Well, frankly it's not. We need more games like Ico, Rez and Killer 7 and less of this testosterone filled BS that we proudly call gaming. Gaming needs the mass market because it seriously needs to look at itself. If you can't see that, then there's no helping you.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 11:58

  • dr_lha #22 4 years ago

    This example of what is considered "mainstream" is a pretty high bar to reach. If 20 million watching Corrie (i.e 1/3 of the country) is considered what is needed to be mainstream then games will most likely never reach that. However I'd suggest that that 1/3 of the country thing is not a normal thing but an oddity. Look at the Neilson TV charts for the USA for example, the highest rated show (American Idol) gets around 23 million viewers in a country of 300 million.

    My 60+ year old in-laws have both a DSs and a Wii. Games are officially mainstream.

  • moggsy #23 4 years ago

    Wednesday night's viewing figures for Corrie (the highest rated show, ahead of the Apprentice) were a more sedate 8.4 million.

    Exactly, and that doesn't even mean that there were 8.4 million TV's tuned in either. You could probably halve that number to get the actual number of households watching corrie. I bet there are more than 4 million households in the UK who have some form of games console, be they hand held or otherwise.

    Videogames have been mainstream for many years, where has this guy been?

  • Rash' #24 4 years ago

    dr_lha, Games, I'd argue games aren't officailly mainstream, because beyond Brain Training and Wii Sports, it's very likely your in laws are playing crap or nothing at all.

  • moggsy #25 4 years ago

    @ Rash'

    Gaming has no fucking cultural relevance and clearly many here feel that's fine. Well, frankly it's not. We need more games like Ico, Rez and Killer 7 and less of this testosterone filled BS that we proudly call gaming.

    You need to get yourself a Wii or a DS, or both.

  • Rash' #26 4 years ago

    moggsy, I have both and know full well that a few gems do not make a long standing mass market.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 12:05

  • IAmBatman #27 4 years ago

    > We need more games like Ico, Rez and Killer 7

    Good luck selling those to the Coronation Street crowd. Sounds like the games you want more of aren't mass market at all.

  • moggsy #28 4 years ago

    @ Rash'

    moggsy, I have both and know full well that a few gems do not make a long standing mass market.

    Pokemon?

  • Rash' #29 4 years ago

    IAmBatman, my point was about cultural relevance, which I don't think Wii Fit, Sport or Brain Training were designed for. I believe Ninty are leading the way in one sector of the mass market and industry should follow, but not blindly. There is more than one avenue to the mass market.

  • Rash' #30 4 years ago

    moggsy, That's another avenue to mass market, but Pokemon isn't mass market. No one title is mass market.

    My issue with gaming is that it lacks cultural relevance. It does very little artistically and says even less about the world we live in which in turn leads to comments like Tanya Byron's on BBC2: “Most of us think of games as the preserve of the teenager; young people escaping into a virtual world of fantasy. It’s an attractive but artificial world where they can give themselves a new identity and a status and power unobtainable in reality.”

    Beyond the stereotype of the teenager how much of that can you argue with???
    Edited by 2 at 25/04/08 @ 12:20

  • DanWhitehead #31 4 years ago

    The most mainstream game ever: http://ww w.worldofspectrum.org/infoseeki...

  • Daryoon #32 4 years ago

    Mike Baldwin >>>>>> Sephiroth

  • moggsy #33 4 years ago

    Tanya Byron (whoever she is?) probably doesn't think of Wii Sports and Wii Fit as being a videogame though. And I'd say both of those have as much cultural relevance as corrie (as in they are now part of our culture - everyone has heard of Wii Sports - a major majority have played it).

    In fact TV executives are running scared as advertising revenue dips due to the fact that people are turning off their TV's and doing something less boring instead. Videogaming, in all it's current forms, is a major part of this.

  • Rash' #34 4 years ago

    moggsy, see what I mean about being closed off from the rest of the world.

    Tanya Byron: Link: [link url=http://www.mcvuk.com/news/302 06/Tanya-Byron-TV-show-links-games-to-heroin-addiction ]http://ww w.mcvuk.com/news/30206/Tanya-By...[/link]

  • moggsy #35 4 years ago

    @ Rash'

    Oh yeh sorry, it's that bint who did a report for her homework innit. Nice one. ;-)

  • moggsy #36 4 years ago

    “Michelle Hart is not what you would imagine as a dedicated gamer. She’s an intelligent, 39-year old woman with a decent job and no history of psychological problems.”

    Ha ha haaa! You couldn't make this shit up :-)

  • T4RG4 #37 4 years ago

    Games have improved their market 'share' considerably over the years, but we are still in that transition period. It's a lot bloody harder to purchase a console and actual get it working on your TV that it is to tune into Corrie on a channel that has been established for years... yawn.

    If you think games should be appealing to my mother, I'd like to know how you're going to get her interested. A lot of people have become used to sitting in front of the TV and being entertained, they do not have any interest in interacting with a show/game whatever.

    Mainly directed at Rash' who thinks he has it sussed ;) I don't really think all game dev's need to try and convert the older generation of today. With time it'll come, with time...

    My sister can go on the Internet and find 'stuff'
    My mother types email addresses into Google thinking she can mail someone.

  • Rash' #38 4 years ago

    T4RG4, I never implied the devs should aim for an older generation. Re-read my posts if you think I have it "sussed". ;o)

  • moggsy #39 4 years ago

    If you think games should be appealing to my mother, I'd like to know how you're going to get her interested.

    My mother actually asked me if she could borrow my DS to play Brain Training. She quite enjoyed it but got sick of it not understanding the numbers she wrote and of shouting "I SAID BLUE!" at it.

    Still it's a step forward...

  • Corben_Dallas #40 4 years ago

    there are 20 million people that watch Coronation Street in the UK........... Yes thats right and they are all morans, who are hooked on this shit, >>>>....'Tracey said to Dino that Paul was shagging Tracey but Dino didnt know about it' etc etc etc Ad nausuem.

    Games will never be like mass market clap trap drivel, fucking brain dead soaps.
    Edited by 1 at 25/04/08 @ 13:22

  • Rash' #41 4 years ago

    Good god! Didn't any of you read the mass market article on EG? Mass market isn't defined by one IP. It's defined by a range of diverse IPs that appeal to a broad spectrum of tastes. Corrie is not the definition of mass market. Neither are Wii Fit, Sport or Braining. They are parts of an under developed gaming mass market.
    Edited by 2 at 25/04/08 @ 13:46

  • Milbe #42 4 years ago

    It is all about the money.

    Developers/publishers are talking about sales, market share, consumer surveys and filling market needs etc. where games are the "product". Isn't that mass market enough?

  • TriggerHippie #43 4 years ago

    "Mainstream means bland, uninspiring and appeasing the stupid masses"

    So, the bulk of EA's annual extreta then.

  • mooseman721 #44 4 years ago

    If being mass market means getting that shit that they get on the wii, then I'm happy being a niche hobbyist thanks. I've survived the secret shame into my 30's, I think I'll cope. Ironically, mass market (wii) could be the thing that drives me away from it in the end. I have no desire to wave my arms around to accomplish the same things I do with a joypad, and I don't need dumbed down minigames.

  • VMerken #45 4 years ago

    Ach, the more, the merrier. Let Wii bii Fiit and Piilay and Buzz. Besides, the informed conoisseur separates the crap from the gems anyway, and is more than able to fill his or her time with the latter.

  • Picnico #46 4 years ago

    Rash you make a good point that we need more games like Ico, Rez and Killer 7 and less testosterone filled games.
    The popularity of the Wii has been very welcome, for one as reward to Nintendo following the years when they didn't get the high sales I think that they deserved for the Gamecube. Nintendo by far most seem to be keeping alive that spirit of inventive innocence that many remember from the Dreamcast/N64/Megadrive/SNES and before.

    The roster of World War 2 game part 5/generic alien shooter/mildly updated sports game that composes a lot of the PS3 and Xbox360 line up starts to become just like wallpaper after a while.

    As we can't rely on TV or newspapers to look any deeper into videogames than someone would look into a shallow puddle (although Gamesmaster was a great, good looking, fun programme) I think that the best way for videogames to be given wider cultural significance is for a nationwide exhbition in art galleries displaying the most artistically distinctive 'retro' and current console games and consoles and making links to other art forms, for instance film animation, comic books and TV shows. It is very important to concentrate on distinctive aesthetics because there will usually not enough time for anyone to fully engage in the entire game. Whilst concentrating on distincitive control, eg the Wii, might be interesting too I think that it would detract from making the primary statement of videogames as art.
    I would put Jet Set Radio and The Wind Waker alongside each other for instance.







    Edited by 2 at 27/04/08 @ 14:26