I’ve been re-reading The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Reis recently, an excellent marketing book that talks about building brands and focus. Yes, I’ll read anything and try to take a design lesson out of it. One of the interesting chapters is in the addendum “The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding”, and discusses convergence vs divergence.
Whenever a new medium hits town, the cry goes up, “Convergence, convergence, convergence. What is this new medium going to converge with?” When television hit town, there were stories everywhere about the convergence of TV with magazines and newspapers. You weren’t going to get your magazines in the mail anymore. When you wanted an issue, you would hit the button on your TV set and the issue would be printed out in the living room…
When the Internet arrived, the same type of stories appeared. Now you can surf the Net while you watch TV. Many companies have tried to combine a television set with a personal computer with a notable lack of success — Apple, Gateway and others…
[The problem is] technology doesn’t converge, it diverges… Television used to be just television. Today, we have broadcast TV, cable TV, satellite TV, pay-per-view TV. Television didn’t combine with another medium. It diverged.
As I was reading this chapter, I was thinking a lot about the breadth vs depth debate from last month. I’ve also been thinking about hybrid games – it’s an FPS but with RPG elements! It’s an RPG but with RTS elements! It’s an MMOFPSRTSRPG! Consider the following in that light:
Why are divergence products generally winners and convergence products generally losers? One reason is that convergence products are always a compromise. The Intel microprocessor inside the Phillips DVX8000 [computer/TV combo] should be good for three years or so. The home-theater half of the machine should last twenty years…. recently, we visited a consumer electronics store that had a wall full of [combination TV/VCRs]. “How are the sales of your combination television/VCRs” we asked the clerk. “Infinitesimal,” he replied.
Think about this in terms of, say, the shooter market. The shooter market has seen convergence – Battlezone (FPS/RTS) and System Shock 2 (FPS/RPG) are clear examples. But while both were solid games, neither sold great, which greatly puzzled those observing the games markets. Could it be that those who loved RPGs found System Shock kind of a half-hearted RPG, and those who love shooters found that it didn’t reward the reflex gameplay they loved?
On the other hand, the shooter market has also enjoyed great divergence: basic shooters, deathmatch, capture the flag, squad-based Rainbow Six, Stealth-based Splinter Cell, Team Fortress, Counterstrike. All of these have been successful. Ironically, all of them have benefitted from SMALLER, MORE FOCUSED designs, not bigger ones.
The market, ALL markets, reward specialization. While some people want a phone that also takes pictures, surfs the web and does the laundry, most people want a cellphone that does being a cellphone well: has a long battery life, good connectivity, and is small and light.
Similarly, when we play a game, we want to feel like we’re getting the ultimate experience – we want to feel like we’re playing the best RPG on the market, or the best shooter. We don’t want to feel like we’re compromising what we love about a shooter to compensate for a genre that may not be our favorites.
Put another way, marketing people think that a game like System Shock will appeal to those who love Shooters OR RPGs. In fact, it only appeals to people that love Shooters AND RPGs. Everyone else, including those who like one genre and not the other, will see it as a compromise. Tragically.
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