During his keynote speech at GDC 2011, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata railed at social and mobile titles for destroying the “high value of video game software”. Ian Baverstock, currently with Tenshi Ventures and former co-founder of Kuju Entertainment, told an audience at the Develop conference that Iwata’s claims were a “shocking indictment” of Nintendo’s outdated thinking.
"I just don't agree," he said. "This lack of craftsmanship is really a reflection of Nintendo's point of view – they are completely obsessed with retail, and have been very successful in that."
Baverstock pointed out Nintendo’s excessive focus on the retail channel, despite consumers increasingly moving towards social platforms, mobile devices, and digital distribution. A large part of Iwata’s audience at GDC was developers of the titles he said were without high value.
"Ultimately for Mr Iwata to be able to sit there and say that we're losing craftsmanship, we're losing skills... at the same time that Minecraft comes out, sells millions and makes one man lots of money and creates a huge public buzz, is a shocking indictment of his view of the world that we all see."
He explained that Iwata’s keynote was about control, and the desire to remain with the current system of huge platform holders and publishers.
"In the end, once you get past that preachy title of why developers need to change, the reason why I'm so riled by Mr. Iwata's point of view is that fundamentally it's smack talk: 'You, Mr. Developer, stay in your box, you stay down there, we'll do with this other stuff, you just carry on making games.'” he said.
"I think that, fundamentally, Mr. Iwata's view of this market from a value creation and number of title point of view was skewed entirely to his interests as a successful platform holder, and is in no way a reflection of what ordinary consumers want."
Baverstock called for "second great age of independent development" to begin with developers no longer needing to rely on publishers to reach audiences.
"We're not very far away now from the beginnings of next generation [of technology] from Sony and Microsoft. I don't know when that will come, but at that point... the idea that there are going to be many independent developers with either their own money, or even publishers money, making games on those platforms – there are going to be very, very few."
"That... personal relationship [with consumers], the games industry is absolutely leading that. Everyone you talk to in a marketing department wants to talk to game developers, because they want to understand what we know about this,” he closed.
Developers, now seems to be your time. Every week another new studio starts with a great idea and a new way to reach a specific niche. What are you going to do about it?
[Thanks GI.biz]
