The gaming market has exploded with technological advancements, but it takes more than just graphics and technology to succeed. The past failures of Atari and the success of Nintendo show that inherent fun and differentiated content are key to ensuring a game’s long-term success.
Since the first simple tennis video game called Pong, games have become increasingly flashy and expressive as technology has advanced. While Pong was a symbolic starting point, games have since evolved in many ways, including graphics, sound, and storytelling, shaping a new era of entertainment culture. Thanks to these changes, games have attracted the attention of many people and have become a medium of daily entertainment. As a result, the number of people playing games gradually increased, and the game market grew rapidly.
With the expansion of the game market, many companies have entered the game industry. While this has led to diversity in game development, it has also led to increased competition and market saturation. While the industry has long since reached saturation point, it’s caused many games to fade into obscurity or disappear shortly after launch. To survive, games need more than just flashy graphics or the latest technology; they need original, immersive content and a unique appeal. With so many games being made with similar concepts, it’s imperative that a game has a strong sense of personality and fun to be remembered by gamers.
With such a crowded market, only a few games stand out from the crowd. The successful ones continue to be produced, bring in steady revenue, and keep gamers interested with each new installment. The unsuccessful ones, on the other hand, fade into obscurity. To stay competitive in this world, games need to constantly evolve. In particular, the games that are still alive today have evolved into something different from what they were in the past, and in order to succeed in today’s market, they need to innovate again. In other words, a successful game has to offer something different or be fresh in a way that hasn’t been done before in order to stick with the public.
One of the reasons Nintendo has been able to maintain its dominance in the gaming market for so many years is because of a simple principle: “Games should be fun.” It sounds so obvious, but many game companies are so focused on technical achievements or showing off the latest technology that they lose sight of what makes games fun in the first place. For example, for a while, many games were developed with an emphasis on graphical splendor, and while they may have succeeded in attracting initial interest, they failed to hold users in the long run. This is because they overlooked the fact that flashy looks alone don’t guarantee intrinsic fun.
Looking back at the pre-Nintendo gaming market, the story of Atari offers an important lesson for today. Atari exploded in popularity in the early 1980s, becoming synonymous with video games of the time, but quickly declined due to a lack of quality control. Atari’s games gradually lost their luster, and many game makers recklessly churned out low-quality games with the idea that “you only need one hit out of many”. Eventually, the decline in quality became so severe that gamers distrusted the company, leading to a massive boycott and a collapse in the gaming market. This is known as the “Atari Shock,” and the market was hit hard enough to shrink by more than 90%.
In the midst of a generally depressed gaming market, Nintendo capitalized on the crisis and introduced a new system with the release of the Famicom, an 8-bit game console. In order to create a game that would work on the Famicom, developers had to be pre-screened and licensed by Nintendo. This wasn’t just a strategy for Nintendo to monopolize the gaming machine market, but also to ensure the quality of games by preventing low-quality games from being released on the Famicom. This policy ensured that the games on the Famicom were of a relatively high standard of completeness and enjoyment, which contributed to Nintendo’s stable position in the market.
Nintendo not only vetted third-party games, but also focused on developing fun games themselves. They created an environment where developers could be creative with their ideas and aimed to create games that would appeal to gamers. The result was games like Donkey Kong and Super Mario. These weren’t just games, they became global phenomena and represented Nintendo’s “killer content”. This killer content was crucial to Nintendo’s success in expanding its share of the gaming market.
At the height of the Famicom’s popularity, Sega entered the fray with a new 16-bit game console, the Genesis. While the Genesis boasted technologically superior graphics, sound, and performance, it ultimately failed to surpass Nintendo due to a lack of killer content that captured the essence of fun. Genesis’ attempts to keep up with Famicom included hardware expansions such as the CD and 32X, but these were more about showing off technology than delivering real fun to gamers.
The examples of Nintendo, Atari, and Sega illustrate how important a balance of technology and fun is to the success of a game. Games are inherently an entertainment medium, and no matter how technologically advanced a game is, if it’s not fun, it’s unlikely to be embraced by the public. Even though the game market today is different than in the past, the elements of a successful game remain the same. The way we play games has evolved with the advent of computer technology, online systems, and smartphones, but at its core, it’s still about having fun.
However, the current Korean game market is dominated by MMORPGs, and many games are released with similar concepts over and over again. As a result, they often look more like rehashes of games that have already been released than new games. At a time when we should be learning from Atari’s past failures, some game developers are still taking the easy way out. Rather than taking on new challenges and differentiating their games, they’re often stuck in the same old mold and jumping on the market bandwagon. This approach is unlikely to endear them to gamers in the long run, and they run the risk of being ignored by the market.
I once heard a game company say, “If even a quarter of the games you release are successful, you’re successful.” This strategy of making a lot of similar games and hoping that one of them will be successful is reminiscent of the Atari Shock. Nowadays, the game market is more competitive and sophisticated, requiring a more creative approach that doesn’t lose sight of the fun of the game itself. Creating a successful game is not a matter of luck, but of careful planning and unique appeal.
