When good enough is good enough
Everyone loves excellence, particularly in the games industry. Developers are always striving for the most polygons, the shiniest cars and super-intelligent A.I. Publishers want more features, the most online players, more weapon types. Is this what the consumer wants? Not always, and very few people understand this.
Let’s look at Apple, a company that constantly stresses its commitment to the best design in the world, but which has built a massive business on the back of non-CD quality audio files. MP3 and AAC files are nowhere near CD quality and plenty of audiophiles argue that vinyl is better. So if Apple are selling what can be describe as a ‘substandard’ product, how come they’ve done so well? Well enough to sell 10 billion songs. The reason behind this is that sometimes people don’t want or need the best they just want it to be ‘good enough’. With MP3s, the consumer has traded quality for convenience and, for the most part, is very happy. They’ve decided they can cope with ‘almost-perfect’ sound quality if it means they can carry their entire music library around with them, or have the convenience of downloading any track when and where they want. The same goes for streaming services like Spotify which has a maximum quality of 320kbps, the same as the best MP3s, and also features advertising between every few tracks. We don’t mind a few ads if we get the benefit of an unlimited choice of music that’s available whenever we want it
The Nintendo Wii is a great example of ‘Good Enough’ technology. It isn’t ‘next-generation’, it isn’t HD, it has no Blu-Ray player or extensive online matchmaking system but it has sold 67 million units. Nintendo very cleverly and very simply looked at what the mass-market wanted and gave it to them. This gaming mass-market, perhaps first discovered by Sony with things like EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz! loves to play but doesn’t have time to learn complicated gaming mechanics or new control systems. Very importantly they also don’t want to spend very much money. They’re not hardcore gaming connoisseurs who know how many processors or polygons their machines has and they don’t care. The Wii plays fun games cheaply and that’s Good Enough.
Simplicity and value for money are also driving Apple’s app store with throwaway games that cost 59p making as much money as established franchises. I often think “59p, well it’s the same price as a Mars Bar, might as well have a go” which has led me to such delights as Younicorn and Bauble. One of my most played games is the free BlocksClassic. As ever, you get what you pay for, but the point is we’re not expecting epics for that price. Our friends at Four Door Lemon released QuizQuizQuiz in October 09 and it’s done very well, more than making its money back. What is it? It’s a quiz game. What did you expect? Press buttons to answer questions against the clock. 59p. Sorted. Sometimes people just want to press buttons and answer questions without distractions. Now it would be easy to take a game like this, add in an expensive 3D TV studio set, celebrity voice-overs and more, but is that really necessary? Pound for pound the game wouldn’t necessarily make any more profit.
For the consumer everything is a trade off and if they understand the benefit of what they’re getting then they can decide if its a trade they want to make. So sometimes you don’t have to go too far with a product and its important that you make something that will at least make its money back and hopefully make a profit – or there’s not much point in doing it. ‘Good enough’ is not always a bad thing, there’s still scope for excellence, and perhaps we need to concentrate on making the customer happy rather than worrying about things they don’t even care about.