You can now listen to internet radio on your PSP. How cool is that?Speaking of accessibility, that was a big trend this year. It can mean a lot of things -- we've heard the word accessible a lot to refer to casual gaming, in that it has a much lower barrier to entry for non-gamers. My crowning achievement this year was getting my mother to play Wii Bowling. Now, I know the stories of parents gleefully flailing Wii remotes are manifold, but my mother has been historically particularly console-averse. Childhood memories abound of her vacuuming heedlessly over my controller cords while I fussed and tried to see around her. She does, however, love Snood. Like, she has Snood merchandise, a Snood coffee mug and a Snood T-shirt. My mother is crazy about freaking Snood.
A game like that, then, could be called accessible, because it's easy for just about anyone to find, play and become acclimated to; it's really just aim and click. This year's also seen the rise of the phrase "casual MMO," which would seem to be an impossible contradiction in terms. One of the year's biggest multimillion-dollar deals this year was Disney's acquisition of Club Penguin, which one could call a "casual MMO" -- for children, no less. Now there's something we probably wouldn't have anticipated just a few years ago. And kids aren't the only ones getting on board -- a veritable boom in smaller, free-to-play MMOs with much less time engagement and ruthless obligation than certain market-domineering titles with a couple of W's in them.
There's another meaning for accessibility in games, though, factoring in players' increasing desire to tailor their engagement. Some people don't mind diving into the console or PC experience for a few hours, and they don't mind if it's 20, 30 minutes at least before they can accomplish anything and save their progress. I know fewer and fewer such people, though, and am aware of a lot more who want to be able to play in small bites, when that's what they want. When they've got all night to hang with the guild, that's great -- but when they haven't, they don't want to be left out.
We increasingly demand persistence in our worlds -- game worlds that go on and evolve whether we're there or not -- but that can also mean you can feel left behind if you don't keep up, and that can make it feel more like a job than play. So one big trend to watch for 2008 is being able to port various aspects of your game experience to mobile -- maybe you can't camp using your cell phone on the commute to work, but you will be able, say, to log in and check the index of the in-world economy, maybe see if the item you put up for auction has been sold, see who's on top of the leaderboards. Maybe, for example, the next Final Fantasy will let you play gil slots on your mobile phone and chocobo-race against your buddies on your PSP -- and centralize it all back to the main PS3 title. Well, okay, perhaps all of that accessibility is a little too forward-looking to anticipate next year, but the key theme is this: lots of ways to get in, up to you how deep you dive.
All of this accessibility talk comes down to reducing barriers -- to entry, to engagement, blurring the line that separates gamers from non-gamers, the 'core from the casual. The goal is to make a game that both the 60-hour-per-week grind maniac and the bite-size session gamer can enjoy, with neither missing out; to bring gaming a little closer to mainstream entertainment -- and vice versa. It strikes me today that I'm using my PSP to listen to music, and I could be using my iPod to play games from major developers like Sega (it's true! Sonic for iPod!) and Harmonix (checked out Phase yet?) Sony would very much like you to use your PS3 to play Blu-ray movies, and Warner Bros. hopes you check out the I Am Legend: Survival multiplayer game it built in Second Life to get you excited for the film. Which is based on a book -- what a world!
One thing's clear about this year, though -- the era wherein the majority of games are being made for and marketed only to gamers is ending. I think we'll always have our 'core, our Crysis, our Call of Duty -- but Crysis, for example, saw underwhelming sales thanks to targeting solely that original-gangsta type of PC gamer who'd have the cutting-edge hardware needed to run it. The Wii's been a gateway drug for many -- my sister, for example -- who now have a resurgence of interest, or a new interest entirely, in not-so-casual titles like BioShock and Half Life 2. We are no longer able to divvy the world so tidily into "gamers" and "not gamers," as more and more people are finding themselves somewhere on a much more graduated spectrum of interest -- and developers are going to need games that can straddle as broad a segment of this spectrum as possible at any given time.
Granted, there's no possibility that Contra 4 on the DS, or Dracula X Chronicles on the PSP is targeting anyone but dyed-in-the-wool gamers. And indeed, this dissolution of barriers might be good for all of us, as there are always niches, and games strictly for punishment-loving, skill-driven, nostalgic gamers may actually become more prevalent as a counter-balance. What do you think -- was 2007 The Year The Wall Fell, for games?
