It will probably take awhile for people's palettes to develop, as a whole. It wasn't until fairly recently that most Americans preferred iceberg lettuce and processed american cheese to the variety of interesting foodstuffs we see around now.

Maybe games will follow a similar consumer progression with time?

The sad part is EA can say: Look, we tried, but you clearly don't want it, so we're going to focus on our bread and butter titles. As Jim said, you can't really blame them.

Another problem is publicity. Unfortunately too many people are easily influenced by adverts, just look at all the Wii shovelware selling well. Some games (LBP!) haven't been pushed nearly enough.

Another problem for me was Dead Space's length. I thought nthe game was superb, but I was never, ever, going to buy it when I knew it wouldn't last me very long. So it got rented. Had it had extra modes, it may well have been bought.

EA did support the Wii, they gave them their own specialized line of sports titles... which did horribly.

sanadawarrior

Those titles have done well. Tiger Woods has sold really well on the Wii as well as Boom Blox.

Their Madden, FiFA and especially NBA games have been some of the worst games ever.

EA's to speak. They and their DRM ridden wares...

While I loved Dead Space it was only 8 hours of gameplay. Anything that could have extended that like extras / unlockables were sold as DLC instead of being included with the game. So yeah EA fuck you. Just because you pump out a good title doesn't mean we enjoy being drained through micro-transactions. They had all that shit ready before launch too. Thus they offered one of the suits as a pre order bonus. I mean it's like Resident Evil 4 charging you for the bonus weapons you get after you beat the game.

Mirror's Edge looked interesting but fuck me a 5 hour game? Give it some multiplayer at least.

Of course it's not all EA. Gamers are idiots to begin with for buying each yearly installment of Madden. Most people probably haven't heard of Okami, Killer 7, God Hand, etc despite being awesome games.

@lubczyk:

I love my Wii, which stands proudly next to my PS3, but that's just not the target market for hard-core sports titles. For whatever reason, people associate those games with other consoles. (Although ... are there any numbers out for the Tiger Woods line? The Wii is uniquely qualified for that game because of having to swing the Wiimote.)

@carpwrist:

Agreed. I try to push Okami wherever I can. My God! That game is so fscking awesome!

I played the demo of World of Goo through Steam. I really like the idea behind it, and it's definitely a well-done game. But I just can't see myself playing it very often. Uniqueness and creativity don't mean a lot if the game isn't intriguing enough, even though the price point of $20 is a welcome change.

I respect EA for at least TRYING new IPs not like
activison:

HAY GIES! COD72 OUT THIS YEAR! GIES YOU SHOULD BUY IT! IT HAS 2 NEW LEVELS, GIES!

It seems to me that these new and original games EA puts out are fun and of better quality, but at the expense of the amount of gameplay you actually get.

I keep hearing how Mirror's Edge is set up to be a trilogy and because of that, game doesn't feel like a full title.

Then they release titles like Mirror's Edge or Dead Space with the plan to nickel and dime you with DLC right after release, clearly demonstrating that the content could have been included on the disc to begin with.

Not too mention these games have no form of multiplayer.

I look for more value in games that I buy, especially in this generation when they cost $60 a pop. So while EA can release games that bring interesting ideas to the table, the content just isn't there to warrant a purchase.

sickNasty: NOT EVERY GAME NEEDS MULTIPLAYER.

Only stupid people say everything from Bioshock to Oblivion should support multiplayer. Some games don't need it and are all the better for that decision. I don't want anyone else in my Dead Space and I would have preferred Resident Evil 5 to not have a co-op mode.

Yeah, when the economy has taken a nose dive and you have 50,000 high profile games released within a month of each other there are going to be some losers, and as he pointed out subsequent games will likely sell better due to positive reactions to the first title in a series.

And the new Call of Duty is shit, some people have no taste and I question the integrity of reviewers that rated this shitfest highly.

@lubczyk:

Steady. Chill out. I share your desire to defend the Wii against the pathetic PS3/360 fanboys on Dtoid.

However, I never gave any "3rd party games don't sell on Wii!!!" crap. If anything, Nintendo is showing that it's going to be the 3rd party games that will keep the Wii afloat. Case in point -- that pathetic piece called Wii Music. If that's what Nintendo plans on doing now, the Wii is f*cked without 3rd party titles.

Right now, the Wii has an image problem based almost solely on its horsepower and its expected market, no thanks in part to the jackass PS3/360 fanboys who spout their baseless FUD all over the place. Unless there is some collaborative effort by Nintendo and the game companies to shove into people's faces that the Wii can do more than just mother f**king, waggle-loaded, mini-games (at least RB and GH have helped in that effort), the Wii will be condemned to shovelware and cutesy titles as far as I'm concerned.

It also doesn't help that I see major titles advertised all over the place for the 360 and PS3, but I see almost no advertising for non-party/non-waggle games on the Wii. How do these people expect harder-core titles to break expectations on the Wii when they never advertise the damned things?

The Wii's problem right now is its reputation and hardware limitations. Those are not going to be easy hurdles to overcome. (Where's the damned hard drive that's accessible in-game, Nintendo? We need one with Guitar Hero: World Tour! Enough of this stupid need to move files between the SD card and system RAM!)

Toyota sells better than GM for a reason.

Non sequitur. That has nothing to do with this. There are a ton of reasons why GM is having problems. (Hello? Unions!!) But that's irrelevant to this discussion and a major tangent potential, so I'm not going any farther on that one. You can't compare sales of cars that cost thousands of dollars to sales of $60 video games.

@John B

Nintendo gave 3rd parties a window for the whole second half of 2008. They only released mediocre games like Wii Fit and Animal Crossing. How do yo u not outperform that?

While EA games like Dead Space, Need for Speed, and Mirror's Edge had to compete with Fable 2, Fallout 3, Call of Duty et cetera in the last 3 months on the PS3/360, all they had compete against was Wii Music, Animal Crossing and a mediocre World at War on the Wii.

This is truly EA's fault, no one else's.

Unless we see a shift in the average consumer's buying habits they'll most likely keep churning out yearly titles because people keep flocking to them like sheep.

If someone at the beginning of the year had said to me that by years end, I'd be defending EA, I'd have laughed.

Still, I think this is indicative of a greater problem in all forms of media. Sequels trump originality, always. For instance, one can look at the list of top ranking films since 2000 and see that every film is a sequel, often based on a book, TV series, comic series or even a fairground ride.

I wouldn't be surprised if EA cut back on original titles that try something new and different, or even just some new IP. Why would they, when the rewards aren't there?

Dead Space is one of the best EA games I have played in a looong time, but they do have a point as people seem "scurred" to play the new games as they aren't "cool" or "oldschool" yet.

This is why indie games are the future, no profit mongering, no billion dollar budgets, no executive twats, just fun games forged from the creative soul of people willing to put their time into something besides money.

I will leave the commersial games to the "sheeple" just as I have the movie industry.

EA made the mistake of create fresh and high-quality IPs for "core" gamers when the bigger amount of market is for "casual" gamers that love to play LIPS and Cooking Mama.