Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Fitness games become possible when activity can be tracked, shifting the
potential target audience for games. As discussed in
Chapter 1,
the Wii's
launch prompted popular discussion about the new groups drawn to play
the Wii because of its integration of motion control. The Kinect was also
met with interesting reviews, particularly as people started to hack the
device to of er additional functionality and take advantage of the technol-
ogy embedded in the device. From the standpoint of wordplay, these shifts
in the mode of play are interesting because they change the types of games
that can be played and the people who are likely to play them. The dif erent
approaches of competing companies is also interesting, as both Japanese
game makers opted to make a device that is somewhat analogous to a stan-
dard controller, while the U.S. company got rid of that interface altogether.
Further defi ning the dif erence between the ef orts is the need for space.
All three devices need substantially more space than a traditional control-
ler, as the game companies make sure to note that you will be getting of
your couch and need to watch out for things you could crash into, but there
are clear dif erences among the three. By retaining the controller interface,
both the Wii and the Move can be used in relatively smaller spaces, while
the Kinect needs at least six feet of uninterrupted space from the sensor to
function properly and works best with about ten feet of space. Certainly
video games, given their expense and the time investment involved are gen-
erally the hobby of wealthier people, but the Kinect
requires almost one
hundred square feet of open space to play optimally. For those in urban
areas with smaller living spaces, a hundred square feet of space is a precious
commodity, far more likely to be found in suburban or rural areas where
space is generally less costly.
Motion control redefi nes the mode of play for video games, shaping the
terms for what kinds of games are likely to be made and the terrain of
video games more broadly. The homogenization of control schemes across
consoles facilitates porting games across dif erent platforms, but break-
throughs in the mode of play make wholly new genres of games possible. In
setting the terms for engagement, modes of play are a key piece of wordplay.
Standardization and new developments in the means by which we interact
with games is an area where hardware design plays a major role in the
discursive construction of consoles, with an assist from the words embed-
ded in marketing campaigns waged by game companies. That equation is
reversed when considering the representation of play, where the marketing
campaign often takes a much larger role in the discourse of video games.
REPRESENTATION OF PLAY
A key piece of the marketing approach for video game consoles is the promo-
tion of the fi delity of the experience on that console. The newly introduced
console option is better because the graphics are superior, the experience is
