http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/nov/29/games
Why Space Giraffe v Frogger is no contest
Keith Stuart
The Guardian
Thursday November 29 2007
When scriptwriter William Goldman opened his book Adventures in the Screen Trade with the immortal line, "Nobody knows anything", he was of course referring to the vagaries of the movie industry - the fact that utter stinkers often make millions, while beautifully crafted masterpieces sometimes sink like Antarctic cruise ships. His succinct assertion on the randomness of public taste can easily be applied to videogames, too.
For example, you'd think that in sectors where games are cheaper - say, on mobile phones or Xbox Live Arcade - consumers would be more adventurous in their purchases. Far from it. In both, the download charts are dominated by mundane conversions of old arcade games. It seems as though digital distribution has created a gaming equivalent of the middle-aged music fan, who buys new versions of the same old albums every time a different format arrives.
This has certainly not gone unnoticed by developers. Earlier this year, cult programmer Jeff Minter - a sort of videogame industry version of David Lynch - released the beautiful, idiosyncratic game Space Giraffe into the Xbox online marketplace. The game has not been selling well and Minter has flipped out. Last week the exasperated coder wrote on his blog: "[I'm] not seeing a lot of reason to continue even trying to make games, at this point, when a remake of Frogger, one of the worst games in the history of old arcade games, can outsell Space Giraffe that we put so much love and effort into, by more than 10 to one, in one week." Heartbreaking stuff.
Microsoft has at least stumbled on a reasonably reliable method of getting consumers to try new stuff - make it free. The problem is, the company is choosing the wrong merchandise. The stupefying board game conversion Carcassonne was recently given away to celebrate five years of Xbox Live, while a new offer of 10 free Arcade games for any gamer who successfully recommends Xbox 360 to a mate features an array of coin-op conversions and conversions of casual PC titles.
There is one positive note in all of this. The cult Xbox title Psychonauts is due to arrive on Xbox Live Arcade next month. This neglected classic, created by Tim Schafer of Monkey Island fame, was the Space Giraffe of its day - weird, difficult but brilliant. If Arcade succeeds in giving this game an audience after all these years, it will go some way toward restoring the karmic balance. Nobody knows anything in this business, but at least the era of digital downloads gives them the chance to know nothing all over again.
