Product Mini Profile Soul Bubbles in: Puzzle Games links » p/reviews

Gamasutra has officially become one of my favourite gaming websites. They always seem to have great, in-depth interviews conducted by very knowledgable people, and talk about stuff that actually matters. Not to say every interview should be like that, but it's good to see sometimes, and I like to think it betters the state of things as a whole in the end. Interviews unbound by linearity are my personal favourites. Yours?

Case in point is Mekensleep, who talked to them recently about their title Soul Bubbles, that oddity of a game released for DS not long ago. The majority of you are probably not familiar with it, it being one of those little known, little covered titles. These are the kind of games I like to be sure to pay attention to and talk about, assuming there's substance behind it, which, often, there is. Anyhow, a developer overview is here to give you a good idea of what the game is about (it's better seen and explained):

Having tried out the game, I can say it's terribly charming and addictive, in a very strange way. The masks feature gives it a particularly novel quality, similar to (in multiple ways), what we saw in Majora's Mask, albeit with a pretty well completely different gameplay approach. Come to think of it, the whole game faintly reminds of it - the fairies, and just the general feel of it which I can't really put my finger on. The music is great, the animation is great..it's just a really beautiful game (you'd almost think I was being put up to this, hey?).

But moving along, Mekensleep's creative director Oliver Lejade chat with Gamasutra is great all over, but the bits I find particularly interesting focus on the state of the DS, troubles with retailers, the challenges of releasing a unique game, stuff like that. Much like Sega of America's president Simon Jeffrey, I like how Lejade says it like it is. Speaking about how the DS is being killed "by lack of originality", he says it's not just the publisher's fault, but also the distributor's (retailer's):

"They have selection companies that decide what they're buying, and how many quantities they're taking from the publishers, and how they're exposing it on the racks. So the problem is, these committees, they have the publishers come in and present their games, and there are lots of publishers coming in, who have a lot of games to present, and when the publisher comes in and says -- basically a publisher has about five minutes per game, to explain what the game is about.

So when you're selling a license? It's easy. You say, "Oh, well, we're making this game that's Spider-Man 3, it's going to be blah-blah-blah," they know what Spider-Man is, they know they're going to be signing X quantity of it, mechanically. So that's fine.

You're saying, "Oh, this is a game about little girls, pink ponies, and you know that little girls are going to buy this," it's X number of units are going to go, it's an easy sell. But when you come in with an original game, that they don't have any clear reference to the gameplay of something that has been done recently, that has no license, then it's a very hard sell. And if you have only five minutes? I can't explain Soul Bubbles in five minutes. It's not doable -- and I made the game."

What happens from here he says is the comittee rejects it or accepts only a few units:

"So this comes back to the marketing team, and the publisher, who then forms this image that it cannot sell that type of game; which goes down to the buying arm of the publisher, who doesn't want to buy these types of games anymore, because they don't know how many they'll be able to sell.

And even if they do like the game, they know that they're going to have a selling problem to the distribution. So I think distribution is largely responsible for what's happening right now. And it's not just -- it's very obvious on the DS, but it's true for all distribution."

I've never seen the problems associated with making a truly unique and innovative game spelled out so clearly before, so a hearty pat on the back to you, Lejade, sir.

Now, the thing about grievenaces like these is if no solution or hope is offered, everyone just gets sad and complacent. Well, they touch on digital distrubution following that bit, which I think could represent the light at the end of the tunnel thing. He says different people run those networks, and things operate differently. Naturally, as this is the reason WiiWare, XBLA and PSN succeed as well as they do. So you know, applause to the respective companies for urging a new model (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony: take a bow). Could this be the entire future of gaming? Do you want it to be?