Industrial Gaming 01 | Rein in the Abuse

By Barry Lewis 01.01.2004 3

Rein in the Abuse
Barry Lewis :: 17th November 2005 :: Issue 1


The video games industry has become synonymous with verbal abuse from industry executives. It seems these days a top ranking executive can't even mention the competition without launching an 'ours is bigger than yours' rhetoric, or a more straightforward attack on what they are showcasing. But when Mark Rein, Epic Games Vice President, launched an against-the-grain attack on Nintendo and their new control innovation there was a few surprise results.

"Don't kid yourself - you're going to see more gimmicky, crappy, cheap, I-wish-I-hadn't-bought-it gimmick games based around that controller than you can ever possibly imagine."

Unfortunately for Rein he picked a poor stage to illustrate his opinions, and more importantly he used some down right shoddy points, opinions and debating techniques. The problem here lies not just for Rein, but for his initial concerns and implications. Truthfully speaking the issue raised is an extremely valid one, just because the concept of the controller is fantastic, and developers can't stop praising the device, does not mean quality Software will follow. We need top quality developers such as Epic Games to actually turn that vision into a reality, not a host of poorly developed Fishing Revolution games churned out just because it looked good on the promotional video.

This story, however, continues to break aforementioned traditions. As Rein's words spread through the Internet, much like a home made Abi Titmuss video, it sparked debate and discussion right to the very heart of Nintendo HQ. We can only speculate, but presumably after Reggie threatened an ass kicking like no other, it was decided a more restrained response was in order. Cue Jim Merrick, Nintendo Europe's Senior Director of Marketing, to take the stage and show us how PR should really be done.

"Mark has a very narrow section of the business. Epic builds middleware, they're very technically savvy guys, but he doesn't have a Revolution controller, he doesn't have a dev kit, he's talking about something he knows nothing about."

"So if he'd like to get a dev kit and really dig into it, then I'd be interested to hear what he has to say."



The response could so easily have been different, you don't need to examine Epic Games' past releases to realise they are a bread and butter rehash game maker. Merrick could have simply pointed out that Rein wouldn't know innovation if it reared up and bit him in the fleshy bits. But instead he opted to lead by example, simply pointing to some facts and inviting Mark to get in touch and expand his knowledge of Revolution. The computer games industry actually needs more Jim Merricks, he would rather challenge, discuss and educate, rather than "flame" as they say. The best news is yet to come though; Mark Rein did indeed listen to the wise words of the man who who likes to pose with scary looking Yoshi's. But before we deal with that it also seems that the initial comments from Rein were taken out of context and his meaning completely misinterpreted.

"I actually said Nintendo's going to make amazing games. I never really passed a judgement on the controller itself. I think the controller's cool!"

"I wasn't bashing Nintendo, I wasn't bashing the controller, I was really just saying that a byproduct of having a device like this is that people are going to make games that possibly are just there because of the controller, as opposed to being great games of themselves, and I said it badly... I regret that."

"Nintendo and some of the best third parties are going to make amazing games for it."



So he is still sticking by the initial and very valid point regarding controller-based gimmicks, but if you happened to watch the IGN video you'll notice a different tone to the comments. The controller is now "cool" and we can expect great games from not just Nintendo but also the talented third party developers. This U-turn really is quite unprecedented; the level at which he previously attacked Nintendo, the controller and even the GameCube was pretty scathing. Jim Merrick must be as good a PR man as he is an interviewee. Indeed Mark Rein continues that he did read the comments from Merrick, and that he phoned up immediately afterwards. The call between them was long, and very good, and he even confirms that there were no hard feelings, great news all round then.

"I told him we'd absolutely love to take him up on that."

"I think Unreal Engine 3 and Nintendo Revolution would be very well suited to each other."

"We don't know right now what the machine's capable of or not capable of, and we've built Unreal Engine 3 to a certain specification. If the machine can run the engine, it'd be fantastic to have it on there."


So there you have it, the chances of the Revolution running the Unreal Engine 3 have just leapt from a 'have you been smoking that funny stuff again' status to being a 'fantastic' if technically possible. The ramifications of this could well be a Nintendo representative visiting Epic Games with not just a Revolution development kit and heavy Non-Disclosure Agreement, but even a demonstration kit and the Metroid Prime 2 demo from the Tokyo Games Show. We all know just how positive the play test responses from the latter were, and if it really is that impressive maybe Mark Rein and his team will realise how the controller really could revolutionise console FPS titles.

Sadly though, this Hollywood romance tale is at a close. And if anything does transpire from this an announcement will be months away, if not years. But what this story does highlight is just how committed Nintendo are to the Revolution project, and just how pro-active a third party partner they have become. Who's up for some Unreal Tournament Revolution then?

Barry Lewis is Cubed3's top industry analyst and his feature, Industrial Gaming, is published every fortnight.

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So Mark Rein thinks that some of the less talented third party companies are going to make some cheap, gimmicky games. He'll be right and he's not saying that Nintendo are to blame for that.

( Edited on 03.01.2007 22:23 by Picnic )

Wow!!!

Talk about reviving a 3 year old news article!

Avoid Games Like the Plague, productivity++

OMG I read the whole of this thinking it was new, and that "Revolution" was eventually going to be replaced by Wii...2004!

That is ridiculous.

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