k thanks. love you. give tom a hug for me.

xoxo britney

I totally agree that what David Cage and the team are doing/did with Heavy Rain is super important. I hope this post didn’t come off as a condemnation of Quantic Dreams or even Heavy Rain.

My main problem with Cage’s statements is that he seems to be discrediting other game designers who have simply chosen to go in a different direction from him. Obviously if Cage had only said something to the effect of “games should move in a more mature direction,” that would sound a lot more all-inclusive. But he goes out of his way to say that designers who aren’t doing what he’s doing “should do something else.” I’m a fan of Heavy Rain, but I’m not a fan of statements like that…

I attended Festival of Games yesterday and I listened to Toru Iwatani (legendary creator of Pacman) and Ian Livingstone (another legend, Games Workshop, Eidos, Square Enix Europe). They both had very strong visions and opinions. But in the end I believe their visions & opinions did not cover the full videogame industry of today. Not that there is something wrong with that, it’s just a big topic with so many different angles.

I believe David Cage is very passionate about pushing videogames as a medium as something to enjoy for adults as well. From what I’ve learned from Iwatani & Livingstone is that they think the game industry is still geared towards a niche (hardcore gamers). Videogames are becoming more socially accepted, but there’s still a long way to go. Unfortunately there are still a lot of people who think videogames are for children. The industry insiders are now looking into a way to get to casual gamers who don’t even know they are gamers. The introduction of the Wii (and Braintraining for DS) was of course a revelation.

Even though Heavy Rain is definitely not the first adult videogame it has been able to ride ‘the wave of change’. I believe David Cage was lucky to have a good marketing campaign for Heavy Rain at a time where games are slowly getting out of the ‘nerd box’. Of course the nerds / hardcore gamers know it all, but it’s not about them anymore. It’s about the mass the people who do not know it yet. Think of the path Spiderman has walked from a comic book to blockbuster movie, not just for those hardcore fans but for everyone who wants to be entertained.

I had never seen so many posters for a videogame release as I did for Heavy Rain in Amsterdam. In The Netherlands products, movies & services get promotion at busstops with special posters at bus & tram stops. This outdoor marketing is a good way to attract attention, but it also a bit general since you can’t really focus on your target group well. I really thought it was pretty gutsy to do a big marketing campaign for Heavy Rain geared towards a bigger audience than just gamers who surf the net and read videogame magazines. I think at the time Metal Gear Solid was released – a game I believe raises much more interesting topics – a widespread campaign was unheard of at least in NL.