"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," is a quote that most of you have heard once or twice written by Thomas Jefferson and placed in the a post revolutionary war blog called the Declaration of Independence. Sadly this does not hold true to games, though developers like to believe it does. Recently I have read endless reports and analysis about the disparity between the sales of a select few games overshadowing other games. I wonder to myself why is this news, it seems like common sense to me that the properties of natural selection applys to consumers just as it does to evolution. I can think of many reasons developers could do to combat the ruthless tactics consumers use to try to sabatoge their companies. Since this is my blog I will name a few.

The number one reason is quality to cost. Modern warfare sells just under 87 trillion copies (rough estimate) in one week but games like Onechanbara: bikini samarai squad only sell about 87. This isn't rocket science developers. My advice is make good quality games and this will not be an issue. Lets just say you have a small developing company and are unable to compete with giants like Infinity Ward, there is a simple solution, don't charge the same price for a lesser product. You will likely make up in sales what you would lose in profit per individual game sales. Take Farmville, it is probably the most played game in the world right now, the reason quality to cost. It is a very simple in graphics and gameplay but incredibly successful. I know its free, but it solidifies my point, quality to cost is an important ratio.

Number two is a little trickier, Release dates. This is a twofold problem, I will explain. This involves competition and timing. Ill keep using modern warfare 2 as an example for being the pinnacle of recent games sales. Lets say you just made a kick ass FPS, it is solid, has great gameplay, multiplayer and replayability, but it is a less known game with little budget for advertising. So you think to yourself when should I release it. I know! Right before Christmas would be great, but every other developer has the same idea. Resulting in a tidal wave of good games. Example this year being Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed 2, Left for Dead 2, and Dragon Age all being released within several weeks. I would love to buy all these games, but I unfortunately can only play one at time. It sucks I know. I bought 2. Sorry Assassins Creed and Left for dead, though I want to buy you and you probably are amazing I haven't found out how to stretch the day longer than 24 hours yet (I was close once using Red Bull, jumper cables, a case of motor oil, and Funions, but that's for another blog). So developers unless you have the best game available for the year space the releases out. I promise it will help. Come every Febuary to about May there is nothing, not one decent game to be found. So I rummage around the bargain bin, and Bingo, I find Assassins Creed 2 for 72 cents. Not much profit to be made there.

The third reason being, make a game people want to play and be innovative. I mentioned earlier natural selection and evolution and how that applys to games too. It is true, games need to evolve faster than influenza to stay afloat. Innovation is the key, some subtle changes often make or break a game. Its not always the big things that make a game great. Take Left for Dead and Dead Rising, you would have thought the zombie games were washed up, but not true. Left for Dead took a real simple approach, just survive hordes of zombies to win. How could that be a good game, really, the answer is teamwork. They made the game incredibly fun by using teamwork. A simple concept but it worked. Dead Rising took a different approach; single player focus, but implementing an useable environment. All you needed to do was survive same as Left for Dead, but you could use anything in the environment to do so. Bowling for zombies, giving zombies a haircut with a lawn mower, and molotovs just = simple fun.

Reason 4, the most annoying in my opinion. Exclusives! I have owned all three current generation consoles (and a gaming PC), but I am a serious gamer. Most people I know own one of the three. Exclusives limit the market potential. I know it costs more to develop for different consoles, but if you want to establish a large consumer and fan base don't limit yourself. I myself have never played a God of War game or Metal Gear game (until 4) because of exclusivity of the past generation. It is not that I didn't want to but I owned an Xbox not a PS3. Both the developer and I were robbed of an opportunity.

Ill bring it to and end here as I could go on and on about the shortcomings of the gaming market and development. I just don't understand why developers and analysts expectations don't match real world outcomes. I am never astonished by outcomes, often they are easily predictable. I am sure things will not change anytime soon, but I will play on.