Twenty-two minutes, eleven seconds. That’s how long I waited. And I’ve got broadband, and a brand new Dell laptop. Twenty-two minutes and change. That’s how long it took me to download the whopping 754Mb Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon from Big Fish this morning.
I was willing to suffer this interminable delay because I have two young daughters starving for something that is more than just a light excursion into a land of shiny matching gems and upwardly mobile waitresses. My kids want something rich, something timeless, something that aspires to be more than just a puzzle game. So, apparently, do many other visitors to popular casual game portals, whose collective outcry seems to debunk the notion that downloadable games need to be small in order to sell. Apparently bigness is not badness and, with one major caveat, size doesn’t matter.
According to my secret sources, Her Interactive’s first foray into casual games with their less-than-download-friendly Nancy Drew series has sold very well. Why? Well, I have a theory. Actually I have several theories. I have no data yet mind you, but based on nothing but pure observation and fifteen years in and around the digital entertainment business, I suspect the reason why casual gamers seem to be embracing this behemoth of a download is simply because:
- It’s a well-recognized brand based on a classic literary series that shoots a bulls-eye at the demographic.
- With its core-game production values, its rich story and characters, and its 20+ hours of game-play, it offers a superior value over the typical casual game fare.
- It’s a really good game.
Remember when I said that my daughters want an experience that’s rich, timeless and something aspiring to be more than just a game? Well, I’m not quoting them directly. In fact I’m not quoting them at all. At five and six years of age, they do not have the words timeless, rich or aspirational in their vocabulary. They didn’t tell me they wanted these qualities in a game, they showed me. You see, I play downloadable games with my children. They sit in my lap and help me find matches in Mah-Jong Quest, they take the mouse from my hand to complete chains in Luxor, and they are rapt with the iSpy-esque Mystery Case Files. Some games they like, some they don’t, and the look in their eyes always gives them away. It’s easy to tell when they’re losing interest, getting sucked in or getting bored. My kids (all kids) are the best focus groups you can ask for because they have no agenda and no ingrained bias. A good game will engage the obvious five senses, a great game will engage the mind as well, and when we sat down to play Blue Moon Canyon it was as if I had just slipped the latest Miyazaki film into the DVD player.
Forgive me for name-dropping. Hayao Miyazaki is the brilliant Japanese director who made Spirited Away, the Oscar-Winning animated film about a young girl who is whisked off into a mysterious land of intrigue and adventure. Miyazaki’s films often feature strong female leads who must use their wits and courage to escape dangerous and visually compelling worlds. Sound familiar? The very core of the Nancy Drew canon is founded upon the same, basic premise and no doubt the thousands of casual gamers who have already endured at least twenty-two minutes of waiting for Blue Moon Canyon are doing so at least in part because Nancy Drew was written for women and girls intelligently, in the spirit of empowerment, in contrast to the blatant pandering we often see in some popular casual games.
Maybe I’m over-analyzing this, but before Blue Moon Canyon, the only other examples of successful, large footprint downloads I can think of are games like Risk and Monopoly (also—not coincidentally—strong, evergreen brands that play to our collective, nostalgic pasts). But those games are half the size of the Nancy Drew installments. There’s got to be more going on here than just brand recognition. It’s possible that the mere convenience of purchasing online a game previously only available at retail—coupled with a smart key-word campaign and the ubiquity of broadband—accounts for some of the success here. But I believe there’s more going on. The downloadable games market is growing fast, and it’s attracting regular gamers, many of whom are women. These not-so-casual gamers are discovering new outlets and new content to feed their jones. As a veteran adventure gamer I am painfully aware of the dearth of titles that can tell a decent story while presenting a challenge. Twenty-two minutes is a small price to pay for a good adventure-style game. In fact I’d wait forty-four for a game my girls can play.
It remains to be seen just how long Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon will remain at the top of the casual game charts, or if subsequent installments will repeat its success. Maybe this is a fluke. We don’t yet know what the life-cycle for this game will look like. Will it spike quickly and dive? Will it level off and maintain good numbers? Does the subscription model and the relatively low barrier to entry have more to do with its apparent success than the content itself? Maybe. But I believe that if you couple a quality brand with quality game design, then size truly doesn’t matter. Quality is the caveat I referred to earlier. In this case brand is king. Who wouldn’t want a game based on their favorite childhood heroine? Women are not idiots, and it’s time we stop treating them as such. If the Nancy Drew series can sustain sales and remain atop the charts over the next few months, then maybe we will have to stop and listen. It’s not the size of the wand, it’s the magic in the stick. In this case the magic is good old-fashioned story-telling and excellent game design. Duh.
Vinny Carrella wrote and directed Bad Mojo, the 2004 Adventure Game of the Year and has writing and design credits on award-winning games such as Iron Helix and Space Bunnies Must Die! His debut novel, Serpent Box (Harper-Collins, Perennial) will be available IN February '08. He is currently the Director of Licensing at Shockwave.com and can be reached for comment at serpentbox@hotmail.com.
