Software: beyond playing games - Consumer Product Retailing Supplement

Discount Store News, Jan 3, 1994

For years in the gaming industry, the term entertainment meant basically one thing--fighting games in which a protagonist kicks, punches, stabs, shoots or blows up a series of villains in search of treasure, a captured princess, or an arch fiend. These games seem to hold an endless fascination for preteen and teenage boys, who admittedly have literally billions of dollars in disposable funds burning a hole in their pockets.

Nintendo and, later, Sega exploited this market brilliantly, growing it to about $6 billion in less than a decade. But the gaming phenomenon generally left those boys' parents, sisters, aunts, uncles and younger siblings out ... and that adds up to well over three quarters of the American consumer market.

Sega hedged its bets slightly with an emphasis on sports games that appealed to older users, and had a slightly older demographic base than did Nintendo. Meanwhile, Nintendo introduced a series of titles aimed at preteen girls, but the heart of the market remained teenage boys.

Until, that is, the personal computer launched its relentless invasion of the American household. The first 20 million or so purchasers probably had business as their prime purchase motivation, but as the household penetration reached 35 million, gaming became more and more important in the purchase decision. The advent of the affordable CD-ROM drive, which can pack up to 100 diskettes worth of information on a single disc, added momentum to that trend.

This led to a wave of new software, on diskette and CD, aimed at kids, dubbed "edutainment." These were generally noncombative games aimed at imparting high levels of educational material in the course of play; the Carmen Sandiego series from Broderbund is the model in this genre.

But the vast majority of computer purchasers are adults, and while kids exercise a disproportionate influence over the home PC, the grown-ups want to play too.

That has led to a new level of gaming dubbed "intellitainment" by one software publisher, and 1994 will see a flood of these rich, complex and varied games.

While the games are very different, many share a "clue-building" approach; the player best able to absorb and collate information wins. In Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, from ICOM Simulations on CD-ROM, for instance, players must solve one of three baffling cases by viewing a short movie, interviewing witnesses and suspects, gleaning clues and utilizing the Baker Street Regulars to aid the investigation. Holmes pops up from time to time to offer sardonic advice, and eventually the player presents his case to a judge.

Millennium Auction from Eidolon (formerly Personal Media International) pits up to four players against each other in a futuristic "art" auction. In the world of the 21st century, the saxophone Bill Clinton played on "The Arsenio Hall Show" might be worth more than a Rubens, and players have to educate themselves through the game's newspapers, TV news shows, radio programs, cocktail party conversations and so on. The game is witty (one collectible is the original footage of the "faked" 1969 moon landing) and populated by beautifully drawn 3-D characters. Updates, with new objects for bidding, will be introduced in the future to keep the game fresh.

Eidolon marketing vp Michelle Blank noted that intellitainment (her term) games appeal to the broadest demographic range--adults.

Anyone who enjoys board games like Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly will like these games, she said, because they lend themselves to more social situations. "The key to the whole category is moving the games into the living room," she said. "That trend underpins the development of a true mass consumer market." Games like Millennium Auction (the first in what is planned to be a series of games based on the company's vision of the 21st century) offer consumers far more than just the pleasures of a board game; they add a degree of realism and randomness that make every play new and exciting.

For instance, one time a player who has just purchased an authentic Easter Island figure, in place on Easter Island, may happen upon a newspaper report of a killer hurricane bearing down on the island and might wisely quickly put that item up for sale. The next time around, no such storm would exist, or, forbiddingly, the player may not happen to see a newspaper warning.

"We think there's going to be an enormous demand for these more adult games," Blank said. "People tend to buy computers for work or for their kids' education, and then start thinking about something entertaining for themselves. And games like this entertain the way adults prefer, challenging the intellect." She differentiated intellitainment and edutainment by noting that the latter is primarily education delivered in a game environment; the former is primarily mind-stimulating, but not necessarily educational, entertainment.

Another twist on the category is the interactive movie, in which the viewer's decisions affect the outcome. Philips' CD-I introduced the first full-length, filmed for CD movie, "Voyeur," and the concept evidently is catching on. Virtually every new movie shot these days is filmed simultaneously for interactive games, and titles are on the way including an all-new science fiction movie starring rock star Debbie Harry. The side-business of creating interactive video games has been so successful that the techniques (particularly the modeling of digital characters, who never age and never, ever ask for a paycheck) are now being adapted to movie-making. Sign of the times: The latest Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller, "The Last Action Hero," will be released for the VCR, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis simultaneously later this month to build synergy between the two entertainment mediums.