Wal-Mart Pwnz Gaming?
Well it does if you believe the astounding assertions that have been pumped out in a recent issue of The Escapist. Article author Allan Varney rips any notions of publisher autonomy and freedom of choice to shreds in his painful detailing of just how much control the retail giant has over what games hit our store shelves. And not just Wal-Mart shelves either.
Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games’ subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won’t carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start to finish, top to bottom, with the publisher’s gaze fixed squarely on Wal-Mart, and no other.
The retail chains very strong market position and tremendous customer base give it plenty of leverage to dictate what is/is not appropriate, and what games (during development) it will deign worthy to grace it moral shelves. This leaves developers and publishers in a bit of a quandry…ignoring Wally’s wishes is a sure fire way to get yourself cut out of a large segment of the game buying population, but bowing and scraping at the feet of the behemoth certainly can’t taste very good.
What kind of placating are we talking about? Try these examples on for size:
- Developers have produced “special Wal-Mart editions” of some games, such as Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, that delete the two principal bugaboos, nudity and excessive gore.
- For the U.S. version of Giants: Citizen Kabuto (2000), Planet Moon put a bikini top on Delphi, the game’s topless sea-nymph heroine, after Wal-Mart refused to carry the seminude version.
- Wal-Mart was a significant force in driving videogame producers (and software producers of all kinds) to dramatically reduce the size of their boxes. Wal-Mart’s goal is to put as much merchandise on the shelves inside a given store-size as possible. By cutting the box size of games and software, Wal-Mart could easily increase the amount of product it displayed by 20 or 30 or 40 percent. (Apparently they did the same to deodorant…who knew?)
The author cautions that not all is doom and gloom, nor will all gamers be forced to play half-baked sequel/knockoffs for years on end. Digitial distribution will cut the reliance on retail and allow developers more freedom to -gasp- be creative and work on titles that they’re truly committed to, rather than spending all that extra time turning blood green and clothing naked Roman statues in their existing games just to get them on the shelf.
(photo source)
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POSTED IN: News, Things That Suck, WTF
4 opinions for Wal-Mart Pwnz Gaming?
Matt
Apr 18, 2006 at 1:38 am
Part of me is not surprised at this, but on the other hand I had no idea how much say Wal-Mart had in all of this. Maybe this is why whenever I’ve gone to Wal-mart to pick up a game they’ve always got the crappiest selection of games and nothing I’d really want to play anyways. Then I had to Gamestop or EB or CompUSA, you know, real stores and they’ve got what I want.
Though, truth be told, if those smaller boxes were because of Wal-Mart, I’ll have to thank them. While in one way it kinda limits the stuff we get with games, in others, it is very nice to have a smaller box because, frankly, the CDs just aren’t that big to warrant the packaging they used to get.
chartreuse
Apr 18, 2006 at 3:54 am
Walmart does this to every industry.
Soup companies had to litterally change the sizes of their cans if they want to be in Walmart. Magazines as well.
It’s a complete flip over the wa it used to be when the manufactuers had the power. Now it’s all about distribution and that what walmart owns hands down.
Until everyone a blockbuster game is only available for download walmart will own the video game industry.
Cal
Apr 18, 2006 at 4:03 pm
As Chartreuse said - what’s wrong with distributing via download? You don’t have to pay via credit card online (if that is a worry), there’s direct deposit, BPay, phone banking, etc.
Okay in Australia you may be on Fraudband and it can take a day or 2 to download, and you’d double your bandwidth limit…
the play girlz gaming blog: because guys aren’t the only players » Hard-Core Becoming Synonymous With Broke
Oct 12, 2006 at 4:48 am
[…] The article deals only with Microsoft and Sony, and places a great deal of emphasis on the importance of early adopters to help and dampen the shock-induced slow retail climb of the next-gen consoles. But, as prices continue to rise the old question of ‘how much will finally be too much’ arises and has started to cross the minds of retailing powerhouses such as Wal-Mart. And if the retailers aren’t happy, particularly the big boys that have a lot of say, we may begin to find next-next-next gen consoles only in specialty shops, or sitting pretty beside the 72″ plasma televisions. […]
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