Part of the beauty of being a marketing professional, particularly a marketing professional responsible for judging the creative work of an agency, is that you don't really need to be a expert in anything. Sure you should be an "expert in marketing" (and lord knows there is no occupation filled with more "experts" than marketing), but it's not like we are required to have hands-on practical experience that leads to expertise. Should we have a strong point of view based on our education, years of experience, and a "gut feeling"? Of course. But it's not like most marketers are copywriters, art directors, programmers, or web developers by trade. This is an important preface and bound to be a recurring theme of this blog. Basically, I'm going to make random accusations about things I don't truly understand. That is the beauty of being a marketer.
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With a holidays upon us, some of the year's best video games are now on the market. Currently my time has been preoccupied with two of the more eagerly anticipated titles: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Both games are available on multiple platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) and I believe each games suffer worse for it.
Unlike prior generations of video games, there is no dominant platform on the market. 3rd party game developers stand to lose a lot if they make a title exclusive to just one system. It's simple economics really. Why spend $20MM to develop a game for a system that only covers 25% of the market when you can spend $5MM more to develop for two systems that capture 50% of the market (note: these numbers are entirely made up and a gross generalization).
For the most part, multiplatform games aren't really an issue. The most the consumer has to worry about is whether their preferred gaming system will have the best graphics or the coolest exclusive content. Unfortunately, Modern Warfare 2 and Dragon Age represent a departure from a consistent user experience. In the case of Modern Warfare 2, they've angered PC gamers everywhere with the decision to not allow dedicated servers. For the Xbox or PS3 gamer, this isn't an issue. However this is a feature that PC gamers have grown to expect. Unfortunately for them, the developers decided against the optimal setup for the PC crowd and chose the most adequate solution. PC gamers have flocked to message boards, created posters, and signed petitions in hopes of having the feature added. So far this has been to no avail.
Less talked about are the troubles with Dragon Age. I just finished the game this evening and I couldn't help but feel the entire time that I was playing a square peg (a PC game) stuck into a round hole (the Xbox 360). The developer (Bioware) has made some amazing games in the past, but most of the games were exclusive to a single platform. With Dragon Age, I kept feeling I was getting a sub-optimized experience. The graphics were dirty and the clipping range was pathetic (foliage would suddenly appear before you). The control system did an admirable job given the depth of gameplay, but I couldn't help but feel it wouldn't have been 100 times more simple on a keyboard. Like all RPGs, text (in the form of notes, scrolls, and the like) are a big part of the gameplay. Unfortunately, the UI made reading these storytelling gems an absolute chore. The small screen real estate may have worked well when viewing on a computer monitor inches from the user's face. But on a large screen HDTV several feet away, the experience is severely lacking. But most surprisingly was the amount of bugs I encountered. In all my years of playing console games, I can't remember having to reboot a game as many times that I did with Dragon Age. Voice audio dropping out for no reason. Graphics not properly rendering, particularly environments and load screens. Or having the characters enter attack mode against creatures in a different room, preventing you from opening any doors or saving the game.
So these were all annoyances that sullied an otherwise entertaining video game. So what is the story for marketing and advertising professionals? All brands strive for a consistent and enjoyable experience for their customers. I've been known to take this quite literally as it pertains to digital marketing. Just like the video game industry is segmented into platforms, the internet is divided into browsers and operating systems. The Mac user running Safari can have a very different experience on a website than the Windows XP user running IE 6. I realize this is the bane of all web developers existence and is the result of varying levels of support for web standards. Yet it drives me nuts that this limits me from delivering really unique and groundbreaking digital ads that perform the same no matter what browser they are seen on. I remember in my early days of media planning, the most I had to worry about was a newspaper or magazine getting the color orange of a client's logo just right. These days I'm stuck deciding whether or not it is acceptable that an ad unit won't autoplay for Safari and Firefox users as it will on IE. Of course you can point to that fact that Internet Explorer still has a dominant market share. But as a user of all browsers that are not named IE, it drives me nuts that one population gets to view my brand's message in the optimal experience, while others are served a lesser version. I know it's just adverting, but would a motion picture studio release the next Scorsese film in widescreen on most theaters, but letterboxed on a few others? I think not.
So it's time for the clients to take up arms and stand with our web development brethren. Better web standards and a strict adherence to them by websites and browsers will not only make their jobs easier, but it will improve the quality of adverting for us. As we move beyond the simple banner ads to richer, more engaging experiences, we need to trust we can deliver that for all web users. Not most. Not some. All.
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About the only point in the article I disagree with is the use of the term "Eeyore days". Eeyore is neither grumpy nor brilliant. He was a depressed, potentially suicidal stuffed donkey. If the author of the article was grumpy, perhaps he would have been thinking more clearly and would have selected a more relevant fictional character.
