Radio Silence
Every few years, there is this longest time between Zelda releases where nobody knows anything about the next elusive Zelda game.
Going as far back as the Internet infancy-years for A Link to the Past, people were in the dark regarding Zelda 64 (OoT) for many years. In fact, Nintendo only broke their largest known spell of Zelda information hiatus at Spaceworld of December 1995. For those not keeping count, that's 4 years and a month of complete information blackout from the day that LTTP was released to the day OoT was announced.
But those were weird times in gaming, where terms like 'mainstream' and 'games' were hardly ever used in the same sentence; where annualised sequels were a thing of the future as opposed to the present; and where 3D was the exception rather then the rule.
And as impressive as the 4 year silence between LTTP and OoT was, did EAD really spend all that time developing OoT prior to its Spaceworld unveiling in 95 or not? Well, Nintendo's various EAD division amongst themselves were responsible for 12 (many of them major) releases between LTTP and OoT. A piece of fact which would strongly hint that OoT was not a unitary and continuous development effort but rather a fragmented and protracted one. But as if that weren't enough, the transition from 2d to 3d for a free roaming adventure would've been a massive trial and error time sink for the team, since the newly added dimension would've posed significant challenges to both the technical and design departments. A challenge which in hindsight was so great that countless other devs could not as elegantly conquer until several product releases and years after Ocarina's release; an assertion which is backed by the critical consensus of the game.
Contemporary Era
Excluding pre-OoT development, exactly how long have Zelda fans been kept in the dark for the average 3D releases? Well in the 8 years following OoT and up to November 2006 for TP's release and spanning 4 games, we've been kept in the dark for a grand total of 3 and a half years. In other words, on average, a new console Zelda game is announced just over a year (1.2 years) after the release of the previous one. Within this fickle and disposable games industry, that's generally considered a pretty long time for fans to be kept completely in the dark on. And to put that length of time into perspective, Final Fantasy VII's entire main body of development lasted only around 4 months more (at 1.5 years between late 1995 and early 1997).
But in addition to that 1.2 year average waiting time for the next mainline Zelda to be announced, Zelda fans usually have another, on average, 23 months waiting to do before the game launches (the period between game announcement to release day). That is actually quite extraordinary if you consider that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 took less time to develop then that.
Facts are nice but where does this leave the Zelda Wii in November 2009? For those not bothering with the math, Nintendo have shockingly kept the lid on Zelda Wii for over twice as long (3 years to the day today) as the 2nd longest contemporary period of secrecy - the honours to which had previously belonged to Twilight Princess for being completely unannounced for 1 year and 5 months since the release of Wind Waker. In other words, as mentioned above, the average waiting time for a console Zelda unveiling is 1.2 years; the Twilight Princess waiting time was nearly 1.5 years; and Zelda Wii's waiting time has now surpassed 3 years and counting.
Industry Insanity
So why would Nintendo keep the lid on their star game for so long?
Many developers have done a disservice to their products by mismanaging fan expectations and keeping hype unchecked for extended periods. For example, in the recently released Operation Flashpoint 2's case, the devs went so far as to even exaggerate the hype by making unfounded claims about what the finished product would be like. And then there is Nintendo's very own Shigeru Miyamoto, who himself is guilty of this error when he tried to keep Mario's water Jet-Pack - F.L.U.D.D. - such a tight secret for the longest time because, to paraphrase him: "It's a big innovation and I don't want give anything away to anyone". The result of his secrecy was that the fanbase were left to speculate on the revolutionary 2nd coming of gaming, pretty much. And we all know what a gimmick that turned out being.
And it's not just Codemasters and Nintendo who are guilty here but most other devs and publishers as well. For instance, remember when Peter Molyneux was playing up "that" special feature in Fable 2? In an interview with Eurogamer.net for the run up to the game's launch, he said, and this is a direct quote now: "It's a very, very big thing". And of coarse we now know that what he was referring to back then was about the dog in Fable 2. I still don't get which part of "very, very big" the, for the most part, bug ridden dog actually ended up being.
And the above famous examples are but only 2 of many cases of such gross expectation mismanagement practised by game designers and developers throughout our games industry.
In essence, if Zelda Wii, as an SD product, is to succeed against today's increasingly multimedia centric culture which demands Hi-Def visuals and Hollywood level production values for every AAA game; then Nintendo - due to Wii's lack of headline grabbing hardware grunt - has a very small margin of error to work with in order to succeed both commercially and critically. To truly succeed, Nintendo needs to tick all the right boxes with prefect execution and precision. And to do that, they need to start hitting the right notes with both the fans and the media right from the beginning. And one important thing to get right from the beginning is to get the level of pre-release hype to match the actual quality of the product. The higher the quality of their product, the more leeway they have to play up hype without risking disappointment.
Fan Insanity
Compounding the bizarre attitudes of the industry professionals is the attitudes of the fans themselves.
"The fans are to blame for Zelda:WhatHaveYou turning out bad". Anyone who's seen this type of fallacious piece of immature logic bandied around on these forums, raise your hand. That's a lot of hands!
Or how about the "No matter what the devs do, fans will always complain" argument? And although that's an admittedly comforting argument - to which I've reverted to in the past (in a different context and scenario, mind) - that's still wholly pedantic and unconstructive point to make. Not to mention that it's also an obvious statistical inevitability that should get anyone using it to receive the "No Sh*t Sherlock" award of the day. The thing is, if the devs themselves use that argument then they can somehow be justified due to the pressure laden, stress ridden nature of creating games and are therefore trying to take solace any way that they can.
Unfortunately the blame game is rife amongst the Zelda fanbase and by extension, gamers in general, to this day. For instances, in the case of Zelda games, where as some 'fans' blame the kids for wanting Wind Waker's toon/joyful look, others blame pseudo-grown-up's for wanting Twilight Princess's more realistic/serious/mature look. It beggars belief that more often then not, you'll find fans flaming and blaming each other for what most of the time amounts to nothing more then little to no substance and poorly expressed personal feelings in cutthroat poorly comprehended debates.
And where as Miyamoto and Molyneux learnt from their past mistakes and have since progressively honed their technique of better managing public and media expectations, the collective fanbase on the other hand is still as unpredictable and difficult to deal with as ever. And that basically makes the delicate balancing act of Zelda Wii that much more difficult to pull off right.
And Who Says Long Dev Time is Good Anyway?
So, a long dev time and expectation management are potential precursors to a fresh, innovation rich, industry defining product, but... unfortunately, that's not quite always the case. Case in point being "Too Human" from Silicon Knights. An ambitious 4 disc product which was nearly completed on the Playstation 1 before going through at least 2 hardware transitions and finally ending up as a high profile, 2nd party, game on the Xbox 360. Nearly 15 years from concept to release, the critical reception to the game upon release was mediocre while the size of the fan base never reached a favourable level compared to its development ambition. Although admittedly it did have a fragmented non-continues development from 1994 - 2008.
And then there is the infamous and comically tragic case of George Boussard's privately funded pet project, Duke Nukem Forever. A game that, unlike Too Human, never even made it to release and was, after continuous and unitary development, cancelled 12 years from the day it was originally announced (April 1997 - May 2009 RIP).
But Nintendo has something that companies who have a tendency to be stuck into development limbo could only dream of of having; a high profile, probably low turnover, quality workforce with reputation and a proven track record that goes along with it. Qualities that both Valve Software and Blizzard Entertainment (Now part of Activision) will not doubt attest to; as both companies are routinely known to adopt an extreme form of "when it's done" policy and have yet to fail with a single product.
But there is no doubt that cash was an important detractor in some of the development limbo instances in the past.
Nintendo's Unmistakable Dominance
And it just so turn out that there is neither talent nor cash shortages at Nintendo.
I'll spare everyone from the boring numbers but Nintendo is the most successful software company inside of the games industry in the world. They are responsible for a multitude of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful pieces of software within the history of this industry... that's a general consensus and an assertion based on fact. Nintendo generates more revenue from gaming then any other company globally in the games industry. They are currently beating their competition globally and on all three fronts - console, handheld and software. Nintendo is a multinational corporation that exists in all 3 major gaming regions around the globe. And although they generate less revenue then Sony, Nintendo are still more profitable then all arms of Sony combined.
They are number 1 at the moment, bar none. Even businessweek.com can agree with that notion, what with their annually published list dubbed as "The Worlds Best Companies". In the 2009 edition of that list, Nintendo beat the heavyweights from the IT Industry (Google and Apple), they beat the heavyweights from the heavy construction and building industry, and they beat the heavyweights from countless other industries such as oil & gas giants, telecommunications corporations, banking cartels and companies from a myriad of other industries to claim the number one spot. And although the term "world's best company" is a subjective one, it's important to remember that BusinessWeek still used numbers and balance sheets as part of the criteria for establishing who qualifies to enter their list and who doesn't.
Trouble in Uncle Scroodge's Paradise
Yet, despite their unchallanged and incontrovertible dominance within today's broader gaming landscape; the same cannot be said for one other very important metric. Mind-share.
Now this is a subject that has garnered plenty of controversy in all corners of the industry. And where as most Nintendo loyalist are adamant that Nintendo is in great shape when it comes to games, in contrast however, the rest of industry maintains a much more lukewarm attitude with the general consensus being that if you want the best graphics, the highest production values, the largest budgets, the deepest stories, the most complex gameplay, and the most mature themes, then you look to anywhere but Nintendo.
And despite what corporate spin they put on the situation, there is no denying that, unlike its two main competitors, gaming is Nintendo's lifeline and bread and butter business. There is no denying that Nintendo must clearly be upset that the best and highest profile non-party games cannot be played on their home platform. Much to that effect, NOA's president Reggie Fils-Aime was recently quoted by Kotaku as saying that he was "extremely disappointed" that mega budget games like Modern Warefare 2 and Assassins Creed 2 are simply not an option for Nintendo gamers.
So although they dominate by numbers, the unfortunate truth for Nintendo is that their success came at the price of steadily accumulated built-up of resentment and neglect by the most dedicated gamers who've been around in the games industry the longest, and who buy the most games and play the longest hours. And in an industry as reliant on word of mouth as this, if the situation is not diffused, then it's a shell waiting to explode.
U Turn - Down But Not Out
Gaming is Nintendo's native homeland and therefore they cannot afford to ignore any part of it, much less the most dedicated section. The masses are fickle as they come and go based on, sometimes unpredictable, trends. Which is why it is foolish of people to think that Nintendo is stupid enough to put all their eggs in the "mass market" basket.
Despite the sound logic behind why Nintendo wouldn't ever completely abandon the enthusiast gamers; there are many who have completely written them off already. Crucially, it is with this lack of foresight where this editorial changes gears and enters into its final stretch.
Let's ignore the fact that Ocarina of Time is the most revered game in this industry's history and let's ignore the fact that Super Mario Galaxy could arguably be one of the, if not the, highest quality game of this generation on by far the weakest machine.
But can we ignore the fact that Shigeru Miyamoto is for good measure considered the granddaddy of gaming with numerous life time achievement awards, including being knighted by the French ministry of culture; earning the top spot in Time Magazine's 2008 list of "100 Most Influential People of the Year"; and most recently being crowned by industry veterans as the "Ultimate Development Hero" in a poll which was conducted by Develop Magazine.
Can we ignore that the next Zelda, in all likely-hood, has already been in development for at least 3 years without any sign of a release yet on the horizon?
Can we ignore the fact that the core Nintendo staff have been doing this longer then anybody still around in gaming?
Can we ignore the fact that Nintendo, as a hardware manufacturer, has a bigger vested interest in maintaining or even improving the exceptional legacy of their most loved IP? Are we forgetting about the economies of scale that Nintendo is enjoying during this game's production then any other company?
Are we going to ignore the fact that Nintendo in their own words are "extremely disappointed" to be marginalised by the likes of John Carmack, Gabe Newell and other mega devs for not supporting their platform with high production efforts? And are we supposed to expect the richest most successful gaming company to just sit on it's laurels and continue making only Wii Fit and Party games?
Its true that it took movies and cinema around 53 years to produce Citizen Kane, but since the creation of Pong 37 years ago, I feel that it's time for the games industry to finally take that defining leap forward with a historically defining product, in the process ushering itself in a new era of supremacy amongst all other forms of entertainment, much to Roger Ebert's dismay.
Although this defining product may come from any software company or publisher and on any platform; from where I'm standing, all signs point to Zelda being the next big leap, a displacement, and a catalyst in the evolution of the games industry.
Happy 3rd Birthday Legend of Zelda Wii/HD.
