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Brain Age 2: A Family Review
Written by Chris Goldberg on Monday, October 22, 2007
Chris Goldberg gets personal, and gives his whole family an opportunity to weigh in on Nintendo's latest non-game....
As part of the trinity of games that firmly put DS out of reach of its nearest competitor, PSP, Brain Age has faced the most heat from hardcore gamers. While Nintendogs and New! Super Mario Bros. both featured distinctive, "game-like" aspects that a traditional gamer could latch onto and embrace, Brain Age was the first that truly reached out to those non-gamers, marketed to them, and made no bones about its intent to change the world of videogames with these individuals. And change the game industry it did.
What made it so unique was that it did this by completely bypassing the market that had made Nintendo such a player over the years, and to do this it had to embody the new "blue ocean" strategy that Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime have repeatedly spoken about. What is it about the "blue ocean" strategy that caused so many long-time gamers to react with such scorn? The authors of the book from which this term was coined, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, characterize it as "untapped and uncontested markets, which provide little or no competition for anyone who would dive in, since the markets are not crowded." The way to swim in this water, of course, is to provide services that are original and rarely seen in the market, thus creating a fervor for a product that few competitors offer. It is no surprise then that "blue ocean" was originally called "Value Innovation", as it represents a company taking bold and innovative steps to capitalize on vast segments of consumers.
At the end of the day Nintendo's utilization of this strategy was a massive success and the rest, as it were, is history. The reason that so many gamer's have criticized this move is because at its very core, it meant some level of abandonment. In the very least, it suggested that the focus was no longer on them but on these people who - let's be honest - are the same ones who have so often mocked these hardcore gamer's for their devotion to this hobby. Some of this fear was no doubt warranted, and much of it was overreaction commonly seen when any industry shifts so dramatically.
I'm a hardcore gamer. I've played since the days of Atari, and I'll be playing until my arthritis takes over and cripples me. Even then, I'll probably find some radical technology to play with my eyelids or something. To those in the gaming community who are familiar with my viewpoints, I'm one of those who have - perhaps wrongly - slammed this move to dedicate so much time and money to these non-gamers. I've had many discussions on this subject, and have debated and argued with all manner of people on all sides of the fence.
So when I received a copy of Brain Age 2 for review, I realized there was pretty much no way I could objectively come to a fair conclusion on the title without a very unique approach to playing it. What I came up with is not a "blue ocean strategy" to reviewing games, but a sensible way to evaluate a title that means many things to many markets. To start, I recruited a variety of people to play this title alongside me. They span many age ranges, and all have a different history with games. They would begin a file, catalog their playtime over the course of a week, and if possible write a small opinion on what they thought of the games negatives and positives. Those who couldn't write something, answered a few questions to summarize their thoughts. I did not share with them my feelings on the genre or title, so the sample was not polluted. So without further adieu, the reviewer roster...
