Analysts consider dance genre 'bubble,' Ubisoft says more 'The Experience' games possible

by Alexander Sliwinski on Apr 25th 2011 5:30PM

Ubisoft's Just Dance and its successful clones like Michael Jackson: The Experience, along with Harmonix's Dance Central, have established the dance genre as a viable market for milking. Now the industry must play the delicate game of sucking the marrow dry without creating a zombie.

Gamasutra hit up go-to industry analysts Michael Pachter and Jesse Divnich for their takes on the sustainability of the genre. Both analysts essentially characterized dance games as part of a bubble that is largely unaffected by critical reception (UK hit Zumba Fitness has a 43 on Metacritic). "In short, yes, the dance category is a bubble," said Divnich, "much like most things in entertainment."

That doesn't mean that the bubble is about to burst -- or that the bottle of suds is close to empty. At least, Ubisoft is planning to keep on dipping in. The publisher's Tony Key teased that Michael Jackson: The Experience is "just the first 'The Experience' brand." He added that there's no reason why "another artist can't make a great dance game under 'The Experience brand,'" but didn't pitch any bright ideas. The Smurfs, anyone?

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[MULTI] David Cage plans "emotional war game" to turn genre on its head

[MULTI] David Cage plans "emotional war game" to turn genre on its head
CVG has posted up details from a chat they had with Heavy Rain creator, David Cage. Inside it he delves a bit into what direction he wants to go in next with his work. Currently David Cage is working away feverishly on two different projects.

As far as influences go, Cage named both Apocalypse Now and Platoon, he is striving to portray war in a much more cinematic and less joyful way that the video game industry has become accustomed to.

"I want to create a genre," revealed Cage. "I want to convince more people that [emotional gaming] is a valid direction for the industry; to show them that this was not just one product, one story. It's a format that can be used to tell any kind of story in any genre with any tone."

He is currently unsure if they'll go down the first-person path, instead wanting to do it from a more film-styled point of view, showcasing the realistic nature of it.

"War is not fun. Talking about what the people involved, what they feel, how horrible it can be. This is something I think could be very exciting and very new for the games industry. When we talk about war, it's always a very 'cool' thing - you have these big guns and you kill loads of people.

I would really like to take a different approach; to tell a story about politics [with it] or something a little more serious. I would like to use what we discovered in Heavy Rain in this fantastic medium of interactivity to say something meaningful. This is probably one of the next things I'm going to try."

Would you like to see Cage's take on war? Either way, there are high expectations ahead for whatever Quantic Dream's next release is.

Written by: Kyran Morrison

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