"Skate It" may be a game that generates little buzz these days, but it appears that Wii owners who have the Balance Board-enabled skateboarding game keep playing it. Here's some data I pulled from the Wii game usage post I ran yesterday. MTV Multiplayer's full Wii Stats April Update posts tracks 50 games, as played by as many as two million Wii owners. There's plenty to be learned in there about what keeps Wii gamers playing.
Skate It (November 2008)
Average time played per player:
As of 4/1: 12 hours, 6 minutes (up 83 minutes)
As of 3/1: 10 hours, 43 minutes
As of 2/1: 9 hours, 19 minutes
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The first odd public relations stunt is upon us as Electronic Arts sent reporters such as me some steak to promote the pending release of "Skate 2." Read more...
The "Skate" team knows they have a good thing going with their control scheme. It's not changing much in "Skate 2."
But like many developers, they don't like playing with the same mechanic over and over. Gamers have already fallen in love with "Skate"'s approach, though, so there's a problem.
At last week's press event for "Skae 2," the series' associate producer of environments Shaun Laker told me several times that EA has no plans to mess with the fundamentals of the "Skate" controls for the sequel, but they have found a way to play around with tradition: other versions of "Skate."
"Maybe that's a chance for us to try new things," he said. "We don't want to mess with the audience that is [playing] 'Skate', right? But then we get games like 'Skate' for the DS. You can do those new things, you can take those risks. I don't want to say risks -- but educated guesses. [laughs]"
That's right, DS owners. You're the guinea pigs.
"Skate 2" arrives on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on January 20.
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One of the reasons EA's "Skate" was so widely accepted was because it wasn't a another "Tony Hawk" game. It was a different (and new) experience.
As Electronic Arts and Black Box finish work on "Skate 2," however, they need to start looking at where the franchise is going, and how to avoid falling into the same trap.
At a "Skate 2" event in San Francisco last week, the game's associate producer for environments, Shaun Laker, told me how they'll accomplish that.
"As long as we keep putting out great games and don’t rush it out and polish it and make sure we're listening to the community and hearing what they're having to say [we will avoid that]," said Laker. "A big part of it too -- and what drove our features this year -- is we were finding out how people played the game. We know people play the game to find their own spot and to own it to be able to call it their own. This year, you can go and do that, and in a community, you can share it. That's how we stay fresh and we don't go too far; we listen to the community and know what they're asking for and respond to that."
From what you've seen of "Skate 2," do you think they're on the right track? Can the developers avoid "Tony Hawk" Syndrome?
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Wii ‘Skate It’ Controls Are Good In The Way That Annoys Some Gamers
I haven't played more than five minutes of Electronic Arts' highly praised "Skate."
Being the only reporter for MTV Multiplayer in San Francisco, I'm used to seeing many games in genres unfamiliar to me. "Skate" is in that pile.
Yet I found myself at EA's coming out event for "Skate 2" last Thursday. I'd loaded up the demo for "Skate" just minutes before walking out the door. I barely made it through the tutorial.
Given that, if you (like me) haven't played "Skate," should "Skate 2" be on your radar? Absolutely. We both probably should have played "Skate," anyway.
Here's what matters and what doesn't about the new game...
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Whether you would enjoy "Skate It" on the Wii depends on how you feel about Wii games that can be played using what I can best describe as motion-mashing.
It's like button-mashing, but involves swinging the Wii remote.
Shake the controller any which way while playing "Skate It" for the Wii and good things happen.
"Skate It" adapts the controls of EA's 2007 game "Skate" fo the Wii's motion sensitive remote. Players hold the remote in front of them, imagining that it's a skateboard. Tilting it down or up tilts the boarder forward or back, rotating slightly left or right causes the board to turn, flicking the remote up causes an ollie (a jump), and various combos of tilting, flicking and rotating trigger basic tricks. Two buttons are used for grabs and acceleration.
I expected the controls to be challenging when I tried it Monday night at an EA event at the Supper Club in San Francisco. Visions of EA's "SSX Blur" and it's demand that I draw complex patterns precisely in mid-air flashed into my mind.
But "Skate It" is not that tough.
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