Rockstar Executive Hates Term “Next Gen” and Starbucks Cake…
by Chad Lakkis on June 22, 2007 at 1:27 pm
According to an interview with Gamasutra, Rockstar San Diego Executive, Alan Wasserman was asked what the term “next gen” meant to him, and he had this to say…
“I absolutely hate the term, because it’s a manufactured marketing term. To me, next-gen is any combination of thousands of things that developers pull out of their bag of tricks and mix and match things together to create their own special recipe. If it’s done well, it’s a masterpiece, and that experience is a next-gen experience.”
Now lets stop right there … “manufactured marketing words”? We can’t walk ten feet in this world without being effected by marketing. Lets see, turn on the radio and you get “bootylicious” and “fergalicious”, spend enough time in front of a computer and you will no doubt be exposed to “brb”, “lol”, and our favorite “web 2.0″.
Alan continued to say “It’s like I’m baking a cake. I have flour, butter, eggs, and chocolate, but how I use those ingredients and how I combine them will determine whether I give you a next-gen cake, as opposed to something you’d get at Starbucks.” Why are you eating cake from Starbucks in the first place Alan? Shame on you.
In all seriousness, where we agree with Alan is that if improperly defined the use of a “buzz word” can do more harm than good. That said, marketing is a HUGE part of our culture, so before you decide to “hate” a word because it lacks clear definition, try and think about what the word means to you.
So what does “next gen” mean to us? We see it as an effort to promote the next step in technology which includes better graphics, more processing speed, etc … although if you take it a step further would that then mean that the next gen would in fact be the “next next gen”? Kind of silly, but how else would they handle it? Also, (and this is huge in our book) there is no doubt in our minds that the individuals who coined the term did so in an effort to justify the drastic increase in price for the new consoles.
Here is the scenario: Mom walks in to the mall with little Johny and he sees the new PS3, she can’t afford it but he drags her into the store anyway. She asks the individual behind the counter “Whats so different about this one, my son already has a PS2?” Without hesitation, the well trained sales associate responds “well mam, this console is … next gen”. The boys eyes light up and the mother seeing the excitement in little Johny’s eyes says “Alright, we can live without food for a week, lets get it.” Marketing baby, it moves more than mountains.
Source: Gamasutra
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Tags: starbucks |
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on June 22, 2007 2:15 pm
Rockstar was one of the two title sponsors of the “What Makes A Next-Gen Game?” event produced by International Game Developers Association, San Diego. Alan was involved in the success of the event and was also in attendance, and so I guarantee you that he has thought long and hard about the phrase.
on June 22, 2007 6:20 pm
Morgan,
The quote you pulled from our article was not directed towards Alan. It was a generalized statement regarding buzz words. Alan actually goes on to explain what the word means to him in the very next sentence of his quote stating…
That was proof enough to us that he had done his share of thinking before hand. Thanks for the comment.
Mad-