Paddling, and what it meant for the Wii.

I just got back from Downtown Disney with my family. We visited their five-story arcade complex there, and played a variety of games, very few of which the average gamer would have in their home. One of these, and I forget the name, was the one where you're in a inflatable raft, and you're sent to a river in the distant past to go see dinosaurs just before the extinction-level event occurs.

There's no score to keep, but it actually is a video game and not just an "interactive experience", whatever that difference might actually be. There are meaningful in-game decisions to make: the path branches at several points, each with different dino-events occurring for you to gape at. There are obstacles, mostly the cliff-walls of the river, and there are consequences to your in-game actions - you can be "splashed" by actual jets of water, and the raft is constantly bucking from the action on-screen. There's even a goal, in that the faster you go through the river the more you get to see before time runs out (and from the map displayed at the game's end, it looks like there are a few large areas at the end that my family didn't get to in time); however, I don't think the goal is the point, given how low-key its existence is.

But what's most salient about this game/ride is the controller. Instead of buttons, D-pads, or analog sticks, you have an oar. It has skateboard wheels attached to the end of the blade, so that when you row, the wheels contact the airbag that supports the raft, and you get some resistance to your movement - the motion of the wheels is what the game registers, and it moves your raft down the river accordingly. Now, this is a control scheme that might be familiar to people who go canoeing, rafting, or are otherwise regularly on the water without engine or sail... But for the average person, gamer or no, it's completely new and different.

My father doesn't play video games, I've played them for years and years, and my siblings play less than I but more than my father. But they all enjoyed the experience immensely, at least in part because of the new controls, because it leveled the playing field and made the game an experience where my father wouldn't be frustrated at the technology and want to quit. In short, because we all sucked equally, it was more enjoyable for all of us.

(Now, to be fair, other things are at work here: the game has a very simple and understandable premise, with whatever limited gameplay mechanics it has hidden from player view completely, which aids the new controls in leveling the field from gamers to non-gamers, for one. For another, the physical feedback of the raft bucking and the oars getting resistance on the 'water' made it more intuitive. Thirdly, it was a completely co-operative game, which generally helps ease frustration. And so on.)

So, I would argue that the Wiimote does something similar for people who are new to gaming: because it was, at its release, so new and different from what the average gamer had years of experience with, we all sucked pretty much equally at it. Being at the same (low) skill level made co-operative and competitive play more fun for people new to the system, who would then go out and buy their own, to either get practice in or simply to share the newbie experience with others.

Obviously, not the main reason the Wii exploded into money, opening up a new segment of the gaming market. But I'd say it was at least a contributing factor.