Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory of distribution is (at least to me) fairly self evident. I’ve just found in my personal life and that of my friends, more and more splintering of our attention and interests.
That being said, his recent post about the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console (their downloadable games marketplace) was laughable. I have a Wii (6739-9360-9602-1441) and was severely disappointed in the online catalog. Anderson states that the Virtual Console is: “…compatible with Nintendo’s entire back catalog, many of which can be purchased from Nintendo’s Wii store.” The reality is that it is just the tiniest sliver of their catalog is available (their previous big hits). These aren’t long tail sales so much as format updates to previously available material.
However, there are some stunning examples of Long Tail distribution in the video game world, the greatest of which is probably MAME. From their site:
Even though MAME allows people to enjoy the long-lost arcade games and even some newer ones, the main purpose of the project is to document the hardware (and software) of the arcade games. There are already many dead arcade boards, whose function has been brought to life in MAME. Being able to play the games is just a nice side-effect.
A side effect making over 5000 classic, and many abandoned games playable to a huge group of people all over the globe.
WHAT TO DO NOW?