Raising the Bar: Death of Mediocrity Edition



I went to see Eric Lewis, aka ELEW, a couple nights ago and just like the clip above, he gave it everything he had. He beat the shit out of the piano and by the time he was done, I could not imagine there was anything left in the guy. Eric's career is blowing up right now - search him and you will see - and he deserves it. Quality rises to the top, even if it takes a while. He and I joked about his years of work leading to his "overnight success."

That day I read more about the death the media. Newspapers and magazines are failing, network television is down, film attendance down, all the rest and I could not help but think about the parallels to game sales. These media are not failing, the bar is being raised. With all the choices consumers will not accept mediocrity. Consumers who are assaulted by media from computers, televisions and phones do not want more of the same. So much is free that we must provide value to get their time or dollars. Newspapers that work hard and offer value are thriving. Cable channels like FX and AMC are seeing increased viewership through quality programming that did not exist years ago and as I said before, every high quality game released since September 2009 has done great numbers. I don't have to say anything about Avatar. The common through line is quality. The people behind the success gave them "ELEW efforts".

Moving forward, rather than pointing to dying media or apathetic consumers, let's first ask whether we are providing more of the same or if we made an ELEW effort.

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