Diary of an Aging Gamer 76
eToyChest has an insightful column up looking at the realities of the modern game store shelf, and how the titles there relate to the youth of today. From the article: "This year's summer trip to the software store made one thing very clear to me: In its efforts to follow initial adopters into adulthood, the videogame industry has--inadvertently or otherwise--left children in the dust.
There is no denying the fact that today's kids aren't going to have the same experience we had when we were young. Back then, the bread and butter of the big game companies (i.e., Atari, Sega, Nintendo and others) was the child market. Games were appealing to grown-ups, too--if only for the tech factor--but appealing to the kids was where the most money could be had. Walking into the game store meant finding a wall full of games dedicated to the young player."
No Adult Left Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:3, Informative)
Adults seem to have far more money to spend than children.
You seem to underestimate the sheer amount of money that children control through their parents. E games keep Nintendo profitable.
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, making fun, innovative games without needing to rely on a loss-leader to sell consoles is what keeps Nintendo profitable.
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:4, Funny)
You mean like Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Yoshi, Yoshi, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Yoshi, Yoshi, Mario and Zelda?
Yes, rehashing the same characters over and over and over and over - innovative indeed!
Commedia dell'arte (Score:2)
Yes, rehashing the same characters over and over and over and over - innovative indeed!
So did commedia dell'arte [wikipedia.org]. Your point?
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
Then of course they can produce things like Pikmin, and Warioware.
Why focus so much on those few main characters? I don't see anyone complaining about the reuse of the Final Fantasy properties, or Metal Gear, Madden, etc. All of which Nintendo manages to get into their world as well.
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:2)
I don't see anyone complaining about the reuse of the Final Fantasy properties
That's because except for FFX 2, there haven't really been any true sequels using the same characters.
or Metal Gear
Not nearly as many U.S. games have had Solid Snake in a starring role as have had Mario.
Madden
Madden NFL is based on the NFL Players Inc roster, which changes per year. The character 'Favre' will eventually be retired.
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:2)
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:1)
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:4, Interesting)
Leveraging an existing, well liked character is a great way to market innovative games, because people like to buy something that has a little bit of familarity. A lot of innovative games fail because they are too new for casual gamers to take a chance on. Take an innovative game and make Mario the main character though, and it'll sell. The best part is that everybody benefits... The people who like the tried and true, and all of us who wish games were more innovative.
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:2)
Re:No Adult Left Behind (Score:1)
Generational Gap (Score:4, Insightful)
The game industry only follows the money, but if it continues like this, they will only lead themselves to a generational gap, where millions of young kids are uninspired by games, if this situation is not rectified what happens when all of us "first gen'ers" get tired of games? The bubble bursts.
I plan on introducing my kids to the classics with simple gameplay like Mario, Tetris, Asteriods and the like.
Forget all those complicated "hit points", not enough mana, and other things that are best left to more complicated games. I further reccomend this route to any person that is new to gaming or just jaded of current titles. Now I didnt RTFA when I started this comment, but I see it says much the same as I have.
Re:Generational Gap (Score:4, Interesting)
I am an adult and have seen many kids play video games today. They are flawless with jumping straight into a deep, complex game. They don't really need mario, pacman, tetris.
Re:Generational Gap (Score:5, Interesting)
The newest one was started on Pac man, because there's no buttons, and he always moves until he hits a wall. We tried starting with Mario Kart, but he couldn't make the connection between pressing the button and driving.
I don't think there's a linear a progression of buttons, but I think that there's definitely a progression of no buttons to buttons.
It's perfectly analogous to normal children's toys, so I don't see how it would be a bad assumption. I think it's true personally, and for me it's based on actually watching a kids try to play games.
Re:Generational Gap (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Generational Gap (Score:2)
Re:Generational Gap (Score:2)
Not really (Score:2, Informative)
Pokemon: cute, easy to learn, good value. This one's for kids. You've just introduced a 10 year old to hit points and turn based battles.
Final Fantasy: middle of the road. This one's accessible to everybody, but adults will probably do better than your average 13 year old. The stories are starting to pick up here.
Disgaea: almost defin
Re:Not really (Score:2, Interesting)
Disgaea?
The person with more time at his hand will definitely triumph over any thinking person here.
Re:Not really (Score:1, Informative)
That said, Disgaea is the first RPG that I've played where the timer runs past 99:59 and I found that out through personal experience.
It's also the first RPG I've played where you can deal over 1 million points of damage (shown on screen as 1000K) in a single attack. Pulverizing enemies like that was totally worth the hundred-someodd hours I put into levelling and transforming characters. Ev
Not Really (Score:1)
Besides, you can always get a PC and hook them on Minesweeper and Solitare. Or SimCity and the like. Or hit up one of
Re:Not Really (Score:1)
Lots of kids are into sports games and RPGs too. Kids a) have the time to play RPGS and b) appreciate the long game time of an RPG more than an adult.
Is there less that's specifically target to kids as a percentage of total software? Maybe so. But the actual n
Buy a Gamecube! (Score:3, Insightful)
The key right now is buying the right console. I own all three - a Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2.
There are plenty of games for the Gamecube that will appeal to kids. They have simple game mechanics, relatively simple controls, and colorful and meaningful graphics. The awesome thing about Nintendo-developed games is that they're also very in-depth - they can appeal to almost any age.
Re:Buy a Gamecube! (Score:1)
Why do these exist? (Score:2)
So why do I disagree with this guy so much? Because he makes a mistake that a lot of people do on Nintendo threads when they talk about Sony and the Playstation. He states that Sony changed gaming to be adult focused. O
A case of ADHD? ;) (Score:3, Interesting)
Stuff changes, yes, but it changes in a direction that's harder and harder to grasp for a new gamer. Regardless of age, a new gamer is utterly lost in most current PC games. Kids just happen to be an example of new gamer, but try introducing your old mom or grandma to some games and you may notice the exa
Re:Why do these exist? (Score:1)
I don't see any interesting games... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's really nothing new. There are piggy-backed enhancements of first person shooters, which culminate in hyper-twitching frag-fests like Halo and Unreal, or anti-social technoligized anarchist stupidity like GTA. And what's left over are the same tired RPGs and war games. It gets old real quickly.
There have been some promising games in development. I think SWG was really trying to be revolutionary, but that game has been murdered by corporate overlords who have micromanaged the design so that the game is essentially unplayable. That goes for most of the MMORPGS.
Don't even get me started on console games. The last console I bought was the N64. There were maybe a half-dozen decent games, and then the rest were crap that was stupid and badly designed. It used to be that anything that made it to cart was considered decent quality, but that's not the case any more. There's nothing more soul-sucking than spending money for a game that bores or frustrated you a half hour into it.
There is a reason why the game industry is in a glut. They're making crap. They've become too big and slow and dumb. They keep putting a fresh coat of paint on the latest thing from 1994 and finally people are tired of it.
I've skipped several generations of consoles. I still have no desire to get one. I don't think I've missed a goddam thing either, which is a sad state of affairs.
With the PSP being popular, the blowback from suck-ass game developers is beginning to turn full circle. The older the software supported, the more likely people won't throw the stuff in the trash because the new software sucks. I expect this trend to continue until people rediscover Missile Command, Joust, Asteroids, Robotron, Stargate and the hundreds of truly original and creative games from the 80s. If you think about it, there was more innvoation in six months of any given year from 1980-1990 than there has been in the entire last decade. Pathetic.
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:4, Insightful)
I grew up playing (mostly) Japanese games on my MSX [wikipedia.org], and with a few exceptions, modern games don't appeal to me so much as the mid-80s to mid-90s games did.
Yes, nowadays games have better graphics and are faster, but they more often than not playability sucks. Hell, sometimes they aren't even fun! Often they rely on very successful franchises in order to sell lots of copies (like happened with Tomb Raider 6: Age of Darkness [firingsquad.com]).
I guess I'm not the only one who thinks like this. I'm living in Japan, and in the biggest video game shops you can see LOTS of games from the 80s ported to GBA, adapters for playing old NES cartridges on new hard, and more recently, retro game collections for PSP (Space Invaders, Namco Museum, etc). And guess what? These "retro" games are selling almost as much as the new ones.
I think it is also significant the fact that most game arcades have "retro" games mixed among the newer ones. Here [ag0ny.com] are some photos of this.
I guess this has something to do with the fact that older machines had fewer hardware resources, so game developers had to write FUN games in order to sell them. Sadly, nowadays it is all about flashy graphics.
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:2)
Hit the nail on the head with that one. I think the assumption is that if you give game developers the tools to create great LOOKING games then obviously they'll be free to create great PLAYING games. It doesn't take a lengthy look at the shelves at EB to notice that's so not the case.
I think
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:2)
This, sir, is either a bald faced lie, or a sign that you need to take the blinders off about the "good old days".
Not even bothering to discuss the mere legion of asstastic movie, cartoon, and comic book themed games that were released on the N64 and Genesis alone, given time this board could be flooded with crap games from the classic arcade years until the end of the 16 bit era.
The reviews at
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:2)
The gaming industry is like commercial radio now. All flash and no substance or creativity.
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:2)
Whether it's worth spending the time to convince you that you're wrong, I have serious doubts over.
Re:I don't see any interesting games... (Score:1)
The Greying of the Super Mario Crowd (Score:4, Interesting)
While I think this is a great idea, I have to disagree with the idea that the game industry is more focused on older gamers. I used to work for a game publisher (the one we're all sick of hearing about these days) and our most profitable games were not the M or Teen rated games, but the kids' games. I never would have thought that if I hadn't started working there, but I think it's because we're all older and out of touch with what kids (10 and under) are into.
I don't think the industry needs to market to these kids though. Most of the kids games tie in to some kind of cartoon, kids movie (Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, anyone?), toy, etc. The kids already know of the characters and would probably want to buy the game just because it has their favorite cartoon character on the box. The thing with these games is that it's parent-friendly too. A non-game-savvy parent may stop by Toys R Us on the way back from work to pick junior up a treat. Is the parent going to buy some game he's never heard of, but there are posters of all over the store? Probably not. The parent will buy Kids Next Door or Britney's Dance Beat because he knows junior likes watching that on TV.
Re:Not a kids' movie. (Score:1)
Empirical or anecdotal observations? (Score:2)
Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not even about kids as such, it's about new gamers, IMHO. Try introducing a older non-gamer to some modern titles and watch them be just as clueless and disoriented for hours. Try it, really. I know I've experimented on various family mem
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Like, say, chess, or go?
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
You can "learn" any game pretty quickly, but the act of mastering it is what constitutes a "learning curve". Go and Chess have large "learning curves". Chess, at least, is frequently learned from a very young age, and mastered over a lifetime.
It sounds like what people are lamenting is the lack of simple games that they associate with their childhood. Part of the reason those games were simple is because they had to be. However, just because the games were simp
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Yes, I am very much aware of the difference between learning the game and mastering it. Yes, I know what a "learning curve" means, thank you very much.
What I am talking about in some newer games is precisely the extra difficulty in even learning the basics, if you're not already a gamer. That's what I'm talking about.
Compare getting a non-gamer started on PacMan to getting the same person started on, say, City Of Heroes. It's not that they won't master COH, it's that
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Not everybody comes to computer gaming and starts trying to play Doom III right off the bat, and your entire tone has assumed that they do, which is just silly.
Also consider that the average hand-eye coordination of the general populace has probab
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
They can't, that is the whole point. It's one thing to arrive at Doom 3 via Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem, get used to full mouse-look in Bethesda's Terminator Future Shock (which invented full mouse-look), etc, and a whole other thing to even try starting from scratch.
The problem is that all those stepping stones we've had have all but disappeared. Even if you start
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Re:Well, here's evidence you can see for yourself (Score:2)
Makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
It hasn't been in the past, but this is only evidence that the market is still growing and maturing.
The same follows for women in gaming. Women don't necessarily like watching action movies, so why should the same women be expected to like playing action games? As more women become involved in the industry they will be able to shape it towards the kinds of games they enjoy playing.
Chick flick simulator? (Score:3, Interesting)
Women don't necessarily like watching action movies, so why should the same women be expected to like playing action games?
A lot of the traditional interests of women would probably be AI-complete to simulate. Women are thought to like chick flicks, which tend to be heavier on the drama than a typical action movie. It's a lot harder to simulate emotional responses to English sentences than it is to simulate the effects of a bullet.
Kids Games (Score:3, Funny)
* Why do they always show pictures of girls with their underwear on on the front of boxes?
* How come people like blood so much?
Of course, I cut through the phone isle to miss the pop CD section...
Old Timers (Score:1)
The technology just wasn't there (Score:1)
Nudity would have been laughable (X-Rated games from the Atari VCS days were truly bad). Blood would have been red blocks. Cutesy characters and pixelized tanks were the limit of those systems.
Also, has he seen any of the old Atari and Intellivision ads? There were quite a few adults playing the games in those commercials. They were trying to sell to everyone back then.
N
Re:The technology just wasn't there (Score:1)
It still struck me as being completley "false". There were no truly salient points, just a little (bad) remenicing on the author's part...
That didn't make any sense. I agree with everybody else's comments that how can you say you are "catering" to the older gamer? There is no way in Hell this is happening. If the game industry was "catering" to the older gamer then we would have mo
The counter-examples are the best-sellers (Score:2)
E.g., let's talk The Sims. You know, _the_ game which outsold any Id or Epic or Rockstar title ever, as PC game sales go. It also sold 7 expansion packs, priced like full games.
The most violence you could see in the game was a cartoonish cloud with arms and legs po
What game store did this guy go to? (Score:2)
Video Game Market (Score:2)
The fact is that your market of 18-35 year olds is the one that is most likely to spend money on things like video games. Your 18 year olds don't have the money to spend (and parents can only spend so much) and your 35+ give their interests to other things.
While it may be depressing for this author, you can't blame the game industry for realizing their market and going
Parents spend so much (Score:1)
If I had to guess, the reason there are fewer "child" games on the shelves is the same reason there are fewer "child" movies in theatres.
Answer: Because publishers are stupid. Analogy to movies distributed by MPAA studios: There are 12 times as many R movies as G movies first published in the past year, but the mean G movie has grossed 12 times as much as the mean R movie. So you get the same box office revenue from one G movie as from 12 R movies, but it's generally cheaper to make one G movie than to
Yes, the experiences are different. (Score:2)
Oh certainly. When I was young (I'm 44), I was expected to read, or to play outdoors, or to otherwise engage my own imagination rather than being handed a sheaf of electronic babysitters.
O RLY? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:O RLY? (Score:1)
fun times! (Score:2)
The biggest thing preventing him from playing games like Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (which he loves) by himself is the complete lack of voice-over. It's unus
Some good games for the PreTeen at your house (Score:2)
Re:Some good games for the PreTeen at your house (Score:1)
Sly Cooper series (PS2): cartoony, fun, not too hard. Yes, you're a thief, but you're a good thief).
Ratchet and Clank series (PS2): fun, can get challenging, great weapon diversity.
Jak series (PS2): pretty fun, III had a great mix of levels, too, so it never got boring.
I-Ninja (if you can find a cheap one) (multi): decent platformer. Ninja moves slower than I'd like, but it's a good time.
Mario
Tomb Raider more intricate than Mario 64??? (Score:2)
Sony really was the driving force behind the more complex use of three dimensions. Early attempts like Mario 64, for example, are hardly comparable--in terms of intricacy--to their Sony contemporaries like Tomb Raider
I haven't played Tomb Raider that much, but do you think that's an accurate summation?