Email: Arcade Based Gameplay

Hello Sean Malstrom,

I’ve noticed you haven’t been updating your site as much lately, meaning you are probably very busy, leading me to assume you have a flood of emails to deal with. I apologize for adding to the pile…

I’ll make this quick. There is a term that you have been mentioning quite often recently, that I would like you to clarify, if you can: “arcade-based gameplay”.

How exactly do you discern whether a game has a core of “arcade-based” gameplay? How do you judge, for example, whether Star Fox 64 or Twilight Princess or Super Mario World or Yoshi’s Island retained that addictive ‘arcade-based gameplay’ or abandoned it? From what you have described, the term seems to lack a concrete definition, and I would very much like to hear by what criteria you base your designation on.

In simple terms: What exactly do you mean when you classify a game as having its core structured around “arcade-based gameplay”? How do you define whether or not a game has this quality?

All the best, and thanks for your answer (if you can get around to it!)
Virtual Malstrom Blog/Article-Follower

SHORT ANSWER:

Arcade based gameplay is twitchy skill-based gameplay that is well crafted. Cerebral gameplay (i.e. puzzles, adventures, RPGs) are not arcade based.

You know a game has arcade based gameplay is when the gameplay can be “mastered”. It becomes an achievement to get to the next stage. To beat a stage requires skill, not time invested.

In the 80s and early 90s, we described our progress in games: “I am up to level 5 on this game!”

In the 90s and 2000s, we described our progress in games: “I am five hours into this game!”

Notice the difference?

LONG BLOATED ANSWER:

This is a good question. I thought everyone know what ‘arcade based gameplay’ meant. I guess I am getting old because there are people who were born and cannot know the arcades.

Arcade gaming was based around its business model. The games had to do three things:

-Attract attention to people wandering around
-Be very simple so anyone could pick up and play.
-Be very addictive but difficult so the person kept feeding money into the machine.

Arcade games ended up being very Vegas like with flashing lights and demos playing showing the game. The barrier to the non-gamer was virtually nil since they had to get people to try out their game with no gaming experience.

There were no tutorials of course.

The game could not be too easy. You could not have someone stand there forever playing one game on a quarter. The business model demanded quarters to keep flowing. So arcade games were very difficult intentionally. However, the difficulty was not frustrating. If it was frustrating, the consumer could easily walk away and go to another machine. So it was addictive.

Contrasting arcade games would be the computer games. Games on the computer would have manuals in the hundreds of pages. They tended to be much longer than the arcade game and far less difficult. Adventure games and RPGs came from the computer game world. You could sit there all day exploring the little world. This, of course, would never happen in the arcades.

Now, there were many computer games that had arcade gameplay. Anyone could program a computer game (just as they can today). But what the computer could do, that arcades could not, is create a game like the RPG or adventure game.

The arcade games that computers could never truly do were games with local co-op and interfaces. There were all sorts of interfaces with arcade games. Racing games had wheels, of course. Shooting games had guns.

In the early 1980s, there were only the arcades and computer gaming. Consoles like the Atari 2600 were home versions of the arcade. There were no RPGs on the Atari 2600. There were no massive adventure games on the Atari 2600. Atari 2600 games were extremely arcade like.

With the invention of the home game console, games began to ease up on the design necessary to thrive in the arcade business model. For example, games got slightly easier, got slightly longer. Arcade games used to repeat over and over again, getting faster and faster until the player died. Once on the game console, this didn’t make too much sense. So, instead, the game’s stages eventually came to an end.

While the home consoles collapsed in the early 80s, the arcades and computer gaming did not. Nintendo, who was an arcade game company, and Sega, who was also an arcade game company, put out game consoles of their own. Third party companies such as Capcom, an arcade game company, or Konami, another arcade game company, would “port” their arcade games to these consoles. Games like Gradius and Ghosts and Goblins were actually arcade games, not NES games.

The 8-bit generation is very interesting because of changes of gaming from both fronts of the arcades and computer gaming.

On the Atari 2600, games were beginning to be made specifically for the home console. These would be games like Pitfall. These home console designed games would not truly fit in the arcade.

Take the difference between Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers. Both were in the arcades. But Super Mario Brothers was somewhat designed for the home console. Mario Brothers was not. Look at Super Mario Brothers 2 and 3. These games did not appear in the arcades (not that I recall, so I am not sure where they got those machines that appeared in the Wizard). The games were too large.

Super Mario Brothers 3 takes hours to beat the game. That is too long in the arcades. Also, the game lets you save items and use them as you see fit. This makes the game easier. This would never occur in the arcades. Despite that, it still used arcade based gameplay. Super Mario Brothers 3 was not an arcade game, but it did have arcade based gameplay. It retained the addictiveness of Super Mario and the original Mario Brothers (even included the original Mario Brothers in there!).

NES Metroid is a great example. Metroid could never appear in the arcades. Yet, it did have arcade based gameplay. What was unique about Metroid was that the game was this vast world you explored and could collect items. However, the core of the game was arcade based. If you chopped up Metroid into linear levels, with increasing difficulty, you could have easily designed it so it would sit in the arcade machine.

Mega Man is an arcade based game but is not an arcade game. The game is too long to be an arcade game. And the idea of choosing your level would not occur in the arcades. But in the home environment, people had time to try out all the levels. Mega Man could not have been made without the home console.

As arcades faded and consoles grew with more power, games began to slowly lose their arcade based gameplay. In the 16-bit generation, games were becoming longer, larger, and less intense. There were so many shmups then because shmups thrived in the arcade. But as time grew on, shmups made less sense on the home console, and they were being bought less and less.

RPGs and adventure games were entirely computer gaming. They are games not of twitchy fingers but very cerebral. Arcade based gaming isn’t “cerebral”. Also, you never read anything in an arcade based game. You are standing in public. You don’t have time to read dialogue.

RPGs were really huge in Japan once it was properly introduced from the West. The RPG was gored and sliced and put in its most simplistic points. It is this very simplistic RPG/adventure game that became Final Fantasy I and Dragon Quest I. It was big in Japan mostly because they didn’t have the far superior computer RPGs as competitors. There is no question that games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest got their inspiration from the Western RPGs. (Keep in mind that Final Fantasy I was being made as Square’s last game as they faced bankruptcy.)

In the 8-bit generation, games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were curious oddities (but very popular in Japan just not anywhere else). Electronic Arts, the king in the Computer Game Industry, gave up holding out from porting to the NES. Electronic Arts ported games like Archon and M.U.L.E. and a few other games to the NES. But Electronic Arts wanted to get on the next rocket and they saw it was the Sega Genesis. Trip Hawkins had the Genesis backwards engineered and declared they would make games for it without licensing unless Sega gave them a special deal on licensing. This is where the great EA Sports franchises like Madden began.

Games were designed more and more for the home console as arcades were waning. In the 16-bit generation, you can really see the rise of more adventure and RPG type games. This increased even more with 3d. Greater storage meant games had more “stuff” in them that had absolutely nothing with the gameplay such as cinematics.

I think a big change occurred when the PC gaming market began to crater and drift towards consoles. Computer gaming was invading console gaming and the line blurred. As Computer Gaming was not arcade centric (aside from FPS which was invented on the PC due to the mouse), games got even further from their arcade based gameplay.

Surely, you have played the arcade classics. If you play Defender or Robotron, you will note how fast you die. But you feel you are still in control so you try again and do better. When gaming went to consoles, this core arcade gameplay was intact but the games increased in content and style of someone who can play for hours. Some of the changes were good such as being able to create a larger game instead of making the game go faster and faster until the player loses.

Tetris is a very pure arcade based game. The game just gets faster and faster until you die. Mario Brothers is a very pure arcade based game. The game also gets faster and faster until you die. And with Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, 3 and World, you can see how the game begins to relax more and more.

With something like 3d Mario, while the game does have many twitchy elements, it is more of an adventure game and really becomes divorced from its arcade game gameplay that 2d Mario had. 2d Mario levels were based on how fast you could get to the flagpole. 3d Mario levels are based on you performing a scavenger hunt for the star. It ended up creating a very different game. (Not that this is bad, but it is different.) This is why consumers never accepted any of the 3d Mario games as successors to 2d Mario.

Racing games did not change their gameplay. They are still based on getting to the finish line first. Racing games still can retain that arcade based gameplay. Excitebots, which isn’t about getting to the finish line first but about doing ‘tricks’, relies on practice and how well you know the tricks. So Excitebots is actually going away from being an arcade based game which could help explain why its sales suck so much.

Arcade based gaming, as opposed to what I mean by an arcade game (like Galaga or Centipede) is that the core of the game is arcade-like. However, the rest of the game veers away from the arcade game.

The Legend of Zelda is not a computer game. The Legend of Zelda is not an arcade game (while I did play Super Mario Brothers first in the arcades).

Zelda’s gameplay of the sword and shield and stabbing things was all based on Miyamoto’s arcade game experience. Zelda’s core was arcade gameplay. You needed twitchy fingers. That arcade based gameplay was enveloped in a large world where you could explore and do many non-arcade type things like get money and buy things.

Miyamoto recently revealed Nintendo’s resistance to the original design of Zelda having RPG elements.

But here is my point: Zelda had RPG and adventure elements. Its core gameplay was still arcade based.

Zelda II is a great example of this. Zelda II undeniably has RPG elements such as leveling up. Yet, the gameplay is all very arcade based. It is a very twitchy game.

Zelda games were hybrids straddling the line between arcade and adventure/RPG. No, that isn’t quite right. Zelda games were arcade games in adventuresome worlds.

I’ve grown to dislike Zelda games because they do not retain any of that arcade based gameplay. They are now adventure games with some arcade elements sprinkled in. I’d prefer it to be the other way around. I find modern Zelda games to be very boring. Too much dialogue. Too much scavenger hunting for pieces of hearts or stupid bugs.

The “Demo-Play” feature is not going to pull Nintendo’s iron out of the fire. Fans will say, “This game is too easy.” The fans are not communicating their distaste properly (but consumers rarely do). It is not that the game is too easy. It is that the game has no arcade based gameplay.

Link to the Past is considered one of the best Zeldas. However, the game is extremely easy. It is one of the easiest Zeldas. Yet, it gets a pass. Why? It is because it has arcade based gameplay.

Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort has arcade based gameplay. What I would love to do is to take that arcade based gameplay and wrap a larger world around it. Take my sword and go off to the horizon and fight some monsters. Take my bow and arrow and shoot something other than a target or fruit with it.

Nintendo has Core Games which are the graphics centric games such as the Gamecube and the Expanded Market games which are what the new interfaces for to create new gamers. The Core games focus on immersion. Expanded Market games try not to divorce the player from the real world.

The bridge game in the center, Mario Kart DS/ Wii and NSMB DS, nailed something Nintendo hasn’t realized. There is a massive desire for arcade centric games from both the Core and Expanded audiences. Note that I did not say arcade games. Only arcade centric games.

Nintendo is at its best when it sticks to its arcade roots. Arcade based gameplay as a game’s core but enveloped in a larger world would really resonate with the market. NSMB Wii is such a game as was Mario Kart Wii.

My prescription to fix Zelda would be to take the core arcade gameplay found in Wii Sports Resort and develop the Zelda game organically around that. What we will get instead is the opposite: of a bloated adventure game with some elements of arcade action thrown in.

This is also why motion control games from third parties keep failing on the Wii. Wii owners are primarily arcade gameplay fans (as they are fans of Wii Sports and Wii Play). “Hardcore gaming” is what “computer gaming” used to be. A game should spend time and start with the arcade centric core of the game, get that right, and then expand the greater game world.

Do you think Miyamoto designed Super Mario Brothers’ levels before he got the physics and jump correct for Mario? Of course not. That would be absurd.

Do you think Miyamoto designed the Legend of Zelda’s levels before he figured out how Link would move around and attack? Of course not! To suggest otherwise would be insane.

But this is how games are made these days (perhaps because of all the production quality needed). The game world is made before how the player interacts with it. They need to design the interaction first and mold the game world afterword. (This would explain why the common reaction from consumers to many Wii games is that the controls feel “bad” to “tacked on” despite the game, itself, looking OK).

The marketers of the “Game Industry” look at the Wii and see slick marketing and motion controls. So if they copy that, they should have big success too, right? Well, no. A big reason why the Wii madness occurred was because “New Generation” gaming was actually “arcade” gaming.

Which is why many Wii owners haven’t owned a game console since the NES/ Atari 2600 / PONG times.

Arcade based gameplay is a craft. It requires a certain amount of talent to achieve it, talent that no longer exists in the “Game Industry”. Nintendo is one of the few companies left that still likely has such talent.

Imagine how tough it is for an arcade game maker: you must make a game for 100% non-gamers. It must be attractive enough to get them to come to the game and try it out. It must be addictive enough for them to want to keep playing it. But it must be difficult enough so they don’t hog the machine (as you need more quarters as that is your revenue). Very, very difficult balance.

Today’s “hardcore” games are all devoid of arcade based gameplay with exceptions of the FPS and some small games like Geometry Wars. Today’s “hardcore” games are nothing more than watching a Blu-Ray movie while twiddling your thumbs. Achievement points are made because today’s games no longer feel like achievements (where before they truly did).

Arcade centric gaming is incompatible to the “Game Industry”‘s formulas and plans. Therefore, arcade centric gaming makes the perfect arrow to spring from the disruptive bow.