I love getting emails from former gamers like myself. They wonder, as well as I, why we got pushed away from gaming despite the advances in graphics, sound, etc. These former gamers have no voice anywhere in the “Game Industry”. Former gamers are ignored or written away because their existence blows up the myth that gaming has been always growing, always expanding.
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Hey, Sean, first of all I want to say that I love your blog and have become a regular reader of it. A lot of what you write resonates deeply with me, and reflects opinions that I’ve had about video games, and the video game industry, for quite some time now.
I was a big gamer from the late 80s until the the middle of this decade or so. I went from the old Colecovision system to the original Nintendo system to the Sega Genesis system to the original Playstation and then eventually to PC gaming. However, around the time that the PS2 came out, my interest in console gaming in general waned a bit – I still played games, but only when visiting friends, and only through use of their systems.
Part of the reason for this is that I loved the old 2D sidescroller/platformer games like the first three Marios, the first two Zeldas, the early Sonic games, Double Dragon games, Contra, the old Michael Jackson: Moonwalker game, and loads and loads of other games like that. As a teenager, I loved going to the nearest arcade to play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games. Later on, I really enjoyed the Marvel vs. Capcom arcade fighting games. I often found these arcade games more enjoyable than many console games… but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why that was.
So, anyway, eventually 3d Mario and Zelda games came out, and a good friend of mine had them and encouraged me to give them a try. It was around this time that I was trying to decided whether to go back to Nintendo (after having the Sega Genesis system) or to switch over to the Playstation system. The main hook of the Playstation system, for me, was its NHL games, as I’m a big NHL fan, and I loved how the NHL games played on the old Playstation. However, the idea of a 3D Mario and a 3D Zelda piqued my interest.
However, I played those games, and… truth be told… I didn’t like them much. I didn’t say this outright to my friend, but there was just something about these games that didn’t appeal to me the way that the older Mario and Zelda games did. The controls were pretty smooth, the graphics were excellent for their time, Link and Mario both looked and sounded great, the music was good, the feel of the Mario and Zeldaverse was largely maintained… but there was something about these games that just lost me.
Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time were Ok… but just Ok. I found Majora’s Mask to be a pain, to be brutally frank.
Anyway, due to reading your blog, I now finally know why these games never resonated with me. You’re right – it’s all about arcade gameplay vs. puzzle-solving/star-finding gameplay.
I adored the quick, darting, speedy feel of the classic Mario and Zelda games. You, as the gamer, were constantly in motion; always going forward. You kept jumping, climbing, fighting. It was all very fast, and it was all about sheer territorial progression. You could get powerups, but you didn’t have to. You could go the most basic route… but you didn’t have to. There was no “Complete Task A to get Item A which is needed to complete Task B which will earn you Item B in order to go back to the main area and trade it in for an item needed in another round… etc, etc, etc… ad naseum, ad infinitum”.
I don’t mind that task approach in a RPG because there’s usually loads of random monster encounters along the way, and hence plenty of exciting fighting going on. But in the 3D action-adventure games, this task approach usually means using the items you already have to pull off some stunts to get to a certain area to get other items; rinse and repeat; and… if you’re lucky… you might get two or three half-decent fights along the way. It’s more solving puzzles and riddles than it is slashing or smashing bad guys, and I wanted to slash and smash bad guys, lol.
So, Nintendo lost me with how it totally abandoned the great classic 2D/platformer style of gameplay. I didn’t realize it at the time, because in the midst of all the hype (back then) over 3D Mario and Zelda, I found it hard to think against the crowd and really question these games beyond simply admitting to myself that I didn’t like them all that much.
However, as time went on, I began to wonder why 2D was completely abandoned. I didn’t see why every console game had to be 3D. I’d read reviews in video game magazines, and I’d wonder why so much emphasis was put on “newness” in general. It seemed like gameplay had to be constantly changing itself, and that old gameplay was inferior to new gameplay just because it was old. This made no sense to me. The old 2D platformer games had their own unique charm, and I don’t see any need to get rid of them for good; there was still people out there, like me, who enjoyed them, even with all the slicker 3D games out there.
But I noticed that for the more “hardcore” gamer, the emphasis was always on things like better graphics, increased complexity, increased detail, how much the game lended itself to strong competition between gamers, how dark and gritty it was, etc…
A lot of games just didn’t seem fun to me anymore. They had everything else going for them in spades, I’ll admit, but they just weren’t fun. The “hardcore” gamer seemed to want a game that would be his or her entire life, while I just wanted a game that would be a fun diversion from life.
And I think that this is the big problem with gaming today. Hardcore gamers are now like hardcore fans of, say, an obscure TV show or of a little known rock group. Their main goal is in protecting a kind of culture of gaming (like a culture of TV show fandom), and I think many of them fear a kind of dilution by going more mainstream. They want to protect some mythical “purity” of gaming or of a TV show or of the little known rock group. They fear gaming/the TV show/the rock group “selling out” to the unwashed masses.
So, they want games to be as complex and as detailed and as time-demanding as possible… because then they erect barriers that prevent potential “casual” fans from gaining access. It keeps out the unwashed masses. It’s just the modern version of the old “boys only” club.
Games like 2D Mario are a threat to these folks because just about anybody can enjoy such a game. You don’t need to be somebody who devotes 20 hours a week to gaming to enjoy 2D Mario. My parents could enjoy playing it for a couple hours a week, during bits and pieces of spare time here and there.
It’s a shame that hardcore gamers are like this, because they (and their analogues in certain TV show and rock band fans) have the wrong idea I think. There’s benefits to liking something mainstream; it’s good when Joe and Jane Average can relate to you and your interests, at least a little bit. And, ultimately, if what you like costs a lot of money to make (and some video games do), you want a strong market with as many customers as possible involved in it.
So… sorry for the long e-mail, but I just felt like sharing. I think that you make a lot of excellent, thought-provoking points that need to be made.
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Emailer, one thing you said that really struck me was this:
A lot of games just didn’t seem fun to me anymore. They had everything else going for them in spades, I’ll admit, but they just weren’t fun. The “hardcore” gamer seemed to want a game that would be his or her entire life, while I just wanted a game that would be a fun diversion from life.
This is exactly I feel as well. One of the differences of how Nintendo defines the Core Market and the Expanded Market is this: The Core Market games are to replace your life and pull you into a fantasy setting. The Expanded Market games, like Wii Sports, Brain Age, and Wii Fit, are supposed to ADD to your life, not replace your life. Wii Fit sells so well because women see it as adding to their life. These same women would resist a video game that tried to pull them into a fantasy setting.
But yet, there appears to be a third market as well. It is perhaps a different Expanded Market which includes you and me. We want our video games to not replace our life, as hardcore games tend to do, but to be a brief diversion from it. We may not respond so well to a game like Wii Fit or Brain Age as those titles add to our existing lives. We want some fantasy fun without it taking over our lives.
The original Legend of Zelda can be beaten within a weekend. There are two quests so you can play it again the next weekend. The later Zelda games take much more than a weekend.
While I like Metroid Prime, I prefer Super Metroid since I don’t have to unplug my life in order to play that game. This is probably why I like the Virtual Console and WiiWare games so much (as well as the games on XBLA and PSN).
This is perhaps a big clue why a nation, like Japan, has gone totally handheld. Handheld gaming, as a rule, does not take over your life. Handheld games are designed to be “interruptable”.
You made a really brave statement by saying how you enjoy the random encounters in oldschool RPG games. The conventional wisdom is that random encounters are obsolete (yet, remakes that have them like FF3 or the Dragon Quest games sell). I never thought the random encounters were the problem. The problem was that the ‘craft’ of combat was being diluted and becoming a drag. In a game like Final Fantasy I, I still find it exciting. But in Final Fantasy VI, it becomes to feel like a major drag for some reason. The latter part of that game, it feels like the ‘craft’ of the combat just fell apart at the seams.
I am very happy to put up your email and hope the unfortunate-Nintendo-employee-who-is-assigned-to-read-this-site will see it.