Stick to the facts, don’t make stuff up and keep blogging beyond Music #100. You know you want to.
It is true that Modern Zelda has many optional things such as finding bottles. A great example is the additional pieces of heart so Link can get additional heart containers.
But the problem is that those things no longer matter in Modern Zelda. It was easy to die in Classic Zelda which is why you wanted more heart containers or place fairies in bottles. Even in Ocarina of Time, you wanted to do these things because the game could be challenging. In Modern Zelda, those optional things lost their value because the player rarely dies. The point of putting medicine in a bottle is to heal yourself during battle. But what happens if there are no more battles? Or the battles are so nerfed your life isn’t in much danger?
I’m not pointing to these games and saying, “They suck,” so much as trying to point out that something Nintendo (and other game companies) are doing unintentionally or intentionally that is making these games less and less satisfying. Less satisfying to who? Well, to many of the original customers. And what happens is that these original customers, these Old School gamers, get frustrated in a generation and when the next generation comes around, they lack enough interest to vault over the hardware hurdle of the new console.
Despite my ‘tell me why I am wrong’ post, this is the only email I’ve gotten where someone wants to tell me where I am wrong. And you said I was wrong because I said that you do not get the freedom to pick up bottles in Modern Zelda as you did in Classic Zelda. But the problem is that I never said that. My beef is that in that interview, Miyamoto said he wanted to give the player freedom in how he wants to play yet this is clearly not a sentiment in designing Modern Zelda. It is like with Tezuka saying they want to make LTTP very replayable. Wonderful. So why doesn’t that apply to Modern Zelda?
Here is a question: why did ‘Malstrom’ become such a Big Voice when it comes to matters concerning Nintendo and gaming? Why would this guy, who apparently seemed to come from nowhere, be able to hold an audience and influence people?It is because much of what is being said here is based on fact. Now, people disagree on interpretations. No one reads this site in 100% agreement, and I wouldn’t want it that way. But I don’t go around making up sales figures. I use the sales figures that are known (in whatever limited fashion). I do not cherry pick my facts from a rose tinted view of gaming. I try to keep looking at the ‘big picture’ of all of gaming, starting with PONG on, and using that perspective.
If I made up facts, as the people you talk to accuse me of doing, then no one would read this page. It would have no value. The real question is why don’t people listen to those who claim I ‘don’t have my facts right’? If those people have all the facts, and Malstrom “doesn’t know what the fuck he is talking about”, then why do people listen to Malstrom and not them?
This is just a blog done by a gamer. This isn’t a website with ties to the game industry. This site has no advantage over any other website. There is no marketing with this site. All the content is homemade (aside from the emails). There is no quoting analysts, declaring that to be a news story, and calling it a day.
You are saying that because my facts are ‘wrong’ that it hurts my ’cause’. But my facts aren’t wrong. If they were, no one would be reading this site. If I’m so wrong, then let them tell me why. I invite them. They decline. They don’t show up.
Why?
Why does bologna reject the grinder? That is why.
I’ve been writing on the subject of Nintendo for over half a decade. Never, once, has everyone agreed with me. I am always declared the idiot.
When I wrote article after article about the upcoming sea-change about the Wii and how it blow the PS3 and Xbox 360 out of the water, I was declared an idiot.
When I wrote about Blue Ocean and tried to popularize what it was about, I was declared an idiot.
When I wrote ‘Birdman and the Casual Fallacy’ and began talking about disruption, I was declared an idiot.
When I kept saying that 2d Mario needs to come back, I was declared an idiot.
When I was extremely excited about Super Mario Brothers 5, I was declared an idiot.
When I expressed my unhappiness with the Zelda DS games and the general direction Zelda seems to be going, I was declared an idiot.
Most recently, I said that it would be probable for the 3DS to permanently go down from the DS numbers. The ‘new market’ that the DS got have no interest in 3d. I was called an idiot for that too.
Is the point that I am always right? No. But I’m certainly not an idiot. If people want to tell me why I am wrong with my facts, then let them tell me. If not, then get out of my way. I have better things to do than deal with manchildren who are stuck in a type of psychosis.
I’ll give you a big secret behind this website. Many hardcore gamers who populate the gaming forums and even game industry types adopt a personality of ‘MUST BE RIGHT’. They spend much time obtaining ‘information’ so they can be ‘right’ on the gaming message forum.
Many gamers who do not populate the ‘gaming message forum’ have not adopted this personality. They adopt a personality, concerning gaming, of ‘MUST BE COMFORTABLE’ or ‘MUST HAVE FUN’. They just play the games they do for fun. They have no desire to hop on a ‘gaming message forum’ and duel in some arena of ‘who is right’.
The personality I am adopting is ‘MUST WIN’. I look at gaming as an arena of winners and losers. For example, the Wii is a winning strategy. Blue Ocean, disruption, all of those things were part of that winning strategy.
If you remember, before the Wii came out, it was declared to be WRONG by all the Game Industry and the video game analysts. The reason why I could see the Wii doing well before others is because I adopt the ‘I want to win’ personality as opposed to the ‘I want to be right’ personality.
Just as many people were wrong about the 3DS. Why? Everyone wants to be ‘right’. But if you had the personality of ‘wants to win’, you could see that the 3DS wasn’t serious about winning in the market. The ‘right and wrong’ personality always lags behind the ‘winning and losing’ personality.
To succeed in business, you must have a ‘WANT TO WIN’ personality. The ‘WANT TO BE COMFORTABLE’ or ‘WANT TO BE RIGHT’ or ‘WANT TO HAVE FUN’ personalities will not thrive in the business environment. This is why those personalities end up being employees their entire life or academics.
As an example, if Nintendo ‘WANTS TO WIN’ with their consoles, a very important game that needs to be made would be 2d Mario. 2d Mario shows that it sells big and sells hardware big. When Nintendo does not make 2d Mario and, instead, makes more 3d Mario or another game that shows it won’t sell as much, this tells me that ‘NINTENDO IS NOT INTERESTED IN WINNING’. Nintendo would have to be interested in something else. Perhaps in having fun? This is why I attack Nintendo developers for wanting to ‘play around’ and are not serious about winning the market.
To the observer, it would sound as if I am some sort of 2d Mario advocate. While that is true to some extent, it is because they do not understand that I am operating with a different personality.
With the subject of Zelda, to me the issue is how can Nintendo win with Zelda? How can Zelda become popular again? Seeing how trying to replicate Ocarina of Time over and over again isn’t working, perhaps Nintendo ought to look at the pre-Ocarina games. After all, Ocarina’s design was based on the pre-Ocarina games. Perhaps that is the antidote.
Whether this is the winning strategy or not is debatable. What is not debatable is that doing the same-old, status-quo way with Zelda will not be a winning strategy. Making Zelda with the same exact gameplay skeleton and using the unique hardware features as the ‘new gimmick’ will not be successful.
You cannot win in life (or anything else) by skirting the facts. The problem with the ‘MUST BE RIGHT’ personality is that it often creates a pseudo-universe when the person is ‘constantly’ right and everyone else is ‘constantly’ wrong. This personality will not accept a barometer that will prove him wrong. The personality who wants to win will do so. Why? Because the person wants to win. He doesn’t care about being ‘wrong’ if that helps him win.
One of these barometers is sales numbers. If something sells, it is winning. If something doesn’t sell, it is losing. The personality of ‘wants to be right’ doesn’t see it this way. If the game they like doesn’t sell, they declare the market is wrong. Or they blame the marketing. Or they blame the weather. Something. Anything. They don’t declare the game to be wrong, not one they like.
So to answer you, when I look at trying to ‘influence’ these manchildren who say I have my ‘facts all wrong’ (when they refuse to tell me what they are), I see this as a ‘losing situation’ for me. These people are not interested in ‘facts’. They are only interested in being ‘right’. Should they be shown they were on the wrong side of an issue (such as 3DS being the ‘right move’), they will move the goalposts in a new arrangement so they can be right (3DS just needs the right ‘killer app’, 3DS needs a price cut, 3DS needs better marketing, etc. etc.). It is as productive as trying to convince people who believe mankind has never been on the moon. Sure, there are ‘facts’ that say mankind has been to the moon, but they do not accept those ‘facts’. They choose, instead, to believe other ‘facts’. They live in a mythical world where they are always ‘right’.
The sad thing is that the majority of people will go through life trying to be ‘right’ and end up losing in life. When I talk to people who invested in housing real estate, they are losing bigtime right now. However, when they made their investment, they thought it was the right thing to do. They did not look at it as the winning thing to do. What happens often in investments is that the winners get there first. Then, it becomes ‘right’. And only then, do the people who want to be right move there. But when they do so, they get there too late.
Right now, they think ‘gold’ or ‘silver’ is the ‘right’ thing to invest. But is this the ‘winning’ strategy? Is it probable that ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ will increase the way it has been? This is how a ‘winner’ would look at the situation. The ‘must be right’ person would look for the bandwagon or analyst or a winner to declare it to be right before he moves in. And this often becomes a losing strategy.
People keep declaring I am ‘wrong’. Yet, I keep winning. It is not a clash of facts. It is a clash of personalities.