Okay unlike last time’s trolling attempt, I’m just going to flat out ask you one honest question this time. What is your problem when it comes to 3D Mario and Zelda games? It seems all you do is claim how 3D Mario and Zelda are evil or the work of the devil. And I’ve noticed a lot of strawman politics at play when you bring this up through the use of sales figures of New Super Mario Bros. Wii (or as you call it, SMB5) outselling both Mario Galaxy games. Y’know what, that’s subjective and if I’m to understand this quote right:
“With Mario Galaxy 2, it is because they are in denial (or anger) that people don’t play 3d Mario because of disinterest. Therefore, it must
be because they are stupid! All the Galaxy 2 marketing makes me think Nintendo believes I am an idiot!“
You’re basically taking a subjective opinion and trying to present it as fact. That is called elitism and its a cancerous tumor on the gaming industry. It’s why I find most of what you are preaching to be arrogance and garbage. Maybe you should close down your blog until you learn not to present yourself with such an ego and maybe you should stop looking for ignorant excuses as to why Anouma is a virus on the Zelda franchise or why 3D Mario games are “Nintendo in denial.” All you are doing is trying to speak for everyone when you’re only speaking for yourself.
An honest question will receive an honest answer.
I don’t consider myself attacking anyone at all. I see it as defending myself.
I have put quotes from Shigeru Miyamoto making fun of players who like 2d Mario. During the Gamecube era, he dismissed the interest in 2d Mario as ‘bitter’ gamers.
I have also put up quotes from Aonuma who says how he hates the NES Zelda games and thought they were stupid. He also saw the only value in Link to the Past was the storytelling, cutting grass, and looking under rocks. I found this quite insulting.
Super Mario Brothers is the most important video game ever made. The greatest mystery of gaming has been why 2d Mario vanished after Super Mario World despite the massive demand.
What is at issue is the value of the 2d Mario demand. Miyamoto thinks it has no value whatsoever. He thinks Donkey Kong Country games and other projects farmed to outside companies is fine because he places no value on the 2d Mario demand. Imagine how insulted Miyamoto would be if I insisted that 3d Mario type games be farmed out to outside companies. Miyamoto, arrogantly, believes the market doesn’t demand a certain type of gameplay or anything but only ‘his creativity’. Decades of being propped up as Nintendo’s genius boy and PR frontpiece has eroded his sanity on the subject and, perhaps, of all the Nintendo software developers.
From my perspective, Nintendo treats fans of 2d Mario only with hostility or with neglect. What you accuse me of doing, reader, is exactly what Nintendo is doing to people like myself. We’re not supposed to like 2d Mario. We were supposed to get on the 3d Mario bandwagon a long time ago.
In fact, we ALL were supposed to get on the 3d bandwagon. The sick obsession with 3d can be seen with the 3DS or Virtual Boy.
What I am talking about is not Mario or Zelda. I am shining a spotlight on a change with Nintendo on their relationship to the market.
Classic Nintendo Way
Nintendo used to focus on making games to please people (which resulted in sales). Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers were not made because Miyamoto got ‘creative’, they were made because Yamauchi wanted to save his company and sell products.
Since Super Mario Brothers was such a success, Yamauchi made Miyamoto make sequels. And to insure people bought the Super Nintendo, it was launched with Super Mario Brothers 4.
Modern Nintendo Way
A change occurred with how Nintendo operated. Pleasing the market is now only lip service to Nintendo’s software developers having ‘recess’ and hoping/praying that their product takes off in the market. All this ‘surprise’ Iwata blusters about is really just cover for Nintendo software developers to do whatever they want to do against market demands. Iwata says it is silly to give the market what they want since they won’t be surprised. But there is no evidence that the market wants to be surprised. Just mouthing a platitude, “Entertainment is about surprise”, doesn’t cut it. Blizzard, EA, and other game companies do not offer surprises, and they do fine.
Nintendo’s fall from the market began when they changed their relationship with the market.
Wii and DS Way
The reason why I became such an advocate of Nintendo with the Wii and DS was because I detected a change in the relationship of Nintendo and the market. This change was, perhaps, brought on by Iwata. The DS and Wii, along with its software, were to satisfy the market. The market was not to satisfy the demands of the game developers! We got new 2d Mario after decades.
Back to the Wrong Way
With Nintendo’s position in the market improving after the Wii and DS, the company has decided to go back to old relationship. Iwata’s rescue seems short lived as he seems to be acquiescing to the selfishness of Nintendo’s software developers.
The 3DS had nothing to do with market demand for 3d (especially in a handheld). But it had everything to do with Nintendo’s desires. They have a 3d obsession inside the company. I wish, instead, they had a market obsession. (But that would be ‘commercial’, and they wouldn’t be ‘artists’ then, poor dears.)
So when it became clear that the relationship of Nintendo and the market had reverted to its pre-Wii ways, my tone changed. If Nintendo intends the Wii U for the market to ‘accept’ something the software developers wish to do, it will go down in flames. People buy products only because we want it to do what we want it to do.
To those who like 3d Mario or Aonuma Zelda, none of this is directed at you. Keep in mind that the Gamecube audience cannot support a Nintendo console. There are far more gamers like me out there than you. However, you guys have more of a vocal presence with your websites, forum posts, and all as you are more consistent gamers.
Metroid: Other M Is the Micro-cosm
While I am accused for overusing the Other M example, it is just too useful.
Everyone knows what a Metroid game is. We all have expectations for what a Metroid game is. People were worried when Metroid Prime came out because it wasn’t made by Nintendo. And that is fine.
But Metroid: Other M was not made to make Metroid fans happy or even make new fans. It was made because a software developer, Sakamoto, had a vision of a Metroid narrative because he liked watching Italian movies. He saw Metal Gear Solid do it, and he thought he could pull it off.
Nintendo conned their fanbase into buying Metroid: Other M as if it was a Metroid game. It wasn’t. Nintendo abused the Metroid franchise so a software developer could sell a video game that wouldn’t sell in any other way.
The same is occurring with Aonuma Zelda and with 3d Mario. As more and more people catch on to slapping a franchise brand to promote a completely different gameplay, the sales are dropping. With 3d Mario’s situation, Miyamoto (and his lieutenants who believe like he does) are panicking by trying to inject as many 2d Mario elements into 3d Mario in order to get it to sell. By the way they are acting, I wouldn’t be surprised if 2d Mario games are sabotaged in sales to be merely ‘passable’ so Miyamoto and the like can tell Nintendo’s business side that “3d Mario now sells like 2d Mario therefore we should only make 3d Mario now.” You can tell something like this is already going on with the budget of 3d Mario (which doesn’t sell as much) being immense with orchestras while 2d Mario has a much tinier budget (and no orchestras).
Look how Nintendo rolls out the red carpet of budget for Aonuma Zelda and allows half a decade of development time. If you have half a decade of development time, the game needs to be as good as a Blizzard game. And it comes across as a highly polished but boring game.
Nintendo’s falling sales are not a subjective opinion. Nintendo’s financial house being on fire is not a subjective opinion.
I’m not interested in converting Gamecube-esque gamers. I am trying to point a spotlight onto why Nintendo’s customers abandoned them, why so many of them came back with the DS and Wii, and why they are fleeing again with the 3DS. When I mock 3d Mario or Aonuma Zelda, I am actually mocking Miyamoto and Aonuma and their ‘visions’. Just as I am sure someone out there enjoyed Metroid: Other M, mocking that game doesn’t mean I am mocking that person. I am actually mocking Sakamoto.
I’m not a mean person. If these people were trying to make games the market wanted to play, everything would be cool. Instead, they are insisting that the gamers don’t know what games they want to play and, therefore, must accept with glee with whatever their “creativity” brings up.
The definition of innovation is not a developer being ‘creative’. The definition of innovation is a product doing a job the customers want it to do. Clever game companies, such as Blizzard, do design their products around consumer feedback.
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