I think I’ve figured out why Nintendo consoles used to satisfy me and now they no longer do. Perhaps you feel the same way. Hear me out, and tell me if you agree.
Aside from certain game consoles, I do not like console gaming. Modern console gaming is structured around creating sales momentum for the hardware of the console. Games are released at certain times for that purpose. Nintendo says, “The console business is a momentum based business.” But wait a minute. If we check the scrolls of gaming history, we find this is not the case. Only in modern times has the console business been a momentum based business. And the Wii doesn’t even fit that pattern.
The momentum based strategy is based on Flavor Gaming. Flavor Gaming is my term. It means a game is designed around a demographic, a gadget, a feature, a theme, a flavor. Being a console gamer today is like hearing “What is the flavor of the month?” “This month’s flavor is New Racing Game Extreme that is better than Old Racing Game Extreme because you can now build cars online and trade them with other people. Buy it immediately! This game also targets are teen to 30 young male which we need to keep up the momentum.” And look! Here comes a kid’s game. “This is Cutesy Platformer 5.0. This is better than 4.0 because it comes with a construction kit where you can make and trade your own levels! Buy it immediately. This game will pull in the young kid demographic.”
Flavor games have little to no replayability. This is why they end up at the used game shop.
When a game sells by graphics (and there are many), these games lose their flavor fast. Once you see the graphics after a period of time, it gets old.
When a game sells by the story, what do you do when you are finished with the story? There is no point in going through it again as that is reserved only for the best movies (which will never be a video game).
In a way, a console company doesn’t want anything but Flavor Games. They don’t want you to keep playing that same game again and again. They want you to buy many different games. And in Nintendo’s case, they have ‘Flavor Consoles’ in addition to ‘Flavor Games’ so you throw out your old game consoles and get new ones. It is the quest to get the new shiny.
The other type of gaming is Endgame Gaming. I’m mostly a PC Gamer because PC Gaming doesn’t work well with Flavor Gaming. Take Civilization. That game sells forever not because it has a ‘flavor’ or ‘hook’. It is an Endgame game. The same goes for Blizzard’s games and old school shooters. World of Warcraft, for example, revolves entirely around the End Game.
Endgame is a term used for how someone plays the game after the game has been ‘beaten’ or ‘finished’. The Endgame is a little different than how the normal game is, but it is there.
Arcade games had Endgames. Their Endgame revolved mostly around scores. Players kept playing, even if they mastered the game, to get a higher score and beat their friends. I know people think arcades are nothing but simple mechanics and are Flavor Games. Only the bad arcade games were. The best arcade games, the ones we consider classics today, had a strong Endgame. Usually, these games just got faster and faster and faster until you died. It was only until the 8-bit NES system that games became to be made to have endings.
I don’t like console gaming because of the Flavor Games. I don’t want ‘hyped game of the month only to get bored of it in a week’. I want games to stand the test of time. Only Endgame Games have those. When I kept referencing ‘arcade gaming’, this was what I was getting at.
Now you might ask, “Gee, Malstrom, this sounds nice, but you said only Modern Game Consoles follow the momentum based model. What about the Classic Game Consoles? Tell us about them!”
Very well, reader. You’ve persuaded me.
The NES has a library of many, many games full of duds and bad games. There are many Flavor Games. Duck Hunt and Stack Up are good examples of this. Duck Hunt got boring as soon as pointing at the screen with the gun wore off its novelty. Stack Up got boring as soon as the novelty of R.O.B. got boring. But these weren’t the games that made people love the NES.
The Legend of Zelda was an Endgame Game. Once you finished the game, you weren’t finished with it.
Bam! Second Quest!
If that wasn’t enough, you could do things like try to beat the game with three hearts or with less upgrades. Why would you ever return Legend of Zelda? I’m still playing it after twenty five years.
Due to the arcade-like combat of the game, Zelda 2, Link to the Past, Adventure of Link, and even Ocarina of Time still feel like playing even though you’ve done it so many times before. There is enough substance in the combat and the world that you can keep playing.
Today, Zelda is a Flavor Game. Zelda revolves around a STORY or PUZZLE or THEME which can be consumed only once. Puzzles lose their worth immediately once you solve them. Stories aren’t interesting if you have heard it before. And the theme screams flavor gaming. It is so bad, Zelda uses the unique elements of the hardware for each game has transformed it completely into a Flavor Game. And Zelda became famous among console games because it was one of the first Endgame games for console.
Metroid was a full out Endgame Game. This was not a game for noob players. It was hard and meant to be hard. Without the Internet, can you imagine how long it took to find all the items you needed to progress? And there were advanced concepts in the game like fake bosses and illusion walls. There was no ‘flavor’ in the game at all. You had to be an expert with a stubborn resolve to make it through to the end. This might be why I felt disappointed in Super Metroid as that game was so much easier.
Let me remind you that Endgame Game doesn’t mean ‘hard’. It means after you’ve seen the game, know how to play it, know its gimmicks, the game can still be played and remain interesting.
Now let me invite Cliff Bleszinski to the blog so I may channel his thoughts (without him knowing. Don’t worry. He’ll agree with what you’ll see him say).
This guy should be famous for more than a game designer for Epic. Many people don’t know that in one of the first Nintendo Power magazines, he had the top score listed for Super Mario Brothers. That’s just crazy. Why’d you do it, Cliff?
“I dunno. I guess I was bored that summer.”
My point is that even if you finished Super Mario Brothers, there was still more to the game (and we were so convinced that we were certain there was a Negative World in there!). Much of that Endgame of Super Mario Brothers revolved around score. Based on what you did, your score would go up. So players competed against one another to have the highest score. Even the first Mega Man had a score. But with mixing and matching the weapons, there was plenty of Endgame in Mega Man 2 and its sequels. Perhaps not as much in the later ones as the series adopted more of a Flavor Game approach (in this game, we introduce Mega Buster. In this game, it is Beat the bird. Etc).
Super Mario Brothers 3 also had an Endgame. It not only has the score, it has its multiplayer mode which is incredibly addicting. The Battle Mode is super fun (and uses the original Mario Brothers arcade gameplay). Since Super Mario Brothers 3 RESETS COMPLETELY every time you turn off the console, the content was very well metered out. Kuribo’s Shoe still feels unique since it is only in one stage. Hammer Brother suit and Tanooki Suit feel special because they are only in the later worlds (and not easy to find). Since Mario has a huge toolbox of different items, there is much to do differently the next time you play.
Above: People are still finding Endgame Games with Super Mario Brothers. How cool is this?
Perhaps the reason why Super Mario World was disappointing was the lack of the Endgame. What did you do once you finished the game? Well, you opened up all the secret exits. Then what? Then that’s it. Super Mario World had no score. There wasn’t much to do with the game after you unlocked everything. Even Super Mario Brothers 3 had a better multiplayer mode.
Why did RPGs begin to get popular on the NES and SNES? It is because, in comparison to other games at the time, these games offered an Endgame experience. What did you do when you finished Final Fantasy I? You replayed it. Try beating the game with four White Mages. In Final Fantasy V, there was the JOB system. Final Fantasy VI has tons of character combinations you could try. Final Fantasy went downhill as the series became more of a ‘flavor game’ revolving more on story and a mechanic.
Above: Super Mario Kart’s intro looping endlessly for ten hours. Because you need this.
Super Mario Kart was an Endgame Game which is why it didn’t stop selling. Mario Kart 64’s battle mode saved it as an Endgame Game. Mario Kart Wii’s online turned it into an Endgame Game.
One reason why Chrono Trigger is so popular is because of New Game + and that you can play with all sorts of different party combinations.
Even I can see the value in Super Smash Brothers Melee. The reason why it is so popular is because it is an Endgame Game. You can keep playing it even once you have known everything about the game. People are still playing that game today. The game did not revolve around a ‘flavor’ from hardware to story or even graphics.
I think games like Sonic the Hedgehog became popular more due how much you could do than the new flavors it had from graphics and theme. The game could still be played even once you finished it. There were speed runs and all sorts of things to do in the game.
And I think Nintendo games sales decline occurred when the games became more Flavor Games than Endgame Games. What is there to do in 3d Mario once you are done with progression? Get stars faster? Yoshi’s Island was hurt because it also didn’t have an Endgame. All you could do is just go on a scavenger hunt. Boring. Lame.
Twilight Princess’s Endgame was insulting. It was this pit with tons of levels. You might go through it once but then what? That was that.
To me, a Nintendo game is not a ‘Flavor of the Month’. To me, a Nintendo game is a game I will keep playing after I know and have done everything with it. I stopped buying Nintendo consoles when Nintendo stopped making those games.
For some reason, Nintendo is convinced that console gaming is a momentum based business and so design every game, these days, as Flavor Games. But the Wii did not sell based on momentum based strategies.
Puzzled by games that didn’t stop selling, Iwata polluted gaming language by putting the puzzle in a box called ‘new word’ and leaving it as that. The word was ‘Evergreen’.
The games that were ‘Evergreen’ were…
Wii Sports
Wii Fit
Super Mario Brothers 5
Mario Kart Wii
I believe Iwata misinterpreted the Evergreen games to mean ‘Flavor for All Seasons’ when they were not Flavor Games at all. They were Endgame Games. You cannot beat Wii Fit. And I think Wii Sports communicated such a strong value not because the game was interesting with motion controls but because the game remained interesting even once you mastered the motion controls. Many people could keep playing Wii Sports over and over because they could.
The reason why people are not excited over the new Nintendo platform is because of the games being Flavor Games. Nintendo Land looks like nothing but just a potpourri of ‘Flavor Mini-Games’ drenched in Nintendo IP paint. It will have no Endgame. Pikmin 3 might have a ‘challenge mode’ or something, but there will be no Endgame Game within it. Hell, not any of the games have online multiplayer. And this is the year 2012.
Miyamoto was roasted by interviewers when Super Mario Brothers 5 came out in 2009 as to why the game didn’t have online. And NSMB U has no online and still uses the two Toads. What is the Endgame here? What cut it for SMB 5 won’t cut it for NSMB U. SMB 5’s multiplayer was somewhat broken.
I was hoping for even an online battle mode like NSMB DS’s versus mode. There is no score in the game so why should I keep playing it once I beat it? Even I could program an online multiplayer where two players compete to finish the game first and it would say who the winner was. But not even that is in there. What is the Endgame here?
Oh, that’s right. Nintendo doesn’t make Endgames anymore. They just do ‘flavor’ games.
It is why people don’t want to buy the consoles. There is no value in ‘Flavor’ games. Nintendo may believe the game console revolves around ‘momentum’, but the consumer doesn’t. The consumer is tired of buying games that have no endgame, that offer nothing to do once the game is finished. Why else is the Game Industry complaining against Used Games? Why would anyone keep a game that lacks an Endgame?
One recent success story was the indie game called Minecraft. Do you know what Minecraft has that many other games do not? An Endgame. Once you master Minecraft, the game doesn’t end. You could keep walking in a direction and the game keeps going. People really want that.
Why do people still play Chess? It is an Endgame Game. It is not a Flavor Game where a new ‘version’ comes out every month.
I’ve realized all my purchasing habits revolve around the Endgame Game. Games that come across as Flavor Games go back to the game store. It might be why people respond so highly to the Old School Games. Old School Gaming is, in effect, Endgame Gaming.