Take a look at this video:
He is incorrect in saying Nintendo saved the Game Industry once. Nintendo saved the Game Industry twice. The first was with the NES and Gameboy, the second was the Wii and DS. Wii and DS’s success didn’t come at the expense of the PSP, Xbox 360, or PS3. All the growth of the market in the Seventh Generation was due to Nintendo. Ironically, Nintendo was among the hardcore critics who hated what the Wii success represented (which is why they designed their next system for the hardcore: the Wii U. How’s the Wii U selling? Guess the hardcore don’t put money where their mouths are…).
The stock comparison are interesting, but I don’t think they are too useful. The best thing the video did was compare the birth of the portable PC (e.g. smartphones, tablets) with the birth of the PC in the early 80s. The comparison is accurate and places the smartphones/tablets as personal computers which they are.
The video blames many things such as DLC, laziness in making games, and game quality getting worse. I believer there is something else going on. It is what I call The Nintendo Problem. I haven’t seen anyone else talk about it (so I assume in five to ten years it will become mainstream knowledge).
Nintendo says the Wii and DS were about ‘expanding the audience of gamers’. What Nintendo actually meant was the Wii and DS were about ‘expanding the audience of gamers who want to buy the games we want to make’. Ever since Nintendo’s fall in the latter 16-bit era, they have some rabid ideology of making certain types of games. When the market doesn’t respond, they act like a stubborn mule and try to force their game type to become popular. The perfect microcosm of such a ‘game type’ would be Metroid: Other M. While the market defines the Metroid experience one way, the Nintendo developers define the Metroid experience in another way. Instead of seeing his definition as ‘wrong’ (which would be rational), the Nintendo designer asks, ‘HOW can we sell the game type I wish to make?’
From a market context, a game like Mario 64 was a failure (compared to prior Mario games, compared to N64 hardware sales). But since Miyamoto has a vendetta that ‘3d is the future!’, all we got was 3d Marios. Gamecube saw Mario Sunshine. Wii saw Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 which were designed to get 2d Mario fans to play 3d Mario (and included instructional DVDs!). Miyamoto was in charge to design the 3DS, I hear, which makes sense as to the insane reason for dedicated a console to ‘3d’ (and Mario in 3d Land, stuffed with Tanooki, was Miyamoto trying to ‘finally’ get 2d Mario fans into 3d Mario. Still didn’t happen. Lo and behold, Miyamoto announces his retirement.)
With the Zelda series, I see it as becoming nothing more than a hamster wheel that Aonuma runs around in quest for his ‘creativity’. Zelda series has really fallen from its Ocarina-LTTP-ALoZ-AoL heights.
What I believe happened is that while Wii and DS were selling very well, the lauded ‘expanded audience’ were not buying 3d Mario, Aonuma Zelda, “Maternal Instincts” Metroid, or other ‘passion projects’ Nintendo developers had. Instead, they were buying Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart, and 2d Mario. In other words, the consumers were moving to games Nintendo didn’t want to make. The objective was that Wii Sports or Wii Fit would bring in new gamers and then they would ‘graduate’ to the Gamecube-esque games Nintendo wants to make.
When the Wii and DS rose to heaven, it seemed like the entire Game Industry and the hardcore gamers went batshit insane. The Wii success meant the market wasn’t going the same way as the rest of the Game Industry. And to Nintendo’s horror, they realized that the market wasn’t going the way Miyamoto and others wanted it to go. They can call a HD Gamecube-With-Connectivity a “Wii U”, but Wii owners are not being fooled. They can call a 3d dedicated handheld a ‘DS’, but DS owners are not being fooled. The similar branding was intentional because Nintendo, like the rest of the Game Industry, has no respect for the ‘Expanded Audience’. The disgust boomerangs back.
The Nintendo Problem is likely everywhere else in game companies. The Nintendo Problem is game developers on a ‘creativity quest’ and end up producing the worst type of dreck. I recognize the disease because I recognize the symptoms from creative fiction writers like those who attend seminars and classes all day.
It is not so much that the games are ‘bad’. The problem is that the games are intentionally being designed as ‘expressions of the developers’. Who the hell buys a game for that purpose? If developers want to express themselves, go get a blog. I’m paying for a GAME whose purpose is to PLEASURE ME. The purpose of games is for the gamer to have fun, not the developer. It’s supposed to be a chore for them, but pleasure for the gamer. Many games feel like chores because it was so enjoyable for the developers to make.
Another disease I recognize (because it is so prevalent in crappy writers) is lack of life experiences. The early generation of game developers had life experiences. Miyamoto explored caves, played music publicly, and did whatever else. Richard Garriot’s parents were astronauts which likely allowed him to have rich life experiences (astronaut is not a typical job). Others read voraciously, played board games and pen and paper games religiously, and interacted with society.
Later generations of developers have the life experience of always staring at a computer. If your life history consists of doing little more than just playing video games, how can you make anything new? How can you be interesting? This is why hardcore gamers should have no part in the Game Industry (or society in general). What I see is later generations of developers who do not have unique life experiences. This is why all modern games feel ‘samey’ (that and everyone licensing the same engine).
Now that I have said my piece, let me read how Knee-O Gaffe responded…
Master Malstrom reads patiently…
Hmm, I didn’t see much disagreement there at all.
In order to save gaming, the hardcore must be destroyed.
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