People hate arcade-style games, or all retro gaming is Zelda

[WelshMegalodon]

This is more than just a simple matter of taste or distaste. It's as if people these days have been bred into deeming arcade-style gameplay inherently worse or obsolete. Fake difficulty and all that. NES and SNES games using cheap design to hide length (as if length wasn't a design choice) is a claim I see repeated everywhere, and far too often.

PC-style gaming and console-style gaming have arguably been around in some form since the mid-80s, yet qualities like "pick up and play" or "simple objectives with shallow story" are retroactively applied to all games from the 16-bit era or earlier. All of a sudden all "retro games" are some combination of cheap, broken, or ugly and the "developers didn't know how to makes games" excuse gets pushed forward in time until Resident Evil's lousy tank movement is somehow representative of how old games universally had worse controls (which does appear to be true for several Playstation-era 3D titles, but hardly all of them, and virtually not at all for 2D games from around the same time). Apparently NES games look like Mario or Zelda and dared not ever reach the graphical heights of Shatterhand for fear that they would actually do the unthinkable and look good. Suddenly "games about challenge" are old and horrible and outdated (despite still being made today) while games with loftier ambitions like story or atmosphere are not (despite the fact that games have been attempting to succeed in those areas since before the NES). The modern rhythm gaming and STG scenes continue to be ignored while people bitch about how older games were harder...

So what happened?

Oh, and also bullshit retrospectives.

P. S.: Castlevania II is clunky and confusing because it belongs to a genre of clunky and confusing games like Romancia and Zelda II. Not because it's old.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I think we've all faced this with friends and acquaintances to some extent now.

I think people dislike arcade games because it actually asks something of them. They must practice for their win.
The game industry (phone and console) has coddled people who don't put effort into things.

Personally I think we all thrive on that knife's edge of life and death while finishing a Shmup's last boss with no bombs and 1 life left.
I'm sure most people here recall that shaking as a kid when you finished the last level of something.

More and more gamers were born 15 years ago and are surfing the web without any historical context.
It's probably only going to get worse I'm afraid.

[pegboy]

Because today's "Gamers" are a bunch of fucking pussies that are bad at real video games. They want terrible interactive movies disguised as video games. They want something that requires virtually nothing other than a pulse and horrible story that can be easily consumed by their half-witted brains.

[hearto]

I have bad news for you.
Now there are young Game Developers who are accustomed to play mobile or wii games on his teens, so expect more casual games.
It's only a matter of time for the consoles to disappear and fully move to the mobile/gimmick bandwagon. That means more and more casual oriented games or gimmick ones because of limited controls, and less arcade games.
On Game Design Courses tends to train the new students to do more casual oriented games and treat the player like a stupid amoeba to broad the audience. So another reason for more casual games on the future.

The bright side is the PC indie scene, there are some old dinosaurs developing hardcore indie games for other old dinosaurs like us, so support them if you wan't to see more on the future.

[Shepardus]

I echo the disappointment in how players and designers often deride being able to memorize your way through a game and how setting the player back more than a few seconds is considered "unfair" while Super Meat Boy is held up as an example of how to "do difficulty right." I'd be preaching to the choir to elaborate on those, though, especially the latter.

I think people dislike arcade games because it actually asks something of them. They must practice for their win.

Challenging games that ask a lot from players (far more than most shmups, if you ask me) still manage to find large audiences, certainly enough to give every modern arcade-style game a run for their money, and enough to have been considered hits back in the 80s and 90s too.

Because today's "Gamers" are a bunch of fucking pussies that are bad at real video games. They want terrible interactive movies disguised as video games. They want something that requires virtually nothing other than a pulse and horrible story that can be easily consumed by their half-witted brains.

This is as misguided as it was the last time you said this, for the reason I've stated above.

If there's anything holding back "arcade-style" games from greater popularity, it's lack of variety, whether perceived or actual. Roguelikes/roguelites get away with challenge and steep learning curves by being ostensibly different every time you play them and by offering a wide variety of play styles and things to try. Multiplayer games get variety from the human/social element, even if everybody only plays dust2. The progression systems that creep their way into so many games nowadays also tie into this - the promise of a reward to spice things up with something new entices people to keep playing and work towards a goal. The trend towards "games as a service" - games that receive regular updates long after their initial release date - is similarly fuelled by a thirst for variety and new stuff.

I myself can tolerate playing the same first stage over and over again only because I've got so many games to choose from that if I get bored of one game I can just choose another. So forgive me if I'm hesitant to fork up for an arcade-style game I've never played that's trying to convince me that it's so good that I would want to replay it dozens or even hundreds of times. At least in a content-heavy game I'm likely to find something I like within that mass of content. "Arcade-style" games work best for consumers when they're in arcades because if they don't like the game they only waste a couple credits, and they only spend a lot if they like the game enough. (Reminds me of a certain business model widely derided as "unethical," in fact...) So regardless of people's taste for challenge or fine-tuned handcrafted levels or whatnot the "arcade" format is going to suffer when pulled out of that setting.

[WelshMegalodon]

I'm less bothered by the current trend of casual games than the widespread belief that these are somehow progressive. That we've somehow evolved from the 'quarter munching' games of old to the 'artistic' games of today.

Something I tried to point out in that first post is how people complaining about "retro games" are actually just complaining about staples of arcade-style gameplay. Looking back, there's more than a fair share of games from the olden days that go out of their way to be easy and accessible. A well-known example would be Kirby's Adventure, which is an absolute cakewalk. If Game 12 in Atari 2600 Berzerk counts, then that too.

Quite a few games were also cutscene-laden turds back in the day.

http://www.learntocounter.com/cybermani ... ong-guide/

This is the way that they were going to compete with the Japanese: Bad games with “realistic graphics” and “compelling narrative”. Sound familiar? These developers went all-in with a pair of twos, and oh my God, did they ever lose.

Fifteen years ago, fans of video games would have laughed at a video game that belittles its audience to the point where they cannot be trusted to interact with the game world on their own, having to choose between an action focus and a narrative focus. Today, we call it Mass Effect 3.

https://vndb.org/v/all?q=;fil=tagspoil- ... ;o=a;s=rel

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgr ... huL9L9WQkM

Most of the game is too easy. You remember Gleeok with 4 heads or the room
with about 10 Darknuts in it from the first outing? How about the boss of
the final palace and fighting your shadow in Zelda II? The game has seemingly
evolved into I wanna win! (with little effort).

Both styles of play are equally aged. Neither is inherently superior to the other. Adventure titles and RPGS (computer, console, or otherwise) changed and developed alongside these 'retro' platformers, shooters, and action games with experience bars (for lack of a better name). So where did this come from?

Since video game hardware and software is more complicated these days, that means we have to do something that was pretty much unfathomable in our youth

Since I couldn't get a job as an actual journalist, that means I have to stoop to such pathetic lows as forgetting the entirety of the 8-bit home computer scene (or, for that better, the goddamn Famicom Disk System).

[qmish]

This blog post might be perfect fit for OP's mood.
https://conflictingviews.wordpress.com/ ... of-gaming/

Some quotes:

This is the real reason that most people feel disillusioned with video games today. It’s this unnatural mutation of Computer games being the dominant force of entertainment… on a medium that was originally for translating Arcade games to the living room. And the mindset behind the developers is that this is a “good” thing even though companies are losing more money and sales than ever before. When the Online FPS market bubble collapses, I fear that will be it for video games. Because in our minds, that’s the only real genre that matters. AAA Computer Adventure games won’t have it so good, and neither will RPGs not named Pokemon.This is not a “PC gaming sucks” mantra. However, it would be naive to think Computer games have “helped” the industry in anyway. It gave more production values, but it has harmed gamer’s abilities to know what gaming is or even how to define genres.

People now believe games are glorified war shooters or interactive movies. Online gaming (a staple of Computer gaming) gave way to bigger stereotypes of gamers due to their own behaviors over xbox live, which has sadly skewered the public’s views of all gamers in general, preventing more people from getting into video games based on those stereotypes (until Wii Sports). People get bored quickly with video games as they focus more on heavy doses of cutscenes, making the players feel as though they are simply the audience to someone else’s “vision”. Developers have abused DLC for monetary purposes rather than to improve the actual product to the point that people are starting to boycott video games. Few people even take interest in Zelda games because they’ve turned into glorified, actionless Adventure games.


People become bored of games quickly as everyone is used to beating the game and putting it away in a trunk, because many Computer games were designed for one playthrough, and then you’re done with it. That has REALLY gotten out of hand. None of the games have any real replayability. All of these elements were derived from Computer Gaming. And it’s truly the main culprit killing the industry.In short, personal gaming on a social gaming device is exclusionary gaming. And the rapidly increasing disinterest in video games is attributed to the Computer Game Style being used for the majority of video games today. Of course, the developers are so busy hi-fiving each other on their pretentious ass “video games are art” awards and screwing over the used games market to give a fuck about where gaming is going. As far as they’re concerned, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Computer Centric Zelda with a bigger focus on puzzle solving. Eww, bug catching. Very slow paced.
And this game won massive awards and adoration from the industry. Why is that? Because the industry is ran by lovers of Computer games. Skyward Sword looks, feels, and plays like a Computer adventure game, and makes “creative” (read: Non-convenient) usage of the Motion plus for puzzle solving. Okami also won awards despite being a flop.

When people say “Casual gaming”, they really mean “Arcade gaming”. Hardcore gaming is really “Computer gaming”. The marketing ploy is to get as many gamers to hate “Arcade gaming” as possible so that they would go for the big budget Computer games known as “AAA” games and sell them based on a “rite of passage” based mentality. “These games are meant for the big boys (Computer gamers) unlike those kiddies with their Wii’s (Arcade gamers)”. We’ve all been bamboozled. We’re being told that the sanctity of gaming lies on the PC style falsely marketed as “originality and gameplay.” Originality = Creativity, which only has a home on the PC. Through FPS’s, people are easily fooled into believing that Computer gaming is Arcade gaming, mainly because it’s the only Computer genre that doesn’t run at a snail’s pace.

This is what “hardcore gaming” really is. The mislabeling of the Computer game style as “true games”. The mislabeling of Arcade gaming became mini-game collections and shovelware that would get shoved onto the Wii. Somehow, NSMBW, Rail-Shooters, etc. would all get lumped together with that nonsense. It would explain why everyone seems to hate NSMBW and even Sonic Colors to an extent.
“It’s the accesibility?”. Accesibility has been a staple of Arcade gaming (sans fighting games and Virtual-On) since the beginning of time. Why is it a problem now?

Because gaming must be exclusionary. Computer gaming has always been exclusionary to some extent. Only a few people could “appreciate it”. As long as gaming remains this way, the “wrong audience” can be kept out. The wrong audience being the mass market. The “dreaded casuals” as they say. For a time, fighting games served this purpose, but “oh that damned Tekken, Smash Bros. and Soul Calibur wit all them dumbed down mechanics!” This is the mindset of the Computer gamer. They’ve been used to having games to themselves. That mentality has creeped into console gaming now since all the “best games” are single player Adventure/RPGs with the exception of COD.

Why must the mass market be excluded? So that Computer game developers can make “creative” computer games without the fear of being judged harshly based on things like “fun factor.” They’d rather be judged on the art. When people say they want “original gameplay ideas”, they’re really saying “I want more Computer adventure games with nifty puzzles” or “Adventure games with gimmicky combat that shows off the art.” Games are being designed for the isolated gaming public. Many gamers today are introverted and slightly anti-social people. Online components benefit them more so than they would sociable people. Computer games take full advantage of online components. Everyone screams “WHERE’S THE ONLINE MULTIPLAYER!?” It’s not enough if a game is good. If it has no online, it’s an instant turn-off. It’s been driven home that online multiplayer is “real” multiplayer. Local is hardly desired anymore.

Can't say i agree with the whole post, but some points stand.

[Obscura]

The idea that the past was some hardcore paradise, and that modern gaming is a bunch of scrub-babies is stupid as hell, and I've railed against it in the past.

Twenty to thrity years ago, Nintendo used Mario games as their system-sellers. The system-seller for the PS4 was a challenging FromSoft action RPG. QED.

But, if you need more evidence, consider that the most played games these days are almost all PvP multiplayer -- either MOBAs or online FPSs. Facing other skilled players will always be more of a challenge than whatever your favorite NES game was.

Also, that article is retarded. Yes, more complex "computer games" are going to destroy videogaming... meanwhile, how many old "arcade-style" games sold as well as Skyrim or GTA 3? It's another butthurt "waaaaah, games have gotten too complex for me because I'm dumb, I'm going to bitch about how it's killing the industry even though every metric says otherwise!" rant as popularized by Sean Malstrom.

[qmish]

Don't we all agree that moba's are same tier of stupidity as pachinko?.. Simplified version of RTS for those who cant play RTS that later artificially got overcompliated to prove that it's as much "scene" as fighting or actual rts....

Ok, i'm joking or whatever, though mobas are really one of those things that keeps you away from them as much as possible because it's main image is nolife middleschoolers spending thousands of hours on that. Same applied for Monster Hunter*

*though now i'm much more tolerate to monhun when i realised that its close to dark souls in many things

p.s.
Dumb or not that article, it's provoking thoughts of how console gaming switched to cinematic plot-centred games from arcade-like ones because... this is what most people would buy right? haha

[atheistgod1999]

I'm less bothered by the current trend of casual games than the widespread belief that these are somehow progressive. That we've somehow evolved from the 'quarter munching' games of old to the 'artistic' games of today.

You took the words out of my mouth. That's exactly what I've been pissed about for the past couple of years.

[Durandal]

This is more than just a simple matter of taste or distaste. It's as if people these days have been bred into deeming arcade-style gameplay inherently worse or obsolete. Fake difficulty and all that. NES and SNES games using cheap design to hide length (as if length wasn't a design choice) is a claim I see repeated everywhere, and far too often.

Many players nowadays are used to long games, many of which lacking replayability. For them, completing the game once (on the difficulty of choice) is evidence enough that you've mastered the game and that there's nothing left for you, or that you've experienced whatever there is to experience. For them, arcade games lack a concise goal to strive towards to given the existence of continues (which in computer games could manifest itself as savescumming), as an 1cc is regarded as a personal challenge rather than something the developers want you to strive towards. The mentality of self-improvement is barely found in the modern average gamer, be it through lack of commitment, motivation, time, or taste.

Because of that, they believe that difficulty in arcade games and contemporary console games solely existed in order to make up for the short length of those games and to suck up credits. While that's certainly true, there's more to difficulty than that. Difficulty is a means through which the player is tested to apply what he has learned in the game. Without difficulty, dominant strategies could be formed and many of the levels end up being repetitive due to them not forcing or encouraging you to change your playstyle. Without difficulty, there's nothing that can engage the player using the present game mechanics (so instead hacks resort to story and visual storytelling to make up for their empty shell of a game). Yet even in stories this principle applies, where engaging stories are driven through conflicts and testing characters (or just being entertaining, like with humor and such). Superman predictably saving the day each issue is boring. The invincible Superman faces his weaknesses in the form of Kryptonite or saving others not as strong as him because otherwise there'd be no tension. The question should be how is Superman going to save the day from this seemingly invincible villain/plan? The idea of having to face one's weaknesses and how one deals with them is what ends up being interesting and relatable.

Back to video games, games quickly lose all their tension without difficulty, but worst of all you're not encouraged to learn and to make the most out of what the game lets you do. Why should you destroy packs of enemies with awesome flashy combos you spent a whole week practicing, when mashing heavy attack does the job just fine? This question was answered through scoring/ranking systems (be it points or time), which give the player an indication of how well he's doing, on top of displaying whether there's still room for improvement through ranks and medals you have yet to obtain. Alternatively, your performance could be rewarded with points and upgrades you can use to unlock things, as a score value is meaningless to a lot of people, but they'll try the hardest if they can unlock more useless doodads with it (Devil May Cry, Brigador, etc.). Ultimately, a game is at it's best when it teaches you new mechanics and how to apply them in many ways you'll have to figure out for yourself. Puzzle games are the purest example of this: a mechanic is introduced, the player learns how to use it over the course of several puzzles utilizing that mechanic, sometimes one mechanic will be used in conjunction with other previously established mechanics, and so on. Many other good games follow a similar, albeit a less constrained principle. Repetition and unexpected difficulty spikes are signs of how to teach things badly. Video games aren't that different from learning in school, you have your gameplay mechanics (learning material), boss battles (tests) and stages (exercises). Limits are a good thing because they force you to get creative with what you have. Else you're just playing a demigod in a sandbox, where the only fun that can be had is self-imposed or enjoying the power trip. Game design is all about communicating ideas to the player and utilizing a concept in every way possible. I value execution and difficulty over gameplay itself (save for controls/input, the single most important thing for a video game) because a cool idea only remains a cool idea if it isn't realized.

And that's why these cinematic and artsy games put me off incredibly, they abandon the one thing which makes video games stand out from other media (interactivity) in favor of mimicking existing popular artforms through games. Instead of exploring the way stories can be told through gameplay, many developers seem to abandon the idea of gameplay completely other than the ability to move around, as something like Gone Home is fundamentally no different than a museum exhibition, on top of the ill-begotten idea that all art must have a message (the Mona Lisa wasn't a fucking political commentary on high import taxes imposed by Venetian merchants).

[qmish]

A problem of content exist.

In shmups you spend 100 hours on you 80 attempts of same fives different stages.
In rpgs you spend 100 hours on 40 different stages etc.

As for artsy games, i always recommended to separate them from videogames completely. It's just another kind of digital media.

[BryanM]

Non-interactive narratives are a net detriment to the medium. Ocarina of Time was made worse by it. Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 is made worse by making you sit through 20 minutes of nothing before you get to murder your first slime.

What's shocking to me is how almost zero games let you interact with the narrative. Being stuck on rails just makes a bad movie and a bad game. Even the most ghetto-basic "friendship" meter like Harvest Moon games have is lightyears away from what most games offer in their narratives.

All that money spent on clipshows spouting useless exposition on why you're going into a new zone. We know why already: to kill more things and get more loots.

Honestly I wonder if its just unnecessary people trying to justify their employment. Bureaucracies beget more bureaucracy. The more people serving under you, the cooler you can feel about your resume.

[orange808]

Just do what makes you happy.

I listen to "gamers" spout bullshit all the time.

Know what? I manage the sides of the screen. Don't stand there, dumb ass.
I memorized the map. I don't walk into pits.
I get out first time--every time. Maybe you suck at video games.
I find the icons I need and use my powers. There's too many pits and too little power for trail and error.
I only hunt two phone pieces and Elliott gets the last one. Why work harder? Gather Reeses Pieces and use them.

You suck at the game and you're doing it wrong, but you decided that Seanbaby knows best. Fuck that.

There's all kiinds of games. Play what you like.

I love them all. Even "bad" ones.

[atheistgod1999]

P. S.: Castlevania II is clunky and confusing because it belongs to a genre of clunky and confusing games like Romancia and Zelda II. Not because it's old.

Just wondering: was the

Spoiler

kneel with the red crystal at the wall

thing something people managed to figure out by themselves back in the day?

[Vludi]

Castlevania II is such a bad game, there is no reason to play it when you respawn at the same place where you die/continue, even on dungeons and bosses, no sense of challenge in the whole game (unless you count the cryptic stuff as "challenge")

[BryanM]

Know what? I manage the sides of the screen. Don't stand there, dumb ass.
I memorized the map. I don't walk into pits.
I get out first time--every time. Maybe you suck at video games.
I find the icons I need and use my powers. There's too many pits and too little power for trail and error.
I only hunt two phone pieces and Elliott gets the last one. Why work harder? Gather Reeses Pieces and use them.

Dah, learning the jedi powers is essential. There's a reason he's painted green. Because he's a yoda.

Horrifyingly enough, it's easily one of the best games on the system if you value things by their longevity like I do. Not a lot of competition tbh; most of the material made for that box was more primordial than anything else.

[Sumez]

Is this the whine about modern games thread? Count me in!

Some posts in this thread raise some really good points, and I agree with most of it. People today have a very different view on what a video game is, even people who have played classic video games for the past 30 years. Just recently I had a long discussion trying to argue why quicksaving does nothing to improve old games on the NES Classic, while people were claiming that it is pretty much necessary, as adults they don't have a lot of time to keep replaying the same stages over and over.

I doubt I have to explain to people in here why that feature removes almost everything that games like Mega Man and Contra are designed around. This is the same impression that gives people a general idea that the "lives" system is outdated, even retroactively in classic video games built around it. People see games like something you play from the beginning to the end to see it all. Not like a challenge that you have to beat.

What I consider most interesting in this debate is how people's view on classic arcade or 8bit titles has changed throughout time in order to compare them to what's currently coming out. I never heard the term "NES hard" until ten or so years ago, and the concept that every NES game is super hard was pretty new to me. While games like Mega Man are challenging enough that you have to put your mind to it and practice some of the more complicated bosses, they are definitely not their own category of hard! When I heard that the first Super Mario Bros. was "NES hard" I had no idea how to react. I doubt anyone who grew up with that game would consider it even the tiniest bit difficult. But I guess if you grew up with instant respawning, trying any game that requires you to jump to survive a bottomless pit would come across as "hard"...

Not saying that difficulty wasn't a factor back then. Quite the contrary - you'd have easy games (usually licensed games based on cartoons etc.) and super difficult ones designed to give an arcade like experience. In fact, where you often see games today judged by their length in hours, that was never something anyone even talked about in reviews in the 80s and early 90s. However, I remember all reviews I read had a scale judging the difficulty of the game, which was usually considered an important factor in the game's quality. For the comparison, Battletoads was considered "medium" difficulty. It is definitely true that today video games are rarely judged as their own medium based around trying to "beat" a game, but expected to deliver the same as other types of media in terms of story, and content, as opposed to design and challenge. I was really hoping that the success of Dark Souls would change this habit, but it seems like we still have a long way to go. Maybe the renewed interest in "retro" games, as evident by the NES Classic, will help change the tides.

[Bananamatic]

wtf i hate modern games now

[Sinful]

Is this the whine about modern games thread? Count me in!

Some posts in this thread raise some really good points, and I agree with most of it. People today have a very different view on what a video game is, even people who have played classic video games for the past 30 years. Just recently I had a long discussion trying to argue why quicksaving does nothing to improve old games on the NES Classic, while people were claiming that it is pretty much necessary, as adults they don't have a lot of time to keep replaying the same stages over and over.

I doubt I have to explain to people in here why that feature removes almost everything that games like Mega Man and Contra are designed around. This is the same impression that gives people a general idea that the "lives" system is outdated, even retroactively in classic video games built around it. People see games like something you play from the beginning to the end to see it all. Not like a challenge that you have to beat.

What I consider most interesting in this debate is how people's view on classic arcade or 8bit titles has changed throughout time in order to compare them to what's currently coming out. I never heard the term "NES hard" until ten or so years ago, and the concept that every NES game is super hard was pretty new to me. While games like Mega Man are challenging enough that you have to put your mind to it and practice some of the more complicated bosses, they are definitely not their own category of hard! When I heard that the first Super Mario Bros. was "NES hard" I had no idea how to react. I doubt anyone who grew up with that game would consider it even the tiniest bit difficult. But I guess if you grew up with instant respawning, trying any game that requires you to jump to survive a bottomless pit would come across as "hard"...

Not saying that difficulty wasn't a factor back then. Quite the contrary - you'd have easy games (usually licensed games based on cartoons etc.) and super difficult ones designed to give an arcade like experience. In fact, where you often see games today judged by their length in hours, that was never something anyone even talked about in reviews in the 80s and early 90s. However, I remember all reviews I read had a scale judging the difficulty of the game, which was usually considered an important factor in the game's quality. For the comparison, Battletoads was considered "medium" difficulty. It is definitely true that today video games are rarely judged as their own medium based around trying to "beat" a game, but expected to deliver the same as other types of media in terms of story, and content, as opposed to design and challenge. I was really hoping that the success of Dark Souls would change this habit, but it seems like we still have a long way to go. Maybe the renewed interest in "retro" games, as evident by the NES Classic, will help change the tides.

Yeah, I see and get the "As adults we don't have a lot of time to keep replaying the same stages over and over" remark all the time. Seems to be the most popular rebuttal. As wasting 30 hours to over and over on an old school game is a no no, while wasting the same 30 hours + mindless grinding to remove all difficulty in an RPG is totally cool.

This no time to play old school games also fits in with the huge gaming backlog everyone has mentality. Where nobody has time to learn games because they have so many games on backlog. Which is really dumb because they've now turned gaming into one giant to do chore list instead. A mindless one at that too. Everyone must be an assembly line worker. :p


There's also the "All games should have unlimited continues otherwise it's flawed" mentality among gamers today too. Basically talking about old school games on other forums in general is like hanging around Bizarro world.

[qmish]

while wasting the same 30 hours

They're not the same... they're like if you played 6 shmups, spending 5 hours at each.

[apatheticTurd]

The idea that the past was some hardcore paradise, and that modern gaming is a bunch of scrub-babies is stupid as hell, and I've railed against it in the past.

Twenty to thrity years ago, Nintendo used Mario games as their system-sellers. The system-seller for the PS4 was a challenging FromSoft action RPG. QED.

But, if you need more evidence, consider that the most played games these days are almost all PvP multiplayer -- either MOBAs or online FPSs. Facing other skilled players will always be more of a challenge than whatever your favorite NES game was.

In addition to this, I find the meme that "modern gamers are scrubs that hate challenge and only play for the next cutscene etc. etc." doesn't really stand up to reality, because checking the sales chart will show that all attempts at starting new franchises out of easy, linear, "cinematic" experience have died an ignominious retail death, and the biggest series in that type of game (Uncharted) has been sunsetted in the face of changing market trends.

There's been some midly successful visual novels and walking simulators in the past years, but those are cult hit at bests, not massive mainstream successes.

[Vludi]

Yeah I don't think modern players are terrible either, however I think they don't understand the challenge in arcade gaming, modern ports are the perfect example: if it has unlimited continues it's "too easy", but if it has limited continues it's "quarter-munching garbage". They probably put effort in other modern games but for some reason they refuse to do the same in arcade games.

[ZacharyB]

The support network/social scene for arcade-like games is too small, so even if they were to put in the time, they can't get the street cred they so desperately desire out of "gaming".

Score alone is too ethereal a concept for the modern world. If my best friend doesn't give a honking canadian goose that I got 500,000 extra points on my latest run because it's totally irrelevant to his life, why should he care? Interest and relevance are immutable forces.

...If anything'd turn the tide, it's that now-old video of that guy beating Death Label in Dai Ou Jou. His ecstacy at finally defeating what no one else could was palpable and reached beyond a number that just goes up.

[qmish]

Yeah who cares for damn score? Alpha males?

On a more serious note, that's not enough motivation for those who are not into leadership etc.

Also the whole concept of "working hard to achieve"...
...people nowodays have enough "working hard" on job etc., so they need games just to relax and chill when they come home with nearly zero physical and mind powers.

[Sinful]

while wasting the same 30 hours

They're not the same... they're like if you played 6 shmups, spending 5 hours at each.

I spent like 55 hours on Darius 2 in MAME, and I'm not even sure if I managed to reach the final stage. (Next time I'm learning the original 3 screen version as intended) So yeah, Darius 2 is a worthy RPG. :p

In addition to this, I find the meme that "modern gamers are scrubs that hate challenge and only play for the next cutscene etc. etc." doesn't really stand up to reality, because checking the sales chart will show that all attempts at starting new franchises out of easy, linear, "cinematic" experience have died an ignominious retail death, and the biggest series in that type of game (Uncharted) has been sunsetted in the face of changing market trends.

There's been some midly successful visual novels and walking simulators in the past years, but those are cult hit at bests, not massive mainstream successes.

It's not that they're scrubs, just how gamers have been conditioned. I know sometimes I'm on a more casual binge, and I can honestly say it sometimes takes some time to adjust to old school Arcade mentality if I've been away from it for too long.

[qmish]

Sure, Darius is nice example of trying to add more variety to playthrough. DBCS goes further providing you with many many many variants of enemy placements, though players are angry and sad because they wanted to see completely new assets of enemies and levels, not just rearrangements of placements.

Actually that "3000 missions" resulted as hurtful advertisment because of that, despite the fact that even if you watch straight, game has more levels and bosses etc. than most other shmups (20 or smth? Compare to standard 5-8 stages deal).

[Jeneki]

These days when someone says playing for score, they generally mean grinding out achievements for gamer score / trophy count.

[pegboy]

I've long since given up trying to tell scrub gamers about the concept of a 1cc/playing for score and the like. It's something you either get or you don't, and the vast majority will never get it.

To make the most money you make games for the worst gamers possible, because everyone has to win and get a trophy, regardless of how worthless and meaningless it is.

[Sinful]

These days when someone says playing for score, they generally mean grinding out achievements for gamer score / trophy count.

I've never been able to get into the whole achievements system.