DOA series creator: "Hardcore players killed shmups"

[Sinful]

And being hardcore shouldn't be a crime. Should be a reward.

It’s a pretty empty reward if your insistence on keeping a genre just the way you like it actually leads to the total demise of that genre.

Yeah. But no way everyone played enough STGs to be sick of them. The more serious issue is actually getting new folks into the genre. I always avoided it for the longest time until recently. Was a though transition too that took a lot of effort and time. Not until I noticed via the internet enough dedicated gamers still praising so many of them did I finally start to investigate it properly for once. So yeah. Media approval and advertisement would greatly help. But look how the mainstream media views STG and classic gaming.

And since I'm still new to the genre. No way am I near hungry for some fresh variety to the genre yet.

[Skykid]

During the decades where arcade gaming was the frontline, shmups were mainstream by default.

This is where I disagree. I don't think that arcades were ever mainstream. The mainstream (at least outside of Japan) viewed arcades as a place where you could dump your kids so that you can shop in peace (this doesn't conflict with any exceptional experiences to the contrary). Arcades were real and possibly even a "phenomenon" but they where never part of the mainstream.

You're still making no sense brother. You're hacking your own debate into smaller pieces to eke out some logic to the contrary of most other opinions.

Define mainstream. Look at video games as a whole during the 80s and 90s, their sphere of influence - and although they had a lesser reach than they do today, they were still a big business. Arcades were a prominent arm of the industry. So, as much as was possible at the time, shmups occupied a distinct proportion of industry output.

Arcades were only a phenomenon retrospectively because they were relatively short-lived - but at the time they made good bank.

as a genre they occupied a large proportion of the pie chart to serve a fanbase who wanted more of them.

In the age of arcades the "video games" piece of the "entertainment market" pie was puny - a large proportion of puny is still puny. These days the "video games" piece of the "entertainment market" is much, much larger but the STG market simply hasn't kept pace with that growth.

The STG market has no place in that growth. It's considered out of date and largely unappealing, just like most other arcade specific genres of yesteryear.

The rest of your post is pretty long but I get the gist: you think somehow STG's are still well represented by players and could still have a place among the stars.

I think you're completely wrong because of factors including change, technology, time, perceptions, generational appeal.

But I do appreciate your optimism.

[Doctor Butler]

Spoiler

Honestly I think it just has to do with the genre being/looking "old" to people from the outside looking in. We live in an accelerated society that wants everything to be new new new and unfortunately other genres have the benefit of 3D being able to flex their newness-muscle a whole hell of a lot more than shmups. Take for instance black-and-white movies. Sure movie buffs probably love them and could talk all day about how it was cinema done right but at the end of the day they will never be the norm anymore, just a casual one-off viewing for someone to watch. To them the experience is just as cursory as if they sat down and played a shmup. A fun distraction, sure, but nothing to critically sit down and analyze

One could say, "But hey, platformers these days look just as good as modern shmups!" but I think for some reason platformers have a much higher nostalgia factor these days for whatever reason.

I agree with your point, but that analogy is way off - most people can appreciate the artistry of a well crafted film. For some particular reason, they don't extend that formality to videogames, and believe anything that's not ostensibly a movie is invalid.

I think your theory about these people's mentality applies more to games as a whole, rather than simply shooting games; they think games in general are all disposable popcorn entertainment, like Chuck Lorre sitcoms.

[Devdan]

I agree with Itagaki in the sense that, for every new person who tries to get into shmups, there will be several who don't allow that person to have any accomplishments. It's happened to me, and I've seen it happen to others. The correct response to "I'm so happy with myself, I finally 1cc'd Akai Katana!" is not "Sorry, but Akai Katana was actually specifically made to be really easy to 1cc. Come back when you've 1cc'd Ketsui." Just because a game isn't in the top 99.9% for difficult doesn't mean it's easy by any stretch.

Also, on a somewhat more random note:difficulty that scales with how well you're doing is idiotic and I hate it a lot. Like in DeathSmiles (which I otherwise like a ton). You beat the first 6 levels on difficulty 3, so now you have to play the bonus levels( that are already harder by design) on difficulty 4 and the last stage (which is harder than every other stage put together) on difficulty 5, because......!!!!?????

I still like shmups, but I hardly play them anymore, because I find fighting games more rewarding. At least the guy I beat is forced to acknowledge that I did something.

[Lilium]

Also, on a somewhat more random note:difficulty that scales with how well you're doing is idiotic and I hate it a lot. Like in DeathSmiles (which I otherwise like a ton). You beat the first 6 levels on difficulty 3, so now you have to play the bonus levels( that are already harder by design) on difficulty 4 and the last stage (which is harder than every other stage put together) on difficulty 5, because......!!!!?????

Oh yeah... that is a problem. I think I might have a solution for you there. Don't pick lv.3 more than 4 times? Of all the games you could've chosen you decided to make your example be a game where you at all times are given the choice as to how much higher difficulty you want?

As for your other point, there will likely always be elitists like that in any sort of skill-based genre, that's probably not exclusive to shmups. There'll always be people looking to stroke their own ego by pointing out that what you just did was something easy. Its not hard to do. Here, "Ey guys, ehh Crimzon Clover WI Novice is babby stuff pls sudoku if you don't clear it blind mmkay?" and what a nice person I am for making that statement. That's where you need to just come out and say "well, its an accomplishment for where i am gimme a break" or something to that effect lol.

[Bananamatic]

I agree with Itagaki in the sense that, for every new person who tries to get into shmups, there will be several who don't allow that person to have any accomplishments. It's happened to me, and I've seen it happen to others. The correct response to "I'm so happy with myself, I finally 1cc'd Akai Katana!" is not "Sorry, but Akai Katana was actually specifically made to be really easy to 1cc. Come back when you've 1cc'd Ketsui." Just because a game isn't in the top 99.9% for difficult doesn't mean it's easy by any stretch.

which is funny because a 1-all of ketsui isn't much harder and anyone who thinks a low scoring 1-all is amazing has is in no place to talk shit
not that i've seen anyone actually do this, just people saying that game X is easy and someone taking it personally for some reason

it's not necessarily a bad thing to be bad at shmups or something to be ashamed of, if you're new to them you'll suck for the first couple hundred hours and your first clears will be easy games, it's perfectly normal

I find fighting games more rewarding. At least the guy I beat is forced to acknowledge that I did something.

when you beat someone else's high score, they can't exactly talk shit about you either (and can't blame it on lag or being lucky on top of that)

[mamboFoxtrot]

I still like shmups, but I hardly play them anymore, because I find fighting games more rewarding. At least the guy I beat is forced to acknowledge that I did something.

Well, admittedly, the machine even more reliably admits defeat. With fighting games you might get "ggs brah", but you might also get "fuckin cheapskate you onyy win cux u use throws bitch", then the internet forums are all "wat u baet dat guy w/e hes a fukkin scrub anywys if u went to a real tourny you'd git rekt newb", so I don't think its really that much different.

Then again, I win fighting game matches as often as I get past stage 3 of a CAVE game, which is practically never, so wtf do I know?

[HydrogLox]

Arcades were only a phenomenon retrospectively because they were relatively short-lived - but at the time they made good bank.

It was my perception of arcades that was incorrect. There is a Oct. 1994 Businessweek quote floating around:

Hollywood's aim, of course, is to tap into the $7 billion that Americans pour into arcade games each year--and the $6 billion they spend on home versions for Nintendo and Sega game machines. Combined, it's a market nearly 21/2 times the size of the $5 billion movie box office.

I was a bit shocked when I discovered this as an entertainment software association report cites the "U.S. Computer and Video Game Sales for 2013" as 15.4 billion USD. To a certain degree these numbers are apples and oranges - the 1994 numbers don't include PC entertainment software sales and the 2013 numbers don't include entertainment services or micro-transactions. But the CPI adjusted 1994 amounts of 11 billion for arcades and 9.4 billion for console games doesn't make the 2013 number look all that impressive.

you think somehow STG's are still well represented by players and could still have a place among the stars.

Not exactly - but I am wondering whether nostalgia is exaggerating the popularity of STGs during the arcade age - used by credit-feeding patrons as quasi-kinetoscopes ("I just want to see the end of this") rather than actually "practicing" STG gameplay. STGs certainly were more visible back then.

But I do appreciate your optimism.

I simply believe that whining and scapegoating doesn't help. For the time being it seems that the genre has to survive primarily through doujin efforts on PC which is neither ideal from the perspective of the "hardcore" fans nor when the video game industry growth is in the mobile smart device market. The genre can't survive on complaints, it can only survive through support. That may mean buying a game four times for different platforms and buying copies of favorite games for your friends that would otherwise never try them. Reminiscing about the good old days and complaining how current efforts just don't measure up isn't going to keep the flame burning.

[Devdan]

when you beat someone else's high score, they can't exactly talk shit about you either (and can't blame it on lag or being lucky on top of that)

That's something that happens almost never vs something that happens numerous times a day. As for lag wins (which are totally a thing, but ideally we're not playing online anyway) and irate losers, yeah they can be annoying. But spending 30 minutes running through stages 1-6 only to lose focus for 1/8 of a second and die AGAIN is at least equally annoying.

And there's very little satisfaction in "beating the machine" if it takes 50+ hours and nobody you know cares even a little.

I've likened shmups to rhythm games before. Generally your goal in a rhythm game goes pass song > full combo song > (if you hate yourself) perfect song. shmup scoring systems vary to much to generalize how they work to that extent, but usually you want to 1cc the game > 1cc the game while trying to score properly > repeat step 2, but do it better. The finish line is less obvious, and rather than a 2 minute song, you're playing a 20-45 minute nonstop course. You don't see many people playing nonstop courses in rhythm games (in fact, they're not even in a lot of games anymore). I feel like there's probably a connection there to how unpopular shmups are.

It'd be really cool if somebody figured out a way to re-invent the genre without compromising the core mechanics though. More games having individually score-attackable stages seems like it would've been a fairly obvious step in the right direction, but I'm struggling to think of any games that did that. I guess it wouldn't get the arcades much money. I'm done rambling....

[edit] no wait, more rambling, I forgot to address one thing. ALL internet communities are toxic in my experience, make no mistake. Message board guys will almost always shoot you down when you think you've done something cool. But fighters are (comparatively) mainstream enough that you at least get some feedback from lower level players. You might lose a lot online, but they you'll run into some guy who can't touch you, and you can TELL he's trying, and you might think "Ok, maybe I'm not an ABSOLUTE BEGINNER, and if I keep playing I may improve further". Compare that to "well, I got 30th place on the leaderboards, but almost everyone below me didn't even make it to stage 3, how can I tell if these people even played the game more than once?"

I was 3rd on the PSN leaderboard for Hitogata Happa on the hardest difficulty, because freaking nobody ever played that game. It had been out for a year, and all you had to do to get into the top 10 was beat stage 0. I mean, satisfaction is kind of limited.

[Mortificator]

Nice work on Hitogata Happa. I haven't played the game myself yet, but it doesn't look like a cakewalk.

[SuperSoaker360]

Devdan, you should stop caring about comparisons and just shoot for your own self-established goals.

[disCorder]

I agree with Itagaki in the sense that, for every new person who tries to get into shmups, there will be several who don't allow that person to have any accomplishments. It's happened to me, and I've seen it happen to others. The correct response to "I'm so happy with myself, I finally 1cc'd Akai Katana!" is not "Sorry, but Akai Katana was actually specifically made to be really easy to 1cc. Come back when you've 1cc'd Ketsui." Just because a game isn't in the top 99.9% for difficult doesn't mean it's easy by any stretch.

Could you please show me where this has actually happened.

[ACSeraph]

It'd be really cool if somebody figured out a way to re-invent the genre without compromising the core mechanics though. More games having individually score-attackable stages seems like it would've been a fairly obvious step in the right direction, but I'm struggling to think of any games that did that.

You need more Ginga Force in your life.

ALL internet communities are toxic in my experience, make no mistake. Message board guys will almost always shoot you down when you think you've done something cool.

I don't think this is true of shmups forum. Look at the I Did it! Thread sometime. There's nothing but support for fellow players of all levels to be found in there. Any 1cc of a shmup is something to be proud of. Even the very easiest titles are leagues harder than anything the modern industry is putting out.

[Shepardus]

Doesn't Jamestown also have individual stage score attacks and various other challenge modes? I've never played the game myself but I recall seeing stuff like that in the menus.

And I haven't seen anyone here put anyone down for a 1cc or a similar accomplishment, no matter how easy the game. People may say that you're just getting started and push you to do more, but that's different from belittling your achievements.

[Skykid]

And there's very little satisfaction in "beating the machine" if it takes 50+ hours and nobody you know cares even a little.

Oh, this is really not true. "Beating the machine" has always been a very personal victory for me. The sense of achievement is enough, feeding off of the buzz and cementing that your skills levelled up (which is a nice thing in itself: measurable improvement feels good in anything you do).

When I was ten or so and first reached the last stage in Aliens, the clear wasn't even required. I swaggered back from the arcade that night like I owned the small seaside town.

Three years ago when I 1cc'd (looped, technically) DOJ BL - my most personal shmupping vendetta - I ran around the room whooping and punching the air. And the only person there to know about it was my girlfriend telling me to shut the fuck up from the next room.

[Devdan]

I agree with Itagaki in the sense that, for every new person who tries to get into shmups, there will be several who don't allow that person to have any accomplishments. It's happened to me, and I've seen it happen to others. The correct response to "I'm so happy with myself, I finally 1cc'd Akai Katana!" is not "Sorry, but Akai Katana was actually specifically made to be really easy to 1cc. Come back when you've 1cc'd Ketsui." Just because a game isn't in the top 99.9% for difficult doesn't mean it's easy by any stretch.

Could you please show me where this has actually happened.

I can't recall every instance in which something like this has happened, but off the top of my head there was this topic on GameFAQs which struck me as being along those lines.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/622607-a ... a/62848211

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I find stuff like that more offputting than I would for other genres. I've definitely seen more of it, but maybe I'm blowing it out of proportion. If you play shmups, you must realize that almost by default they're not easy, even if they're on the easier side. Everyone talks about how easy DeathSmiles II is, but it has some really tricky parts, and I find Satan Claws very difficult. I've only ever gotten to the extra boss on the easy difficulty. The last stage is harder than the entire rest of the game combined, which seems to be an obnoxious tradition in this genre.

[ACSeraph]

I don't think you need to give a shit what gamefaqs members have to say about this subject. We are the heart of the Western STG community, and we support players of all levels.

[trap15]

Gamefaqs is full of idiots and liars, I'd never bother with it.

[Shepardus]

If we're talking about the internet as a whole, there's always going to be people like that, regardless of the genre or game. You could get a no-miss 2-ALL of Ketsui and idiots would still be saying "looks easier than Touhou, scrub." The existence of elitist pricks acting like they're better than they really are is hardly unique to shmups (just play a game of Dota if you're not sure of this).

[NTSC-J]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/622607-a ... a/62848211

...You're unlikely to ever get the 1cc because even with tens of hours of practice the game is pretty much impossible; if only through the likelihood that you will make mistakes rather than through not knowing the stages.

Source: Many many many hours playing Cave's titles and not a single 1cc to speak of...

...All of these games are pretty much impossible because even with hours and hours of practice you will still make mistakes, and 5 lives isn't anywhere near enough to give you a chance of clearing the games on a semi-regular basis. All practice does is gives you prior warning of what is coming up. You've still got to manually dodge it, and I've found that practice makes very little difference to one's ability to do that, certainly on patterns that have to be manually weaved rather than dodged rhythmically or pre-dodged.

Even after about 50 hours practice on other games I still get hit by nothing patterns where I made a tiny error, or die to something that I thought I had avoided. That's what will stop you clearing these game.

...There is definitely a large element of luck to being successful in these games, and in my opinion this is too much of a factor given the huge time investment required to even have the faintest hope of clearing them. A large amount of success comes from not making mistakes, but mistakes are common and understandable and (in my experience) impossible to reduce the frequency of. Even once you can dodge the most incredibly intricate patterns that game can throw at you, it is still no guarantee in the slightest that you won't nudge a bullet in a simple wall, and do so with sufficient frequency to prevent a clear ever occurring in anything but the most infrequent of runs.

Been a while since I read some good TrouserPlank.

[Lilium]

Just imagine how many more of those people there would likely be if shmups were a mainstream thing.

[Skykid]

What a downer.

[HydrogLox]

More games having individually score-attackable stages seems like it would've been a fairly obvious step in the right direction, but I'm struggling to think of any games that did that.

Toshiaki Fujino/Triangle Service's Shooting Love. 10-Shuunen: XIIZeal & ΔZeal for Xbox 360 is another game that does this. When you reach a stage in a regular run (even on a continue) it becomes available for score attack play. Each score attack stage has its own set of leaderboards; one "all time" leaderboard and one leaderboard that gets purged every week.

[Kollision]

Don't the Giga Wings and Mars Matrix have these alternate score attack modes too?

[Sinful]

The STG market has no place in that growth. It's considered out of date and largely unappealing, just like most other arcade specific genres of yesteryear.

Yes, there are many haters of anything slightly outdated. It's quite sad when you actually run into these individuals. ie. they won't touch a PS2 game if PS3 is out or a first gen PS3 game with last gen PS3 games out. My brother's childhood best friend is like this & my sisters husband too. But these folks aren't really into gaming either, nor do they have any gaming skills of any kind. But they are the target audience. And anything else is far too hardcore, I guess.

[Devdan]

Don't the Giga Wings and Mars Matrix have these alternate score attack modes too?

Maybe, I haven't played those games in ages. I'm not saying no game has ever done this, but in the online scoreboard age it is less of a thing than I feel like it ought to be. Also, I really liked GigaWing 2 and Mars Matrix back in the day, I wish they'd rereleased them.

[BryanM]

But the CPI adjusted 1994 amounts of 11 billion for arcades and 9.4 billion for console games doesn't make the 2013 number look all that impressive.

Ye, arcades were quite the money pit.

Puzzle and Dragon alone makes over a billion a year, and I shudder to even contemplate how much Facebook flash casino games make. Money still goes out there, but these days, with $0 games like Path of Exile or the Hex TCG, it's hard personally to pay money to go on a remake of a ride I've already been on. I find the sales of the current home consoles pretty impressive honestly, with everything taken into account.

Reminiscing about the good old days and complaining how current efforts just don't measure up isn't going to keep the flame burning.

But it's what old people like us dooooo. If things were new to us, we'd be new people~

Chimneys ruined everything.

[LordHypnos]

Don't the Giga Wings and Mars Matrix have these alternate score attack modes too?

Yeah, this is true (though I haven't personally played GW2). A lot of other games have practice modes too, which is basically what those are, though I suppose if you can choose your power level and stuff it's a little different.

Also rRootage is entirely composed individually score attackable boss battles, also 4 different modes and like a billion stages including some RNG based ones. Probably not a bad template for appealing to people who don't get the whole 1 credit mentality.

[nasty_wolverine]

Probably not a bad template for appealing to people who don't get the whole 1 credit mentality.

to add my two cents (or paise) on 1 credit mentality. My dad used to take me to the arcade when i was younger (4-5 years old). he would buy me 5 credits each per visit. then stand behind me and watch me play (once i was done with the five credits, he would get another five and we would alternate playing pacman, coz he liked that better). he would watch, and tell me where i made mistakes, repeating mistakes were punished by a good smack on the up side of the head. well, they didnt really hurt. i tried my best to play better just because i didnt want to get smacked. eventually i was clearing games on a credit. that carried over to me playing at home too. i would try no continue runs, and at games i was good at, no death runs.

I stopped playing games between around 12 to 18. Got my PS2 then. the mentallity carried over. i got burnout revenge and would learn to do no crash runs. in DMC3 i would try no item runs, or just play bloody palace and see how far i could get.

now that i have picked up a much harder genre of games to, i still strive to do the same. 1CC or bust, well i do practice with credits and savestates.

3 years ago when my dad was visiting, i showed him DOJBL, played a credit, reached stage 3 no death and managed to get to stage 4. well he did react to the amount of bullets on screen and said "why are there so many bullets?" i told him, because these games are one of the hardest games around. he was kinda proud to see me play challenging games and try to be good at them. one of the last memory i have of him is watching him play contra. I miss him alot.

tl;dr - 1CC mentality is more easily understandable to self-driven people. you have got to want to get better. some people pick that up, some cant. you cant beat it into them, unless you have an awesome dad

[Lilium]

Sounds like someone was raised well. I'll take notes.