DOA series creator: "Hardcore players killed shmups"

[S_Fang]

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

Spoiler

Indeed, let's release a special controller within the game, which release a very small electroshock each time you make a mistake. In this way people will learn the mentality of being good at games, crushing the casuals once and for all.

[xlebec]

I find that a lot of shmups focus too much on gameplay alone to get broad appeal. Games like Einhander and RefleX go the extra step in providing an immersive experience (while scaling back the default difficulty.) I think that if the goal were to become more popular, shmups would have to tack more in that direction. Ultimately shmups are neither casual enough nor "AAA" enough to go beyond niche genre though, at least not in this market. Non-hardcore players only have so much time for video games, and with a higher barrier to entry for less immersion, one can see why they would pass on shmups.

[Squire Grooktook]

Games like Einhander...(while scaling back the default difficulty.)

Einhander was a pretty tough 1cc last time I remember, even on default. Otherwise I agree.

[Formless God]

Oh boy I've been waiting for the "video games are too video gamey" post.

[Lilium]

Time to really reel in the crowd. Get rid of anything but the Novice modes, add flashy cutscenes and moral decision making and have the entire thing run at a cinematic 24fps. Don't forget multiplayer components and a huge open world to act as a hub for the stages.

[Squire Grooktook]

Just make the presentation more like Final Boss. Seriously.

[Skykid]

I find that a lot of shmups focus too much on gameplay alone to get broad appeal.

[Ed Oscuro]

I find that a lot of tpg focus too much on visuals alone to get a worthy ride on the hate wagon. Games like Vanquish, Otogi, and dat frash on the Platinum 404 page go the extra step in providing an immersive experience (while scaling back the default difficulty.) I think that if the goal were to become more popular, tps would have to tack more in that direction. Ultimately tpg are too casul nor "up the spout" enough to get hype, at least not in this market. Hardcore players only have so much time for video games, and with a higher barrier to entry for less boredom, one can see why they would pass on tpg.

[Sinful]

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

Wow. What a super dad you had!!!

But for some reason folks are forgetting we all naturally 1cc'ed our fave games in the past before hearing of the 1cc word. One of my earliest memories of 1cc was TMNT III for NES. Then I took it further to beat it with the fewest lives being lost because I loved the game so much. Though the day I made it no miss all the way to Krang and beat the game with only 1 life lost (freaking Krang), really surprised me and the pressure to try to do better then that run practically made me stop playing that game overall (should of wrote the score down because I was playing for score too since that equals more continues, even though I didn't use them after a certain point, lol).

One of the later 1cc's I recall is Twisted Metal II. This game has two hidden characters which cannot use continues. Not problem at all with one of them since he was so OP & cheese, but playing as Sweet Tooth was another story. The game was so fun & such a different gaming experience at the time (also reason I finally bought a PS1), that I 1ccc'ed it with every other character too. After I did that, I practically new the game inside out and there was no more replay left in the game. Sadly.

My point is that anyone who loves a game enough, they will naturally keep playing it until they own it. For some very popular games as Mega Man 2, I'd imagine very many 1cc'ed it naturally without even hearing of the word 1cc. But these days most gamers don't love games enough to go this distance as the NES era. They buy a game, maybe play it until they beat it once, then back to the trade in store it goes. That, and many games aren't being designed with replay value in mind anymore because most folks don't bother with replaying games they've beat once. This is why most classic style game reviews are so bashed. Back then you only got your money's worth via challenge and replay since the games were so short. Nowadays it's all about length and easy difficulty. As in, playing a game for a least one 30hrs playthrough means you got you money's worth for most gamers. Today's games only need great graphics/presentation, story and length to motivate most folks to keep playing.

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

Spoiler

Indeed, let's release a special controller within the game, which release a very small electroshock each time you make a mistake. In this way people will learn the mentality of being good at games, crushing the casuals once and for all.

This idea is something that should be presented to Nintendo & Miyamoto. I bet they'd buy and patent this idea as the latest gimmick for the next Nintendo console since they're probably fresh out of gimmicks anyways.

... hey wait!!! A Sean Connery James Bond flick did this!!

I find that a lot of shmups focus too much on gameplay alone to get broad appeal. Games like Einhander and RefleX go the extra step in providing an immersive experience (while scaling back the default difficulty.) I think that if the goal were to become more popular, shmups would have to tack more in that direction. Ultimately shmups are neither casual enough nor "AAA" enough to go beyond niche genre though, at least not in this market. Non-hardcore players only have so much time for video games, and with a higher barrier to entry for less immersion, one can see why they would pass on shmups.

Einhander is a great immersive experience + it had some help from the Square hype train back then. I wonder how well it sold?

But I still think the thing that scares folks most difficulty wise in this genre is the bullet hell sub-genre. What I think the DOA creator is referring too. The other issue is variety. Not all STGs have to be bullet hell, especially since it scares the heck out of those not in the genre, and keeps them away. Cave adding both modes to some of their games is a great idea too.

[LordHypnos]

... we all naturally 1cc'ed our fave games in the past ...

I think that the closest I ever came to this was a few experiences where people I was talking with didn't seem to get it. I remember once saying something about how score is the real goal in a game, which I came to just because it seemed to measure how good you were at the game, to me. My friend said something about the challenge being the real goal (which is also true, FWIW). IIRC this was in connection to Sonic games or some other Genesis game that wouldn't have actually had a deep scoring system (which is not to say that it doesn't still measure your skill pretty well esp. considering the time & ring bonuses in sonic). This acknowledges the 1 credit mentality only b/c continuing resets your score. Also, I think the reason why I thought about things that was was because I used to play a lot of Galaga and Tetris, and other classic arcade games that don't even have continues, and score is really the only goal.

In addition, I remember saying something to a friend about Time Crisis and clearing it on one credit if you had the console port (because at the time, DDR was pretty big, and someone told me that the super skilled DDR guys were that skilled because they practiced on console ports). My friend who I was with that time didn't really think that trying to 1cc was worth it (we were credit feeding the game, btw).

I was mostly playing stuff like Grandia II, THPS, Jet Grind Radio that doesn't really connect with the 1 credit mentality in any way when I was younger (although two of those have scoring). I did play a lot of oldschool games in emulators, too, but when you have a roms disk with like 300 games on it, you kind of don't value individual games very highly. Also played Genesis and NES games when I was really young (like 3 or something), but not much, and I never made it very far (Couldn't beat Chemical Plant Zone in Sonic 2, for example)

Anyway, that's probably way more information than necessary to say that I sort of understood 1 credit to some extent, but never actually did it until fairly recently (Note I didn't play any video games for years and years, also).

My point is that anyone who loves a game enough, they will naturally keep playing it until they own it. For some very popular games as Mega Man 2, I'd imagine very many 1cc'ed it naturally without even hearing of the word 1cc. But these days most gamers don't love games enough to go this distance as the NES era. They buy a game, maybe play it until they beat it once, then back to the trade in store it goes. That, and many games aren't being designed with replay value in mind anymore because most folks don't bother with replaying games they've beat once. This is why most classic style game reviews are so bashed. Back then you only got your money's worth via challenge and replay since the games were so short. Nowadays it's all about length and easy difficulty. As in, playing a game for a least one 30hrs playthrough means you got you money's worth for most gamers. Today's games only need great graphics/presentation, story and length to motivate most folks to keep playing.

Honestly, I think this has more to do with the way games are structured nowadays, or even in the Dreamcast times, than how much people like them. A 20 minute game is entirely conceivable to finish in one sitting, but a 20+ hour game would be just too much game to sit through. Besides, imagine if you failed! go back to the beginning of a 20 hour game? no thanks. In addition most single player games have checkpoints and no continue or life counter, so each little section of a dungeon or wtv, between save points, is a separate challenge (or non-challenge as the case may be). 1cc really doesn't make sense for long cinematic games like it does for old school games, and arcade games.

[Sinful]

Anyway, that's probably way more information than necessary to say that I sort of understood 1 credit to some extent, but never actually did it until fairly recently (Note I didn't play any video games for years and years, also).

I enjoyed the detail.

]Honestly, I think this has more to do with the way games are structured nowadays, or even in the Dreamcast times, than how much people like them. A 20 minute game is entirely conceivable to finish in one sitting, but a 20+ hour game would be just too much game to sit through. Besides, imagine if you failed! go back to the beginning of a 20 hour game? no thanks. In addition most single player games have checkpoints and no continue or life counter, so each little section of a dungeon or wtv, between save points, is a separate challenge (or non-challenge as the case may be). 1cc really doesn't make sense for long cinematic games like it does for old school games, and arcade games.

I can tell you I hated the direction racing games took with Gran Tourismo, which entirely replaced my fave style of racing games. The Sega Model 2 & 3 racers. Man I miss that Arcade style for this genre. I can't even touch today's racers. Much prefer something like 3-4 very well designed tracks with carefully balanced for the tracks 1-4 cars, and just keep replaying to perfect my skills and time, time & time again. Racing games aren't for gamers any more, they're for car fanatics (people talk cars around me, I tell em to drop the boring subject).

Gaming industry is getting more and more like Hollywood. No turning back.

[DanMagoo]

I find that a lot of shmups focus too much on gameplay alone to get broad appeal. Games like Einhander and RefleX go the extra step in providing an immersive experience (while scaling back the default difficulty.) I think that if the goal were to become more popular, shmups would have to tack more in that direction. Ultimately shmups are neither casual enough nor "AAA" enough to go beyond niche genre though, at least not in this market. Non-hardcore players only have so much time for video games, and with a higher barrier to entry for less immersion, one can see why they would pass on shmups.

It's great to get the opinion of an actual developer here.

[Ed Oscuro]

It's great to get the opinion of an actual developer here.

IT'S HAPPENING

[Sinful]

It's great to get the opinion of an actual developer here.

IT'S HAPPENING

Wait, what? This has always been the case for some time now. So it's only getting worse. Big surprise.

Either way, thanks for that link, Ed.

[S_Fang]

It's great to get the opinion of an actual developer here.

IT'S HAPPENING

Wait, what? This has always been the case for some time now. So it's only getting worse. Big surprise.

Either way, thanks for that link, Ed.

How they can call themselves "developers"? Focusing too much on the lowest common denominator and ruining gaming even more.

[Sinful]

How they can call themselves "developers"? Focusing too much on the lowest common denominator and ruining gaming even more.

Everyone and their mother plays video games these days. And last time I checked, mothers can't play video games. No matter how dumbed down & very simple a game may be. So yes, these devs are totally crazy. But they don't have enough control either. The folks with the money & no gaming experience do. Just like Hollywood & Network TV. Viva mainstream trash that tries the impossible of pleasing everyone!! (Which, lol, never works, but just guarantee's more failure)

... In other words, it won't get better as long as video games are popular as they are now. Because the business/marketing format is just like telemarketers swindeling old ladies into buying stuff they don't need or have any interest in (lol, I've been that jerk a long time ago :p). I wish games would sell for more instead of trying to expand to non-gamers or core gamers (like the same tactic some RPGs pre-FF7 took, a la PSIV for Genesis with the $100 price tag).



That interview, especially since EA name is attached to it, basically tells me that the next Mass Effect game will still have a "one that does it all" button to satisfy the brain dead masses into "getting it" much faster, lol. Despite all the dedicated ME fans crying rivers about that serious issue on the ME3 multiplayer forum almost every time, despite it being a place where the BioWare dev's actually frequent & communicate with the fans (there's even a "see only BioWare dev posts" button).

[Doctor Butler]

EA thinks their games are too hard?!

But all they make are mindless fps games, and button-mashing brawlers - like those games couldn't possibly be more straightforward!

[Icarus]

EA thinks their games are too hard?!
But all they make are mindless fps games, and button-mashing brawlers - like those games couldn't possibly be more straightforward!

It says a lot about their core playerbase, then.

[system11]

EA thinks their games are too hard?!
But all they make are mindless fps games, and button-mashing brawlers - like those games couldn't possibly be more straightforward!

It says a lot about their core playerbase, then.

Not really, no gamers are saying the games are too hard, suits are saying it.

[Sinful]

Not really, no gamers are saying the games are too hard, suits are saying it.

You never seen gamers that suck that bad? I do. It's all I ever see, actually. Forums are the only place I see more dedicated gamers.

[qmish]

Don't listen to him. Though Ninja Gaiden 1-2 were godlike reboots... he lost his touch years ago. I really want to believe in Devil's Third, but i can't. Ah, why dont listen to his talk of shmups? His talk of fighting games has just no weight nowodays either. He just cant stand that DoA 5 - DoA without him - finally transformed from casual eye candy to a really solid fighting which is not a shame to held tournaments at.

[Pretas]

Don't listen to him. Though Ninja Gaiden 1-2 were godlike reboots... he lost his touch years ago.

What are you basing this statement on? NG2 was the most recent game released with Itagaki in the director's chair. How do you know he's fallen from grace since without having played Devil's Third?

[qmish]

Hope you're right and we just need to wait it and play; still gameplay footages so far showed us bland generic counter strike replacement for WiiU with decent slasher part and cheesy gunplay.

[DanMagoo]

Not really, no gamers are saying the games are too hard, suits are saying it.

This is simply not correct.

As Itagaki notes in the OP, gamers have deserted the shmup genre because it is too hard. This is not a fantasy made up by execs at big name developers. Everyone knows it is true, and the demise of Cave (despite Microsoft throwing them a huge lifeline on the 360) is the most obvious evidence for it.

People can sneer at the playerbase of other (successful) genres if it makes them feel better, but they can't get around this one crucial fact:

***Unless shmups find a way to attract a wider player base RIGHT NOW, there will be no money available to fund the development of any more premium shmup titles ever***

[Lilium]

***Unless shmups find a way to attract a wider player base RIGHT NOW, there will be no money available to fund the development of any more premium shmup titles ever***

They won't. Might as well realize this right now. It doesn't matter in any case because shmups as a genre are timeless games so they don't really have to keep pumping out new stuff just to keep the visuals up to date. There already exists good shmups enough to last you for decades and if you actually somehow run out of games then you probably wouldn't be satisfied by shmups that have been through a process of being watered down enough to actually catch any hint of mainstream interest.

The playerbase isn't gonna get wider. Its always gonna be a little niche genre for players looking for games that are actually games. If you take away that niche nature then you'll still fall woefully short of attracting a sustaining audience on top of alienating those that were there before.

[Squire Grooktook]

Not really, no gamers are saying the games are too hard, suits are saying it.

This is simply not correct.

As Itagaki notes in the OP, gamers have deserted the shmup genre because it is too hard.

Too bad that there have been tons of easy shmups that haven't sold any better. Hell, people were saying "stg is dead" back before Cave was founded and the whole bullet hell idea was wide spread.

I've asked this question before to many people before in this thread and in others: How do you expect a 30 minute game to sell for full price to modern gamers? How do you intend to sell them to a large number of modern gamers?

It's also kinda funny to cite Cave dying as proof. Cave survived a lot of those "less hardcore" shmup devs dying. Them lasting as long as they did seems to say the opposite by your logic.

[DanMagoo]

They won't. Might as well realize this right now. It doesn't matter in any case because shmups as a genre are timeless games so they don't really have to keep pumping out new stuff just to keep the visuals up to date...

The playerbase isn't gonna get wider. Its always gonna be a little niche genre for players looking for games that are actually games. If you take away that niche nature then you'll still fall woefully short of attracting a sustaining audience on top of alienating those that were there before.

This thread just gets funnier and funnier.

"We don't want any more shmups if we have to sell them! We'll just play the ones that already exist and let the scene be damned! My hi scores will live forever!!!"

[Lilium]

"We don't want any more shmups if we have to sell them! We'll just play the ones that already exist and let the scene be damned! My hi scores will live forever!!!"

Pretty much. Look, there's no money to sustain the release of new shmups like Cave. Cave died because there wasn't enough people to buy their products. That's simply how gaming is nowadays. People DO NOT want 30 minute long games. They want 30 hours long games or multiplayer games. The one recurring trend you'll see when mainstream reviewing sites tackle shmups is that they're 30 minute long wastes of time with unlimited continues and no replay value because of a lack of binary morality choice systems, a lack of multiplayer and what have you.

How do you propose an STG like, again Saidaioujou, would gather enough interest from players around the world to give Cave another year at the office to develop the next title? How do you gain mass appeal without sacrificing what makes these games what they are in the first place?

So yes. We can just keep playing the ones that already exist. I may not be speaking for everyone here but there's plenty of games I am far from having taken as far as i possibly can. I haven't even taken a single title that far actually. The cool thing about shmups is that for the good ones, you'll never really run out of reasons to play them. There will almost always be harder clears to pursue or higher scores to achieve.

Basically, for the player interested in playing shmups at a decent to high level or above, the shmups available right now should last you decades. I don't have any need for any new ones so yes, indeed screw that scene if all they want is new and flashy stuff to drool at until the novelty wears off, sorry.

[Squire Grooktook]

There are also doujin and indie titles. Many of which are better than most old commercial shmups imo.

[DanMagoo]

I've asked this question before to many people before in this thread and in others: How do you expect a 30 minute game to sell for full price to modern gamers? How do you intend to sell them to a large number of modern gamers?

But they are not 30 minute games are they? They are games that can take just as long to 1CC (let alone perfect) as an adventure game or RPG. The problem is that this is not sufficiently well explained to potential players, and there is very little content in the console releases that encourages people to develop the puzzle-solving mindset that can keep you coming back .

One thing that some recent 2D fighting games have done well is to include a fully featured ‘challenges’ mode. Players are encouraged to develop skills in small packages, working their way up to performing some of the most high level techniques in the game. Street Fighter 4, KOF XIII, BlazBlue and Guilty Gear all have this.

Why could this not be implemented in future console releases of shmups? Not just a training mode with level select, but a new mode with formal short challenges and rewards for completing each one (unlockable content etc.) The idea would not be to drop the difficulty, but to help train new players to tackle the more difficult sections of the main game.