Shepardus wrote:I agree that I would like to see some new games from the "heavy industry/commercial world" (not that doujin output is unsatisfactory). I just personally don't want to see shmups and arcades tie their fates too closely together. I got into the genre through indie and doujin games and I have little interest in arcades (have never played a shmup at a bona fide arcade, hardly play any non-shmup arcade games, don't own an arcade stick or related hardware, etc.), so when I see games announced for arcades it's little more to me than a marketing ploy for collectors with the possibility of a future port. Shmups may be a natural fit for the arcade environment and there's a significant overlap between shmup and arcade enthusiasts (especially on this forum), but in my mind they're two distinct things and typecasting shmups as an "arcade" thing only limits their appeal and potential.
Well I didn't expect that, I know you a tiny bit from your posts but I didn't think you had that vision of things.
You are probably younger (
don't take it the wrong way) and part of the demographics who got into the genre in a different way than many old and older farts like me indeed, as you say for you it was doujin/indie/pc, while I grew up together with arcades and consoles with the many 'elementary' genres developing and evolving (and dying) on these first, anything computer came later even much later if we think ibm pc.
I don't have much choice but tell you it's wrong to see the genre this way, as shmups's DNA has always been first and remained for the most part a thing born from the arcades, the fundamentals in gameplay and presentation still largely dominate the genre (well you'd be quickly borderline or off-topic as a developer if you'd ignore those completely anyway)
Almost everything produced for the consoles and pc, whether ports or originals spawned from it, it was still a masive genre in its heydays and no way at all any of it
especially in the arcades, was either gimmicky marketing, or for collectors whom you could probably have counted on one hand at the time in the west even up to the early 2000's.
And even so in the early 2000's and that includes the time when this community (and the one before) and the other similar-ones but french-speaking for me or others in other countries, for the people who were there at the time, buying pcb's and games in general was primarily a way to just play the games that came out recently or not too long ago. And cabs were significantly cheaper too so it wasn the luxury it is today.
High quality stuff was still made and exploited commercially (arcades+consoles) by companies that had the capital, platforms personnel and networks with actual money (money = some levels of production quality that independent and amateur mostly can't produce) and not just Cave of course.
Yet even doujin production was more active at the time, because even without the same means the whole market was resonating together anyway, the more capitalist/mainstream with the arcades and consoles, and one needing the other for the genre's popularity and dynamic.
The shift happened later when the retrogaming boom entered in its later incontrollable phase accelerating from around the financial crisis of 2008 that brought it to another level of absurdity where video games of any kind began to be seen as objects of financial speculation and personal paranoia (also lots of newcomers without the same interest as the already installed demographics).
The last major maker of shmups Cave dropping was one of the final major blows, I think that now with the sharks being more than ever after their pcbs too (which came a bit later than other arcades genres and names surprisingly) things are pretty much over for the genre
and while yes, we could have been thinking then that pc/doujin would have been able to pick up the torch, I don't agree at all that this will ever be the case.
Remember the 'transition' kinda meetup with the remaining pros in the business? I didn't really believe in it. Honestly PC with a model a la steam/store is not a platform fit for developing costly quality games and cash substential money to reinvest, improve products and grow. It's too short term.
People like me who've seen new shmups over almost three decades have different expectations, yes for me staying exclusively doujin/indie the genre has obviously no bright future, we need more hevyweight productions.
The doujin scene would actually benefit from a return of a genuine mainstream industry production and , because it takes its inspiration from there, it mostly always had, and also simply could exist
because of it. I agree with qmish, arcades while not everything are the 'head' of the genre's body.
I've seen enough indie games taking nothing from the roots of the genre beyond style, just surface things, while being quite away from offering a similar experience.
I'm definitely not against innovation and change but to me the real roots of the genre are clear in their form and feel.
So again sorry but honestly I think your disregard for the very arcades nature of shmups is plain wrong, as I've always known them it seems obvious to me that shmups require a living arcades ecosytem to flourish and be more than just a niche and rather fragile indie and amateur genre (I think the latter taking the jump to arcades is sane, positive, even if quite adventurous)
Just redundantly stating what I've already said but that's to make it clear.
If you feel some sort of contempt for what you have seen in maybe only these past few years I kinda understand you, but I think you wouldn't feel that if you had witnessed the decades of the genre's history before and not just from one side, and in particular before the end years of consecutive blows that made everything rather bleak/morbid.
Shepardus wrote:Of course Exa Arcadia's already said there will be more than just shmups on their platform, and who knows what other shmups are being developed for other platforms, so perhaps my concerns are unfounded; I hope they are. If Exa Arcadia does manage to spur interest in the genre from creators then I can accept some of the benefits being limited to arcades that I will never see.
Yes I hope they are too. Even if I think the model's much more fit and serious for the genre I also can't ignore that it's practically dead like arcades are.
EXA are practically trying to revive a dead mammoth, or rebuild a collapsed ancient market castle, whatever it won't be easy.
As for not being able to play games that remain arcades exclusivities...well that's how things were in the past you know, also why we were dreaming of those.
The difference is that we could actually go to the arcades and insert a few coins...but also that the games were for a long time unquestionably higher-tech and much more impressive than anything we could own at home. Today that's hardly realistic even if EXA is powerful.
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TL;DR shmups and arcades share massive DNA, they are indissociable, or at least can't be separated too much or away too long from each-other.