The Illusion of Choice ver1.5

[Skykid]

DEL wrote:

red dead redemption – not too bad – almost bright.

Not all the games on the list are failures, in terms of colour that is.

I read it, I just thought it was a general blanket list for games within that category.

[NTSC-J]

While I find the current generation of brown and grey "realistic" games aesthetically repulsive and much prefer the more colorful titles (and I know many of you feel the same way), I think it's worth pointing out how much this forum rags on recent Cave shooters for being too colorful and cutesy and how they wish they'd go back to tanks and shit.

Granted, Ketsui isn't exactly GTA, but Western male gamers of all genres seem to like macho games, which means a more gritty, cold, emotionless atmosphere with phallic weaponry and vehicles. When a manly mech boss suddenly transforms into a young girl robot, the player feels castrated and powerless.

Sometimes a shmup is just a shmup, but not always...

[lrdr]

Cutesiness is just about as played out as brown, though. The pixel aesthetic in indie games is getting there too (actually it probably is already, but I quite like it so it gets a free pass for a bit longer). Then there's 'painterly' stuff, which (a) I'm pretty sure isn't even a word and (b) I never really liked in the first place. fuk u braid

There's so many poterntial visual styles we just aren't seeing - how about something with clean lines, like Aubrey Beardsley, Ivan Bilibin or even Herge's work (The Banner Saga is a good start)? Arik Roper's stuff looks great too and would translate well into a game; he could probably use the money since he mostly seems to do metal album art, which I doubt is a particularly lucrative field. The older Warhammer/40K stuff is great as well, especially Jon Blanche's work, and I can't think of any games with a similar bizarre, intricate aesthetic (see also: Kevin O'Neil). Greek pottery. Pre-20th century Japanese illustration. Mesopotamian friezes. Scandinavian carvings. Old school English comic art (not to mention Dan Dare and the like). None of these things are cutesy or unnecessarily grimdark.

[DEL]

lrdr wrote;

Cutesiness is just about as played out as brown, though. The pixel aesthetic in indie games is getting there too (actually it probably is already, but I quite like it so it gets a free pass for a bit longer). Then there's 'painterly' stuff, which (a) I'm pretty sure isn't even a word and (b) I never really liked in the first place. fuk u braid

Yeah it probably is
Right now I'm trying to work out what my real niggle is...?

Its less likely to be dark or muted colour games.
More likely to be a rant on the themes - 'other people's ideas of what a modern game should be' ie. Realistic modern WAR, post apocalyptic or survival horror.

But perhaps is actually none of the above
Perhaps its the element of monopoly. The sweeping of non Western genres under the carpet.
I did once see a PAL copy of Deathsmiles in a large supermarket X360 rack. But that's the only time I've ever seen a modern shmup on mainstream shelves since Gradius V.
I think back to the mid 90s SNES cartridge days and a very large proportion of the JAP & US carts were games that I wanted to play. Assault Suits Valken, Phalanx, Biometal, Earthbound, Final Fantasy II & III etc. These were mainstream games, but I was actually interested in playing a lot of them.

[DJ Incompetent]

But the point I'm trying to make in my long-winded way, is that over the last 15 years or so, the modern video game market has been crafted/created. A certain type of game predominates in the mainstream. Not necessarily the end user's first choice of game, but definitely the Western Developers' choice of game.

I disagree. If the publishers truly had total control, do you really think they'd keep the industry focus on FPSs? Naw. I'd say they'd still be balls-deep in music games where they can continue to markup costs of the game bundled with the crappy plastic instruments, then charge $3 per DLC track.
We all saw first-hand how the mainstream people collectively said "fuck this I'm out." And hey, look at that? It went away.

It's also been pointed out that other trends like WW2 shooters and gangsta-gangsta sandbox-ish games were hot shit for a few years. The publishers didn't say "we feel like doing something else." The mainstream stopped buying them first.

It can be done, but "the times" won't change in the way we would all like. The people really, genuinely like FPSs. That's how things go.


Also, Halo, Madden, FIFA, Marios, and most smartphone games are colorful. You only need one of these in a mainstream game collection to keep them from complaining about art theme fatigue.

More likely to be a rant on the themes - 'other people's ideas of what a modern game should be' ie. Realistic modern WAR, post apocalyptic or survival horror.

But perhaps is actually none of the above
Perhaps its the element of monopoly. The sweeping of non Western genres under the carpet.
I did once see a PAL copy of Deathsmiles in a large supermarket X360 rack. But that's the only time I've ever seen a modern shmup on mainstream shelves since Gradius V.
I think back to the mid 90s SNES cartridge days and a very large proportion of the JAP & US carts were games that I wanted to play. Assault Suits Valken, Phalanx, Biometal, Earthbound, Final Fantasy II & III etc. These were mainstream games, but I was actually interested in playing a lot of them.

I've seen Deathsmiles, Otomedius, and Akai Katana on store racks. I don't think the lack of shelf presence is truly because of publisher sabotage. I really think it is because the market has more and better analysis of franchise/genre sales and has gotten smarter at estimating order quantities per store than it ever has. Unfortunately, that does lead to a climate of the big looking bigger and the small getting smaller.


There isn't illusion of choice. There is plenty of choice. The mainstream gamer is just totally uninterested in experimentation. You can probably watch this phenomena happening all over again in the smartphone market. Go ask any of your non-gamer friends if you can look through their smartphone. In America, I found that most people only have Angry Birds and Words With Friends for games. That's not publisher sabotage. Culture dictates the media consumption.


MX7 is right. There is another DEL in a book forum, music forum, and film forum somewhere having similar disputes because 50 Shades of Gray is bigger than it should be, Autotune is still killing music, and black dudes crossdressing in fat suits are pushing Indie Game: The Move out of proper screenings. We, this forum, probably make shitty media choices and are labeled as "part of the problem" in those respective fields, because we don't have time to become connoisseurs of everything either.

[DEL]

DJ Incompetent wrote;

I disagree. If the publishers truly had total control, do you really think they'd keep the industry focus on FPSs? Naw. I'd say they'd still be balls-deep in music games where they can continue to markup costs of the game bundled with the crappy plastic instruments, then charge $3 per DLC track.
We all saw first-hand how the mainstream people collectively said "fuck this I'm out." And hey, look at that? It went away.

Of course the mainstream public can sway things. But, I think you're missing my point.
FPS's are a type of shooting game
& so are shmups.
The general nature of boys/young men has not changed in the last 30 years. They still like to BLAST things.
So they need that fix.
When the only thing on the shelves that gives them that BLASTING fix are FPS's, then obviously they're gonna go for that.
This is my point.

The people really, genuinely like FPSs. That's how things go.

Yup, no problem with that. They are just not exposed to the alternative.
They are not used to importing Jap consoles and Jap games.
If they are kept in the dark about such games then -> Sure they're gonna go for what's on the racks.
As you say; "That's how things go" - When the Public is exposed to 99% FPSs and 1% Jap shmups. (I'm talking purely in terms of shooters that is).

-------------------

There isn't illusion of choice. There is plenty of choice. The mainstream gamer is just totally uninterested in experimentation.

I used the term 'Illusion of Choice" because its an interesting point from the American Comedian George Carlin RIP.
Again as you say; "There is plenty of choice" ......if, you are prepared to import.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm pretty sure there is some yearning for "starship shooters" out there, last gen adressed by Rogue Squadron games and Gradius V (also Freelancer - I thought it struck the midpoint nicely), but the Japanese shmups developers still alive and kicking hardly adress it at all.

[Ed Oscuro]

you didn't hear about emo types back in the 1990s when this game (or Diablo) was still pretty current, but those people were definitely playing it.

Well, I can't deny pampered retards would probably still consider the "skull on a spike" furniture or "human skin wallpaper" texture troubling, thoughtful pieces of visual design - to say nothing of those INVERTED CROSSES and PENTAGRAMS, talk about HITTING BELOW THE BIBLE BELT id Software! But to any sane adult, a game about a lone soldier slaughtering thousands of colourful, toothy, squealing monsters in a ruined moonbase with his comically massive arsenal is about as "dark" as Contra III. :/ I never got the impression from interviews with the id staff at the time that they thought of their games as particularly emo, certainly not with mini SS commandos running around Doom II's secret level, the one you had to decapitate Commander Keen to exit.

Well, there's a point you're raising which I guess I could mention, although I'm sure not everybody will care - there's often a difference between peoples' experience with a game, and the developer's intention. For a case outside gaming, I recently heard an interesting retrospective of Donna Summer, which squeezed in a mention of the gay awakening of the 1970s, stating that the kind of music caused some people to reflect on themselves differently than before.

Of course it is unfair to say that DOOM is really emo- or generically darkness-obsessed (I'm putting Action DOOM and Action DOOM II in a box and locking it for a minute), especially since the games have gotten even more beefy since (just look at Gears), and the whole metal scene and its predecessors were around long before the 1990s. It was arguably the heyday of many bands like Metallica and even KMFDM and NIN (all of these bands have FPS connections!) but the fact that you were playing at being deep and moody was different than getting smashed and smashing up things, certainly. Even the stuff that some of the DOOM team went on for - Romero was all about his epic Greek boss fights and big hammers and swords, American McGee made Alice, but it's hard to look at them now as anything but a mashup of playfulness with some attempts to mess with your head (which is in itself a kind of playfulness, which explains the whole DOOM iconography thing, even though I don't totally rule out the whole acclimation argument).

[BIL]

Good point about fans attaching their own meanings to games. I remember a PC Gamer interview from Romero's post-id, pre-Daikatana period where he happily enthused about bringing back the "classic Doom gib, the one with little bones sticking out of it." Paraphrased, but you get the idea. I got that schoolboy enthusiast vibe from a lot staff commentary about Wolf3D and DOOM's enemies, weapons, environments etc - from their end it certainly seemed to be just fun, violent macho fantasy gaming, from a small team with a knack for tongue-in-cheek gruesomeness (Hitler's exploding torso, anyone?). "You've proven too tough for even hell to contain!" Whoa, another highlight for the c.v. along with saving Ronald Reagan and shoving a cripple out of a skyscraper!

concession: maybe it's going straight from Contra and Double Dragon (save the world from aliens and crackheads!) to Wolf3D and Doom (save the world from National Socialism and Sunday school villains!) that skews my perspective? >_>

A lot of the earnestly morose, whiny stuff attached to Doom was retroactive, from what I recall. The ads for the console versions really played up the "omg satanism" aspect, as if to fit in with the original Quake's "brown on grey super deluxe, smile and I'll staple your face shut with a NINE INCH NAIL" ethos. The console versions' swapping out of the MIDI metal for unsettling Quake-alike ambient music also comes to mind.

[lrdr]

The PSX/N64 soundtracks were great though.

Anyway, if there's a problem with variety in games on consoles... it has to do with the standards set by their ruling corporations and their hatred of unauthorised homebrew. There's no lack of variety on PCs, for example, and even more on tablets and smartphones (despite assertions, these games do make money, even at their remarkably low price point. And I don't just mean Angry Birds; Stuart Campbell had an analysis of the stupid amount of money SFIV made on iOS when the price dropped to 59 pence for a bit, but being a sad sack, he's taken it off his site).
Of course, a lot of those games are crap, but until triple A gaming shits the bed - we all hope it will - and some new blood steps up to the plate these horrible amateurish things are your best hope for something you might actually want to play.

[neorichieb1971]

If I were an art director or lead producer on games I'd have the op's back supported.

I only buy 3 games a year on average now. So someone else must be funding this mess we call a games industry.

[BIL]

The PSX/N64 soundtracks were great though.

Doom 64's soundtrack is good stuff indeed. It allowed The Absolution (Doom64 total conversion for PC) to make me fairly uneasy when I gave it a spin last year, making up for the poorly-aged enemy sprites.

I always play the PC originals with music off and sfx on full blast, but the slower gameplay on the console ports' controllers actually benefits from the moodier audio.

[BulletMagnet]

FPS's are a type of shooting game
& so are shmups.
The general nature of boys/young men has not changed in the last 30 years. They still like to BLAST things.
So they need that fix.
When the only thing on the shelves that gives them that BLASTING fix are FPS's, then obviously they're gonna go for that.

I would submit that, while both genres involve shooting stuff, that's largely where their similarities end, and that most fans of either one play their favorite for completely different reasons than the "other side" (for lack of a better term) plays theirs.

Remember, both Western and Eastern gamers once had easy access to more shmups than they knew what to do with, much as the former is knee-deep in FPS's now; moreover, shmups are much cheaper to make than even a "lower-tier" FPS, so if publishers could still make money off of them you can bet they would continue producing them (seriously, if profits are coming in, they really don't care where from). The fact of the matter is that mass tastes have inevitably changed and the market has inevitably followed - granted, they may well change again, but in the meantime all we can do is wait, hope, and if we're lucky occasionally find a potential "convert" out there.

[Ed Oscuro]

A lot of the earnestly morose, whiny stuff attached to Doom was retroactive, from what I recall. The ads for the console versions really played up the "omg satanism" aspect, as if to fit in with the original Quake's "brown on grey super deluxe, smile and I'll staple your face shut with a NINE INCH NAIL" ethos. The console versions' swapping out of the MIDI metal for unsettling Quake-alike ambient music also comes to mind.

Yeah, that seems fair enough to me. I wasn't really tracking DOOM until a few years after it came out, actually, and the only game ads I saw I tended to remember vividly (all four of them, and none were DOOM - one probably was an editorial about the evil Mortal Kombat, and another was an ad ten years older still).

I would submit that, while both genres involve shooting stuff, that's largely where their similarities end, and that most fans of either one play their favorite for completely different reasons than the "other side" (for lack of a better term) plays theirs.

There are only two kinds of people in the world - those who enjoyed The Club, and slobbering knuckledraggers. It's a shame about the exegencies of the market, but I suppose it's preferable to everybody tugging on their mom's skirt whenever they pass something with a movie license on it. Yes, kids learned quick, despite the stereotypes about gamers!

[DEL]

BulletMagnet wrote;

I would submit that, while both genres involve shooting stuff, that's largely where their similarities end, and that most fans of either one play their favorite for completely different reasons than the "other side" (for lack of a better term) plays theirs.

Remember, both Western and Eastern gamers once had easy access to more shmups than they knew what to do with, much as the former is knee-deep in FPS's now; moreover, shmups are much cheaper to make than even a "lower-tier" FPS, so if publishers could still make money off of them you can bet they would continue producing them (seriously, if profits are coming in, they really don't care where from). The fact of the matter is that mass tastes have inevitably changed and the market has inevitably followed - granted, they may well change again, but in the meantime all we can do is wait, hope, and if we're lucky occasionally find a potential "convert" out there.

^You nearly got it
Your key phrase is; "Remember, both Western and Eastern gamers once had easy access to more shmups than they knew what to do with"
But...you are forgetting that there's been a generational gap since those days. During that gap period, the current state of affairs on game store shelves has been created. The monopoly as I put it.
I will explain more clearly in my EDIT to the Thread Header Post

New Thread Header Approaching Fast!

[stryc9]

FPS's are a type of shooting game
& so are shmups.
The general nature of boys/young men has not changed in the last 30 years. They still like to BLAST things.
So they need that fix.
When the only thing on the shelves that gives them that BLASTING fix are FPS's, then obviously they're gonna go for that.
This is my point.

But the thing is that there is also a perceived lack of content on offer in the average shmup, and also a lack of understanding about how these things are supposed to be played (ie not credit feeding)
We all know that these games with their five levels and twenty minute completion times offer more re-playability than the majority of what is soaked up from store shelves these days, but the average consumer doesn't, not even in Japan anymore.

Yet to Joe Average, these things are archaic relics that are way too simple in approach to compete with the FPS genre. There is also the realism factor at work here too. The west has long equated realism with 'better', and there is a perceived notion amongst today's 'gamers' that FPS is a natural evolution of the STG, and all older genres in a way, so why play something unrealistic, overly simple, short and lacking challenge (they credit feed).

Don't forget the whole id fantasy thing either. These people want to live out situations in their games that they would not be able to do in real life - carjacking people , shooting soldiers dead from a first person perspective etc. ('yay, it's me! I'm dong all this and it makes me feel empowered!')

It's ridiculous I know, but people actually think like this. That's what happens when you turn a relatively niche activity mainstream, you get the lowest common denominator, and there are shitloads of them. And companies must pander to their desires as they are the ones handing over millions of dollars for the experience!

Yup, no problem with that. They are just not exposed to the alternative.
They are not used to importing Jap consoles and Jap games.
If they are kept in the dark about such games then -> Sure they're gonna go for what's on the racks.
As you say; "That's how things go" - When the Public is exposed to 99% FPSs and 1% Jap shmups. (I'm talking purely in terms of shooters that is)

There isn't really an excuse though is there? I mean I was aware of and importing shit in the early nineties and there was no internet, no conversation at all except what we got fed thru the mags of the time. I was well aware that what appeared on store shelves in Australia (a PAL region) was likely to be limited and uninteresting compared to stuff on import, and I was right.

These days with the internet, YT and dedicated fan sites such as this one there is no excuse to be ignorant.

[DEL]

stryc9 wrote;

But the thing is that there is also a perceived lack of content on offer in the average shmup, and also a lack of understanding about how these things are supposed to be played (ie not credit feeding)
We all know that these games with their five levels and twenty minute completion times offer more re-playability than the majority of what is soaked up from store shelves these days, but the average consumer doesn't, not even in Japan anymore.

Yet to Joe Average, these things are archaic relics that are way too simple in approach to compete with the FPS genre. There is also the realism factor at work here too. The west has long equated realism with 'better', and there is a perceived notion amongst today's 'gamers' that FPS is a natural evolution of the STG, and all older genres in a way, so why play something unrealistic, overly simple, short and lacking challenge (they credit feed).

Don't forget the whole id fantasy thing either. These people want to live out situations in their games that they would not be able to do in real life - carjacking people , shooting soldiers dead from a first person perspective etc. ('yay, it's me! I'm dong all this and it makes me feel empowered!')

It's ridiculous I know, but people actually think like this. That's what happens when you turn a relatively niche activity mainstream, you get the lowest common denominator, and there are shitloads of them. And companies must pander to their desires as they are the ones handing over millions of dollars for the experience!

Great Post

There isn't really an excuse though is there? I mean I was aware of and importing shit in the early nineties and there was no internet, no conversation at all except what we got fed thru the mags of the time. I was well aware that what appeared on store shelves in Australia (a PAL region) was likely to be limited and uninteresting compared to stuff on import, and I was right.

These days with the internet, YT and dedicated fan sites such as this one there is no excuse to be ignorant.

Yes but, as you say yourself -> you start to deal with the lowest common denominator, and they ARE ignorant.
The simple fact is that many gamers nowadays do not know of the Japanese alternative. As I mentioned earlier, when I read the threads of young mainstream guys who complain about certain modern games, the proposed alternatives from the posters below are more of the same FPSs and other 3D games.
I was in the arcade in London in 2003 playing Mush. A gamer came in and watched me play. He asked me; "What kind of game is this?" - I replied; "A Shoot'em up." To which he replied; "Like HALO?"
Even though this colourful 2D shooter was in front of his eyes, this gamer did not know what it was.
The generational gap was already in full flow.

------------------
EDIT:- I've just added this to the thread header post:

The theme that has come up is Modern Game Stores
I have seen many flounder and close.
As we all know, the GAME chain closed in the UK recently and news came out yesterday that all Australian GAME stores will also close: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/all-game ... ose/098132
10,000 jobs were lost.
So just how 'popular' are the games these stores sell/sold
Popular enough to cause then to go into Administration.... ?
There's a game shop in South London that I always used to visit in the 90s. It was primarily a Japanese import game shop - Raven Games. The owner did well. He bought himself a Ferrari at the end of this period. Then came this transitional period to the mainstream way it looks today. He had to change to a predominantly mainstream shop. Things went downhill. Every time I visited the shop in the 2000s, there was a strong sense of the place not doing well.
There was an independent game store in Ealing in mid 2000s. The assistant asked me; "How can I help you?" I took great pleasure in the blank look on his face when I said; "To be honest, I'm really interested in 2D shoot'em ups." - Blank incomprehension

Oh & yeah, the store closed.

[stryc9]

^ About the GAME situation, I'm willing to bet it has nothing to do with apathy towards the latest releases and everything to do with being forced out of the market by superior competition (read: EB Games).

And I bet even places like EB are feeling the pinch now more than ever because we are (regrettably) entering the age of digital downloads and services like GOD. I wouldn't know the various sale numbers for any of this but this download shit doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, so I'll assume it's been a success, and to add to this by comparison the music industry is definitely heading that way as well in terms of distribution.

Someone really needs to write a book or do a powerpoint thing on CD or something, called 'The Truth About Videogames' and explain about all the different styles and genres, which styles require the most skill etc. For once expose the shallow nature (currently perceived as depth) of the latest AAA releases, juxtaposed against the reality of the true nature of playing Shooting Games. And a lot of 2D action/arcade games that aren't shooters in general.

I mean these so-called AAA blockbusters are what they are, just like the Sega CD FMV games are what they are, but fuck me they're not the best games ever or anything, not by a long shot. I just wish the press would stop claiming them as such, cos it's bullshit

What people don't get is the way that STGs are one of the only genres that can take the gameplay outside of the game (strategising, watching superplays etc) to the extent that it does, and if that's not depth right there I don't know what is!

PS oh and they need to stop hiring game store attendants that don't know what a shooting game is.

Cos that's retarded

[DEL]

stryc9 wrote;

^ About the GAME situation, I'm willing to bet it has nothing to do with apathy towards the latest releases and everything to do with being forced out of the market by superior competition (read: EB Games).

Hmm...somehow I doubt that. If you're selling pre-packed games, surely one outlet is as good as another (unless there's some heavily discounted prices by the competition).
One thing to mention is that I saw game stores go through hard times and even close before the recession started, as well as after.

And I bet even places like EB are feeling the pinch now more than ever because we are (regrettably) entering the age of digital downloads and services like GOD.

100% agree on that. We've seen downloads kill off video stores. Why shouldn't it kill hard copy original games too.

Someone really needs to write a book or do a powerpoint thing on CD or something, called 'The Truth About Videogames' and explain about all the different styles and genres, which styles require the most skill etc. For once expose the shallow nature (currently perceived as depth) of the latest AAA releases, juxtaposed against the reality of the true nature of playing Shooting Games. And a lot of 2D action/arcade games that aren't shooters in general.


What people don't get is the way that STGs are one of the only genres that can take the gameplay outside of the game (strategising, watching superplays etc) to the extent that it does, and if that's not depth right there I don't know what is!

In terms of the removal of skill, I'm no expert on the console market. I can say that I saw the removal of skill in amusement arcades as far back as 1995.
In the Summer of 1995, I went to the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth (UK) and visited every arcade on the seafront, just to see what was there. Every arcade was the same. The same generic formula. In fact the same games in each of about 10 arcades. A couple of gun games, couple of driving games, a Virtua Tennis or Virtua Football and a rollercoaster game with no skill involved at all.
No shoot'em ups and no SFII, Tekken or KOF.
So skill was heavily removed from seaside arcades as far back as 17 years ago
It wasn't the same case in London but still....

PS oh and they need to stop hiring game store attendants that don't know what a shooting game is.

Cos that's retarded

I think you'd be surprised at the lack of knowledge and research in employees nowadays. A lot of people take a job just because its a job and go no further into it than that.
Even the IGN Reviewers don't know their ass from their elbow when presented with a 2D shoot'em up to review. There's an Otomedius Ecellent IGN review on Youtube, where`three IGN Reviewers play Stage 1 (terribly), all die before the end of Stage 1 then proceed to give their review marks based on that

Now THAT'S retarded.

[stryc9]

In terms of the removal of skill, I'm no expert on the console market. I can say that I saw the removal of skill in amusement arcades as far back as 1995.
In the Summer of 1995, I went to the seaside resort of Great Yarmouth (UK) and visited every arcade on the seafront, just to see what was there. Every arcade was the same. The same generic formula. In fact the same games in each of about 10 arcades. A couple of gun games, couple of driving games, a Virtua Tennis or Virtua Football and a rollercoaster game with no skill involved at all.
No shoot'em ups and no SFII, Tekken or KOF.
So skill was heavily removed from seaside arcades as far back as 17 years ago
It wasn't the same case in London but still....

The last time I was in a British seaside arcade was in 1987, and as fate would have it, I'll be returning to 'Ol Blighty in December of this year. I'm expecting to find it exactly as you have described, with the same cookie cutter selection of driving and sports games. Believe me, the arcades in South Australia all tell the same sad story, except smaller and less frequent (Adelaide is a bit of a ghost town).

All the seaside ones have closed, as have the three major ones in the city, so that leaves me with... not a lot of choice, except play everything at home.

You are right about the skill removal coming fairly early, but it's certainly less of an issue for arcade games than it has been for home console in recent times, IMO.

- People are lazy. They don't want to learn because they have to engage their brain, which requires effort, and is not the sort of passive experience that they want from an entertainment medium.

-It could be argued that sharp difficulty in a lot of the older (and more recent) arcade style games was there as a result of the limitations of the hardware ('we only got 4 Meg of sprites and backgrounds, but your gonna have to be good to see it all'), but now that the future is here and we have hyper realistic graphics and effects all that matters is content and how you get to see it doesn't really matter.

-Because we are dealing with the mainstream, that includes or is synonymous with 'casual gamers', this isn't a hobby to them. It's something you do in between sending texts on your phone, or if your really bored, playing a console game. They are not actively engaging with the hobby, but they are actively spending millions of dollars on what they perceive to be 'gaming'.

[Marc]

Hell of a lot of pretentious assumption on this thread so far.

[stryc9]

Hell of a lot of pretentious assumption on this thread so far.

Yeah the way I put the words might come off as a bit pretentious, but it's hard not to take a cynical view about the current state of things, as for what it is it's depressing.

And I've always been a bit of an asshole about this topic anyway.

[DEL]

stryc9 wrote;

-It could be argued that sharp difficulty in a lot of the older (and more recent) arcade style games was there as a result of the limitations of the hardware ('we only got 4 Meg of sprites and backgrounds, but your gonna have to be good to see it all'), but now that the future is here and we have hyper realistic graphics and effects all that matters is content and how you get to see it doesn't really matter.

That's an interesting argument .
However, in my experience, the difficulty was purely related to taking coins in the arcades of the 1980s. ie. They don't want your credit to last too long.

You are right about the skill removal coming fairly early, but it's certainly less of an issue for arcade games than it has been for home console in recent times, IMO.

Well the credit time-constraints were off for console games. No need to limit a credit.
This of course leads you down the dark path towards "It's something you do in between sending texts on your phone, or if your really bored, playing a console game" as you say.
Once you follow that dark path far enough, you lose sight of what got you on it in the first place.
The concept of the high-score becomes a casualty of war.
Competition itself can fall victim & then you're into a general malaise.
Eventually you wind up playing a MMORPG which has no ending and ultimately no point.
- Alright, I'm just letting my mind run for fun.

Marc wrote;

Hell of a lot of pretentious assumption on this thread so far.

Personally I think stryc9 is very much on the ball and he's clear and concise.

So set us straight Marc.
Tell us where we're going wrong. You obviously know the truth behind our misguided assumptions.

EDIT:- Thread Header Post Updated Again

[Marc]

The same old 'people are lazy, games aren't hard anymore' shite that gets trotted out on a yearly basis. I'm assuming that the folk that make these claims have completed a Halo on Legendary, all gold medaled a WipeOut or completed a Souks game right? Because otherwise, those complaints would be as easy as someone complaining about how shmups have become dumbed-down eye candy because they can finish the first loop of DDPR. I'll go into more detail when I'm not typing on a phone, but this is just more mainstream vs hardcore tripe to me.

[neorichieb1971]

I don't care much about pallettes as much as I do about gameplay. FPS games are raw aiming and shooting. Even 3rd person games have become much of the same.

Is it right to say that a big budget can only be applied if its a genre that is already successful? What about old genres that could use a new lick of paint, expensive paint at that?

Why can't they make a jetpac game like space harrier, which is colorful, graphically awesome, 60fps, controls like a dream and has dragons and shit? Why wouldn't that sell? That is a honest to God question!

[gabe]

has dragons and shit? Why wouldn't that sell? That is a honest to God question!

I'm guessing that someone somewhere has a big stack of market research suggesting that today's kids aren't into dragons and shit.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Why can't they make a jetpac game like space harrier, which is colorful, graphically awesome, 60fps, controls like a dream and has dragons and shit? Why wouldn't that sell? That is a honest to God question!

Tribes: Ascend is out. It's got jetpacks. I hope the devs aren't going out of their way to make it playable with joypads. Tribes deserve to stay speedy.

[DEL]

Marc wrote;

but this is just more mainstream vs hardcore tripe to me

Firstly, thanks for replying.
Secondly, yes to an extent you're right. But if you look at ver1.5 you'll see that 'mainstream' in the 90s used to be Japanese and therefore hardcore.

[CloudyMusic]

Japanese and therefore hardcore

um

[DEL]

Alright , Mario not hardcore.
I should have done more than a one-liner on that.
If Japanese 2D skill-based games such as fighters and shoot'em ups are deemed hardcore gaming, then yes the 90s consoles catered for them, even in the mainstream releases found in game stores during that decade.

In the 2000s you could find Tekken, SF2 & KOF titles in the mainstream stores, so I have no complaints about that.
Since the X360 hosted Jap shooters in the last 3 years or so, a very small handful of them can sometimes be found in mainstream game stores. But in the 7 or so years before that - Gradius V, Ikaruga and some Psikyo shooters were the only shooters you could find in the mainstream stores. Please correct me on this.
- Apologies for the incorrect generalisation - Rochefort 10 beer FPSs are very much skill-based too.

A point that I have not addressed so far is that many Japanese shooters are region locked, so the Japanese haven't exactly been helping the situation.