The Gamer's Quarter

[Giampi]

A weird little train of thought departed from the station in my head this morning.

It started the other day when I was talking to a friend over the internet. Said friend lives in a house in Florida with three other guys and spends most of his free time renting PS2 games via an internet site--I can't remember which, really--then copying them to get cheap PS2 games. He also plays a lot with his XBox. He was the kind of gamer that would fit right in with the crowd here: reflexive, thoughtful, postmodern, the kind of person who could appreciate quirky aspects of gaming for what they were. Nowadays he is the type of gamer that EA owes their multi-billion industry chokehold to: he despises innovation, won't buy anything that isn't in English, and absolutely despises Nintendo, though he hasn't gone near anything produced by them since the days of Nintendo 64 because of the whole 'kiddy games' shpiel most dumb-core, gamefaqs trolls cling to so dearly.

Well, no, actually, that's wrong. He doesn't hate Nintendo as much as he feels sorry for Nintendo. There's a difference.

"Nintendo is the one you point and laugh at," was a phrase he used on me a while ago. Basically, he takes every chance he can get to remind me that everything Nintendo has ever made absolutely sucks solely by virtue of being Nintendo, kind of like that dorky kid in school that's always tripping over stuff and receiving regular doses of wedgies. While I admit that the big N isn't exactly the bastion of sound business strategy these days, I refuse to believe that they're anywhere near being the game company that gets pointed and laughed at. For one thing, it's the only major company that still has soul.

Soul. That's the issue, you see. In today's age of big-budget gaming, where the industry is starting to mature and imitate the movie and music industries, Nintendo is the only company sticking with its guns and aiming at making products that are games as opposed to pieces of lifeless code. When I get my grubby paws on a Nintendo game--doesn't matter which--I can feel that one of the primary directives of the team behind it was to make a game that's fun, and not a game that sells. Granted, there are games with soul on the other major consoles; I don't think I have to tell you which ones. However, those games are few and far between, and when they appear they usually get shoved to the side in favor of Madden 200X or Grand Theft Auto: The Next One. And no, you don't have to remind me about Pokémon because I know it's a cash cow.

I cringe when my friend--the one I mentioned before--talks about how cool a certain game is because the graphics are so cool, or whatever. He's forgotten the days when he and I would argue over why Silent Hill scared the piss out of us, or how effective Pokémon was as a marketing cum socialization tool because of its game mechanics. Now all he talks about is how he's starting to dislike the PS2 because the graphics totally suck compared to the XBox, and how he's getting all the games listed as good by GameSpot (in the beginning, he would use that site to see if it was worth getting a game by reading the reviews. Now he uses that site so that GameSpot can tell him what to buy with no clear explanation as to why). As a gamer, I'm sad to say that he's lost his soul.

[friedchicken]

Mmm. Fortunately most of my old aquaintances just got out of gaming rather than turning into that guy. It's a very Bestbuy-ized way selecting games-- you know, if Bestbuy doesn't stock the game, it must suck. Or if Gamespot reviews it badly, it must suck. Good to see he's doing his part by taking nearly all the revenue out of even the big gaming companies' pockets by renting and copying. Classy!

I myself am a pretty big Nintendophile. But I can see why some people have turned away from them, since Mario Kart is about the polar opposite in tone from something like Splinter Cell. I bet a lot of people who poo-poo Nintendo are closet fans though, if only through nostalgia.

[dhex]

isn't this really about how your friend lost his soul?

[Persona-sama]

[Giampi]

Beats me.

But yes, this is about how he lost his gaming soul, and how many people, just like him, lost their gaming soul to mass consumption.

[dhex]

yet we all got into this because of mass consumption.

a paradox in a riddle in an enigma, it is.

[Mister Toups]

I know a lot of people like what you described. It depresses me. These are the people that are going to make the HD era a reality.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Shapermc]

Fortunatly I still have quite a few friends who have not lost their gaming soul (but man they know how to pirate... bastards). They still love and play King of Fighters as well as Tekken 5. Beatmania IIDX as well as God of War.

That kind of thing.

But I have also known a few people who went that way. Not for a long time though. Most just grew apart from games in general. I work with people who have no gaming soul and buy tripe like NARC. Though I don't know if they ever had one.

Yea, it is a sad thing, but some people look at games like that. Same with people who look at cars for what is under the hood, not the ride to get there.

[dhex]

what's HD?

my gaming soul is mired in self-loathing and sandpaper.

[Shapermc]

[dhex]

oh, like the hd tv stuff? it makes nature shows look nice (my friend's studio has a big tv with all sorts of that crap and tivo and whatnot. it's nice to visit)

[SuperWes]

The Microsoft Keynote at GDC this year was all about "the HD generation." The basic theme was that the games of tomorrow will be bigger in all ways. They'll require more art assets, more development time, more developers, and much, much more money. Pretty much every game will need to sell at least a half a million copies or more to turn a profit.

Microsoft used this Keynote to let developers know that all of the next-gen X-box games will have to have support for HD resolutions, be Xbox Live aware, allow cusomizable soundtracks, and have certain in-game notices such as low-battery indicators for wireless controllers. In order to soften the fact that support for each of these things will require companies to hire a few more employees, they gave 1,000 people free (after taxes) Samsung HD TVs, and promised them that they'd be less strict about other requirements in the future.

It was a good presentation, but, as you know, a few days later Greg Costikyan tore it down by pointing out that as games are getting bigger, both the financial and emotional returns are getting smaller, and the number of publishers willing to back unproven, innovative game ideas is shrinking exponentially.

Nintendo still pushes for innovation regardless of what it's going to end up costing them. I think that's the "soul" that Giampi refers to in his intial post. What got many of us into games long ago was the variety of worlds and ways of interacting with them that video games can provide. As publishers are become less willing to take chances, this freshness is getting buried in yearly releases and planned franchises. Nintendo isn't exempt from this though. For every Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat there's a Mario Kart Double Dash. For every Yoshi's Touch and Go there's a Pokemon FireRed.

We can bitch about people who have abandoned Nintendo, but by putting our faith in companies or franchises we are as responsible for the industry's stagnation as they are. We put our money toward the things we're sure of, looking for names like Konami, Sega, Capcom, and Nintendo on the sides of the boxes as we wait for games from unknown publishers or with unknown characters to drop in price before picking them up. The fact is that relying on a publisher or a character to tell us a game's quality is just as bad as relying on magazines to tell us what to buy; either way you're not putting your money toward industry growth or innovation.

Does the name Gunstar Heroes 2 make you froth with demand? If so, you're not helping out the industry any more than the guy who buys the yearly Madden update. Me? I have to admit that those Gunstar pictures made me moist. Give me Gunstar Heroes 2. But also give me Alien Hominid and our industry will keep its legs.

-Wes
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[Shapermc]

I have a sinking feeling that if I want to play new 2D games with a classic feel to them 3 years down the road I will have to either a) play them on a PC or b) hope that games are 2.5D (ala Viewtiful Joe).

[Szczepaniak]

Damn right the games industry has lost its soul. its dying, and personally I can't wait for it to crash and burn, and then we can rebuild things from the ashes of the next crash.

[dhex]

i like customizable soundtracks. i'm not going to buy an xbox - i may never buy another console again - but people should be able to non-commercially fuck with everything that moves. specfically music, as i'm not a fan of "videogame music" especially of the electronic variety. i'd love to be able to replace the soundtrack on san andreas, for example, and make up an early 90s college station. MORE SLINT THAN YOU CAN STUFF INTO A BOX OF SPINELESS NOODLES.

look at morrowind, for example. morrowind is still a living game, in part because of this ability to be permanently and continually altered. good stuff.

[SuperWes]

I'm a big fan of cusomizable soundtracks as well, I just don't think they're implemented very well in very many games. I hear that Sega's Football games do it well by allowing you to assign certain songs to certain events, and even let you choose what parts of the songs play. More games should give the player this kind of freedom. I'd like to see a game that provides the moods, or colors of certain stages and allows you to assign songs based on those things. Then when you play through the game you would hear songs that match up with what the designers intended. The problem is that most games just have you select one of your predefined playlists and then plays through the songs one-by-one. That's not the way to do it. As long as using your own songs is optional and not manditory, I think it's a good feature.

I'm also a fan of games giving players the ability to download content for cash. People who are against paying for downloadable content don't seem to realize that games which require you to buy content to enjoy them won't be popular. MS realizes this and will limit buyable content to add ons, expansions, or things that you would normally have to invest more time to unlock.

Have you ever played GunBound? In Gunbound you can earn points that can be used to customize your avatar and upgrade your weapons by winning matches. If you don't want to play the game for 6 hours to get a new character's head, you can just drop $10 and buy it. It's entirely optional, but it allows you to empower your character through cash instead of time if you choose to.

Links for the X-box has an extra course that you can download for $5. I don't play the game enough to buy this course so I haven't paid for it, but if I played Links often I would welcome the ability to expand the content. I already paid for the 9 courses included in the game and was happy with them, but if I wanted the 10th I'd be fine with paying $5 to download it.

The way I see it, buying extra content will always be optional, and when it is no longer optional it will just keep people from buying the games in the first place, which will hurt the bottom line more than the downloadable content is hoping to expand it, forcing them to scale back the downloadable content again.

Lets say you've already paid $20 for Katamari Damacy and came home happy with your purchase. Would you spend 5 bucks to download a few more fully realized levels? I sure would.

-Wes
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[Shapermc]

[dhex]

[Shapermc]

[EightBit]

[Szczepaniak]

[Shapermc]

[Mister Toups]

It would've been nice if, in San Andreas, you listened to a lot of the Country station or something, your homies would make fun of you or something, or you'd lose respect.
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[dhex]

[Szczepaniak]

[Giampi]

Okay, customizable soundtracks.

One the one hand, they provide the opportunity for appropriation of the game that a person is playing at any given time. By giving a game your own soundtrack, you make the game 'yours', unique, impossible for anyone else to reproduce, at least theoretically.

On the other hand, they risk alienating the game's purpose from the gamer's experience. Playing death metal during a rousing game of Mr. Driller, or showtunes during the scariest parts of a survival horror game.

My opinion is that customizable soundtracks should be present when they open up the possibility of bettering the game because of it. I'm thinking specifically about Vib Ribbon here. The reason that game is so cool is because you can use whatever music you want as the soundtrack, and the game will still work perfectly. If you had limited VB's soundtrack to a select few, pre-sampled tracks, the game would've been crap. The idea is, then, not to include customizable soundtracks 'just because', but to employ them as a tool that can improve the gaming experience.

[Shapermc]

Custom soundtracks are a very important part for games like racing or ... perhaps Extreme Sports such as Tony Hawk. These games don't really have a set soundtrack in the manner that you will gain from playing course X over a hundred times to get a high score... I mean you can only listen to crap rock so many times. GT4 would have been about 5X better with a custom soundtrack option.

[dhex]

[friedchicken]

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[Szczepaniak]

[dhex]

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

To be a good sport I have a better one:

You Buy a 7 slice Pizza deliverd.
It gets there and has 8 slices.
If you eat the 8th slice you get charged, instantly (somehow).


Wha? It is here in my house, for me. I will just throw it away and never eat it if I don't want to get charged, what the hell is the point. Why the fuck can't I just eat it?

[dhex]

[Szczepaniak]

I like Shaper's analogy, that pizza one is golden.

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[dhex]

but if you can't unlock it, you don't own it.

LIKE KNOWLEDGE!!!!

at some point this discussion always devolves into some sort of fight over third choice economic systems and property ownership laws. i call anarcho-capitalist!

[Persona-sama]

I'm going to join in!

It's as if you bought a pure bred cat from a breeder that came with an option to extend its life via built-in nanomachines! The only problem is that it would cost money to use the feature... in exchange for a longer lasting kitty. Would YOU codec your kitty a 1-Up?


I noticed that many Western games have soundtracks that don't really seem integral to the playing experiences whereas Eastern games tend to sync both the music and the overall experience together.

[friedchicken]

[Szczepaniak]

I disagree fully. I pay for the disc, I am therefor entitled to use everythingwithin.

But let me pull out the big guns.

These downloadable unlockable extras stop a game from being timeless.
How long will these servers still be up?
How long will I be able to pay for this stuff to use?
Can YOU still download those extra Samba De Amigo songs for the DC? They only need a small save file to unlock them, but already the servers are down.

How the hell can anyone enjoy these games in 10 years time? Where will they get these save files.

Far bigger than the fact that you have to pay, is the fact that it dates the games, so to speak.

Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, PS1 etc are all timelss games. In the sense that as long as you have the game and hardware, you can play them in a decade, or two decades. Very seldomly is there anything that may stop this.

In 20-40 years when I am showing Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox to my grandson, how am isupposed to show him the extra costumes, weapons etc?
How are we supposed to play ALL the Samba De Amigo songs?

Beyond any problem regarding the ethics of stealth charging, which is loathsome in itself, there is the problem that it to a degree renders some section un-playable over time. Sure, they're just costumes you may argue, or tracks, or a few cars, but the point stands: these no longer become enjoyable single celled experiences in the gaming medium, they become like fragmented paintings where as they age you are able to enjoy less and less of them.

Why don't they just print the DVDs onto cheese instead of plastic, the result is the same, a game with a limited enjoyable shelf life, since over time these extras will be lost forever. Like tears in the rain.


And that gentlemen, is MATCH POINT!

Far worse than being charged for this stuff, is that as the games age we will eventually lose them.

Seriouslly, ive argued this point on most forums I visit, and the split is mostly always 80/20, with more people supporting such content.

I cannot fathom it.

Anyone up for a beer?

[SuperWes]

That's a good point, but is Samba De Amigo no longer timeless because it doesn't come with the Save file required to unlock some cruddy Ricky Martin rip-offs?

-Wes
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[Mister Toups]

IT'S LIKE THE MATRIX, MAN!
_________________
where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Persona-sama]

[Giampi]

The question is, then, whether it will be impossible to enjoy these games in the future at all without the downloadable content. Will Ninja Gaiden and Samba De Amigo be unplayable because you no longer have access to the optional content?[/b]

[Persona-sama]

Unless you really like Ricky Martin, it's pretty hard to enjoy Samba w/out them.

The annoying part is that a few months later the next version, Samba de Amigo 2000, came with all those "downloadable" songs already unlocked. It also came with some extra game modes and other songs but it really wasn't anything more than a basic update.

Sonic Team annoys me to no end by doing this with every franchise they have.

[friedchicken]

[Shapermc]