What really is screwing gaming...

[Rambo]

I mean look at Pikmin, that series is friggin' awesome

Agreed. That series was incredible. More original ideas couldn't possibly be a bad thing.

[TheSnowStorm]

. More original ideas couldn't possibly be a bad thing.

I agree as well. But original ideas are good if done right. It do piss me off that original games are overlooked at times (Mystical Ninjas Starring Gemon, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good and Evil) for shitty games (Final Fantasy VII, Halo).

I also want to see video games that actually reflect on real life and unsung heroes. Or tragic heroes who want to do good, but have that one flaw that will led tto their downfall.

[Devyn]

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with gaming. It’s not the 80’s or early 90’s anymore. That, my friend, is the problem. Back in the day, you could have a game featuring a magical cheeseburger protagonist on a quest to find the 8 magic pieces of shit, and it could sell a million copies. That’s right. Guess what else? Licensed games could be good, especially Disney games. In fact some of the best games back then stared Disney characters and mascots for frikkin’ soft drinks. People bought good games, regardless if the character starred Bart Simpson or Johny Frikin’ No-Name. In fact, we would rent games, and if the game sucked, we would tell everybody else and they would avoid buying the game because it sucked. Or just trade the game in by lying that it didn’t work.

Also, we didn’t have this casual VS hardcore crap. You were hardcore if you rocked at video games, not because you’re an unoriginal, unsocial turd who embraces nothing but Final Fantasy remakes and first person shooters. That’s right - hardcore was beating Mario without warp zones, not unlocking “achievements” on X-box Live. You want an achievement? Beat Mario in six minutes. Try to get through Ninja Gaiden (the real one, on NES) without continuing 60 times. That is an achievement. And we walked uphill both ways.

The music? Don’t even get me started. There’s some great music around now. The sound quality is 2000% percent better, but back in the day, popular music was more melodic, funky, and random. So that translated into the games systems, which had limited sound chips, and for the composers to make uncompromisingly awesome tunes. Mega Man 2? You can’t make anything like that game’s soundtrack these days. It was the special combination of time-specific elements that allowed such a strange creature to exist, much like how giant dinosaurs were able to exist when the earth had more oxygen.

And you know what else? Mega Man wasn’t a tiny little troll who ran around on the internet. He wasn’t a blonde-haired she-male who took all the limelight. He was a badass built by Dr. Light, and he saved the whole world, not just the internet, and not the moon. Mega Man wouldn't let the Earth be destroyed in the first place (to me, the series doesn't even exist after X3). Link wasn’t a pretty elf. He was an ugly, red-haired elf who was way too bad ass to need a horse or a highly incorrect opinion that Ocarina of Time is the best Zelda game. And why would you waste time fighting soldiers in stupid Tom Clancy World War 2 games when you could fight fucking space alien French fry people and turtle-demons instead? If I wanted to battle soldiers in other nations I would join the frikkin’ army. But I don’t want to. Need a hand fighting those space aliens bent on devouring the human race? Sign me up sir. Contra? Yes, Contra. Also, the Belmonts weren’t androgynous girly-men, and only 1/5 of Final Fantasy characters were.

And the graphics were cool too. Sure, they were lacking detail and sharpness, but again, like they did with the music, the game developers had this thing called “creativity”, which became a part of the endangered species list in the mid to late nineties. The games had graphics that made you look out into the background and think “Whoa. I wonder what it would be like to go back there”. It was like being on drugs, which I quit around the same time when games started becoming more mainstream. Unfortunately, a bunch of presumptuous developers forced almost everything into blocky 3-D models and a few years later, I wandered into the new 3D backgrounds and I said to myself “That’s all there is here?!!” By forcing everything to go into 3d, that sense of wonder was destroyed.

Sure, there are some cool games out there now (especially Rock Band), and there were crappy games back then, I’m just really just telling guys how it comes from a classic gamer’s point of view, and in a half-sarcastic manner as well.

Also, our games' advertisements were honest. The ad was the main character of the game.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Truth. 10 characters.

[TheSnowStorm]

Fanboyism (Or Fangirlism, if you wanna be pollically correct) is also fucking up gaming. I remember when fanboyism wasn't a big deal in my youth. But with the internet, it became a bit of a promblem.

I also remember when folks loved gameplay over graphics during the 16-bit era. We didn't care about if the graphics look beautiful. We just care if the game was fun.

[DarkeSword]

Fanboyism (Or Fangirlism, if you wanna be pollically correct) is also fucking up gaming.

Fanboyism and fangirlism are different things, IMO, and I personally think that fangirlism is way more detrimental to gaming than fanboyism.

Case-in-point: Shadow the Hedgehog.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Fangirlism scares the living shit out of me.

[Lancer]

The whole fan system does screw things up enough. More to the point that a group of guys or girls or both, think that say Sephiroth was a greater villian than say Kefka, Golbez, Ghaleon, or any other villian that was up there in names. They just take it to so much extremes that it overshadows characters that truely where better. But thats just me. Then again, I'm a Kefka and Ghaleon fan.

[Sobou]

Fanboyism and fangirlism are different things, IMO, and I personally think that fangirlism is way more detrimental to gaming than fanboyism.

Case-in-point: Shadow the Hedgehog.

QFE/T.

One of the main causes of "what's screwing gaming", imo, is the sheer amount of games out there that are tied to movies and tv shows.

Now I know they've always been around, from the Disney games to the Cool Spot (7-Up mascot) games, but the difference between those and the ones nowadays is that those were at least still quality games, and fun to play. How many people can say that they've enjoyed a pure Disney game made in the last five years compared to the ones for the SNES/Genesis? (PURE, KH doesn't count).

I'm just sick of looking down rows of games, looking for something worth playing and seeing hundreds of copies of stuff like Pixar movie tie-ins (Open Season, Over the Hedge, A Bee Movie, ect), kiddie TV show/toy tie-ins (I want to strangle the person who came up with Bratz), or games that are just plain horrible (50 Cent's "Bulletproof").

Back in the SNES/Genesis days, even if a game was nothing more than an advertising stunt by a company (like the Cool Spot games), they were still good. Nowadays? We get Yaris. Which is absolutely horrid, btw.

That's my two cents.

[The Coop]

What's really screwing up gaming? I'll tell ya, and this isn't aimed at megadave. His timing just worked out as it did, that's all . But what's really hurting it, are the comparisons to other eras that were worse than they're made out to be.

Some of the nostalgia driven go on about how games were more creative, inventive, musically better, and more immersive. A lot of those same people push aside the majority of games today without having played many of them... skipping over the Oddworld: Stranger's Wraths, Oblivions and Ninja Gaiden Blacks of today, while praising the Vectormans, Castlevanias and Lufias of the past. They conveniently forget all the horrid movie licenses in the pre-8bit --> 16bit eras, and the bad arcade ports and original IPs that came along with them. And somehow, they think needing more than 3-4 buttons to play a game is totally unnecessary, and only screws things up.

Listening to them, it seems as if the pre-8bit --> 16bit eras where somehow better, when in reality, they weren't. Games were still expensive, bad titles still out numbered the good, and the ads and box backs still did everything they could to make even the worst game sound awesome as they suckered the kids and parents reading them. What's also rarely brought up, is that there was no Internet to find out what games were good or bad, and painfully few magazines to offer up plentiful reviews... which made it really easy to be stung by any one of the many bad games of the day. If you were lucky, you found out about good and bad games from a friend who already tried a given title. Otherwise, you found out the hard way, after you got home with your new $30-$60 game... a risky crap shoot that still exists today. And of course, there was the whole "seal of approval" debacle that meant nothing in terms of quality, but that's another story. But now... now we have a lot more at our disposal.

We've got plenty of gaming magazines, websites, and store rental locations. We can even find out if a game is worth it, days before it hits the store shelves. The old days seem better, because we literally didn't know about half of the shitty games being released. It wasn't a flood of quality titles back then, despite how some try to paint the picture.

Of course, things aren't really any better with the newer generation of biased gamers.

If you listen to some of the oldschool-lacking folks today, you'd think the days of old were utter garbage. You get the feeling that unless it's in polygons, free roaming, and littered with special effects, it's not worth playing. For them, long running franchise's like Sonic, Mario and Gradius don't exist before the 3D versions. And while they focus on the Half-Life 2s and World of Warcrafts of today, they completely shove aside the Sonic 2s and Demon's Crests of years gone by. They go on about how much more immersive and creative games are thanks to their being in full 3D, and prattle about the high production values put on the cinemas, voice acting and music. They scoff at the idea that games don't need a z-axis to have huge worlds and plentiful secrets, and that you don't need realistic samples to create memorable melodies. They also can't seem to believe that one button really can be all you need for a game, as that's just too simplistic... a stance they also associate with the older games in question.

The truth is, both sides make good and bad points about their respective games being discussed. The problem arises, in that they refuse to see the good and bad of their own era's games, as well as the games from another era. It's almost like a foreign concept for these people to believe that while a lot of today's games are quite different in appearance and gameplay compared to the games of yesteryear, they all still share many common links at their cores... with one very common link amongst it all. Past and present, there are good and bad games, with the bad always outnumbering the good. Neither era can be defined by just one or the other, and that gets lost along the way.

So if people want to know what's hurting gaming today, in my opinion, it's the polygon lovers who can't get past the pixels, and the pixel pushers that refuse to see what modern games have to offer. Both groups dismiss mass quantities of games in one fell swoop with little knowledge of them, and that ain't good. It's that "My gaming stuff's better" mindset that does the damage (on multiple fronts), and keeps the games worth owning from getting the attention they deserve.

Edit: Fleshed out a couple small parts.

[DarkeSword]

What's really screwing up gaming? I'll tell ya, and this isn't aimed at megadave. His timing just worked out as it did, that's all . But what's really hurting it, are the comparisons to other eras that were worse than they're made out to be.

Some of the nostalgia driven go on about how games were more creative, inventive, musically better, and more immersive. A lot of those same people push aside the majority of games today without having played many of them... skipping over the Oddworld: Stranger's Wraths, Oblivions and Ninja Gaiden Blacks of today, while praising the Vectormans, Castlevanias and Lufias of the past. They conveniently forget all the horrid movie licenses in the 8bit and 16bit eras, and the bad arcade ports and original IPs that came along with them. And somehow, they think needing more than 3-4 buttons to play a game is totally unnecessary.

Listening to them, it seems as if the pre-8bit --> 16bit eras where somehow better... when in reality, they weren't. Games were still expensive, bad titles still out numbered the good, and the ads and box backs still did everything they could to make even the worst game sound awesome as they suckered the kids and parents reading them. What's also rarely brought up, is that there was no Internet to find out what games were good or bad, and painfully few magazines to offer up plentiful reviews... which made it really easy to be stung by any one of the many bad games of the day. If you were lucky, you found out about good and bad games from a friend who already tried a given title. Otherwise, you found out the hard way, after you got home with your new $30-$60 game... a risky crap shoot that still exists today. And of course, there was the whole "seal of approval" debacle that meant nothing in terms of quality. But now... now we have a lot more at our disposal.

We've got plenty of gaming magazines, websites, and store rental locations. We can even find out if a game is worth it, days before it hits the store shelves. The old days seem better, because we literally didn't know about half of the shitty games being released. It wasn't a flood of quality titles back then, despite how some try to paint the picture.

Of course, things aren't really any better with the newer generation of gamers.

If you listen to some of the oldschool-lacking folks today, you'd think the days of old were utter garbage. You get the feeling that unless it's in polygons, free roaming, and littered with special effects, it's not worth playing. For them, long running franchise's like Sonic, Mario and Gradius don't exist before the 3D versions. And while they focus on the Half-Life 2s and World of Warcrafts of today, they completely shove aside the Sonic 2s and Demon's Crests of years gone by. They go on about how much more immersive and creative games are thanks to their being in full 3D, and prattle about the high production values put on the cinemas, voice acting and music. They forget that games don't need a z-axis to have huge worlds and plentiful secrets, and that you don't need realistic samples to create memorable melodies. And in truth, they just don't seem to realize that one button really can be all you need to use.

The truth is, both sides make good and bad points about their respective games. A lot of today's games are quite different in appearance and gameplay compared to the games of yesteryear, despite sharing a lot of common links. However, both share one very common link. Past and present, there are good and bad games, with the bad always outnumbering the good. Neither era can be defined by one or the other. And it's this "My gaming stuff's better" mindset that does the damage, as it only results in one thing... it keeps the games worth owning from getting the attention they serve.

So if people want to know what's hurting gaming today, in my opinion, it's the polygon lovers who can't get past the pixels, and the pixel pushers that refuse to see what modern games have to offer. Both dismiss mass quantities of games in one fell swoop with little knowledge of them, and that ain't good.

No coop, I'm pretty sure that it's fangirlism.

[Sobou]

As awesome and detailed as Coop's post is, I have to agree with DarkeSword.

[The Coop]

Fangirlism is the latest craze for game companies to latch onto... like the whole "platformer mascot with attitude" and FPS thing before it. And like them, it'll lessen as games become more and more "me too" in that area, and developers decide to do something different. The mindset I talked about however, has yet to fade away since the 2600 came up against the NES. In fact, I'd be willing to wager it's gotten steadily worse with each new generation of hardware.

[DarkeSword]

Fangirlism is the latest craze for game companies to latch onto... like the whole "platformer mascot with attitude" and FPS thing before it. And like them, it'll lessen as games become more and more "me too" in that area, and developers decide to do something different. The mindset I talked about however, has yet to fade away since the 2600 came up against the NES. In fact, I'd be willing to wager it's gotten steadily worse with each new generation of hardware.

Oh I know. I actually agree with your post (which was very nicely written).

But there's nothing new about fangirlism. It's been steadily destroying the the gaming fandom landscape for 15 years or more.

[BluefoxIcy]

Are you saying consumers are dumbass sheep?

I think we have a position for you in our marketing position. You sound like you have just the insight we need to continue to deliver our most advanced product to the drooling retarded public.

[DarkeSword]

I think we have a position for you in our marketing position.

A position in the marketing position? WTF are you talking about?

Proofread. Make sense.

[Monobrow]

You know what's wrong? NONE OF YOU HAVE EVER PLAYED BRANDISH.

BRAAAAAAAAAANDISH!

GO PLAY BRANDISH!!!!

[Shadix]

I will admit, unwary parents and grandparents are the whole reason there is a market for mediocre Licensed movie games.

"aww that was a cute movie lets get the game", I see this logic all the time at Gamestop.

[Synchronicity]

Just want to say that Coop makes an excellent argument.

[Devyn]

Ya know, those people could just make the licensed games good like they often did in the heyday, and they would sell more copies of said games. Crap, if there was a Happy Penguin game that was getting major praise, even I would feel inclined to play it.

[OceansAndrew]

imo, is the sheer amount of games out there

QF Super massive edit of your post to state my opinion.

I was going through the virtual console store last night, looking to buy a game (ended up being Actraiser, btw) and noticed that about 80% of the games listed were all fun. I could literally pick just about any game there and be guaranteed a good time. That is what I think gaming needs.

[Doulifée]

3. Lack of better gameplay, and the mindset that "Graphics are so much better than Gameplay!"

Ergo, go rent a movie.

[Toadofsky]

I know this comes off as rather elitist and pompous, as someone who spends much of his time reading up on several different web-sites about even the worst games available, but its really starting to bother me that the average consumer of video games, movies, music, midget butlers, etc. only seems to look at the box art and exclaim "pimp-slap boxing! wow, and it even has graphics in it! I got's 'ta git me some o' dat!" But since it sells, more and more games are made based off of that same business-principle. Its nothing new, but I haven't really been exposed to the level of mediocrity people are expecting (or not expecting) from window-dressed games until lately.

Discuss.

Honestly, I don't care anymore. Some games have intrigued me just by the box, even movies have done the same. BUt that's just the consumer for you, especially if they're uninformed on the stuff. How can you blame the lady if she doesn't know anything about video games? It's commendable you at least tried to help her.

[DJ Mighty]

I dont know, maybe every one is looking into this too much. Maybe we view games differently now then we did 10 years ago because we we 10 years younger. We viewed things different. Think about how many games you play in a 10 year span. With having experienced so much it gets harder finding something new or something that sucks you in. Games like Zelda MArio and even Final Fantasy kinda help take you back to those good times because you fell in love with them 10 years ago.

I dont know, just how i see it some times. Makes me think of when i was 19 and going to Clubs was the greatest thing and each new club was awesome. Now almost 25, i can barely stand clubs and i would prefer just a nice bar to have fun in.

Then again maybe im talking out of my ass, but i have 10 min left at work and i dont feel like starting a new design.

[drummermg131]

Basically, what the opening poster is saying, is that people judge games on their boxcover?

When i was a kid, i did the same thing. Did boxart look cool? I wanted it. Thankfully, i always made the right decision, and ended buying Mario Kart, or Zelda or something.

I love buying games on a whim. Like, as in completely random purchases, simply because you had a severe craving to buy a new game and made a trip to the local gaming store to hopefully find something worthwhile. My brother and I used to do this all the time in the N64/PS1 era, with amazing results. I don't do it that much these days because I don't have the money or the time. But, it's still great when you stumble across a game you were never planning on buying for sure that turns out to be awesome.

But getting back on topic, I get so annoyed seeing all the crap games on the shelves, even the crappy games that could very well have been decent games. Drives me nuts. Video games just aren't the way they used to be, and this is one big reason why my N64 and SNES are in a very easily accessible location...in my closet, in plain view.