Japanese gamers discussing what they consider to be the worst tragedy to have befallen the gaming industry agree on an number of unfortunate events it seems.
The exchange:
“The gaming industry has been around for decades now.
What’s the worst thing to happen to it in that time?
Excluding death, accidents and so on.”
“Sega’s withdrawal from the hardware business.”
“That Final Fantasy XIII was crap.”
“The demise of the Dreamcast.”
“The merger of Square and Enix.”
“Sega and NEC’s withdrawal from hardware.”
“The loss of free company networks for gaming.”
“There’s only really the Atari Shock, surely?”
“PS3.”
“That the DS and Wii became popular…”
“When Sony entered the gaming business.”
“When Sony killed Sega and then Sega started meekly making games for Sony game consoles like nothing had happened.”
“When the PS3 flopped – everything started going wrong for Sony then.”
“RROD.”
“When they got full of themselves and started releasing trash like the 3DS.”
“Obviously the moment the Wii became a big hit.”
“When Square Enix decided to betray the PlayStation; the price of the PS3 at launch.”
“The Virtual Boy.”
“When development costs suddenly increased and game releases slowed.”
“When this barren console war started.”
“The PlayStation Network is currently building its own tragedy…”
Strangely, “the advent of DLC” seems to have escaped any opprobrium.
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I'm gonna have to agree on the Squaresoft Enix merger, nothing good has come of it, too much focus on making money and not enough love.
That's what happens when rivals merge when the rivalry was what made them great in the first place.
Blame Sakaguchi, he wanted to make that Spirits Within crap. Shit bombed, and DID kill off Square. Square pretty much doesn't exist to me anymore, even with a supposed merger.
The last game he was director for was FF4 or so, he just was producer from then on, which even includes non-FF/Square games. I just find it as a bad joke that he decides to be a director again(film) and causes $50+ million in losses.
While he made some mistakes the last few years he was there, he essentially created the brand of RPGs to go up against Dragon Quest up to around FFX or so. I think that can't be erased from memory. And that despite whatever flaws his newer RPGs have, they still retain his sense of storytelling and solid characters.
Good story tell and solid character ??? Where ???
Here here
not really
Dragon Quest IX was fuckin awesome
it's the Square side that sucks dick
Not really, playing it somehow make me feel really sleepy, especially when I doing some sub_quest or farm for ingredients. The plot not quite great either but for kids it's acceptable.
DRM.
especially the ones when you have to be online to play them. Assassin's Creed 2 had no online features D:<
That flopped too.
1. DLC ( especially paying for stuf thats already on the disc)
2. Half finished rushed games that needs patches on day 1.
3. Games that are (poorly) dubbed from Japanese games.
4. Europe getting late or no releases from certain great games. (I know it much worse in Austrilia no bloody games)
I want to play the game (from Japan) with the Japanese voices but I know that there is a small chance for that... thanks to a certain country that wants everything to be cool and manly.
Wait, if the question has no year limit, why is it getting answers relevant to 20xx? One of the worst tragedies was ET for the 2600. Shit was so bad that it nearly killed the gaming industry.
Console gaming, but still..
One of the more recent tragedies IMO was DRM up the ass. Ubisoft even forced its customers to stay online at all times while playing (or else the game will stop working) at one point.
agree, the crash of video game industry in 1977~ and 1983 for North America
that almost like the dark ages for the industry and we probably would just got PS-ONE if they didnt revive the industry soon after those dark time
the industry will continue on even with those petty issue such as RROD and such, it wouldnt affect too much of the industry and crash it
seriousness aside, i say the decision of companies going "Family Friendly" >_>
What the fuck was that bastard smoking when he wrote "ET THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL" The Video Game?
Its almost like he WANTED to destroy the 1980's Game industry when he wrote it!!
I've long since disposed of a magazine which had an interview with the guy, but the problem was that he had a stupidly short time to make it. Something like one week, on his own. All the bosses could see was the dollar signs, so it was terrible management really.
Exactly. If everyone learns nothing else today from this article, know that in every case, almost without exception, that if a shitty game is released, that it's because of time, money, management issues, or all three. Even incompetent creators have a team that balance them out as equals if there is nobody pulling the strings. The gaming industry as a whole is a very small, very closely knit collection of people, even at its current size. We may no longer know everyone by name, but reputation and capabilities are known at the click of a button.
Developers do make mistakes though, like I was part of a game that wasn't up to standard. Not horrible, just decent. But we knew it. So instead of release, the developers all agreed "Nope, more time, we need to make it more fun" but we were overruled by the money pushers. We couldn't blame them though, it's still expensive as hell. People like me just do everything we can to make every piece that we're responsible for look good or work well with the time we have allotted, which is why we got the job in the first place. If we try new, innovative things though, we need leeway to screw up, otherwise it's literally hit or miss. We no longer have that luxury anymore. So now you get the same stuff that was time tested from earlier games for safety, because there's no chance for the risks.
And all of those guys working for Atari got the shaft, cause they owned nothing that they released under the Atari logo.
I would consider the great videogame crash to only be relevant to American console gaming, and not overseas, home computer gaming or arcades, where everything was way ahead of the Atari 2600's catalogue in quality already.
But perhaps I should revise this stance. Nintendo becoming dominant so quickly after that was certainly the point when games became thought of as toys for children. Previously almost all games advertising was directed at adults.
Even with the average gamer said to be in their early 30s now, and female gamers matching male gamers in number, there's a feeling that every publisher's main demographic is still 13 year old schoolboys.
I don't believe the issue is the demographic as much as just the respect given that demographic. Teenagers look for a hero, something with which to be a role model, whether they know it or not. The problem isn't so much that games are targetted toward the young, it's that they are targeted at what stupid people believe young people think.
If you think about the stories we were told to read in school when we were teens, the ones we didn't because we were lazy fucks in general. Dostoyevski, Hemmingway, Poe. These are not child's stories or even intended for a child, however at one time we trusted ourselves with the fact that young adults could learn from the tragedies and drama of these stories.
That is the problem. People make the argument that because there is voice, sound and graphics that it enhances the experience and therefore should be toned down. This may be true to some degree, but that doesn't mean we still cannot show teens things like Call of Duty, just as we'd show them Saving Private Ryan to show them the horrors of war in a controlled environment.
It's down to the fact that parents treat their kids like objects to own and invest in instead of actual human beings. And people have forgotten that parenting is basically being there to guide children through their experiences. And many of us can attest to how much certain videogames affected us emotionally. I have extreme difficulty being anything but a good guy in games because I was brought up in the NES and SNES era where everything had a base story about being the hero and saving the world. It is ingrained in my being because of videogames, as well as shows I watched when I was younger, anime.
That is because the people in their 30s have the same taste in games as a 13 year old schoolboy. They even act the same whan playing online...
And those people are idiots for doing as such, acting beneath their age, for shame. I just laugh at people who talk that way, shows how intelligent they are when they cant think of any words but profanity and insults to say..
well, if they can sell games targeted towards 13 year olds to 30 year olds, then why would they change and risk alienating the 13 year olds? (Or the 30 year olds for that matter). Some companies see the market for a different gaming experience (look at the explosion of Cell phone development, it's cheap and you have a chance at making an incredible amount of money). Almost EVERY game that has been truly targeted at adults, trying to tell a true, mature story, has been a failure. we have some successes (Heavy Rain being a huge trend bucker, but then how many copies did Indigo Prophecy really sell?).
To be honest, I feel the Japanese gaming industry has grown increasingly infantile in it's development sadly. At one point, Basch was going to be the main character of Final Fantasy 12, but the big wigs at Squeenix decided that they needed a 17 year old main character to give it a child's perspective. It's kind of sad really, but demand better story telling and you get better story telling, vote with your dollar.
That, or the boys of 13 of this age act like 30 years old men
Yes, true enough comment. Although I suspect most 30+ gamers aren't online all that much, and it's a minority that make the rest of us look like kids that never grew up.
I don't play online, but I know I buy more more games than practically all of the people I know who are online practically every day. Mainly because they get by on COD alone.
imo, i think aiming at children are much easier to convince them that video game are cool than a rational mind of an adult, so over time VideoGames are stereotyped as a children entertainment rather for the adults and the violent and sex in the virtual games only boiled controversies and worries the parents.
so developers tends to get pressured to lessen the violences graphics or sexuality in games to be more "family friendly" One good example is Rockstar GTA:San Andreas Hot Coffee :P
i learn much of it from ExtraCredit: Sex in Game. more food for thought xP
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2505-Sex-in-Games
I bet Shitihara had his fingers in this "Family Friendly" you're talking about...
touche my friend... touche..
Pausey, do you mean there was VIDEO games before 1977? I thought video gaming began in early-middle 80`s.
Yes. Maybe you might have heard of a little gem from '75 called PONG.
yea, it around 80s that home console start settled in front of the household TV, Atari and later NES, before that it was Pong, lotssss of Pong XD
and unofficially there a few video game are created since 1942~ most well known one are 'Tennis for Two' (1958) and Odyssey (1966)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_video_game#1942:_NIM
The DRM is worse then the video game crash as it forces people to become pirates just to have an enjoyable game.
Applications like securom are pretty much malware and you should not have to have such trash on your computer just to play a game.
Remember these are Japanese gamers, and ET and the gaming collapse in the States had no real effect on the Japanese gaming industry, so it wouldn't register over there.
aah, forgot to consider the industry back then are quite secluded, thanks :)
I agree with the Ubisoft thing. I think you even have to be a paying customer, like Xbox Live gold and whatever the PS3 one is called. In order to access it, which is sad...its p2p. They are just trying to stop pirating..but going about it the wrong way.
Btw, the Ubisoft DRM is powered by SecuRom. Owned by Sony
Butt-hurt fanboys. The biggest downfall of the gaming industry every year.
Also funny how with Japanese gamers, Microsoft doesn't represent big bad evils the way westerners view them (mainly since the PC battles are more visible in the west).
That said, I think MS has done a pretty good enough job overall. They've been constantly growing their game division while Sony had to play catchup since they put too much eggs in their basket with the Cell idea and Bluray and making a whole ruckus of not supporting the PS3 with quality software for online infrastructure. I actually like Sony going into games business. I have lot of great memories with it. But all the over politicizing of gaming after Sony joined and Nintendo went on a crazy attack kind of made for a lot of weird debacles since then.
Now I'm with you. And Japanese people seem to love this "betray stuff", as if the video-game industry was not an industry looking for profit to begin with.
“Sega’s withdrawal from the hardware business.” --I'm with this.
“The merger of Square and Enix.”--
My girlfriend is with this.
“The demise of the Dreamcast.” --
My little bro is with this.
“The PlayStation Network is currently building its own tragedy…” --
We all lol'd at this.
when the xbox was created
the crap called dlc
DLC existed before xbox, retard. Back then it was called expansion packs and existed exclusively on PC because there was not enough space to save them on a memory card.
They weren't DLCs, whatchoo talkin' about?
They came on CDs only.
Example of expansion pack : Red alert 2 Yuri's revenge ~ great game for a good price
Greedy bastard DLC : Call of duty Black ops 5 maps 15 euro....
Console wars are pointless...And the fan boys are as equally foolish and idiotic like religious zealots...
If you are a true video gamer, you would take advantage of every game unique to every system...
Do not be swayed by others, be it reviews, fan-boy rants, or advertisements, and learn from your own video-gaming experience...
No alliance, but to YOURSELF and to the videogames you want to play...
If there's one thing I learned from videogames, sucking up to a corporation will always end up badly for you...
*points at the stories of the ARMORED CORE series*
@g0dslay3r
Indeed...
Back in the 90's, all the secret characters, locations, weapons, events, and even bosses are already in the game and ready for you to get if you know what to do...
Now...
Now you have to buy them in order to unlock them!?!
DLC is pure evil, no matter what game system or console you own...You spend around $1.99-4.99 to unlock a playable character...
*looks at Hyperdimension Neptunia*
That is already in the game...
DLC is nothing more than the companies trying to squeeze out every penny from you...
DLC is only good for really long add-ons like the ones in GTA4 (the standalone stories were almost as long as the actual game) for example...
Everything else is pure whoreage...
The only reason I spent $5.00 to unlock "those" two characters from Hyperdimension Neptunia was because they were both DFC (and insanely powerful lolis to booth)...
Yes...DLC some DFC...
Now I would pay for that in a heart-beat...
I agree to both your arguments, bro.
Console Wars are pointless. Don't do it unless you get paid by the respective companies to rant about other companies!
"DLC some DFC" ヽ(´ｰ ｀)ノ
i dont mind console war but microsoft has just been making crappy system after system.had 2 360s and all of them died.got the slim and it died after 1 year.my ps2 from like 01 or 02 still works
Just like your PS2, my Xbox One didn't fail the whole time I own it (Except the 400GB HDD I modded in, but that's not Microsoft's fault).
Either I'm extremely lucky or all you guys who are complaining are just extremely unlucky. Neither my 360 nor my PS3 go bricked till now.
Well it's not like the PS3 doesn't fail...
It's more like stuff is getting crappier generally. Srsly, products nowadays are designed to fail shortly after warranty voids, so you'll have to buy new stuff.
Well, MY PS2 is starting to crap out on me. My THIRD PS2 to fry, in fact. Either I've got really terrible luck, or whoever manufactures PS2s in NA does a terrible job of it.
But I've never had an XBOX fail on me...oh wait, that's right, I've never had any reason to own one in the first place. Since I'm not big on FPSs and sports games, and they have precious little else to offer. Seriously, if you replaced the FPSs with platformers it'd be like the XBOXs are the second coming of the Sega Genesis.
Anyway, the console wars are pretty much even right now. Not because the big three are all doing good, but because they're all doing so BADLY...
>If you are a true video gamer, you would take advantage of every game unique to every system...
Agreed. Winxxws sucks but I still love playing Touhou.
>Console wars are pointless...
But we wouldn't have had Neptunia without them :-P
I agree with almost everything you noted. However, I strongly disagree that being a "true gamer" means you shouldn't be swayed by reviews and others. A "true gamer" should know when to listen to others. I don't have every game on every system. I don't want that. I want to just get the games that I will enjoy. A "true gamer" knows how to find these in the vast sea of bad games. That means taking advice from others - no gamer is all-knowing.
A "true gamer" doesn't get the new Mortal Kombat because he liked the previous ones. Nor does he/she get any new game in a series because the last one was good. He/She looks at each game separately. That type of loyalty is just as bad, if not worse, than console or company loyalty.
Amen brother/sister! Reviews, game footage, word of mouth and demo/beta playing are what I base it off of.
A "true gamer" listens to others who have the same taste as himself, i.e. NOT necessarily gamespot etc.
And he watches actual gamplay footage before fully believing others.