holy crap wtf omg what is this I don't even ¯\(ºдಠ)/¯
The hardcore drive the gaming industry. Not the casuals. You should know this. Why do you think Nintendo came under heavy fire for their extremely lackluster E3 showing? Every professional media outlet has criticized Nintendo for taking a too extreme approach towards changing demographic.
The hardcore crowd drives the industry but doesn't have the potential for sales as the casual crowd, as Nintendo has PROVEN. Nintendo has the most successful console by far this generation with almost not a single game catered to just the hardcore crowd.
Plus, you can't say that the hardcore players are a powerful majority just because media expressed some of their concerns. E3 is a
convention and it's unlikely casual players will even watch it and the coverage will be targeted towards the hardcore. Of course they're going to criticize Nintendo's direction.
The best-selling games are the ones that hardcore players buy. Have a look:
http://kotaku.com/346135/halo-3-beats-out-wii-play-for-best-selling-video-game-of-2007
Notice how "Wii Play without Remote" is nowhere on that list. I think we all know why it's even there in the first place. And take a gander at the rest of the titles; who's the main demographic for those?
A very hyped game targeted towards a competitive audience will indeed produce huge sales such as Halo 3, however, notice how Wii Play almost sold as much as Halo 3? That's almost absurd... but it shows that the casual crowd is a serious force for earnings.
The fact that Brawl was actually very hyped among hardcore crowds and the fact that Sakurai didn't cater to them should be proof that he ignores competitive gaming
even when it could be very profitable.
Nintendo continues to focus on casuals NOT because they buy the most, but because they WANT them too, because that will double or triple their demographic.
Casuals DO buy the most. Nintendo is a very smart company. You want to see some statistics?
http://nexgenwars.com/
Nintendo's in first with almost zero attention to competitive gamers. Wow, those casuals must actually be a good demographic to target!
You're crazy if you think Sakurai wants to abolish the competitive community.
If you talked to Sakurai this moment about it the conversation would go like this:
"Sakurai, what do you think of the competitive community for Smash Brothers Melee and Brawl?"
"...competitive community? I think that would be taking my games too far. They're only party games for people to enjoy with their friends."
"Well, it exists."
"If it does, then I don't support it. I'm not a fan of anything involving two players or teams facing off, in direct opposition, to crown one winner and one loser. I believe that everyone should be able to win and that everyone should be rewarded for having their heart in the fight. It would make me sad to see people trying to compete with a game I made."
All the articles you refer to, all the interviews, have Sakurai strictly talking about an online ranking system. He doesn't want the casual players to realize they suck, because that would be BAD for the game's word-of-mouth. They want those players to keep living in oblivion, keep thinking they're good, thus keep thinking that the game is great and spreading the word about how good the game is.
Er... thanks, I guess, for confirming that you've never read anything Sakurai's written about his game development. He's almost never written specifically about an online rankings system because he wouldn't even consider it. He has, however, talked about the lack of communication online (which in itself is more proof that he worked against competition) and how he did so to provide a safer, lighter, and more fun environment for kids playing with Wi-Fi. Competitive, my ***.
Conversely, he WANTS the hardcore to organize tournaments OFFLINE because that creates huge advertising due to use of it in leagues and tourneys requirement for venues. Online rankings would reduce the need for those, and why would the developer want to give up that kind of exposure?
What, you think the casuals were the ones who made Melee get taken up by the MLG?
Seriously, it's just good business.
People need to stop being paranoid and start seeing things objectively.
AWRGHGMG NOOOOOOO ARWMGMGMGMG NOOOOOOOOOO
I'm not sure if I can take this anymore. I guess I can cut you some slack for being a March 08'er and for being able to write competently, but... wow.
How the hell do offline tournaments create HUGE ADVERTISING? Competitive Smash, especially before the influx of Brawlers, is a very small niche. There are about 120,000 members on Smashboards. That basically encompasses everyone who even
knows that a competitive scene exists and tournaments are held. Now, I'll take a wild guess and say that about a third of those people actually attend tournaments (it's probably much lower). That's 40,000. 40,000 people who play competitively and another 80,000 who hear about it. That isn't going to get sales anywhere. Our community is very discrete, tournaments are not advertised or flaunted, there's no way it would be very beneficial for Nintendo.
Contrarily, online rankings give a whole lot more advertising because there are a lot more players with access to Wi-Fi than the amount that travels to tournaments. Already, the first season of the MLG ladders for Brawl singles attracted 6,652 players. Wi-Fi wars has 2,131 players registered on their ladder. There are 5,882 players registered on Smash Brawl Rankings. Together, that's 14,665 players, which is already over a third of my estimate of how many people play Melee competitively. Brawl's been out for months, Melee's been out for years. I think we can assume that online rankings are very beneficial for the game's popularity.
For a while, when I was a young noob, I too believed that competitive Smash (or the competitive scene for anything but Halo, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft) was a source of exposure and revenue for Nintendo that they would acknowledge and exists symbiotically with. However, that belief has been reduced to a dream for myself and all other competitive Smashers. We would love if Nintendo saw our success in playing their games so goddarn seriously and in holding these tournaments, but they seem to hardly know we exist. (I mean, honestly, they held a tournament once and it was FFA.)
You're going to have to do more than just give me your version to make that credible. As I said before, look at all the tourney videos that are on YouTube. Notice how none of them are decently affected by tripping? Those are tourney vids. I'd much rather base my opinion off of videos of matches that actually mattered. If tripping didn't affect any of them then, statistically speaking, it must not be as big a deal as some people make it out to be.
I know better than to use my own experiences with the game as a baseline for these conclusions.
All your "examples" of how my logic is flawed aren't actually showcasing my logic at all.
This would be more appropriate use of my logic:
"I can play 55 out 56 games with tripping having little effect on my game, therefore tripping has very little impact on the game as a whole and I would be overreacting if I thought otherwise."
Yes, tripping doesn't happen very often and yes, rarely are matches skewed by it. Most people, including myself, have never made a bug fuss about it because it really is just a tiny annoyance and the largest attention is ever got was that it's the best example of why Brawl is bad.
BUT... just because it's a small issue doesn't mean that we shouldn't remove it if we can with zero downsides, with perfectly predicted side-effects (of which there are none), and without costing anyone time or money.
This may seem like an opening to argue that if applied to other aspects of the game I'm basically saying that anything small that we don't like we can remove. Well, no. Tripping is absolutely unique in that when we remove it we are not even touching the game's balancing nor are we affecting any other aspects. Tripping only serves to randomly screw you over, and it doesn't effect playstyles because an approach knowing that tripping exists is exactly the same as an approach with tripping removed.
You succeed in buying drugs 9 out of 10 times because you know how to avoid and get past the cops. You do that well because the cops MAKE you do it well.
So if you knew a better, safer location to buy drugs at you wouldn't use it because the current spot is one you've been using for a long time (even though it also happens to be an occasional hang-out place for crime fighters)?
You succeed in blocking so many shots because you attempt to block them all, the players who shoot the ball at you leave you with no choice but to be good.
So if you could coach your defense to learn to stop good players' offenses, you wouldn't since your defense couldn't do so when you started playing with the team?
You don't succeed in having a good game because tripping forced you to be good. There's no correlation between tripping and your ability to be good at the game.
This is a good few sentences and it seems out of place with our opinion, although I know what you're trying to say with it in this refutation.
That's why your examples were terrible. There's enormous correlation between you needing to be good at getting under the cops because they exist and will arrest you otherwise. There's enormous correlation between you needing to be good at blocking those shots because people are shooting at you and will score otherwise.
There's no correlation with you needing to be good at Brawl because there's tripping in the game and you'll suck otherwise. You don't strive to be good because tripping exists. You strive to be good because cops and strikers exist, though. See the difference in my logic and the logic you thought I had?
You did a really good job or ruining my examples, but unfortunately you missed the point of them. It's not about anything but the fact that each of the situations I presented had something non-beneficial that happened with a low chance, like tripping. They could have been examples of any similar situation, maybe one that you would accept, but my point was that if there's something negative happening, even if it occurs rarely, the chance to remove the fear of it happening with no downsides and no side-effects should be taken.
It doesn't make it a better game.
But it doesn't make it a worse game either.
It actually does make it a worse game. Have you ever seen a fighter before that employed tripping? Why do you think that is?
I'll give you a hint: it's not because Sakurai is a brilliant visionary.
Whatever stance you choose on the matter, it's all a question of opinion.
But you're not willing to hear other people's opinions unless it fits your ideal vision of the game.
And in this case your own vision is based on a lack of experience. Go to a few tournaments (unless you can't) and soon you'll understand a whole lot more about what competitive Smash is and means.
That's cool. I'm neutral on tripping. I'm not for it or against it. You can debate that with someone who IS a supporter of it. Because I'm just someone who accepts it without making a fuss.
I just think people are overreacting in resorting to hacks in order to "fix" a game that isn't really very broken.... at least not any moreso than Melee was...
I invite you to go back and read my posts and find me EVER saying that I support tripping. Cause you won't find it. All you'll find is me saying that there's an overreaction to it and I don't think that reaction is as needed as people make it out to be. Because I'm neutral.
Alright. I'll admit that I made an assumption that you were opposed to the removal of tripping rather than just pointing out the overreaction and I apologize for that. I won't discuss whether tripping is good or not with you anymore.
EDIT: loooool my poasts r 2 big gais shud i get n operashun
