What Are Your Unpopular Gaming Opinions? (Ver. 2)

[LiveStudioAudience]

While there's a lot of discussion about missed opportunities with the Sonic franchise (what if X-Treme's development was not troubled, if 06 had been allowed another year of work, if the Boost games' momentum had continued after Generations) there's an interesting one that I don't often see get mentioned. What if Sonic had had a series of mainline arcade releases in the 90s (specifically in Japan) separate from the console games?

It doesn't seem that significant but had something like that happened, there could have been numerous consequences down the line. Firstly, it's the kind of thing that could have allowed the franchise a greater presence in Japan much sooner than the Adventure era. Even when that scene was beginning to decline close to the 5th generation in American and Europe, it still endured in the East for much longer and a foundation of titles in that space (with most allowed to be localized to Western arcades eventually) could have really changed Sonic's standing in that region if the games were popular enough.

Secondly, having that kind of line of games from a practical standpoint would have necessitated a specific group to work on it, especially once Sonic Team suffered burnout after the Mega Drive era. Having another team of young developers making games for that kind of hardware not only could have allowed fresh perspectives on the series, but it might have also become experienced enough for SoJ and especially Naka to eventually trust with home console releases. With the dubious communication between the branches of the company in the Saturn era and the disastrous nature of X-Treme's development, a home-grown group that had actual Sonic releases under their belt might been allowed to bloom in a way Chris Senn and his team weren't.

Finally, it could have been a series of releases that beefed up the libraries of the Dreamcast (and perhaps other consoles after) down the line. Even Sonic arcade games that leaned into very immersive parts of that scene (wide screens, deluxe sound, non-split screen multiplayer) could have been translated into the home experience as technologies improved and replicating the arcade feel became possible. For all intents and purposes, a parallel series of Sonic games to the home/portable lines might have been something that could have improved the latter libraries of both with ports just by its unique identity alone.

I'm not saying all this could have made Sonic an AAA franchise in Japan, saved the Dreamcast, or would have steered the series away from missteps in the 6th/7th generations. However, it is something that could have greatly strengthened the franchise at its weaker points and allowed it a more significant legacy in the one video game field where it lacks much of one.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I think a lot of people who aren't Bubsy fans don't really understand the character - not saying this because knowing the truth would make them like Bubsy and more because I've been seeing a bit of misconception surrounding the writing in Purrfect Collection's trailer - Bubsy was always an intentionally obnoxious character, he wasn't made to be cool; came off as obnoxious; and then they made him intentionally obnoxious as a meta-joke, from the start he was a cowardly, bratty egotist, more a heroic take on a Daffy Duck archetype than a smart-alec Bart Simpson/Sonic/Bugs Bunny character - The gameplay of CEOTFK, while not very good, was designed around that principal with its one-hit deaths, and it's extremely apparent from his dialog in both the game and the manual. The Bubsy 3D voice actress, Lani Minella, has even stated her voice direction was to be annoying. Making Bubsy's new trailer "Gex's trailer but Bubsy completely fails to copy it" is not saying "haha, these Bubsy games we're selling you suck, Gex is better", it's just being true to the characters of both Bubsy and Gex - Bubsy was created to be a loser, Gex wasn't. the marketing (with one exception showed below) and cartoon pilot are quite clearly where this misconception spawned from (the marketing often showed Bubsy as a star actor, the cartoon pilot portrays Bubsy more as a really poorly written Sonic than Bubsy), and the fact that most other 90s platforming games had cool characters exemplified it.

I'm very excited for Purrfect Collection, It might not be clear from the trailer, but it's going to be an "interactive documentary" like Atari 50, it's being directed by the guy who made Arzette, who also did a great Bubsy video for Digital Foundry, and if anyone can talk about bad games in a respectful and nuanced manner, it's gonna be someone who worked on Arzette.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Also, as far as Bubsy, the dirty secret about his first two games... is that they're not terrible titles. Definitely have a whole host of design issues and at their very best they're C minus platformers relying on a lot of the charm of Bubsy's animations to carry them, but even among the mascots with attitude lot, you can do worse.

Awesome Possum for Genesis is more miserable experience than any 16 Bubsy entry, if only because the latter at least has decent aesthetics while the former just comes off as cheap visually on top of dubious gameplay. I can at least have shooting enemies with a nerf gun in Bubsy 2 which above anything Awesome Possum manages.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Also, as far as Bubsy, the dirty secret about his first two games... is that they're not terrible titles. Definitely have a whole host of design issues and at their very best they're C minus platformers relying on a lot of the charm of Bubsy's animations to carry them, but even among the mascots with attitude lit, you can do worse.

Awesome Possum for Genesis is more miserable experience than any 16 Bubsy entry, if only because the latter at least has decent aesthetics while the former just comes off as cheap visually on top of dubious gameplay. I can at least have shooting enemies with a nerf gun in Bubsy 2 which above anything Awesome Possum manages.

Bubsy 2 is really awful IMO, much worse than 3D, very messy level layouts and one of those "let's be everything" kinda games - but CEOTFK is kinda just below average teetering on bad - though, when you look into the history of Bubsy's late creator, Michael Berlyn, it makes sense why - he had a background in text adventures, the biggest flaw of CEOTFK is cryptic death causes, which aren't just common but outright the expected and wanted standard in text adventures - however, I think outside of the gameplay, they succeeded at creating the aesthetic atmosphere they wanted perfectly, the jazz music; comical deaths; charming animations, it's all got that "interactive cartoon" vibe down to a T, I think of Bubsy 1 almost as a prototype for what games like Cuphead and Pizza Tower would master (not that it was the only game getting "playable cartoon" right at the time, even if they're a little more fantasy than comedy, the 16-bit Disney movie games deserve special note)

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

Bubsy 1's major issue is just the one hit deaths. You can't make a character move that fast and not give either the player a chance to screw up (like Sonic does with rings) or some way of better handling the levels. It doesn't render it unplayable by any stretch, but there's frustrating sense that there's a fairer game there that just never gets the chance to come out.

My Bubsy 2 memories are likely colored by the fact that I always played with cheats and it basically became a game to screw around with rather than try and progress in. The base game without them probably is mediocre, but I can't really recall any bad memories with it because of the aforementioned playstyle.

Which also brings another up another possibly unpopular opinion that cheat codes were an underrated aspect of difficulty balance back in the day. Yeah, it was a bit shameful that you pretty much had to shell out money to magazines or hear from your friends to use them, but they really did elevate the gaming experience for many titles back in 3rd through 6th generations.

 

[Quillion]

Bubsy was always an intentionally obnoxious character, he wasn't made to be cool; came off as obnoxious; and then they made him intentionally obnoxious as a meta-joke, from the start he was a cowardly, bratty egotist, more a heroic take on a Daffy Duck archetype than a smart-alec Bart Simpson/Sonic/Bugs Bunny character...

Thing is, the "intentionally" reasoning when it comes to parody can only go so far until it fails to achieve its intention.

Either it's too sincere/serious at too many moments to succeed as a parody (like Fire Emblem Engage attempting to parody its series), or the parody is just too obnoxious or mean-spirited to laugh at. I have limited knowledge of Bubsy, but I'd wager that series falls squarely into the latter.
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Speaking of overly obnoxious and/or mean-spirited parodies, I think Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts could have found more of an audience, even with its series genre shift, if it committed a lot harder to it being a reinvention of the series as opposed to trying to continue from Tooie.

Yeah, there'd be a divide between the players either way (just look at the classic Zelda fans vs. Wild Saga Zelda fans now), but N&B frequently makes reference to the characters and events in the N64 games. They sabotaged their own effort to get a new audience by confusing them. Of course, it didn't help that N&B made fun of current gamers at the time alongside the N64 games.

 

[fogbadge]

Thing is, the "intentionally" reasoning when it comes to parody can only go so far until it fails to achieve its intention.

Either it's too sincere/serious at too many moments to succeed as a parody (like Fire Emblem Engage attempting to parody its series), or the parody is just too obnoxious or mean-spirited to laugh at. I have limited knowledge of Bubsy, but I'd wager that series falls squarely into the latter.
----
Speaking of overly obnoxious and/or mean-spirited parodies, I think Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts could have found more of an audience, even with its series genre shift, if it committed a lot harder to it being a reinvention of the series as opposed to trying to continue from Tooie.

Yeah, there'd be a divide between the players either way (just look at the classic Zelda fans vs. Wild Saga Zelda fans now), but N&B frequently makes reference to the characters and events in the N64 games. They sabotaged their own effort to get a new audience by confusing them. Of course, it didn't help that N&B made fun of current gamers at the time alongside the N64 games.

two things: one where did you hear that Engage was a parody of the rest of the series? Two the Zelda fandom always argues with itself. That’s not new

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Thing is, the "intentionally" reasoning when it comes to parody can only go so far until it fails to achieve its intention.

Either it's too sincere/serious at too many moments to succeed as a parody (like Fire Emblem Engage attempting to parody its series), or the parody is just too obnoxious or mean-spirited to laugh at. I have limited knowledge of Bubsy, but I'd wager that series falls squarely into the latt

Bubsy isn't a parody of anything though. He's not supposed to be "Sonic if he was an idiot", he's a played straight golden age cartoon anti-hero in the veins of Daffy Duck who happens to be in a Sonic-style game. The idea for Bubsy was a Looney Tunes/Fleischer/Jay Ward homage in a Sonic gameplay style, not "what if Sonic sucked?", and the heroes in those old cartoons usually sucked, if you could even call them heroes, with the occasional Bugs Bunny or Walt-written Mickey serving as always-winning exceptions. just as Cuphead isn't a "parody" of Metal Slug, just a comedic game that plays like Metal Slug.

Speaking of overly obnoxious and/or mean-spirited parodies, I think Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts could have found more of an audience, even with its series genre shift, if it committed a lot harder to it being a reinvention of the series as opposed to trying to continue from Tooie.

Yeah, there'd be a divide between the players either way (just look at the classic Zelda fans vs. Wild Saga Zelda fans now), but N&B frequently makes reference to the characters and events in the N64 games. They sabotaged their own effort to get a new audience by confusing them. Of course, it didn't help that N&B made fun of current gamers at the time alongside the N64 games.

British person here. N&B's writing is what all British humour is like, including the previous Banjo and DKC games - all of Rare's comedy games in the 90s had jabs at 80s games that were just as "mean" as N&B's jabs at 90s games, because that's because that's how British people work. Having reverence for yourself is frowned upon, and self-deprecation is the norm, not because we hate ourselves, but just because we don't like presenting ourselves as grandstanding. The real "problem" with N&B, if anything, is just that the N64 didn't sell in the UK, so there weren't that many mediators in the Banjo fandom who could just go and tell people "this is how British people work", combined with the sort of persecution mentality in platformer fandom at the time - same goes for the whole controversy with "Banjo-Threeie", because it's extremely obvious that that's a joke if you're British and play the game with the knowledge that the game itself is British and not a Japanese Nintendo or American Microsoft creation. Very much the kind of writing you'd see in British kids' media like The Beano or The Dandy.

 

[Quillion]

Bubsy isn't a parody of anything though. He's not supposed to be "Sonic if he was an idiot", he's a played straight golden age cartoon anti-hero in the veins of Daffy Duck who happens to be in a Sonic-style game. The idea for Bubsy was a Looney Tunes/Fleischer/Jay Ward homage in a Sonic gameplay style, not "what if Sonic sucked?", and the heroes in those old cartoons usually sucked, if you could even call them heroes, with the occasional Bugs Bunny or Walt-written Mickey serving as always-winning exceptions. just as Cuphead isn't a "parody" of Metal Slug, just a comedic game that plays like Metal Slug.

Even still, it doesn't seem they executed the intention very well.

British person here. N&B's writing is what all British humour is like, including the previous Banjo and DKC games - all of Rare's comedy games in the 90s had jabs at 80s games that were just as "mean" as N&B's jabs at 90s games, because that's because that's how British people work. Having reverence for yourself is frowned upon, and self-deprecation is the norm, not because we hate ourselves, but just because we don't like presenting ourselves as grandstanding. The real "problem" with N&B, if anything, is just that the N64 didn't sell in the UK, so there weren't that many mediators in the Banjo fandom who could just go and tell people "this is how British people work", combined with the sort of persecution mentality in platformer fandom at the time - same goes for the whole controversy with "Banjo-Threeie", because it's extremely obvious that that's a joke if you're British and play the game with the knowledge that the game itself is British and not a Japanese Nintendo or American Microsoft creation. Very much the kind of writing you'd see in British kids' media like The Beano or The Dandy.

As an American citizen, I get that. I love me some British humor sometimes, from greats like Monty Python to the occasional British comedy sketches you can find on the internet.

Still, I think the self-deprecation would have worked far better if was fully committed to reinventing Banjo as opposed to confusing potential newcomers about jokes they can't get since they wouldn't have played the N64 games.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

Even still, it doesn't seem they executed the intention very well.

I think you're missing that I wasn't defending Bubsy there, I was defending the trailer for Purrfect Collection, which some people have misconstrued as "this character sucks, and now we know it!" and not just Bubsy being portrayed correctly.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think the issue with Nuts & Bolts was that sort of humor is going to work best with an audience somewhat predisposed to liking the game to begin with and given that it already attracted controversy before release for not being the traditional sequel much of the fanbase expected the jabs/jokes were likely doomed not to land with much of the audience anyway. I'm reminded a bit of Mighty No 9's infamous Masterclass trailer which was poorly conceived regardless but was received much worse because of the numerous delays, Inafune controversies, and disappointing visuals the project already had at that point. The tolerance for Insults and/or obnoxious tone is inverse to the level of hype and its always risky to indulge in the former when the latter appears to be fading.

 

[Quillion]

I think you're missing that I wasn't defending Bubsy there, I was defending the trailer for Purrfect Collection, which some people have misconstrued as "this character sucks, and now we know it!" and not just Bubsy being portrayed correctly.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

I'm just so burned by all the "It's supposed to be X!" excuses for poor communication of being/executing "X" that I was hasty there.

I think the issue with Nuts & Bolts was that sort of humor is going to work best with an audience somewhat predisposed to liking the game to begin with and given that it already attracted controversy before release for not being the traditional sequel much of the fanbase expected the jabs/jokes were likely doomed not to land with much of the audience anyway. I'm reminded a bit of Mighty No 9's infamous Masterclass trailer which was poorly conceived regardless but was received much worse because of the numerous delays, Inafune controversies, and disappointing visuals the project already had at that point. The tolerance for Insults and/or obnoxious tone is inverse to the level of hype and its always risky to indulge in the former when the latter appears to be fading.

Even then, they really shouldn't have referenced the older games as much as they did.

If they were going to self-deprecate, they should've just self-deprecated about what they're doing in the moment. Not try to do it about the old games and the now in equal measure.
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I seriously think the Street Fighter II-style traditional fighter should be a template used for more minigames.

If the traditional fighter is practically dead as an idea for spin-offs of existing franchises, why not simplify it further and make it part of other games?

 

[Perkilator]

I know “Thing, Japan” is a meme and everything, but considering how much ******** is going on in the western side of the video game industry, it’s now a mindset that I agree with to an extent.

You remember how Iwata slashed his own salary to avoid layoffs during the Wii U era? A lot of devs nowadays can’t even have that much love, regardless of whether or not their project was a success in the eyes of companies like Microsoft.

 

[Quillion]

I know “Thing, Japan” is a meme and everything, but considering how much ******** is going on in the western side of the video game industry, it’s now a mindset that I agree with to an extent.

You remember how Iwata slashed his own salary to avoid layoffs during the Wii U era? A lot of devs nowadays can’t even have that much love, regardless of whether or not their project was a success in the eyes of companies like Microsoft.

You either stay in a brutal, cutthroat work culture (Japan), or you get laid off because your company's higher ups made some bad investments (west).

While the former arguably is better, neither are outright good.

 

[StormC]

I know “Thing, Japan” is a meme and everything, but considering how much ******** is going on in the western side of the video game industry, it’s now a mindset that I agree with to an extent.

You remember how Iwata slashed his own salary to avoid layoffs during the Wii U era? A lot of devs nowadays can’t even have that much love, regardless of whether or not their project was a success in the eyes of companies like Microsoft.

This is mostly down to Japan having laws in place to prevent mass layoffs, with a few exceptions.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I know “Thing, Japan” is a meme and everything, but considering how much ******** is going on in the western side of the video game industry, it’s now a mindset that I agree with to an extent.

You remember how Iwata slashed his own salary to avoid layoffs during the Wii U era? A lot of devs nowadays can’t even have that much love, regardless of whether or not their project was a success in the eyes of companies like Microsoft.

To be fair, most Japanese game companies aren't even that nice these days. There's a reason Nintendo became noticeably less consumer-friendly the second Iwata kicked the bucket.

 

[Quillion]

To be fair, most Japanese game companies aren't even that nice these days. There's a reason Nintendo became noticeably less consumer-friendly the second Iwata kicked the bucket.

There's also a solid argument that Sega is only as consumer-friendly as they are out of desperation considering prior history.

Even still, there are parts of Sega that still aren't like Atlus sometimes, given how decentralized Sega always has been.

Really, this is why the Japanese side of the industry deserves a lot of the same trouble that plagues the West now. They need to correct themselves too.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I really don't buy the "Iwata good" narriative, he was in charge when Nintendo was shutting down charity streams, Nintendo started using labor from Foxconn under his reign (they still haven't stopped getting their consoles made at Foxconn BTW, even following the mass suicides and child labor allegations), ex-employees have alledged that he knew about the **** Reggie was pulling at NOA and didn't really care, the very marketing cult of personality he excelled at is really questionable (even if it originated much earlier in the Howard and Nester comics), and honestly the whole cutting pay thing strikes me as a PR stunt, I think any corporate figure committing an act of "goodwill" like that is only truly well intentioned if we don't know about it until decades after the fact, if at all.

 

[Quillion]

I personally wouldn't buy any "corporate head good" OR "corporate head bad" stories anymore.

These guys in any video game company are a lot more complex than internet kids think.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

There's a general worldwide tendency to separate companies (and very often prominent figures at them) into bad or good categories despite the complicated nature of all of them. While some are genuinely worse than others, even a business like Konami has far more nuance than the "evil corporation that abandoned video games for Pachinko and screwed over Kojima" narrative that became the standard in the West after 2015.

 

[Quillion]

Despite the fact I don't play modern traditional fighters, Terry and Mai in Street Fighter 6 feels like the last straw of crossovers for me. This trend needs to take a long rest.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I think broader business and macroeconomic factors are something that needs more heavily looked at with gaming history. Stuff like regional recessions, exchange rates, and prices of materials like chips aren't the most exciting things to talk about, but they're critical factors in understanding why companies made certain decisions and how games/consoles ended up performing the way they did. Japan's Lost Decade in the 90s likely played a factor in the eventual downturn of many mid-level developers (Data East, Sunsoft) that simply couldn't weather the storm of that situation just to name one.

 

[Perkilator]

Despite the fact I don't play modern traditional fighters, Terry and Mai in Street Fighter 6 feels like the last straw of crossovers for me. This trend needs to take a long rest.

I’m gonna be blunt: if it really upsets you that much, then I think it’s better to stop thinking about, maybe take a break from the internet and focus on things you do like.

 

[Quillion]

After seeing Fire Emblem fans expect a 35th anniversary celebration, I'm honestly starting to see 5x anniversaries as being annoying instead of something to celebrate. This goes equally for companies who obligatorily celebrate them and fans who expect them.

I can still get behind 10x anniversaries though.

 

[Champion of Hyrule]

A new Marvel vs Capcom game should not take the artstyle of MvC3. That game's artstyle isn't bad but it took a direction similar to 2000s comics with very emphasized shadows and I honestly don't think it's aged the best. Something like the Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Beyond mod with a more bright aesthetic would be infinitely better and more accurate to modern comics.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

I don't really get why people think there's a difference between listening to fans and listening to corporate, they're ultimately the same thing - an outsider's opinion, value-neutral but typically made without the full picture - and 9 times out of 10 it's in the latter's best interest (especially in the internet age) to align with the wants of the prior.

 

[fogbadge]

I don't really get why people think there's a difference between listening to fans and listening to corporate, they're ultimately the same thing - an outsider's opinion, value-neutral but typically made without the full picture - and 9 times out of 10 it's in the latter's best interest (especially in the internet age) to align with the wants of the prior.

I thought game devs should listen to the voices in their heads. end results tend to be more interesting

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

I've seen some recent discussion/rancor online about young American fans (particularly Nintendo ones) not appreciating arcade games or the long legacy they have over the broader industry. While the simplistic response would be it's just shallow gamers with no interest in history, I think the answer is a bit more complicated.

The biggest problem (beyond the cutting-edge technology making business sense for home consoles rather than arcades) is that much of the West, particularly the United States, eventually developed a culture that lacked the same kind reverence for that scene and for many reasons. Chief among them was just looking at the major players of the past 25 years. Put aside even the rise of western third parties with no roots in the arcade scene you had three major hardware makers with varying connections to arcade machines, and none of them strong.

Sony was an electronics giant that certainly had some experience but made its big money and initial splash with the PSX. Even while boasting a larger arcade port library than the N64, it lacked the same kind faithfulness to games like the Marvel vs Capcom series that the Saturn possessed and kept much of their focus on offering cutting edge home titles. Microsoft obviously came from the computing world after arcades had already started to decline and from the very beginning was marketed as having the power of the PC with the convivence of a console, marking even less of a connection to that former market.

But even Nintendo, which had actual arcade releases and literally was made famous by the 1981 release of Donkey Kong, never had the same kind of strong presence in it like a Sega, SNK, or Namco. It had the Nintendo vs series in the 80s and had token releases like F-Zero and Mario Kart GP to make modest profits, but beyond that their focus was the home and portable console fields which they made gains in as soon as they could (with Game & Watch being the breakout success even before Donkey Kong).

Essentially once Atari and Sega (two companies which had roots in the arcade scene and maintained a presence even after making consoles) effectively ceased making home systems, the overlap between those two worlds greatly diminished. But even further than that, it was another media form in the West which effectively replaced that scene in a lot of ways, home computer gaming.

As personal PC's really started gaining ground with stuff like Doom exploding in popularity and the technical hurdles becoming less of an issue with each computer generation, the demographic that might have been inclined to still experience arcades shifted towards PC's. It wasn't the same social aspect, and no real form has ever quite recaptured what playing those with people were like, but it was a kind of competitive multiplayer on an incredible scale and often with a genre (the FPS) which few systems (home or arcade) ever quite did the same justice to. Then once online play for stuff like traditional fighters became more common, arcades making any kind of comeback on a grand scale became doomed because alternative means offered too much convenience for the crowd most inclined to still enjoy arcades.

All this is a contrast to places like Japan where things like space being a premium meant that arcades still maintained a strong novelty and the socialization aspect having different cultural elements in play than the US. Even much of Mexico and South America still hold a strong love for arcades due to them being more practical to play than the problematic nature of playing actual console releases outside the grey market.

Long story short, while younger players should more thoroughly explore arcade titles, in places like the United States, there hasn't really been an effective means (with arcade ports being terribly inconsistent by the big companies on top of Dave & Busters only having so many options) nor as much fandom incentive to really experience them. To merely point the finger at gamers under 25 and say they're just uneducated and/or unappreciative about arcades is to ignore that the cultural context of the past quarter century hasn't done much to reinforce their value in all regions equally.

 

[Lenidem]

I've seen some recent discussion/rancor online about young American fans (particularly Nintendo ones) not appreciating arcade games or the long legacy they have over the broader industry. While the simplistic response would be it's just shallow gamers with no interest in history, I think the answer is a bit more complicated.

The biggest problem (beyond the cutting-edge technology making business sense for home consoles rather than arcades) is that much of the West, particularly the United States, eventually developed a culture that lacked the same kind reverence for that scene and for many reasons. Chief among them was just looking at the major players of the past 25 years. Put aside even the rise of western third parties with no roots in the arcade scene you had three major hardware makers with varying connections to arcade machines, and none of them strong.

Sony was an electronics giant that certainly had some experience but made its big money and initial splash with the PSX. Even while boasting a larger arcade port library than the N64, it lacked the same kind faithfulness to games like the Marvel vs Capcom series that the Saturn possessed and kept much of their focus on offering cutting edge home titles. Microsoft obviously came from the computing world after arcades had already started to decline and from the very beginning was marketed as having the power of the PC with the convivence of a console, marking even less of a connection to that former market.

But even Nintendo, which had actual arcade releases and literally was made famous by the 1981 release of Donkey Kong, never had the same kind of strong presence in it like a Sega, SNK, or Namco. It had the Nintendo vs series in the 80s and had token releases like F-Zero and Mario Kart GP to make modest profits, but beyond that their focus was the home and portable console fields which they made gains in as soon as they could (with Game & Watch being the breakout success even before Donkey Kong).

Essentially once Atari and Sega (two companies which had roots in the arcade scene and maintained a presence even after making consoles) effectively ceased making home systems, the overlap between those two worlds greatly diminished. But even further than that, it was another media form in the West which effectively replaced that scene in a lot of ways, home computer gaming.

As personal PC's really started gaining ground with stuff like Doom exploding in popularity and the technical hurdles becoming less of an issue with each computer generation, the demographic that might have been inclined to still experience arcades shifted towards PC's. It wasn't the same social aspect, and no real form has ever quite recaptured what playing those with people were like, but it was a kind of competitive multiplayer on an incredible scale and often with a genre (the FPS) which few systems (home or arcade) ever quite did the same justice to. Then once online play for stuff like traditional fighters became more common, arcades making any kind of comeback on a grand scale became doomed because alternative means offered too much convenience for the crowd most inclined to still enjoy arcades.

All this is a contrast to places like Japan where things like space being a premium meant that arcades still maintained a strong novelty and the socialization aspect having different cultural elements in play than the US. Even much of Mexico and South America still hold a strong love for arcades due to them being more practical to play than the problematic nature of playing actual console releases outside the grey market.

Long story short, while younger players should more thoroughly explore arcade titles, in places like the United States, there hasn't really been an effective means (with arcade ports being terribly inconsistent by the big companies on top of Dave & Busters only having so many options) nor as much fandom incentive to really experience them. To merely point the finger at gamers under 25 and say they're just uneducated and/or unappreciative about arcades is to ignore that the cultural context of the past quarter century hasn't done much to reinforce their value in all regions equally.

Belgian here. In Brussels, the capital of the country, there is, to my knowledge, nowhere to play arcades. Sometimes there is a new place popping up, but it's very rare and it never stays open long.

 

[osby]

Easy modes and save-anywhere features should also be included in or at least discussed alongside with accessibility options.

 

[Quillion]

I don't really get why people think there's a difference between listening to fans and listening to corporate, they're ultimately the same thing - an outsider's opinion, value-neutral but typically made without the full picture - and 9 times out of 10 it's in the latter's best interest (especially in the internet age) to align with the wants of the prior.

I thought game devs should listen to the voices in their heads. end results tend to be more interesting

This is why creative-business relations needs to be a legitimate profession.

Honestly, overly and singularly focusing on feedback from creatives, feedback from fans, OR feedback from corporate all lead to stagnation.

 

[Perkilator]

There was a problem fetching the tweet

I think depending on what kind of game it is, more games should have a $60 special edition with all the DLC.

 

[LiveStudioAudience]

With Concord now essentially a dead game walking and the comparisons to previous infamous industry flops are being thrown about I would say that the title is similar to something like the Atari E.T. game, but not for the reasons one might think. I think both were ultimately guilty of not really being bad games (even Concord at its worst appears to be a competent albeit unspectacular hero shooter), but at the unluckiest possible times symbols of the worst trends in the gaming market.

E.T. was emblematic of Atari's overreliance on licensed releases, allowing the industry to become excessively flooded with product, and generally not paying attention to how the market was evolving with both third parties on top of the numerous places cartridges were being sold. The game itself, while being a waste of the expensive license and much too unintuitive for the average player is functional to the point where if you know what you're doing you can hypothetically have some fun with. However, the damage was done, and it was the tipping point to all of Atari (and specifically Ray Kassar's) business mistakes.

In that same fashion, regardless of the few fans that have discovered its a reasonably okay release Concord is being viewed as the natural end point of all the dubious trends in the 8th/9th generations:

-Overbudgeted, with a rumored cost of 200 million plus to make
-Acting as a blatantly obvious trend chaser, stepping into an already crowded Hero Shooter genre & lacking any new ideas for it
-Excessively long development time, to the point where the trends its chasing were much more in vogue 6-7 years ago when its real production began
-Design sensibilities as done by committee, with any coherence or charm to the characters stripped away in favor of a corporate facsimile of quirky
-Being another live service release when that niche is already being seen with increasing skepticism about its viability and potential for developer greed
-An out of touch understanding of the consumer market with a $40 price tag that was laughable to fans that could play more interesting games for free

In the grand scheme the actual quality of either title is really irrelevant to both being rightfully seen as representative of everything that had and now has gone wrong with gaming.

 

[Perkilator]

You know how people used suggest things like an Echo Pass for Smash Ultimate or a separate character pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? I’m gonna be real, I never liked those kinds of ideas. Things like those are the kinds of things, along with alternate costumes, that I think should ideally be bundled with the main DLC.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

While I don't think "piracy good" is necessarily an unpopular take, at least on small hobbyist sites like SmashBoards, I do think that when people talk about gaming history - and more specifically the histories of individual games and consoles - there is a strange habit of whitewashing out the positive impacts of piracy and bootlegging outside of their circles. This is probably just a matter of piracy being such an isolated taboo thing that nobody wants to look into it, rather than some corporate or pro-corporate conspiracy, but I think - for instance - we should acknowledge SF2 Rainbow Edition as a groundbreaking fighting game, how EarthBound already had a substantial cult following in the US prior to Smash 64 thanks to piracy and ROM trading, the overlap between demoscene groups and legitimate developers and how demos and their technology influenced legit releases, how instrumental homebrew emulators have been in the creation of remakes and retro throwback games (even Nintendo's dabbled in a bit of open-source emulation), how Pepsiman's cult icon status outside of Japan is largely thanks to PS1 piracy in Latin America - in fact, just the Latin American gaming experience in general - to name a few.

 

[HyperSomari64]

While I don't think "piracy good" is necessarily an unpopular take, at least on small hobbyist sites like SmashBoards, I do think that when people talk about gaming history - and more specifically the histories of individual games and consoles - there is a strange habit of whitewashing out the positive impacts of piracy and bootlegging outside of their circles. This is probably just a matter of piracy being such an isolated taboo thing that nobody wants to look into it, rather than some corporate or pro-corporate conspiracy, but I think - for instance - we should acknowledge SF2 Rainbow Edition as a groundbreaking fighting game, how EarthBound already had a substantial cult following in the US prior to Smash 64 thanks to piracy and ROM trading, the overlap between demoscene groups and legitimate developers and how demos and their technology influenced legit releases, how instrumental homebrew emulators have been in the creation of remakes and retro throwback games (even Nintendo's dabbled in a bit of open-source emulation), how Pepsiman's cult icon status outside of Japan is largely thanks to PS1 piracy in Latin America - in fact, just the Latin American gaming experience in general - to name a few.

As a Latin American myself, I appreciate your post.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

You know how people used suggest things like an Echo Pass for Smash Ultimate or a separate character pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? I’m gonna be real, I never liked those kinds of ideas. Things like those are the kinds of things, along with alternate costumes, that I think should ideally be bundled with the main DLC.

I do not like this idea - I think bundling DLC together can be a dangerous thing, since you will inevitatlbly get say, someone who wants the Funky Kong echo fighter but not the unique Cranky Kong character for example. Or pricing issues with bundled content being proposed as "free" when really they just lifted up the price of everything else, or hell even just a level of disorganisation, like only 3 or so BCP waves coming with characters and it not being made clear going in that they were coming. Bundled content is especially bad for mystery season passes, which Nintendo have been known to do - the Rex and legendary armour Mii costumes were a pretty clear attempt to get people to gamble on the fighter pass before everything was revealed for instance, something that - despite Sakurai advising against - other sources from Nintendo were pretty clearly gunning for. All bundling smaller content with bigger content does is put a higher price wall on the smaller content and potentially isolate players who may enjoy one but not the other, nothing else.

 

[Quillion]

Length is a better metric to price a game than "content quality".

...not because the former is an infallible metric by any means, but trying to quantify "quality" for the sake of pricing is extremely subjective to the point of meaninglessness. Length is at least a quantifiable metric, give or take variation between players who just stick to the main stuff and players who want to explore all the side stuff too.

 

[Oracle Link]

Link/ The zelda series looks the best when they do cute graphics (Zelda 1, The Gameboy titles, Toon titles and the toy titles) Then when they attempt realistic ones! Sure link usually looks fine (although not as good as in simple) but the enemys usually look butt ugly!

 

[TheAetherGuy]

-The Last of Us 2 is a bit overhated. It's not perfect in areas yes but it has so many amazing things still—amazing graphics, amazing gameplay imo, some interesting characters, atmospheric music. I'm someone who prefers gameplay to story so I'm not super harsh on story like others. The pacing yeah I can see why that would bother people, at one point I got tired of it lategame. I don't use these forums much but I've seen LoU discussions elsewhere and what I mean by it is people who's rate it 1/10, say messed up things about the whole game. They speak of the game like it's Superman 64. I know it's their opinion but man I see all these nice things like I listed above and think: "no way"

Whenever I'm able to get a PS5 it's the first game I'm getting again for sure. I still have unfinished business with the game itself (Grounded) but playing No Return with that fun gameplay is worth it alone for me.

-I prefer Twilight Princess Zelda's design over her Ocarina one. She just looks very nice with brown hair. I also prefer Ganon's look in this game over his previous iteration one. Also prefer Link with the green tunic.

-Hyrule Warriors is very fun but as a Fire Emblem fan I'm sad that I was never able to fully get into either of the Fire Emblem Warriors games (maybe burnout?). I'll give them a try again eventually.

-Luigi's Mansion 2/Dark Moon > 1 > 3 (anti pitchfork shield equipped). I just preferred 2 much more than both and I've played all three games (completed first two, got bored on the third and never returned to it). The snow boss at the lategame section of Dark Moon can kick rocks though. The little coop multiplay mode was pretty fun too back in the day (when the plays don't instaragequit). But 1 I don't remember too much of it and 3 it was honestly dull to me.

-I prefer the jack of all trades archetype over glass cannons and full on tanks idk why. Especially in Fire Emblem games. I just like having well-balanced characters with decent stats across the board.