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Death of a video gaming era? Or is it not?
10 years ago
I might just be anxious or having a conspiratorial thoughts but I feel like an era of video gaming has ended, gaming has well, trying not to sound so pretentious: evolved and moved forward to what it is now. Please don't take any of these as pure fact. In fact, put me under scrutiny, see if what I say does hold out.
Let's start with the consumers.
People despise innovation. Well, hear me out. If you give a survey to people polling if people prefer innovation in games or not, it's obvious innovation would be the most voted option. However, their wallet speaks otherwise.
You may also seen Game Theory's take on this matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q
Now if I stopped here, I wouldn't have added very much.
The video game developers of back then is starting to become irrelevant.
I enjoy the hell out of MegaMan, but I feel like gamers today don't want to play MegaMan anymore. You might go: HEY ! WHAT ABOUT MIGHTY NO 9? Well, despite the stupid controversy, let's look at the game and the Kickstarter. I know, it's one of the most funded games but the number of backers makes me question this. It makes me question all the games on kickstarter. The number of backers is what I question.
67,226 backers... $3,845,170
Now let's compare this to Starbound
208,182 backers... $4,189,126
Let's look at Bloodstained (Spiritual Successor to Castlevania)
64,867 backers... $5,545,991
The first and last games were game genres of the old kinds, the ones already established. Starbound however, is a recent game. Is it related to this figure?
Are gamers these days just wanting games like Starbound, Terraria and Minecraft?
I don't necessarily know but I feel like there's more to it than just comparing the $$$ figures. Are the backers of the older games just die hard fans?
Now with backers out of the way. I'm not a professional developer myself but I feel like I know enough to say game development is really high maintenance and costly. If companies are not making money with these old developers, it's likely they won't listen to their demands or ideals and such.
Keiji Inafune has left Capcom after they refused to restructure to his demands. I mean, god knows what happened to MegaMan Legends and MegaMan sales.
What does this say about Igarashi Koji (Castlevania)? He left Konami. Is it because he's not making anymore money to them? I suppose he left to persue is dream to make games with more freedom but I'm still sketchy if he's still relevant. I am a massive fan of the Castlevania series and I can only guess.
And what happened to Hideo Kojima? His Metal Gear Solid work is insanely awesome. PT was awesome, took the world by storm. But even then, the Playstation version of Minecraft sold more than Metal Gear Solid.
I know Rareware is old news.
I mean I guess who cares about Contra as well, right?
I've tried introducing my cousins and stuff to these old games, they rather play Roblox and Minecraft.
I mean, the sales chart tells me all these old game developers are fading. It breaks my damn heart. There are games that capture retro games like Shovel Knight, The Binding of Isaac and Retro City Rampage, but these are new developers, and these are pretty indie compared to the older developers.
I hope what I say is wrong. I doubt any young gamers would care any of the half of the games I talked about fading away.
Maybe I'm freaking out again. XD
Well either way, it's nice to embrace the ever growing video gaming medium.
Let's start with the consumers.
People despise innovation. Well, hear me out. If you give a survey to people polling if people prefer innovation in games or not, it's obvious innovation would be the most voted option. However, their wallet speaks otherwise.
You may also seen Game Theory's take on this matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxhs-GLE29Q
Now if I stopped here, I wouldn't have added very much.
The video game developers of back then is starting to become irrelevant.
I enjoy the hell out of MegaMan, but I feel like gamers today don't want to play MegaMan anymore. You might go: HEY ! WHAT ABOUT MIGHTY NO 9? Well, despite the stupid controversy, let's look at the game and the Kickstarter. I know, it's one of the most funded games but the number of backers makes me question this. It makes me question all the games on kickstarter. The number of backers is what I question.
67,226 backers... $3,845,170
Now let's compare this to Starbound
208,182 backers... $4,189,126
Let's look at Bloodstained (Spiritual Successor to Castlevania)
64,867 backers... $5,545,991
The first and last games were game genres of the old kinds, the ones already established. Starbound however, is a recent game. Is it related to this figure?
Are gamers these days just wanting games like Starbound, Terraria and Minecraft?
I don't necessarily know but I feel like there's more to it than just comparing the $$$ figures. Are the backers of the older games just die hard fans?
Now with backers out of the way. I'm not a professional developer myself but I feel like I know enough to say game development is really high maintenance and costly. If companies are not making money with these old developers, it's likely they won't listen to their demands or ideals and such.
Keiji Inafune has left Capcom after they refused to restructure to his demands. I mean, god knows what happened to MegaMan Legends and MegaMan sales.
What does this say about Igarashi Koji (Castlevania)? He left Konami. Is it because he's not making anymore money to them? I suppose he left to persue is dream to make games with more freedom but I'm still sketchy if he's still relevant. I am a massive fan of the Castlevania series and I can only guess.
And what happened to Hideo Kojima? His Metal Gear Solid work is insanely awesome. PT was awesome, took the world by storm. But even then, the Playstation version of Minecraft sold more than Metal Gear Solid.
I know Rareware is old news.
I mean I guess who cares about Contra as well, right?
I've tried introducing my cousins and stuff to these old games, they rather play Roblox and Minecraft.
I mean, the sales chart tells me all these old game developers are fading. It breaks my damn heart. There are games that capture retro games like Shovel Knight, The Binding of Isaac and Retro City Rampage, but these are new developers, and these are pretty indie compared to the older developers.
I hope what I say is wrong. I doubt any young gamers would care any of the half of the games I talked about fading away.
Maybe I'm freaking out again. XD
Well either way, it's nice to embrace the ever growing video gaming medium.
I like the new ones too. Well, I actually don't know what is wrong with Sonic 4. I looked it up and it has decent rating. I don't know about sales.
I think in general, video games are becoming a tad more accessible to more people than in the past. By that, games won't ever be the same. People would complain it's too easy to learn and that learning difficult games is part of the fun and in comparison, some people would be put off by the learning curve. And blah blah, people are filthy casuals and stupid crap like that.
Yeah, I see what you mean, it's explained brilliantly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM (sorry for all the video replies xD)
Ooh, I remember that video. That's possibly right from what you described.
I feel like basically in a nutshell: People hate innovation.
Super Mario Brothers to New Super Mario Brothers : Generally platformer, it's polished and polished and polished.
Sonic The Hedgehog to Sonic Boom : Generally innovates, mechanics generally never the same, unpolished stuff.
Also people hate unpolished work. XD Maybe. That's what I gather at least.