Game companies: Putting the "ream" in extreme

[ManekiNeko]

All throughout my childhood, adults would warn me that eventually, I would outgrow video games and lose interest in them.
They were half right. Video games aren't as exciting for me as they used to be, but it feels more like the games have outgrown ME, rather than the other way around.
Seriously, what's happened to the video game industry lately? Every game for the PS2 has to feature steroid-engorged men, enormous-breasted women, and/or gratuitous violence if the designers want to have any hope of them being released. To name an example, Sony refused to let Working Designs release the newest Legend of the Mystical Ninja game in the United States, while eagerly giving the green light to Grand Theft Auto 3, easily one of the most controversial games ever released. Had this been Nintendo ten years ago, the situation would undoubtedly have been reversed.
Companies are even toughening up the sequels to unapologetically cute games, including two of last year's most popular 3D platformers. Rachet of Rachet and Clank fame is now "going commando", with all that the term implies, and even Jak and Daxter has a more serious storyline as well as more dangerous weapons for the main character.
My question is this: what's wrong with cute games, anyway? Are they such a turn-off to the average gamer that they all have to be redesigned with a slick, "extreme" new look and feel? Why aren't we seeing games like Super Mario World 2 released in this day and age? And how long will we have to suffer with the "extreme" fad before people come to their senses and finally realize that gameplay is far more important to a game than slick targeted marketing and controversial (but increasingly predictable and stale) content?
What I'm trying to say is this... more cute games, please. And give us fewer games with musclebound heroes ripping their enemies to shreds with chainsaws and machine guns while you're at it.

JR

[dave2236]

Yeah I totally agree with you...but now its not entirely about the games. Its about the marketing campaign. The moves, fast food toys, toys, comics, posters, strat guides, ect.

Muscles and big breasts sell games, but they also sell lots of other things.


I agree good, fun, challenging games are hard to find these days.

[stargate]

I agree. However, it is probably just a fad like everything else. Hopefully, game programmers and manufacturers will soon get back to what really matters......gameplay.

Seriously, the entire gaming industry right now pisses me off. Everything has to not only be 3D, but also "extreme" or just plain violent. To me, the GTA series is a one trick pony. I never really got into the gameplay. I also shudder when I see 12 year olds playing it.

I remember when graphics really didn't matter that much. Pac Man and Robotron never impressed visually, but were a blast to play. When was the last time we saw a truly unique and ingenius game (probably Wario Ware Inc.). They are VERY few and far between.

[Quintracker]

I can't be positive, but doesn't this (and most other things) boil down to money? If the vast majority of game players didn't like steroid-engorged men and/or enormous-breasted women then they wouldn't buy the games. When the majority of gamers start choosing gameplay over muscles and boobs (if that ever happens) then you can expect the game companies to follow them.

[ManekiNeko]

That's my problem with the gaming industry in general. Thanks to Sony and to a lesser extent, Microsoft, they're no longer in this to use gaming as an artistic medium. It's all about the benjamins, and as a result TRUE gamers have been-jammed-in the butt repeatedly while the casual fans, the rats that would be first to leave the sinking ship in the event of an industry crash, get whatever they want, no matter how utterly idiotic and pandering it is. "BMX game with boobies? Sure. Complete piece of crap with X-TREME(tm) written all over it? You got it! Fantastic game everyone should play but everyone will ignore? Nah, you're not getting that." The game companies are focusing on the wrong customers. WE'RE the ones that will still be loyal even after all the poseurs decide that gaming "isn't cool" and run off to embrace some other fad. If they alienate us, they'll have no customers LEFT when the industry hits hard times.

JR

[SoulBlazer]

This is one reason I've always been more of a PC gamer then a console gamer, and why if you look at my shopping list for the next six months PC games outnumber everything else by three to one.

Computer game companies are more willing to take risks and try new things, it seems.

[bargora]

I agree with your demand for cuteness in theory, but I still find plenty of guilty pleasure in playing Bloodrayne, which I believe distills everything you are railing against. I mean, I feel like I shouldn't like it or something, but I do.

I guess it's time for Mario to start committing loathesome and reprehensible acts, dare I say, "extreme", "proactive" acts.

(j/k!!)

But then, I've always been a "fly spaceships / blow stuff up" gamer, so I don't have really strong opinions on muscles or cuteness per se, as long as there are plasma cannons and missiles and stuff (but I do like Twinbee and Parodius and Twinkle Star Sprites!). I mean, Unreal Tournament's character models were over the top, yes. But things are getting to the point that the muscles are SO big and the breasts are SO pneumatic that we've passed up reality and gone into cartoon land. I mean, why not just have a FPS character skin that's a 6-foot tall penis/scrotum with arms and legs? Who needs outrageous secondary sexual characteristics when you can BE the primary? Deathmatch: Peter vs. Virginia @_@

But anyway, I like cute. I feel all warm and jiggly inside when I play Klonoa (o gawd--the squeakings!). But I think that cute is going to be more of a niche thing, as for the foreseeable future games are going to be marketed to twenty-something sports d00dz who want a little skin with their gunshots. I mean, it's not like Nintendo has stopped producing wholesale cuteness, right? And how are they doing in the console wars? (God, now I need to run out and buy five or six Gamecubes out of guilt.)

Oh, and Stargate, don't be fooled. :hmm: It wasn't as if programmers in the 1980s decided "hey, let's make games with exaggeratedly primitive graphics, and concentrate on badass gameplay." Hardware was just primitive back then. (Not that Robotron: 2084 isn't the greatest video game ever, or anything.) Games have always been advertised as having eye-popping graphics. Hard to believe now, looking back, but I daresay it's true.

And if you want to talk about an alienated, largely ignored segment of gamers, look no further than the shmuppers. I mean, we're getting domestic releases of Gradius V and R-Type Final, and on top of Ikaruga earlier this year, it's like a frigging bumper crop. :/

[calthaer]

I don't know if it has to be cute per se, but I would agree that it doesn't have to be EXTREEEEEMMMME! like you're saying. Big guns, big boobs, and loud sounds do not a good game make.

SimCity, for example, wasn't exactly "cute" by Mario standards (no cuddly green long-tongued dinosaurs, for instance), but it wasn't EXTREME, either. The style of the Ultima series of games (the later ones, mostly, when graphics were good enough to actually have a style) were neither "cute" nor EXTREME. Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, The Dig, maybe a few other LucasArts games? Neither cute nor EXTREME.

I prefer the happy medium myself. Excessive cuteness can be just as galling sometimes as EXTREMEism.

[stargate]

I agree with your demand for cuteness in theory, but I still find plenty of guilty pleasure in playing Bloodrayne, which I believe distills everything you are railing against. I mean, I feel like I shouldn't like it or something, but I do.

I guess it's time for Mario to start committing loathesome and reprehensible acts, dare I say, "extreme", "proactive" acts.

(j/k!!)

But then, I've always been a "fly spaceships / blow stuff up" gamer, so I don't have really strong opinions on muscles or cuteness per se, as long as there are plasma cannons and missiles and stuff (but I do like Twinbee and Parodius and Twinkle Star Sprites!). I mean, Unreal Tournament's character models were over the top, yes. But things are getting to the point that the muscles are SO big and the breasts are SO pneumatic that we've passed up reality and gone into cartoon land. I mean, why not just have a FPS character skin that's a 6-foot tall penis/scrotum with arms and legs? Who needs outrageous secondary sexual characteristics when you can BE the primary? Deathmatch: Peter vs. Virginia @_@

But anyway, I like cute. I feel all warm and jiggly inside when I play Klonoa (o gawd--the squeakings!). But I think that cute is going to be more of a niche thing, as for the foreseeable future games are going to be marketed to twenty-something sports d00dz who want a little skin with their gunshots. I mean, it's not like Nintendo has stopped producing wholesale cuteness, right? And how are they doing in the console wars? (God, now I need to run out and buy five or six Gamecubes out of guilt.)

Oh, and Stargate, don't be fooled. :hmm: It wasn't as if programmers in the 1980s decided "hey, let's make games with exaggeratedly primitive graphics, and concentrate on badass gameplay." Hardware was just primitive back then. (Not that Robotron: 2084 isn't the greatest video game ever, or anything.) Games have always been advertised as having eye-popping graphics. Hard to believe now, looking back, but I daresay it's true.

And if you want to talk about an alienated, largely ignored segment of gamers, look no further than the shmuppers. I mean, we're getting domestic releases of Gradius V and R-Type Final, and on top of Ikaruga earlier this year, it's like a frigging bumper crop. :/

No, I hear you. I just feel that in the 80's there were alot of different ideas coming out for unique games. Never before have games in the arcades and on home consoles been so diverse. Now everything seems like a retread of everything else. It gets very b o r i n g.

[YoshiM]

No, I hear you. I just feel that in the 80's there were alot of different ideas coming out for unique games. Never before have games in the arcades and on home consoles been so diverse. Now everything seems like a retread of everything else. It gets very b o r i n g.

Actually, when you look at it, many games were retreads. Shooters in the early 80's, sidescroll platformers in the mid to late 80's, etc. so forth. BUT we still played them and enjoyed many a game. Why? The challenge is one-how good can I be at any game I could get my paws on. How high a score or how long can I last. Even the popular games on the NES were at least entertaining for a rent. Hell I spent a ton of money renting games over a 6 to 12 month period- over 130 NES games played. I think I dissed about a handful (Mickey Mousecapades, Jaws, Friday the 13th, and I think Nightmare on Elm Street all got about 30 minutes of play time each) but the rest were pretty fun to play. Some were sickeningly easy (Breakthru) others were insanely hard but kept you coming back for more (Wizards and Warriors).

[Dire 51]

And if you want to talk about an alienated, largely ignored segment of gamers, look no further than the shmuppers. I mean, we're getting domestic releases of Gradius V and R-Type Final, and on top of Ikaruga earlier this year, it's like a frigging bumper crop. :/

As a die hard shmupper, I agree completely with that statement. On a side not, at least Ikaruga isn't alone on the GC anymore, what with the Japanese release of Star Soldier.

[Kevin Listwan]

Two ways to look at this

One the demographic of the gaming community has changed and become twenty something males that want this kind of mind numbing crap (look how well the N64 did and the gamecube did). Think Fast and the Furious and its well-suited sequel, or any of the action movies from Rambo mush up to the present Schwanagger (sp? Damn Austrian : ) ) films. Also how many thought provoking and intelligent video games are there? There is no Indie game makers for the most part like the brilliant stuff being made outside of Hollywood. It seems if you want something original today one must pick up a book, nothing wrong with that.

Second: The female gaming market is growing rapidly (to my knowledge). If Nintendo can hang on and continue to tap in and expand this market we may see a shift for the better. Sony and Microsoft have done little to hook females.

[Jorpho]

Haven't fighting games almost always been about over-the-top violence and characters of completely insensible proportions? And they've been around for a long time, too. (I look forward to the day that someone releases a fighting game with characters who could conceivably be met on the street one day. Sensible Fighter! Or something.)

Of course, fighting games have always sort of been in their own little niche. (Not everyone can be bothered to learn lengthy move lists of ridiculously long combos.)
________
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[Aswald]

Have you ever heard the Murphy's Law, "An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until he knows everything about nothing?"

It's like that with video games. Once, game companies weren't afraid to try new things. This is what gave us Q*Bert, Wizardry, Tempest, Illusions, B-17 Bomber, Snap Jack, and so much more. They didn't know if it would work, but they were willing to take a chance on it. We would then decide with our dollars (or quarters).

Today, thanks to "experts" and focus groups, nothing new is attempted. Sure, big-breasted women characters, steroid-juiced men, smut, mindless violence, bathroom and gross-out humor sells, but to who? A small segment of the gaming population, which now consists of at least 2 full generations (mine was the first). But if that group is all anyone focuses on, then only those kind of games will be made. It's sort of like going to a Pat Buchanan For President convention, and basing your prediction on whom will win the 2004 election on what that group of people tells you.

It's like this with movies, television, music, comics, and so much more, folks, and it ain't goin' change until we get off of our rears and TELL THESE PEOPLE THAT WE'RE TIRED OF MORE OF THE SAME!

As for the female market growing- maybe, but I have a 1983 book on video games that made the same claim. And when I was in that arcade last week, it was almost all male. Just like in 1983.

[Kevin Listwan]

Personally I think the female market is growing, it was probably growing in 1983 but then the makers turned away from it, but I would love to see some research on this. The Sims, Myst, tycoon, and other games seem to do quite well with the female population.


Also where there is an "underground" movement (movies, comics, MUSIC!!) things aren't that bad. Sure Hollywood, Marvel/DC, majority of music companies products blow. But I think people like what they get, they want mindless dribble, just like in video games. And besides with an underground you can at least find good movies and music, unlike in gaming.

Shit look at all the great movies and music that is out there that just does not sell that is independent.

What we need is an "independent style" video game movement. In many ways the PC has it, due to it's openness, look at all the great games and diversity their.

[AB Positive]

In a way, it has started, as the homebrew scene grows by the day. Plus, any console can be chosen to work on now, including the PS2 and XBOX down to the 2600. Now, if only modern developers would recognize this scene more.

-AG

[Aswald]

I do, too, but it isn't going to happen, at least not with the "conventional" game makers. Only the homebrewers appreciate and understand the older systems, and their owners, enough to know what to do. Daniel Bienvenu's version of Bejeweled is on a ColecoVision; there's no reason a version of it cannot appear on the Intellivision, NES, 5200, or maybe even the 2600. But most game manufacturers have it in their heads that a game MUST have turbo-charged graphics and sounds, with women characters with 52,000 polygon-and-color breasts or muscle-bound men with psychotic looks and tons of blood and guts. Since you cannot do this on earlier systems, they won't even look twice at them.

Someone here mentioned Halo selling, what was it, 3 million copies? This sounds impressive, until you consider what a best-seller was in 1983, and what the state of the electronic gaming scene was back then. In theory, modern sales figures should be many times what they were (over 25X what they were for computers, for example), but they're not. Chris Crawford discussed this some years ago, warning that gaming companies were only reaching a tiny fraction of the potential market.

[Daniel Thomas]

Interesting read by JR, as always (it's nice to see he hasn't mellowed with age).

I do agree that there's far too much titilation in games today, but hasn't that always been the case? The traditional videogames market has always skewered towards teenage boys, with silicon Barbie dolls, homoerotic steroid freaks, and sex jokes aimed at 13-year-olds? Goodness knows, the prozines have never been very good, either, with childish references to "wetting your pants" in anticipation and the occasional (unknowing?) oral sex joke. "This game is so great, we should all get on our knees for the makers right now!" LOL

Gaming is much more accepted with women these days, so I would expect things to change, at least a bit. The whole American culture is kinda stuck in a "Girls Gone Wild" state of mind, already. Jerry Springer for Senate? Why not? :roll:

It is easy to criticize the sameness in today's scene, and much of it does bore me to tears, but that's really being unfair. Every console cycle has been ruled by a handful of landmark games, and an ocean of wannabees. In the '70s, it was Pong, Dodge 'Em (the racecar games), Space Invaders. During the early '80s, everything was an outer-space shooter or a Pac-Man clone. During the NES era, everyone was following the trail Super Mario blazed. In the 16-bit era, we had Final Fight beat-em-ups, Street Fighter 2 ripoffs, and cute, wisecracking mascots.

Right now, of course, the defining games are Tony Hawk, Metal Gear Solid, and Grand Theft Auto, Bemani. And add in Hollywood as well; there's such a puch for movie-like production values these days (now, if only the scripts and acting were any better). This, too, will change over time, when the next big thing arrives and captures the public's imagination.

Thankfully, there are still some gems here and there that avoid the cliches and aim for that old-skool fun, and there's some good innovation. But here's the kicker: they don't sell. Ico is a perfect example of something recognized for its brilliance, but ignored at retail. It's their loss -- most lousy summer movies make a truckload of money, but that doesn't make them any good.

The great stuff is out there; we just need to point people to it.

[Aswald]

Actually, no- titillation has not always been around, not on the scale you see today. Sure, you had some porno games (Custer's Revenge), but these were oddities, nothing more. Today, it's not a matter of having to go through a lot of bother to find it, you have to go through a ton of trouble to AVOID it! Certainly, the video gaming magazines of that earlier time never stooped to what you see today!


But the sameness that I've referred to has been going on now for YEARS. This is why I've said that the 1990s "never ended."

Yes, there was a degree of sameness in the past, but nothing like today. In the 1970s, you had mainly Pong-style games, but you're not considering the technology back then. Those primitive, hardwired games simply didn't allow for much else, so, game designers were severely limited in what they could do.

But once gaming technology advanced, we started getting tremendous variety. As designers had more "space" to work with, and could do more, they did just that. Games like Tempest, Zaxxon, Snap Jack, Xevious, Mr. Do!, and so much more, were not possible just a few years before; once it became possible, we got `em. It was an exciting era in video, arcade, and computer gaming, because something new was always on the way; man, we couldn't wait to try it, and I'm glad to have been there.

But, after what seemed a promising start around 1990 (David Kamp, in his article "The Tabloid Decade," mentioned that), we suddenly stagnated. Throughout the entire decade, and even to today, arcades were and still mostly are dominated by one-on-one fighting games, second-person driving games, and of course gun games. Even the maze-game craze, inspired by Pac-Man, only lasted a few years. The only real changes have been in the cosmetics, more smut, more blood and gore. More 1990s-style "`tude." So this isn't like anything in the past; this isn't simply a "stage"- it's outright stagnation. We see it in the comics, movies, television, cartoons- everywhere. Today's "stuff" can easily be transported back 7 or 8 years, and it would be hard to notice any real significant difference.

Everywhere, nobody seems willing to try anything really new, with very, very few exceptions.

Don't expect much to change even if the number of female gamers suddenly increases (something we've been told "is happening" since I was in middle school- in 1979). That would imply a difference between boys and girls, and the politically-correct with their 1970s-style gender politics considers that to be heresy. I was around back then, so trust me on that one.

[Kid Fenris]

(Sorry to drag out an old thread, but I meant to post this a while ago.)

While you raise some excellent observations about modern games, Jess, there are few points on which I’d disagree with you.

For one, it’s unfair to charge Sony with hurting the progression of games as an art form. The company has released not only expertly crafted titles such as Gran Turismo and Ico, but also unique games like Ape Escape, Intelligent Cube, and the genre-inspiring Parappa the Rapper. Sony also played a major role in getting RPGs out of their obscurity in America, they created games that were both accessible to the video game illiterate and fun for dedicated gamers, and they still allow cute niche offerings like Ape Escape 2, Skygunner, and Disgaea. From what zmeston has said elsewhere, it would seem that Sony’s disapproval of Goemon stems largely from a troubled relationship between Working Designs and Sony, and not as much from Sony’s obsession with "mature" content.

And, as others have pointed out, there are a lot of cute games out there, though they seem concentrated on the GameCube and GameBoy Advance. Even so, it’s still hard to avoid the lighthearted titles on shelves and in release schedules. Consider Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, Kirby’s Air Ride, Advance Wars 2, Wario Ware, Beyond Good and Evil, Sonic Heroes, and even Viewtiful Joe, which is just too goofy to be dark and serious.

When it comes to the present state of gaming, I’m more in agreement with Daniel Thomas than I am with Aswald. The concepts of the early 1980s were revolutionary by default; games themselves were in their larval stage, and almost every idea couldn’t help but be a new one. Yet they were also plagued by rip-offs and market-glutting mediocrity. Say what you will about the games of the 1990s, but at least they didn’t crash the industry.

Moreover, the lack of exploitation in “classic” era games can be attributed to their state of technology, not aesthetics. If the creators of Zaxxon, Xevious, Snap Jack, and other groundbreaking titles had possessed the ability to put Hollywood-caliber depictions of steroid-bloated gun nuts, heavy-breasted titillation, and realistic gore in their games, most of them (or their corporate financers) would have.

Charging today’s games as stagnant implies a hasty and jaundiced look at the industry. Recent years have seen the birth and growth of music titles and free-roaming fighters along with the innovation and refinement of existing genres. Compare Ikaruga to M.U.S.H.A. and Xevious, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to its predecessors, Xenosaga to Chrono Trigger, Dark Cloud 2 to Soul Blazer, or Power Stone 2 to Mortal Kombat. We’ve come a long way, not so much in the creation of new breeds of game, but in the development of new ideas within those existing breeds. This isn’t stagnation --it’s evolution. And like any worthwhile evolution, the process is slow and not always apparent to those caught up in it.

In truth, I think that the resentment towards modern games (and the whole “We never left the ‘90s” view) results from the cliché human tendency to dislike the present and idolize the past. If this were 1983, we’d be griping about E.T. and the excess of crappy games in stores. If this were 1989, we’d be complaining about Nintendo’s dominance of the market and the overflow of cute and average platformers. If this were 1993, we’d be bitching about a dearth of innovation while Star Fox, Gunstar Heroes, Super Mario Kart, and Secret of Mana stared us in our oblivious eyes. And today, we're bemoaning a lack of new concepts and well-made games instead of looking for them.