Shmuppers post your age!

[Berty]

Hi,

If shmups (gradius, ikaruga etc) are your FAVORITE type of game, then how old are you? But only if shmups are your favorite.

(I have also posted this thread on www.shmups.com but wanted to get as many participants as possible; but if you are a member of both boards then please only post once.)

some of you may know that i am creating my own shmup as part of a Ph.D that i am doing (no, really). Anyway, part of my Ph.D is to look at the history of shmups and then pose a whole lot of further reseacrh questions.

One thing that i am looking at is whether shmuping missed a generation and if so, what generation. I will have to wait for the results of this before i move further but i already have some hypothosies but i dont want to mention them yet as i dont want to skew these results in anyway.

I need as many replies as possible to make this research valid so you may find this post on other forums. Once again i welcome your comments.

Cheers.

[Iron Draggon]

36yo male here, about to turn 37yo on Dec. 31st

Shmups rule!

[Sosage]

26. In my opinion, I don’t think shmups have skipped a generation as much as they fell off being the dominant genre at a certain point in time. *shrug*

[soniko_karuto]

22 here.

[max 330 mega]

im 16, and schmups are definitely my favorite genre of game, and i seem to be better at those than any other type of game.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Well, we had Space Invaders which we played on our parent's Atari's, then 1943 and Solar Striker when we was little 'uns, then we grew up a little and played Rtype and Axelay when we were in high school, then the mighty Radiant Silvergun for the saturn when we were leaving school, onto Gunbird II for sixth form, then Ikaruga for now - Post uni days!

So no, I wouldn't say it skipped a generation - I'd say the same generation has grown up with it.


And what are we classing as "Shmups" here? 2D classics like Silvergun and Parodius? Or also games like Colony Wars and Rogue Squadron? (Cos technically they are the next generation of Shmups... All in 3D spendour and all!

And what about Tempest 2000, Elite, and Rez? Do they count?

[autobotracing]

23

[maxlords]

I'd count Rez as a shmup, but not Rogue Squadron or Colony Wars...those are more flight sims. As for me, I prefer the solid 16-32 bit shmups, mostly horiz ones. Shmups are probably tied for my favorite genre with RPGs....I play both about equally. I vastly prefer horizontal shmups to verts though, and I don't play the newer shmups in general (Castle Shikigami 2, Giga Wing 2, Psyvariar, etc.). I avoid all the "manic" shmups.

On a side note, the abundance of terminology for shmups as a sub-genre is quite frankly, astonishing. Shmuppers have their own jargon that even other gamers get lost from :) I've always found it amusing, being as I inherently understood it as soon as I heard it, but I've had a lot of other gamers go "huh??" when I use it.

[Lady Jaye]

I'm a 29-year-old woman and my fave schmups are Defender, Galaga and Cloud Master (aka Chuka Taisen) for the Sega Master System. But I do love schmups in general (just like Maxlords, it's my favorite genre along with RPGs), from the Gradius series to the R-Type series, to Ikaruga, Zero Wing and countless others. And yes, I do love Zero Wing, with or without the All Your Base dialog.

[ddockery]

28 and I love schmups, but I also suck at them quite a bit. Or most of them anyway.

[Dire 51]

I'm 30 and a diehard SHMUP fan for life.

[slip81]

23 here and shumps are tied with RPG's and adventure games for my fave genre. Out of the three though I'm the worst at shumps, but that doesn't stop me from loving them :)

I'd have to saythat the main thing that draws me to shumps is the art style and cool graphics. They're so colorfull and fun to watch while you play.

[Captain Wrong]

Hi, I'm Rob G., 29 and I'm a manic addict. Basically, if it says Cave, 8ing/Raizing, or Psyiko, I can't help myself. *hugs ABP PCB*

:D

[NintendoMan]

23. They are probably my fav. 2 or 3 genre.

[bargora]

32. I have a PS2 with a 5" screen in my kitchen so I can play Gradius III when I'm cooking.

[kainemaxwell]

27 for me.

[GobopopRevisited]

Hi, I'm Rob G., 29 and I'm a manic addict. Basically, if it says Cave, 8ing/Raizing, or Psyiko, I can't help myself. *hugs ABP PCB*

:D

17, but can't stay away from those companys. Only problem is I have few means of playing them beyond Saturn and MAME.

[Jibbajaba]

27. I really like shmups, but not my favorite genre.

Chris

[rbudrick]

Defnitely a huge shmup fan. I'm 26. Gradius 2, ikaruga, Guardian Legend, and most definitely Thunder Force 2 and 3 are major favorites.

-Rob

[josekortez]

I'm 25. I wouldn't say it's my favorite genre, but I just bought Arrow Flash for the Genesis last week and Castle Shikigami 2 this week, so I'm definitely a shmupper.

[DigitalSpace]

22 year old male here. It isn't my favorite genre but it's pretty high up there. Favorites include Space Megaforce, the R-Type series, and Axelay.

[Habeeb Hamusta]

16 Here. I love shmups. I just wish I had more. :(

[pookninja]

im a 30 year old male.and i love shooters(i call them shooters).my favorite being the thunderforce series of games,but there is to many shooters that i like to list.

[Lord Contaminous]

22 years old.

I'm a Gradius and Aleste veteran.

Also digs odd & ends 8-bit Japanese Famicom shooters.

[Fuyukaze]

I'm 29 and have been a fan sense I first started playing asteroids. While its sliped a good amount over the years, I dont belive its because I have enjoyed them less but because for the most part there are less to be enjoyed. Compare the genre to the number of RPGs or Sports titles (even broke into individual sports) or platform games and frankly the numbers are dismal. I hope my opinion doesnt effect your paper, but I do belive that shooters have missed a number of generations. Not because the people of certain generations cant enjoy or apreciate them but because there just are not enough of them for them to come to apreciate them. Look back at the arcade scene of the mid 80's what was being played. Lots and lots of shooters. Fast forward just 10 years and look whats being played. Fighters. Now, here we are on the verge of 2005 and look what is being played (if anything in arcades is being played) and its either fighters or dance games. Without the presence of them, people just wont have the chance to be fans of something. We need more shooters. Badly.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

I'm 21 years old and love shooters. I have sort of burned myself out on rpg's, so I decided to go back to one of my original loves, 16-bit shooters!! Anything from axelay to M.U.S.H.A, strikers to gunbird. I can't get enough!

[Sotenga]

Age: Fifteen

Opinion of shmups: Teh rool

Particular favorites: Gradius, R-Type, Thunderforce, Ikaruga, whole load of others that currently evade my mind.

[Berty]

Okay,

Ive graphed the first lot of data from here and shmiups.com

In total i have 99 replies as of today, but i still need about double this amount.

I have a graphs ready but ill need somewhere to upload it. If you want a copy quickly, then PM me


Edit...

I have put the data up at segaxtreme.net
http://forums.segaxtreme.net/index.php?showtopic=14908.

[EnemyZero]

20 yrs here, i been playin schmups since i was about 3, my dad used to take me to the spaceport arcade all the time :P never lost my love for them

[suppafly]

Im 27. I love all kind of shmups,,,specially on Genesis!

[Richter]

21 on Monday, mostly play the Verts.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Age: 25

I cut my gaming teeth on the 2600. My favorite genre for every system since has easily been shooters. I started my addiction with titles like; Yar's Revenge, Vanguard, and Solaris. Even today my favorite games are shooters. Rez, R-Type Final and Gradius 3, 4 & 5 keep me drooling and wanting more.

I have always thought of games like Contra, Ikari Warriors, Gunstar Heroes & ect. as "shooters". Even though I've heard them called Platform-Shooters or Run & Gun. Just MO.

Always remember to shoot first =)
**Buys Richter a case a beer for his birthday** LOL
Happy B-Day!

[lendelin]

Hi,

If shmups (gradius, ikaruga etc) are your FAVORITE type of game, then how old are you? But only if shmups are your favorite.

(I have also posted this thread on www.shmups.com but wanted to get as many participants as possible; but if you are a member of both boards then please only post once.)

some of you may know that i am creating my own shmup as part of a Ph.D that i am doing (no, really). Anyway, part of my Ph.D is to look at the history of shmups and then pose a whole lot of further reseacrh questions.

One thing that i am looking at is whether shmuping missed a generation and if so, what generation. I will have to wait for the results of this before i move further but i already have some hypothosies but i dont want to mention them yet as i dont want to skew these results in anyway.

I need as many replies as possible to make this research valid so you may find this post on other forums. Once again i welcome your comments.

Cheers.

Well, I'm in the oldest age group, and I love shmups.

Be careful with interpreting the results. First, sample bias, sample bias, sample bias!!! :)

Second, danger of exclusion!! You excluded gamers of all age groups whose favorirte genre are NOT schmups. (a second Q should ask gamers with age info whose favorite genre aren't schmups)....evn better: a listing of different genres combined with age would be more reliable)

Third, if you want to address the Q to which extent different generations of gamers prefer a dominant genre of their early game experiences, be very careful. AGE ALONE does not tell you childhood game experiences. WHEN gamers started playing is much more important than simple age.

You can relate age and dominant genres at the time in a general way, but the conclusions you can draw are limited. This restriction wouldn't play a big role for 1000 respondents, for one hundred or two hundred it will play a big role.

I guess you wnat to make the case that certain genres are dependent on favorite or early game experiences of gamers, in other words the survival of genres is a generational issue (or not, if you wnat to make the case that certain genres are timeless)...all of the above restrictions apply in this case. :)

[stressboy]

27 here. While not exactly my favorite, I love a good shmup every now and then. I have Ikaruga for the Cube and R-Type Final for the PS2 and LOVE them. Not to mention games for older consoles...

[whoisKeel]

25. I really just got into shmups within the past year, but it is pretty much all i play now. It's why i bought a duo. I haven't played too many manics yet (ikaruga, mars matrix, a little giga wing...but these may fall into the gimmick shmups category) and I'm currently playing mars matrix...and i just can't freakin' stop... i play that game hours a day. i love mars matrix so much...i just haven't been taken over by a (console) game like this in such a long long time... maybe since sf2 days? yeah.

[Crush Crawfish]

16. I love SHMUPS, no matter how much i suck at them. My favorite is easily Gokujyou Parodius for Super Famicom. I mean It's got both Goemon and Kid Dracula as playable characters. Can't beat that!

[FurinkanianFrood]

23 (24 in January). Slight preference for Vertical scrolling shmups (especailly manic ones that aren't too unfair). If you ask me, inward scrolling shooters like Rez don't aren't really part of this category, not that I dislike them at all. Metal Slug etc. are also in a different category. Tempest 2000 is one of my favorite games ever but is a work of such originality and genius that it completely defies categorization IMO.

PCE DUO and Saturn are the focus of my collection for the most part, though I have a lot more systems than that. Battle Garegga is my favorite shmup btw.

P.S. I don't even like at all RSilvergun, let alone paying $150 plus for it (though I do like a majority of Treasure's games, RSilvergun is just overdone, slow, unexciting etc. Also, I have seen so many beautiful Saturn games that RS doesn't impress graphically either.) Ikaruga ain't so hot either, but if you like it that's your call. Neither is a terrible game, but RS is stupidly overpriced.

[pixelsnpolygons]

You said only if they're your favorite genre - I have no favorite genre, I play all indiscrimatively - I love all genres equally - but I love them shmups. I'm 22.

[Spartacus]

Ohhh Thank goodness I only had to claim 40 and over! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only one here that can remember where they were and what they were doing the day JFK was assasinated. (The REAL JFK, not that other knucklehead).
I will NEVER forget the first time hearing that music and those incredibly wonderfull LOUD explosions playing R-Type on the SNES. I've been hooked on them ever since. AND like so many others, I don't think I've ever actually beaten any of them!

[Iron Draggon]

What system is Castle Shikigami 2 for, is part 1 available on that console or on another console also, and are they imports as I suspect or are they domestic?

As for your paper, I would hope that you'd attempt to address the fact that during the early 90's, shmups were very unfairly being discriminated against by all the gaming magazines of the time, causing their very unfortunate and untimely demise. We had equal amounts of overkill in all genres. There were tons of shmups, tons of RPG's, tons of platformers, tons of puzzlers, and especially tons of fighters. All fighters became the darlings of the industry, despite the fact that they were all mostly the same with different graphics. At the same time, shmups became the black sheep of the industry, with the complaint being that they were all mostly the same with different graphics.

So obviously you can see the irony at work here. Thanks to all the stupid gaming press bitching about the last thing in the world we all need is yet another shmup when what we really need is more fighters, that's exactly what happened. Shmups died out, and fighters took over. We shmuppers were very unceremoniously dismissed as a niche market, while fighter fans were celebrated as the new kids on the block. The whole thing was just one big marketing ploy on the parts of all the gaming mags to get people to abandon shmups in favor of fighters, and their clever brainwashing worked.

So I'd just like to see it addressed for once just how much of an influence the media has over trends, despite the true wishes of the gamers. It was said that less was being spent on shmups and more was being spent on fighters, while it was never mentioned that was mostly because less shmups were being released and more fighters were being released, so it's not like the gamers really had a choice. If the shmups had kept coming out as much as the fighters did, we all would've kept buying them, but they just stopped being released for a long time. Then, when they did finally reappear, their untimely demise was further justified by the fact that shmup sales didn't compare favorably to fighter sales. However, it was never mentioned that shmups were intentionally held of the market long enough for fighters to gain a firm hold on the majority of the market, so they couldn't possibly compare favorably to fighters by then. It was all a very carefully devised plan to kill off an old genre and replace it with a new one, I firmly believe that.

Anyhow, very nice topic, I'm glad that somebody out there is actually doing papers on this sort of thing, and I'm very anxious to see all of your results.

[Kamisama]

I am 19 and playing shmups for some years now =) First one was Soukyu Gurentai 1997/98 maybe and i love shmups since them :D

[Richter]

What system is Castle Shikigami 2 for, is part 1 available on that console or on another console also, and are they imports as I suspect or are they domestic?in the US:
Castle Shikigami 1 = named Mobile Light Force 2 (PS2)
Castle Shikigami 2 = named Castle Shikigami 2 (PS2)

and just for kicks, Mobile Light Force 1 (PS1) = Gunbird (JP Saturn)

[Iron Draggon]

Cool, thanks for the info! I've heard of Mobile Light Force before, but never heard of Castle Shikigami until now. Too bad I still don't have a PS2 yet. :(