Pre-2000 Proofs of Decline?

[Unkillable Cat]

felipepepe: A good suggestion would be to hunt down old gaming magazines. While it's doubtful you'd find any "clear" evidence, you could, with enough data, start to see a bigger picture and the progress that was made in terms of advertisements, usage of review ratings, and so on.

Another source is the magazine Retro Gamer. They sometimes do interviews with industry "legends", and those legends sometimes spill interesting info about past events. They did an interview with Julian Rignall a few months back, who was the editor-in-chief of CV+G during what many call the "decline years" of the magazine. He had some VERY interesting things to say.

 

[octavius]

Another source is the magazine Retro Gamer. They sometimes do interviews with industry "legends", and those legends sometimes spill interesting info about past events. They did an interview with Julian Rignall a few months back, who was the editor-in-chief of CV+G during what many call the "decline years" of the magazine. He had some VERY interesting things to say.

I remember Julian Rignall. He was one of the leading players of action games in the UK back in the days, and won several competitions. Before joining Computer and Vegetable Games (as it was also known as) he worked for various magines focusing on the ZX Spectrum and other 8 bit machines.
I don't think Rignall played many "monocled" games.

 

[felipepepe]

That's why I'm searching for the invisible hand of marketing here. My ultimate purpose is to make a comparative analysis of the development of some major cultural industries, including video-games, Heavy Metal and 'Otaku Culture'

Adam Smith meant an existing hand when he talked about invisible hand. He was smart enough to know a self-organizing structures will not work on market.

Aye, and bros like Marx and Adorno will keep on ranting on just how diabolically evil the bloody hand is, while Mr. Phillip Kotler will just say how nice it is to be that hand. My interest here are the hand's effort to commoditize a cultural industry, expand it's audience as wide as possible and profit; the three industries I mentioned are new cultural products, that target a similar demographics, yet due numerous reasons, both cultural and marketological, ended up in completly different places.

 

[Raghar]

There is no invisible hand in the game industry, mafia didn't enter.

 

[felipepepe]

There is no invisible hand in the game industry, mafia didn't enter.

You don't need a mafia, a cartel is enough. From big, live displays like the E3 to more subtle insertions in other media, a side of Marketing has always been the art of influencing public behaviours... and thus the market itself. The Video games industry are easily one of the most organized & influential forces of the enterteinment industry.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

FMV shooters.

 

[Trojan_generic]

Get this book if you can find it from somewhere, might contain some invaluable shit from the really old days (no, I haven't read it):

http://www.rolentapress.com/Products/Confessions of the Game Doctor/Preview.htm

I had a couple of EG magazines when I was a kid, they sure were read over 50 times from cover to cover. Unfortunately, that's how they probably look like now as well.

As for when the decline in the PC environment generally started, it was the first DOS version that was dumbed down asking "Are you sure?" after typing format c: . After that, the user was not presumed to know what he was doing anymore.

 

[felipepepe]

Get this book if you can find it from somewhere, might contain some invaluable shit from the really old days (no, I haven't read it):

http://www.rolentapress.com/Products/Confessions of the Game Doctor/Preview.htm

Thanks, I'll give it a look, even though it looks more like a joke book.

On related news, this book is freely available for download and is shit. Is just a nobody that wrote 60 pages (in verdana 12) of common sense... while the advices from the professionals at the end seems promising, they are mostly circlejerking the industry and saying how hard their job is...

BTW, anyone read Gamers at Work (that one with the massive Tim Cain interview) and remenber anything usefull in it?

 

[Raghar]

Actually you did a mistake. These three groups are not related. I refused to go into movie industry with words I want to do an interactive art, while I can work great with camera, and I'm excellent dramaturg, I don't want to feed these people who want just look. I don't want to feed these who just grab only what they see, nothing more. At least games have interactivity and they are forced to participate. (books force readers to use imagination, so they are better as well.)

Dunno about heavy metal, but Otaku, and computer/console game players are different groups with often sharply different conventions. I found some similarity between otakus and trekies, but there is far less similarity between trekies and computer game players.

 

[felipepepe]

Dunno about heavy metal, but Otaku, and computer/console game players are different groups with often sharply different conventions. I found some similarity between otakus and trekies, but there is far less similarity between trekies and computer game players.

You're mistaking my approach, I'm not saying they have similar conventions and "rules", just that they are 3 recent industry cultures, with similar targets (the youth, generally speaking). How they evoled and ended in different states is precisily due the differences in both conventions and marketing tactics, and that's the interesting thing to compare & study.

For instance, due hundreds of reasons, from end of cold war to media concentration and economic boom, in the US the 90's was the culmination of pop culture on those industries; Heavy Metal got from Metallica's Black Album to Slipknot & Linkin Park exploding on MTV; Otaku Culture had tons of animes like Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya & Evangelion, not to mention Pokémon and even all those countless jRPGs like Final Fantasy; and gaming was in a golden age, for both PC and consoles, like Dexter posted earlier...

But games exploded even more after, grabbing new markets and expanding their audience, sacrificing so much in the process that even "Causal vs. Hardcore" became a thing (I'm talking Farmville vs. Halo here, the existance of 'ultra-hardcore' like the Codex is even more interesting). Meanwhile, Heavy Metal went back to it's niche, remaning a target of prejudice from society, largely away from mainstream except for soldouts like Avenged Sevenfold (and Metallica ). But the otaku culture stayed half-way between those two; while in the early 00's it seemed to follow games footsteps into mainstream, it's pretty clear that it didn't quite make it, and it's now going back to a niche, a cultural ghetto busy with ciclerjerking about their moe waifus, hostile to non-believers and looked down by society.

When trying to understand why otaku culture is going throught this process, comparing it with the other two cultures offers invaluable insights.

I refused to go into movie industry with words I want to do an interactive art, while I can work great with camera, and I'm excellent dramaturg, I don't want to feed these people who want just look. I don't want to feed these who just grab only what they see, nothing more.

I got what you're saying, but I didn't get what it means in this context. o_O

 

[racofer]

There are no pre-2000 reports of decline for the Codex wasn't patrolling the interwebs then.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I still think it was firmly rooted in 3D. You could see it across the board on all genres and platforms. While some new games became possible with 3D graphics, vastly more were forgotten or mangled to fit the new trend. I didn't even have a decent computer back then (I had a 486 computer when I got a playstation) but I remember seeing 3D graphics on my console and think "What the fuck is this shit? Why would they use 3D that looks WORSE than 2D?". And games that did so tended to drop a lot of features to make up the difference in development time.

Lets look at some examples:

Final Fantasy: First 3D installment marks the slashing of equipment slots from 4 to 2 and a drastic reduction in item variety.
Castlevania: This genre basically dropped dead the second it went full 3D. SotN had some 3D powered effects (stretchable/rotatable sprites and such), but I honestly didn't even realize it aside from the spinning coffins.
Might and Magic: First 3D installment considered by about half the fanbase to be the point of decline. Combat becomes a real time mishmash primarily about exploiting bugs.
Star Ocean: Third installment abandons 2D and becomes banal shit.
Starcraft: Nuff said.
Phantasy Star: Turns from turn based dungeon crawler to 3rd person hack n slash MMO. Pretty decent as those go, but still, what a series to lose. I'd trade Phantasy Star for Final Fantasy any day.
Shining Force: Series vanishes into thin air, used later as a brand name to take on to a clone of a totally unrelated game. (Ok, technically this had some 3D dungeon crawler games as well, shining wisdom and shit, I've played one for a little bit, seemed ok. But it was only on the Saturn and is about as well remembered as south american geography.)
Elder Scrolls: Funny how skills started evaporating after the character models and items became 3D.


I can think of some decent 3D games, but I honestly can't think of any series that inclined with the advent of 3D. Let alone inclined BECAUSE of the 3D. Not a single one.

 

[dnf]

I still think it was firmly rooted in 3D. You could see it across the board on all genres and platforms. While some new games became possible with 3D graphics, vastly more were forgotten or mangled to fit the new trend. I didn't even have a decent computer back then (I had a 486 computer when I got a playstation) but I remember seeing 3D graphics on my console and think "What the fuck is this shit? Why would they use 3D that looks WORSE than 2D?". And games that did so tended to drop a lot of features to make up the difference in development time.

Its funny, in the time i have 2d consoles like SNES and genesis i have some concerns about the new PS1 i was going to have(father's present). It's like some pre-nostalgia thing, But when i begin to play the PSone games i was amazed by the 3d games by the time, even those muddy graphix, almost forgetting the old consoles. But by that time games was just toys and not serious business to me...

I can think of some decent 3D games, but I honestly can't think of any series that inclined with the advent of 3D. Let alone inclined BECAUSE of the 3D. Not a single one.

Hum, Mario, Metroid,Zelda, racing genre(though 2d racing games are fun in their own way)? The new games made because of 3d is reason enough to not demonize it. For me, i think what really brings down the gaming scene is the hordes of grown up hipster men/womenchildren and their idiotic ramblings about arts and indies...

 

[Telengard]

"[People who play RPGs are] depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games."
- Hiroshi Yamauchi, stabbing gamers around the world in their heart with a Triforce-shaped pencil, 1999

A site with a collection of essays from '96-'00
http://www.rpgamer.com/editor/archive/index.html

"I don't want to criticize any other designers, but I have to say that many of the people involved in the industry -- directors and producers -- are trying to make their games more like movies. They are longing for or yearning for making movies rather than making video games."
-- Shigeru Miyamoto

As a result of the way FFVII's release was handled, you can't read a strategy-RPG preview/review without hearing about Final Fantasy Tactics, or a standard RPG article without hearing about Square. Games are no longer being judged on their own merrits; they are being judged by how pretty they look, how much money was spent on them, and their pedigree.
- by pincode

So what is the future of RPGs? Based on the success of Final Fantasy VII, one can only presume that it will be more of the same. RPGs are now seeping into mainstream society and gaining support from defecting strategy and adventure players. The interactive movie quality also appeals to many non-gamers. Finally, the content of RPGs is changing from pure fighting to in-depth personal stories, which may draw more female support. The result of this is a shift in buying power, a loss of monetary votes from the traditional RPG fan. As with all things electronic, the trend is to become more user-friendly. My advice to the restless minds of the RPG stronghold is to break out the old 8 and 16-bit consoles and relive the fantasies of the past, or break out the old pencil and paper to create the fantasies of the future.
- by Jesse Sweetland

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/longterm/microsoft/documents/fof1.htm

Most harmful of all is the message that Microsoft’s actions have conveyed to every enterprise with the potential to innovate in the computer industry. Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft’s core products. Microsoft’s past success in hurting such companies and stifling innovation deters investment in technologies and businesses that exhibit the potential to threaten Microsoft. The ultimate result is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft’s self-interest.

___________/s/_______________
Thomas Penfield Jackson
U.S. District Judge

An essay re the potential of X-Box, including speculation on the future profits.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=22&ved=0CDUQFjABOBQ&url=http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/People/Grad_Students/czhong/marketing/X-Box.doc&ei=9pyuUI-zFuXOigKCg4GYBg&usg=AFQjCNH1cIeEX5CGc4OAf-z02giCbG26Qg

The real threat in the game console industry is not the market share battles Microsoft will be engaged in with the release of XBox, but the threat of competing console’s such as Sony’s dominant Playstation that do not run on non-Microsoft operating systems. As these consoles add more functionality and begin to overlap with the PC, Microsoft’s biggest fear is that its OS becomes supplanted on these new all encompassing entertainment hubs. This is the less obvious reason explaining Microsoft’s willingness to risk billions of dollars in the already crowded and competitive game industry. Its OS, its life and blood, is ultimately threatened in the long run and Microsoft is taking measures to prevent this.

 

[almondblight]

felipepepe This is from a 1998 review of Fallout I found in my house (from Mac Addict):

"In these days of 3D, first-person, multiplayer, shoot-everything-an-ask-questions-later gaming, it's nice to know a solid role-playing game can still be pit together."

 

[felipepepe]

felipepepe This is from a 1998 review of Fallout I found in my house (from Mac Addict):
"In these days of 3D, first-person, multiplayer, shoot-everything-an-ask-questions-later gaming, it's nice to know a solid role-playing game can still be pit together."

A proto-codexer! Do you have his name?

A site with a collection of essays from '96-'00

Wow, they spend like 2 years mostly just dicussing FF VII... and in 1998 appears a "Just What Is a Role-Playing Game, Anyway?" article.

 

[Machocruz]

Hum, Mario, Metroid,Zelda, racing genre(though 2d racing games are fun in their own way)? The new games made because of 3d is reason enough to not demonize it. For me, i think what really brings down the gaming scene is the hordes of grown up hipster men/womenchildren and their idiotic ramblings about arts and indies...

3D Mario has floaty jumping and is les precise, Prime is good but not as good as Super Metroid, Zelda is now childish NPCs, gimmick dungeons, and lame puzzles.

 

[Tehdagah]

I can think of some decent 3D games, but I honestly can't think of any series that inclined with the advent of 3D. Let alone inclined BECAUSE of the 3D. Not a single one.

Prince of Persia.

3D Mario has floaty jumping and is les precise, Prime is good but not as good as Super Metroid, Zelda is now childish NPCs, gimmick dungeons, and lame puzzles.

Only Mario 64.

 

[Dexter]

I still think it was firmly rooted in 3D. You could see it across the board on all genres and platforms. While some new games became possible with 3D graphics, vastly more were forgotten or mangled to fit the new trend. I didn't even have a decent computer back then (I had a 486 computer when I got a playstation) but I remember seeing 3D graphics on my console and think "What the fuck is this shit? Why would they use 3D that looks WORSE than 2D?". And games that did so tended to drop a lot of features to make up the difference in development time.

There is some truth to that, I think especially some genres (like Jump&Runs and Adventures) have been fucked over by "we have to go 3D, everyone is doing it" kind of think in both market forces and developers making games not really having a clear understanding of their audience base.
But I wouldn't really want to put too much blame on that since "3D" was the birth of several other genres like the FPS and there's nothing wrong with technology improving and getting better, it's the people not having any vision or properly utilizing it that you should put the blame on.



Some of my favorite games/franchises kind of got fucked over by this rush to go 3D:

Spoiler

But again, I would put a lot more of the blame directly on those guys: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/what-happened-to-gaming.78085/page-2#post-2375643

 

[Machocruz]

Only Mario 64.

Mario Galaxy is still floaty compared to the 2D games. It's just harder to judge distances in 3D, that's why you get a double jump and spend much time running around in wide spaces and jumping on wide platforms. It's the same thing with every 3D platformer. People would ragequit trying to land on platforms as small as some of the ones in Mario 3.

Even without all that, I don't see how 3D is incline.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Exclusives.

 

[almondblight]

A proto-codexer! Do you have his name?

Wade Albright, though I can't find much about him. I remember that opinion being pretty widespread at the time (complaints about everything being Doom-clones or like Quake). I also seem to remember some doom and gloom moaning when Deer Hunter became the best selling game (of the year? of all time?) 90's.

 

[Marsal]

I can think of some decent 3D games, but I honestly can't think of any series that inclined with the advent of 3D. Let alone inclined BECAUSE of the 3D. Not a single one.

Prince of Persia.

Nope.

 

[dnf]

How about syndicate wars?

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Remember this? http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=8246

RPG Codex: Darklands' combat is real-time with pause, an unorthodox thing for a CRPG at the time. Why did you choose to go for this kind of combat gameplay? Would not party-based historical simulation rather call for turn-based as the more tactical kind of combat?

Arnold Hendrick: MicroProse had done a series of turn-based, hex-grid wargames a few years earlier. They were remarkably unsuccessful. Meanwhile, most successful RPGs in that time period were one-character real-time games like Ultima. I felt real-time with pause would appeal to more people than spending action points each “turn” to do various things with each character, much less deciding whether action resolution was “as you spend the points” or “simultaneously later.” The fact that action-point-spending games have died away suggests my judgment was correct.