Note: This article was never completed. I quite like what I did in part 1, but part 2 ended up being a useless rant. Moreover, this is seriously out-dated. The casual gaming market boom on the iPod, iPhone, iPad cannot be ignored and needs to be explored, but I'd rather write a whole new article on that than to build upon what I started with "Retro: Coming Full Circle: Part 1". And so I decided to publish this as I didn't want it to go to waste. Read the article is after the jump. (edit: this is what happens when I have to study for a test; I publish 4 blog posts)
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Showing posts with label Feature: Retro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feature: Retro. Show all posts
9 Jul 2010
12 Jul 2008
Retro!: Coming Full Circle: Part 1
I had to choose between blogging about more recent stuff and stuff that have been on my mind for a while. Ended up deciding to write on old stuff, so excuse me for being a little late to the party.
It was with a cathode-ray oscilloscope that video games were first created. Pong wasn't the first video game ever created, but it was credited for kick-starting the video game industry back in the early 1970s. Being a social, 2-player game played mainly in bars, Pong was as addictive as the alcoholic beverages these locations served. Furthermore, guys and girls could play together on equal grounds as girls generally have good, if not better, hand-eye coordination.
However, in 1983, the video game market crashed. The chief reasons behind the crash were a flood of consoles and games, competition from personal computers, and price wars. Everyone, including their grandmother, was getting into the business of making games, eventually saturating the market. Pac-Man and E.T. (for the Atari 2600 console) published by Atari literally dug its own grave (hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges were reportedly buried in a New Mexican landfill - wikipedia.org) and crashed the whole video game industry.
For the next 2 years, game developers had a hard time selling their wares. Even Nintendo, which was revived in 1981 with its hugely successful Donkey Kong arcade game, struggled to push its new console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, into US toy stores. Eventually, the NES managed to sneak into stores disguised as R.O.B., a robotic toy. It became a huge success, churning out quality games through the "Nintendo Seal of Approval" program and making video games a cultural phenomenon. Till this very day, we see major game franchises, like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and Dragon Quest, that had their roots all the way back in the mid 1980s during the video game "boom"....
Fast forward to 2008. Video games are now "a $10 billion industry, which rivals the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry in the world". First week launch sales easily clock in at millions of dollars for major releases (Halo 3 - US$300m). Metal Gear Solid 4 had its opening sequence filmed/edited in Hollywood by Logan (link to Logan might contain spoilers) with a budget that rivals what some game developers have for their entire production. WoW has millions of players running around in its virtual world. However, compared to the total number of games out there, these highly successful games are actually few and far between. Quoted from wikipedia.org:
As you can see, making a video game is like rolling a standard 20-sided D&D die and hoping to get one particular number. Because of this, fewer and fewer developers innovate or create new franchises. Sure we have games like Mass Effect that have planned trilogies and reliable sports titles like Winning Eleven (as known as Pro Evo), but these games are usually simple story continuation or quick annual graphical updates. Mass Effect 1, for example, has a play time of about 20 hours. It's hardly epic, but it isn't an epic fail either. However, consider this: a trilogy would clock in a total of about 60 hours, assuming they are all roughly the same length, whereas other standalone RPGs like Final Fantasy typically have game times of 60 hours and above. Did the developers deliberately split the game into 3 parts? Well, its a good game, and it should clock in at about 30 - 35 hours if I do the side quests, so I don't have much to complain about personally. But the point is, game franchises are now made to get quick, easy money from gamers. Year after year, people buy sports titles that have hardly any upgrades to its gameplay. Games are now getting planned sequels to suck money out of gamers. We can't blame them. The industry is getting so cut throat that they have to resort to reusing textures, maybe introduce one or two new stages, repackage the game, and place a "2" behind the title, in order to actually make a game profitable, right? Perhaps.
Another tactic used, particularly by Square Enix, is the constant reharsh/remake of a "classic favourite". For example, Final Fantasy IV for the DS is the 7th incarnation of the game since its original release back in 1991. The reason for this tactic is that the main FF games take too damn long to develop! Even Tetsuya Nomura's original effort, The World Ends With You, didn't succeed financially although it did well critically. Squeenix's head honcho has gone on record to scold it's employees for disappointing sales due to the constant delay of their main franchises. Before long, we might see the remake of the entire FF series every time a new game is released! Of course, there are SOME fans out there who want SOME games to be remade (me, FF7!), but that doesn't mean simply porting it over to every single console for every generation. Maybe a new version every 2 or 3 console generations for some of the more popular games? Needless to say, costs are low and profits are high. You spend less time writing the story and designing the characters and you have a ready audience of hardcore fans, dying to replay their favourite gems in all its next-gen glory. On the other hand, you might piss off a horde of ravaging wolves if you screw it up somehow. Win-win situation? Depends.
Which brings me to the current craze. Casual games.
It was with a cathode-ray oscilloscope that video games were first created. Pong wasn't the first video game ever created, but it was credited for kick-starting the video game industry back in the early 1970s. Being a social, 2-player game played mainly in bars, Pong was as addictive as the alcoholic beverages these locations served. Furthermore, guys and girls could play together on equal grounds as girls generally have good, if not better, hand-eye coordination.
However, in 1983, the video game market crashed. The chief reasons behind the crash were a flood of consoles and games, competition from personal computers, and price wars. Everyone, including their grandmother, was getting into the business of making games, eventually saturating the market. Pac-Man and E.T. (for the Atari 2600 console) published by Atari literally dug its own grave (hundreds of thousands of unsold cartridges were reportedly buried in a New Mexican landfill - wikipedia.org) and crashed the whole video game industry.
For the next 2 years, game developers had a hard time selling their wares. Even Nintendo, which was revived in 1981 with its hugely successful Donkey Kong arcade game, struggled to push its new console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, into US toy stores. Eventually, the NES managed to sneak into stores disguised as R.O.B., a robotic toy. It became a huge success, churning out quality games through the "Nintendo Seal of Approval" program and making video games a cultural phenomenon. Till this very day, we see major game franchises, like Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and Dragon Quest, that had their roots all the way back in the mid 1980s during the video game "boom"....
Fast forward to 2008. Video games are now "a $10 billion industry, which rivals the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry in the world". First week launch sales easily clock in at millions of dollars for major releases (Halo 3 - US$300m). Metal Gear Solid 4 had its opening sequence filmed/edited in Hollywood by Logan (link to Logan might contain spoilers) with a budget that rivals what some game developers have for their entire production. WoW has millions of players running around in its virtual world. However, compared to the total number of games out there, these highly successful games are actually few and far between. Quoted from wikipedia.org:
In the early 21st century, rules of thumb noted by industry commentators estimated that 10% of published games generated 90% of revenue; that around 3% of PC games and 15% of console games have global sales of 100,000+ a year (with even this level insufficient to make high-budget titles profitable); and that about 20% of games return at least some profit. The rate of commercial failure has been estimated at 95% by the International Game Developers Association.
As you can see, making a video game is like rolling a standard 20-sided D&D die and hoping to get one particular number. Because of this, fewer and fewer developers innovate or create new franchises. Sure we have games like Mass Effect that have planned trilogies and reliable sports titles like Winning Eleven (as known as Pro Evo), but these games are usually simple story continuation or quick annual graphical updates. Mass Effect 1, for example, has a play time of about 20 hours. It's hardly epic, but it isn't an epic fail either. However, consider this: a trilogy would clock in a total of about 60 hours, assuming they are all roughly the same length, whereas other standalone RPGs like Final Fantasy typically have game times of 60 hours and above. Did the developers deliberately split the game into 3 parts? Well, its a good game, and it should clock in at about 30 - 35 hours if I do the side quests, so I don't have much to complain about personally. But the point is, game franchises are now made to get quick, easy money from gamers. Year after year, people buy sports titles that have hardly any upgrades to its gameplay. Games are now getting planned sequels to suck money out of gamers. We can't blame them. The industry is getting so cut throat that they have to resort to reusing textures, maybe introduce one or two new stages, repackage the game, and place a "2" behind the title, in order to actually make a game profitable, right? Perhaps.
Another tactic used, particularly by Square Enix, is the constant reharsh/remake of a "classic favourite". For example, Final Fantasy IV for the DS is the 7th incarnation of the game since its original release back in 1991. The reason for this tactic is that the main FF games take too damn long to develop! Even Tetsuya Nomura's original effort, The World Ends With You, didn't succeed financially although it did well critically. Squeenix's head honcho has gone on record to scold it's employees for disappointing sales due to the constant delay of their main franchises. Before long, we might see the remake of the entire FF series every time a new game is released! Of course, there are SOME fans out there who want SOME games to be remade (me, FF7!), but that doesn't mean simply porting it over to every single console for every generation. Maybe a new version every 2 or 3 console generations for some of the more popular games? Needless to say, costs are low and profits are high. You spend less time writing the story and designing the characters and you have a ready audience of hardcore fans, dying to replay their favourite gems in all its next-gen glory. On the other hand, you might piss off a horde of ravaging wolves if you screw it up somehow. Win-win situation? Depends.
Which brings me to the current craze. Casual games.
10 Nov 2006
Retro!: Sonic on Genesis
I'm not that much of a retro gamer myself, but once in a while its just great to reminisce those days.
OK, a little bit about my gaming background.
One of my first gaming experiences (and definitely one of the most memorable) was Sonic the Hedgehog on SEGA Genesis. It was so long ago, I can't even remember how old I was! All that remains in my memory was the late-night games of Sonic and the adrenaline of racing through a stage at break-neck speeds. The simple, yet catchy, music and sound effects on that 16-bit console left a huge impression on me too. How obsessed am I with Sonic? I bought a Panasonic VS6 mobile phone just because it has Sonic The Hedgehog on it (although I don't play it much because of the sucky controls...).
Imagine my dismay when I bought Sonic 3D for the PC when I was older. The developers didn't manage to successfully capture the adrenaline and speed of 2D Sonic. The Blue Hedgehog with an attitude was dead for me. The recent remake of Sonic Genesis on the Gameboy Advance left a sour taste in the mouths of many reviewers. If I'm not wrong, this year marks the 15th anniversary of Sonic, and to celebrate that SEGA has released a new Sonic game for soon-to-be-current-gen consoles. Judging by initial response from the gaming press, this game should be rather good. I'm still waiting for Gamespot or Gamespy to review the Xbox360 title before I say anything more about it though. From what little I've seen from a Wii gameplay video, I have to say I'm not impressed. Sure it's pretty and it's fast, but I just don't like how the game feels stuck between 2D and 3D. I don't think anyone can pull off Sonic in a 3D environment and freedom without taking away the sense of speed. Sonic lives on 2D, not 3D. Perhaps sometime in the future SEGA will prove me wrong, but until then, I'm hoping to get my Sonic fix with the Wii Virtual Console version of the Genesis classic.
OK, a little bit about my gaming background.
One of my first gaming experiences (and definitely one of the most memorable) was Sonic the Hedgehog on SEGA Genesis. It was so long ago, I can't even remember how old I was! All that remains in my memory was the late-night games of Sonic and the adrenaline of racing through a stage at break-neck speeds. The simple, yet catchy, music and sound effects on that 16-bit console left a huge impression on me too. How obsessed am I with Sonic? I bought a Panasonic VS6 mobile phone just because it has Sonic The Hedgehog on it (although I don't play it much because of the sucky controls...).
Imagine my dismay when I bought Sonic 3D for the PC when I was older. The developers didn't manage to successfully capture the adrenaline and speed of 2D Sonic. The Blue Hedgehog with an attitude was dead for me. The recent remake of Sonic Genesis on the Gameboy Advance left a sour taste in the mouths of many reviewers. If I'm not wrong, this year marks the 15th anniversary of Sonic, and to celebrate that SEGA has released a new Sonic game for soon-to-be-current-gen consoles. Judging by initial response from the gaming press, this game should be rather good. I'm still waiting for Gamespot or Gamespy to review the Xbox360 title before I say anything more about it though. From what little I've seen from a Wii gameplay video, I have to say I'm not impressed. Sure it's pretty and it's fast, but I just don't like how the game feels stuck between 2D and 3D. I don't think anyone can pull off Sonic in a 3D environment and freedom without taking away the sense of speed. Sonic lives on 2D, not 3D. Perhaps sometime in the future SEGA will prove me wrong, but until then, I'm hoping to get my Sonic fix with the Wii Virtual Console version of the Genesis classic.
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