This post is by guest blogger William.
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Categories: Business, Commentary
Tags: atari, c64, nes, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, snes, wii, xbox, xbox 360
Last month, Jamie identified 5 Reasons Why PC Gaming Is Broken. Jamie’s article caught the eye of VR5 Online‘s William Burns III who responds with his survey of and concerns about the entire video game industry.
The Tin Age of Gaming
by William Burns III
“It’s the games themselves-not the graphics, not the music, not the pure processing power-that make the fun.” (Nintendo Power 78, p. 23)
I would like to believe that I am a connoisseur of sorts regarding video games. I first cut my teeth on a Commodore 64, moved to Atari, later Nintendo (NES, SNES, N64 and now Wii), Sega (Master System, Genesis, 32x, Saturn, Dreamcast), PlayStation 1 and 2, and even for a time owned an Xbox. I’ve had my share of gaming (including PC and Mac). Since the early years, and increasingly throughout and up until the present day, something has been outright disturbing me about the video game industry.
When I began with a Commodore 64 (and later a 128), there was instilled within me an outrageous satisfaction that the very code I had spent a ridiculous number of hours manually typing into this electronic device had finally produced a crude form of entertainment. Albeit 2-bit gaming at its best, Circus Capers was not a marvel in design nor programming. What it was and this is where I differentiate, is that it kept me occupied for many days during its creation and many more afterward as I played the game. It was a simple concept; bounce a stick figure around and don’t let it hit the ground, and yet it held my imagination far longer than a majority of games produced today.
Something terribly wrong has happened since then.
I was later introduced to my beloved Atari 2600, and with this new box in my household I was no longer required to enter the code into the machine by hand in order to reap the rewards of playing the game. Although the Commodore did have cartridges and tape storage, 15 minutes loading time for a 64K game was beyond the realm of my patience. Plug a premade cartridge into the machine and instantly you had a game to play, it was brilliant! I used to play games like Demon Attack, Yars’ Revenge, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Freeway, Asteroids and Tanks for hours (and admittedly I still do).
Then came Atari 7800 – Rock On! Better graphics than before! To say I was pleased would be like saying an anime fan merely “enjoys” a convention. And so the process began again, adding games to my ever expanding library, better graphics, but essentially the same games. Pac-Man was on the Atari 2600, but he never looked so good on the raw power of the 7800!
And then it happened. The Video Game Crash. Suddenly budgets for new games were being cut, companies were going under by the hour, publishers were looking for ways to diversify their offerings outside of the video game industry in order to survive. While many places went under, those that survived these dark ages continued on and reinvented themselves.
In those dark ages as a child, I spent my days playing my Atari and ColecoVision to pass the time. And at some point, there were rumors of a new system coming for Christmas… oh how my heart jumped and my palms did sweat in anticipation of what would be the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Coming from using a Commodore 64 to a time where the Atari 7800 was king of the mountain was enough strain on my poor child heart, so it was a complete wonder that I did not have a stroke when I found a Nintendo Entertainment System under the Christmas tree. And I thought the Atari 7800 was awe inspiring! There I was playing a video game that suddenly had numerous concepts that I was previously unaware a video game was capable of; Multiple levels, Multitudes of Power Ups, and a Storyline!
Holy crap! A real storyline!? (Yes, “Sorry, but the princess is in another castle” does in fact constitute a story, however weak)
Which leads me to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, both far more capable and superior than their previous incarnations. And the game library for each was equally challenging and creative in design. Games such as Super Mario Kart, Sonic 1 & 2, Rock and Roll Racing, Gradius III, Shadowrun, Final Fantasy (insert number here), and more kept me awake into the wee hours of the night. With better graphics than the previous hardware, the game industry was rolling along again but not as hot as it once was. Truly none of the new companies of the late 80s and 90s had done their homework before debuting their machines.
This was clearly seen with TurboGrafx-16, Neo-Geo, 3DO and so forth. Sega Saturn was originally to be a 2D hardware system (which it excelled at) but on the heels of PlayStation was suddenly strapped to a crude 3D engine at the last minute in order to compete in the graphics department. Neo-Geo was simply awe inspiring when it came to graphics because it was a near perfect arcade translation of its games (though the price was outrageous), and even the great Atari was somehow sucked into this war with its debut of the Jaguar, (which you must trust me I’ve argued with Adam Poots at Atari about what led to that and why Atari is just barely denting the market today). What I am describing here is something we see as a common folly of even recent times; where graphics and eye candy far outweigh the importance of the innovation of game design itself.
Think about this for a moment. Why is it that games which can be described in a single sentence have the staying power of 20-50 years, while massive multimedia productions costing tens of millions of dollars or more are second hat in about a year?
Everyone knows what Pac-Man is, and is happy to play it even today. All of those old classics have insane replay value, and I believe this is the holy grail of the video game industry – one which a majority of the industry has completely forgotten. It’s true that games like the Final Fantasy franchise have a strong presence in the industry, but it’s still Final Fantasy (insert number here). And while such games as Asteroids, Super Mario Brothers, and so forth are still being repeatedly revisited – when was the last time you felt the need to replay Super Mario 64? How is it that the original Donkey Kong has more replay than its sequels?
Herein lays the problem, and one that the game industry continually manages to fall into time and again. They have all managed to forget their roots, and as a result, are subject to mediocre games with a short shelf life and replay value. Sure, games like Halo 3 will be a huge success and I’m currently playing Final Fantasy XII on PS2, but when these are done I no longer feel compelled to pick them up again – and even with Halo 3 and the ability for online play, it’s a one trick pony. The shelf life of one year is simply unacceptable for a video game when compared to the classics I used to play (and still do to this day).
So I’ve outlined at least part of what is bothering me about the industry, and now I will try to convey the other part.
What we now see in our current state is that three major systems have emerged. Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and, of course, the PlayStation 3. Being that Nintendo has been through this situation before (first and second video game crash) they were smart to step back and focus on gameplay and not hardware power like the competition. When a company like Nintendo steps back from producing a system with far superior graphics in exchange for focus on gameplay and price point – you would think that other companies would be paying attention.
Consistently increasing hardware capabilities, graphics capacity and so forth does not mean it will be better. One need only look at 3DO, Neo-Geo and Jaguar for proof of that. So why are these companies hell-bent on following this proven path of ruin again?
Sony is in deep trouble right now. Let’s face it, folks. From Blu-ray discs to ridiculously expensive components and shortages of units, Sony has outright bet the farm with PS3 hoping gamers won’t call their bluff. The price tag is too high, and the games are outrageous to produce – and while it is visually stunning, graphics alone do not make a good game.
Sony as a company has managed to go the route of 3DO. Yes, I just saw that light bulb go off over your head. The “all in one entertainment unit” that was supposed to be 3DO died due to complications, as well as price point and lack of compelling content. So too we see Sony and PS3 attempting the same route – just with better hardware. Do any of these companies understand the concept of not repeating history? Sony also seems to be hell-bent on repeating history with the Blu-ray format, which for all intents and purposes happens to be the new Betamax while HD-DVD would be the new VHS. This time around, I’m not entirely sure anyone cares any more.
Sony may have a mild success with their Broadband Cell Processor system, but it certainly could not hope to recoup their losses.
So does this leave Microsoft off the hook? Of course not! One thing that differs though is that with their online capabilities they have reintroduced us to our classic games, downloadable and playable at home. Obviously somebody at Microsoft understands the idea that these classic games have infinitely more replay value than their multi-million dollar counterparts, but does this actually solve the underlying problem? For the most part, the answer to this is a resounding “No.” Essentially reselling classic games only masks the underlying problem, but at the very least it buys them some needed breathing room while attempting to figure out how to return their newer games to the ability to have a shelf life of many years.
And so we in turn are left with Nintendo and their Wii system. The Wiimote is essentially a redesigned Power Glove concept, right down to the sensor bar, and even Nintendo has the classic gaming strategy in their arsenal for a backup plan. We see now that through a process of emulation, game companies are dusting off their old games and attempting to breathe new life into them – all while making some more money. Nintendo will undoubtedly be offering us their old NES, SNES and maybe even their N64 library over their online network, downloadable for a price and playable. So, they too are seeing this problem as well and are opting to take the route of buying some time.
The question I see here, and one that we as gamers should be clearly asking, is why are we paying $200-$300 for a game system when we will be spending a majority of our time playing games on it that a $10 NES or SNES from a garage sale can just as simply accomplish? There are surely emulators online that you can download for free, and while trading the ROMs themselves is considered illegal, rest assured such happens with great abundance. One only need to look at the PSP (PlayStation Portable) to understand that Emulation is running rampant – and I will admit freely that I am running an NES, SNES, and Genesis emulator on my PSP with a library of games for them as ROMs, which is due to the wholly unimpressive game selection available for the gaming device I paid $250 for. I paid amazing money for a handheld system, and one way or the other I am going to use it.
But again, I actually own said games for those systems and they are sitting in a box.
An NES game measures about 256k in size, and the emulator is free. So why pay $250 for a game machine, $1,000 for a new television, and $50 a month for a broadband connection and then pay $1 or whatever per game? Emulation is what will drive these next generation consoles, and it is emulation that was born out of rebel programmers trading ROM files to play these very same games on home computers. Unfortunately, we all know what happens when companies get their hands on these things…
And yet, here we are gladly paying for these classic games again. The reason being is that there is obviously a massive void in gaming leaving us without any game with the replay value that we once enjoyed. Unfortunately for us as gamers, I believe this is like rewarding game companies for bad behavior, and as long as we continue to reward them for this, the problem will only get worse.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have a marathon game of Gauntlet II to get back to…
Editor’s note: VR5 worked with Jamie in bringing VNES to the Active Worlds environment.