Topic: Perfect storms (of gaming)

[Pixelated Pixies]

Reggie Fils-Aime once famously described his own company's fanbase as 'insatiable'. At the time the term brought to mind the opening scene from 'Waltz with Bashir', in which a pack of starving dogs burst through the street, slobbering and aggressive, with eyes that demand something that cannot be given.
 

OK, so maybe we're not a bunch of ravaneous beasts, but Reggie is not wrong when he says there's a section of the gaming community who will always want more. Conversely, however, there are also those people who have too many games to play and too little time within which to play them.
 
In fact, if you're anything like me you'll often find yourself occupying both groups at the same time. Not in a 'Copenhagen interpretation' kind of way, but rather in the sense that as Nintendo fans we have been conditioned to expect anything from bountiful generosity to extreme frugality. Only very occasionally do I find that my free time is commensurate with the amount and quality of the games currently in my 'now playing' pile.
 
Fortunately, this week is shaping up to be one such occasion. Having built up a cache of annual leave that must be used before the year is through, I have found myself with 2 weeks off work. That in and of itself is great news but what, I hear you ask, makes this a perfect storm for 'gaming'? Well, firstly there's the upcoming Majora's Mask retroactive. As it is one of my favourite Zelda games, and as I have not played it many years, I'm very much looking forward to revisiting Termina and it's inhabitants. There is also last weeks European 3DS VC release Warioland 3, which I've glanced at but not yet delved in to. Despite being a fan of all things Warioland I've actually never played this one. Then there's Paper Mario: Sticker Star which I'm planning to pick up tomorrow, and that promises to be the sort of meaty experience that I've been hankering for on 3DS for quite some time. Then on Thursday in Europe we are also seeing the release of the much anticipated sequel to Hydroventure, Spin Cycle. Surely that will satiate?
 
What makes this all the better (for me if for no one else) is that we're forecast for frost, biting winds, potential snow and even some fog. Perfect conditions.  ;D
 
Let us know your perfect storms.

[lolmonade]

There are certain franchises I wish got more love (FZERO, FREAKING FZERO), but understand the business decisions why they may get neglected.  I understand Reggie's comments on why gamers can be "instatiable", but I come from a standpoint of a consumer, not a business analyst or investor in their stock.
 
I remember in college, it seemed like my need was instatiable due to having just enough spending cash to buy a game a month and an abundance of free time. 
 
Now, I have a stockpile of games bought on sales & other good deals, and I simply don't have the time to play them with a full time job and a son that occupies much of my free time.
 
I don't ever recall thinking there weren't enough games coming out that I would like.  My bottlenecks have always been money or time.
 
I have a week and a half off after next Friday.  I assure you my wife will have to deal with me plugging in some serious game hours during that time.  Going to take the opportunity to play through Majora's Mask finally, even if that means using a walkthrough.  I also have Saints Row: The third from the humble bundle and The God of War Saga disc I got 1/2 off that i'd like to have an opportunity to play.
 
My wife will probably want to sink more time with Skylanders Giants (our current weekend ritual together), and play together more on Epic Mickey: The Power of Two.  I'm sure I can get some solo game time with the Professor Layton games sitting under the tree for her.
 

[Ian Sane]

Reggie only says that gamers are insatiable because his company has their heads up their asses and is completely out of touch with what core gamers want.  When a company is firing on all cylinders they never say anything like this.

The Wii had crap third party support, was pretty much a previous gen console in a new package, had archaic online gaming compared to EVERYONE else, and Nintendo released like three games in its last two years.  Oh yeah, we're SO unreasonable for being upset about that.  I'd also argue that Nintendo has really fallen into the rut of making cookie cutter sequels and will intentionally shoehorn gimmicky controls or lower the difficulty in their games specifically to cater to casuals, something that would obviously upset some fans.

Nintendo has a reputation for fucking up routine **** that everyone else gets right.  Until that stops I think most of this criticism they face is justified.  They routinely make completely avoidable mistakes and baffling decisions.

[TJ Spyke]

He was right though, no matter how much gamers get they just complain and say they want more.

[ShyGuy]

I want shorter games, just polished down to the good stuff.

I want first person adventure games.

I want more unique experiences like Zombi U.

I want a game market that has a place for B grade games.

I want a Zelda that is all Windfall Island.

I want a deep game world. Where everything can be interacted with.

[Pixelated Pixies]

These are all great responses guys but I kind of feel like lolmonade was the only one who actually got what the topic is about.  :

Majora's Mask, Saints Row, God of War, Skylanders, Epic Mickey, Layton and time off work. Sounds good to me.
 
Which reminds me, I really should pick up Spectre's Call (The Last Spectre) at some point.
 

[Ian Sane]

I guess I should mention more what my perfect storm is.

In the SNES era, Nintendo did not have the monopoly they had in the NES era.  However when a new third party game was announced I just ASSUMED it would be on the SNES and most of the time it was.  The odd Genesis exclusive was infrequent enough that it was just a mild disappointment.  It's like if your team has a strong winning record the odd loss sucks but doesn't stick with you for any real period of time.  The post-SNES Nintendo consoles in terms of third party support are like really bad losing seasons where your team just NEVER seems to win any games and it just eats away at you.  On those systems you felt every major third party game that the Nintendo system missed out on.  It has often felt like the whole industry hates Nintendo and thus hates US, their fans.  So I want that kind of third party support where you just take it for granted that most games come out for your system.

I would also like for Nintendo's own games to be mostly essential.  I want each game to count, where I would feel that skipping any would be missing out.  Pokemon is incredibly unessential.  You can skip pretty much every non-RPG Pokemon game and you're missing nothing special.  A lot of Nintendo's franchises have gotten to the point where the whole reason they exist is that Brand X is on System Y.  Like do we need so many Mario Karts or is it just that they want every Nintendo system to have one because it's easy money?  I get that this is a business but I'm just not interested in generic product, even when it is as well made as Nintendo's usually is.  As a series moves in a direction where it has no artistic or creative reason to exist, I'm going to lose interest and that's why new franchises from Nintendo are so important.  There is even a financial incentive.  Some day these old cash cows will be milked dry and then Nintendo is screwed if they have not created new franchises to appeal to new generations.

Finally I want Nintendo's goal with their games to be to make the best game they can.  I do NOT want a game's difficulty to be dumbed down to ridiculous levels to appeal to casuals.  I do NOT want controls designed because they market well to rubes.  I want games to have whatever controls work BEST for the game they are in, regardless of whether or not is "sells" the public on some dumb gimmick.  I used to associate Nintendo with having the best, most responsive and most intuitive controls.  Now I associate them as one of the most unreliable developers when it comes to controls.

The problem is that what I want is so far removed from present-day Nintendo that for them to do this would be a huge upheaval of the whole way they do things.  Around 1996, Nintendo and myself starting going in slightly different directions and it was not so noticable at first, but by now we're almost completely incompatible - yet both paths derive from the same Nintendo.  What I want is the Nintendo we would have got had they not screwed up with the cartridges on the N64.  In 2001 it would not have been that hard for Nintendo to shift into that "alternate universe Nintendo" but today after two whole generations and a third one that has already started?  It's a fantasy.

[broodwars]

My gaming perfect storm will be the day I finally have a lengthy vacation from work and people in general (particularly my family), and that day will be the day I finally start catching up on my massive backlog.  Still, last October was pretty close, with major retail releases just about every week and PSN just went nuts with digital Vita game releases.

Naturally, though, the really big one for me starts in mid-January and continues through the end of March: a major game release EVERY WEEK for TWO MONTHS, and most of that are games I care about: dmc: Devil May Cry; Ni No Kuni; Dead Space 3; Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time; Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate; Tomb Raider; Bioshock Infinite; and possibly Fire Emblem 3DS as well provided there's actually something approaching modern game design there.  And I don't even want to think about what PSN's going to look like during that time, let alone any other interesting-looking games I'll suddenly have interest in.

And I have no ****ing idea when I'm going to play them all. I've been averaging 40-50 hour work weeks these days (this past one was 57), 7 days a week.