Quote
Well Nintendo started it so get mad at them.
First off, I gotta examine this quote
alone, because there's so much wrong with it that I can
indeed devote an entire post to it, much like literary critics overly examine "Call me Ishmael" from
Moby Dick.Now, my entire response could be that the burden of proving this falls entirely on you, and that as such, I have no reason to further debate it. That would be a pretty easy thing for me to say, and it would be a pretty difficult thing for you to prove, because that's a wholly subjective comment and it would take a LOT of "proof," the likes of which could be debated literally forever by everyone here. Not to mention that is the rule of an argument - if you make a claim, you better have the stones to pull up some confirmation. So rest assured that you putting up this argument forces you to bring the party, because right now there aint no party, and where there aint no party there aint no party
gonna stop, meaning there's nothing for me to say until you give me the details.
But let's put that aside, for a lot of reasons, most of which to be explained below.
I wonder if the board game industry and its client base did the same thing. Like, chess has been around since the 15th century (according to Wikipedia), and it tends be thought of as a game for intellectuals. So when Monopoly and Parcheesi and Scrabble all came around, I wonder if all these elitist chess players sat around and lamented the fact that "Yon boardgame doth go to thine plebians, and they shall make barbarians of us all!" and proceeded to whine within their own forums, pubs, halls, Elks lodge, and wherever the hell else they gathered to play chess. And then to further solidify their own innate superiority, they refused to play games that the public might enjoy, shunned all those who enjoyed them, and talking about "ye good olde dayes" between puffs of smoke and long draughts from their cognac.
Somehow I don't think that happened - I don't think the people designing board games suddenly gave up and only focuses on this new brand of player who didn't want to challenge themselves purely mentally, and wanted a little bit of luck. I say this because we still get board games that challenge you a little more intensely than the pure roll of the die. Settlers of Catan, in all its luck-based glory, still has a very strong element to it that demands a strategic mind, able to look at various factors and determine the best route to achieve victory.
So all this talk about how you are getting left behind and can't enjoy anything is nonsense, and really making a mountain out of a molehill. Now, you could tell me "but the same person didn't design chess and Monopoly and Catan, they were made by completely different people and persons," and you are right. But that sounds like a good parallel to various internal first parties at Nintendo, to say nothing of second parties and third parties all working on their own games.
Another thing to argue? "Nintendo started it." Really. Can you absolutely prove that? I don't think you can, and yes, you can rest assured I have a long winded response with lots of different reasons why you can't. The easiest is that several companies have made non-game/casual/whatever-condescending-label games. It's not hard for me to list several off. What about Anticipation on the NES? What about the piano simulator? What about all the spelling games on computers, long before the Wii? What about spelling games on the Colecovision (and don't tell me they don't exist, I had a few of 'em when I was younger, they were Sesame Street themed)? What about Bejeweled and Popcop games and all the stupid little things kids play on their TI-82 calculators?
Don't even pretend to try and tell me this is something only Nintendo has done, that they started it, that they are the only ones perpetuating it, and that they are the only ones who will do it, because there were lots of developers before them, lots of developers with them, and will be lots of developers after them who are going to tread those footsteps parallel. All they did was note that if 10% of the population plays games, that's 90% we don't get to make money off of. And now they are making games to satisfy both that existing 10% and the 90% that never picked up controllers in their life.
(I know you personally - for some reason I can't understand - think that a game made for the majority can't possibly be understood, accepted, and enjoyed by the minority, and that is an exceedingly pompous thing to say, and projecting it outward to cover that 10% shows incredible short sightedness.)
Finally, and possibly the most egregious errored claim I have with that sentence is that final part - "get mad at them." That's just wrong no matter how I look at it. Why? Because it implies that this is something Nintendo is doing that deserves punishment and disdain. From a business perspective, it's brilliant. From the POV of all these new gamers, it's fun and innovative. From my perspective, it gives me new types of games. But from
your persepective - and I want you to take especially close note of the word "your" - it's selling out, it's leaving loyal customers behind in the dust (equally hilarious, because you don't even have a Wii yet, because you are convinced it's going to die any day now), it's refuting the previous 20 years of their business for a short term gain that won't even last them into the next generation.
That's so infuriatingly
narrow I can't believe it. To sit there and say "get mad at them" ?? I don't need to get mad at anyone. Getting mad comes solely FROM YOU, because you're letting it bother you and get under YOUR skin, and instead of fessing up that it's a personal thing, you instead project it out onto Nintendo and simultaneously stick them with the blame, as if they deserved it. Cuz hey, it's a lot easier to get the idea some instant credence and acceptance when you start pumping your first AMIRITE, MEN? when you are standing around people who always (or at least usually) agree with you. But take this argument into the homes of people who have never touched a game console before the Wii, and you're going to get a lot of blank stares.
I don't even have to make arguments about how they are still pumping out their franchises at a blistering rate - much faster than ANY of their previous systems, let alone much faster than Microsoft and Sony COMBINED - because I'm too busy focusing on the fact that you've solidified your complaint as something Nintendo forced upon gamers-at-large like a dictactorship.
This whole idea that we are viable to "get mad at them" just further reinforces my claim about gamers being spoiled brats. You're so busy focusing on games like Brain Age and Cooking Mama that you somehow completely ignore the other games that are aimed squarely at you. Note that a discussion about the frequency of these games coming out is another discussion entirely - I'm just pointing out that within a year you've got huge franchises covered with some really nice gameplay, AND we're finally getting some online stuff. I guess I'm more the person who thinks "Hey, we're getting it now, which is better than when we weren't," and can cut them some slack because I'm not complaining how we don't have everything XBL offers.
So stop with the personal-opinion-born-universal-complaint nonsense. I'm tired of it.
I've got further arguments to make in this thread, but thank god I'm done with
that sentence.
Geez, only two hours of work left. I better do these next ones quick so I'm simultaneously burning time at work and getting paid to talk about video games....
Topic: Shiggy speaks about Casual and Hardcore games (Read 30556 times)
