Author Topic: Worth a watch/listen...  (Read 9237 times)

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Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #25 on: August 19, 2008, 03:00:52 AM »
BTW, one of Malstrom's articles is about the same fears happening when the NES appeared. Computer gamers thought it was pretty much the casual system (or so I heard, all I know is that I was always envious of the one guy who had an NES here since that was better than the C64s we all had but it seems he was talking about Amiga gamers and such).

Offline IceCold

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2008, 03:52:37 AM »
KDR wins this thread with his first post. No need to continue.
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Offline Smash_Brother

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #27 on: August 19, 2008, 05:47:55 AM »
EDIT: Gah, he way overstretches the definition of a toy. His definition includes TVs, radios, etc but no real definition of the word toy would include those.

The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. Anything a man buys that is unnecessary to work or serve some other practical purpose is a toy in my book. Hell, I could call a piece of construction equipment a toy without a hint of irony under the right circumstances.
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Offline Deguello

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #28 on: August 19, 2008, 01:37:11 PM »
Guy is intelligent and his points well thought out.  It's almost like Malstrom's stuff from a gamer's point of view.

The parallels between this and the comic book crash are uncanny.  And the speculators and collectors could have cared less about the future of their medium until it was too late to save it.

If I make make a distinct comparison between the collector/speculator comic fan and hardcore videogamers and a houseguest from Billy Ray Valentine's brownstone in Philadelphia.

In the movie Trading Places, Billy Ray Valentine comes into money via the schemes of a pair of brother brokers to see if changing a man's environment could lead him to change his behaviors and attitudes.  Thus, the homeless Billy Ray Valentine is taken from the streets and takes the place of Louis Winthorpe III, a wealthy man.  The first thing the classless Bill Ray does is invite all of his acquaintances from the streets and bars he frequented and throws a lavish party.  Things proceed as planned and everybody is happy with the party.

Until the guests start putting the cups on the tables without coasters, leaving trash all over the place, barfing in his bedroom, running prostitution businesses inside the home, and the ubiquitous putting out of Kools on his floor.  (they're cigarettes)  This causes Billy Ray to suddenly see his houseguests as freeloaders.  What do the houseguests feel?  They are having the time of their lives!  They have full run of the house and everything is open to them and for them.  They don't want the party to end!

So why does Billy Ray angrily throw them out?  Because they are ruining his house, no matter how happy they are and how little they care at the moment.  Now it's only a few cigarette butts mashed into the carpet.  But soon, as the party goes as, things will deteriorate and deteriorate until the house is nearly uninhabitable, much less worthy of having guests over.  And even those filthy louts won't want to stay over and will troll the next house's party. 

Every hardcore, super HD-graphic FPS and Action game that is DEMANDED and flops and/or loses money due to low sales and high development costs is another Kool being put out on the floor.  Some companies are already struggling hard and some names that were big only 3 years ago will be acquired like another brand name or go bankrupt.  We don't like to think that some of us may be responsible when we demand increased sophistication and sneer at new ideas, new games, new IPs (which hardcore demand and then don't buy), but it is very well possible that we are.  It is not a call to lower your standards, but a a call to realize those standards were forged on the very games being sneered at.

Another link between videogames and comic books is the request for "new IP."  If you were a DC comics artist and storywriter and somebody says they are tired of Superman and want a new comic IP, the first thing they would do is totally deconstruct Superman and make something totally unique.  So the result would probably a Sunday Funnies comic strip about a car mechanic.

Confused?  I'll use Japanese comics as an example.  The author of some broody samurai action series with lots of blood spillage would probably... say... pen a comic about a baker wanting the perfect loaf of bread.  That's what "New IP" means.

However that's obviously not what the comic fan wants.  He wants something like Shazam, which is just Superman "with a twist."  In game terms this is like Miyamoto spearheading Nintendogs, and Wii Sports in reaction to wants of "New IP."  That's obviously not what the comic fans and game fans meant, but if they truly stated their wishes of "Having a comic like Punisher except he rips the genitals out of criminals" or "Having a game like Mario but have the protagonist be a a cybernetic female with attitude and baditude," they would rightfully be seen as entitled tools.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2008, 02:22:15 AM by Deguello »
It's time you saw the future while you still have human eyes.

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Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #29 on: August 20, 2008, 02:56:51 AM »
EDIT: Gah, he way overstretches the definition of a toy. His definition includes TVs, radios, etc but no real definition of the word toy would include those.

The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. Anything a man buys that is unnecessary to work or serve some other practical purpose is a toy in my book. Hell, I could call a piece of construction equipment a toy without a hint of irony under the right circumstances.

Still overstretches the definition or leads to a false analogy. Just because something is bought for the same reason as a toy (fun) does not mean it's automatically aimed at the same people as a toy. Reasoning that a videogame is necessarily a toy because it's fun and because it's a toy it must pander to children doesn't make sense, he proves one attribute is shared between the two things (viideogames and toys are fun) and asserts that therefore another attribute must be shared (they're for kids). So what IS Wii Fit then?

Offline Deguello

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #30 on: August 20, 2008, 04:20:30 AM »
He didn't say it MUST pander to children.  He said that children must remain the primary audience.

And video games are most definitely toys.  Even the blood-spewing ones.  They started out as toys and remain toys, despite any claim that they have "furthered" themselves into other artforms by imitation.

This is similar to comic books trying to throw off the label "comic books" by attempting to shoehorn "graphic novel" or the foreign label "bande dessinée" in an attempt to "un-kid" (in this case "un-toy").  They are still comic books and the label did more than enough damage to the children buyers who wondered where the "comic books" were.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2008, 04:24:41 AM by Deguello »
It's time you saw the future while you still have human eyes.

... and those eyes see a 3DS system code : 2750-1598-3807

Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #31 on: August 20, 2008, 05:21:01 AM »
I'm not saying they're an art form, I'm, saying they're entertainment like TV or radio. Wii Fit doesn't pander to children yet it is reaching markets videogames haven't seen before. Hell, the Atari VCS wasn't just for children either. Toy is a term with co-notations hence it's avoided, he's taking these co-notations and sees them as a necessary quality of everythign he can label toy, it's a problem on par with the watchmaker analogy ("The universe is complex. A Clock is complex. A clock has a maker. Therefore the universe must have a creator", it's a fallacy since it fails to show that the universe and the clock are alike in more attributes than complexity, a reductio ad absurdum is "Watches were made by locksmithes in the past, therefore the universe was made by a locksmith").

The painting into a corner was probably more a result of pandering to juvenile senses in a way that those without a well-trained liking for comics could not accept. For example, my mother wouldn't play a gory or shooty game no matter what it plays like. To like hardcore games you must first become hardcore and to become hardcore you need training. Kids are the easiest to train so they're the easiest way to grow the market. Of course focussing only on those who are trained leaves no chance for those who didn't get the training to enter the market. Nintendo is making games that don't need this training and suddently people who lack it or abandoned it before becoming hardcore are able to play again.

(BTW, I don't think BD is a term used to look grown up, it's simply because the French want to have a french term for everything rather than importing anglicisms)

Offline Deguello

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Re: Worth a watch/listen...
« Reply #32 on: August 20, 2008, 05:55:07 AM »
Remember the context, KDR.  I'm simply talking about the US audience.  That's why I said "bande dessinée" as regards to "comic book" in America.  Comic books began to have those connotations too, and they started to search for other labels that were "less kid."  And foreign labels for the same or similar things like bande dessinée and manga serve that purpose.

I don't think the solution is ultimately "pandering" to kids one way or another, but one has to make their games non-threatening to them (or the content-controlling parents.)  Wii Sports is about as neutral as you can get.  Same with Wii Fit.  Mario Galaxy too.  Zelda as well. (although those last two certainly skew just a little bit towards males.)  You can do this with RPGs (Kingdom Hearts and Mario & Luigi are great examples) and racing games and hell, even shooters.  Somebody should try an FPS without all the profuse swearing and and gritty "adult" themes.  They might be surprised by the results.

But the guy is savvy to the beast.  In the context of him being a former "hardcore," now simply "core" gamer, (he has a video where he confesses he passed on Kirby for a long time because he was too "hardcore" for it) the invocation of video games as "toys" will carry a lot of merit, as the denial of game's "toy-ness" will lead down a slow road to death.  He's not as intensely studied as Malstrom, but he is definitely in the same ballpark.
It's time you saw the future while you still have human eyes.

... and those eyes see a 3DS system code : 2750-1598-3807