DKII on 21 July 2008
| Sullla said: Let's try to avoid the shouting match over games that haven't even been released yet, shall we? That was a pretty interesting read. There's just one gaping fallacy in the article that hurts the overall point. Here's the key sentences: "This is great for the business, but the flipside is the impact this has on third party development, evidenced by the torrent of low-cost, quick-turnaround, me-too brain and pet games flooding store shelves. Like it or not, this is a sign of a maturing market where every taste, however offensive it may be to a core gamer, is catered to. It's no different from the trashy airport novel, or the straight-to-DVD movie. One thing's for certain, the special club is over. Once accepted as a fact of life, these products are easily ignored should you so wish. The concern is whether profits from them are then invested into churning out more of the same, or channelled into the development of big-budget, long-lead blockbusters. On that score, I don't see any immediate cause for panic. Ubisoft is a major purveyor of what a cynic might term 'shovelware' on Nintendo platforms; but it is equally investing massively in major productions like Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia, Far Cry 2 and the newly announced I Am Alive. It has simply evolved to meet the needs of a broader market. " The author makes the same simple assessment of value that every other gaming journalist/website tends to do: sprawling, complex games like Assassin's Creed are inherently good. Brain Training-type games are inherently bad (note that these were referred to as "trashy airport novels"). And most people visiting this website - and this article - would probably agree with that value judgment. But most people who are not core/hardcore gamers almost certainly would not. A game like Brain Training emphasizes different values, not weaker ones. And the same Petz game that is widely mocked here might be exactly the product that a young girl enjoys most. Why is it so wrong to make games that serve these markets? Until the specialist gaming media and gamers in general can accept that expanded audience games are not inherently inferior to the traditional fare, we're never going to make any progress. |
It's not the Brain Training type games that are bad, but rather the massive waves of clones and knock-offs that are quite terrible. Of course the same is true of every genre of games that suddenly becomes popular.
