Malstrom email response: The Sick Obsession of Culture in the Game Industry

[thekitchensink]

"The hatred for Nintendo, this being the SNES, N64, and Gamecube, is the counterculture gaming hating the originator. Notice that all of Nintendo’s competitors, and I do mean ALL, advertised and marketed themselves as a counterculture: Sega, Sony, and Microsoft. The damnation of Nintendo being ‘kiddy’ and not being ‘adult’ was the damnation of the self-seen ‘high culture’ condemning what they saw as Nintendo’s games being ‘non-culture’. "



I've been saying this for years. Nintendo created gaming as we know it today. And they did it on the principles of just making games fun--they didn't use games as a political statement, a parody, a thought-provoker, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with games that do those things, but here's how history went:

Along comes SEGA, with their "SEGA does what Nintendon't!" attitude. They were literally telling the consumer that 'We're better, they suck, they're for kids'. That strategy worked, as they were able to knock Nintendo down from about 95% marketshare to roughly 60%.

Then Sony comes in and says, HA! We've got the REAL games for TRUE gamers! Look at Metal Gear Solid! Look at this 'artistic' death scene in Final Fantasy VII (OMG did she just DIE?!?!)! Clearly we're better than all of you.

Then Microsoft came in and is just exacerbating what Sony did, and those two are duking it out roughly evenly right now.

Nintendo has just sat there and allowed it, and have never, EVER, run such a terrible smear campaign against their competitors. The most they've ever done is '(exagerrated comical voice) Look at this cool game that you won't find anywhere else--SEGA and Sony are in big trouble!' I was referring to the Star Fox 64 infomercial there, and that's really the worst thing Nintendo has ever done.

Even now, as they royally dominate the industry, they never resort to outright insults or patronization of their competitors.

So yes, Nintendo's competition has only succeeded by badmouthing them and creating a counterculture.