theprof00 said:
Why did you leave out the word "such" when you re-wrote my sentence? That word is a very important key to the interpretation I have given you, which you are ignoring. Look at the sales. Sales to that extent are only possible when there are additional factors involved. And I *do* believe that nostalgia has a big part of NSMB sales. It's a throwback to the original. SMG was a novel concept as well, but it will sell quite short of NSMB. Additionally 3D or 2D has nothing to do with anything. Wii sports is the highest selling game of all time, and it's not 2D, and it doesn't even have a mascot. Additionally Mario Kart consistently outsells standalone mario games and it is 3D. A trend you can see in the games I mentioned, is that they are all multiplayer games. So, maybe it's multiplayer appeal, rather than 2D, that is the strongpoint. However, a lot of games have really good multiplayer and design and just aren't as successful. There is also a reason why most Nintendo characters have not gotten a redesign.
Lastly, I just wanted to mention that I think I used nostalgia incorrectly. Rather than meaning "this game is popular because older fans want to play a game they played in the past", I meant "the appeal of this Mario rests upon years and years of exposure". In my original post I made mention of what was needed to compete with a Mario-esque mascot. My key point there was that you would need to have as much presence and exposure as what Mario's had. Mario has just about 20 years of brand life so far, and you really need that to compete on such a level. Intertwined with the idea of nostalgia, there are many characters from that period which have strong followings due to exposure at an earlier time. Of course, you need a good popular game to have exposure in the first place, you can't just have any random game character become popular. For example, Donkey Kong. He has not made a strong appearance since DKC2, yet he's a very popular and well known character. Why? Because of the arcade game and DKC games, and perhaps DKracing/MK. So, like I said a minute ago, it's not nostalgia in the sense that people want to relive their youth, but rather, "past success increases the strength of reception for future endeavors". Ie, people loved the Mario games, and so belive that Mario=quality. It's a similar concept, so I'm not surprised I used the wrong word. However, nostalgia is the basis for my point, that of an idealized memory of the past serving as an indication of a judgement. |
From what I know, nostalgia is a term that describes feelings that people have, thus it usually doesn't fit when describing macro scenarios, it sounds wrong to me.
Anyway, if you explain it like that, I agree. Mario is a very VERY established and strong brand, and due to previous games being quality, people are confident that the next Mario they buy will be as entertaining as the previous.
As for 2d/3D, of course it doesn't matter if a game has a certain type of graphics as long as the game has a mass appeal. I think that Mario games lost a part of their mass appeal when they went 3D because the gameplay became less appealing. Mario Kart is easy to get into and it is 3D so of course the graphics doesn't matter.
To get back to the first post now that the nostalgia thing is sorted out, I do belive that MS and Sony can compete against Mario by making a game that overshadows the original SMB in impact. I have no idea how such a game would be like though.
I LOVE ICELAND!
