How Nintendo turned the Wii U around

[Mythmaker1]

atomicblue said:

Mythmaker1 said:

atomicblue said:

I'm not insulted or offended, I just think it's a silly thing to say.

I think you're confusing "designed for kids" with "not designed to exclude kids". I'm sure Nintendo are well aware of the fact that children like to play their games, but so do adults. Something like Teletubbies is designed specifically to be enjoyed by children and not adults (can't comment on My Little Pony as I've never watched even a minute of it so I don't know what it's like). Something like a Mario game is designed to be enjoyed by everyone. Not sure why you can't see the distinction.

When you say of Nintendo games that "they're for kids", that implies that they're designed primarily for children; adults are just an afterthought. Again, given how difficult a lot of those games are, that's clearly not true. If Nintendo made games specifically for kids, they'd be a lot easier.

Based on what I've seen, ironically, there are just as many kids who are into things like GTA and Halo as there are kids who are into Mario or Donkey Kong, if not more.

EDIT: Saw the post above me, was almost going to post the C.S. Lewis quote myself. Also agree that the average Wii U owner is quite possibly older than an XO or PS4 owner. I work at a gaming convention here in Australia and the kids weren't interested in entering the Super Mario 3D World tournament, they all seemed to gravitate towards Halo 3 (also Pokémon, to be fair).

In terms of story, Nintendo games are on the level of a children's cartoon. Sometimes there's some mature storytelling involved, but those tend to be outliers, and often the less successful entires in their series.

In terms of gameplay, there's depth like with titles like Pokemon, but even those titles find most of their depth in the margins of competitive play or optional challenges. The games themselves are a breeze to play on their own, even for kids. 

In terms of appeal, they're almost all about just being fun. Which is fine, nothing wrong with that. But there's no real edge to that fun, no nuance or depth. And while that can appeal to everyone from time to time, the kind of people who aren't able to look beyond just fun tend to be, well, children.

I disagree. You seem to be implying that something with a gritty storyline is mature where something that's bright and colourful is not. I think they can both challenge the player in different ways, neither more mature than the other. A meaningful story can engage the player in some ways, while a challenging platformer or puzzle game can push the player to think in other ways; the platforming genre, for instance, is a really great way to challenge and improve one's spatial awareness (something that is often lacking from a lot of the more story-driven games, where grinding or quick-time events are about as much as they demand of the player's skill).

There's also the whole point that most (if not all) games that attempt to be "mature" in the way you're talking about still fall well short of what other media like film and television are able to offer. That's starting to change a bit, but most of the storytelling in video games still lacks the emotional subtlety of, say, a TV show like Six Feet Under or Masters of Sex. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; those other media are already there for that kind of thing. I'm certainly not against video games aiming for that kind of depth but they've got a long way to go before they get there, and I like the other ways video games challenge my brain by means that a film or show can not.

Ignoring what you think I was implying, what I said was that the story was on the level of a children's cartoon. There are outliers, both in cartoons and Nintendo games, but the story tends to be shallow and simplistc. And you're right that different kinds of games can appeal to different facets of a player. But that topic is only tangentially related to what I said in my post.

Also, to your second, I disagree. Partly because you're comparing a generalization about video games to specific examples from TV. There are well-written, well-acted TV and Films, but there are many that are just as, if not more, shallow and unsubtle as the worst video games have to offer. Games like Bioshock, or the Arkham Games, several indie-games I can name off-hand (Thomas Was Alone, Limbo, Braid, Bastion), and even some of the much-derided AAA releases have both subtlety and depth to match what some consider the best of TV and Films.