padib said:
Nintendo magic. I've said this before and I hope people hear it, but the industry leader really influences the games made by others. When Nintendo made games like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and those games sold like crazy (or, in the case of metroid, received a lot of gamer attention), the others did a lot of things to try to reel in on the hype trains related to those industry leading games. When the industry leader changes, all the magic in the industry can change, or even fade. An interesting example is final fantasy. Look at what happened to FFVII when it jumped to Playstation. It was an amazing game, but FFVII represents a shift in the series towards more serious movie-like themes. Look at games like Metal Gear. Most of these games took on directions which much better suited the new industry leader: Sony. Sony is known for its movies and conspiracy-like plots, epic type music, and many other themes which revolve around politics, money and sex. Over time, even though FFVII hasn't reached that point, it was one of many turning points in that direction. Later we had FFX, with some characters showing more skin as an example, and over time the games are much more sexualized and revolve around topics that weren't the big thing during the Nintendo years. I know it's not the answer you wanted, but to me it's what makes the most sense. And it's why I often hope for a Nintendo-led industry. It's one where the type of games that rely on sex, machoism, money, violence, politics are ignored, and the games based on adventure and awe are the center of attention. It's the industry I prefer. And of course this is a generalization of the situation, I realize that there are exceptions to the rule, such as games like Journey and SotC. |
This is actually a really interesting analysis, and after carefully examining it, I think I would have to agree with most of it. There definitely is a decent amount of games releasing that ignore many of the trends that you mention (most lower-budget/indies/Nintendo), but most of the big releases now a days are exactly like what you mentioned. Do you think that the timing of Nintendo's sales decline (post-SNES) might have also had an effect, due to the shift in focus from 2d to 3d games? I think that also might have had an impact.
Also, there are people who are just afraid/embarrassed to play "non-mature" games. I see it all the time on here. It's cool to play games like the Witcher, but it's not cool to play Splatoon or indies. One of my best friends saw me playing my WiiU and some indie games on my pc a few years back, and he tried to criticize me for not playing games like Assassin's Creed (I played 2 and hated it) and Heavy Rain (probably my least favorite game of all time----it's not fun at all and has a terrible story). We played some coop games and Smash and he eventually realized that sometimes games are meant to be fun and have good gameplay. He's now more open-minded, but still, it was very eye-opening. I never knew that some people base their self-worth/maturity level and status on the games that they play.
Hi
