Remember that Farmville is free. The question would be is how well would it sell if you had to buy it.

Wow, wow stop it, you expect all those "flash gamers" to move on to more "complex" games just because you think they are better, and thats exactly the whole point, people don´t want complex games, people dont want to consume much time, people just want to have fun once in a while playing a videogame, they dont care about graphics, music, story or even gameplay, the just want to have fun, period

Congratulations. You've just summed up most of Malstrom's point on why Nintendo is selling, without all the "Die, game industry!" talk.

edit: Someone's messing with my posts its not me who posts it. Its because I didnt logout this account. Shows whats really my job.

Might as well post here then. Im lazy to post long sentences and paragraphs but I will try.



@vanatos------> AND arcade games and PC games in Korea and Japan arent a good thing? You're implying that the only form of gaming in the US should be in local multiplayer splitscreen. Yo're saying that the only console capable of was the singleplayer and local multiplayer asp[ect of it. Yeah its not supposed to be the norm but really...


"Ever been to Japan? the arcade community there is almost solely fighting games and is great, for western countries, its local multiplayer."


Im from the Philippines and arcades here still alive and well. And NOT ALL arcades here are either fighting games or light gun shooters. Theres also racing games, drummmania and the rest. Anyway I think some big producers of arcades such as Konami and NAmco are threatened by the Wii thats why there are few arcade games released so far. Doesnt mean that people here stop playing arcades anytime soon.


"Fighting games are NOT famous for online."


But its popular on the arcades. In fact, most arcades here are Tekken and till now many people still playing it. I dont think fighting games will be gone anytime soon. Fighting games are meant to be on the arcades as FPS and RTS are meant to be in PC theres no in between.


"The arcade scene in Western countries was never as great as Japan, more importantly, it was never acceptable as a social thing, in Japan it is, when home consoles came out, with all the good games that arcades had, that is a big factor in its demise."


Really? its different from where I live. I still dont get it a country that introduced arcade the real gaming was the one thats cause it to collapse. Arcades are social experience thats why its still popular.


"In Japan its a different story, the arcade scene is an acceptable phenomenon, you get godam news interviews with the top arcade players Daigo, Mago for SF4."

"It is the EXACT same situation in South korea, rts strategy is an acceptable social phenomenon to the point you get celebrity korean rts players on TV."



Game companies dont even need gamer celebrities for arcades and PC games to be popular. Most of the arcades and PC gamers are either strangers or buddies/friends. Socilaizing doesnt mean to be in parties or reunions or thats what the Wii's purpose in US? Thats not what the Wii sipposed to be. If there are PC bang google it theres also supposed to be a Wii bang. Wii shouldnt be in just homes and used as a party console or a family console.


"I doubt arcades will come back in the West."

"PC online gaming is still somewhat strong, but its fading due to consoles, and it itself isn't doing so well compared to its past years."



The Wii will help rise it from the US though. What PS brand did was destroy PC gaming and arcades in the west makes the people isolated in their homes. Now with the Wii with mostly casual games we dont even know how many gamers will grown tired of Wii Sports and WSR I think they will switch to PC and arcades soon.



@bdbdbd-----> Malstrom wants PC and arcade gaming to revive on the US thats why he dont like core gamers that much.


"The complaint isn't about online multiplayer or its existence, but the need for it as a standard. Without the focus in the AI and story/cinematics the need for online multiplayer would decrease heavily. If the focus of the game would be the single player and multiplayer gameplay experience, instead of online, the mentioned problem wouldn't exist in the first place. There's no problem with making online-focused games, but there is a problem when everyone makes only online-focused games."

"Why do people play splitscreen multiplayer? Maybe this will give you a hint (it was in related videos you posted):
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dtWurY7wtpc&rl=yes&hl=en&gl=US&client=mv-google"



Since when game companies cut out local multiplayer in console FPS even since the PS brand days? Anyone heard of Timesplitters series? What about sports games? Did game companies cut out the local multiplayer of it? And light gun shooters in consoles? AGAIN, Malstron dont know what he talking about. Malstrom was a retro gamer purist he insisted that its the old school arcade gameplay that cause Wii's boom and yet he didnt even mentioned facebook games. Whether its free or not, the fact the matter that theres 17 million people playing these games everyday means its not the arcade gameplay was the cause of casual gaming boom. I think you should read this blog, its made by me:



http://www.gametrailers.com/users/yushire123/gamepad/?action=viewblog&id=492650



Malstrom was right about long cutscenes and texts isnt needed in games but the old school arcade gameplay isnt.



"If the reason why NSMBW sells, is because the box is collectible, why isn't Metroid Prime Trilogy Collectors Edition selling like NSMBW? If Mario sells, why 3D Mario doesn't sell like 2D Mario?
And could you explain why Mario sells in the first place?
Besides, how the red case excactly is nostalgia? There haven't been a single 2D Mario with red box."

"Wario doesn't sell because you don't know what to expect from a Wario game, aside from quirkiness. That's why i for example didn't buy it. And because it's not selling, it isn't getting good word of mouth."



Because those games arent popular unlike Mario and Halo. Even how good the packaging was if a game isnt mainstream it wouldnt be a hit. As for the red case then why it is red? Even Malstrom didnt mind if the case was white but Nintendo knows marketing and collective psychology. They knew how to sell a product the red case was marketin g ploy theyre good at it.


"
The arcades, as you say, and PC keeps bouncing back because that's where the room for market is coming, when the devs move to consoles.
Facebook isn't disrupting anything, since it's just moving along the trends that already exist on the PC. They are just taking the advantage of the existing core on PC. Saying Facebook is disrupting gaming, would be like saying Halo 4 is disrupting gaming."



IT IS. Simply because its free to us doesnt mean playfish arent profiting from it. According to a GAF thread playfish are profiting 500 million dollars a year. Internet business was different than physical business such as selling goods. Even I dont know how these businesses conducted but then just look at google. I doubt google profiting because of ads

Sorry for the bump but what happened to this thread all of the sudden? No one's posting anymore?

He hasn't posted anything new. Duh.

@Yushire: Let's start with the red box. The idea of the box is to have extra visibility on the shelf. If the game is bad, nothing is going to help it to sell. Look at Wii Music, it had the advantage of being a game in the Wii series of games and it was heavily marketed.

Why is Mario and Halo popular? Just saying "they are popular" holds no value as any kind of argument. Why does food sell? It's because food is popular. Why do clothes sell? It's because clothes are popular. Duh.

And Malstrom doesn't hate core gamers. He just doesn't seem to like the jerks that throw around internet memes without substance and go around repeating circular logic, such as "it sells because it's popular".
What he's pointing out is, that the core gaming is changing.

Yes, the devs are cutting out the local multiplayer in favour of graphics and online multiplayer.

The problem with the Facebook games is, that the model have existed for a long time, it's still single player experience with online multiplayer. What's in the line of fire of the Facebook games is World of Warcraft and the likes. What the disruption happening in the games industry is, it's the social multiplayer games, the opposite to Facebook games.
And Google is profiting from the ads, it's their only source of revenue.

Its odd that you mentioned Wii Music because despite the quality and content just like animal crossing it passed 2 million in sales. A feat that even new games wants to accomplish. It bombed in Nintendo eyes but its envied by third party publishers and developers. How a non quality games sells and pass 2 million mark while our new and quality games bomed? This also applicable on PS360 games too. Theres one answer, because its Nintendo and Nintendo games DO SELL. And because theyre popular. Just like food and clothes mainstream titles such as Mario and Zelda and Wii games are popular. its like saying TV are popular even though it was just a luxury and not need such as food and clothes. Nintendo games are popular because theyre popular. No doubt about that. Assasin creed, Halo and COD series will fade but Nintendo games remains forever.

And its odd that Malstrom says core gamers are changing even the change he wants are the values from long time ago. If there is a retro revival then game companies especially in Western countries already have a hint about it and releasing arcade type gameplay games and not the usual singleplayer, shooters and casual experience but for over 3 years I ddint see it in this generation so Malstrom argument about that was flawed and it will be like this till this generartion ends. just look at the  first half of 2009 releases and see how many games there have arcade type exprience? EXACTLY.

ABout facebook games, just lets wait and see what happen in that. As we seen so far its already disrupting PC gaming.

While I don't dispute the intrinsic qualities of Halo and Mario, your point is poorly presented.

Food sells, in general because people needs it, same as clothes. Particular kinds of food, same as particular types of clothes, sell more than others because people want them more. Part of the cause of this wish (different from an imperative need) can be the perceived popularity of -say- a brand of clothes, indipendently by its intrinsic qualities.

That's not circular logic, that's circular causation (think of feedback in circuit engineering) that is a perfectly possible phenomenon. Actually the feedback phenomena are at the base of many non-linear dynamic systems used as models for fashion trends, politics, scientific paradigm spreading and so on.