This guy wrote a neat little article where discusses the fact that 3D Dot Game Heroes is more Zelda than Zelda itself in recent years.  Seems to me he’s taken a queue from your blog.

http://www.zeldauniverse.net/articles/the-missing-link/3d-dot-game-heroes-more-zelda-than-zelda/

I doubt it has anything to do with me. He came to it on his own conclusion.

As I think more about Zelda, there seems to have been only five Zelda games made: Zelda I, Zelda II, Link to the Past, Gameboy Zelda, and Ocarina of Time. The rest of the games seem like ‘sidestories’ or spin-offs from Zelda as they throw in some odd gameplay mechanic or do something else: Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Minish Cap, the two GBC Zelda games, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks. What annoys me is that Nintendo doesn’t seem interested in making Zelda games anymore but Zelda spin-off games instead. “In this game, Zelda has choo choo trains.” “In this game, Link turns into a wolf.” “In this game…”

One of the problems, I think, is that the Zelda team always knows there will be another Zelda game. The best games get made when there is the thinking that this is the very last type of game it will be. Every 2d Mario game was made with the thinking that ‘this is it, this is the last one’. When Legend of Zelda came out, Miyamoto and the others were not thinking of constant sequels. Since there is always an expectation of another Zelda, I think this has created mediocre conditions when making a Zelda game (or any game). I always know when a game is going to be mediocre as soon as the developer refers to it as ‘franchise’. Franchise means ‘we know we are going to make more of them’. At that point, the passion isn’t put into making the game they currently are working on. This is also a reason why I think the earlier games made in the 80s or 90s were good because there was no such thing as a ‘video game career’. It wasn’t considered a ‘real job’. Many were youngsters who thought after that ‘game’, they would have to get a ‘real job’.

The more I think about Zelda, the more I am leaning towards the belief that the issues of linearity and storyline are not the viruses causing the problem, they are symptoms of another virus altogether. It is one that perhaps has remained hidden. What is this virus?

Rampant romanticism. Someone, or several people, of Nintendo developers are embracing a rampant romanticism style to the video game. This rampant romanticism is creating the ‘storyline’, the ‘bad dialogue’, the ‘linearity’, and all. It feels like modern Zelda games are all revolving about this rampant romanticism and everything else, like exploring the few caves or the heart containers and the (small) overworld, are there merely because of tradition as if ghosts from the past.

The Rampant Romanticism looks like it could be what is holding back 3d Mario. In the Iwata Asks segment, Miyamoto revealed that he had a long talk with a developer (Koizuma or something) because he kept sticking in the story into the Mario game. He did this with Mario Galaxy 1 for example. Miyamoto was like, “Hey, this isn’t Zelda! What is going on here?” Incredibly, the guy must have argued with Miyamoto in a bar for five hours about what he was doing. Miyamoto then returns saying, “It isn’t about cutscenes and all. It is about resonance.” That developer got his way. The ‘resonance’ is just another way of saying ‘rampant romanticism’.

Let me use a book equivalent. You ever read a book where it goes on, pages and pages, about the description and backstory? It talks about the flowers, how the mountain looks, how the sunlight falls off the mountains, and talks about every strand of hair on a main character. You’re screaming, “Get on with it, already!”

All the strange decisions regarding Zelda appear to have hatched from this ‘rampant romanticism’. When Miyamoto says, “This is a Mario game, it doesn’t need a story. Zelda games are what has the story,” many people will disagree with Miyamoto. Since when has Zelda been about a ‘story’? Its “story” was identical to Mario in that the hero saves the princess.

Video games are all about creating interesting choices. Without choice, the game turns into a different medium like a movie where you sit there and watch or a book where you sit there and read dialogue. And it must be interesting or else the game becomes a chore.

No game can be non-linear because every game has its limits. The idea is to create the illusion of non-linearity. It is to give the illusion of control. You are pretty limited in what you can do in oldschool Zelda, but you have the illusion and experience that you can do what you want. One of the reasons why Gradius was so successful, despite being a linear space shooter, is that it gave the illusion of non-linearity in its interesting choices. The interesting choices were from what type of weapons you could power up. So you could replay the game over and over and try something different.

Rampant romanticism doesn’t allow for such interesting choices. It doesn’t allow for the illusion of non-linearity. Rampant romanticism is obsessed with its own characterization and its ‘opera’ of a plot. You do not play the video game; the video game plays you. The video game strives to move your emotions as opposed to the player investing his emotions based on the choices he makes.

One glaring difference between 2d Mario and 3d Mario is that 3d Mario games force you to use a certain power-up at a certain location. You must use the Cloud Mario power-up to get through the level. In 2d Mario, you could beat the entire game as little Mario. Power-ups and even Yoshi were so well received back in 2d Mario (as opposed to 3d Mario) because they helped you out. They were supplementary to your quest.

In the same way, the old Zelda games had items and power-ups and all to help you out. While many were used as a type of ‘key’ to get to another part of the land, they could still be used to help.

Mario and Zelda were built in the core of coin-op type gameplay, otherwise known as arcade gameplay. Coin-op gameplay is very difficult. It is very difficult to play Super Mario Brothers games as small Mario all the way through. It is very difficult to play Zelda games without using the power-ups. By default, the games were extremely difficult. However, the power-ups made the player think he had ‘outsmarted’ the difficult game as he flew over the area with his raccoon tail or used his boomerang to stun enemy units.

Here’s another example: the Final Fantasy games. Rampant Romanticism is at high display as the Final Fantasy games progressed. The games became more and more of an opera until that is all they were. But once upon a time, Final Fantasy games rested on a type of very difficult RPG gameplay. The game was very difficult. However, by using items, using spells you bought, and leveling up, the difficulty got much easier. And you felt you ‘outsmarted the game’ or ‘outsmarted the fictional opponents’ because you did things to make yourself stronger.

All the Old School games seem to share that trait. The game, itself, is very difficult. However, there are power-ups and other things you can do to beat it. The typical shmup is very illustrative of this.

Think of Mega Man. At first, you are giving an interesting choice. What robot master do you choose? Mega Man is very difficult just using the default weapon. But once you get other weapons, you have more interesting choices about whether to use such weapons. And it makes the game very fun. Mega Man is soon using metal blades to saw through those jumping rabbits who, prior, would knock him off into the lava.

In order for there to be value playing a game, there must be some sense of accomplishment. By making the default gameplay hard and giving the player power-ups and other tools, the player feels like a genius when he ‘beats’ the game.

You always had interesting choices in Zelda. You could go the cave or go wander around. Since you had no sword, you probably wouldn’t be wandering around for long! In Zelda II, where do you go when the game begins? While the game was actually linear in that you needed the candle to see through the cave to get to the next area, it gave an illusion of choice. In Link to the Past, the game did not force you to get out of bed. You could sit there sleeping. Of course, the game corralled you into the castle and to save Zelda. But you felt like it was your choice all along.

My favorite Zelda is Zelda II due to its unique blend of platforming, RPG action, and Metroid type gameplay. But I know that today’s market wouldn’t appreciate games that difficult. Out of all the early Zelda games, I think Link to the Past has the best ratio of gameplay to exploration to story. While I think Link to the Past is extremely easy, like Super Metroid is extremely easy, the game does satisfy me. Link to the Past still has that coin op arcade gameplay at its core. Ever since Zelda went 3d, the combat has not been fun. Perhaps motion controls can fix this. Wii Sports Resort is great fun even just shooting a stupid target or a Mii holding a plastic sword. Imagine how much fun it would be shooting a dragon with arrows or attacking an Iron Knuckle with the sword.

The reason why rampant romanticism is never ‘magical’ is because it is forced. Games that operate like scripts are never magical. Let the player write his own script, and he will believe the adventure was all his doing. And when he slays the final monster, he will feel that he has beaten the game as opposed to the game’s script coming to an end.

Hey Sean,

I was once a hardcore gamer. I debated for more story, realism and other ‘Hardcore’ things for ‘The Legend of Zelda’ for the longest time. Then I was linked to your articles. It took me a very long while before I found myself agreeing with you, but now I am seeing the gaming world through clearer eyes. Thank you.

But I have to ask. You say that 2D Mario is the best Mario has ever gotten. You also (correct me if I’m wrong) have said that Metroid gameplay peaked in Metroid Prime (I agree on this point)…but where did Zelda gameplay peak? Was it with the original or was it Ocarina of Time? Or was it some other game?

Thank you for your time, Mr. Maelstrom.

I look at it in terms of phenomena. For Nintendo (and for us), the idea is to create a game that creates so much excitement that it ripples through society and causes people to buy the game.

PONG was a phenomenon when it came out. As Nolan Bushnell put it when the game was first put out, a woman asked how the signal could get to the TV studios and back in such a fast time. The idea that the changes in display were occurring in the little machine did not occur to her.

There are better games today than PONG, of course. And they have much better gameplay than PONG. But none of the PONG sequels ever matched the phenomenon that was PONG. If you play PONG today, you would wonder what the fuss is about. One had to have been alive at that time to understand the phenomenon.

Another example is Wii Sports. Wii Sports created a phenomenon where people had to buy the Wii because Wii Sports promised a New Era of video games (of which Nintendo has not delivered causing the excitement of the Wii to die). Wii Sports Resort has better gameplay than Wii Sports and is a better game. Wii Sports Resort is selling very well. However, it cannot match the phenomenon that Wii Sports did. Wii Sports is definitely a stronger phenomenon than Wii Sports Resort.

Super Mario Brothers was a game that was a massive phenomenon. Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World are much better games with much better gameplay. They sold very well too. But they did not match the phenomenon as the original Super Mario Brothers.

Often, the first game tends to be the strongest in phenomenon. But there are many exceptions. Grand Theft Auto 3 and its PS2 sequels were phenomenons. However, the phenomenon is not carrying over with Grand Theft Auto 4 despite analysts thinking it would.

Why a phenomena occurs is one of the biggest mysteries of gaming. Nintendo’s best brains are at work trying to figure out how an entertainment phenomena breaks out. Also, Nintendo is very keen on identifying entertainment phenomenas in the middle of hatching. Monster Hunter became a phenomena in Japan so Nintendo did what they could to steal the game. Nintendo will spend money to take away someone else’s phenomenon. When Final Fantasy games on the WonderSwan were doing well, Nintendo took those away too! The phenomenon that was Street Fighter 2 was targeted by Nintendo so it would arrive on the Super Nintendo first.

When I think of Mario games, for example, I think of the Mario phenomenon. I think of Mario Madness (look on the Super Mario Brothers 2 box where it will say ‘Mario Madness continues!’)! Super Mario Brothers created a phenomenon and truly made Nintendo the big company it was. When Super Mario Brothers 2 came out, the game was sold out everywhere and people were driving from different states in order to get it! When Super Mario Brothers 3 launched…. oh baby. To the NES Generation, the launch of Super Mario Brothers 3 is the equivalent of the Second Coming. And when Super Mario World launched, with the SNES, it also created a huge phenomenon. Everyone rushed to get the game. I think it sold it within days in Japan.

You could say that Mario 64 was a phenomenon, something I wouldn’t disagree with. But it certainly wasn’t on the same level of intensity and excitement as previous Mario games. Super Mario Sunshine was definitely no phenomenon. Super Mario Galaxy wasn’t really a phenomenon either. Galaxy 2? Nah.

Mario 5 definitely was some sort of phenomenon. The game was consistently selling out and rocketed Wii hardware out of nowhere.

With Metroid, the biggest phenomenons were the very first Metroid and Metroid Prime. But Metroid has never been a mass market phenomenon as, say, Mario was.

The first five Zelda games were phenomenons of some degree. The ones that followed were merely well selling games. No one became so overly excited they had to buy a DS to play Spirit Tracks, for example. This is why I consider the first five Zelda games as the only real Zelda games. Everything else appears to have been a type of spin-off.

Out of these five, the two phenomenons that stand out the most would be the original Legend of Zelda and Ocarina of Time. I’d have to give the nod to Ocarina of Time because it created such a phenomenon that turned Zelda fans into almost a sort of cult. There were always Zelda fans but not like Ocarina’s Zelda fans! People wanted to buy a N64 just to get to Zelda. Ocarina remains the best selling Zelda.

Since Ocarina was the strongest Zelda phenomenon, it makes sense why Nintendo keeps trying to emulate it. (Let me annoyingly note that each of the five Zelda games, with perhaps the exception of the Gameboy one, offered new content that re-defined the Zelda mythos. Think of the first five Zelda games being like the first few series of Star Trek with the later Zelda games being like Voyager and Enterprise. They fit the ‘timeline’ but… no one points to them as definitive of what ‘Star Trek’ is. When someone asks, ‘What is Zelda?’ Most people will point to Ocarina of Time.)

In order to create another Ocarina like phenomenon, the earlier four Zelda games need to be looked at. After all, when Ocarina was being made, all they had to go on was the first four Zelda games. Copying Ocarina has so far not made any real results so perhaps Nintendo should try something different.

I keep pointing at the first few Zelda games, not so much because I believe they are the biggest Zelda phenomenons, but because I believe they hold the antidote to the decline of the Zelda franchise. This is why I keep bringing them up. Those first few Zelda games feel like they belong to an entirely different series compared to the modern Zelda games. But I think this illustrates just how far off track the Zelda series has gone.

The original Legend of Zelda was marketed as a hybrid game between arcade coin-op gameplay with the depth of a computer RPG. If you ever wonder why Zelda 2 had experience points and had a map similar to Dragon Quest, it was because they were stressing the RPG elements more in that one (with its arcade-like combat system).

Today’s Zelda seems more like a hybrid between puzzle gameplay and adventure gameplay. (For adventure gameplay, think of the old Adventure games like Shadowgate or King’s Quest.) I think if Zelda returned to its arcade roots with rpg like gameplay, it would become a phenomenon again similar to how Mario 5 and NSMB DS became the most popular Mario since… Super Mario World.

The Motion Plus controls are giving the opportunity for combat to be arcade-like (which is good. We all know how much fun Wii Sports Resort is).

But what about the other half? What about the RPG side? Not knowing how successful Zelda Wii will get the arcade combat right, I do know it will not get anywhere close to the “computer RPG” style that the older Zeldas had. I expect it to have the same ‘adventure gameplay’ skeleton that Twilight Princess had. I bet that stupid girl hanging around Link won’t shut up the entire game and keep giving you ‘hints’ and will explode into ‘dialogue’ when the script calls for it.

Rampant romanticism, as talked about in the post below, is my latest guess as to how Zelda got away from its roots. The more ‘romanticized’ Zelda became, the more linear it got, the more it focused on ‘story’, and the more it put in cutscenes.

And for anyone wondering, the reason why this site has shifted very much into exploring the whys and hows video games sell or become phenomenas (instead of just talking about Blue Ocean Strategy and disruption) is because this is also integral to the sales of video games.

I realized I was an odd type of customer since I fit the ‘Expanded Audience’ (but of the type who played games and stopped rather than never having played games at all). So all I am doing is relying on my memory and experiences of the past (such as the 80s and early 90s) to try to backward engineer the customer experience. Miyamoto and all are not customers of their games. They can only guess as to what the customer experience is. We, being customers, know the experience. The challenge is how to express the experience in words.

So with a game like Spirit Tracks, we can say, “This is not a Zelda experience.” At least, not the experience of Zelda as we understood Zelda. When each new Zelda game introduces more crappy friends to Link, we might say, “The earlier Zelda games didn’t really have Link having crappy friends. Well, there was that monkey in Link to the Past. But he was more of a thief that illustrated the character of the Dark World, not a “friend”.

I think gaming is in crisis. There is nothing magical about today’s games. So consumers are getting bored and doing something else more productive with their time.

Are today’s Zelda games making the same impact on you as Ocarina of Time did? I don’t think so. It does feel that with each new Zelda game, the magic keeps diminishing. It is now described as ‘a good game’. But back in the day, Zelda games were described as ZELDA GAMES. Zelda games were such quality that we had to invent a totally new genre just to put them in. They became the ‘Zelda genre’.

Zelda is unknown to the younger generation. My nephews have no concept of what Zelda is. They do know what Mario is. They love Mario Kart. They love Mario 5. Unless Zelda becomes magical again, the Zelda franchise will end with the Ocarina of Time generation.

Hi. I recently read your arguments about how the “rampant romanticism” of gaming is killing the medium, and I just wanted to say that what you’re describing is arthouse cinema. The lengthy dragging-out of scenes, the all-important role of the “artist”, the critics’ obsession with the minutae of images and actions within a scene, this is arthouse cinema by definition. I once had to sit through Citizen Kane, the film industry’s so-called “Greatest Film of All Time”, and I was bored out of my skull noticing all the same problems that you found with modern Zelda.

As I believe you said yourself, the whole concept of the “artist” is a contradiction of the video-game experience because it prioritises the artist’s preferred experience over the choices of the player. But the “rampant romanticism” is an expression of love for the artist and his art. It’s the same sort of thing you get from the Sakamoto fans, who praise Sakamoto for the style and themes of Super Metroid.

Needless to say, arthouse has never been popular.

You nailed it. It does sound like the ‘arthouse’ syndrome.

I find it amusing when people found talking about the business side of gaming was a ‘sin’ because gaming was ‘art’ and any talk of business was a ‘stain’ on it. “Business is only for profits!” they say while the ‘arthouse’ was… “for art”.

I’m hoping to point out that the business concern is actually to create a customer. You make the product and put it on the shelf for people to buy. Or, in the past, they would have rich people pay them money for them to perform. And all the great artists have done this. Michelangelo did this. Mozart did this. Shakespeare did this. It astonishes me that any ‘artist’ of today thinks they exist on a higher level than those giants and think that being an ‘artist’ is like being a king.

The artist does not exist on a different plane of existence. Steve Jobs had the phrase that ‘real artists ship’. Perhaps it would be better addressed as ‘real artists sell‘.

Does an author wish to become the ‘best writing author’ or the ‘best selling author’? It is always the latter. Always.

the first time i played zelda, i had no clue as to what the hell i was doing.  getting older, i understood it more.  it feels different and you appreciate it more.  during my childhood years, i always searched for games that follows similar footsteps to zelda.  often i ask friends or if friends recommend a game, i would ask if it was a zelda game.  reading this post, it triggered a childhood memory of how when i was younger, i often categorized or described games as zelda games.  when one would say, is it like a zelda game, that was a categorical description of a game that follows similar ideas to zelda.  upto this day, i don’t really know what to call a zelda game and i still use that line, “it’s like a zelda game” to describe games similar to zelda.  i love this comment, “back in the day, Zelda games were described as ZELDA GAMES. Zelda games were such quality that we had to invent a totally new genre just to put them in. They became the ‘Zelda genre’.”

mario 64 was a phenomenon.  it was a must have title during the launch of the n64.  there is no game that surpasses what mario 64 has done.  every single time someone mentions a successor to mario 64 [and there has been from super mario sunshine to super mario galaxy], there will never exist such a thing.  what i believe what makes mario 64 a phenomenon was that it was the first 3d mario we’ve seen.  it was very unexpected that mario would have went from 2d to 3d in such a sudden time.  now that 3d is easily capable, it isn’t really a big deal as it was with the n64 because back then, 3d was very limited and what nintendo have done with the n64 and mario into 3d, it was amazing.  but today, there is no magic for this idea of mario being 3d.  i guess you can say it was the idea of interacting/exploring mario in a 3d world/environment, though limited on what you can and can’t do.  i actually got rid of super mario sunshine and soon mario galaxy and have no regrets.  heck, i don’t even care about mario galaxy 2.

zelda has become lost.  i haven’t really cared much for most of the recent ones that have been released lately.  i owned most of the recent zelda games, beat them all but never really revisited them often.  i have barely played spirit tracks and it wasn’t because of reading what you’ve said about it.  i look at it and tinker with it but i don’t really care.  it’s like there’s no magic.  it’s as you’ve said, it’s about the content and lately the content by many game developers is quite lacking.  i’ve actually been playing a lot of old games on pc and consoles and have been getting bored lately.  recently, i’ve got my hands on a new gameboy sp [the backlit one] and have started looking into some old gameboy games.  i’ve actually got my hands on zelda dx for gameboy color and surprisingly, it’s almost like zelda three.

There has to have been some sort of massive change in the developers or in the development process for the current games to not match the latter ones.

Right now, I am blaming the ‘Cult of Creativity’, or the ‘Arthouse’ as another emailer put it.

They are no longer interested in making fun video games. They are interested in ‘expressing their creativity’. How else to explain the demand for a new game like Super Metroid and we get ‘maternal instincts’ Metroid that explores Samus Aran’s ‘mommy issues’ involving a space jellyfish. Or we want a fun portable Zelda for our DS and we get Zelda with trains instead.

Hello there Malstrom. So I have this book that contains both Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and I recently took the time to read the introduction in this particular compilation. The person who it was written by mentioned an essay by a fellow named GK Chesterton defending fantasy works to adults who feel they are bad for children. Weird I know. In the essay the guy mentions he met a man who he is writing for. The following comes from that encounter:

“Can you not see,” I said, “that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward; but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane, but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is – what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world? The problem of the modern novel is – what will a madman do with a dull world? In the fairy tales the cosmos goes mad; but the hero does not go mad. In the modern novels the hero is mad before the book begins, and suffers from the harsh steadiness and cruel sanity of the cosmos.”

This reminded me of several of your blog posts and I wasn’t sure if you’ve seen this or not, so I sent it your way. Thanks for the blog!

What! You have the book called ‘Alice in Wonderland’? How barbaric! What are you doing with such a book? Do you not realize that such works are antiquated? Do you not realize you are supposed to stick with gritty and realistic electronic products, not deal with fantastical books of the 19th century. For crying out loud… a book! With actual pages!

And to top off the blasphemy some more, you are quoting the Chesterton. Do you not realize we live in the Brave New World and you are supposed to immerse yourself in the soma of your electronic/digital fantasy world? But here you are reading an old book and quoting Chesterton while you are at it! You are a Savage and will be brought in to the reservation.

Great Ford, what is next? Alice and Wonderland could be a gateway drug to more evil classics. You must cease this activity immediately!

Dear Malstrom

Your response did not anger me at all. Since I’m a huge Blizzard fan, if you argue that Blizzard is still the same old awesome Blizzard, it has the opposite effect rather than making me angry, it gives me hope. I do think you’re being unfair to Teamliquid though.
However, I’m not entirely convinced by some of the arguments that you made in your blog post. What made me a fan of Blizzard was that they always put their customer above everything else, without compromises (and their games are kickass). They rewrote the entire code for Starcraft becasue there were lackluster reactions to the alpha version, and they still to this day release patches for games they made in the nineties. Removing LAN got me worried, and not having cross-region play is baffling to me since the technology obviously was there in the original SC. You say that all other game companies do this, so it’s no big deal, but Blizzard isn’t like all other game companies, and that’s why they are loved by many fans. All other gaming companies are also complaining about used game sales and implementing ridiculous DRM and selling overpriced DLC, Blizzard starting to do this would not be okay just becasue others are doing it, Blizzard is awesome because they do not do this and puts their customers above evertything else. Removing LAN (wich I never truly got over) and disabling cross-region play detracts from the online experience of the game, before the no LAN announcement, I would have laughed in the face of people who told me that Blizzard would do such things.
Me being dissapointed with Blizzard has nothing to with the analogy you made about fishes in a pond. I’m scared that Blizzard will change, and if they do end up being a differnet company than the one I became a fan of, then I will have nothing more to with them, becasue I refuse to end up like the people who believe that Sonic’s games are still good. I can only speak for myself about that though.
To return to the ‘fish in a pond that are now an ocean’ analogy, Starcraft veterans have been crushing all competition in the beta. A more accurate analogy would be sharks in a pond now being released into an entire ocean filled with herring. Or perhaps the analogy wasn’t about skill as much as it was about the priorities of the game maker?
Starcraft 2 having the same values as it’s predecessor should be a given. To many people, competitive gaming was a main attraction of SCBW and even if there are other things that are important, competitive gaming gave Starcraft a long life and shouldn’t be underrestimated. It may not have been why it sold well in its early life but it was never a bad thing and it only did good things for the game. I know competitive gaming hasn’t been removed from SC2 and I know the game will be skill-based, but making it so that tournaments could be held without an internet connection that might lag and letting the best players from all over the world face each other on b.net is not that much to ask for since SCBW had it. Starcraft doesn’t become people’s lives just becasue they play it for longer than six months, I have constantly stopped playing, and then returned to Starcraft, and gotten better at it, and discovered and learned interresting new tricks and strategies ever since the game was new. Finding out that there was an E-sports scene in Korea where progamers executed extreme strategies only made the game cooler. Tournaments are fun because you can find cool stuff in the proffessional matches that you end up learning to surprise your friends in multiplayer (Like when I saw the Bulldog rush in a VOD, looked it up, and took my friend that plays terran completely off guard with it in a 1 on 1 game). Also, a game that lives longer than six months is a good thing, not an anomaly that should be undone. I still don’t fully master Starcraft, and there are always stuff to look up on Liquipedia and that’s what makes SCBW fun to return to. It makes the game more fun the same way finding the warp zones and secrets (like negative world) in Super Mario Brothers was fun.

I really want my fears about Blizzard changing to be proven wrong. Gaming without the old Blizzard would be much less exciting.

It is not Activision that changed Blizzard, it is World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft has turned Blizzard from a ‘product’ company to a ‘service’ company. Starcraft 1 was more of a ‘product’. Starcraft 2 will be more of a ‘service’.

There is something wrong inside Blizzard. I have a spy inside Blizzard, someone I knew, and he pretty much tells me what the developers are playing, are thinking and all. To give you a funny story, when he started working at Blizzard, it was when Starcraft was being developed. We had tried to eliminate farms from the game. But the older devs wanted them so they stayed.

Farms were such a joke. In Warcraft 2, they were so worthless that people used them as walls. Other RTS games had no ‘farms’ such as the Command and Conquer series. Why must you be required to make a worthless building after building a few units? At least Starcraft made their farms a little more useful with the Overlords and pylons. But they still sucked. Even to this day in Starcraft 2, overlords and supply depots are shoved in a corner. No one ever enjoys building these… farms. They are such a nuisance. If you eliminated farms in general, would you cause any real change to the gameplay? No, except you would speed up the gameplay some more by taking away bloatedness. To this day, I have no idea why Blizzard thinks farm buildings are fun.

Anyway, my ‘spy’ informs me that the Blizzard devs are all huge Xbots. They love their Xbox 360s. This is why Greg Canessa was hired. This is why BNET 2.0 exists.

BNET 2.0 is Xbox Live for Blizzard games.

All the arrows are being shot at Activision. But they aren’t the ones responsible for this decision. The arrows, instead, should be fired at the developers and their ‘Xbot’ tendencies for loving Xbox Live. The strange change in Blizzard developers is why I am suspecting that many problems in modern gaming is because game developers are no longer part of the mainstream. They are too far separated and have been stuck in their little cliques.

I can understand the other changes, however. From Blizzard’s point of view, they are trying to make a better customer experience. The chat rooms have been heavily abused in Starcraft and Warcraft 3 with tons of bots, tons of trash, so I can see why Blizzard removed them. However, this is also creating some problems like how can you set up a tournament? How can you meet people online? Was the problem with the chatrooms or the Blizzard made chatrooms?

The no-LAN is so much a legal issue because Blizzard loses the rights of their game footage unless the game is online. And people were pirating Warcraft 3 to play LAN via the Internet.

Hi Sean,

I was wondering why you don’t let people leave comments on your blogs. Afraid that you might be proven wrong?

This blog used to have comments. It didn’t work because it forced me to police the comments, constantly, and people would also keep spamming stuff in older topics. There was an incident where a whole bunch of feminists decided to invade the blog were upset that I derided a 1up article that tried to pointed out ‘women in gaming’. My point was that they were pointing out mediocrities when they could have pointed at some true giants such as the designer of the King’s Quest games (a woman). The programmer of Archon (1983, the first game EA published) was a woman (which should raise eyebrows because while female programmers are considered rare today, they were seen as nonexistent in 1983). The feminists were not so much arguing against anything that was written by me, they were just shrieking shaming language (I am not married to these women, I don’t have to endure their shrieks). Since Malstrom is a male of incredible amounts of testosterone, I wasn’t going to have people post whatever they want on my site. So I stopped the comments.

On the nature of content, it is no surprise to find that comments sections of any story on the Internet are poorly written and are not fun to read. I did the comments section in the first place because I wanted people to be able to respond to what is said here, if they chose to respond. They could agree. Disagree. They could bring up a different issue.

Newspapers during their salad days did not allow anyone to have their letter published. What happened is they would choose the better and more interesting ones as display. News websites, however, allow anyone to post on their stories which creates problems. Bad content drives out the good.

I’ve found forcing people to use ‘email’ has improved the content considerably. At first, some people’s emails were like a comments section but would ramble on and on. Think of a typical ‘comment’ that ran a page. So I would put them up to hopefully shame the writer for sending me gibberish. It worked. People realized I would put up their emails on this site. Immediately after, emails began to come in using correct capitalization, decent spelling and grammar, and is so much better quality than you would find in a comments section. People correctly figured that their arguments would hold more sway if they STOPPED TALKING LIKE THIS or l1k3 tHiS 4 sUrE. (Incidentally, some people try to use the trackbacks as a way to post comments on this site! They are so eager to somehow put their words on my site!)

I love hate mail. Unfortunately, I do not get hate mail anymore. I would always put up hate mail or emails that disagree with me. However, if someone is trying too hard, they do not get put up.

When ‘Malstrom’ first appeared, many people made the mistake that I was a ‘Nintendo fan’. To the contrary, I was actually a ‘Revolution fan’. I don’t care whether Nintendo does well or not. But I recall and cherish the days of the original video game revolution and wish to see video games in constant revolution. I like the Wii not because Nintendo made it but because it is a revolutionary console. It brought excitement to video games that has not been seen since the days of the NES or Atari. And when Nintendo poured cold water on their revolution fire due to their self-indulgence, I criticize them for that as well. I want revolution. I want creative destruction. I want disruption.

I do not normally answer emails with email. I often respond to emails by putting it up on the site and responding to it. This way it is a response to the emailer, but it is seen by everyone. There is nothing hidden about this website. It also kills two birds in one stone since I am answering an emailer and putting up some content on the blog.

I read all my emails. However, since my replies tend to be long I cannot reply to all of them. The longer the email, the more difficult it is to reply. Usually what happens is the longer emails I delay on answering them (because it takes far longer to respond to). Unfortunately, more email is pouring in and new events are taking place that I need to talk about. Also, sometimes I am not available for several days or even a month due to real life things. We all have those times.

If I didn’t respond to your email for some reason, feel free to send it again.

The bottom line is that comments are not enabled because it puts control of the content (the most important ingredient) in the hands of rank amateurs. Fantastic content does not occur in comments sections of webpages.

Some people are very vile. It is not uncommon for someone, who really, really hates a site, to put up comments or content using hateful and derogatory language and then tell the host of the site (in this case WordPress) that ‘the mean and evil Malstrom is hosting hateful content! Look at these comments!’ and such people would pressure the host to shut down the site.

I’ve noticed that many people do not wish to argue or discuss or anything. They wish only to gag you. The things I am saying on this webpage would not be ‘argued’ or ‘discussed’ in any other forum or website comment. What would occur instead is that they would just ban the person. Many people have discovered this if they repeat anything that is said here outside on traditional gaming places. Viral marketers, who run amuck in many traditional gaming arenas, will instantly recognize you as a threat and try to wipe you out (often by declaring you are a viral marketer).

But they cannot wipe out this webpage. They cannot ban me from my own website. Frustrated viral marketers have instead aimed at “Malstrom” himself. But what is “Malstrom”? They don’t know. There are no details. The site has no means of making profit so what is written on it isn’t for hits and giggles. So they have done their best at trying to ignore this webpage (even though they all read it). It my delight and pleasure to frustrate the ‘Game Industry’.

Hey Sean,

Friend at worked threw me this link, thought you might be interested in it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28808/Opinion_Where_Have_All_The_Good_PC_Casual_Games_Gone.php

It’s interesting how business models, the baby boomer generation and even digital distribution get brought up in it, but there are some bright spots like the need for quality games vs. falling into the copycat syndrome.

When an entertainment is in trouble, be it a TV show to a movie to a video game, the problem is almost always the content. Content! Content! Content!

People play video games for the content. They buy a racing game not because of ‘racing gameplay’ but because they want the experience of racing. They buy a flight simulator not because of ‘flying gameplay’ but because they want the experience of flying around in an airplane (and they will spend big bugs on insane joysticks to achieve this). People will buy badly made games with famous licenses, base on movies or something, because they want that content.

When you cannot put down a good novel because you want to keep reading, it is your desire to see the content that is pushing you forward. Same way with video games and ‘one more turn’ or ‘I can’t wait to beat this level to see the next one!’. Even a game like Tetris has the content that is the feeling of the Soviet Union… something we have never seen before in a video game at that point. Taking the Russia love out of Tetris is taking away the game’s soul.

The skills necessary to make a video game are not going to be enough. The video game maker also needs content creation skills. In a similar way, a novelist needs to be able to do more than be able to ‘write a book’ and have dashing and addictive prose. People do not read books for the prose and how the words are arranged. They read them for the content. So the novelist’s true challenge is to create the content, the fictional universe, and need to muster all their skills and talent to communicate that content to the reader. No writer is ever truly satisfied with how they’ve portrayed their little universe.

What is your video game about? They don’t know. Just some oddball gameplay. There is no point to it.

Now, let me ask you what do you think about when you think of Shigeru Miyamoto as a young video game designer? Immediately, you think about Miyamoto incorporating his hobbies and childhood experiences into his games. You think about how Miyamoto said he took a trip to a mountain and, to his astonishment, found a vast lake up there and so he put that same ‘vast lake in a mountain’ in Legend of Zelda complete with the long, long bridge. You think about Miyamoto’s time exploring. All of this is content. In order to make exploration fun in a video game, the game world needs to be detailed and fleshed out. Where does that cave lead to? The content drives the player.

What they call ‘casual games’ are very much games with little to mediocre content. The reason why they have mediocre content goes to the heart of what ‘casual games’ means in the first place.

The belief is simple: that time is finite. Therefore, games must be made short and placed in areas that are incorporated into people’s daily lives. If someone is stuck in a doctor’s office, they will play a game on their iPhone. But I believe the big mistake is assuming people will gravitate to a game just because they have free time. Sure, even a ‘casual game’ is more entertaining to someone in a doctor’s office than just staring at the wall. But consider its competition: obsolete magazines such as Newsweek. When given the choice of reading Newsweek or staring at the wall, I would prefer to stare at the wall.

Entertainment must be compelling enough to draw people in from other things they could be doing. What I am seeing from the so-called ‘casual games’ is that they are merely migrating to areas where there is much less competition… such as a doctor’s office or on a train or on an airplane.

In other words, gaming continues its death spiral. Video games used to be so compelling that people would stop what they were doing and play them. “Time is finite!” No! People will MAKE time to play a video game if it is compelling enough to them. Riddle me this:

Have you ever played a video game when you should have been doing something else? Such as studying for a test? Such as going outside and playing? Such as spending time with the spouse? Such as doing more work for your job?

Have you ever put off sleep to continue to play a video game? Have you ever put off eating to play a video game? Have you ever taken off work to play a video game?

Many people have. The experience was compelling enough for them to MAKE THE TIME to play them. People would make the time to play Ocarina of Time. People would make the time to play Chrono Trigger. People would make the time to play the games we, today, call classics.

’Casual’ games are not interested in doing this. Instead of improving the content of the game, they wander further and further to areas of less competition. How much competition for entertainment or time is there on a train or in the doctor’s office?

I believe gaming’s general decline is that it is in a content crisis. There is very little ‘new’ in new games. I have seen all this content before. In order for gaming to reverse its decline, it needs to be more aggressive in creating new content propositions, new worlds for us to see, new experiences we haven’t seen before. ‘Casual’ game is gaming in retreat from the armies of disinterest.

So you want to make a cell phone game. Fine. But consider the customer doesn’t have nearly as much competition on in an entertainment standpoint where he carries his cell phone. The poor husband whose wife drags him around while she does shopping will love his cell phone games not because of the games, themselves, but because they are more entertaining than watching his wife spend his money on clothes she doesn’t need. When the husband gets home, does he continue to play the cell phone games? No! He flops down on the couch and turns on the football game. He only plays cell phone games when he is cornered outside with no other options.

Consider the DS and its rise. You knew something special was going on when people were playing their DS in their homes despite all the other options of entertainment they could be doing. People were playing their DS systems in front of their Wii and Xbox 360s and would admit at the time it felt funny doing so. “I am at home. Shouldn’t I be playing my home console?” But the games on the DS, at the time, were so compelling that he didn’t care.

There are many problems with ‘casual games’. Most of them are made by smaller devs who ‘want to get into the Games Industry’ (because EVERYONE wants to get into the Games Industry). They are made with the thinking the players are retarded. There is the copycat syndrome. But ultimately, I think ‘casual’ games fail because they have no interest whatsoever in providing compelling content. The content, what little there is, is derivative and dull.

I hope that you will respond to this email on the site, because I would like you to have the strongest argument possible, and a few things I have noticed that seem rather odd and out of place for your platform.  I just have a few questions I’d like to see answered.

#1  I notice you have a grudge against game creators who fancy themselves rockstars and game gods and such.  However, peppered through out your and its history are several interviews and videos with Richard Garriott and Sid Meier.  Why are their opinions important?

The notion of ‘Game God’ depends on the ‘Cult of Creativity’. The ‘Cult of Creativity’ is a modern notion, and it is that fictional universes and all, say Metroid, resonate and exist because someone created them. This is a radical change in the relationship between artists and the art. For most of Human history, the artist was seen as ‘holding a mirror up to Nature’. Shakespeare would say ‘Hamlet’ resonated because it held up a mirror to Human Nature. He would not say ‘Hamlet’ resonated because he, Shakespeare, fashioned himself as a god-on-Earth who would create whole new universes.

To illustrate just how perverted and rotten the ‘Cult of Creativity’ has become, consider Roman Polanski. Polanski was convicted, not accused, convicted, of raping a twelve year old girl. Polanski is a famous movie director. The response from Hollywood is that you should overlook this because Palanski is a movie director, he is a creator of fictional universes and all. The ‘Cult of Creativity’ believes in the ‘Creative god’ in the literal sense. ‘Creative gods’ are believed to not have to follow the same rules that the rest of us mortals do. We are chop liver compared to them.

If Shigeru Miyamoto went on a rampage and murdered people, would you excuse the crime because ‘Miyamoto is an artist and has made very popular video games’? I would say, “He goes straight to jail. He does not pass Go. He does not collect his money.”

When I talk against ‘Game gods’, I am not referring to individuals. I am referring to the cult-like belief system. When I complain against Sakamoto, I am not referring to the individual but the belief system that Sakamoto is a ‘Creative god’ who no one can disagree with because he ‘creates imaginary universes’. The ‘Game god’ label is not figurative or tongue-in-cheek. People use it in the literal sense. This is why the response against me for not liking Sakamoto’s direction is so hostile. In the supporters’ eyes, I am doing the equivalent of blasphemy, of pointing out that the god has clay feet.

Wii Music, and the entire cause of ‘User Generated Content’, is all about the ‘Cult of Creativity’. However, instead of the developers being the ‘creative ones’, it is shifted to the ‘consumers being creative’. But no one thought to ask whether the entire premise was incorrect. What if ‘creativity’, as is popularly known, does not exist?

All of Nintendo’s hit games this generation are not the fruits of a developer’s “creativity”. In Nintendogs, Miyamoto did not invent the concept of a ‘dog’. The dog has always existed. The dog’s relationship to Man has existed before civilization existed. Since petting puppy dogs is found in Nature, it resonated with people all over the world. Everyone understands the concept of petting puppy dogs.

In Mario 5, there was little to no ‘creativity’. Indeed, Mario 5 seemed like a game made against the Nintendo developers’ will. Yet, it sold huge. Why? Perhaps it is because ‘creativity’ does not create quality content. Show me a ‘creative writing’ class, and I will show you the worst garbage to ever been made.

Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart DS have been very successful. These are racing games. It is hard for someone to demonstrate their ‘creativity’ in such a game. Since the mission is racing, Nintendo developers are very limited at what they can do. This is, perhaps, why Mario Kart is the most stable of Nintendo franchises. When Nintendo developers show off their creativity such as with Wind Waker or Super Mario Sunshine, sales fall off a cliff.

Is Wii Sports the product of creativity? While many people use creativity as a synonym to ‘cleverness’, this is not what the ‘Cult of Creativity’ means. Wii Sports sold well precisely because it was uncreative. Nintendo did not invent Tennis or Bowling. It already exists in Human society.

Let’s look at other franchises. Why have ‘realistic’ games been selling well such as Grand Theft Auto or even Modern Warfare? ‘Realism’ doesn’t allow ‘creativity’ in that sense. The Final Fantasy series was very fun when the game series was pinned more on mythology, literature, history, and all. The more creativity is put into Final Fantasy, the more bizarre and screwed up it gets.

The notion of a ‘creative scientist’ is absurd. The nature of science does not allow the scientist to be ‘creative’ (i.e. make stuff up). The notion of a ‘creative journalist’ is absurd. The nature of journalism does not allow the journalist to be ‘creative’, to make stuff up. The notion of ‘creative priest’ is absurd. The nature of religion does not allow the priest to be ‘creative’, to make stuff up. If the priest doesn’t follow the religion, then it is a crackpot instead of a priest.

So why is it that the ‘artist’ gets to have standards no one else does? It wasn’t always like this. Bach never saw himself as ‘creative’. He saw himself as orientated to Heaven and trying to make music in that sense. Beethoven never saw himself as ‘creative’ in the modern sense. He looked to Nature for inspiration. Remember the old saying of ‘art imitates nature’?

The ‘Game Industry’, as well as many entertainment industries, are in a ‘content crisis’. The virus that is at the heart of the ‘content crisis’ is the Cult of Creativity.

One thing you never hear any game developer talk about today is ‘nature’, e.g. the teleological view. If left to their own control, the game developer would embrace his ‘creativity’ and the game would fall off a sales cliff. Onlookers will point and say, “Gaming is in trouble,” and will think the medicine is “Game developers need more creativity.” And more games keep falling off the sales cliff.

Game companies that have very smart business arms are not having their games fall off a sales cliff because not only is the business side reigning in the mad ‘creativity horses’ before they charge off the cliff, the business side operates on a more teleological view. At least, far more than the artist side does. The business side *has* to make customers, *has* to make sales. And this forces the artist side to make games that resonate with customers.

At Blizzard, there is the notion of not fighting the customers that try to follow the path of least resistance. At Blizzard, they recognize that customer behavior is showing them which way the river flows. And Blizzard will adjust their game based on which way the river is flowing. They know it is ridiculous to fight the river. This, as I understand it, comes from Rob Pardo or one of the other business heads there at Blizzard. For example, when World of Warcraft was in development, rest xp had 100% experience while once that ran out, you had like 50-70% experience. Everyone hated it. So Pardo changed regular experience to 100% and rested experience to something like 150% and everyone was happy. There was no real change except in the labels. Another example is in the Starcraft 2 Beta with the ladder rankings going from Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Copper players felt bad. So a change was made to make it Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Now people felt ‘better’. My point in this is to show that Blizzard uses the natural flow of Human Nature as the ultimate decider of design changes. There is a reason why you never hear of any ‘Game gods’ from Blizzard.

I have said, repeatedly, that game developers of the past acted very differently than game developers do today. They did not see game development as a way to ‘express themselves’ or to ‘find themselves’ and all. They looked at ‘game development’ with the astonishment they don’t have to get a real job! And games were made based on other elements of pop culture.

In fact, in the ‘Making of Super Mario Brothers 3′ interview in Nintendo Power back in the early 90s, a younger Shigeru Miyamoto gives the advice to young game makers to look at pop culture for inspiration. While Miyamoto made Donkey Kong, everyone recognizes the resemblance to King Kong.

At GDC 2010, Sid Meir had a speech where he said ‘Everything you know about gaming is wrong’, and he says many of the points I’ve talked about here. The overall theme was that he was trying to figure out Human Nature as to why it was reacting to a game a certain way. It most definitely wasn’t about ‘his vision’ to inflict on the poor player.

The ‘Game god’ is someone who believes Nature is irrelevant and that his ‘creativity’ is the source of the game’s resonance. It used to be believed that Nature was dominant and that a game resonated only because it connected to something within Human Nature.

Today’s followers of the ‘Cult of Creativity’ may believe Nature is dominant in one thing: gameplay. But the other parts of the game, Nature plays no role. The ‘content’ of the game is not to be governed by Nature, for example. This would explain why there is less and less new ‘game worlds’ successfully appearing in the market. Since Japan seems more afflicted with the ‘Cult of Creativity’ than the West, it would also help explain Japan’s content decline.

The reason why I quote Richard Garriott or Sid Meir or even Miyamoto at times (especially his younger days) is because they understood gaming revolved around Human Nature. Not just the gameplay, ALL of it including the content. It is not about ‘Game gods’, it is about the ‘Cult of Creativity’.

People say the older games are better because it forced developers to ‘be more creative’. I think the older games were better because it did not allow developers to ‘be creative’. Nintendo’s Expanded Market games work so well because the developers are not dumping their ‘creative visions’ into them. Note that the problem software of the Wii (Wii Music, Galaxy 2, Other M) all began gestation after the Wii was a huge success. In other words, the business side had eased the reins and developers decided to ‘get creative’ and look at Wii momentum blowing up on them.

#2 As an addendum to #1, Richard Garriott and Sid Meier are some of the first game programmers.  However, when they were creating their games, they slaved away in garages perfecting their arts.  Even though they struggled through it, they worked away as they used their creative powers, until they achieved games they were happy to sell.  The question is, why do they get to be “artists with vision,” and modern game designers with the same attitude do not?  Are these “when I was a boy we have to walk 4 miles in the snow” feelings?

I understand I am trying to do something very radical here, something more radical than talking about business books and strategies to gamers. I am trying to slay the ‘Cult of Creativity’ beast and re-orient the context of game making toward a more teleological view.

Your question rests on a premise that the early game makers, like Meir and Garriot, were trying to be ‘creative’. They weren’t. If you actually look at the games they made, there is very little ‘creative’ in the sense as we know it today. That is why their games are so good. Sid Meir did not invent the concept of railroads or pirates. He knew they would make interesting games because railroads and pirates are very fun themes. What boy didn’t want to have a toy railroad? What boy doesn’t want to be a pirate? (As kids, we played games outside where we would ‘shoot’ one another. And we would play games like ‘Capture the Flag’. Are FPS games doing anything different that is not found in Human Nature?) Richard Garriot clearly was influenced by Lord of the Rings to make Ultima (and Ultima II was based entirely on a type of time travel movie, forgot the name).

The author of Lord of the Rings is Tolkien. Lord of the Rings is entirely responsible for the fantasy genre. Is Lord of the Rings an example of Tolkien’s “creativity”? Hell no! Tolkien was a researcher of myths and mythology in real life. This is why fantasy writers today try to imitate Tolkien by trying to use some other myths not seen before.

Let us take the author of “The Hunt for the Red October”. Is this an example of ‘creativity’? No. The author got the idea of the plot from reading a newspaper story of a Russian sub who was trying to defect to West. They were captured. He wondered, “What if both the West and Soviet Union raced to try to find the sub? What an interesting story that would be!” Tom Clancy did tons of research on the military to the point where he could speak their vocabulary and their mannerisms. The book, of course, was a huge success. But it was Clancy’s first novel.

Do you think any of the great science fiction authors were trying to be “creative”? Science Fiction was, originally, interesting because it was all framed by science. It wasn’t magic. Do you think an author like Asimov relied on his ‘creativity’ or on his vast research of history, science, and everything else to write his stories?

My point is that game developers did not start off believing in the Cult of Creativity. The Cult of Creativity is a very recent thing. And I can assure you they did not believe they were ‘gods’ back then. In one sense, they felt ashamed because there was so little money in what they were doing. There was no respect for the profession. It wasn’t even considered a profession. They were deliriously happy that they could do what they loved instead of ‘getting a real job’. Iwata described his parents being very upset when he went to work for HAL after college. Iwata’s parents probably thought their son was a failure. But I think he turned out OK.

#3 I noticed that, earlier in your blog’s life, you listed several games as “smash hits and sales phenomenons.”  Among these were Zelda 2: Adventure of Link and Link’s Awakening.  I also noticed that you seem to have ire for Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass.  But when given to the market, both handily defeated the “smash hits” you described.  Why is that?  Phantom Hourglass even defeated Link to the Past.  According to the market, is it not the better game?

Halo outsold PONG. Does that make Halo the bigger phenomenon? Of course not.

When comparing markets of today to markets of the past, you absolutely must do the following:

You must adjust for population growth.
You must adjust for globalism. Remember, there was no globalism during the 80s and early 90s. The NES, for example, didn’t have time to make any deep inroads in Europe.
You must adjust for gamers having more disposable income. Most console gamers were children back in the 80s. Today, most gamers are adults and have disposable income. This is why multiple console ownership has increased is because adult Tim can afford two to three consoles where little Tim could not.

Analysts not doing the above is why they could not see the decline setting into the gaming markets. This is a big reason why they all missed the Wii. They didn’t understand the Wii because they didn’t understand the problem the Wii was attempting to solve.

An entertainment phenomenon must be seen in the context of its times. Zelda II, like Mario 2, was sold out everywhere. Parents were driving from state to state just to get it. There was a shortage of supply in part due to the overwhelming demand but also because of the cartridge shortage of 1988. Zelda II was so well received that other game companies imitated its style such as with games like Battle of Olympus.

This clearly didn’t match the experience of Wind Waker or Phantom Hourglass. Complaints were made, and people called Wind Waker as ‘Celda’. None of the games were sold out. No other game company tried to copy its style.

Note to bean counters: the study of sales is the study of people and society. You cannot just look at the numbers in order to gauge social phenomenons. Markets have grown and multiplied since twenty years ago.

Here’s a riddle, which console was a bigger phenomenon? The PlayStation or the Atari 2600? Without a doubt, it is the Atari 2600 even if it sold less than the PlayStation. But keep in mind the Atari 2600 never exactly made it to markets like Japan (until after the Famicom) or in other parts of the world. It is because the year was 1977 and not 1997. The world has radically changed since then. No one refers to themselves as the ‘PlayStation Generation’ as those who grew up with Atari call themselves the ‘Atari Generation’.

The ‘growth’ of the gaming market has not been true growth. Gaming has not been made more popular. To the contrary, the ‘growth’ of gaming has been in the growth of population, the additions of more markets throughout the world, multiple console ownership, gamers who had more disposable income, but none of it was gaming, as a medium, becoming more popular in society.

The Atari 2600 and NES were held in such golden memories, different from any other console, because they grew gaming. The Wii, which was designed to grow gaming, which has more in common with the Atari 2600 and NES than the other consoles (both in terms of its mission as well as its marketing, its advertising, even its games) ended up rocketing like a banshee out of hell and was sold out in the United States for three years. Unprecedented.

How could this occur?

The Old Schoolers have been saying forever that gaming was better in the past, that gaming was more exciting in the past, that the phenomenons of gaming were better in the past. Can modern gaming have anything compare to the phenomenons of Pac-Man or Space Invaders? No, they can’t. The Wii phenomenon was very similar to the Atari 2600 or NES phenomenons. The Old School phenomenons were very strong. But today, these same phenomenons will out-eclipse anything made today. That is the Old School argument.

Look at Mario 5. While the game will outsell Mario 3, I could say the phenomenon of Mario 3 was stronger (because the market was very different back then with much less population). But Mario 5 is very much imitating Mario 3 and 4 and so it is following a similar phenomenon. Note that this Mario 5 phenomenon is playing out similar to how it played out over twenty years ago.

Zelda games were once held in much higher esteem then they are today. If a Zelda game was made with the values of the old school Zeldas, it is not unreasonable to predict that such a Zelda game could break out into a big social phenomenon.

#4 Also about Zelda.  The #1 selling Zelda Game of All time is Ocarina of Time.  The #2 game is Twilight Princess.  These games bested the original.  In what ways are the aforementioned bestselling Zeldas superior to the original games?

I’ve already said Ocarina was the biggest Zelda phenomenon. But against see my previous answers. The gaming market was a completely different place back then. I loved the original Legend of Zelda, for example. I never bought it though. I just borrowed it from friends because the game was never available. Other people borrowed my Zelda II due to the Great Cartridge Shortage, and they couldn’t find the game.

It is clear that Zelda has been in steep decline. Twilight Princess didn’t do well in Japan. And the excitement and respect the Zelda series once held is no more. Zelda used to refer to the quality of a game “It is like Zelda. It is like a gold cartridge.”. Today, Zelda is referred to as just another franchise.

#5 More Zelda.  The Original Zelda sold 6 and a half million copies.  Zelda II only sold 4 and a half.  In what ways is Zelda 2 inferior enough to cause a third of the fanbase to leave?

More competition. There were a ton more Zelda like games out when Zelda II came out. There was also the Great Cartridge Shortage. In Japan, Zelda II wasn’t even on the cartridge format if I recall. Zelda II also came out later in the lifecycle of the NES. Zelda I, along with Metroid, also got a reprint later in the NES lifecycle.

I can even show you news reports of reporters, in 1988, standing in front of a game store literally saying, “Games like Mario 2 and Zelda 2 are sold out,” where they would interview people lining up in front of a store and the people would say they drove from another state just to buy games like Zelda II or Mario 2 for their kid (also for themselves too). There was a 20/20 report that was done that was up on Youtube. I would link to it but the video was taken down for ‘copyright violations’.

I suspect even if I put up that news video, that still would not be enough to convince you that games like Zelda II and Mario 2 were extremely popular back then.

There has been much myth making by ‘game journalists’ who have been writing their own bias into the historical record. These clowns write that “Zelda 2 was not well received.” Really? Then why was it sold out? Why did so many game companies copy its formula? “Mario 2 was not received well.” And that is an absolute crock. Mario 2 sold like hotcakes everywhere.

One myth is that Mario 64 was a ‘massive success’. It was only popular in America and even then, it was far less popular than the 2d Mario games. The 3d Marios that followed have been a decline in Mario 64 in terms of phenomenon and sales. Yet, game journalists write as if 3d Mario is very popular. It isn’t. It never has been. It is chiefly responsible why the N64 got the mediocre sales that it did.

#6 In some of your latest posts, you seem to define the content of what is “Mario” and what is not “Mario.”  “Finding stars” as you describe it, is “not Mario.”  Running to the left to reach a flagpole, is “Mario.”  These facts stated, what do Go-Karts have to do with Mario, and why is Mario Kart the best selling racing game and the second best selling game with “Mario” in the title, despite this obvious flagrant disloyalty to Mario’s content and defiance to the old school fans?

The content of Mario is the Mushroom Kingdom. If I put Mario in Hyrule, it would be Zelda content not Mario content, wouldn’t it? Mario Kart is racing in the Mushroom Kingdom. It is as simple as that.

The “Finding Stars” is a type of ‘missions’. 2d Mario did not have that at all. In 2d Mario, the game was entirely about platforming, and you could beat the game as small Mario. The Power-ups were there only to assist you. In 3d Mario, the gameplay is not about platforming. The gameplay is about ‘missions’. In order to get this star, you MUST use Yoshi and you MUST blow up like a balloon. Or you MUST roll a ball around.

I have many complaints about 3d Mario. The complaints are not just about the content, they also refer to the gameplay. When I complain about the ‘Star Finder’, that is a complaint of the gameplay. Keep in mind I complain about Mario 5 on a ‘content’ issue (e.g. it presents no new content).

If you want to talk about old schoolers rejecting Mario on content, look no further than Yoshi’s Island (dislcaimer: Yoshi’s Island is a good game, but it is not Super Mario Brothers 5). Yoshi’s Island retconned Mario from being a plumber from Earth into becoming a citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom. Yoshi’s Island was criticized back then because it had crayola graphics. The game world didn’t make much sense. Why is Yoshi turning into a helicopter?

Yoshi’s Island didn’t become a phenomenon that pushed hardware. The game that did was Donkey Kong Country whose gameplay was a little closer to traditional Mario platforming than Yoshi’s Island was. It is rumored that Miyamoto was furious that Donkey Kong Country did better than his Yoshi’s Island which could explain why Miyamoto did not work on another 2d platformer for almost 18 years.

I hope that you respond.

And there you go.