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When Videogames Publishers Go 'Street'
Thanks to 1UP/OPM for its article discussing what they describe as the 'thugging' of the videogame industry, referencing games such as Def Jam Fight for NY and Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. The piece suggests: "Whether it was established franchises morphing into more streetwise versions of their former selves or new franchises emerging wearing their hip-hop influences on their sleeves, it was clear that the urban lifestyle is being embraced by developers and publishers alike." Marc Ecko argues "I think the problem is that the games industry is generationally nostalgic", and Steve Allison of Midway charges: "The guys bitching about this new trend are inching up on 35 years old, and they grew up on old-school gameplay. They're a very vocal bunch, but they're just not the market anymore."
These video games are as much "from the street" as Vanilla Ice was.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Steve Allison of Midway charges: "The guys bitching about this new trend are inching up on 35 years old, and they grew up on old-school gameplay. They're a very vocal bunch, but they're just not the market anymore."
Well, this is likely true, but as one who used to play online shootemups, I can say the trend toward this has been going on for a little while at least. When all the little white kids got their computers around the same time hip-hop started going mainstream, you started seeing comments like "Whasssup Biatch" when someone joined the game or "I'm your pimp daddy" or some other affected effort at manifesting some pathetic street cred. I have sort of expected this sort of thing for a while now, but see it as a continued effort to squeeze some more marketing $$s out of a saturated hip-hop market. Perhaps when NWA or Ice-T was around this would have been interesting but come on now folks, the hip hop scene is dead and has been replaced by the thug-life affected persona that now simply looks and appears absurd. Nowhatimsayin?
So, essentially what Steve Allison from Midway is saying is that Midway has sold out and are adopting the grow the company, mainstream marketing bit. Steve..........Do you know what this means?.............It means that Midway is no longer cool. This of course is the risk companies take when they try to break from their roots and become something they are not, but hey......that's America and at least companies have that option.
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Pong: Snoop Dogg Edition
Dig Dugg 2: The Electric boogaloo
Defender...of Compton
or heck just play Dopewars.
I think this is merely a phase, a cultural identification to a phase of adolescence, where young males feel superior as a method of attracting a mate, and when that fails, they turn to video games and possibly crime (as I think it always does fail most teens today who can't skate like Tony, or roll like Puffy).
Video game designers realize there is a pile of money to be made on criminals, too, because one of their favourite hobbies are console games. I'd wager that most criminals dislike computer games, yet I think with Doom 3 around the corner, this may change.
Thuggin: Spending money like an idiot, drinking to an excess, being only turned on by bimbos with no brains, beating eachother senseless with tire irons or whatever, shooting people you hate, getting shot at by people who hate you, eating only at drive thru, drinking alize and crystal, attending strip clubs like they were the new church, membership at the The Player'S Club, Gucci, bling-bling, busta move on da dance flo, Po Po, bein' Po cuz ya spendt it awl (not the same as Po Po), scrappin, etc.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
But in five to ten years time we will be in control of the market's purse-strings. Don't ignore us.
Yo momma!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
This really isn't a big deal. I've been playing games for over twenty years. Games have their phases. A few years ago it was shooters and RPG (FF style games). Now it is the more realistic run around and buy drugs, beat hookers, and kill people. Ultimately, it doesn't make a difference. It is just another phase. We've all been through different phases in our lives. Anyways, the biggest worry to me is that the industry is going away. Sure there are the big upcoming games, but there really hasn't been innovation since the GTA series. Guess I will just have to go back to D&D.
However, as you're all aware, the videogame industry is now outpacing Hollywood, which means geeks are no longer the main target audience. Games have gone mainstream in a horrible way.
Well, horrible for us at least. Which is what I'm getting at. You see, we may look down on this trend, I know I certainly do, but its not really our place to judge the people who they are now targeting.
Every generation has had their share of kids like this, the fad has just been different. Today its hiphop and thug culture. Doesn't make me like these kids any more, but they are certainly entitled to act this way. They're KIDS for fuck sake. Hopefully they'll grow out of it, otherwise, I'm sure with all the guns in the culture, Darwin will take care of the rest.
Fact is, this is only a phase that the games industry is going through, just like all the other ones they've gone through. Who knows what it will be next, but it really is luck that determines if it is compatible with older generations of gamers.
Don't fret though, once the gaming industry becomes more mature, we will start to see more stratification of companies as they target smaller audiences, and inevitably there will be some who choose to target older, more mature gamers.
And yes, Midway has sold out.
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Honestly, does it really matter? A fun game is a fun game is a fun game and people who pander to one style, neglecting gameplay are always going to make shitty games. I think game developers should have to take a sort of Hippocratic Oath, something along the lines of:
First, make it not suck
... that I haven't figured out how to cash in on white kids wishing they were black, yet.
Great
...
As if our video-games didn't have enough mindless violence. Now they'll have this hard core hate that the Hip-Hop preaches like there is no tomorrow.
Think I'm really biased (which I am) or am trolling ? Well apparently Bill Cosby agrees with me
Sunny Dubey
Resident of New York City, lots of mindless hip-hop here
Fifteen years down the road, which will stand up better: a game that was released in 2004 that depicts life on the streets in that same year, or a game like the Legend of Zelda, which isn't set in our world?
Goo goo g'joob.
i don't think its all 35-year-olds. i'm 19 and i think its absolutely retarded that turbo has to be called "juice" in all these retarded ghetto games.
"NBA Nigga Be Ballin' Bling Bling on the Straight-Up Street an' Pimpin aa Bitches 2k4" makes me want to claw my brain out through my nostrils
and then the "audiences" in some of these games doing all their retarded ghetto flailing of arms in their air and stuff. UGH!
i hate what our society is becoming.
How does rap music and def jam suddenly equal thug?
Urban maybe, if you want to call it Urban culture go ahead, but thug is definately the wrong word and makes the person who posted the article sound like a closet racist.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
And with Arnold as Governor, we have a green light for unlimited violence in the entertainment industry. So there.
My money goes towards other interests than gaming.
I mean come on... Does anyone really think that all the little "nigga" wannabe's are anything other than mass marketed MTV drones?
If everyone that 'talks the talk" also 'walked the walk', than 2/3 of the population would be in prison, or dead. It's a bunch of huff and puff 99% of the time, and it pisses of parents who grew up with Motley Crue and Poison doing the talking for them, so it's inherently the "in" thing.
The only real problem with it is the number of kids it introduces to the concept of "money is for buying bitches, and guns is for talkin" (there, I paraphrased the entire genre for you! Happy? 8).
So while I understand why game manufacturers are going for this target demographic, I don't know if it's neccesarily something I feel is a good thing.
You have to remember that until this generation of parents decide to start being parents, this is the kinda drek which is raising their kids while they're out trying to relive their childhoods themselves.
Personally, I'd rather role play Leisure Suit Larry type characters than Snoop Dogg anyday. There's just something more fun about playing a smarmy cartoon character, and letting my imagination fill in some of the blanks, than playing a life like copy of a real life black pimp.
One's role-playing, and the other's just envy over an impossibility.
Why is it every 6.5 days there is a new Slashdot article about the trends in gaming? The trends in gaming depend mostly on the individual likes and dislikes. It's much like the 'Linux revolution'; anytime a company with over 25 employees switches to Linux we hear the chanting from the peanut gallery that Bill Gates is doomed and that the entire world has finally faced the light of open source, blah blah blah. In gaming it's much the same. Someone's got a GTA bug up their ass and now it's all they ever see. A whole dozen games have a "ghetto theme" and now we're lead to beleive that in 6 months no one will want to play Doom3, Half Life 2 or the latest Medal of Honor? Please. That's simply nonsense.
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Women prefer the "thug" men over the nice guy weak men. Men who commit crimes successfully almost always have a girlfriend.
You don't have to be a violent criminal, you just need to have a nice car, lots of money, and the tough guy image. You see its all an act just like my name being adolph hitler is a persona, the "thugs" are acting out a persona to get the girls.
Women generally hate nice guys and consider them weak and inferior. Women are attracted to thugs who spend excessive money on them. As much as you say differently, find me a woman who will go on a date with a homeless man with no job. Better yet find me woman period.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Really? Really? I've been reading that the gamer demographic keeps getting older. I've even read a little bit of that on Slashdot (although when I searched for it, all I got was a link to an article about women over 40 being a big, growing gamer market -- not quite the article I recall reading). We now have the gamer dad web site, and I'm sure a gamer mom web site either exists or will soon. I'm 33, and over the last 3 years, my income has finally been good enough to allow me to buy a Dreamcast, a PS2, and about $1,000 worth of games. I don't think I'm the only 30-something gamer in existence. I wonder if this guy just doesn't understand the market anymore. It's bigger than he imagines.
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OK I am 34 and it is fair to say I don't buy a lot of games anymore, but then again I never did. I always preferred games that lasted forever, like the original Civilization. When Doom came along that changed things and I enjoyed it because it's much more fun hunting each other.
Here's my point:
Older games LOOK like games. Suspension of disbelief was not necessary or even possible when dealing with flat-shaded 2D characters. I think back then gameplay testing was more important.. because there wasn't anything else to sweat over! There were no cameras, polygons, or anything just simple fun.
A lot of the games I see today are over-engineered.
Look at this way. Animation technology has come a LONG way, but does the anime industry rely exclusively on 3D computer generated images? Nope. Sure, 2D shaders are applied to some 3D objects then blended in with the 2D animation. And most 2D animation is done on a computer now. BUT it still *feels* like what came before it.
I don't really want a computer simulation of the outside world. I'd rather be out, in it.
My father an artist on the newest Sims title for Consoles (The Urbz) and he's definitely hit this. I've been at his office hearing fifty year old white men talking about "Street cred" and it's quite funny. They're so concerned about making sure that it has a legitimate "Street" feel. I put all that in "quotation marks" as that's how all the executives talk about it. It's quite amusing.
As usual, the Simpsons has this trend wrapped up. Remember Poochie the Dog from the The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show?
I resent the 35 year old comment, because I'm 21, and the games I grew up on weren't "streetcore" either. What on earth is the guy talking about? I don't know anyone in the 19-35 year old age range that is hip-hop hardcore. That shit resides in the high schools and malls. I like to refer to it as "mallcore," and it's pushed by Viacom affiliates like MTV controlled by rich executives who laugh at the very culture they propagate onto the kiddies, because it makes them money.
Fuck this rap-wannabe bullshit. It's hysterical. This musical fad is as long-lasting as glam was, disco was before it, and doo-wop was before that. The culture has already saturated itself--it's become the joke that glam was in the early 90s. Every rap video has the same oversaturated high-contrast video filters, the same sports jersey-wearing rappers, the same lyrics. It's around so much because it's extremely easy to produce this music. Just click in some drumbeats with your mouse in a tracking program and have someone write rap lyrics in 5 minutes, featuring today's flavor-of-the-month rapper. Bam, new single.
Midway, and any other companies getting into this, are making a huge mistake and will be laughed at in five years. Meanwhile, I'll play something that doesn't date itself so badly, like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 (I still play Doom 1 now and then!).
So here's my own musing and karma risk
Street Culture...
Brings to mind asian-descended mallrats looking for expensive toys to tack on to their hondas. Carlos Santana (not black) making Rob Thomas (also not black) cooler. Playing Loud Ludacris and Eminem. Luda is black, but Eminem? Although at first glance he is a whitey doing "black" music, He certainly has is own sound, also influenced by classic anglo poetic meter (and few black gentlemen bleach their hair).
And then there are other groups that influence street, as well. Orange County Choppers/West Coast Choppers. A bunch of older white people doing what they do well, with a fuck-you if ya don't like it attitude. Very "street". Goths/Punks/Metalers. A token group thrown in any "street" video game, usually portrayed by one character. In real life, a mix of anglo and eastern europan-americans, with a few blacks and asians, which are not usually the sub-cultural leaders. Has led to the plethora of piercings, dyed hair and tattos in street culture. Hispanics. Aside from Santana, has a very real and non-black street credibility. They "own" the lowrider scene, cruising, and such. Not marketed by Hollywood/ video games well yet. Still street.
Yes, there are many blacks developing the "Urban" culture. But they aren't the only ones that loathe suburbia. In fact, people from all ethnicities and walks of life find the droll, smugly racist, overly rightous attitudes of the portly and pasty crackers from small towns and suburb tracts simply disgusting. I'm white. I still like bass, flamboyance and machismo. And no, I don't wish I was black.
Looks good for your age..
They never go "Magic the Gathering: Street"
That could get real ugly...
Game programmers ain't much better. As someone said this is as real as Vanilla Ice.
As for how effective it is. Well the posts comments on how the 35 yr olds are just a small segment. Perhaps. But so are the 25-35 and 35+ segments. So are all the 0-25 who just don't like rap/hip-hop/streetcred. By focussing on one group that seems to be "in" at the moment you risk alienating all the rest. Just ask MTV.
I used to give this example and while it isn't entirely true anymore it still works. Look at the top ten most successfull films of all time and count the number with "classical" music and those with music that was current at the time.
Each generation needs their own kind of music to be able to rebel against those who came before. Nothing new there and nothing to worry about except that possibly one day we are going to run out of new music but then we can just start again. One day youths on the streetcorner will be grooving to beethoven and old folks passing by will say "shame in our day we listened to real music and what are these kids of today wearing, suit? Tie, a HAT? and look at his pants, they are not even down to the knees!".
Anyway I think that any game that attempts streetcred by including the current "hip" music and street talk is as pretend as a hollywood movie doing the same. You know that is just marketing by some 40yr old in a suit and the only ones stupid enough to think that playing these games gives you real street cred are exactly the people the 40yr old wants to reach. Middle-class white boys who want to show they are hard but still live at home with mommy and get daddy to pay their bills.
Funny how kids always think they are rebbelling by doing exactly what all the other kids are doing. Wouldn't it be a real rebbelion for a kid not to rebel? (I am as anti-social as they come and so the herding instinct is extremely low in me. I don't conform. Ever. Not even by not conforming. Doesn't make me better but it does give me some laughs when I see poor little rich kid gangsta's.)
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Eminem? Although at first glance he is a whitey doing "black" music, He certainly has is own sound, also influenced by classic anglo poetic meter (and few black gentlemen bleach their hair).
To look at older hip hop, you will find surprising similarities between Eminem's style and 's style. In 8 Mile they pay a homage to Rakim by pointing out that he was the first successful rapper to use complex rhyme schemes. To this day, no other rapper has been able to match him in the complexity of his or her rhymes. Rakim is an upright muslim, no excessive bling bling, no big booty bitches in his videos and possibly as a result of that no mainstream appeal.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I don't think that Hip Hop is negative. It never was when we were growing up.
Unless things have changed the description of Gangsta Rap and Thug Life would be "hardcore" rap...not hip hop. Let me differentiate.
Hip hop can be negative, but in that vein it usually is meant to motivate you to get by the tough times. Most of it is just for partying or being silly. This might have changed but real hip hop back in the day would be Slick Rick, Erik B and Rakim; etc. Gangsta Rap would be NWA, Public Enemy; etc. Sometimes it's tough to differentiate between the two...I've listened to rap and hip hop since those guys were popular though, so I'd like to think that I have some idea of what I'm talking about. I'm not saying it's my favorite music, especially with all of the thug crap coming out now.
I feel like Mike Bolton from Office Space even talking about it.
-TLAY
Steve Allison of Midway charges: "The guys bitching about this new trend are inching up on 35 years old, and they grew up on old-school gameplay. They're a very vocal bunch, but they're just not the market anymore."
I just turned 30 and I spend more on games now than I ever did as a kid. I was part of the first mainstream videogame generation and most of us have a lot more disposable income these days. And we still play games, even though some of us are married and/or have families.
It's incredibly stupid to dismiss us like that, but it's something I see over and over again. Games aren't maturing as my generation does, and although I spend a lot on games, I find the number of games that truly excite me anymore to be slim. My feeling is that a lot of this is due to the immaturity of many game developers, who think it's more important to have big-breasted polygons than a good storyline or gameplay. The other problem is arrogant and uninformed attitudes like this guy at Midway, which is very prevalent at the superpublishers which control the industry. I don't believe that the traditional business philosophy that the 12-18 market spends the most translates to the games market. From just personal experience I haven't seen the usual dropoff. What is needed is more independent studios again who have the creative integrity to concentrate on quality, which is what the 25-35 segment is begging for and not getting often.
Oh, and by the way Midway guy, 95% of the games your company has put out are trash.
Market.
While the PC has certainly bloomed into a mainstream gaming platform, the number of console gamers are still larger. The industry has been quite aware of a single fact. More Black Americans own gaming consoles than PCs. A large segment of the console gaming market, are the black audiences who usually buy more sports titles than others. Thats why you have games like NBA Street, NFL Street.
Also i know of several developers that have been approached by very successful rappers/producers, and so forth looking to get into the game industry. They'll fund games, lend talent, music and marketing power.
There is a movement towards black culture in gaming because there is a huge market for it among whites, and even more among blacks.
Games are just like hollywood these days. They go for markets.
Frankly i wish they would make PC games like they used to, New ideas, new concepts. Interplay's Castles 2 etc. Something other than a freaking 3d FPS.
there's that whole "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, mack on their women" thing too
Women prefer the "thug" men over the nice guy weak men.
Ah, no no no!
Don't ever think that! I'll leave aside the issue of generalising what three billion women want (makes about as much sense as me saying that all men want 'x'). But nice does not mean weak. Yes, weakness is rarely a trait that turns a woman on, but 'niceness' which I take to mean consideration for others is not the same.
If someone is only nice because they are afraid to upset someone, then are they really nice? I wouldn't think so. But a man who will stand up for you, protect you? Now that would be nice.
Some women will go for the badguys, but not many. Badguys in real-life are not like bad-guys in the movies. Do you really think most women want a life filled with violence and aggression? I promise you they don't.
Of course a certain amount of unpredictability is exciting. Everyone is attracted to someone who does the things that we wish we could do but can't. But I think that's really different to what you mean.
And in case you think all this has been meant in a physical sense, well yes it sort of was, but women can want a trophy boyfriend (the car, the clothes, the muscles) just like men want trophy girlfriends. But don't forget that not all men want that. (Relationships like this rarely last.) The other side of the gender-divide is not that different.
find me a woman who will go on a date with a homeless man with no job. Better yet find me woman period.
You're probably limited to other homeless women at the moment. It's not that a woman would or would not like you, but is she willing to make the sacrifices for you that dating a homeless man would involve (housing you, feeding you, driving you places)? When you're back on your feet then a woman is no longer having to make big lifestyle changes to accomodate you and you'll be a better prospect.
But it has nothing to do with you not being a "thug."
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
${1} is ${2}! Youth is being corrupted! We should ${3}
...) ...) ...)
Where:
$1 is in (music, movies, games, websites, theater,
$2 is in (violent, sexual, political, heretical,
$3 is in (ban it, regulate it, age restrict it, burn them at the stake, make him drink hemlock,
Good, now I guess I'll just download all my games from now on. It shouldn't hurt them at all, since I'm not the target market. Good luck with your teeny boppers, video game guru's.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
Street music? Streets are just roads, right?
For an even better mindfuck, take advantage of the fact that most rap lyrics are in iambic pentameter. Start a backbeat, put it on loop, and see how far you can get through Macbeth (or any other Shakespearian play) before you collapse in hysterics.
With artists like Rahzel who can beatbox and drop the chorus simultaniously, few could deny posession of musical skill born of years of focused practice. With artists like Rob Smith and the X-ecutioners, who recently scratched alongside the late Charlie Parker on Cheers (X-ecutioners Style) you can see that the turntable is a viable musical instrument, in the hands of a talented artist.
I'd also submit that the result is a way of judging the talent of the artist. It's not ultimately about the ability to depress this combination or that combination of keys while maintaining breath control. It's about the note. While the flute sounds like the flute and can't be replaced, with technology comes innovation. The flute might gain better seals, better plating and perhaps a lower price. The electronic forms, still in their infancy, will gain more from the technology surrounding the days of their invention. The early electronic keyboards had less advanced sound rendering ability than the ringer in today's cellular phone. Regardless of the source of the sound, be it sample, scratch, beatbox, real instrument or computer-modeled, Hip-Hop artists today are creating sounds that are undeniably music, and possessed of the power to entertain and emote.... What more would you want from a musician? Grunge is not a predessor to Hip-Hop, as you claim.
So here I sit listening to my yodelling CDs. Frank Ifield will never sell out! :-)