Slashdot Mirror
Diary of an Aging Gamer
eToyChest has an insightful column up looking at the realities of the modern game store shelf, and how the titles there relate to the youth of today. From the article: "This year's summer trip to the software store made one thing very clear to me: In its efforts to follow initial adopters into adulthood, the videogame industry has--inadvertently or otherwise--left children in the dust.
There is no denying the fact that today's kids aren't going to have the same experience we had when we were young. Back then, the bread and butter of the big game companies (i.e., Atari, Sega, Nintendo and others) was the child market. Games were appealing to grown-ups, too--if only for the tech factor--but appealing to the kids was where the most money could be had. Walking into the game store meant finding a wall full of games dedicated to the young player."
You seem to underestimate the sheer amount of money that children control through their parents. E games keep Nintendo profitable.
Actually, making fun, innovative games without needing to rely on a loss-leader to sell consoles is what keeps Nintendo profitable.
With so many ppl on
Actually, making fun, innovative games
You mean like Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Yoshi, Yoshi, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Mario, Yoshi, Yoshi, Mario and Zelda?
Yes, rehashing the same characters over and over and over and over - innovative indeed!
This month's Game Informer has an article addressing this same issue. I think the title was "The Greying of the Super Mario Crowd" or something similar. Basically, the article talked about how the game industry is catering to the people who played Mario Bros as kids, but are now older and have more mature tastes. When they were younger, they played Nintendo; when they aged, Nintendo was too kiddy for them, so they migrated to SNES and Sega. Then it was PS, then it was PS2 and so on.
While I think this is a great idea, I have to disagree with the idea that the game industry is more focused on older gamers. I used to work for a game publisher (the one we're all sick of hearing about these days) and our most profitable games were not the M or Teen rated games, but the kids' games. I never would have thought that if I hadn't started working there, but I think it's because we're all older and out of touch with what kids (10 and under) are into.
I don't think the industry needs to market to these kids though. Most of the kids games tie in to some kind of cartoon, kids movie (Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, anyone?), toy, etc. The kids already know of the characters and would probably want to buy the game just because it has their favorite cartoon character on the box. The thing with these games is that it's parent-friendly too. A non-game-savvy parent may stop by Toys R Us on the way back from work to pick junior up a treat. Is the parent going to buy some game he's never heard of, but there are posters of all over the store? Probably not. The parent will buy Kids Next Door or Britney's Dance Beat because he knows junior likes watching that on TV.
You are talking about kids that already know how to use a video game system. I have witnessed four different friends' children get initiated into the world of video games, and I am certain it's a learned skill just like anything else.
The newest one was started on Pac man, because there's no buttons, and he always moves until he hits a wall. We tried starting with Mario Kart, but he couldn't make the connection between pressing the button and driving.
I don't think there's a linear a progression of buttons, but I think that there's definitely a progression of no buttons to buttons.
It's perfectly analogous to normal children's toys, so I don't see how it would be a bad assumption. I think it's true personally, and for me it's based on actually watching a kids try to play games.
If they can take the same characters over and over and do fun things with them. Mario Cart, Super Smash Brothers, Metroid Prime, who cares?
Then of course they can produce things like Pikmin, and Warioware.
Why focus so much on those few main characters? I don't see anyone complaining about the reuse of the Final Fantasy properties, or Metal Gear, Madden, etc. All of which Nintendo manages to get into their world as well.
-- taking over the world, we are.