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Think back to the days of th Megadrive, the SNES, heck, even the MAster System and the NES. Those of you who can remember - proabably not many - will know that back then gamers, the games industry, every games-relate magazine on the shelves, were all clammering for recognition. We were all rather bored of being seen as the "light sensitive spotty faced overweight friendless gamer". That was the kind of stereotype that existed, it wasn't true but most stereotypes aren't.
Gaming went from strength to strength, it grabbed media attention as some of our US cousins decided to blame Doom forthem going on shooting rampages. It was bad press, but it was press. High profile releases like Sonic 2, the launch of the ill fated Mega CD and the constant stream of Streetfighter games saw more and more people sucked into gaming. Slowly but surely it was becoming a "normal" thing to do.
Sony sealed gmaing's acceptability with the Playstation. Sony were a "proper" company, and they were into games. People were taking notice of the industry and everything exploded from there into today's mess. Yep, mess.
Back in the olden days ( :) ) games weren't released by the bucketfull every year, but mostly they were rated average to good. Publisher knew that a bad game got bad reviews, and everyone in those days read, or knew someone who read, the reviews. They didn't sell and most publishers knew it. Gaming disasters like most of the Army Men titles, most disney titles e.t.c wouldn't be considered back then. Now....well go look at any store, or here on SR, there are piles of games and the unsuspecting gamer can easily fall for a hyped up new release that is bad, and thats being polite. Mass market appeal has come at a price. Look at the Scooby Doo games, they've probably had about 8 months in development, it's a poor game but its selling. The masses are buying the logo, not the game.
Companies like Codemasters, in those days, seemed to have a genuine interest in their audience, they looked like normal people and didn't dress themselves up in suits, they didn't try to pretend to be the 21st century Rock stars. They made games, and mostly pretty damn good ones, and remarkably quickly too.
Gaming has succeeded, it's successful, it makes money, masses of it, through selling products, yes products and not games. Sonic sold on the gameplay, Desert Storm did, Mario did. A bad sonic game - there was one - didn't sell despite the logo. I guarantee that any company could, in theory, make aYu Gi Oh game in under a month, dress up the box in cartoon images, and sell to a number on spot on the GBA or PSone.
True gamers - whatever they are - will see this is wrong, that it's doing long term damage by taking sales from the great games out there. Why on earth should a CEO of a games company have his people spend 3 years on a game for the PS2, GBA, PSone, even the PC, when they can buy a licence, or do some creative PR, make a substandard game and still sell well. Where's the incentive in that eh?
Luckily the old gurad of developers are still around. Konami, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco - Japanese developers who know what games are and should be, but even they must shake their heads when they see their latest great game buried under generic driver 4 that takes 4 hours to complete........
~~Belldandy~~
Gaming went from strength to strength, it grabbed media attention as some of our US cousins decided to blame Doom forthem going on shooting rampages. It was bad press, but it was press. High profile releases like Sonic 2, the launch of the ill fated Mega CD and the constant stream of Streetfighter games saw more and more people sucked into gaming. Slowly but surely it was becoming a "normal" thing to do.
Sony sealed gmaing's acceptability with the Playstation. Sony were a "proper" company, and they were into games. People were taking notice of the industry and everything exploded from there into today's mess. Yep, mess.
Back in the olden days ( :) ) games weren't released by the bucketfull every year, but mostly they were rated average to good. Publisher knew that a bad game got bad reviews, and everyone in those days read, or knew someone who read, the reviews. They didn't sell and most publishers knew it. Gaming disasters like most of the Army Men titles, most disney titles e.t.c wouldn't be considered back then. Now....well go look at any store, or here on SR, there are piles of games and the unsuspecting gamer can easily fall for a hyped up new release that is bad, and thats being polite. Mass market appeal has come at a price. Look at the Scooby Doo games, they've probably had about 8 months in development, it's a poor game but its selling. The masses are buying the logo, not the game.
Companies like Codemasters, in those days, seemed to have a genuine interest in their audience, they looked like normal people and didn't dress themselves up in suits, they didn't try to pretend to be the 21st century Rock stars. They made games, and mostly pretty damn good ones, and remarkably quickly too.
Gaming has succeeded, it's successful, it makes money, masses of it, through selling products, yes products and not games. Sonic sold on the gameplay, Desert Storm did, Mario did. A bad sonic game - there was one - didn't sell despite the logo. I guarantee that any company could, in theory, make aYu Gi Oh game in under a month, dress up the box in cartoon images, and sell to a number on spot on the GBA or PSone.
True gamers - whatever they are - will see this is wrong, that it's doing long term damage by taking sales from the great games out there. Why on earth should a CEO of a games company have his people spend 3 years on a game for the PS2, GBA, PSone, even the PC, when they can buy a licence, or do some creative PR, make a substandard game and still sell well. Where's the incentive in that eh?
Luckily the old gurad of developers are still around. Konami, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco - Japanese developers who know what games are and should be, but even they must shake their heads when they see their latest great game buried under generic driver 4 that takes 4 hours to complete........
~~Belldandy~~
Actually, games are FAR better than they used to be.
We just have much higher expectations nowdays.
Download some Snes/Mega Drive ROMs.
The main classics like Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Street Fighter are good, but there are hundreds of crap titles lying around as well.
There were always crap games around, people just didn't notice them.
I mean the standards were so crap back then, the early versions of Fifa seemed fantastic!
We just have much higher expectations nowdays.
Download some Snes/Mega Drive ROMs.
The main classics like Sonic, Mario, Zelda and Street Fighter are good, but there are hundreds of crap titles lying around as well.
There were always crap games around, people just didn't notice them.
I mean the standards were so crap back then, the early versions of Fifa seemed fantastic!
Think back to the days of th Megadrive, the SNES, heck, even the MAster System and the NES. Those of you who can remember - proabably not many - will know that back then gamers, the games industry, every games-relate magazine on the shelves, were all clammering for recognition. We were all rather bored of being seen as the "light sensitive spotty faced overweight friendless gamer". That was the kind of stereotype that existed, it wasn't true but most stereotypes aren't.
Gaming went from strength to strength, it grabbed media attention as some of our US cousins decided to blame Doom forthem going on shooting rampages. It was bad press, but it was press. High profile releases like Sonic 2, the launch of the ill fated Mega CD and the constant stream of Streetfighter games saw more and more people sucked into gaming. Slowly but surely it was becoming a "normal" thing to do.
Sony sealed gmaing's acceptability with the Playstation. Sony were a "proper" company, and they were into games. People were taking notice of the industry and everything exploded from there into today's mess. Yep, mess.
Back in the olden days ( :) ) games weren't released by the bucketfull every year, but mostly they were rated average to good. Publisher knew that a bad game got bad reviews, and everyone in those days read, or knew someone who read, the reviews. They didn't sell and most publishers knew it. Gaming disasters like most of the Army Men titles, most disney titles e.t.c wouldn't be considered back then. Now....well go look at any store, or here on SR, there are piles of games and the unsuspecting gamer can easily fall for a hyped up new release that is bad, and thats being polite. Mass market appeal has come at a price. Look at the Scooby Doo games, they've probably had about 8 months in development, it's a poor game but its selling. The masses are buying the logo, not the game.
Companies like Codemasters, in those days, seemed to have a genuine interest in their audience, they looked like normal people and didn't dress themselves up in suits, they didn't try to pretend to be the 21st century Rock stars. They made games, and mostly pretty damn good ones, and remarkably quickly too.
Gaming has succeeded, it's successful, it makes money, masses of it, through selling products, yes products and not games. Sonic sold on the gameplay, Desert Storm did, Mario did. A bad sonic game - there was one - didn't sell despite the logo. I guarantee that any company could, in theory, make aYu Gi Oh game in under a month, dress up the box in cartoon images, and sell to a number on spot on the GBA or PSone.
True gamers - whatever they are - will see this is wrong, that it's doing long term damage by taking sales from the great games out there. Why on earth should a CEO of a games company have his people spend 3 years on a game for the PS2, GBA, PSone, even the PC, when they can buy a licence, or do some creative PR, make a substandard game and still sell well. Where's the incentive in that eh?
Luckily the old gurad of developers are still around. Konami, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco - Japanese developers who know what games are and should be, but even they must shake their heads when they see their latest great game buried under generic driver 4 that takes 4 hours to complete........
~~Belldandy~~
Gaming went from strength to strength, it grabbed media attention as some of our US cousins decided to blame Doom forthem going on shooting rampages. It was bad press, but it was press. High profile releases like Sonic 2, the launch of the ill fated Mega CD and the constant stream of Streetfighter games saw more and more people sucked into gaming. Slowly but surely it was becoming a "normal" thing to do.
Sony sealed gmaing's acceptability with the Playstation. Sony were a "proper" company, and they were into games. People were taking notice of the industry and everything exploded from there into today's mess. Yep, mess.
Back in the olden days ( :) ) games weren't released by the bucketfull every year, but mostly they were rated average to good. Publisher knew that a bad game got bad reviews, and everyone in those days read, or knew someone who read, the reviews. They didn't sell and most publishers knew it. Gaming disasters like most of the Army Men titles, most disney titles e.t.c wouldn't be considered back then. Now....well go look at any store, or here on SR, there are piles of games and the unsuspecting gamer can easily fall for a hyped up new release that is bad, and thats being polite. Mass market appeal has come at a price. Look at the Scooby Doo games, they've probably had about 8 months in development, it's a poor game but its selling. The masses are buying the logo, not the game.
Companies like Codemasters, in those days, seemed to have a genuine interest in their audience, they looked like normal people and didn't dress themselves up in suits, they didn't try to pretend to be the 21st century Rock stars. They made games, and mostly pretty damn good ones, and remarkably quickly too.
Gaming has succeeded, it's successful, it makes money, masses of it, through selling products, yes products and not games. Sonic sold on the gameplay, Desert Storm did, Mario did. A bad sonic game - there was one - didn't sell despite the logo. I guarantee that any company could, in theory, make aYu Gi Oh game in under a month, dress up the box in cartoon images, and sell to a number on spot on the GBA or PSone.
True gamers - whatever they are - will see this is wrong, that it's doing long term damage by taking sales from the great games out there. Why on earth should a CEO of a games company have his people spend 3 years on a game for the PS2, GBA, PSone, even the PC, when they can buy a licence, or do some creative PR, make a substandard game and still sell well. Where's the incentive in that eh?
Luckily the old gurad of developers are still around. Konami, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco - Japanese developers who know what games are and should be, but even they must shake their heads when they see their latest great game buried under generic driver 4 that takes 4 hours to complete........
~~Belldandy~~