Games are confusing. Yes, I said it! The thing that almost everybody has been saying about today's gaming for about 3 years. At least from what I experienced. When you look at it, games have a different perspective of success and can change to what you play. Well, me and my friend, Issacclark322, are going to give our take on what makes a successful game! We haven't talk to each about what we will write in general nor have we shared our work with each other, so Hello and welcome to this challenge blog!
As I said before, games are confusing. Both in the Industry and the player's point of view of it. It's either determined by money or by the greatness of the game, it is always different from what you play or from what time period you come from. I mean, a great example of something like this would have to be E.T. the game. Yes, the game is considered the worst game in history and used as a backup for any game reviewer out there, but the one thing people don't know is how much it grossed. It sold over 1.4 million copies and, by today's standards, earned 25 million in the box office. That is pretty good for a game that only had about 2 weeks of work spent on it, but why isn't it considered a success? Why didn't it save the gaming community? Well, that's because it wasn't fun. A lot of people can say that about a game and try to think that the same thing will happen to them as did ET, but we haven't hit a crash yet nor is the gaming industry held by one company. Most of the games made then were considered less than a penny and generally thrown out of stores because of how long they stood in the shelf. Until EA is the last standing company and starts crapping out games just for the money that are considered more worthless than a penny, then you can believe that.
For about a few year, the industry was considered a laughing stock and a thing to compare companies done on their luck. The one thing that made the industry what it is today was Nintendo. Yes, that company that caused debates about who was the soul creator of gaming was the one that saved gaming when it hit the crash. Why were they in that kind of condition? How come they were looked down upon when Atari was hated. Well, one of my teachers in World History told me his thoughts on it and said that the main reason why Nintendo took off was because of the advertising. It was a kid's device and seeing that the over the top commercial said that the device will bring real-life activities was an obvious sell. Kids begged for it as they heard those harmless white lies for their parents to buy a console for the cheap price of two hundred dollars. It almost seemed they knew what was going on in the industry they were entering.
Nintendo of the time appealed to kids for a reasonable price and has many great games on there that some would actually be lost in time and considered a gem of its time. Either it be a company off of Nintendo's development or something Nintendo wanted to make to show off the console's great powers, anyone who wanted to make a game was going to make one for Nintendo. There just had to be someone out there that was eager enough to take their thunder, right? Well, it was the Sega Master System, but the console didn't have enough lining up for it. The console was expensive and was very inferior to the NES, so many weren't excited to buy nor were parents willing to spend four hundred on it, which adds up to a thousand dollars now in inflation. The same went for the Sega Genesis that was more advanced to even the SNES. No I don't mean that stupid Sonic Processors or whatever, I mean capability wise. Sega was just desperate to take on the massive company that was Nintendo that they risked almost everything they could. It was basically the Cold War of games, they new each other, but hit each other with as much technological advances as they could. New Sega CD released in both Western and Japanese Audiences? Well, Nintendo tested out the success of their own CD system and that failed, so they only release very few of them in Japan and never in America. They went too far with quality as NIntendo came to a cheap conclusion with their games, no advanced processing, just a cheap product that almost anyone can buy without a thought of regret. And this is how you determined what was successful then, it just had to be fun and easy to have. Yes, money was still a factor in this, but the success of a game was fun, not quality. And this is what makes success confusing.
When the gaming industry destroyed our expectation and continue to do so now, gamers were more and more spoiled with better quality items from even Nintendo's standard. They went off their rule and spent more money just so they can mark the age of 3D gaming and still exceed the graphical standard. Games were at a standard we enjoyed and seeing Nintendo follow that, we thought that games should try to match that quality. We soon began a new understanding of games and, into the fame, Microsoft and Sony made their own consoles that would exceed Nintendo’s Capabilities. The Playstation came as a revenge leap towards Nintendo since they didn’t go to terms for their collaboration for a new console. Aside from that, they actually put Nintendo in a technological trap, having them stick to their old rules of making a game cheap in a time where fans wanted quality. Although, they tried to match each other in the war, Sony soon found a new competitor that would follow their standards for more than a decade now: Microsoft. As soon as Nintendo hit a time period with more than one competitor to watch, they soon didn’t know what to do, making them go to new rules instead of trying to make things cheap. Although, they did with some later consoles and game, but they soon almost hit under the radar for all their fans.
Microsoft took Nintendo’s fame and them and Sony were the core attention as Nintendo became a laughing stock in trying to re-enter the war they started. Leading to today’s way of gaming, people steered to an understanding of technical quality, having players know what 1080p means, what FPS is in a game, and core processing of the game, having people judge more than the gameplay, but instead judge how the game operates. A lot of games were even looked down upon because of it and lowered a chance of getting an above 7 rating. But this can be canceled out since the industry isn’t in a fragile thread held by only one company, so saying a game is not good isn’t going to affect anyone now.
This is where it gets confusing, games now have to have a well executed advertisement, so that they enter the public eye. If they do not, sales will plummet no matter if the game is good or not. First impressions matter in this situation because if the advertisements were awful, the game will not enter the public eye in a positive manner. That’s what happened to Earthbound when it released in the US, saying that the game is gross and having people scratch and sniff garbage on a magazine. So have to take the viewer’s attention in a positive manner, but this can be bad as well, since some companies advertise their games with a hype, having many people excited for the eventual release. They could have spent more on the advertising than they did with the actual game, tricking people to buy it. Sometimes, they promise too much like how Fable was when Peter Molyneux described it, an open world that even the littlest actions will change the world around you. It did not, but the game had a cult following, be held as one of the best RPG’s on PC and Xbox. It wasn’t what we were promised, but it was enjoyable to say the least. So sometimes we can get something completely different from what we saw in trailers or E3 presentations.
Another trait that can determine success is mostly the money earned. You can say this game wasn’t good and doesn’t the sequel it’s getting now, but the game grossed over the millions of dollars they spent on making it, so opinion is invalid in this case. And that’s what is kind of taking over the industry now: make a has so little potential, over advertise it, then gain all the money people spent on your game. The hit and run kind of deal in Business, as long as you earned over the money spent, you are considered successful. I kind of don’t liked that since a lot of bad games are getting that kind of treatment, having people misinterpret a good game in terms good sales. That typically means nothing to the game entirely, all that matters is if the game is enjoyable to a selected audience.
So Success is mostly an evolving concept that has meanings in games, either it be money, how well the game was received or if it had exceeded our expectations. And now games are still doing that, either be it for the worse or for the better, success can still be determined by us however we feel, as fans or just as a businessman. Anyways, I hope you liked this, it was a fun write - although mostly frustrating - and ‘til next time…
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