I should’ve quoted moss_icon’s post in mine.
“i don’t want them in gaming. i want games to be for dorks, geeks, nerds and losers. games should be big, unwieldy, complicated, sprawling, ambitious nonsense. normal people can stay the heck out of gaming, they ruin it. i hate going in games shops and being surrounded by the kind of people who would have beaten me up in school for playing computer games.”
Because hobbies that are only for geeks and losers (comics) are traditionally doing so well.
I won Person of the Year? I mean, I guess I’m long since due, but shouldn’t I have been notified or something?
If you’ve been a good consumer and watched Soledad O’brien (sp?) or browsed your local magazine isles, it would be you. But since you haven’t, it’s not you. Sorry for the confusion.
Anyway, is Wii Sports really broadening the audience? I could see a lot of people trying it out at a friends house, but actually liking it enough to pick up a 300 dollar console (with an extra controller)? Even then, will they continue to buy games? As much as current gamers might enjoy Wii Sports or other games like it, it’s not going to increase the sales of games like Psychonauts.
I dunno. It just feels like the Wiivolution is going to fizzle.
Then bring on the casual gamers, because none of those are franchises I’m deeply enamored with.
Because hobbies that are only for geeks and losers (comics) are traditionally doing so well.
I’d point out that playing Halo/GTA/Madden isn’t just for geeks or losers, those games have already broadened the playerbase to include pretty much every male under 30.
Nintendo could give lessons to Karl Rove. Right now playing video games is as mainstream as it’s ever been. It’s significantly more mainstream now than it was during Nintendo’s heyday. Making gaming mainstream isn’t just a bird that has flown the coop, that bird has bred a whole family since leaving and they all watch that show on ESPN that’s just about people playing Madden.
the reason I don’t mind is that to get bothered by more people getting into my hobby would be fucking insane.
I collect toys, mostly robots and 6th scale figures. I had to buy mostly japanese 6th scale, until dragon started with their 6th scale figs and sideshow showed up. They still didnt make the figs I wanted, so I still had to make my own, or buy japaense to get things like Freddy Krueger. Nowe sideshow has a giant horror line. Great. Still no zombie figs though, and another hobby of mine is all things zombie, figs, books, movies, art, anything. So I had to make my own. But now zombies are more mainstream or at least popluar for a bit, and sideshow has (a very limited) line of zombie figues. So I win out. Sure I have to sift through a ass load of military figs, buffy figs etc… which are for the masses, but I still get better quality weirdo niche stuff. Hell the zombie line from sideshow exists because their best sculptor likes zombies. they make 1000 or less of each one. But that sculpter’s odd side project wouldnt have hit production if sideshow wasnt flush with dough from bond and star trek stuff. Same deal w/ japanese robots, somehow, a few years after I started collecting, I guess my age group hit that critical buying mass, and takara and others noticed the vintage market and started doing some classy repros.
So, it’s good for other hobbies, it’s good for gaming too IMO. Who the fuck would have put the R&D into something like a 360 or ps3 or wii if the amoutn of pepole gaming didnt have any potential to increase?
Bring on “the noobs.”
Excuse the typos, I’m really fucking hungover.
That Soledad O’Brien interview with the TIME editor was hilarious.
“So who is the person of the year?”
“You!”
“Me!?”
“No, not you.”
“Not me? Next year me?”
“Never you.”
Just one of a very large crowd.
I don’t see it as a “safe” choice as much as it’s a choice of the game with the most impact. Gears of War is yet another shooter with nice graphics. There is not one damn thing groundbreaking about it. Same for Final Fantasy 12.
In contrast, Wii Sports introduces a new way of interacting with games and opens gaming to more participants. Will games like Yet Another Sequel XII, Newest Genre Representative, or The Latest Brand Extension ever have that kind of impact.
And yet it’s still a better game than Wii Sports. (And “yet another shooter with nice graphics” is pretty harsh. The game has a number of unique mechanics, such as the health system, the reloading minigame, the roadie run, and the mechanics for using and moving in cover).
Suppose that depends on your definition of “better.” If it has something to do with whether I actually want to play it, or which I would pick given a choice… Then Wii Sports wins with me.
Clearly, it wouldn’t with you. Can’t say I’m worked up one way or the other about that.
That is exactly my definition of better. Well, what I would pick given a choice, not what you would pick. I have no way of knowing what you would pick… well, I guess I do, actually, now that you’ve told me.
Anyway, I’m not trying to berate Wii Sports here; it just seems like a weird pick for GotY to me. If you could have only played one game this year, would it really have been Wii Sports?
That’s a very interesting question. My answer would have to be a maybe-to-probably. How could I, as a longtime gamer, pass up an opportunity to try something new. Really new, not just a refinement or higher-res version or a cool sequel.
I probably couldn’t. Realizing I could throw off-speed pitches in Wii Sports Baseball was a revelation.
It’s because of statements like this that I try and avoid telling people that I play videogames. Nothing I hate more than walking into a gaming shop and being surrounded by the eye-watering, lung burning stench of greasy nerds that haven’t seen a bar of soap in 10 years. Fuck the ‘hardcore’.
Hate to point it out (okay, not really), but those three franchises define casual gaming.
Wii Sports is noteworthy because it has added a new facet to the face of casual gaming and is reaching an entirely new audience. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s reaching non-gamers more than casuals.
That said, Wii Sports is more a tech demo than a full-fledged game to me, and doesn’t even crack my top ten for 2006. Even on the Wii only, Rayman is a better party game, IMO.
Normally, I cringe whenever mainstream publications cover gaming. But the Times is a breath of fresh air. It’s clear that they have writers that are assigned to cover the beat, are knowledgeable of the area and appear to be actual gamers themselves.
I’m sure some people think the paper is being a little tough on the PS3, but frankly, I think they’re acting like genuine journalists. I can’t say I fault them for any of the PS3 shortcomings they have pointed out. It’s been fair reporting of a system that hyped much but to date hasn’t delivered.
Why would I want the hobby to do well if the price is the sort of experiences I enjoy? I find Wii Sports boring, and I really don’t want companies spending their time and money making games of the sort I won’t ever buy. Do you really think the Wii Sports set are going to buy Disgaea 3? Tom Clancy’s Waggle Recon? Castlevania Whip Party? Hell, will they ever buy another game NOT titled Wii Sports Too?
Really, the reason NYT and other “mainstream” media outlets hype the Wii is because Nintendo has done a very good job marketing it under the notion of “see those nerds and their Grand Theft Halos? This isn’t for THEM. It’s for YOU.” Any excuse to bash the former media “experts” and roll themselves into the biz.
The Wii is (wisely) positioned as the “no nerds” console, which is terrible for those of us who ARE “nerds”. Who among here REALLY thinks that console games “use too many buttons” or are “too complicated”? Don’t be disingenuous. I’ve had the best time in gaming EVER during the PSOne and PSTwo eras, where games became far more diverse and likewise increased in complexity. Oddly enough, the gaming audience grew significantly during that period, as well. On the other hand, I really don’t wanna roll back the clock just so my grandpa or wife can play – I don’t need to fake altruism over my fav-o-rite hobby, although some of you are apparently willing to do so.
Anecdotally – and what about the Wii isn’t anecdotal – the Wii infatuation is dying pretty damn quickly in my neck of the woods. It was cool to laugh at people’s waggle antics in a social setting. Now, it’s relegated to the occasional bout of virtual bowling. To the non-gamers, it seems to be pure novelty, or something to dust off and drag out when company comes over – the videogaming console equivalent of Pictionary. This isn’t gonna increase the audience WE should care about: our fellow nerds, who support the genres and innovations in gaming that drive and sustain OUR interest.
False dichotomy. The hardcore edge of gaming isn’t going to completely vanish overnight if the industry gets a huge influx of casual gamers, any more than an Adam Sandler movie doing well causes independent filmmaking to suffer, choke, and die.
You should want the hobby to do well because if it does well, it means the hobby continues. There will always be room for the kind of thing you enjoy, because you’re not the only one who enjoys it.
The hardcore edge will be stuck with last-gen hardware if the game companies assume that the money trees grow in waggle country, so yeah, I’d rather have folks developing for the 360 or the PS3 as their primary platform.
If the game companies assume the money trees grow in waggle country, then the Wii is going to get an amazing glut of triple-A titles whether it uses old hardware or not. The hardware isn’t the important thing; it’s always been the games.
At the same time, you’ll still get yours because there are going to be games that simply aren’t possible on a Wii, for whatever reason. The graceless online multiplayer or relative lack of horsepower will work against it, when it comes time to attract gamers like you.
It’s also probably still too early to welcome our Wii overlords.