It is a little known fact in America and the rest of the western world that the optimal way to beat an arcade game is a one credit clear; completion of all stages without continuing. Unfortunately game players and even developers in the west saw continuing as an inevitable aspect of arcade game design. It is this fundamental misunderstanding that continuing was a natural and even integral element of arcade gaming that lead to the downfall of arcade culture in the west. It is also responsible for the creation of terrible credit-feeders that are poorly balanced and unfair made by clueless western developers, the overtaking of other countries by Japan in game quality and the fact that every ignorant shmuck in the press and gaming community has no idea how to play the few quality titles that we still have.
To properly mourn for what has been loss we must understand their value. If you have ever been to an arcade then consider yourself lucky, arcades have housed the cutting edge titles for nearly every genre beside those that are PC-centric. A big reason for this is because of the paying format arcades use. One small payment and you can play as long as you can keep your little pixel avatar alive. This is important for several reasons, first of all it this format that single handedly shuts down shovelware, blatant cash ins and games that are nearly unplayable like EA?s sloppy port of Shadow of the Beast to the American Sega Genesis or even more famously E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. The arcade audience would never tolerate playing more than one credit of a subpar game and as such continually gave their money to only the best games out there and furthermore developed taste and higher standards. Opposite the arcade gamers were the gamers who exclusively played with retail disk based games who often ended up forcing themselves through a lame experience because they already paid for it, dulling themselves to the agonies of tedium. The second reason that this payment system is important is because it encouraged players to learn and master game mechanics in order to play for longer and proceed with the game. You can only play as long as you keep your sprite alive and as such it fostered a culture of gamers who were extremely skillful and demanded increasing complexity in games so that they continue testing themselves and growing. In this way arcade games were free to continue gaining complexity and depth to cater to their audience. This trend if left unmolested would have led to a steadily greater game development over the years rather than the stagnant and even decadent games we often see today.
Arcades first emerged in the in the 70?s as a viable business with Galaxy Wars becoming available to the public. Other notable games that came after that were games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Asteroids where the goal was to keep playing as long as possible and get a higher score while the game constantly sent increasingly more difficult loops of the same patterns. As arcade games developed they began to have actual endings and limited number of stages which the player would ?win? after completing all of them. These new genres such as SHMUPs, Run N Gun, Belt Scroll Beat ?em Up and gun shooting (along with the development of the versus fighter) were a worthwhile addition to the arcade format of play, but also led to the heinous addition of continues.
As discussed before the arcade format of games have many virtues, one being that the games could be played for an extremely low price to test the waters before committing more coins to the machine later as opposed to games sold on the retail market, but the equally important aspect of these games is undoubtedly the high degree of skill they demand from the player and hence high degree of satisfaction they give when the player becomes proficient in them. The problem with continues is that they destroy the satisfaction of attaining skill, making progressing through the game more of a matter on the number of coins in your pocket then skill and simply spoils the progression you get from playing through the game properly. The western arcade gamers didn?t understand how this spoiled the game and kept continuing in a foolish attempt to ?reach the end? so that they could be done with it. Furthermore the seeming necessity of the continue feature gives arcade games a black mark in the eyes of the public who think these games are nothing more than designed to take your money. The problem is furthered with western development teams take advantage of this relative ignorance and release the real credit-feeders, Narc (1998), Revolution X, Total Carnage, games so unbalanced that 1CCing them is nearly impossible without dumb luck. Konami even altered their own games for American release to have more continue-friendly design, another notch on the viscous cycle. Meanwhile the games that came unaltered from Japan were increasing in complexity to the point where the general public who were coddled by the continue mentality labeled them as the same as the western developers pathetic excuses for games. The public interest for arcade games dwindled in favor of console games where the continues were always free. In the short run implementing the continue feature was a success for arcade operators, getting more money from clueless and skill-less players but in the long it nearly destroyed the industry.
It is important that we expand on the evils of nurturing a breed of gamers that have been weaned of challenge and come to prefer more passive ?experiences? because it is one of the major reasons the masses have been unable to accept the Japanese arcade model of game design. Because they have been babied by game design that doesn?t have repercussions for failure they can?t rise to the challenge of a suitably complex game. Rather than go back and master the nuances of simpler games from earlier in whatever genre they are playing and then building their skills from their they instead demand that videogames always cater to their skill level and as such the complexity of videogames shrink rather than grow. Leading to games that never further themselves in possibility and challenge. It is important that we understand the purpose of videogames and that they cannot be enjoyed in the same way as books or plays, they exist for a dynamic and interesting challenge and as such once a difficult challenge has been completed a simpler but similar challenge is rendered worthless.
Japan luckily never succumbed to this disgraceful trend of designing games with continues in minde. The country remains today the sole source of respectable arcade games and even produced in the last few years some of the most undeniable classics of this gaming generation Espgaluda II, BlazBlue, Arcana Heart, Senko no Ronde among dozens of others. The reason for the success of the Japanese arcade relative to the American versions is that the Japanese understood the golden rule: 1CC. 1CC isn?t just a way to get the most out of a game it is also pragmatic for spending money. As you develop skills in the game you can play longer per each coin and hence get more value for your money. With this simple thought in mind the Japanese played for slow but steady progress rather than just rushing through the game, getting a little farther each time until mastery. With a play style based on honing skills the Japanese were free to demand an increase in complexity, difficulty and possibility space in each new arcade release and in this environment only the best arcade games could succeed. As a result of their conditioning the Japanese can embarrass even the most skilled Americans and other nationalities in fighting game tournaments like SBO or easily dwarf the highest scores of American players in nearly any arcade game released since the nineties. If every nation had understood what Japan did then we wouldn?t be held back by retrograde nonsense and shallow, easy mini-games even outside of arcade gaming but unfortunately the past can?t change.
There is nothing much to be done about this decadence in game design. But there are still a few things we can do to make things better. There are still arcade games coming out and you can still enjoy them the intended way. Be wary, though arcade games can be rare they are still coming to America, support these games if you care about them and gives others the knowledge of 1CC so they too can be equipped to enjoy them. Hopefully we will at some point regain some of what has been lost.
A summation for those who don?t read the whole thing:
Arcade games are important because they nurtured challenge
Continue features neutered that challenge
Western gamers became unable to appreciate challenging arcade design
Japanese understood not to continue and created a game culture that demanded an increase in complexity
Without catering game design to challenge stagnation and decline are inevitable.
Special thanks to Alex Kierkegaard of Insomnia.ac who inspired me with his article http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
To properly mourn for what has been loss we must understand their value. If you have ever been to an arcade then consider yourself lucky, arcades have housed the cutting edge titles for nearly every genre beside those that are PC-centric. A big reason for this is because of the paying format arcades use. One small payment and you can play as long as you can keep your little pixel avatar alive. This is important for several reasons, first of all it this format that single handedly shuts down shovelware, blatant cash ins and games that are nearly unplayable like EA?s sloppy port of Shadow of the Beast to the American Sega Genesis or even more famously E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. The arcade audience would never tolerate playing more than one credit of a subpar game and as such continually gave their money to only the best games out there and furthermore developed taste and higher standards. Opposite the arcade gamers were the gamers who exclusively played with retail disk based games who often ended up forcing themselves through a lame experience because they already paid for it, dulling themselves to the agonies of tedium. The second reason that this payment system is important is because it encouraged players to learn and master game mechanics in order to play for longer and proceed with the game. You can only play as long as you keep your sprite alive and as such it fostered a culture of gamers who were extremely skillful and demanded increasing complexity in games so that they continue testing themselves and growing. In this way arcade games were free to continue gaining complexity and depth to cater to their audience. This trend if left unmolested would have led to a steadily greater game development over the years rather than the stagnant and even decadent games we often see today.
Arcades first emerged in the in the 70?s as a viable business with Galaxy Wars becoming available to the public. Other notable games that came after that were games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Asteroids where the goal was to keep playing as long as possible and get a higher score while the game constantly sent increasingly more difficult loops of the same patterns. As arcade games developed they began to have actual endings and limited number of stages which the player would ?win? after completing all of them. These new genres such as SHMUPs, Run N Gun, Belt Scroll Beat ?em Up and gun shooting (along with the development of the versus fighter) were a worthwhile addition to the arcade format of play, but also led to the heinous addition of continues.
As discussed before the arcade format of games have many virtues, one being that the games could be played for an extremely low price to test the waters before committing more coins to the machine later as opposed to games sold on the retail market, but the equally important aspect of these games is undoubtedly the high degree of skill they demand from the player and hence high degree of satisfaction they give when the player becomes proficient in them. The problem with continues is that they destroy the satisfaction of attaining skill, making progressing through the game more of a matter on the number of coins in your pocket then skill and simply spoils the progression you get from playing through the game properly. The western arcade gamers didn?t understand how this spoiled the game and kept continuing in a foolish attempt to ?reach the end? so that they could be done with it. Furthermore the seeming necessity of the continue feature gives arcade games a black mark in the eyes of the public who think these games are nothing more than designed to take your money. The problem is furthered with western development teams take advantage of this relative ignorance and release the real credit-feeders, Narc (1998), Revolution X, Total Carnage, games so unbalanced that 1CCing them is nearly impossible without dumb luck. Konami even altered their own games for American release to have more continue-friendly design, another notch on the viscous cycle. Meanwhile the games that came unaltered from Japan were increasing in complexity to the point where the general public who were coddled by the continue mentality labeled them as the same as the western developers pathetic excuses for games. The public interest for arcade games dwindled in favor of console games where the continues were always free. In the short run implementing the continue feature was a success for arcade operators, getting more money from clueless and skill-less players but in the long it nearly destroyed the industry.
It is important that we expand on the evils of nurturing a breed of gamers that have been weaned of challenge and come to prefer more passive ?experiences? because it is one of the major reasons the masses have been unable to accept the Japanese arcade model of game design. Because they have been babied by game design that doesn?t have repercussions for failure they can?t rise to the challenge of a suitably complex game. Rather than go back and master the nuances of simpler games from earlier in whatever genre they are playing and then building their skills from their they instead demand that videogames always cater to their skill level and as such the complexity of videogames shrink rather than grow. Leading to games that never further themselves in possibility and challenge. It is important that we understand the purpose of videogames and that they cannot be enjoyed in the same way as books or plays, they exist for a dynamic and interesting challenge and as such once a difficult challenge has been completed a simpler but similar challenge is rendered worthless.
Japan luckily never succumbed to this disgraceful trend of designing games with continues in minde. The country remains today the sole source of respectable arcade games and even produced in the last few years some of the most undeniable classics of this gaming generation Espgaluda II, BlazBlue, Arcana Heart, Senko no Ronde among dozens of others. The reason for the success of the Japanese arcade relative to the American versions is that the Japanese understood the golden rule: 1CC. 1CC isn?t just a way to get the most out of a game it is also pragmatic for spending money. As you develop skills in the game you can play longer per each coin and hence get more value for your money. With this simple thought in mind the Japanese played for slow but steady progress rather than just rushing through the game, getting a little farther each time until mastery. With a play style based on honing skills the Japanese were free to demand an increase in complexity, difficulty and possibility space in each new arcade release and in this environment only the best arcade games could succeed. As a result of their conditioning the Japanese can embarrass even the most skilled Americans and other nationalities in fighting game tournaments like SBO or easily dwarf the highest scores of American players in nearly any arcade game released since the nineties. If every nation had understood what Japan did then we wouldn?t be held back by retrograde nonsense and shallow, easy mini-games even outside of arcade gaming but unfortunately the past can?t change.
There is nothing much to be done about this decadence in game design. But there are still a few things we can do to make things better. There are still arcade games coming out and you can still enjoy them the intended way. Be wary, though arcade games can be rare they are still coming to America, support these games if you care about them and gives others the knowledge of 1CC so they too can be equipped to enjoy them. Hopefully we will at some point regain some of what has been lost.
A summation for those who don?t read the whole thing:
Arcade games are important because they nurtured challenge
Continue features neutered that challenge
Western gamers became unable to appreciate challenging arcade design
Japanese understood not to continue and created a game culture that demanded an increase in complexity
Without catering game design to challenge stagnation and decline are inevitable.
Special thanks to Alex Kierkegaard of Insomnia.ac who inspired me with his article http://insomnia.ac/commentary/arcade_culture/
oh the irony
