How continues ruined the western arcade.

[Delock]

snip

I refuse to let this escapist problem not show my post

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I don't quite agree with you that challenge=depth. Just because a game is maddeningly difficult does not mean that it is a quality experience.

Difficult =/= challenge

But it's hard to design a game with challenge if it is easy.

Basically, it's elementary to make a game Difficult, it is masterful to make a game Challenging!

Exactly, since challenging implies engaging the player. Maddeningly difficult only serves to alienate the player.

 

[Fledge]

I refuse to post a constructive comment due to the OP's name.






But really, continues cost money, people have money, developers like money.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

[("decadence in game design" is what completely invalidates your opinion, and shows that you know next to nothing about current game development).

Could you elaborate on this part?

You seem to be under the impression that arcade games are filled with cheap death but in reality these were the bad games. The games people put tons of quarters into, the GOOD games didn't egregious chunfairness. And I don't think games should only be in the arcade but just that the arcade format (low entry price, skill based design) is what bred higher standards for games. Because the standards are so high and the ability to try out any game is cheap players any games not up to par for being to shallow, easy cheap or anything else will fail more often then console games. The games you are complaining about are more common on console then in arcades.

My point being that you are under the impression that new games happen to be designed to be easy, and that design has gotten worse over time. First, advances in game mechanics, such as more input allowance (ie, more buttons), health systems (technology can now measure a bar and assign how much damage you recieve rather than depending on number of hits), checkpoints, save systems (which greatly extended how long a game could go on for), better controls, etc. have all allowed for much better games that at the same time are more forgiving than their ancestors. Assuming them to be easier just because of money and saying that all of this advancement is "decadence" is what I'm referring to.

We've had keyboards since before gaming computers the amount of buttons available isn't anything new. Checkpoints were in R-type, health bars were in the original street fighter even saves are possible in some games with some gimmicky code cards. None of this stuff is new or even a product of home gaming and arcades have used all these features. There are things that are done in some genres of retail games that would be inapropriate for arcades but that hardly means that arcade games aren't in most cases the cutting edge of their genre.

And no, they weren't the exceptions. Arcades had just as much shovelware crap as the rest of the industry, they just got rotated out for money makers.

Can you name an arcade game that is as bad as Big Rigs off the road racing?

And while I will agree the low entry price is a good idea, skill based design is fucking horrible. After all, it goes by a new name now. What's that? QTEs . These didn't breed a higher standard (or else ET, which was born back when consoles still thought they were arcade games, would never have been made), as sticking a peripheral on a game guarantees it will get played (explain why that pod racer game even existed if arcades make them fail).

QTEs are nothing new and have been in and out of arcade games since the 80s at least. They are hardly the only form of skill based design. E.T. was made as a blatant cash in with no effort put into it that got money out of its licence. It is a blatant example of console retail model helping to create shovel. Its tenuous connection to arcade style design is irrelivent in the face of its actual form of distribution. Lets put it this way: the games that know they can't suceed in the arcade are the ones that go straight to console.
And I haven't heard many bad things about Star Wars episode 1: racer, Its probably a ridiculously better game than any of the a ton of other SW games I could think of.

As I've seen, the idea that bad games will get weeded out is actually more true for consoles today that arcades before, as with today's technology you'll often learn about the failures way before you even consider investing, word of mouth is still just as strong, and the price itself set things so that crapware actually has even less of a chance due to people deciding to be informed (this too has seen a turnaround of trend these days, AAA games are selling a lot more. Sure we've been told again and again that this is uncommon, but as it becomes more apparent that a game needs something to make it stand out in the market and the rising number of huge sales numbers on AAA games, it's not hard to see what the future's bringing).

Then why is their a new "games you wish you didn't buy" topic every week?

Games have actually become better by transferring out to the consoles, as developers were no longer trying to make profit per playthroughs, but rather trying to get the player to continue buying the series. This means constant improvements must be made and a game must be "great" rather than just "good" (something arcades don't worry about as much, as if a game is good due to being fun, it will continue to make money).

Arcade games also make constant improvements to attract more gamers. Consoles aren't anything unique in this regard at all. And arcades certainly have to be great (or at least better then everything comparable) because their direct competition is three feet away.

What they haven't done is abandon skill for this though. Plenty of games still do reward this (Brotherhood just came out), though the difference is it's less about perfectly timing a jump or reacting in time to shoot an enemy that just appeared in front of your face and more of analyzing a situation quickly and deciding how to proceed. If it does come down to reaction in a fight, it's more often recognition of patterns and motion cues (legitimate skills that one has to work to acquire).

You have Blazblue as an icon for Pete's sake. You could at least understand that arcades come in more than two genres.

What I'm criticizing here is that you're accusing years upon years of games being trash and all new ones to be worthless without even understanding that most of them have what you claim to be looking for, as well as keeping this notion that the past is completely sacred and we should keep to it despite improvements (just because people used to send a single man on horseback to deliver a message doesn't mean we should ignore email because it's "easier").

Arcades in the Eighties: thriving.
Arcades today: dying.
For people who care about arcades in this case the past is obviously better!

Yes, there is a need to fill the niche of tougher titles and such, but you know what? I played JRPGs as a kid, meaning I've got to put up with the fact that no matter what, I'm expecting 60 hours of playtime from a game (and these days, that's something that's worse than just "I want tougher games" since paying $20 more for a game that gives me 50 hours less enjoyment is something I can actually measure). Or what about the derth of horror games? Getting up and demanding an entire medium fit a niche and criticizing other niches isn't the way to go about this. That makes you a Metal fan.

What do horror games have to do with this?
And any way it seems your value of games isn't based on quality but instead how much you have to pay for it. Ketsui cost over $1000 and last 30 minutes and yet it is still much better than any bloated grindfest you might care to mention.

 

[archvile93]

[("decadence in game design" is what completely invalidates your opinion, and shows that you know next to nothing about current game development).

Could you elaborate on this part?

You seem to be under the impression that arcade games are filled with cheap death but in reality these were the bad games. The games people put tons of quarters into, the GOOD games didn't egregious chunfairness. And I don't think games should only be in the arcade but just that the arcade format (low entry price, skill based design) is what bred higher standards for games. Because the standards are so high and the ability to try out any game is cheap players any games not up to par for being to shallow, easy cheap or anything else will fail more often then console games. The games you are complaining about are more common on console then in arcades.

My point being that you are under the impression that new games happen to be designed to be easy, and that design has gotten worse over time. First, advances in game mechanics, such as more input allowance (ie, more buttons), health systems (technology can now measure a bar and assign how much damage you recieve rather than depending on number of hits), checkpoints, save systems (which greatly extended how long a game could go on for), better controls, etc. have all allowed for much better games that at the same time are more forgiving than their ancestors. Assuming them to be easier just because of money and saying that all of this advancement is "decadence" is what I'm referring to.

And no, they weren't the exceptions. Arcades had just as much shovelware crap as the rest of the industry, they just got rotated out for money makers.

And while I will agree the low entry price is a good idea, skill based design is fucking horrible. After all, it goes by a new name now. What's that? QTEs . These didn't breed a higher standard (or else ET, which was born back when consoles still thought they were arcade games, would never have been made), as sticking a peripheral on a game guarantees it will get played (explain why that pod racer game even existed if arcades make them fail).

As I've seen, the idea that bad games will get weeded out is actually more true for consoles today that arcades before, as with today's technology you'll often learn about the failures way before you even consider investing, word of mouth is still just as strong, and the price itself set things so that crapware actually has even less of a chance due to people deciding to be informed (this too has seen a turnaround of trend these days, AAA games are selling a lot more. Sure we've been told again and again that this is uncommon, but as it becomes more apparent that a game needs something to make it stand out in the market and the rising number of huge sales numbers on AAA games, it's not hard to see what the future's bringing).

Games have actually become better by transferring out to the consoles, as developers were no longer trying to make profit per playthroughs, but rather trying to get the player to continue buying the series. This means constant improvements must be made and a game must be "great" rather than just "good" (something arcades don't worry about as much, as if a game is good due to being fun, it will continue to make money).

What they haven't done is abandon skill for this though. Plenty of games still do reward this (Brotherhood just came out), though the difference is it's less about perfectly timing a jump or reacting in time to shoot an enemy that just appeared in front of your face and more of analyzing a situation quickly and deciding how to proceed. If it does come down to reaction in a fight, it's more often recognition of patterns and motion cues (legitimate skills that one has to work to acquire).

What I'm criticizing here is that you're accusing years upon years of games being trash and all new ones to be worthless without even understanding that most of them have what you claim to be looking for, as well as keeping this notion that the past is completely sacred and we should keep to it despite improvements (just because people used to send a single man on horseback to deliver a message doesn't mean we should ignore email because it's "easier").

Yes, there is a need to fill the niche of tougher titles and such, but you know what? I played JRPGs as a kid, meaning I've got to put up with the fact that no matter what, I'm expecting 60 hours of playtime from a game (and these days, that's something that's worse than just "I want tougher games" since paying $20 more for a game that gives me 50 hours less enjoyment is something I can actually measure). Or what about the derth of horror games? Getting up and demanding an entire medium fit a niche and criticizing other niches isn't the way to go about this. That makes you a Metal fan.

You might as well just stop now. I've seen this guy before. He'd refuse to admit he's wrong even if god himself said so.

OT: Not true, arcade lost popularity because people moved to consoles where you didn't have to pay $100 to finish a game due to cheap death after cheap death. Example: Guantlet Dark Legacy, unlike the console version, traps, which are extremely common and hard to see, poison you. This poison lasts until you die and nothing can stop it. Then you must insert another dollar.

 

[Grygor]

Arcades in the Eighties: thriving.
Arcades today: dying.
For people who care about arcades in this case the past is obviously better!

Correction:
Arcades in the US in the Eighties: thriving.
Arcades in the US today: dying.
Arcades remain healthy in some other areas, notably Japan.

So any explanation of the decline of American arcades has to begin with those features that are different between, say, America and Japan. A good place to start would be to examine culture, demographics, and geography.

 

[clockout]

Arcade Gamer = Real Gamer.

Nothing but a pocket full of quarters and a high score to beat.

 

[manaman]

That's way too long for me. I see you're making a well thought-out analysis, but sorry.

For me, Arcade is this:
Put dollar in. Play. Die. Put dollar in. Play. Die. Leave. Buy console. Play.

*I mean, the arcade is probably good for teaching future gamblers how to do it, I guess.

Don't worry it wasn't even overly through out. It raised a few points, but blatantly ignored all the negative aspects of arcade playstyle, along with all the development limitations of that format.

Basically it could have been written as:

"Hi, I am an arcade snob. I think arcades are the bestest ever, and here are X, Y, Z reasons to back it up, and they are right because I said so."

Even shorter version?

"Hi, I am a troll, I have trolled before, and I am trolling right now."

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Arcades in the Eighties: thriving.
Arcades today: dying.
For people who care about arcades in this case the past is obviously better!

Correction:
Arcades in the US in the Eighties: thriving.
Arcades in the US today: dying.
Arcades remain healthy in some other areas, notably Japan.

So any explanation of the decline of American arcades has to begin with those features that are different between, say, America and Japan. A good place to start would be to examine culture, demographics, and geography.

Thank you for the correction. That's what I meant to say.

Though a big reason the Japanese have remained able to appreciate is covered in the OP and in the essay I linked at the bottom of my post.

 

[Netrigan]

I quickly got annoyed with the quarter pumpers. Unless I just had to see what was next, I tended to stop after two coins. If you can't do it with one (maybe two due to bad luck) you can't do it.

This and my general disinterest in platform and fight games prett much pushed me out until Doom sucked me back in.

 

[For.I.Am.Mad]

Western arcades declined because people didn't want to pay .50 to 1.00 per play when consoles were getting more powerful and could reproduce the arcade experience. The average player didn't care if SFII Turbo on SNES is slightly slower than the arcade version. The decline was inevitable.

The obvious answer is usually the right answer.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Arcade games inspired good game design? No, they were a business first and foremost.
If nothing else, they initially wanted to stymie game design because anything out of their specialized/limited range was competition that they could not possibly beat.

Did this produce more skilled gamers? Depends on the skill. Today, there's more to games than twitch reflexes. Were these games harder? Of course they were, but artificially so because they were money-pumps.

But even it their heyday, the arcades had to know their days were numbered. There have been MANY MANY games that don't fit the arcade format that feature genuinely soul-crushing difficulty.

Today, arcades are little more than flashy novelties. Japan's arcade markets might be thriving, but compared to any given console, it's pocket change (unintentional pun).

And while I will agree the low entry price is a good idea, skill based design is fucking horrible. After all, it goes by a new name now. What's that? QTEs .

While good skill-based-design may seem like a lost art for most games, it isn't entirely gone.

As an example: This is the difference between Devil May Cry and God of War.

It takes some skill to clear Devil May Cry on any difficulty past Normal (well ok, obviously not DMC2, which wasn't even a DMC game originally), while you can blow through the entire God of War series in a day (well, if you didn't stop for food, sleep, etc) just because of how piss-easy the QTEs made the game.

My sister picked up Chains of Olympus and beat it in two days over break. The game is horribly badly-balanced because it is nothing but showboating.

Devil May Cry also showboats (an understatement to be sure), but at least there's some thought process involved other than "Wait for the QTE, play Simon Says, WIN".
Of course, Devil May Cry 4 started putting mini-QTEs into their boss fights, so it might just be a sign of the times.

As much as I loath QTEs in all of their applications, there is still good skill-based gameplay out there.

 

[Eumersian]

I've actually had a belief that this kind of thing is good for society. Let me explain.

Think of all of the awesome people feats of wonder that have been accomplished throughout the ages. One of these includes that guy that beat an arcade version of Pac-Man on a single quarter. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/07/dayintech_0703

What I see from this is, perhaps a person with too much time on their hands. This is also a person who has incredible skill and determination. This is a gift bestowed to only select people in different areas.

Continues give a little bit of leeway for people who aren't as good. For people who maybe enjoy playing, but know that they aren't perfect. What keeps these people going is the fact that they are given the opportunity to continue if they die.

Then take the example of the above man, and of course countless other people who have accomplished impressive things like beating Pac-Man on one quarter. These people are, again, gifted.

Anybody can master something from repetition, even if it takes longer for one than another. Repetition breeds mastery, if not boredom. One other thing that breeds mastery is talent. Talent is a natural ability, skill is something that one has to gain. It is talent that is more impressive, because it is individual of the person in possession of the talent. Skill, while probably impressive, is not as extraordinary, because it is possible for almost anybody to have it.

Why do we look at musical autistic savants with more awe than a person with exactly the same skills and abilities as a person who went to music school for years? Because the savant appeared to have a natural ability for such things.

What continues do is they weed out the people with less natural talent. They make it so that those people will play their continues as they want, since there is really no need to improve. People with the natural talents will perform impressive feats on their own accord.

The lack of continues forces improvement upon somebody with less natural talent. This will generate a bunch of Pac-Man beating clones. Clones who certainly do enjoy Pac-Man, but aren't truly talented players of the game. They only wanted to play a little bit longer, so they got better.

But what we really need are people who are naturally talented. These people, in all areas, be it science, math, music, etc., are better suited to perform tasks required of their field of study. These fields of study include Pac-Man.

 

[Space Spoons]

I always thought this was what killed the arcade in America:

Once home consoles caught up with arcade hardware (or, in the case of the SNES, came close enough to mimic it acceptably), the arcade's days were numbered.

 

[MSW]

One of these includes that guy that beat an arcade version of Pac-Man on a single quarter. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/07/dayintech_0703

Billy Mitchell didn't beat Pac-Man back in 1999. No, he scored a *perfect* game, given Pac-Man's limitations (five others have since done the same). The Pac-Man arcade game has an unintenional flaw rendering half the 256th board as garbage with no way to continue past it. Over the years a series of 20 patterns had been mapped out allowing players to advance to the next game board without dieing from the roving ghosts. Anyone whom could master these patterns could reach the 256th board, and many have. But Billy didn't use those patterns because the they would not allow him to collect the most points possible on each board. His achievement would be something like getting a strike in bowling 255 times in a row...Which still doesn't mean bowling has been beaten.

What started the death of arcades isn't so much the existence of continues, rather it was the birth of this notion games can and should be beaten. Once that mindset was established arcades were soon full of players whom would accept cheap deaths as long as they could credit feed to victory, just to add another notch on thier games beaten belt. This isn't hardcore gaming, its rampant consumerism.

 

[Iron Mal]

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/

I find your Difficulty = Challange = Quality arguement a little hard to justify personally.

The problems with arcades and the challange contained therein were many in number but the following two stick out most to me.

1- More difficulty = more deaths which means more money for the booth. Continues weren't meant to make the game easier, they're meant to keep the game fun and playable (for people besides obsessives who learn the ins and outs of every last pixel). If you had to start the game again from the beginning every time you died then I think you'd find that most people would just get pissed off with the games and tell the arcade owners to go fuck themselves.

This sort of thing can get demoralising for newcomers (which in turn means that less and less people get into gaming which means it would die out very soon) since they don't seem to be achieving anything by just dying repeatingly on the first few screens over and over again (you may take that as an exaggeration but this is what the arcade experience is like for some people, hell, some home console games were like that but at least they were free). So the greater 'approachability' of games that came after the decline of arcades was actually one of the best things to happen to gaming at the time (it opened the way for a lot of developments in both terms of gameplay and design and allowed more people to become involved which also helped reduce the social stigma surrounding gamers, something that the 'lone elite nerd' who has mastered the arcade booth was only making worse).

2- Challange does not equal fun. Sometimes a great challange or tense situation can be extremely satisfying and great fun, sometimes having a crushing level of difficulty can just suck all the fun out of what would have otherwise been a great game.

A game's quality and fun is completely independant of it's difficulty and challange.

There are many games out there which barely even have any 'challange' to them but they can still be extremely fun for some people (for example, my girlfriend loves the Sims but I doubt that her enjoyment of the game would be increased by making it demand that she perfectly times her clicks and button presses).

 

[Monshroud]

Sniped since we don't need that repeated in the reply

I have to say I disagree with you completely... For starters, after taking a quick tour of Twin Galaxies web site, virtually all top 5 scores of the "classic" arcade games are held by people with very western names. I do not see the Eastern domination that you speak of. Maybe that is based on newer titles that are Eastern only, but as most hardcore gamers know there are plenty of games released in the East that are never released to the West because the East thinks we are lazy and stupid.

Also, a ton of your article was spent continually bashing.... well let's face it, you were saying the Japanese are awesome and proficient and Americans are dumb and lazy... No you didn't use those exact words, but that was how I read a lot of your article.

I also don't think it is as simple as you are laying out here. The fact is gaming has evolved quite a bit, and the amount of time people have to spend on mastering a single game is quite limited. If we were still in the arcade culture you seem so fond of, we wouldn't have the 8 - 100 hour games we have now. No Fallout 3, no God of War, no Final Fantasy, no Halo, no Symphony of the Night, no StarCraft... That list could go on for a while, I think you get my point though. Now not all games need a big story line to be good. You don't really need a big back story to play Donkey Kong. That being said, making a game technically challenging doesn't make it a better game, it just makes it technically challenging. Obviously though, large story lines and immersion are appealing to a wide audience otherwise they wouldn't be selling.

Beyond that challenge doesn't equal fun. You remember fun right? The thing you left out of your article. How people derive enjoyment from a task they are doing? Culture plays a huge part in this. Maybe eastern gamers find joy in seeing how far they can get on 1 coin. Maybe Westerners don't. Does that make them lazy and dumb and unable to complete the challenges that Eastern gamers do. The answer is no, they just don't find the enjoyment in it. I am not saying this applies to everyone, I am just making a overall statement. In India one of the biggest sports is Cricket. In Canada, curling and hockey are really big, polo is big in other countries, not to mention Football (what Americans call Soccer). There are cultural differences that make various things enjoyable. I think you completely missed this in your article and really wish you would revisit this aspect.

Now don't think I am giving the developers who make unfairly difficult games or games that don't allow your skill to overcome the obsticles in a game off easily. Some of the games you brought up are great examples of poor development and corporate greed. That is something else you seem to have missed though.

Game developers are in the business to make money. You don't make a ton of money by 1 person playing on 1 coin for 2 hours. You make money by them dropping a coin in every 2 - 4 minutes. Continues give the player the option of continuing the challenge and in some cases seeing the later stages or completing the story without having to start all the way over. Not everyone wants to play through stage 1 60 times, stage 2 50 times and stage 3 30 times just to finally see final stage 4. This also keeps them in front of the machine dropping coins in to keep going. Now they might be able to get through on a bit of luck, but they need to have at least some skill to keep making progress otherwise the difficulty would just be too high and they would stop playing.

Continues didn't ruin the western arcade. Consoles and Developers did. The convience of being able to play a game at home rather than going to an arcade. Corporate green ruined the western arcade. Developers releasing games that were more focused on making money than challenging the players to strive harder ruined the western arcade.

This whole idea that you should be able to do it on 1 coin is quite the elitist point of view. In the end it means nothing though. Wow, you can get to the Kill Screen in Pac-Man, good for you, while you were spending months mastering that I played through 6 other games and had some amazing experiences. Does that make you better than me, or me better than you. No it doesn't. We just have different ideas of what is fun.

In the end, it is all about fun.

(EDIT) Fixed a couple of typo's

 

[Lyx]

The gaming industry has moved to an era of mass market appeal and that is a very good thing. There is something for everyone out there; even my fifty year old parents have video games they enjoy playing on a regular basis. Dad loves Sid Meyer games and Mom still logs hours on old NES classics.

Is it just me, or are you contradicting yourself? If the games that "mom and dad" in your example love, are games that nowadays aren't made much anymore, then there certainly is NOT "something for everyone" in the games produced NOW.

I have grown up playing videogames. I would go as far as saying that the "psychedelic/imaginary" aspect of 80s videogames strongly influenced my personal development - i would probably be significantly different nowadays, if not for them.

I've played videogames in the 80s. I've played games in the 90s. And now i still play games. But since the turn of the millenium, the games that interest me have rapidly gone down in rate of release. There is no game of 2010 that amazes me. There is no game of 2009 that amazes me - NOTHING. I think from 2008, there were a handful of freeware games that i found interesting, made by hobby-developers. But regarding quantity, that is still just a fraction of what was the case before. Heck, even in 2005, there were still like 5 games coming out PER MONTH that i found interesting - now i'm down to at best one game PER YEAR.

To paraphrase an article of the escapist: E for everyone but me.

 

[KalosCast]

Oh hey, an arcade snob, with a good mix of "real gamers like to be kicked in the balls"

What's it like in 1980?

 

[Pecoros7]

Is it just me, or are you contradicting yourself? If the games that "mom and dad" in your example love, are games that nowadays aren't made much anymore, then there certainly is NOT "something for everyone" in the games produced NOW.

Not at all. There are still new games that come out that they play, those are simply the most vivid examples that came to mind. Even if games for them aren't made very often, they are still made. Mom likes many of the titles released for the Wii and Dad gets a kick out of strategy games.

It is true that there seem to be fewer games that interest me every year, but there are still games that I want to play, even if I have to look harder for them because the market has become saturated with 100 games I don't care about for every one that I do. Of course this isn't good for me personally, but it is good for the market as a whole.