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If the gaming industry is an automobile, and the game designers are the drivers, then that makes us, the players, backseat drivers, and we'll be damned if we're gonna let the industry keep on heading the way it's going (good or bad) without letting them know what we think. So buckle up, feel free to complain about there being no air in the back, and bring your most critical and analytical mind to the open air discussion of the current age, Backseat Gamers!
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I wish this were the Swan Song of the Wii, but it's not.

Finally, third party developers that try to make a good game for the Wii (and they don't sell b/c of blockbuster titles like Wii Sports/Fit/Pulse Reader) are throwing in the towel.
Posted by at 10:16 AM

10 comments:

  1. AmateriaNovember 25, 2009 at 11:05 AM

    Although it's definitely a wise money making decision on EA's part (something I'm not entirely sure they should need to concern themselves with), something about this isn't sitting with me.

    Sure the Wii might be missing a whole generation of older/hardcore gamers, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

    I can already here the teasing coming from Enemy on this one, but I still think the Wii is important to the market. The "games" coming out for it might not be anything close to what we as an elder group of gamers are looking to play, but the demographic for those types of games still exists, and as long as "Nintendo" still holds a semblance of being a synonym for "videogames", it's important that it sticks around.

    If there is any serious mistake Nintendo has made the past few years it's probably not monitoring or regulating the quality of the games put out by Shovel-ware 3rd party manufacturers. By not keeping tabs on the games that are being released under the holy name of the Wii, Nintendo has inadvertently given themselves a bad name. The only thing left to defend are the 1st party titles, but even those get left in the dust because the casual gamer (from my experience) lacks the knowledge to discern good company from bad company - they only see Wii on the box and assume the experience must be as immediately gratifying as the first time they played Wii Sports bowling.

    Nintendo also seriously misjudged the commitment from the casual gaming market. I applaud Nintendo for bringing in a whole new generation of people into the world of videogames, but keeping them there might be a bit of an issue. I bet if you asked casual game companies like popcap, how they approach the casual market, and I bet there answer would be that they always look for something new. Casual gamers sway back and forth between interests, and you need to have a wide variety to keep them coming back. All the Wii stuff is variations on a theme (Wii Sports).

    Nintendo has done a great deal for the industry (if nothing else, showing MS and Sony how *not* to approach casual gaming), so it feels a little unfair to use the word gimmicky in the context of the Wii... unfortunately right now, I'm struggling to think of a better adjective.

    (And for what it's worth, like it or hate it, the new Super Mario Bros. game on the Wii, is awesome. Same formula as all the other Mario titles, but that's what we've come to love.)

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  2. I 3N3MY INovember 25, 2009 at 11:35 AM

    I expected as much out of you and your points are well argued, but Nintendo's staple games (as good as they may be) have gone stale. What was the last new IP they made? They slap those Mario Bros games out incredibly fast b/c it's the same damn game over and over and over. Sure this one has levels that move this way or this one has coop, but it's all the same. Technically you could remake every Mario Bros game on Little Big Planet right?

    The Nintendo we grew up with is dead and just because they were good to us as kids and we're emotionally attached to them doesn't mean that they don't suck now. Isn't that what Backseat Gamers is about? Telling it like it is?

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  3. AmateriaNovember 25, 2009 at 12:23 PM

    I guess when I think of Nintendo, I think of those classic IPs, and don't care so much about seeing where they go with new stuff.

    What's an original IP anyway? I'm not even trying to bring up the philosophical debate concerning whether or not any new idea is truly new or just variations on a theme, but what have the other companies done?

    Why should Nintendo be judged by the garbage put out by companies who are out to make a quick buck? If we ignore 3rd party, we're left with a solid, rich, history of titles that at worst, have fallen from grace. These titles still hold clout in gaming history though - Mario, Zelda, Metroid... I'd challenge you to find any developer out there not inspired by one, if not all, of these games.

    Let's take a look at the other big guys. Microsoft has got... Halo? Gears? anything else? What original IPs have been made by the company that makes the system? How about Sony? Jack and Daxter? Ratchet and Clank? Crash Bandicoot? I'm not saying these games or in house developer's aren't excellent titles, but I seriously doubt history will point to these titles as earth shattering franchises that set the foundation to how games are understood. Maybe they will. At least Mario has a history of consistency and traceable growth... Gears of War can't even come close.

    I'm not bothered by people not liking the Wii, but I don't think it's all Nintendo's fault. Like I said before, I think if anything can be blamed on Nintendo, it's their apathy towards the garbage that comes out and get's their name slapped on it.

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  4. I 3N3MY INovember 25, 2009 at 1:35 PM

    I'm not doubting the rich history of games that Nintendo has made, but the fact that there was little to no competition at the time they came out does give them the advantage. Granted that especially with nothing to compare these games to at the time they're STILL excellent to this day gameplay wise for what they had.

    Microsoft has by far been the latest on the scene and has a far smaller library of games, but where Mario reinvented the platformer HALO made shooters control well and actually work on consoles at a competitive level. Which is more important? Would HALO even exist w/o Mario? I guess it depends on who you ask.

    Remember when you didn't have a 360 several years ago and you were going to buy a Wii? I practically begged you to reconsider and my main argument was that even if you have Zelda and Mario you'll only be playing a new one every 3 to 4 years. I won the argument and you couldn't have been happier that I had.

    I think that Wii Sports has done more damage to the Wii than third party publishers b/c it first demonstrated the crap you could put on the system and people would buy it.

    I am going back to my old argument with BRJAHU on the Wii and state that Nintendo didn't make the Wii w/motion control to innovate the market, but because it had to to survive. PS2 and the Xbox had what the core gamers wanted at the time. Nintendo didn't have the good games from their back catalog to keep gamers happy so they were (including me) jumping ship. I bought a XBox the day after I bought and played Super Mario Sunshine and I realized there wasn't anything left for me that Nintendo could offer. Since they didn't have the more mature game market in hand they had to come up with something different to draw in a new crowd and to still support their aging games. Thus, they made motion control their flagship and we have the Wii to thank for Natal and the EyeToy crap. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you really think Nintendo would have survived this current gen battle if it released another GameCube type system? Not a chance. They'd be making Mario for the PlayStation and Zelda for 360.

    Check Mate!

    P.S. Thier 6th iteration of the DS is selling fast tho!

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  5. brjahuNovember 25, 2009 at 1:43 PM

    Waaaaaayyyy too much for me to even begin to read

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  6. AmateriaNovember 26, 2009 at 11:04 AM

    Yeah, that's powerful stuff.

    It's hard to imagine what things would look like if Nintendo would have aged with the gamers who made them who they are. So much of Nintendo's lineup is often classified as "timeless", but that timeless age is quite young. Kinda like if it were stuck on Never Never Land. It may be an absolute blast, but we've all grown up and we're looking for something else.

    How did Nintendo keep clear of the development we were all going through as gamers? Microsoft made their entry to the console market scene with Halo as their flagship, almost permanently sealing their fate as "the shooter system." Did Nintendo even consider anything hyper violent? Was it even a consideration? I guess the base of what I'm asking is if Nintendo's family friendly line-up over the years was an honest choice to stay clean, or was it apathy to how their sweet little Mario gamers were growing up?

    Personally, I'm kinda still waiting for it. We throw around terms like innovation, and next-gen, but I'm not convinced that all these things we're playing aren't just permutations of... oh, I don't know, Goldeneye? I don't think it's going to come with the game development path that we're currently on. I'm just not sold that a game for a mature audience means adding in mature content. It was hardly a perfect game, but Mirror's Edge is closer to what I think that progression should feel like. It felt like a differently refined idea of a familiar concept. It's not that I don't enjoy the violent shooters (I was up until 4:30 taking names in COD), but man... I want to feel the magic I felt when I was a kid, discovering a new world to explore.

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  7. I 3N3MY INovember 27, 2009 at 9:12 AM

    Good points with "what is a mature game" and Mirrors Edge is a great example of a company thinking outside the box a bit in terms of what is the norm in gaming. Remember that mature content can just be themes in a game like your humanity at stake in Bioshock or genocide in Mass Effect. Storytelling really opens up when you are allowed to explore tough concepts. Was killing innocent people in MW2's campaign a jolting experience as far as storytelling? Could they have gotten across the same feeling thru a cliched cut scene?

    As far as the magic of a new world to explore like when we were kids I STILL get "highs" from games like Tomb Raider and even Half Life 2. Where I feel like I'm more of a participant in an actual world and not just passing thru it as a set piece.

    I've wondered that myself about Nintendo and if they thought themselves above mature titles and what not, but who knows. They chose their path and I chose mine.

    Bottom line is video games rock, Nintendo was the starting point for many of us (except for me it was TurboGrafx16/Bonks Adventure!!!!) and we may have outgrown Nintendo when they maybe should have been growing with us.

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  8. JuniperRedNovember 27, 2009 at 9:48 AM

    Maybe Nintendo is happy to settle for that launching platform. My girlfriend's kids LOVE the wii, playing Mario Kart and Lego Star Wars. You can argue against the wii all you want but there are a lot of people out there who enjoy it. It's a fun group activity... but you're right about it not holding the attention of hardcore or more serious gamers. Playing Lego Star Wars with the 360 controller is WAY more enjoyable than using the wiimote.

    And besides, when I wanna come home and relax, I want to just there and play, not dance around like a buffoon...

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  9. I 3N3MY INovember 27, 2009 at 11:13 AM

    Juniper: You can't do anything without looking like a buffoon. Sorry.

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  10. AmateriaNovember 28, 2009 at 1:50 AM

    Just a thought (which I'm worried to present out of fear that it will illustrate my point too well), but is our general complaints about the Wii similar to a teenager complaining about how Sesame Street isn't meeting their entertainment needs anymore? That's not to say that there aren't moments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qclBGpRt0b4) that reach an older audience, but it would be silly to think that a toy/videogame for a younger generation (which we were once...) would meet the entertainment needs of the generation before it.

    Is this connection too specific or too vague? I can't decide right now.

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