"Not a gamer" and "The fall of the DS?"

[raider~joseph]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLFoNe9iD-I

So yeah here it is...

This one is worse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8uiO5E9rE

So yeah lets get this out of the way:

Yes I know this is marketing due to the holidays. I don't even care about Nintendo selling out with this "Celebrity"(I use this word loosely.) commercial. (When Justin Bieber voices Link in a Legend of Zelda game, then ill be worried.)

Im concerned about two things.

The words "Im not a gamer." and the fact that the 3DS, not the WIIU, is the target of the marketing. Ill be frank, I was seriously hoping my conversations over my 3DS's xtrareciver were lies told by my friends to get my off guard. But sure enough here they are. So Nintendo...Whats wrong with being a gamer all of a sudden? Gamer does not equal bad. Obsessive equals bad. You can be a casual third party developer generic tailor made game player and not fall into the abyss that is called "gamer" but you already knew that. Being a gamer isn't a bad thing. Unless you make it a bad thing, if you believe its bad or if other around you believe it. And I can tell you from personal experience that with the latter you can always not give a care. Heck its impossible to be a gamer anyway. Its just a term used to make describing my interests easier. Social terms are an illusion except for ease of description or insult. You kept making those sports games that sports nuts played. But you didn't say it was bad to be a gamer then. Why now? Whats wrong now? Whats wrong with being a gamer now? What has changed in the last decade or so?

---------------

On another note. I am worried about the 3DS. Nintendo's last bastion of hope amongst the diehard nintendo fans who didn't like the Wii's family friendly conversion. Is this a sign of the end of times? I don't think so personally. Too many 3rd party developers put their eggs in the basket before these commercials were made. By sheer force of revenue the 3DS will live on. Of course thats my belief and there is a chance I am wrong.

Discuss please.

[Vilo159]

I don't feel like they're saying that being a gamer is a bad thing. They're reaching out and appealing to different audiences, ones who usually see the DS as a device for the people who spend all day on it and their reaching out by saying that you don't have to commit a lot of time and be a 'gamer' to enjoy their product. Not saying that gamers are bad, just that they put more time and effort into their games than most people want to commit. This is a trend I've noticed a lot lately, where gaming companies are fucusing less and less on the hardcore fan and more on the casual customer. The only problem is that they start to lose the hardcore base of fans they're built on, but I think Nintendo has been doing an adequate job of keeping their old fans happy, if perhaps a little less content.

[Peanut]

The words "Im not a gamer." and the fact that the 3DS, not the WIIU, is the target of the marketing. Ill be frank, I was seriously hoping my conversations over my 3DS's xtrareciver were lies told by my friends to get my off guard. But sure enough here they are. So Nintendo...Whats wrong with being a gamer all of a sudden? Gamer does not equal bad. Obsessive equals bad. You can be a casual third party developer generic tailor made game player and not fall into the abyss that is called "gamer" but you already knew that. Being a gamer isn't a bad thing. Unless you make it a bad thing, if you believe its bad or if other around you believe it. And I can tell you from personal experience that with the latter you can always not give a care. Heck its impossible to be a gamer anyway. Its just a term used to make describing my interests easier. Social terms are an illusion except for ease of description or insult. You kept making those sports games that sports nuts played. But you didn't say it was bad to be a gamer then. Why now? Whats wrong now? Whats wrong with being a gamer now? What has changed in the last decade or so?

They aren't saying anything is wrong with being a gamer. They understand that, ultimately, gamers are going to buy a system because of the games, not some catchy advertisement they put on TV. However, if Nintendo wants to boost their sales even more, they need to target different demographics, namely those who do not consider themselves gamers. These same people, whether you like it or not, made the Wii and the DS a major success so it isn't really surprising that Nintendo is trying to recapture them.

On another note. I am worried about the 3DS. Nintendo's last bastion of hope amongst the diehard nintendo fans who didn't like the Wii's family friendly conversion. Is this a sign of the end of times? I don't think so personally. Too many 3rd party developers put their eggs in the basket before these commercials were made. By sheer force of revenue the 3DS will live on. Of course thats my belief and there is a chance I am wrong.

Discuss please.

I double checked the sales figures and the 3DS is doing just fine from what I can tell. I know it was struggling for a while and it may still be struggling in the US and Europe, but it doesn't seem to be dying and it won't from these commercials. Like I said, if the games are good, gamers will buy the system. The same thing goes for the WiiU and any other console out there. Good games=more gamers buying your system.

[Nate]

Nintendo is trying to branch out and appeal to people who don't normally play video games in an effort to boost sales of their system?

Those jerks, I can't believe they would do this. What horrible times we live in when a business tries to make a profit by enticing people into purchasing their product.

[Tarnish]

The very fact that you care about this enough to discuss it says a lot about what's wrong with people who label themselves "gamers."

They're just games. It's just a label. Don't get upset over dumb things, and people won't care how you spend your Friday nights replaying Ocarina of Time. Stop sabotaging yourself.

[raider~joseph]

They're just games. It's just a label.

Didn't I say that? *rereads my post* Yeah. I said that.

[Nate]

Then why do you care?

[Davidizer13]

So we're still having the whole "casual vs. hardcore gaming" debate, huh? I'll just be over here, then, splitting my gaming time between a baseball game and deranged maniac indie stuff, waiting for the debate to be over so I can just be someone who plays video games.

(P.S.: The Wii has a lot of Treasure's game catalog on there, and if that doesn't give it hardcore cred, I don't know what will. I don't even know why people are still debating its cred when you've got roguelikes, late-period Dreamcast shmups and retro stuff out the wazoo on it.)

(I mean, seriously, you got Xenoblade, Goldeneye, No More Heroes, all sortsa fighting games, BIT.TRIP... And that's just on the Wii. And the system's on the way out, I don't see why we've got anything to fight about anymore.)

[Nate]

So we're still having the whole "casual vs. hardcore gaming" debate, huh?

I appreciate video games on a much deeper level than you.

[MrKrillz0r]

I think many gamers feels kind of let down that Nintendo chose to more or less ignore them and focus on another group of people instead. Though there is no need to feel let down by a company, I can still understand where you come from.

And regarding to this thread in general I have a hard time believing this is a Christian forum, that's all I can say. I think Peanut addressed the issue already, so there was no need for all the mean and sarcastic comments.

[Bobtheduck]

I don't use the "hardcore vs Causal" debate, because that's never been what I cared about (and I happen to like Angry Birds and Zombies vs Plants, now... I know, the world is coming to an end.)

In response to Nate, however, I want people to get into games as a storytelling medium, and the current trend is moving away from that. It's going to be harder and harder to get new people into story-centered games, because rather than saying "I don't really play games, but I'll watch you for a couple minutes" they'll say "Oh, I play games. Angry birds and Farmville! THOSE games just aren't my thing." It gives them a whole new reason to ignore what games are actually capable of.

Not just friends and family, but the most vocal critics. It's going to have a Simpsons and South Park sort of effect on video games. By that, I mean until the Simpsons, people in the US, by and large, just assumed animation was for kids. True, there were things like Ralph Bakshi's movies, but those never made more than a blip on the radar, and didn't do much to change minds. What DID change many minds, however, was the Simpsons. However, instead of allowing animation to expand and branch out into every narrative genre and audience, like it SHOULD be able to, animation in the US simply split in two: Kids shows and innuendo laden comedies. This seems to have cemented animation's place in US pop culture, and we never saw an American equivalent to "Monster" or something (animation in Japan has similarly stagnated, but that's a different topic altogether.)

THAT is what scares me about this new wave of gaming on the portables and phones. The games I like will be shoved even further into the realm of sweaty, fat losers living in their mother's basements than they were before.

[Nate]

I want people to get into games as a storytelling medium, and the current trend is moving away from that.

I don't see that happening. Just because the casual market is getting bigger doesn't mean that the other markets are getting smaller. The casual games are usually made by completely different companies than the larger titles, I can't remember the last time Square-Enix made a casual game for example (okay okay Yosumin for the DS but they didn't make it they just published it).

Even if the casual market continues to grow, companies like Square or Monolith Soft aren't gonna go "Well guys let's stop making the kind of games we normally do!"

So yeah I don't see the trend moving away from those kinds of games. Those kinds of games may be fewer in number comparatively (casual games are easier and faster to produce than 100+ hour RPGs) but they still exist and are probably coming out at about the same rate as they used to, there's just more stuff coming out in between them.

It's going to be harder and harder to get new people into story-centered games, because rather than saying "I don't really play games, but I'll watch you for a couple minutes" they'll say "Oh, I play games. Angry birds and Farmville! THOSE games just aren't my thing." It gives them a whole new reason to ignore what games are actually capable of.

Most people who aren't into games aren't really going to watch someone play a game anyway, at least that's been my experience. My parents and relatives never cared about video games and even when I was playing something very story focused like Final Fantasy X they never stopped and watched me, they would just say something like "Wow video games sure have come a long way since Pong" and then go do something else. They didn't want to watch because they didn't care about games.

I'm just kind of confused by someone who goes "I do not care about video games but I will watch you play this video game." Doesn't make much sense to me, not saying it doesn't happen though. I've just never seen it.

until the Simpsons, people in the US, by and large, just assumed animation was for kids.

I don't know that this was ever true, the Flintstones for example advertised Winston cigarettes in the 60s, I don't think they were really trying to get kids to smoke so it obviously was meant for adults. Likewise, the old Max Fleischer Popeye cartoons (as well as Superman) were used to drum up support for the war effort. Let's also not forget Private Snafu, a little-known Warner Bros. cartoon with the primary purpose of teaching poorly educated enlisted men.

It doesn't seem to be until the late 50s or so that animation became seen as solely for kids, and there's probably a lot of reasons for that. Things like animation being cheaper to produce than live-action shows (especially when using animated shortcuts) and the ability to do heavy slapstick that would be basically impossible in live-action as well.

So what I'm saying is that while cartoons are seen as kids' stuff today, they certainly weren't always seen as such historically. Simpsons did do a lot to bring people back around to thinking otherwise though. Still, I don't think that this situation is directly comparable to games for a few reasons. Such as one, a person may have happened across Simpsons while channel-surfing. A person who isn't into video games is far less likely to happen across a game in the same manner. Two, Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, South Park, all those things that made people go "This cartoon isn't for kids" accomplished it by having objectionable content in it...which also served to make a lot of people angry and upset and call it filth and ban their kids from watching it. Whereas you and I both know that story-oriented video games don't use the same method to get people interested in the story (not usually anyway).

However, instead of allowing animation to expand and branch out into every narrative genre and audience, like it SHOULD be able to, animation in the US simply split in two: Kids shows and innuendo laden comedies.

Explain all the Disney animated feature films then. This statement is absolutely untrue, it just seems that way. However, Disney has always been producing very compelling and quality animated films for ages. I know I'm not the only one who got a little teary-eyed at Mufasa's death in Lion King for example.

Disney obviously has a huge monetary advantage in this area, granted. They weren't the only ones though, I'm sure you're familiar with Don Bluth's works such as Secret of NIMH for example. I suppose you could say then that it split into three and that would be kids' shows, innuendo laden comedies, and feature films. That would be accurate but...it doesn't really prove much.

we never saw an American equivalent to "Monster" or something

I don't know that we really needed one? I'd just chalk it up to a difference in culture. For example, there's never been a Japanese equivalent of Mystery Science Theater 3000, is this some sort of failing of anime? No, not really, they just never wanted to do it for whatever reason.

There's also the fact that Monster, like a good amount of anime, was based on a manga, and comics in Japan are vastly different than comics in the US. Since comic books in the US are mostly synonymous with superhero stuff, and the fact that most animation isn't based on any sort of comic at all, you get a lot different type of shows produced.

I mean Batman: The Animated Series was pretty awesome though.

The games I like will be shoved even further into the realm of sweaty, fat losers living in their mother's basements than they were before.

I think there comes a point where it really doesn't matter, I mean I don't think people are going to go "Oh well this sweaty fat loser living in his mother's basement is nowhere near as bad as this one." If you're already in that level, you literally can't be viewed any worse. It'd be like me saying "Now I want to date a guy even less!" Well...how do you get less than zero on something like that?

[Peanut]

In response to Nate, however, I want people to get into games as a storytelling medium, and the current trend is moving away from that. It's going to be harder and harder to get new people into story-centered games, because rather than saying "I don't really play games, but I'll watch you for a couple minutes" they'll say "Oh, I play games. Angry birds and Farmville! THOSE games just aren't my thing." It gives them a whole new reason to ignore what games are actually capable of.

Nate, touched on this a bit but I feel a need to post some thoughts towards this as well. I don't think this is a completely accurate picture. Overall, I think the majority of gaming has stagnated. I don't think its really moving away from developing as a story medium though. Instead we're stuck in the "let's make a game that's like a movie" phase and aren't really moving towards "let's make the players experience a story." There are exceptions to this and signs that people are experimenting with games as a storytelling medium. Indiegames, in general, have been leading the way. Journey is the biggest example this year I can think of that managed to tell a very emotional story without the use of hours upon hours of flashy cutscenes. Even in mainstream companies we're seeing some change in how stories are told within video games. Starcraft 2 is, to my knowledge, the first RTS that got rid of the hookey mission briefings and replaced them with a mild point and click adventure. The result was a greater feeling that your actions were making a difference as where you were located changed around you with each mission. It also allowed you to develop a deeper connection with characters as you moved throughout the game since you actually got to hear their reactions to what you had just done in the previous mission. That's a huge step in a genre that struggles to make a connection between its world and the gamer. With this being said, yeah, still a lot of movies in games clothing so we haven't moved forward yet.

THAT is what scares me about this new wave of gaming on the portables and phones. The games I like will be shoved even further into the realm of sweaty, fat losers living in their mother's basements than they were before.

Now I'm really going to disagree with you here. If anything has occurred in the past year that has ensured that legitimate gaming will stay somewhat mainstream its the explosion in streaming. Twitch.tv has already revolutionized how individuals check out and consume video game related content and I can honestly see it continuing to do so. Twitch.tv allows people to instantly check out gameplay for games the day its released without the wait time or uncertainty of quality found in youtube videos. Companies have picked up on this as well and in the past year we've seen both Kingdoms of Amalur and Diablo 3 have major release day streaming events with gaming celebrities as their hosts. I think this is going to become more common as time goes on since its essentially free advertisement for these companies (even if the game has a terrible release day). This exposure is important because it not only translates to sales but also aids in the cultural impact that a game will have in the gaming community. Part of why Day Z took off the way it did is because of streaming as well as youtube videos. The exposure that one mod got turned a game that was a part of a niche genre into a top seller on Steam for months.

Let me also take a moment and give a nod to the wondrous world of esports since its, in many ways, spearheaded this boom and made Twitch.tv what it is today. In two short years, we've made major steps towards moving to a society here in the west where being a professional gamer is seen as a legitimate occupation. Its unclear if this is just a temporary boom or a sign of a shift in our culture but it has had a major impact at how we culturally view gamers. The term "gamer" defined as someone who likes video games is becoming an incredibly normal thing and I don't think that's a bad thing. I went to MLG Dallas and there was a lot of variety in the people in attendance there. Not everyone was what could best be described as a "Halo kid" and I'd be willing to bet that a large number of them were familiar with games besides Call of Duty, Madden, Farmville, or whatever other game you can think of that would be considered mainstream/casual/"is one of those games."

TL;DR Video Games as a whole are going to become more mainstream because of things like Twitch.TV and a shift in how our culture views "gamers."