@“Mnemogenic”#p126103 Either way, that's a really helpful link!
Does Tim respect me if I do not like Gex ironically like most people but like it unironically because I unironically like 90's mediocre 3D mascot platforming games?
The console generation talk reminded me that what people sort into the "mainstream" accepted console generations never reallly makes sense when you've had Nintendo doing its own things since the Wii years, the Dreamcast being an outlier in defined console genrations, and stuff like the 3DO and Jaguar coming out way before the PlayStation and Saturn. I like Frank's idea of looking through the lens of major technology leaps.
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@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p126111 Does Tim respect me if I do not like Gex ironically like most people but like it unironically because I unironically like 90’s mediocre 3D mascot platforming games?
I can't speak for Tim, but I respect you for that
@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p126111 I like any game where you can hop between film/TV genre sets. I also think the crawling on walls and ceilings in Gex is neat and justifies using a lizard as the main character. Some of the jokes are even alright.
I'm Gex positive but that's about all I have to say that's good about the games. I don't think any of the bad stuff is outrageously bad either it's just sort of meh. I hope the remasters are done well and leads to other platformer revivals.
@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p126111 I also unironically like Gex, not because I find him particularly funny, no, but rather because I find his neurosis and tragic backstory to be relatable. As I child I used to just mimic tv characters or shout one liners at people because I had legit tourettes and ptsd and found it would take the pressure off to deflect people that way instead of engaging or actually confiding in them to only get shut down or called a liar. After a while the wacky endless cycling of bits became a source of strength and confidence even if it was probably never at any point “funny”. At least in the first game, Gex is in pain. He is not having a good time and might literally be having some sort of tv induced seizure like one of those kids who nearly died playing minecraft or diablo II.
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@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p126111 Does Tim respect me
[Long drag from a cigarette]
Forget it, HH. This road is a boulevard of broken dreams.
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@“Jaffe”#p126125 [Long drag from a cigarette]
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@“Jaffe”#p125721 I’m afraid of what she would say to tim
I see... Mrs. Jaffe must be under the impression that Tim is the reason her son started smoking
I'm not sure this counts for two button inputs, but any [French Accent]Beat Them All[French Accent Ends] that has a charging attack where you double tap a direction has my heart.
In other news: I have longed maintained that the Wii was the end of either the first or second game console epoch: The last home console to prominently have: Active development communities making all levels of games in US, EU and Japan; trashy license games and kids games, fun and weird niche stuff from Japan, home computer ports with wonky interface adaptations.
EDIT: Also, let's face it, 99% physical distribution.
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@“Reverse Kaiser”#p126124 because I find his neurosis and tragic backstory to be relatable.
Your post makes me want a life sim or visual novel based around The Cable Guy where you play as Jim Carrey's character and have to make and maintain friendships.
There aren't enough socially awkward main characters. If we're given hard choices in games it's normally because they're morally grey, not because our character isn't good at reading the room. It will happen in visual novels when a character is nervous/sheepish around a love interest but imagine if it was around all characters and you had a stress level you had to maintain. Maybe something like the sanity meter in Eternal Darkness but instead of hallucinations things get brighter, louder, distorted in a downward spiral of discomfort.
@“Mnemogenic”#p126103 whoa thanks for sharing this!
I‘m going to go ahead and disagree with exodus’s position on contemporary “-killers.” (Is this allowed? Please don‘t ban). Starting around 19:00, he said "there was room for several things… but today when there’s only room for one Fortnite… now you would need to kill fortnite to do something successful in that genre ." I think the opposite is true.
Back in the "-killer" heyday, you were competing for very limited resources. Before digital distribution (hat tip Frank's generation divider), stores could only stock so many video games before they ran out of shelf space. Before free-to-play, free games, and endless sales, people tended to have access to fewer games (even though your parents could still rent you a game, many of us seem to have the experience of only getting one at a time). In the 90s, there were still bandwagon hop-ons (which is what it sounds like exodus is describing), but everyone was competing for very limited shelf space. Any game that was on a shelf was depriving another game of a spot on that shelf.
These days, I think it's actually easier to develop smaller audiences that can exist alongside each other. Even sticking with the _fortnite_ example, look at something like _Apex Legeds_ or _COD: Warzone_. _Apex_ hasn't come close to killing fortnite, but was able to cave out a more "hardcore" or "competitive" or "grownup" audience and still be profitable/successful long tome. Since all of these games are free, there's a lower barrier to entry (so presumably easier to attrack more players). I personally played more than 100 hours of _Apex_, a game I never would have paid $60 for (and I'm still not sure how I logged quite so many hours... never done that with a multiplayer game before). While there are certainly plenty of failed service games / battle royales, there's an impressive number coexisting when you consider the investment required to "keep up" in the game. And again --- these games aren't booting each other (or their countless other competitors) off of store shelves.
The other factor I see here is that we've transitioned from calling things "-killers" to calling them "-likes," which is telling for how we think about competition and "inspiration" in the medium. If you're charitable, you could say that we've moved to celebrating the lineage of gaming ideas. If you're a cranky cynic (certainly never anyone here), you could say it's that we've normalized endless imitation. Either way, it seems like we've accepted that things can coexist within these formats/genres.
Anyway, wishlist deamonschool on steam, it's going to be a great _Shin Megami Tensei_-killer (I'm never buying one of those trAshtTLUS games ever again)
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@“exodus”#p126070 Well I’m sorry Mrs. Jaffe
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_I am sorry Mrs. Jaffe’s son!_
{“sticky”:false}
@“deepspacefine”#p126196 there‘s a lot going on here so I’ll break some stuff down.
In terms of limited shelf space, that's true to a degree, but along with digital distribution not happening, the indie thing hadn't happened either, at least not in the US. While - you got shelf space in the US if you had a publisher, in the UK you could put ads in magazines, sell direct to stores, etc. There was no Mario on the Amiga, so you could make something like that there. The ZX spectrum couldn't run the Amiga Mario so you could make another one over there. There were a lot of viable platforms whose audiences were distinct. The audience today is only very vaguely divided across PC, console, and mobile, but pc and console audiences bleed together pretty hard, and mobile audiences bleed into both more casually.
And sure, Apex Legends and COD Warzone can exist alongside fortnight - I'd argue anything that has a $100m+ budget for dev and marketing can do that if the game is decent. But do you know for every Apex how many Lawbreakers there are, and how many Rumbleverses? How many games blipped in and out of existence without us ever having heard of them? There's like 10 coexisting on the bodies of the hundreds that failed. CrossfireX, Back4Blood, Knockout City, Hyper Scape, America's Army, Warhammer 40,000: Regicide, crowfall, Chocobo GP, Babylon's Fall, Marvel's Avengers, Anthem, one could go on for ages.
My old boss simon carless does research about this stuff, and looked into how many new games on switch break the top 300.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/DPLnIfd.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/DPLnIfd.png[/IMG][/URL]
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/wnRCh5O.png][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/wnRCh5O.png[/IMG][/URL]
I'm sure as a consumer it feels like there's a lot doing on, but as a dev when you see that 60% of all the top downloaded titles for the current month are games that were released more than a year ago, and that breaking in at the lower end of the top 200 means you sold ~5,000 copies, it does not appear that the market can actually support a lot of different games. As someone who was a journalist for 10 years and then a game dev for a dozen after that, I've watched so many games try to come for the big guns and fail, and now when games like roblox or fortnight simply have *other games inside of them* the consumer desire for new games falls.
I wasn't maybe being super clear when I was talking in the podcast but what I was saying is represented by data. It also just makes common sense - you can "kill" mario in a year when there's not a mario released. You can't "kill" fortnight when fortnight never goes away, and remains at the top of the heap. you can try to chip a slice away, but you're not going to dethrone it without the resources of god (activsion, microsoft, sony), and even WITH the resources of god (Amazon) you can't apparently make an MMO people will play.
ANYWAY. As someone whose [latest game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1663250/Hyper_Gunsport/) has 23 whole reviews on steam, which released in a year when there were nearly 13,000 games on steam, and whose next game needs to sell 80k units or fall on its face, believe me that I have researched this stuff, and it is way harder to *attempt to* kill mario in 2023, let alone sell a game of any description, than it was in 1992.
@“exodus”#p126597 i had this moment, as I hit reply, where I said, “should I argue with the professional?” and the answer was clearly no.
this is enlightening, thanks for writing this up
@“deepspacefine”#p126603 ha ha sure thing! I do think it's something folks should hear more about so maybe I should do a podcast segment on it or something
@“exodus”#p126597 Do you have a link to the article this is from? I'd like to share it with some friends
i still think gex wouldve defeated captain marvel
though, he still wouldve stood no chance against that trio of Big Boys
insert credit, giant bomb killer.........
@“beets”#p126681 OOPS sorry, I missed this - it's his newsletter! This was the specific one: What chance does your Switch game have of being a hit in 2023?