Readers Feature

[Nag]

Video games are only for old people now and I’m glad – Reader’s Feature

 

 

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A reader envisages a two-track video games industry where the majority of console games are made for adults and not younger gamers.

 

There’s been a lot of talk recently about how the console business isn’t growing. That roughly the same number of people are playing them now as they have since the days of the PlayStation 2, with the actual peak being in the Wii era. But then there’s a lot of talk about many things lately, with the entire video games industry turning itself upside down as if at some unseen signal (okay, it was probably Christmas hardware sales).

 

I don’t know what’s going on and I think the problem is neither do publishers. Although I can’t imagine that all this happening just months after Xbox’s purchase of Activision Blizzard is a coincidence. Many said it would unbalance the whole games industry and that seems to be exactly what’s happening.

 

Then again, many of these issues seem to relate to things that have been obvious for a very long time. I mean… the Wii era was over a decade ago now. But what I really want to talk about is one of the main conclusions that analysts are taking from this: that young people aren’t interested in consoles anymore and so the demographics for them are getting older.

 

The situation is – and they didn’t release any figures to back this up, but it’s implied to be based on data that hasn’t been made public – that apparently youngsters (anyone up to around 25) aren’t interested in consoles and traditional console games and would rather game on their mobile or, at most, a PC.

 

This seems believable enough but I’m sure we all know plenty of relatives, and perhaps our own children, who refute this, so I’m not sure whether it’s really something you can say as a blanket statement. I know plenty of people my age (38) who don’t play video games, but does that mean that all middle-aged people don’t like them? No, clearly not.

 

Clearly not because the findings were that the console market was shifting towards older people, with the idea being that if younger people do play on a console, or play a console style game, it’ll only be for a live service title or other multiplayer game.

 

Apparently, younglings don’t like single-player which, again, doesn’t necessarily match with my experiences. But whether it’s true or not it doesn’t really matter, if that’s the information that publishers are going to act on.

 

It certainly helps to explain the obsession with live service games, if publishers not only think they’re a golden goose but also the only thing that younger gamers like. I guess they also think kids are more likely to waste money on meaningless cosmetics and the like, which is possibly true.

 

For me, the important question, which I’m not sure is being asked, is whether these people will never enjoy console games or whether they will migrate to them as they themselves grow older. There’s plenty of things I enjoy now that I didn’t when I was younger, and that’s not even taking into consideration lessening arcade skills as you get older, which gradually make multiplayer games less appealing.

 

What I would hope to see now is a division between games aimed at younger and older players, that hasn’t really existed before. Obviously, some games appeal to certain kinds of people but I think we could be looking at almost a two-track games industry, and I think that would be a good idea. You can have all the microtransaction-filled live service games on one side and then single-player and narrative driven games on the other.

 

I’d welcome the excuse to specifically target older gamers. I assume some games do this anyway but most marketing is definitely aimed at younger players (even though most big budget games are 18-rated). I feel many games would be better if they knew they were purposefully aiming at older players, in terms of the knowledge they can assume about previous games and other media, the willingness not to be 100% action, and the need not to be 200 hours long.

 

If traditional video games are only going to be aimed at old people from now on, I welcome it. If that happens, I feel we could get much better storytelling, more complex gameplay, and hopefully no microtransactions and other nonsense that is aimed at kids borrowing their parent’s credit card.

 

Of course, the alternative is that companies just make live service and mobile games and nothing else, which at the moment is seeming like a real possibility. But I feel we’ve got to be optimistic and hope that some good will come of all this.

 

[one-armed dwarf]

I don't think making games which appeal to an older audience makes much sense. There's been a lot of talk about AAA SP games seemingly being played less and less by younger people, a few recent examples, but none of it is accompanied by 'oh, also the game did great cause of that'. It's a really bad problem where the numbers don't really add up

 

The industry is in a bad spot, it's hard to put an optimistic spin on any of it tbh. I find this guy's letter dumb. You might as well ask for movie blockbusters aimed purely at older people (I guess Oppenheimer is kind of that, but not really)

[shinymcshine]

It's mostly the under 25s that I know who play online FIFA / EA FC etc

[HandsomeDead]

I don't think this letter makes much sense either.  A lot of language trying not to be "kids, get off my yard" but saying it anyway.  The single player and multiplayer industries are as separate as they've ever been now and I don't know how they can go further.  Is it he just wants a box without Fortnite and Roblox even available on it?  What good would that do

 

Fella maybe just wants a new PS2.  They should reissue the PS2, send out devkits and see what happens.  That's my stupid idea.

Speaking of which, I think there is a chance that if Oppenheimer was released in 2001 it could have had a accompanying PS2 game.

[Maryokutai]

It's fundamentally odd to look at this because we're more or less for the first time in the videogame space at a position where you even could have this generational 'divide'. My father might have played some Pong and Space Invaders when I was little, but that's not comparable to, say, someone growing up with the entire gaming landscape evolving from 8bit to today vs. someone just getting in and having nostalgic childhood memories about PS4. And this of course also coincides with a lot of quick development on online infrastructures, content delivery methods etc. that also impact which games are played and for how long.

 

I could potentially see how the extreme popularity of Fortnite, Reblox et al and their base design of sucking up as much free time as they can have some effect on a horizon-broadening approach a fledgling gamer could have. But then again that's not necessarily a new phenomenon or linked to live service titles, because I distinctly remember playing very, very few different games during the height of Pokémon because that's all me and my friends were really interested in (bar one Nintendo hater dude, with whom I played WipeOut and Destruction Derby – thank god for that guy).

 

No idea what my point was or where I'm going with this though, but I don't really agree with the post either. Especially the console part, Switch has done extremely well across demographics.

[Maf]

2 hours ago, HandsomeDead said:

Speaking of which, I think there is a chance that if Oppenheimer was released in 2001 it could have had a accompanying PS2 game.

It wasn’t quite 2001 but a few years later there was a game called Metal Gear Solid 3 which is essentially the same is my understanding 

[HandsomeDead]

I'm not entirely convinced of a generational divide.  I did work with a lot of younger folk a while back and those that played games had a pretty similar attitude to me in my early 20s.  But these were pretty nerdy collection of people.  I think the same amount of young people like single player games as our generation but more treat games like a social media platform with a game attached I'd say.  Just somewhere else to hang out with friends as society gets more online.  It's just not necessarily translating to them being interested in trying other games.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah, I'd agree with that. The kids on the design team where I used to work used to play Fortnite and a couple of other things, but invariably together, and only one of them played single player stuff (Persona etc). What was funny was hearing them discover things that aren't especially old, but then you realise media actually moves quit slow now. The Last Of Us came out years ago, the MCU started years and years ago, they've not exactly had a lot of time to catch up on things that are still kind of in the zeitgeist 

 

It's basically the same as us piling round people's houses to play Micro Machines and Sensi, only now it's a years old Mario Kart and Fortnite because it's new to them and still not been replaced 

 

I've a sneaking suspicion that it's the market COD goes after that might be more at risk. Those games cost a lot to make, but I'm not sure how appealing they are to new players 

[Nag]

Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom is a chore and has no respect for your time – Reader’s Feature.

 

 

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A long-time Zelda fan explains exactly why he doesn’t like Tears Of The Kingdom and why he considers it to be ‘infuriatingly dull.’

 

Is it okay now to say The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom isn’t very good?

 

Almost a year has passed since the tiresome open world game was released to critical acclaim and that should be enough time to reconsider the gushing praise it received 12 months prior.

 

Before I talk about the game’s flaws, and there are many, I’ll start off by saying there are some genuinely amazing things on display in Tears Of The Kingdom. The much-vaunted Ultrahand has been well eulogised (I wasn’t fussed but you have to admire the technical brilliance behind it) and the Ascend ability is so good it’s the sort of thing you wish you had in every action adventure game.

 

Then there’s the moment where I wrongly believed the game would truly click into gear. When you ascend skywards towards the first temple, you’re so high up you could almost be in space. Even your companion Rito the bird hadn’t gone as far as that before. With thunderous clouds and ominous darkness, it’s masterfully atmospheric, and so cold that you can feel it emanate from your screen.

 

It was all downhill after that.

 

The trials and tribulations of modern, overblown open worlds took over. As polished and bug free as the game is, Tears Of The Kingdom is crippled by reprehensible grinding, horrendous pacing, tedious quests, a terrible opening with the insufferable Zelda, and useless companions – and that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

 

Underneath it, the Depths are so nauseating it’s like being in lockdown again, while the sky islands are a void of nothingness.

 

The fire temple, even though it’s short, is one of the worst dungeons in the history of the franchise. The one in the desert isn’t much better, and they help bring the game to a standstill. The game as a whole is an absolute chore to play, and you can spend countless hours going nowhere in frustration.

 

The worst thing about it is that a lot of people still think gaming simply involves sitting in lounge pants on a recliner all day, and Tears Of The Kingdom reinforces that view. It clearly has a real dislike for people with families, jobs, and other commitments.

 

It’s the champion of a doomed and unsustainable development philosophy, as we’ve seen from financially stricken studios who spend too much time and money on games that only need to be a fraction of the size.

 

Nintendo have unlimited resources, so can probably get away with it. But would their obviously very talented developers want to spend years making something as gruelling or something more fun, that can be finished in a sensible time?

 

The 10+ million sales that followed in the days after Tears Of The Kingdom’s release indicate they won’t have much of a choice.

 

I’d imagine there will be a barrage of criticism about this article and that’s great, everyone is entitled to their view. But when Nintendo release the inevitable new and improved remastered version of Tears Of The Kingdom at some point in the next decade, I guarantee it’ll come with a raft of quality of life improvements to minimise the impact of the flaws I’ve just outlined.

 

Your comments will look a bit daft. But not as daft as burrowing your way through those ridiculously tedious networks of rock tunnels, thinking you’ve come to the end only to be met with another maze of bitesize rocks to break. And for what? Some pitiful reward that’s inferior to what you already have. This is not joyous discovery.

 

Oddly enough, I don’t remember Breath Of The Wild being as infuriatingly dull as its successor. But it started with a great opening and had a clearer focus, whereas Tears Of The Kingdom started out with the player being bored to death in a cave by Zelda and ended by going down an even deeper cave being shouted at. It was about as far removed from the series’ highs as you could get.

By reader David, a long time Zelda fan

 

I can't really comment on the game itself having not played it...

[one-armed dwarf]

Nag, you chose violence

[HandsomeDead]

 

In seriousness, I hate the "doesn't respect your time" criticism.  It mostly comes from wanting to finish something so you can get to the next thing.  I think TotK can be played in small chunks and it's mostly a big collection of small experiences.

 

You don't have to play, read, watch every bit of entertainment out there. 

 

I think they're wrong for a lot of reasons but that criticism is one that always grinds me

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Maf]

^my guy knows

 

 

[DANGERMAN]

I agree with @Nag

[one-armed dwarf]

I agree with the lady in the David Lynch clip, the sweeping scene is way too fucking long

[DANGERMAN]

33 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I agree with the lady in the David Lynch clip, the sweeping scene is way too fucking long

No 

 

[Nag]

I should've got the popcorn in...

[one-armed dwarf]

I do think there's a lot of people who try and optimise the fun out of actually playing the game. Both these Zelda games are about wandering around and playing with its systems, not checking off objectives. Your time in Zelda is what you make of it, if you are just trying to clear quests and dungeons and not mess around with the systems and set your own goals I guess I could see how it feels like your time is being wasted. 

 

But tbh, skill issue 💅

[DANGERMAN]

The frustrating thing is that he misses a bit, so you've sat through 5 minutes of a man do a BAD JOB of sweeping the floor 

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm sure he put that scene in to just spite that poor woman. 

 

We ain't gonna get this version of Lynch ever again

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEB840ZIm0c

 

This is me at parties btw

[Maf]

One of the things I find fascinating about Old Zelda vs New Zelda is fundamentally the game's are still "What is over there, and how do I get to it?" It's been that way pretty much since aLttp, except they've kept the hands off approach of Zelda 1

 

Not to say the new games are exactly the same. But they've taken that same idea and updated it 

 

Same way you would see a chest on a ledge and be like "How do I get that?" then figure out the traversal puzzle from Link's arsenal of Inspector Gadget tools. Now it's the same thing, except everything is just more open 

 

You can still see things which are out of reach and think "How do I get that?" but instead of being limited by the scripted function of the tools, you just start banging shit together, quite literally in TotK, and what used to feel like player ingenuity, is now actually player ingenuity. It is the game these people always loved except frankly, there's more than one answer and that answer isn't spelled out for you (Even though it is sometimes. They leave pre-fab shit around areas so you can start understanding and putting new ideas together)

 

But I think some people don't like that. A lot of gamers like there only being one answer, or the answers being very direct/visible

 

I remember when the trailer for BotW came out and was very disappointed. I thought oh they turned Zelda in Skyrim x Minecraft how sad. But then when playing it and it clicked I wondered why I still loved it. At first I was like maybe because it's still Zelda themed, or it's the music, etc. It wasn't until much later that I realised no, it's because it's still the game I enjoy, it's just all-new. It's one of the best examples of true evolution of any game series. 

 

And I'm not in to crafting or survival, really. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm not interested in that being the main challenge. In the new Zelda games they've managed to make it natural, so resources are accumulated easily as you do stuff instead of stopping to mine rocks or cut trees because you need to, etc, and then they Nintendo-fied it so you can play with the resources instead of just needing a required number of things to do a thing. I'm not big on these mechanics generally, but they fucking video game-d it the right way and it's brilliant when you think about how it complements that same core idea of exploration puzzles and using the environment. 

 

And there's like a million more things I could get into with TotK. But specifically around the way this letter starts with Old Zelda vs New Zelda - I'm not saying it's exactly the same. But it is still fundamentally a game of exploration puzzles. 

 

I sort of love that every time I approach a wall to scale, I'm already problem solving. This is still a puzzle game at it's heart.