Crusading against the hardcore...

[Ady]

As much as I usually enjoy Edge, its recent trend for picking on the so-called 'hardcore' is starting to grate somewhat. It almost feels forced, an attempt to stir controversy and make the mag accessible to more 'casual' players to shift more units.

People who genuinely care about gaming don't relish seeing their hobby hijacked by people who would've never touched a controller had they not been told it was 'cool' to do so. People who genuinely care about gaming don't like seeing imaginative ideas compromised by greedy publishers who encourage developers to lazily beat the same old, tired ideas into the ground just to fill their own pockets. But hey, it's a popular franchise. Hey it looks pretty. That's what matters, surely? You disagree? Well, you're just an elitist twat. You're just holding things back. Shut up.

I actually found this month's Edge depressing - particularly the E3 DVD. Gaming has grown for sure, it's certainly bigger and more bombastic than its ever been, but it hasn't grown up at all. Gaming hasn't matured, it has just become obese.

The same fundamentally adolescent concepts are being pimped harder than ever, and now Hollywood wants to use gaming as a vehicle to support its own franchises even more. It really doesn't seem to be about creatives making wonderfully imaginative and playable games anymore. It's all about superficial, vapid 'entertainment', and that's what really concerns me.

Bring on the crash I say. Then we can start again.

[vic_viper]

People who genuinely care about gaming don't relish seeing their hobby hijacked by people who would've never touched a controller had they not been told it was 'cool' to do so. People who genuinely care about gaming don't like seeing imaginative ideas compromised by greedy publishers who encourage developers to lazily beat the same old, tired ideas into the ground just to fill their own pockets. But hey, it's a popular franchise. Hey it looks pretty. That's what matters, surely? You disagree? Well, you're just an elitist twat. You're just holding things back. Shut up.

I agree with that 100%. If that makes me an 'elitist twat' then so be it.

[Saurian]

Bring on the crash I say. Then we can start again.

Awww man you are so DEEP!

Best post I've read in ages!

[Concept]

I actually found this month's Edge depressing - particularly the E3 DVD. Gaming has grown for sure, it's certainly bigger and more bombastic than its ever been, but i hasn't grown up at all.

That DVD was a strange one - riddled with contradiction in relation to the magazine itself. I know it was produced by gamer.tv, but even so, it had EDGE's logo and name all over it...

Why use 15 minutes of a 40 minute disc to report on movie-licenced games? Especially when in the magazine editorial there's mostly a backlash to such product.

A couple of quotes I enjoyed:

"Games and movies have been feeding off each other for years with mixed results. The change now is in the quality of the licenced games."

No ****? Could've fooled me.

"No one's done integration like the Wachowski brothers."

And this from a magazine that just gave ETM 3/10.

"It seems that videogames based on movies have finally come of age. The phrase 'all licence and no gameplay' no longer applies."

Love that quote. Beautifully generalised. Classic.

Another inconconsistency was the DVD's top five of E3 list. In the magazine EDGE rate Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 at number one and two respectively. Here MGS 3 slots itself in between them. And what was the point of that videogame diary from that Hollywood reporter?

Ah well. The DVD was free, I suppose, so I don't have much room to complain. But even so, it was like watching Cybernet with Lucy Longhurst all over again.

Gaming hasn't matured, it has just become obese. The same fundamentally adolescent concepts are being pimped harder than ever, and now Hollywood wants to use gaming as a vehicle to support its own franchises even more. It really doesn't seem to be about creatives making wonderfully imaginative and playable games anymore. It's all about superficial, vapid 'entertainment', and that's what really concerns me.

The sad thing is most of the game players out there don't care either. If you don't have the marketing push, good games won't sell.

****e rules all in the chart place at present. Quality doesn't really come into it without the money for a decent push. So... You've got all these development/publishing houses starting to ask themselves why they should bother to create quality, imaginative products if no one is buying them? They might as well just spend the same amount of money less on development and more on marketing to the expected. At least that way they're almost sure to make a bit of money back.

[Squirtle]

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this but what gaming lacks, IMO, is a publication along the lines of Sight and Sound. Edge is the closest we have, but it's not quite there. Film buffs (what could be classed as Hardcore Film Fans) have somewhere to retreat for solace with Sight and Sound proud of its hardcore-ness. I'm pretty sure that just about every other artistic medium has a similar magazine.

Gaming doesn't. Maybe this is where the problem arises.

I don't know.

[gunrock]

I actually found this month's Edge depressing - particularly the E3 DVD. Gaming has grown for sure, it's certainly bigger and more bombastic than its ever been, but it hasn't grown up at all. Gaming hasn't matured, it has just become obese.

Bring on the crash I say. Then we can start again.

Some interesting points, but what we must remember is that Edge only exists to make its publisher money. It's not the voice of the gaming community or the cognoscenti, it is merely a product to be consumed by consumers.

If Edge's sales are down (which I suspect they might be), the obvious choice is to soften their approach to the things that interest most modern-day gamers, i.e those who play the odd game on their PS2 (no flames please, you've only got to look at the installed user base to see who's playing what). If licenses sell and people want to play them, then constantly deriding the lack of innovation in these titles will not garner any new readers.

Future Publishing like any business, serves only to make money and if it happens give it's consumers a product they value, then that's a pleasant side-effect. If that means that they need to gain more readers to increase advertising revenue, they're obviously going to try and snare a greater share of the casual gamers (for want of a better word).

In my view, the E3 DVD is a perfect example of that shift in focus. The DVD is billed as The Greatest Show On Earth, when the editorial stated that it was a vaucous, glitzy and stale affair. It seems that the ad execs are beginning to win publisher support over the editorial staff. Having previously worked for 8 years in magazine publishing it's something that I've seen quite a lot of. Most editorial staff will fight to maintain control of their publication, but at the end of the day they have to concede to the man (or woman) who owns the magazine and pays their wages.

I'm not sure if a crash would help us out, these days. If the big hitters stop spending on game development, I can't see any Sega-style orginal titles being made in place of the more-generic licensed titles, because nobody (comparitively speaking) buys the Jet Set Radio's of this world, however good they are.

Gunrock

[Ady]

That DVD was a strange one - riddled with contradiction in relation to the magazine itself. I know it was produced by gamer.tv, but even so, it had EDGE's logo and name all over it...

Why use 15 minutes of a 40 minute disc to report on movie-licenced games? Especially when in the magazine editorial there's mostly a backlash to such product.

A couple of quotes I enjoyed:

"Games and movies have been feeding off each other for years with mixed results. The change now is in the quality of the licenced games."

No ****? Could've fooled me.

"No one's done integration like the Wachowski brothers."

And this from a magazine that just gave ETM 3/10.

"It seems that videogames based on movies have finally come of age. The phrase 'all licence and no gameplay' no longer applies."

Love that quote. Beautifully generalised. Classic.

Another inconconsistency was the DVD's top five of E3 list. In the magazine EDGE rate Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 at number one and two respectively. Here MGS 3 slots itself in between them. And what was the point of that videogame diary from that Hollywood reporter?

Ah well. The DVD was free, I suppose, so I don't have much room to complain. But even so, it was like watching Cybernet with Lucy Longhurst all over again.

Yes. I almost couldn't believe what I was watching, though to be fair, the DVD itself wasn't produced by Edge. I think the main contradiction was that it was so unlike the magazine use cheap gimmicks like free tacky DVDs. I'm pretty sure next month's letter page will be full of scathing letters about that...

The sad thing is most of the game players out there don't care either. If you don't have the marketing push, good games won't sell.

Exactly, which goes back to my earlier point about gaming being hijacked by dilettantes. It's as if it's no longer our hobby and we just have to shut up and move over whilst video games become facile 'entertainment products' for the lucrative massmarket without any real concern about gameplay content.

[Max M]

Gaming hasn't matured, it has just become obese.

That's so true. It's amazing how gaming is meant to be more mainstream than ever, yet 13 years ago we had a gaming TV show on Channel 4 at 6:00 in the afternoon, yearly game shows for the public (The Future Entertainment Show), CD's sampling popular game music, newsagents selling C64 and Spectrum games...

I find the gaming scene more cold than ever now and I can't help but worry that everytime an original concept fails to sell another publisher thinks "Why make this effort when we can make more money by spending our budget on a big license?".

Admittedly some of the original GameCube games like Pikmin, Monkey Ball and Animal Crossing have been hits, but even then, everyone seems to be trying to bully Nintendo into making so-called 'mature' games that everyone else is doing. It's the PS2 market I'm more worried about, less and less of the interesting Japanese games are coming over now. Where the hell has Fresh Games gone?

And I also found the new Edge depressing, especially that column that replaced Nagoshi. "Oh, woe is me! I have to play games with the 'normal' folk and I get paid for it!"

[Ady]

Admittedly some of the original GameCube games like Pikmin, Monkey Ball and Animal Crossing have been hits, but even then, everyone seems to be trying to bully Nintendo into making so-called 'mature' games that everyone else is doing.

This is something I was going to raise a few posts ago but decided to leave for later.

I do find it highly ironic that Nitnendo, probably one of the only companies not jumping on the current bandwagon of faux maturity is getting berated for that very reason.

In one breath, people go on about 'The Nintendo Difference' and then criticise them for that very thing in the next! Whilst a bit of variety and less reliance on tired IP and old ideas wouldn't go amiss, Nintendo should be praised for sticking to its guns, not criticised for it.

To that end, did anyone else find GC Equip very negative? The entire message of that issue could be summed up in a single sentence: "NINTNEDO IS KIDDY BECUZ IT DOESNT MAKE GAMS LIKE VICE CITY!!!!!111".

It did raise some intersting points, but it seemed to mostly slam Nintendo for the very 'difference' its known for, calling for it to join the bandwagon.

[Squirtle]

To that end, did anyone else find GC Equip very negative? The entire message of that issue could be summed up in a single sentence: "NINTNEDO IS KIDDY BECUZ IT DOESNT MAKE GAMS LIKE VICE CITY!!!!!111".

It did raise some intersting points, but it seemed to mostly slam Nintendo for the very 'difference' its known for, calling for it to join the bandwagon.

Hmmm, interesting.

I got a similar message to what you got, only took it slightly different. I didn't think equip was having a go at at the cube per se, but at the actual market that Nintendo now find themselves in.

I think it was more posing the question: If Nintendo want to remain a competitive force in the games industry, will they have to change their style and output to match their current peers?

I think the article on Animal Crossing, the making of Metroid Prime and overall feel was very much pro-nintendo, but was kind of lamenting the fact that, in Equip's opinion, the answer to the question posed above is yes, Nintendo will have to change to stay alive. I got the impression that the magazine accepted this, but was quite saddened by that.

This was mirrored in this month's Edge by the old editor's page (Jason somebody (I'm terrible at remembering names)) who bemoaned the change that Nintendo seemed to have forced on Myamoto.

I think there is a current running through the industry that knows things will never again be as they were, accepts this, but still misses it, and is saddened by it.

That, IMO, is where Equip, and to a slightly lesser degree, Edge's heart lies.

[Ady]

I got a similar message to what you got, only took it slightly different. I didn't think equip was having a go at at the cube per se, but at the actual market that Nintendo now find themselves in.

I think it was more posing the question: If Nintendo want to remain a competitive force in the games industry, will they have to change their style and output to match their current peers?

The thing that puzzles me is that many gamers gloomily prophecy Nintendo 'doing a Sega', particularly if it doesn't 'get with the program, man'. These people also fail to realise that were Nintendo to change its style, its unlikely it would affect Sony's currently entrenched monopoly. All it'd do is remove the very thing that makes Nintendo so unique amongst its peers, making it another 'wannabe Sony' (which is how Microsoft was largely perceived until recently). That in itself would cause Nintendo to go the same way as Sega.

I think the article on Animal Crossing, the making of Metroid Prime and overall feel was very much pro-nintendo, but was kind of lamenting the fact that, in Equip's opinion, the answer to the question posed above is yes, Nintendo will have to change to stay alive. I got the impression that the magazine accepted this, but was quite saddened by that.

Perhaps, but the editorials by Poole et al seemed very negative to me and as I said elsewhere too, RedEye's unfocussed rant made no real point whatsoever, but yeah I see where you're coming from.

[JammyD]

I thought Redeye's article this month was.. interesting; it seemed to follow on from Biffo's rant last month and offer a solution of sorts.
The overall tone of Edge this month is severely depressing. The E3 previews? Skip page, not interested, repeat..

I think there is a current running through the industry that knows things will never again be as they were, accepts this, but still misses it, and is saddened by it.

The crusade against the hardcore sounds like nothing more than a wake up call to me, like get over it, live with it, etc. Instead of a backlash I'd prefer if the gaming media just stopped (ab)using the word 'hardcore'.

[tssk]

People who genuinely care about gaming don't relish seeing their hobby hijacked by people who would've never touched a controller had they not been told it was 'cool' to do so. People who genuinely care about gaming don't like seeing imaginative ideas compromised by greedy publishers who encourage developers to lazily beat the same old, tired ideas into the ground just to fill their own pockets. But hey, it's a popular franchise. Hey it looks pretty. That's what matters, surely? You disagree? Well, you're just an elitist twat. You're just holding things back. Shut up.

I agree with that 100%. If that makes me an 'elitist twat' then so be it.

I disagree in part a little bit. You can easily find gems like Ico or Rez or Frequency or Metroid Prime or Halo everywhere.

As more casual gamers are brought into the fold, the higher the potential for casuals to become hardcore.

These 'cool' people getting interested for the first time. We should see them as new members, not invaders. After they've played a bit of FIFA introduce them to ISS. After they've played a bit of Tomb Raider introduce them to Ico. After they've played a bit of WipeOut introduce them to F-Zero.

[Shevek]

I will say this first; I have been very much impressed with the standard and level of lucid discussion in this thread. Considering the average mental capacity of most users, NTSC-uk's forum feels very much an oasis of clear and concise thought. This is something that I a greatly appreciate.

Moving on...

I can understand the vehemence directed at EDGE, but I honestly believe it to be misguided. EDGE may be a focal point for this issue, in Britain at least, but the problem is more pandemic than we realise. If anything EDGE are echoing the sentiments of the game industry itself, rather than championing a cause of their own. This is considerably more disturbing, yet the issue remains unchanged (just magnified).

The vast knowledge base of dedicated gamers is largely being ignored in favour of a more casual crop. The reasons for this lie within a poorly educated management structure (in games at least) and the petty insecurities of these individuals when it comes to taking any form of criticism. In short, casual gamers are easier to control and market for but at the downfall of any creativity or innovation within the medium. The latter will fall on deaf ears though, simply because the powers that be cannot discern the difference in quality between games.

My, personal, take on this issue is that gaming needs to become an analytical, empirical and quantitative subject for academic study. The medium needs to have beacon of analytical standard. Not only for the press but also for the education of the management within the industry.

[Ady]

I can understand the vehemence directed at EDGE, but I honestly believe it to be misguided. EDGE may be a focal point for this issue, in Britain at least, but the problem is more pandemic than we realise. If anything EDGE are echoing the sentiments of the game industry itself, rather than championing a cause of their own. This is considerably more disturbing, yet the issue remains unchanged (just magnified).

I hope I personally didn't come across as bashing Edge as this was not what I was trying to do at all, rather offer genuine objective criticism with regards to its stance on this issue. I also appreciate that the magazine isn't to blame for this situation as such.

As regards to your point about analytical study, I'm not sure I agree with that. I struggle to see how sober theorising could make for better gaming experiences. At worst, we'd probably end up with real elitism, what with the academics championing only the types of gaming they consider worthwhile (as they did with music, proclaiming classical to be the 'highest form' or some such nonsense). Or maybe I've misunderstood you.

This has been a very interesting topic and I'm glad you raised it, no doubt detractors consider us to be whiney complainers who need to stop being so precious about our hobby, but we only do it 'cos we care. Or something.