=?ISO-8859-1?Q?I_think_C64_games_are_better_than_today=B4s_PC_crap?= - Other Technologies

hank2018151212@yahoo.com.au (Hank Higgens) wrote in message news:<3963ecce.0404061534.3778e69d@posting.google.com>...
> IMO programmers should reprogram all the C64 games and sell tham
> instead of the most boring 3D first person shooters which are far too
> violent and turn people into psychos.

There are a lot of people who play FPSs who aren't psychos--present
company excepted. ;-)

> So I recommend to get a C64 from flea-market or use an emulator and
> look for some games and reprogram them for PC. Since these games were so
> much better, they will turn anyone who recreates them into a millionaire.

I doubt that, but they might end up with huge lawsuits on their hands.
But I agree there were quite a few C64 games that were really good
(e.g. M.U.L.E.) that I wouldn't mind playing again in updated
versions. Actually, I wouldn't mind playing them with the same
graphics and sound--they were cool! :-)

Frecklefoot wrote:
> hank2018151212@yahoo.com.au (Hank Higgens) wrote in message
> news:<3963ecce.0404061534.3778e69d@posting.google.com>...
>> IMO programmers should reprogram all the C64 games and sell tham
>> instead of the most boring 3D first person shooters which are far too
>> violent and turn people into psychos.
>
> There are a lot of people who play FPSs who aren't psychos--present
> company excepted. ;-)

In a sense the original comment was true, but not because the C64 is
inherently better than PC. The 2 main reasons the original games were better
are:
1) They were among the first computer games, so they have the edge in
originality
2) Those were the times that there weren't any proven formula for successful
games. It was the time of expermintation.

>> So I recommend to get a C64 from flea-market or use an emulator and
>> look for some games and reprogram them for PC. Since these games
>> were so much better, they will turn anyone who recreates them into a
>> millionaire.
>
> I doubt that, but they might end up with huge lawsuits on their hands.
> But I agree there were quite a few C64 games that were really good
> (e.g. M.U.L.E.) that I wouldn't mind playing again in updated
> versions. Actually, I wouldn't mind playing them with the same
> graphics and sound--they were cool! :-)

You did hear of emulators, didn't you?

g

In article <40741756$1@news.012.net.il>, "G.I.L" <not@all.com> wrote:
>In a sense the original comment was true, but not because the C64 is
>inherently better than PC. The 2 main reasons the original games were better
>are:
>1) They were among the first computer games, so they have the edge in
>originality
>2) Those were the times that there weren't any proven formula for successful
>games. It was the time of expermintation.

They weren't better. They were new to you, that's all. If you could
have chosen between those games and today's, you'd have chosen today's.

Gerry Quinn
--
http://bindweed.com
Screensavers, Games, Kaleidoscopes
Download free trial versions

Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
> They weren't better. They were new to you, that's all. If you could
> have chosen between those games and today's, you'd have chosen
> today's.

You were probably also 12 years old when evaluating them, putting quite a
slant on what you thought was "great." It would be instructive to grab an
emulator and play many of those titles in the original. Some, like the
Infocom titles, I think you'll find have staying power. Others, like "Demon
Attack," you'll think uuuuh that was nice but it is just another shoot 'em
up, who cares? Still others you may feel somewhere in between. I
appreciate the game design of Seven Cities Of Gold for its time, but having
recently replayed it, I see plenty of problems with it.

I think there will always be a place in my heart for Atari's "Adventure,"
however. It may have been the first videogame for a home console I ever
saw. I saw it at some rent-a-console place, I didn't have my own yet. It
was being played on a big projection screen. I think I was doing D&D at the
time and thought this Adventure thing was totally fucking awesome! Hmm,
those probably weren't the words I used at the time though... wonder what my
lexicon was back then?

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.

"Hank Higgens" <hank2018151212@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:3963ecce.0404061534.3778e69d@posting.google.com...
> IMO programmers should reprogram all the C64 games and sell tham
> instead of the most boring 3D first person shooters which are far to
> violent and turn people into psychos.

Too violent? That's a matter of opinion.

> So I recommend to get a C64 from flea-market or use an emulator and
> look for some games and reprogram them for PC.

Aside from legal facts, great idea... please read on.

> Since these games were so much better, they will turn anyone who
> recreates them into a millionaire.

What's keeping you from doing so? If I had an idea that would make me a
millionaire, I'd keep it for myself and benefit from it.

Princess Morgiah

Gerry Quinn scribbled something along the lines of:

> In article <40741756$1@news.012.net.il>, "G.I.L" <not@all.com> wrote:
>
>>In a sense the original comment was true, but not because the C64 is
>>inherently better than PC. The 2 main reasons the original games were better
>>are:
>>1) They were among the first computer games, so they have the edge in
>>originality
>>2) Those were the times that there weren't any proven formula for successful
>>games. It was the time of expermintation.
>
>
> They weren't better. They were new to you, that's all. If you could
> have chosen between those games and today's, you'd have chosen today's.
>
> Gerry Quinn

Uhm, no. The problem is that they were original and modern games are
not, which has two basic reasons:
1) Originality is limited - you can't keep on getting innovations
without repeating something
2) Western managers are total wusses and prefer doing a rerun of a
"successful" game (which usually was successful because it was
innovative) or at least a slightly modified clone of said game rather
than give an innovative concept a chance

I actually want to focus on that a little:

>>2) Those were the times that there weren't any proven formula for
successful
>>games. It was the time of expermintation.

There is no proven formula for successful games. That's as retarded as
saying there's a formula for beauty (I know, scientists claim that
there's a mathematical formula, but they fail to mention that human
perception of beauty variies as much as the beauty of humans - of course
the average of all perceptions of beauty will get close to the
mathematical ideal of beauty, but that doesn't mean every human will
find this ideal beautiful).

There is a formula for market effective games, yes, but that doesn't
mean these games are particularily good, they just sell well on the
targeted market.
In fact, until recently (well, a year ago or two) European/American
managers said it was pointless to try and sell the rather... eccentric
games you can find on the Asian market in Europe/America because they
wouldn't be going to be accepted by the market - they predicted it'd be
better to do more of the same.
However, one company, after getting a lot of pressure from gamers and
gaming related groups, decided to market a few Asian console games in
Europe and they sold well and, unlike the x-th rerun of an existing
concept, they got almost only positive reviews.

Just as it is happening with MMORPGs, the market is overfed after years
of releases of nearly identical games. That's where you need a new genre
(either by innovation or by recreation of forgotten concepts) or need to
spread a little again and produce more than one kind of game.

While the average player would still buy the hundredth remake or clone
of their favorite game, some don't and they are the ones that give the
companies trying to follow that "more of the same" concept a bad
reputation and thus make the average player stop buying it (or buy it
less, at least) - whether they have any real idea why they do so is
unimportant, it's just important that they do it.
That's how it tends to work sometimes these days.

An example for that is, in my opinion, the nigh death of Interplay, who
made a successful (although not exactly market effective) CRPG called
Fallout, then a sequel and then a sell-ou.. -- I mean spin-off -- called
Fallout Tactics, which was a bad Commandos clone with the same setting
as the other two titles and a pitiful excuse for a storyline.
The sound fans of the original CRPGs, even those who played the tactics
game for a while, complained and flamed the company into ruin -- (if all
people say something is bad, Average Joe will accept that for a fact
without thinking about it).
Well, anyway, the company, after bought by a console game producer,
decided to do another spin-off, this time even more brainless and for
the console (there seems to be an often correlation between these two
for some reasons), which, needless to say, made it lose even more market
share.

I'm not saying niche gamers are dictating the market (if it was that
way, there wasn't that much of a mainstream), but I'm saying they can
have a devasting effect.
I'm also not saying monotonous game concepts don't sell, but I'm saying
they don't sell forever. People want a change and if the players don't
demand it, the developers eventually do.

Please note that I'm not neccessarily focussing on American gaming
companies here (the USA is the only country of which I know that manages
to arrange supposedly creative minds in cubicle farms tho), but also
(even more) on the European market, where a lot more "experimenting" (to
use the, IMO, negative term GIL introduced) takes place because there
are less strict established constructs.

Just my € 0.02 ...
--
Alan Plum, WAD/WD, Mushroom Cloud Productions
http://www.mushroom-cloud.com/

Frecklefoot scribbled something along the lines of:

> hank2018151212@yahoo.com.au (Hank Higgens) wrote in message news:<3963ecce.0404061534.3778e69d@posting.google.com>...
>
>>IMO programmers should reprogram all the C64 games and sell tham
>>instead of the most boring 3D first person shooters which are far too
>>violent and turn people into psychos.
>
>
> There are a lot of people who play FPSs who aren't psychos--present
> company excepted. ;-)

I think we don't have to roll out this discussion again, do we?
Psychos get created by a variety of factors, 3D FPS games may be
involved and may be the final kick, but they are not the sole reason,
despite how good a scapegoat they make. Same goes with gun control laws,
pornographic movies, nudity, et cetera.

To my experience it's the order rather than the chaos that makes people
go nuts anyway.
If there's no change, your brain will eventually tell you to make one --
whether you decide to get a new haircut or to go and blow up public
buildings with carbombs is really just dependant on your previous
influences, personality and genetical layout.

I suppose he wasn't exactly trying to make a serious point there,
although some C64 games actually WERE good -- which again is a
perception caused by more factors than just that there were less games
around that could serve as a basis for comparisons.
--
Alan Plum, WAD/WD, Mushroom Cloud Productions
http://www.mushroom-cloud.com/

Ashmodai wrote:
>
> 2) Western managers are total wusses and prefer doing a rerun of a
> "successful" game (which usually was successful because it was
> innovative) or at least a slightly modified clone of said game rather
> than give an innovative concept a chance

Well, this is due to the millions of dollars that are now on the table with
the mainstream titles. The more money spent, the less risk will be taken.

> There is no proven formula for successful games. That's as retarded as
[...]
>
> There is a formula for market effective games, yes, but that doesn't
> mean these games are particularily good, they just sell well on the
> targeted market.

So there's your definition of 'success'. Were you expecting some other
definition? Like critical success, or your own personal measure of success?

> In fact, until recently (well, a year ago or two) European/American
> managers said it was pointless to try and sell the rather... eccentric
> games you can find on the Asian market in Europe/America because they
> wouldn't be going to be accepted by the market - they predicted it'd
> be better to do more of the same.
> However, one company, after getting a lot of pressure from gamers and
> gaming related groups, decided to market a few Asian console games in
> Europe and they sold well and, unlike the x-th rerun of an existing
> concept, they got almost only positive reviews.

Well, we can hope that someone in the world finds a way to sucessfully turn
a buck at games while spending less money to produce them. The less money
involved, the more risk can be taken.

> I'm not saying niche gamers are dictating the market (if it was that
> way, there wasn't that much of a mainstream), but I'm saying they can
> have a devasting effect.

I think it's a lot simpler than that. The mainstream is glutted with
mediocre products. Supply and demand dictate that they will not all be
bought. As a result, some companies must die. Others will survive shipping
mediocre products, they are merely the lucky ones in the crapshoot.

> I'm also not saying monotonous game concepts don't sell, but I'm
> saying they don't sell forever.

Oh, but they do. How different are any of the Madden Football games?

> People want a change and if the players don't
> demand it, the developers eventually do.

This worries the Publishers how, exactly? The only way for developers to
'demand' something is to fund themselves, develop their own product, and try
to sell it. Without having any of the marketing and distribution advantages
that the Publishers enjoy. They are hardly worried. They'll start worrying
when an indie market actually exists and starts impacting their mainstream
sales. It ain't so yet.

--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA

When no one else sells courage, supply and demand take hold.

Brandon J. Van Every scribbled something along the lines of:

> Ashmodai wrote:
>
>>2) Western managers are total wusses and prefer doing a rerun of a
>>"successful" game (which usually was successful because it was
>>innovative) or at least a slightly modified clone of said game rather
>>than give an innovative concept a chance
>
>
> Well, this is due to the millions of dollars that are now on the table with
> the mainstream titles. The more money spent, the less risk will be taken.

The problem is that the games get so repetitive the "innovative
technology" and "photorealistic graphics" are the only real arguments
new games can be sold with. Improving them enough to show a difference
is difficult because it requires improvement of already maxed out
technological standards. Companies CAN'T keep that up forever, that's
why I don't think it will work forever anyway. Unlike in the 20th
century mentality which says that everything will keep on growing in the
real world there's something called limits and that's why improvements
are not developing exponentially forever.

>>There is no proven formula for successful games. That's as retarded as
>
> [...]
>
>>There is a formula for market effective games, yes, but that doesn't
>>mean these games are particularily good, they just sell well on the
>>targeted market.
>
>
> So there's your definition of 'success'. Were you expecting some other
> definition? Like critical success, or your own personal measure of success?

Well, depends on your definition of success anyway. The problem I'm
trying to explain here is that what works on one market doesn't
neccessary work on another market, be it a market on another continent,
in another culture or in another time.

>>In fact, until recently (well, a year ago or two) European/American
>>managers said it was pointless to try and sell the rather... eccentric
>>games you can find on the Asian market in Europe/America because they
>>wouldn't be going to be accepted by the market - they predicted it'd
>>be better to do more of the same.
>>However, one company, after getting a lot of pressure from gamers and
>>gaming related groups, decided to market a few Asian console games in
>>Europe and they sold well and, unlike the x-th rerun of an existing
>>concept, they got almost only positive reviews.
>
>
> Well, we can hope that someone in the world finds a way to sucessfully turn
> a buck at games while spending less money to produce them. The less money
> involved, the more risk can be taken.

The problem which caused the descent of computer game quality [1] is the
mainstreaming of computers. There was no need to use fancy eyecandy
before you tried to serve a mainstream (i.e. huge) audience.
Unless people risk approaching niche markets we will not see a lot of
quality games [1].

>>I'm not saying niche gamers are dictating the market (if it was that
>>way, there wasn't that much of a mainstream), but I'm saying they can
>>have a devasting effect.
>
>
> I think it's a lot simpler than that. The mainstream is glutted with
> mediocre products. Supply and demand dictate that they will not all be
> bought. As a result, some companies must die. Others will survive shipping
> mediocre products, they are merely the lucky ones in the crapshoot.

That is one more common event, yes, but I was referring to direct
opinion making. People tend to follow sound groups, that's how political
election preperations work these days -- you yell loud enough and in the
right tune and the crowd that isn't off the market (i.e. decided and
thus biased towards you) already will follow you.

>>I'm also not saying monotonous game concepts don't sell, but I'm
>>saying they don't sell forever.
>
>
> Oh, but they do. How different are any of the Madden Football games?

Uhm... well... what about when the US gets wiped out in a nuclear war
and nobody wants American Football anymore?
Just kidding.
I don't know, but I don't know that many Germans who got a fanatic
devotion to American Football. Football is still mostly played with the
feet in Europe (*hint*).

No, really now. Some niches (although it is not exactly healthy to think
of American Football as a niche market when you are producing for the
western market) will always be kind of constant.
Games in which you blow up stuff will always exist, so will sports sims
and basic strategy games (chess, for instance) and none of them will
exactly face any real innovations.

However there is a far larger market than just the one for these genre
posterchilds. There are many people who want more than just no-brains
entertainment. What do you think is the reason classic music survived so
long and why do you think is culture (fine arts, history, ...) getting
more important (at least in some areas in Europe which had previously
been Americanised [2])?

>>People want a change and if the players don't
>>demand it, the developers eventually do.
>
>
> This worries the Publishers how, exactly? The only way for developers to
> 'demand' something is to fund themselves, develop their own product, and try
> to sell it. Without having any of the marketing and distribution advantages
> that the Publishers enjoy. They are hardly worried. They'll start worrying
> when an indie market actually exists and starts impacting their mainstream
> sales. It ain't so yet.

Microsoft is scared of Linux. No, really.
Anyway. If the big companies don't provide quality games [1], smaller
companies will. It's fine with me if these niche markets are dominated
by less known brands, and I couldn't give less about whether European
companies were able to get any ground in the US as long as they sell
enough games here to produce quality [1] entertainment.

This is getting way off topic, but I personally am happy to see a
development which tries to undo the aftereffects of Americanisation [2].
Especially the problems caused by monopolisation -- Microsoft just got
legal problems in Europe because of its ridiculous abuse of its market
share (although I am not sure how it went out -- but still, it's the
idea that counts, it's important that these things get mentioned and
that they get carried out properly, no matter if they end up being
successful or not).

[1] As you may have guessed, I define gaming quality not as the
objective "quality" of a game (a game may be well designed, have great
coding and expensive eye candy, but that doesn't mean it is a quality
game as per my definition), but rather the mental challenge it provides,
as in, making me think. I'm talking chess, not jump riddles here.

[2] Americanisation is a common term for the common economical
"capitalist" development in most parts of Europe, including but not
limited to monopolisation of most markets, i.e. the founding of
megacorporations; a loss of importance of cultural (as defined earlier:
fine arts, history and the like) roots and values; mainstreaming of
media and entertainment; increased energy usage as well as an irrational
increase of wasted energy (energy usage that could be avoided without
hampering efficiency); and so on. Obviously I strongly oppose this
development. It is called Americanisation because the USA was the first
country showing this development -- in the 1950s to be exact -- European
countries followed throughout the 20th century.
Note that Americanisation is also (although relationally rarely) being
used as a positive term, describing fast technological development etc,
mostly by marketers and managers. When I use it however, its meaning is
exclusively negative, unless stated otherwise.

--
Alan Plum, WAD/WD, Mushroom Cloud Productions
http://www.mushroom-cloud.com/