How the Hardcore Built...
the great gaming wall
the great gaming wall
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Once upon a time, gaming had no stigma. The game console held a prized spot in the living room. Neighbors would come over to ooh and ahh over at the new machine. Fathers and mothers would smile at their children playing and play along with them. Girls frequently played. Old people played. When Space Invaders was released for the Atari 2600, people in town rushed around a console to look at amazement that the arcade game could be played on their TVs! At that moment, the Atari 2600’s sales began to take off.
Gaming was for everyone, and everyone played games. Fast forward to today. There is a sturdy wall that divides the gamer from the non-gamer. Like a boy’s treehouse, older adults are excluded. Girls are not allowed and constantly mocked. Games are seen by the mainstream as a waste of time and something only for children (or males who haven’t grown up). Instead of being a prized addition to the living room, the console is shunned. As soon as it is done being played with, it is frequently removed from the living room. Anything gaming related, such as a controller, is removed from the public area as if such practice was a dirty habit that one must be ashamed about.
How did this happen? People can blame the complexity of the controller and games all day, but the games industry didn’t start with this wall. Who to blame? And how do we fix it?
The blame I place squarely on the hardcore gamers who, through their own behavior, have turned gaming into an exclusive macho tree-house.
The Gold Standard of the Game Business Decisions
The macho tree-house was the original prison for games. Due to mostly technological reasons, games were confined to mainframes and the few universities that could afford them. Space War was a stroke of genius. But as technology accelerated, games stayed within their confines. A selected few people were able to play games if they went to the right university.
Since the game industry is cyclical, the games change but good business decisions remain forever. One can arguably learn 95% of how the games industry ‘works’ by studying the Atari era alone.
But what is the most important business decision of all that, like a stone tossed into a pond, keeps rippling the same waves throughout the time and cycles?
While university attendees saw in Space War only technology and amusement for themselves, Nolan Bushnel smelled opportunity. The masses would pay to play these video games similar to how they pay to play pinball.
Nolan Bushnel’s first ‘video game’ was “Computer Space”. The game resembled Space War with its gravitational pulls and space shooting. The game flopped, and Bushnel accurately predicted the solution would be a game that appealed to the masses. Thus, Pong was introduced and became the first commercially successful video game. I call the decision of a mass appeal title like Pong over the macho tree-house title Computer Space the gold standard of all future game related business decisions since the Pong vs. Computer Space can be applied to any game and any console from today, to the past, and forever in the future. Those fortunate companies, betraying the egos of friends and themselves, who would make games for the masses would be enriched while those who made games for the niche would fast sink into oblivion.
Stigma and Entertainment
In the entertainment business, there is a common pattern of successful franchises overshooting the market due to enthusiasts’ demand. The movie “Star Wars” in the 70s was a successful disruption of the ‘elite’ movies at that time period with their “deep plots” and all. Even to this day, those movie enthusiasts of the 70s believe “Star Wars” wrecked movies (while the masses say it saved it). “Star Wars”, as time went on, began to become dominated by enthusiasts. What was once entertainment turned into a cult. Soon, “Star Wars” fans began to become seen as dorks, virgins, and all around losers.
Another excellent example of this would be Star Trek. Only with the fourth movie did the franchise become ‘big’ and Paramount gave a green light to Gene Roddenberry’s new series: “The Next Generation”. Ratings grew. But enthusiasts began to emerge and turned the show into a cult (which began to run the franchise into the ground). These ‘Trekkies’ had their conventions, their vast number of books, and were literally absorbed by ‘Star Trek’. Paramount began to focus on appeasing the enthusiasts than going on their original concept of entertainment for the masses. Trekkies wanted a more mature and character based Star Trek. They got “Deep Space Nine” (whose ratings only sank). They wanted another starship show so they got “Voyager” (whose ratings also sank). Eventually, they ended up with “Enterprise” whose ratings were so poor that Paramount had to kill the series (as well as the movie line). Star Trek ceased to be seen as entertainment for the masses and began to be seen as a ‘cult’ in itself. Stigma grew about ‘trekkies’ as the franchise withered on the vine.
The comic book industry, once the apple of everyone’s eye with its creations of Superman, Spider-man, and all the rest, turned cult like and imploded. People said it was time for the comic book industry to ‘grow up’. It was time for ‘mature’ comic books, even some with lots of violence and nudity. Dark themes were in. As the comic book industry crashed, collectors got burned. The enthusiasts’ demand for ‘mature’ and ‘dark themes’ drove away the bread and butter of the comic book industry: kids and their families.
The parallels between the video game industry and these other forms of entertainment should be easily seen. The move toward ‘mature’ and ‘dark themed’ games will only drive away kids and families, the bread and butter of the games industry. (Strangely, many people collect ‘games’ as comic book fans collect ‘comics’).While game websites cheer over the cosplayers, others view them as the Trekkies of today. Gaming, once a mass focused industry, is beginning to slip into a cult like focus.
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