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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Culture and Videogames: The Last of a Dying Breed is Dead

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Progressivism is destroying all worlds.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, E3 2015 is a time for new things and evolution. So we should be excited. But it's also a time of apprehension.

People like to say that Nintendo is "behind" on the times, like, a whole generation behind the rest of the industry. You know, with the supposedly 20th century Internet infrastructure. Well, I've always been a proponent of the "traditional" way of doing things, whether it be a culture drenched in traditional values, or just being able to buy a game cartridge and have the full game available right there without ever needing to connect online or purchase anything else.

So it's a fantastic thing, as a hardcore gaming fan, that Nintendo still appreciated these traditional values. However, ever since they were hammered hard by the anti-Nintendo #Miiquality movement, Nintendo has had to re-evaluate their positioning or else face backlash from fascist bullies. This affected not only their aesthetics, but also their practices in the videogame industry, detailed below.

Since that time, Nintendo has rushed to adopt "modern" industry practices faster than you would expect. Now Nintendo is all-in on the digital shopping front. Now Nintendo is releasing games and consoles with large day 1 patches, be it Super Smash Bros. 4 or your Wii U. Now Nintendo is releasing buggy game-breaking patches that have to be fixed. (Thanks, Mewtwo DLC!) Now Nintendo is releasing games with Season Passes for unknown future DLC. Now Nintendo is launching games with disc-locked content that you have to pay for to get unlocked.

Splatoon Inkling Boy amiibo sup playa disc-locked content
"Sup, playa?! Thanks for enabling Nintendo's descent into exploitative gaming practices!"
#WiggerWednesday

And as I've covered many times before (and we'll keep covering it), Nintendo is going in on the addictive, toxic, and blood diamond-backed free-to-play gaming model. This is a major trend that other Japanese game publishers are going into as they enter the mobile space and ditch traditional videogame platforms. It's happening to SEGA to the point that they're not even having a booth at E3 2015. And as we all know, Nintendo is doing it too with their partnership with DeNA.

Basically, it's very clear that Nintendo is adopting all of these "modern" practices rather quickly, and it's also clear that gaming is taking a distinctly negative turn. Nintendo used to be a safeguarded fortress from these negative practices. We used to watch the other companies' E3 presentations to get a feel for "how the other half lives" and take comfort that Nintendo fans could continue living in the upscale suburban purple cube McMansion.

Now the wave of "progress" has hit Nintendo as well. Which makes E3 an increasingly more frightening time for us who are afraid of change. The ESA bills E3 as a time for "evolution", but it's more like "deevolution". Despite advances (or steps back) in technology and new ways to extract money from consumers, are your gaming experiences as a player really better than they were four ten years ago?

It's not. And as far as I'm concerned, our culture (and you can measure this in statistics) was a lot better before the progressives got to it. We had people getting married, having children while married, and staying married. Poverty was lower. Crime was lower. Graduation rates were higher. People were most pleasant. All this liberalisation crap is just making everything worse.

We gotta go back 50 years ago in culture (maybe 160 for good measure) and 10-15 in gaming and then we'll be in happy times again.

I doubt that's what'll happen at E3, though. 


Ludwig is a ridiculous crank and you're free to disagree with him, though if you disagree with him here you're likely to disagree with almost every KoopaTV article on the site. Fortunately, if you voice your disagreements in the comments section, you can win rewards like free Nintendo games!


What DID happen at E3? Nintendo promoted a theme  of "transformation"... uh-oh.
Fire Emblem Fates epitomises the dying culture. This would've never happened 10 years ago.
Callie the Inkling is now picking up idiotic slang as well.

9 comments :

  1. I don't hate online purchasing, but seriously, mobile free-to-plays are awful and oh my god Nintendo what are you even doing with the Amiibos aaaaa-

    So while DLC is all well and good, they've taken it too far.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, woah, welcome back to the KoopaTV comments section! Glad to have you.

      I have a few specific reasons why I put digital storefront in my list of modern problems (I'd still rather have physical Ace Attorney than digital-only), including the Digital Deluxe Promotion being so horribly ran. (More on that at the end of the week, spoiler alert.)

      Yeah Nintendo is getting out of control so who knows what'll happen next!

      Delete
  2. Hyrule Warriors 3DS hype! #BoatsFTW.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hyrule Warriors 3DS is as uninteresting as the Wii U one.

      ...That said, winking Tetra is always adorable, but why does normal Zelda have the Wind Waker and an actual Wind Waker character doesn't?

      Delete
    2. Those are just aesthetics.
      The game will obviously be amazing because it is a Zelda title. All Zelda titles are great. Therefore this one will also be great.

      Delete
    3. .......... Suit yourself.

      Chances are if you liked Hyrule Warriors, you'll like a de-make of it too.

      Delete
  3. I feel the same way, Ludwig. After seeing what is happening to the culture and the video game industry, I definitely get nostalgic for the past. Though I have fond memories of the snes era and the n64 era, I really miss the gamecube era. Metroid Prime alone made it one of my favorite consoles. Do you remember anyone criticizing the gamecube for not playing dvds like the ps2 and xbox? I recall some of my friends doing so. I mean, it was convenient, but I thought it was strange for people to dislike a video game system for simply being nothing more than a video game system.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The reason I basically singled out the GameCube as the last era we gotta return to (despite adoring cartridges) is that it was the last dedicated game system on the market from any company. ...Well, the DS was too, I guess.

      Oh yeah, people criticised the GCN for that, and the GCN paid for it dearly by getting in last place while the PS2 sold BECAUSE it was a cheap DVD player. PS3 sold BECAUSE it was a cheap (relatively) Blu-Ray player. Not for the games.

      Now we see Nintendo trying to play catch-up by initiating total failures like Nintendo TVii, which no one uses and people don't even know what it is. TVii was hyped up as this huge thing and, of course, had nothing to do with videogames. For whatever reason, it works with other companies and not Nintendo, and I like to think Nintendo should just recognise that and embrace their videogame-only business model. (...So... then there's this health thing going on...)

      So thank you for raising some good points, Anonymous!

      Delete
    2. (By "health thing" I mean "Quality of Life")

      Delete

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