I’ve decided that every hundred posts or so I’ll dwell into countering matter that I usually discuss. Normally you’d read me ranting about the service providers sucking at what they’re doing (like what Sony &co. are doing) but I really want to tell you that the customer base they have can be just as stupid as well. This might be somewhat harsh text, but hey, even I need to vent these things out.
Let’s take an example of the “hardcore gamers.” Let’s be clear once more; hardcore gamers do not exist. And why? Because the self-entitled HC gamers are nothing more than remnants of PC gamers. Why? Because the HD twins, and even before that, are nothing more than dumbed down PCs running dumbed down PC games. Why? Just to give a simple example; the PS3 is marked as a computer to avoid higher tax as they did with PS2. And UK court said nope. And I want to quote Kutaragi himself;
Recently, SCE president Ken Kutaragi went into great detail about how the PlayStation 3 is “clearly a computer,” not a games console.
“Speaking about the PS3, we never said we will release a game console,” he claimed in a recent interview with PC Impress Watch. “It is radically different from the previous PlayStation. It is clearly a computer.”
So yeah, the same applies to X360 by all means. Honestly, I would be completely fine with this. Both HD twins do have some games I wish to play. However, the customer base on all three platforms are just insanely stupid when it comes to both ignorance and sheer stupidity. They either do not acknowledge realities that are in their faces or they simply will not seek knowledge outside their opinions. They’re like religious zealots who can’t see past their own noses.
The Wii was the first proper home console since the NES. Both MegaDrive and SNES were already more PCs than their predecessors and PlayStation sealed the deal. 3D has always been more PC element that console element, and always will be. This is why Nintendo always fails when they release a console that concentrates on 3D; they’re going away from their arcade roots that sells. People wish to play arcade and console like games on home consoles. PC games have not vanished or PC gamers have not vanished; they’ve just moved to consoles.
And the customers are stupid enough not to notice this.
This is part of the problem, as many industries listen to customers the wrong way, especially the game industry. Yes, the industries’ are having a crisis because the rampaging creativity and all the bad it brings with it. Remember, it’s not the creativity that creates a good product, but research and craftsmanship that have little to none to do with creativity. The customers are blind to certain aspects they do not like to think and are victims to to their own idolization. Certain comic writers have become like gods in the industry that are allowed to do anything they want at the cost of the quality of the product and sales. One person who is like this is Grant Morrison, who is a good writer but is currently undermining the Action Comic by his behaviour. Morrison does not tell DC what is his plans on Action Comic and on Superman, which undermines another writer’s job and is being rewritten on number basis because Morrison is an asshat diva who is treated as creative god. Same with Miyamoto; the guy can do good games when he is forced to, but when his creativity is allowed to shine we get games that do not sell and of low quality. And the only people we can blame is the customers who idolize them.
Same with designers, where certain names always pop up. These guys always gets the god status due to their creativity, but only of them actually have proper reason to be at that state, as they actually spend half of their work hours just researching what they could do better for the customers, y’know, like a craftsman should. A service provider should never be a creative artist like the customer sees, because customers are idiots who can’t do research and do not know the difference. The industry has to know the difference, but as people from the customer side enter the business side, the industry begins to lose its integrity and the creative artist view takes more control and the quality of everything just drops like a dead fly.
If we want to keep having quality products, we the customers have to become more strict and face the truth. Let’s stop this god bullshit altogether and let’s start demanding better games, movies and comics. I want to see a new 2D Mario, but with the same budget and work that 3D Mario sees. Nintendo doesn’t like to do them, but honestly, fuck them if they don’t want my money. Just like Capcom. But as long the customers are bullshitting themselves with these terms of “harcore gamer” and “casual gamer” and thinking that the creators are some kind of gods, we’re never going to see anything of high quality again.
What we, the service providers, need do to fix this? First of all, stop bullshitting ourselves and stop jacking ourselves off to the creativity crap we’re loving so much. Let’s stop making pandering crap people keep talking about but never purchasing, and straighten out all the misconceptions that lead to low quality products. In other words; let’s start making good products and tell people that we’re listening, but not only the vocal minority that keeps circle jerking themselves.
Aaltomies 