Casualties of Evolution

Have you played Farmville recently? Have you got an Xbox gamer score? Have you brought something over the Playstation or LIVE networks? If you answer yes to any of those then you have participated in the huge changes in this generation of video gaming. Gaming has left its three decade pursuit of graphical perfection and the market now leans towards community and diversity. However, this change has been the downfall of some long standing products and traditions. Such a fast-paced and expanding industry would always have casualties of its evolution, but what we have lost and what we stand to lose is quite significant.

The arcade is the first victim of this video gaming revolution. Whilst the heyday of arcade gaming was certainly before the time of many Boar readers, we were still blessed enough to enjoy its wake. The arcade has survived many opponents such as home consoles and internet cafe’s, only very recently was it defeated, downsized and relegated to cinemas and bowling alleys. In the UK this is because home entertainment technology now equals, if not betters the arcade experience. We have TV’s the same size, sound systems the same quality and the ability to play with people all around the world, not just those next to us. In the 21st century all the arcade experience had left was the social interaction, the high scores and the competition against strangers were the last unique perk. This was destroyed when the PS3 and 360 were released.

In the West, the fall of the arcade was slow and hard to notice but in Japan, the damage has been a sudden and critical blow. A thriving social environment and profitable industry has been utterly obliterated. Last year Namco Bandai and Sega, the leading Arcade game producers, closed over 160 arcades across the country. These arcades are not the tiny dark rooms or corner of service station affairs we have; they are six story ‘game centres’, paragons of the Japanese culture that many here are obsessed about.

If you are one of those gamers who doesn’t fall head over heels for Japanese culture or if you wonder why we should care at all that the arcade is firmly on its death bed, then you need to remember how many of our favourite games are actually arcade games. Famous series like Tekken, Street Fighter, Dance Dance Revolution and Time Crisis are all arcade games. It may be too late to save the arcade now, but all hope is not lost for other casualties of evolution.

If home consoles introduced one new thing that the arcades didn’t have, it was cheating. Take away the object of money and public competition and cheating is something acceptable and fun to do. Cheats have been around since the time of games on cassettes and things haven’t changed much. For decades the basic principal was to press a certain combination of buttons at a certain point to make a certain awesome thing happen. Now however, this simple act has also been wiped out. Mainstream games are now about money and competition once more. Many more games today have online modes than they did 10 or even 5 years ago, and almost all PS3/Xbox games have achievement points or trophies. Many of the things you do in games are recorded online, fair competition comes into play, and so cheating becomes WRONG.

Some will not miss cheating, but a lot of people will. If it wasn’t the joy of running through a game like a god, then it was the relief of getting past a place where you had been stuck for hours. Cheat cartridges were a popular peripheral from the late 80s to 2006. They not only allowed for simple cheating but also for modification. This led to a whole spectrum of mischief, players could access secret levels and other objects removed from the final game but still present on the disk. The most renowned examples of this are the (sort of) resurrection of Aerith in Final Fantasy 7 and the hugely political Grand Theft Auto sex game scandal, which spawned years of lawsuits, public outcry and new gaming legislation in the US. The huge potential for fun and modification has been lost to mainstream gaming in favour of the online community. Now if a person is stuck on a level or can’t defeat a boss, there is no way out, no skipping around or god mode. The only options are to come back later or to give up entirely.

If you are a gamer and you still haven’t found reason to care then I offer one more possible fatality of the future. The idea of ‘hardcore gaming’ itself is now under threat. In the last few years, thanks to the internet and the Wii, casual gaming has seen not just a rise but domination. The top selling UK game of 2008 was Mario Kart, followed closely by titles like Wii Fit and Brain Training. These same games continued to top the charts well into this year; only FIFA 09 and Call of Duty: World at War have come close to beating them in sales.

Huge sums of money are being invested in advertising and appealing to mature and female gamers rather than the greasy, bedroom bound teenager. In the UK the majority of gaming publicity, outside of specialist magazines and websites, is targeted at families and casual gamers. This is however not a true sign of changing demographics, but a move towards greater profit. Males aged 18-34 will remain the ‘core’ of games sales and we will be handsomely catered for. The difficulty for publishers lies in making enough money from this market in the ever changing entertainment economy. Many of us know what games we are interested in buying, TV spots and newspaper adverts are lost on us in favour of online reviews and E3 teasers. Those who know less about games are more open to persuasion by mainstream promotion and, as a result, game publicity is continually being catered toward this “casual” market in an attempt to diversify their target audience.

Thankfully there is some good news for everybody, the rise of casual gaming and online connectivity does hold tremendous potential for a bright future. Games where controllers aren’t needed, just your voice and movement are in development, worlds of visual splendour that equal reality and touch upon the vast reaches of fantasy are on the horizon. From the MMO junkies and FPS Pros to the Wii playing families and the 33 million users on Farmville, the entire spectrum of gaming is contributing to this extraordinary future. The only thing I hope is that everyone who reads this article will remember to keep a firm grip on the past and a sharp eye on the future.