Cynicism is a rapidly spreading disease, and our generation is suffering from a terrible case of it. On one level, you can’t blame us. The people who came before us have destroyed the economy, and the unrest seems to spill over into all areas of our lives. It makes maintaining relationships more difficult, it makes our jobs more difficult, and (applicable to this site’s focus) it makes enjoying hobbies such as gaming difficult. Let’s face it – gaming culture has gone down the tubes. Even gaming journalism has gone down the shaft. More and more sites would rather take time to show favoritism by bashing their least favorite gaming platforms than actually cover the art of gaming itself.
But just in general, it seems today that more people love to jump on the internet and bitch about the game they are playing than actually lose themselves in the experience and enjoy the moment. But Nintendo holds a special place in this circle-jerk of hate. Everybody wants a piece of Nintendo. Some people hate them for instigating the Wii-era that brought in the largest number of new players in many generations. Other older cynical players despise them for the old adage of “teh k1ddy” that has existed since the age of the Genesis and wish Nintendo would conform to their demographic and start producing more Western games for adults. Then there’s the newer breed of Nintendo bashers who wish the company would clear the way for Apple and start porting Pokemon and Super Mario to the iOS so they can play it by tilting their iPhones between sessions of Angry Birds.
But each of these groups have one thing in common: they’re all populated nearly 100% by adults. Sure, there’s the occasional kid in there just jumping on the bandwagon in order to emulate a “cooler” older sibling, but in general it’s all jaded adults bashing on the house that Mario and Pikachu built. They’re done with Nintendo, and they can’t understand why Nintendo didn’t just grow up and continue to cater to them. The answer is that Nintendo is no longer for them. These players now prefer cheaper shallow experiences on their phone to fit into their busy lifestyles, or they want bloody, gritty, mature content that suits the blockbuster Western mindset. Maybe they’re just too cynical to enjoy a damn game at all because they spend their entire playtime analyzing it so they can bitch about it on a forum when they’re done playing. Either way, Nintendo is no longer for them.
The whole situation brings to mind something Walt Disney once said. “I do not make films primarily for children. I make them for the child in all of us, whether we be six or sixty.” That’s the role Nintendo has now assumed in the gaming universe. The HD console market has become a very hostile place to be a kid. Gone are the colorful faces, and bouncy characters that once populated the PS2 and Wii. While we once laughed at games like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, Billy Hatcher, or Blinx: The Time Sweeper, these were the filler titles that got kids into console gaming. Now these games have been pushed aside for HD adult-centric content because they aren’t considered good return investments when the cost to develop them has risen so high and the demographic for the HD boxes has become so decidedly 18-45.
So where are the younger generation to go? Sure, a lot of the 7-12 year olds simply follow their older siblings onto Xbox Live for some CoD or Halo (much to our annoyance), but more and more of the younger kids are growing up today on tablets with their limited touch-only interfaces. Where did all the non-Mario Kart kart racers go? Tablets. Where did all the cheapo family friendly Disney/Nickelodeon licensed games go? Tablets. It’s become apparent that tablets are taking over as the new playground for low quality kids games that parents buy for the little kids that are just starting to sink their baby teeth into the hobby.
These kind of filler titles we once ridiculed as mindless shovel-ware used to be spread out on the traditional console boxes, but as game development costs have risen, all the lower entry level stuff has been moved out to other platforms. All that’s left is the high grade, AAA teen/adult market. This is a very dangerous direction to take. By kicking kid’s games off of consoles, we’ve left the next generation to grow up on non-traditional gaming devices like tablets and phones. Who is to say that these kids will suddenly wake up one day and make the switch to PlayStation or Xbox to play Halo 5, Street Fighter VI, or Call of Duty 7? Who is to say these franchises will even exist in a decade? Games like these are targeted to players who are in the 25-45 range – people like you and me. Players our age are the target adult demographic of “now”, but we’re getting older each and every year. Who’s going to fill our shoes when we get married, have kids, and get too busy to play? Publishers are literally feeding the next generation of players to Google/Facebook/Apple.
All that stands between us and a generation of tablet kids is Nintendo. The very company that so many adults wish would just go away or make games for them is the very company that stands as the last major producer of family/kid friendly traditional video games in today’s adult centric gaming market. It is for that very reason Nintendo must stop listening to its adult critics. Nintendo must embrace their kiddy image and cater to this market that nobody else in the HD market seems to want. There are adult Nintendo fans who will always have the ability to summon their inner child and see the joy that a trip to the Mushroom Kingdom can bring, but the rest of those who have moved on should be left to their devices.
Nintendo enjoyed bragging about how much adult content Wii U will have at launch, but the simple truth is that Nintendo can’t cater to the adult market because they’ll never own it. Shooter fans will always flock to Xbox. The gamer-tag ecosystem will keep them there. There’s of course the Nintendo nostalgia factor that appeals to their non-core fanbase, but the nostalgia train also only goes so far. It’s time for Nintendo to fully embrace the next generation of younger players. The adult hardcore market is cornered by Sony/Microsoft, and Apple has the adult casual market that Wii once catered to. Nintendo will never get these fickle players back. The gaming audience is too fragmented now. Nintendo must now focus entirely on providing the same kind of AAA family friendly that we enjoyed as kids for today’s generation while specifically marketing themselves as the one, true family friendly traditional games platform. Nobody else is doing it. Apple could if they wanted to, but Apple doesn’t have Nintendo’s timeless faces and Steve Jobs doesn’t care about gaming.
Nintendo games know no age limit other than that which we place on ourselves. Be they young in body, or young at heart, nobody is truly too old for Mario. Our generation grew up and became selfish. Do we really expect our kids to play the same kind of adult games that we play now? No. Eight year old kids should not be playing Call of Duty on Xbox Live. They deserve to grow up with the same style of Nintendo games we grew up with, re-imagined for a new generation. Nintendo is the last wall between a generation of kids growing up without the controller. The sooner they embrace their kiddy status, the better off we’ll all be going forward.
Popularity: 2% [?]
3 comments