Hi Dark, Well, there are a lot of factors to consider when discussing the popularity of a certain game, and while commercialization may be a contributing factor that is not the be all and end all of a certain game's success.
To begin with as games are meant to be entertaining therefore it stands to reason the success or failure of a certain game is how well can it entertain one or more players. If a game is boring, not very entertaining, it won't matter if the game is commercial or outright free because if it isn't entertaining people won't play it. That, of course, begs the question what makes a game entertaining? For one thing the majority of people around the world usually enjoy games that are easy to learn and play. The game itself need not necessarily be simplistic, but just easy enough to get the general idea of how the game is played and can get better at over time. there are many games of that sort such as Monopoly or various card games like Poker. Learning the rules of the game and how it is played is easy, but just knowing the basics won't make the new player an expert at the game. Value judgments of when the hold and when to fold etc requires experience. The second issue is challenge or competition. I think it is safe to say most people are competitive, like some challenges, and naturally a game that is challenging, one in which the player has to work for the victory, will be very entertaining. I can remember back in the 80's when the only video games that were around were the classic arcade games like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, and so on. Although, simplistic from a design point of view what made those games so addictive is trying to top my prior score. I'd reach a point where I'd bomb out of the game and have to start over, and when I did I'd try to beat my prior scores which meant I was in competition with myself. In two-player mode those games were even more challenging because I was not only trying to top my prior scores I'd be trying to beat whomever I was playing against. The thing is I often played the games with the most challenge over and over again, because I enjoyed the challenge, the competition, and rarely played games I could easily complete. Once I made it to the final level or boss level of a game I'd put that game away and start something else, because I had been there done that per se. I would often play a game until I beat it or finally decided victory was impossible for me. So I think challenge is a key ingredient in what makes a game popular, entertaining, and what makes a game good or bad. Finally, I think the game's theme or storyline has a lot to do with its success or failure. A game based on a very popular storyline or game characters has a good chance of being a big hit just because the content is already popular. Games based on Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and other big name trademarks usually garner a lot of attention from gamers because its an interactive way to play their favorite characters and interact with their favorite stories. To give you an example in the late 80's and early 90's I was a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan. Not surprising one of the games I begged and begged my parents to get me was TMNT for my Nintendo. When I finally got it I would spend hours on that game alone almost to the exclusion of everything else I owned. Not because the game itself was the best game in the world, but because it was the Ninja Turtles. I got to pick out the turtle I wanted to control and take on Bebop, Rock Steady, Krang, Shredder, and lots of foot soldiers. Another game I went crazy over was the 1989 Batman game for the NES that was a tie-in to the 1989 movie. It wasn't exactly like the movie of course, most games aren't, but I enjoyed going through the streets of Gothom City beating up the Joker's thugs, destroying robots, and eventually kicking the Joker's butt in the clock tower. The point being here while TMNT and Batman were decent games in of themselves the real entertainment value for me personally was that they were based on characters and stories I enjoyed to begin with. Other games like Megaman, Castlevania, Double Dragon, etc were cool, but they didn't have that emotional high of being Batman or the Ninja Turtles. I guess the way to summarize it I had an emotional and personal attachment to the game's characters that were not present in a game with generic heroes and villains. thus those games were more entertaining for me. Cheers! On 5/15/14, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > I would agree that looking at the appeal of a game (or indeed anything > else), to a majority is indeed important, especially if the game is to be > sold. > > That being said, there is far too much in terms of capitalism which assumes > > this is the only measure of what is good, or even worse, attempts to create > > a majority preference by simply telling people what to think via > advertising. > > For example, look at all the adverts that say to people "you won't be > attractive, popular, successful etc unless you use product x" irrispective > of whether the product is good or not, or even whether the product is > harmful. > > of course audio games haven't got into these sorts of practices, but there > is a danger of stagnation if say every game was similar to Q9 because Q9 was > > successful for being simple. > > Indeed as I said in my recent message I'm not absolutely certain often what! > > makes a popular game popular, let alone what makes it good or not. > > With h2g2 and other games where the novelist or film director absolutely > forced the game designer to follow the game's plot, that is funnily enough > an instance in which i'd argue that the novelist did not realize what was a > > good characteristic of a novel might not be a good characteristic for a > game. > > For example, in the lord of the rings game for the Snes, there were orcs in > > the caves around hobbiton, and Frodo, merry and pippin had to enter the > caves and find Gaffer Gamgee's glasses before they could progress. > > In terms of the world of Lotr this is pure and absolute tosh! however for an > > rpg which needs a first dungeon for characters to gain experience and level > > a bit, it made perfect sense. > > Indeed while I'd cryticise the lotr films for mangling the history and > consistancy of middle earth quite badly, I'd never level similar cryticisms > > of any lotr computer game, sinse the goals of a computer game are > dramatically different from those of a novel, (far more than a novel is from > > a film), and there would be no way to have a game even vaguely consistant to > > the book. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. 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