Episode 7 Promo!

Episode 7 airs September 6th on LCC-TV! Tell your friends!

Accidentally Iconic Images

I was having a conversation with my friend Luke Kane today, and we realized how iconic the first, or near-first images of old games are. This is especially true of games back "in the day" (that's what people who are as old as me refer to games around in the late 80's and early 90's). Since there wasn't a save system on most games back then, you ended up playing the first level dozens or maybe even hundreds of times.

I started thinking about this because of the emotional reaction I have whenever I see images from the first levels of some important, older games. These images have been seared into my memory and are instantly recognizable. You could probably remove everything but just a few aspects of each image, and people would still recognize it immediately. For example:

I bet if I were to leave a silhouette of just the bricks and blocks, most gamers would recognize it.

Let's look at some others.

Now, this doesn't really happen as often in newer games. Older games had such a limited perspective, what you saw in the first few seconds is about all there is to that vista. Entering the world of 3D games doesn't quite offer the same specificity. But there are some exceptions:

But for the most part, this doesn't happen quite so strongly anymore because of the ability to save your game and the flexibility in your perspective in 3D games. But it is something that is interesting to think about.

Anybody have their own examples?

3DS Price Chop

The 3DS wasn't cheap. $250 was the same price the PSP launched, and people thought that was pretty crazy for a handheld system. Then Nintendo launches a system and nobody really seemed to complain about the "Golden Child" of the console manufacturer. Admit it, they are. Nobody complains about Nintendo the same way they do about Sony or Microsoft. But that is beside the point.

A $70 price cut? That's not even a cut, that's a chop. That is massive, and so soon! It's nothing short of alarming. What does it mean? And why did Iwata, the CEO of Nintendo, take a 50% pay cut? What is happening to my beloved Nintendo?! Bringer of so much joy to my childhood!

Well, I think, as Penny Arcade already pointed out, it's all about smartphones. As I already mentioned, I find it difficult to find a truly compelling use case for a handheld console in the face of my iPhone. I don't want to carry a whole separate device around just for playing games.

But more important than that, smartphones, in particular the App Store, has completely transformed what we expect from mobile games. Not only in terms of price ($1 vs $40), but in terms of gameplay style. It never made that much sense, in most cases, to have a full, immersive experience on the go. I think a lot of it comes from the legacy of games development. Handheld systems' primary goals seemed to be to replicate, as closely as possible, the home console experience. Early on, with the Gameboy, that meant simple games like Mario. But because that philosophy still persists, it now means games like Uncharted 2.

This is totally wrong for a multitude of reasons, and that's why iPhone gaming has become the new way we play mobile games. Bite-sized games at bite-sized prices. You usually only have a few minutes at a time, so when games only last that long, you're much more likely to play them. This is mobile gaming now.

People's expectations have changed, and Nintendo and Sony still haven't quite caught on to that.