PixlBit

One of my more random gaming related hobbies is looking up articles and scans from old magazines—EGM, Gamepro, and so forth. I was an avid buyer of various mags when I was little; I’d go to the convenience store 5 minutes away from my house almost every weekend and pick something up with my $5 allowance (which was baller money back in elementary school). It’s fun going back to them from time to time and seeing what was what from an adult perspective.

Recently, I came across some interesting editorials in old EGM scans.

The first comes from Dan Hsu, an Associate Editor at the time, back in April of ’98. As excited as he was for the imminent release of Ocarina of Time (which he wasn’t even sure would be called that in the U.S. yet), there was something about the hype over an old IP that bothered him:

“Programmers have settled into a Laz-E-Boy of complacency. They take yesteryear’s hits and pump them up with new graphics and sounds, stick in a few new features, and ship them off to the stores. It’s the easy thing to do: game designers can skip racking their brains for original concepts and simply improve upon documented hits...

Are all the good and original ideas taken up? Let's hope not. While I'm sure I'll have fun playing the next Mario or Sonic game, I'll eagerly awaiy the next fresh concept that's not based on an older one. Who knows what will be the next game that cannot be classified as a Doom-clone, head-to-head fighter or yearly sports game update?[...] We need some innovative game designers to come up with some innovative ideas. We need someone to pleasantly shock and surprise us again. Is anyone out there up to the challenge?”

Then there’s this OP/ED from Senior Editor Danyon Carpenter almost three years earlier:

“All these games [Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Mortal Kombat 3, and others] represent the best games these systems [SNES and Genesis] have seen in a long time. But unfortunately, not many of you will be willing to play them once the Playstation and Saturn become the main staple of your TV diets.

But that’s not a bad thing. Change is good and I’m all for these big-buck games with lots of flash and pizazz, but if they don’t offer the plain old fun that video games should offer, then what’s the point?

[…] I’m not saying that none of these upcoming Playstation, Saturn or Ultra 64 games won’t be fun, but I most certainly hope they don’t rely on gimmicky graphics to sell themselves. That will only lead to disappointment.”

It’s amazing how these views could be so prescient, and yet so unaware of where gaming would go after these issues came out.

I'm sure no one could've imagined back then that you'd routinely see games at retail with movie sized budgets and marketing campaigns. Such expidentures are the direct result of that march upwards in graphics and scope Carpenter worried about. And judging by the crazy tech demos we've seen for the PS4, the financial losses and studio closures of this gen haven't convinced the industry to change course. Thus big publishers have pretty much handed over the more risky, innovative end of game design to the indie market, while they hunt for the mythical COD-style hit with ever slicker, bigger, and prettier weapons.

Nor could they have possibly seen the rise of mobile gaming; it wouldn't be until the 2000's that we even saw stuff like touch screens or color displays on phones. And the notion of games which charge money for stuff like item upgrades and continues would've been a sick joke back then. Lo and behold, smartphone gaming and models like free-to-play have taken off in a way that would've been inconcievable just 10 years ago.

Along with the rise of indie gaming, the gaming business is being irreversibly and radically altered in countless ways. I can only imagine how the industry is going to look 15 years from now.