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Niche Gaming and Joe Maddenite
Dagrabbit
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I hear the term “Joe Maddenite†thrown out a lot (in a recent thread as an example of “the lowest common denominator"), and it usually sounds derisive. It’s usually in the context of someone’s favorite game failing because Maddenites are too dumb to buy it. It sounds a little elitist, to me, when there might be other perfectly good reasons the game in question failed to find a large audience. So I have a few questions I hope to discuss in this thread.
1. Is Joe Maddenite a derisive term, or am I misreading its usage?
2. Is Joe Maddenite good or bad for the game industry?
3. Are there valid reasons that unpopular games beloved by this board were commercial failures beyond Joe’s lack of taste?
My answers: Yes, Good, and Yes. I think Joe is good for the industry in that he pumps more money into it. His PS2 may be little more than a football/basketball/cricket simulator, but I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. He wasn’t going to buy non-sports, non-blockbuster (Halo, GTA) games anyway.
As for unpopular games, you can always blame that on lack of/bad advertising, but a lot of these games just weren’t destined to have big sales. They often have stylized art which has limited appeal across the spectrum or an experimental gameplay mechanic that doesn’t have broad appeal. Some games are just going to have a niche audience by their very design. Roger Ebert once said about movies (paraphrased) that only bad movies are made for everyone; the same thing cound potentially apply to these games.
1. Is Joe Maddenite a derisive term, or am I misreading its usage?
2. Is Joe Maddenite good or bad for the game industry?
3. Are there valid reasons that unpopular games beloved by this board were commercial failures beyond Joe’s lack of taste?
My answers: Yes, Good, and Yes. I think Joe is good for the industry in that he pumps more money into it. His PS2 may be little more than a football/basketball/cricket simulator, but I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. He wasn’t going to buy non-sports, non-blockbuster (Halo, GTA) games anyway.
As for unpopular games, you can always blame that on lack of/bad advertising, but a lot of these games just weren’t destined to have big sales. They often have stylized art which has limited appeal across the spectrum or an experimental gameplay mechanic that doesn’t have broad appeal. Some games are just going to have a niche audience by their very design. Roger Ebert once said about movies (paraphrased) that only bad movies are made for everyone; the same thing cound potentially apply to these games.
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Clover Studios closing down supposedly because of such a beautiful product that should've sold as least as much as Halo is just really heartbreaking and utterly incomprehensible to me.
I'll agree that Okami's art style was great. But look at Psychonauts, for another example. A lot of people just don't like the super-distorted, pretty gross looking people in the game (myself included). The problem is that if you don't like the visual style of the game, you have to stare at it for 10 hours or more. It can really put people off buying something in such a visual medium.
It doesn't help that aside from the art, Okami is a pretty generic platforming game.
Games are meant to be fun. Just because someone doesn't like the strategy of chess or the beauty of Mahjongg tiles doesn't mean they shouldn't be aloud to play a round of Mousetrap or Hungry Hippos when they want to.
Have you even you know, PLAYED the game? Because Okami is clearly not a platforming game. If you want to call it a rip off of Zelda/Adventure games fair enough, but a platform game is not.
And I'm with Dagrabbit in that some games are never going to be big sellers. But that's okay, I don't think every game should aim to be a Halo killer, just like not every movie should be aimed to be a summer blockbuster.
not all of them mind.
And to explain, I didn't mean it derisively in the sense that "everyone who likes Madden is a moron." On the contrary, there are plenty of people who do like Madden who have wide tastes and like to try other things. However, there are lots of people who only buy Madden and maybe one other game a year, and are too stodgy to try anything even remotely unfamiliar. The phrase isn't a knock on the game or people who enjoy it, it's a knock on the extreme desire for familiarity, tied to the game that (arguably) is the biggest beneficiary of this mindset.
That said, the tendency is hardly unique to video games. There are the people who don't read any books aside from the ones on Oprah's list, and there are the people who flock to huge movie sequels. And in every case, people gripe about the fact that these types of people reward mediocrity and discourage the development of something different and potentially good.
Books and movies have dealt with this for years, but this is a relatively new phenomenon for games, since games were fairly niche by definition until a few years ago. And both books and movies have outlets for indie works, and plenty of them. Games do too... but to what extent? Is there really enough of an outlet for niche products, or is this industry too tied to large patrons that increasingly expect huge sales and have less taste for risk-taking? For instance, Square Enix used to put out all kinds of IPs, but now it's nearly impossible to find something made by them that isn't related to Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts.
Furthermore, as the cost of making a game skyrockets, will niche games be forced to downsize? Will we see more Puzzle Quests at the expense of Okamis and Psychonauts? I'd say yes, and that's a bad thing. Not to knock small games at all since they can be a blast, but I can't imagine something like Okami springing out of a small budget. In past generations, niche games could thrive since there was a much, much smaller financial risk. Madden selling bucketloads only benefits Madden... the majority of that audience isn't going to stick around and try something new, which is souring big publishers' taste for risk.
I believe Joe Maddon is the manager for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Are you saying that HHH is not the most compelling game of strategic maneuvering in the world today?
Yes, perhaps platform game was the wrong term to use. But none the less, you do wander the world blocked by arbitrary boundaries which can only be removed by following the fairly linear path to the new ability you'll use and then forget about after 2 hours, all while collecting various different objects for no particularily clear reason aside from getting better/earning items.
It's fun to an extent, but definitely felt incredibly derivative, and was only notable in any way because of how it looked.
EA should do a cross-promotion with some brewing companies and package beer with copies of Madden.
Because beauty is a relative measure.
Seems appropriate.
Actually, 'nitch' is acceptable pronunciation as well, and I'm pretty sure a lot more common.
Humanity as a whole is a mass of uncultured swines.
Whats the 'e' there for then dammit!
[/language pedant]
Yes, but the people that "Joe Maddenites" refers to are not the sort of ever refer to any videogame as "beautiful".
Pedants are supposed to be right, you spazz. :P Take it up with Merriam Webster.
I think it just stems from the fact that a lot of people enjoy being able to look down their nose at another group of people. Thus, the term "Joe Maddenite" is born. I don't really like Madden, or Halo. Hype (surrounding anything) really turns me off. I'm not going to bitch and moan about people who do enjoy those kinds of things though.
There will always be more people who want to play Madden & GTA and watch Jerry Bruckheimer movies than there are people with more aesthetic or thought-provoking taste. Industry will always cater to them because they are always willing to spend their money on the next iteration of what many of us see as "crap."
I'll be honest, here. I liked the idea of Okami's artwork, but in practice, it seemed strangely blurry and not that great in motion. It was a near-miss for me. Ever since playing that one level in Chrono Cross that looks like an Impressionist painting, I've been dying for that to be used as the artistic theme to some game. I can imagine some people would prefer a realistic-looking game. Taste in artistic design is incredibly subjective once you get past the technical merits.
I remember people being divided over Twilight Princess in this manner, actually.
"Nitch" would be a regional accent. The correct pronunciation, given it's French etymology, would indeed be "Neesh"
Miriam Webster can go fuck herself
The term isn't really refer to people that play one or both of those games, but rather the people whose only interest in gaming is getting drunk and playing sports titles, or the rare massive hit (Halo, GTA, maybe Final Fantasy), who some see as making it clear to devs/publishers that they're better off catering to that crowd to get their money, rather than catering to the smaller crowd of "gamers" who want more niche, "cult" hits, and worry that development of said titles is ignored in favor of catering to the masses.
Personally, it doesn't worry me. We're still getting plenty of smaller titles (in fact, it feels like last generation was the first one where smaller titles were often good games for cheap, rather than just shitty games), and the mainstream stuff also continues to get pumped out.
Really, no one is getting shafted as best I can tell.
True, but we shouldn't be naming anyone who likes playing these games/watching these movies as this undesirable "unculture swine" label, because really, sometimes I just want to shoot some aliens, or watch things get blown up.
That and the fact that a lot of the games you like are not all that great any way. I'm sorry... Okami isn't fun to play for me and a lot of poeple. Oh well, shit, people like different things. Soe people don't want to play a game where you roll shit up in a ball. some people want to play a game of a sport they like or a game where they get to feel badass and shoot shit. Different people like different things and labeling people in a negative way because they don't like the things you like is dumb and childish. Shut the fuck up and deal with it.
Also, that PA comic is adding to the stupidity
Put it in terms of a gourmet watching a dude who eats McDonalds for lunch every day.
This is one of the reasons I wanted to include q niche gaming discussion in this thread. A lot of the niche games that people on this board like, I actually don't like at all. Sometimes people seem shocked that game X didn't see as well as Halo, but the games might not actually be all that great. In the Okami example, I think it's possible to like the art-style so much you forgive the other flaws (or Psychonauts' sense of humor), but that doesn't mean that those flaws don't exist. People less enamored with those aspects of the game might more readily see the flaws and think the game isn't very good.
There was a "Top 100 2006" game list posted and 14 of the 20 top selling games scored over 90% on GameRankings. The only really, truly excellent game that didn't sell well was Okami.
-Masses buy Madden and 50 Cent: Bulletproof in droves: CASUAL GAMERS ARE STUPID SHEEP
-Masses buy Wii and DS in droves: CASUAL GAMERS ARE THE FUTURE, YAY
I mean obviously this is reducing the argument to a pretty base (read: stupid) level but I'm not entirely compelled to judge a game or system positively (or negatively) by how much it sells. The DS isn't great because [INSERT MEME ABOUT CURRENCY PRODUCTION HERE], but because it's got something for you whether you like 2D Castlevanias or quickie puzzle games or adventure-style story games or Mario Does Something Again. Madden doesn't suck because it sells, it "sucks" because you don't like football (or have played NFL 2K5).