Politics in gaming

Funnily enough, this is yet another article somewhat attached off the back of an idea made somewhat popular in discussion by Colin Moriarty. I didn't have a reason to mention him specifically last time (though, he was the person I was referring to as bringing up a judge panel idea), but this time it's probably important because he has the best set stage I've seen to the question here today on this video. Though that said, I first heard it from a die-hard Uncharted fanatic talking about what one of the lead people at Naughty Dog had said. I... really don't like the guy who speaks on behalf of them, and he has made some incredibly absurd and painfully ironic statements, but I actually agree with both him and Colin on this one. However, I've clearly got more to add, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time writing this stuff. ...and there's a lot to write about it. So if you don't know the question by now, let's pitch it: Should we take politics out of gaming? The quick answer is, no. And here's why (minor witcher 3 spoilers):

It's about good writing, not shutting down politics

The longer answer is why you're reading this article instead of doing something better with your time. Anyway the topic comes up when Naughty Dog's director (I think) was asked to keep his personal politics out of The Last of Us 2. He responded with a clear "No", and even pointed to the original's ending as a sign of his political influences. Again, I'll agree with that sort of idea. However, the problem is... this almost feels like one of those dumb internet communication bits. I hear a lot of, and would even say I come very much from the same side that says not to put politics in gaming. I get it, I sympathize with it, and depending on the phrasing I'll be standing on that side of the issue. However that's the key here, the phrasing is all messed up from this side. It's just like with objective reviews. Nobody is actually asking you to suck out your soul and human tone from a review, so you can get everything 100% factual. We're asking for you to give the most transparent, least biased sort of review, and take some effort to explain how you arrived at your conclusions. There's a big difference between that, and slapping together some political message infused review that you were secretly paid off to give a good score, which is something that has and even continues to happen. Similarly, when people ask of you to keep political messages out of games, there's a huge difference from Metal Gear Solid subtly telling you about the dangers of war and patriotism, versus Far Cry 3's protagonist being a whiny baby about how much of a "monster" he's become because he had to fight to survive.

Far Cry 3 is the icon of what you don't want to do with politics in gaming. They decided to write in a message they thought would strike out against the culture, and be all edgy and make the average american shooter fan think. In truth, it was such a confused and poorly written mess, that it wound up being hated for it's "ironic" racist message instead, because it turns out the FPS is fun market aren't actually the audience right now that gets all worked up on messages. Instead it's the people who naturally see the world in the same stupid light FC3 did, with rich white spoiled kids having joy rides, drug fueled maniacs, how fighting to survive is a savage and brutal chore, and that your game is hip for having weed and dubstep in it. So they didn't connect with the racist white guy ruler satire that was pulled, and called it racist, which... it kind of was, but not in the way they thought. It's just that the game was that poorly written. Furthermore, the worst part, was the main character and his forced hokey "I'm a monster!" dialogue that just came in constantly by a certain mark. That may have been the only time writing ever left me only cringing... and literally cringing, not some exaggerated disgust, not laughing at it for being so bad it's good, but literally "How on earth did someone sit down, and actually write this, and it passed off as a good fluid narrative arc!?" type of thoughts meeting with a physical remolding of my expression. It was just relentlessly hokey and badly done, with a character going from "I don't like this, and I'm scared!", to enjoying it one mission, and then imediately after that he has these unnatural and forced conversations with his friends about how him killing people is "winning" in the most forced creeper voice I've heard. It was terrible, and even FC4's writer called it out.

“I think the important difference is we don’t want to be didactic, we’re not trying to teach people. I think a lot of Far Cry games have fallen into the trap – telling you that violence is bad, and that you’re bad for playing the game. You don’t want to play a game for 40, 50 hours to be rewarded by systems that have a narrative layer on top of that, telling you that you were bad for doing those things, that humans are terrible.”

I could not have found a more perfect image for FC3's  writing

So basically it comes down to less "don't do politics. At all. NEVER!" and more about... please write good. Be smart, do cool things, make me surprised, or even develop something so well that I can come to my own conclusions, or analytics who clearly have too much time on their hands wind up telling me something and I have to go and look over the game again and go "OH YEAH! Woah!". That's a cool thing, even if I won't necessarily agree with it. Far Cry 4 actually wound up doing something like that, with Pagin Min's ending where he basically calls out the protagonist as, not a monster, but someone who came there for an adventure. Essentially he winds up telling you "I realized, I was just using [a death] as an excuse to do whatever it is I wanted to do. Just like how you are, holding [story objective object] as an excuse to do whatever you want to do. But god damn if it isn't fun!" In an open world chaotic shooter game, my mind melted with how much that went through to smash the 4th wall and pull the player in, talking directly at you... because, that's the notion I've always had with these games. You get some loose thread of a total objective, but it gets delayed and in it's sleeping background noise, you build an empire of sandbox activities and fun little run around activities, doing whatever you want on your own time and choice, slowly getting to that point where the game tells you it's done... and leaves you telling you that the place is still all yours. Pagin Min literally does just that, and it's incredible writing if you ask me, whereas FC3 felt like it was forcing a message in that contradicted with it's very nature and fought against every piece of itself in stupid and forced ways.

On top of that, FC4 does also do more direct political stuff, and also better. You've got this situation in which the rebels are divided on how to rebuild the land once they overthrow Pagin, and so you get to choose between the conservative religious guy (that later goes blood crazy and regresses social rights), and a socialistic progressive (who enslaves citizens, profits off of drugs, and implicitly murdered a little girl to bury old religious values). They're both exploring extreme ends of a country in turmoil, and in the end you as a player can kind of see what's terrible and wrong about each, and think on it some. It perfectly fits the troubled setting, the way people can manipulate each other, and works inside of this kind of game framing and even adds to it. That's good well-written political stuff.

I've already also brought up the Witcher franchise, which has political sabotage, corruption, moving social rights clashing with tradition, race issues, guerrilla warfare, just modest and interesting lessons. Furthermore, Killzone even has political messages, and uses history to mix up and make a WW2 sci-fi universe that has also been interpreted as an American Revolutionary war piece as well. And what about the countless games that involve you rebelling against a government entity of some form? What kind of political pacifism is that, when it's blatantly eating out of the hands of every libertarian/anarchist/conspiracy nut out there. Oh, but don't worry, we have the anti-libertarian Bioshock for you as well. Oh, and then there were all those WW2 shooter "honoring" the vets. Not exactly a hot issue to sweat over, but it involves the history of political decisions, war, and the portrayal of sensitive events some may not agree with being condensed into a video game. Hell, look at what happened with Battlefield 1 when EA had the audacity to tweet some cheesy puns with the game. Even Doom (4) has political influences despite proudly tossing it's narrative to the side, because the reason we discovered Hell was supposedly to solve our energy crisis. I'm not saying it delivers any real message about it, but it brings it up, and ties it in with the plot and perhaps took shape from one of the designer's political leanings. I'm serious, and if you don't understand, you clearly haven't played one of the best games to come out in the last decade. Still it's not so serious about politics or any real message, and that's just fine as well.

Yes, this kind of game even does it

Just making fun stories can lead to it

Here's another thing, you don't even need to be truly trying to even capture a narrative theme that can come off as political. Sometimes it just happens. I myself have been working with three different stories, and of them, only one winds up not sounding political. It's not that I'm sitting there pandering to someone's views, or trying to lecture people on my own, but rather just what I wound up writing for a believable feeling of the setting. In one case it's fantasy racism/tribalism, prejudice, and the corruption of power. Honestly though I just wrote it because I have fun making up new cultures and having them pick at each other, meanwhile an antagonist wants to control everything for antagonizing reasons. Meanwhile a sci-fi story I wrote, could be taken as pro/anti-colonization (depending on what characters are speaking), there's a somewhat pro-war line in the 2nd part, in retrospect I think I wrote a character who could be taken as an allegory for a trans person, and yet there's also an environmentally aware science team speaking in the exact same chapter of that part. Oh, and there's an SJW-like person who's playing the victim card to delay a debate up until someone shuts her up. That last bit I will freely admit is a bit of insertion of my views, but the rest of it just happened more naturally in the environment and characters I created, and I still wrote it in a way that it made sense to the character's motives and later events of the story. The only story that doesn't have an accidental or intentional political message yet, is due to it's super high fantasy nature that it's too close to greek mythology and trickster folk tales to have any serious message. Even then, that might change as I get more than 3 chapters into it, as it's my newest thing.

 It's not just my own stories I see this in, but look no further than Warhammer 40K, or Zootopia. Zootopia actually had the same theme as the 1st story I mentioned. It wanted to take animals, and make them a self-aware society, and sort of develop a mythos around tribalism and whatnot. It seemed like they had no better intention than just the fun of it, like I did. However it wound up turning into a movie with a "message" because that's just how Disney works, where you usually need to find some sort of kid-friendly message or pitch to teach people. It's a win-win from a corporate perspective, and that's fine with me. The funny thing is though, it was even darker at one point, with a message more centered just as much around police state fears. Then W40k is all about space crusaders, and is so stuck in this proudly "grim dark" tone of madness and tribalism, that the fans of the series cannot process it with a serious face. The W40K fanbase is full of people who look on and laugh at the overzealous reaching of the series, can easily tell you how fucked up every faction is, and yet we love it for a good read and work of fiction. We've slapped everything from twilight parodies, to making a punchline out of heresy. Still, this is in a way, about politics. W40K is about war, religion, and corruption. Just like with Doom, that doesn't mean they're trying to force you to think of them as good or bad, but they've created this world that has so clearly touched on that, and has brought in real experiences and interpretations from out culture and political situations. Meanwhile Zootopia has even been dragged in and framed as being anti-Trump... even though the movie wasn't made at all with him in mind, and never started out with a "message" anyway. But nope, hearing "actually guys, they just wanted one a more unique self-aware talking animal movies" doesn't make great headlines or marketing, so it's got a theme that can be interpreted in a few different ways by people who want to over-analyze it, so some left-wing news site can tell you why it warned us about Trump and take some interviews out of context.

Not even talking animals will let you hide from politics & drama

Concluding...

Hardly anyone is asking you to shut politics out completely. We're asking you write it well, write it to be fun, and write it so we can still enjoy our games. Heck better yet, this is gaming, make your message in the mechanics. I remember how Hoard reminded me of an old Taoist proverb, where the more towns and riches I won over, the harder it was to keep them safe. That came to mind without a drop of text or narrative. Brothers, a Tale of Two Sons, incorporated an emotional family bond in it's adventure using a co-op like control method for a single player game. MGSV has sever risk and reward issues regarding it's nuclear weapons. That is all possible, and it's far better than someone forcing in a political message, or some forced message of any kind. That's why Spec Ops still has some detractors, suggesting it went too far and did too little right. Others (like me) will point out how stupid Far Cry 3 was. Deus Ex was ironically hated by the very side supposedly happy about games as "art" and inclusive, and maybe they'll have some good criticisms in there about proper use of messaging. I didn't see an issue with it myself. However none of us are telling you to stay away from post-apocalypse because it might be environmentalist propaganda. We're not telling you to stop your government overthrowing plots, because it could be raising libertarians. We're not serious about leaving all your influences, wishes, and who you are at the door (even if some people pose the demand in this stupid way). Gamers just want you to write smart, same with any book worm or movie goer

Gaming is still a form of both art, and yet escapism. The two aren't contradicting like some would tell you it is, but they can clash depending on their goals. As a gamer who adores in-depth mechanics and user-power, I tend to love games that are higher on the escapist end and empower you to do awesome ridiculous things. Still, I stay for the lore, world building, and I dig for messages from there. Furthermore, one of my favorite heroes isn't some Peter Parker, or Bruce Wayne, but actually Robin Hood... you know, the guy who's entire plot was being upset over taxes and poverty? Very few people actually stop and talk so much about the politics of Robin Hood, and that's because it's just made fun. Whether it's Errol Flynn, Disney, BBC's show format, or making fun of the 90's variant, people just talk about the characters, best adaptations, and how great they are instead of "Was he a socialist, or libertarian?". It's just about how you build your world up, and if you still have fun in mind, or go for more of a condescending, lecturing approach. Let's hope you have fun in mind. Your work, message, and whatever else will last around a lot longer if people actually enjoy it and it's written well for that purpose. ...and on that note, why hasn't there been a modern Robin Hood game!? Come on guys, get on it!

What should console quality control look like?

Welp, I saw this coming. With the release of Life of Black Tiger, consumers have fallen into the usual predictable state of... complaining about choice. Damn, 1st world problems, right guys? Okay, but I'm going for the throat when I say that, really let's be reasonable here and point at two other ridiculous things: Black Tiger, and "journalism". Now if you want to bash the game, or inform the consumer the game is bad, by all means do that. However Black Tiger has passed that point and is hitting the "punch it and laugh because it's fun! Look at us buy it so we can laugh at it" point of free press. Yes, it's a terrible game, we get that. Yet apparently PSLS didn't think so, and dedicated an extra article to talking about it's trailer they posted up way earlier where people already talked about it. Ironic for them to turn around and question the store "okay, this is good", when they themselves didn't check their own damn re-posted stuff, so they can act all surprised later. Hypocrisy guys? Yup, let's give that game two articles, when they still don't have a review up for Slain, a game that worked hard to improve itself from mediocrity. Are you telling them not to do that, and they'll get coverage? Well screw you, I actually like good games.

What else is terrible, is the fact that you guys cover this, and this, more than you do actual hidden gems. Cursed Castilla, continuous updates from indie games that aren't Minecraft, Moon Hunter's expansion, Castles, the port of Mount & Blade, and the list goes on are games I don't see getting coverage while Black Tiger has double for being terribly bad. It's not even the first to do so! I don't expect every game to be covered that exists, but at the same time you're clearly not even bothering the effort when you can't even be asked to pay attention to the news you're hosting only to reprint it later "shocked" at an awful game you felt was worth more time. However, it's apparently Sony's fault that you can't get awesome games, so let's discuss quality control.

Yeah this really is terrible, we noticed from the very trailer. Move on!

In case you can't tell, I'm not the biggest supporter of the logic. However my title is quite loaded in that direction for a reason. I technically do want quality control, just not to the point where I'm crying tears and writing articles over the fact Black Tiger exists (this article is based on the discussion around it). However I do still ask for some quality control, even stricter in some ways than what's going on now with major releases. For the most part though, I have very basic principles:

• Make sure the game works.
• Have it finish-able and with basic features like trophies and accessibility functions.
• It does not use illegal stolen assets, or other such stolen stuff.

That's basically it. I don't even need it to be a smooth framerate, because depending on where that limit is, you can kick out some really good games. I'm sure we can all agree a framedrop may exist somewhere and be okay, but even if we pretend games are "broken" for dipping into low 20fps frequently, what does that exclude? Well, it excludes games like Lichdom that fixed itself, it excludes games like Two Worlds 2 which I (alongside a cult following) had a lot of fun with on the PS3, and while I hate it I know others enjoy Risen 2 & 3. I know Unity was a much hated entry, but it had it's fans for all of it's flaws and oversized patches. 

Then there's other traits, like the huge mess full of issues that is Black Tiger. How on earth are you going to tell someone they MUST get every bit of grammar right, must make their cut-scenes useful, restrict their loading times, and fix their awful gameplay? Well, you'd have to crack down on things a little too hard core, and other areas would just come down to subjective "this ain't fun" judgement. That's not a judgement for anybody but the consumer to make though. Plenty of great games have each had those type of problems. Old Nintendo games printed books with mistranslations, Half-life and Postal 2 would stop you mid-level or even right after combat to load, and we could go on about frame-rates to as far back as Shadow of the Colossus (you know, one of the "best games ever"). I know, I know, none of them are as severely as bad or added up as Black Tiger, but you're still asking that they come up with some uniformed standard, OR a subjective judge panel, and either could wreck some potential fun games. I still stand by the fact that Two World's 2 is a fun mess, or heck Naughty Bear. NB had frame-rate, basic camera, and just repetition type issues. Two Worlds 2 has even worse frame-rate problems, some kind of awful blur effect, stiff animations, horrible voice acting, and I could probably find more to go on with. However it's an absolute blast, with weird creatures and quests, some fun mechanics, and just a novel sense of adventure.

However let me repeat a certain point of my own standards yet again: "Have it finish-able and with basic features like trophies and accessibility functions." Oh joy, want to know what's not going on today? That! Especially the 2nd bit. Sony integrates options like accessibility, share button, remapable controls, trophy support, and screen fit in for a good reason, yet here we are today with developers openly ignoring the screen refitting tool, and for the first time I can ever recall I am getting games that DO NOT WORK with a TV that is otherwise perfectly fit to play HD games from consoles. I'm not complaining that they're too HD and I'm missing my HDMI cable, I'm talking about matching all the standard requirements, and yet Skyrim, Stardew Valley, Final Fantasy 15, and Mount & Blade's sloppy port are all off when it comes to proper TV fitting even though it is built into the damn system's options! Want to know how Stardew's team responded to criticism on this? Did they fix it? They moved the HUD.... so your screen is still cut out of the real view, and the option to actually use the console features is ignored even once brought up, it's just they tried to guess where you'd be able to see vital things normally again. This is news hardly enough people are talking about, for major releases you're paying up to maximum price for, and they can't be bothered to use the universal built-in options. Then you want to turn around and cry about Black Tiger, which every half-blind consumer can spot and turn away from it's trailer alone, but you can't report actual news that is cheating people of $60 games they can't see right!? Talk to me about curation & quality control when you get your priorities straight and demand this first. I had to learn of these culprits from either isolated reportings, or first-hand experience, and not nearly enough people are demanding devs to take responsibility and fix this, and it's insane Sony (or even MS, assuming they have the same feature) doesn't enforce it. It's a part of finishing the actual game right, and yet here I am, playing Mount & Blade where half of my health bar is eaten by my TV border.

Now, that all being said, here's the funny thing: Sony does have quality control. I love the timing of this whole controversy, because it went perfectly along a recent lengthy article with actual news, coming from the Friday the 13th crew about their difficult console certification process. Heck, I'm just happy somebody finally said something about this. It's pretty obvious that Sony, and general gaming itself, sees some kind of checks go up. It's why every game you play basically has an ESRB rating, and some legal garble in tiny text all over the place. They also forced trophies on games back in like 2008 or 9 or so, which is why games suddenly always had trophies whereas a copy of PS3's Turok has it's own odd achievement system built in instead. There's a lot of hidden forces from us at work to make these games happen, and here this guy discusses a good bit about it. You have to send your game to 4 different local divisions, check for such obscure nonsense as a guitar hero controller that lets you go back to the main menu (even though you could just reset the console... just sayin'), and how voice command needs to work with everything. Yet in this process, we obviously don't have tests to make sure games are universally fitted with the screen size options. Furthermore, he explains (in a way I admittedly don't fully understand) how crap like Unity gets an easier pass with the right sort of money.

Quality protection is apparently a secret cult

This actually raises some questions of its own in some ways, especially with the release of Black Tiger, and the fact it's not exactly the only game of it's kind. How does some nobody indie-like team manage that out there while a crowd-desired horror game of a famous name is held to strict standards? Is it the way these games are being published? Is Friday a retail game that gets held to different standards? What else do we, and not even developers themselves, not know about? Heck, we haven't gotten releases like Black Tiger so frequently, and a lot of the other garbage games can be located somewhere within a 6 month or so radius of time. Did something just suddenly happen behind our backs, or is it just natural for the market to take this long for this stuff to show up? You see, this is why I'm not just standing on some hill screaming quality control. I don't know what the hell they already have in place, what's changed, or what's being looked at. I don't appreciate it being a secretive thing, and I don't appreciate the thought of good games being held back as Xbox once did with quality self-publishing indies. We don't know everything, so quite trying to ask for stricter mysterious strings just because you're not going to like the entire digital store's catalog. Most people not even asking it in a way that makes sense, with the closest constructive criticism being a panel of judges (the rest is just "Ew, bad games bad, make them only good games"). The only other thing I've seen is making solid 30/60fps mandatory, and I already discussed why that's a killer for some fun games. Now refund policies I might agree with, but nobody is talking about that, and that's the problem.

For those that think they know the answers here, and pretend like quality control is everything: If you're even half as smart as you think you are, you won't be susceptible to buying garbage like Black Tiger anyway. If you're not that smart, and worry about being burned, what makes you think you actually know the answer when even game developers don't even know the full details? A little bit of common sense goes a long way, doesn't it? So stop just yelling at the wind, and gather your thoughts a little better. I'm sticking with what I do know, and that's why my list of 3 basic things are just a small list (and yet, even that sadly isn't followed). I know I want games to work, I want them to be accessible and function within reason of the console I've purchased and the expectations that raises, and I don't want devs breaking any laws to achieve a good game. That's why I'm not upset with Black Tiger (at least, as far as I know it), and I'd rather ask people get over themselves. I am however, upset with those who are supposed to be spreading information on good games, and how word is getting around. It is their responsibility, and us as consumers, to discuss these games, and instead they aren't even checking the very trailers they post before coming back much later to pretend to be shocked for extra clicks and views. That is despicable, and that is what I will call out and fuss about. Meanwhile, I still have yet to hear much from any major news source if Slain's console release went over well, and nobody warned me of how sloppy Mount & Blade was done with even the reviews I looked up coming out of obscure youtubers. The media needs to fix themselves, before they turn and ask Sony to do it for them.

You don't have to agree with it all, just play what you like

Nintendo left with scraps again

Not the proper console treatment

The Wii U was off to a great looking start when it was a new concept. It looked fun, had a potential concept that could benefit games (especially with inventory systems), and had enough 3rd party power to get people saying "Yes, Nintendo is back and for the hardcore". Now you're so used to knowing it as a failure that you probably lie to yourself about saying you knew it was coming the whole time (though I'm sure some people really did).  However, looking back I see a few things wrong. Namely, it's among the same thing happening yet again; 3rd party that wasn't obscure or Ubisoft gave the Wii U their scraps. The Wii U saw such titles as a re-released Mass Effect 3, a month late copy of one of the most disliked Assassins Creeds (though Unity tried competing with it later), a new Tekken as if that was somehow a big seller, an open world batman game from the last year, and then Fifa 13. Among newer titles, many dropped, Rayman lost it's exclusivity, and others like the next Batman game and COD were minimally supported once they did get out. By the time people were talking about how disappointed they were with Watch Dogs, Wii U (the system that had beat PS4/xbox one by a year) got it nearly a year late with no bonuses. Even Nintendo themselves were late to the party, expecting Nintendo Land and a 2D Mario game to sell you while they made a 3D Mario game that played like a 2D mario game, and that Pikmin game 20 people were waiting for.


 I remember when the PS4 launched, despite people going "No games, wah!" it actually had a solid enough lineup to start. Black Flag, COD, it had Battlefield, people were talking about Resogun like a quiet gem you got FREE with PSplus, and more on the way. It took a while for a good library to truly build up like any new console, but it had actual new stuff there from the start or within arm's reach, as well as 1st party support, indies, and your upcoming easy ports. Those new games held people's interests enough to hold them over until the next wave, whereas Nintendo is starting out with scraps that the initial sales were already done for. Some of the near titles were disappointing, like Watch Dogs or Destiny, and the many bugs of BF4 and Unity, but they got people through to see MGSV, Doom, Uncharted 4, Overwatch, Witcher 3, and the very games that we're hyped about now. Meanwhile the Wii U couldn't even carry itself to see those disappointments. I'm looking at the same thing again now when I try to look at the Switch's 3rd party line-up, and videos like this one, are already calling the publisher's approach as a wait and see with test scraps. Bomberman, Sports games that nobody buys a new console for, and old hits people have already played 10 times like Minecraft and Skyrim. I'm reading these off the "featured games" Nintendo is trying to be proud of!

PS4/Xbone's launch held new adventures, not old scraps

The big stinging truth lies in, ironically, the one that's getting the most attention: Bethesda putting Skryim on the Switch. Look at Bethesda's library. In the recent years they as a publisher have Evil Within, Wolfenstein, Doom, Dishonored 1 and 2, Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 4, and the upcoming new Prey. What debuts on the Switch? A 5 year old RPG they have already resold people twice (Legendary & Special Edition) on every competing home console, and it's even been speculated that it's the pre-SE version the Switch is getting. Now don't get me wrong, Skyrim is awesome and I think some people will love trying it on the Switch's portable idea, but for that to be Bethesda's one and only debut game is disturbing. If it were the PS5 or Xbox Two (...yeah, I'm sure it won't be called that) they'd be telling you about how special Prey was going to look on it compared to last-gen efforts, and shoving it in the press's faces. Oh yeah, and that's another effect of this. The new games on new consoles are getting extra press. It's like double attention and advertising on the consoles, whereas an old game is... well, old news. This is a game that's so old news, that the same publisher published a new franchise a year after it, gave the team a secondary studio all the way in texas, and we've got it's sequel out with essentially free DLC patches in that time. ...but we don't get either of those games, or Doom, their latest RPG Fallout 4. The Switch gets the inferior port of the game that every gamer interested has already bought at least twice. You can't even seem to choose the most fresh old thing to recycle for a "test". Then you wonder why you're not selling as well as you do on the other consoles? You wonder why your experiment isn't so positive? Really guys!?

Look, the Vita got better attention than this. At least people tried to put out some new games for it, and is still even getting some fairly unique games. I understand the concerns of the publishers, and their desire to make games where it will sell, but if you don't give it a chance there's no way you'll get that in return. By giving it a chance, I mean you actually have to make some games people will run in and buy. Stuff that's fresh off the presses, has news worth discussing, and is something new to play and discover in, and has the lasting depth for core gamers to return. Skyrim is a big step forward as far as depth goes, and it's also great that the Switch is getting some cool niche stuff like Dragon Quest Heroes 2, Street Fighter 2 (I guess like the Wii U's tekken), and Bomberman. However we need more.

We need something on the scale of Rockstar announcing Red Dead 2 on the Switch, Bethesda saying Prey will come to it, and EA's next Battlefield or Battlefront being made with it in mind. Even some of the older games that are not being done could do better, like Witcher 3's complete edition, Dark Souls 3 or Doom with its DLC, stuff people will be shocked is on a Nintendo console and will almost have to support just to see. Heck, I'd love to see Far Cry 4 myself for some reason. That sort of thing hasn't happened on their field since the Nintendo 64 with stuff like Turok and GoldenEye. Heck, the joke is already that Nintendo's stupid paid service will stop being free once online stuff actually comes out for it, because there's next to nothing for the massive multiplayer gaming community on it aside from Splatoon 2. If you want gamers to give you a chance, actually try giving us games to play on it first guys. Nintendo is doing some goofy stuff with their new system, but among the things that aren't their real fault, this is one of them. This is something the publishers need to fix. Stop giving Nintendo scraps.

Good, but you can do better than this...

Enduring indies...

Indie games don't tend to last long for me. Whether it's my mood, or memory in today's time, or just because a lot of them lack some senses of depth, a good majority of the time indie games tend to pass through. Then, there's others, which I stubbornly cling to or at least replay like normal games. Ones I can't put down, or have even bought multiple times. Some comfort me, others are just too fun, and some are so simple it'd be pointless to just not come back in with a clear mind. I'm setting some minor rules here which will omit a couple. Namely, Minecraft which hardly feels indie and I feel it's mostly been a returning factor for split-scree, and I know Towerfall isn't worth it without split-screen. As such I just don't want to count that sort of thing, because I'm not coming back for sheer desire, but rather restriction because it ain't like much AAA or Journey allow it. I'm also not counting anything special Indies have brought back, unless it was solely an indie project to begin with, so stuff like the incredible Turok Remaster, or the Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition port don't count. Finally, I'm adding a cut-off so that stuff I've only played just last year like Gungeon,, Aragami, and Dungeon of Endless don't count. I want more of a sure test of time, and who knows maybe I'll even wind up placing the disappointing Moon Hunters on that kind of list. For now they're all too new in my opinion. Finally, if they've fallen off completely, I won't count them. Like Cortex Command, I've just had my interest wane, and I get the feeling it might not be so enduring in the true long run.

Journey

Let's kick this off with something simple I've mentioned time and time again: Journey is one of the best games ever. Period. It is a miracle and mastery of sound, visuals, multiplayer, immersion, and minimalistic story telling. Furthermore, it's just a really fun game that never fails to put a smile on my face. It's still a lot of fun to this day to go back, play with the kite creatures in the desert, chirp along with somebody, and... heck why not just complete the story while you're at it? I really shouldn't have to say anything more, just read back on all my other praises of this wonderful game.

Armello

...and the very thing that made me realize this article was needed. I don't know any Indie game that just comes back around this much in my mind in some way. The story, the constant awesome updates, or just the fact that it's fun. The game is a really great transition from boardgame concepts, to video game form. Meanwhile it has some brilliant Nintendo-esque style story telling, where there's no serious story on the surface, but so many little details, theories, and smaller things that it keeps the player creating their own while enjoying the world as bits are put in front of them. Oh and of course, the complex but fun game of chance, strategy, and gameplay is real cleverly designed so that it's both fun, and surprisingly makes sense within the context of the lore. It's comprised of cards, RPG questing, dice rolls, and turn based strategy all within a 10 day cycle. It's a really awesome experience, and you're missing out if you still haven't played it. Meanwhile I keep coming back, and even after several other indie disappointements or phases... well, I come back again.

Terraria

I don't play this super frequently, and wonder if this counts but so much, but... when I do play it, the day is gone. I do find myself coming back to it time and time again, just in some fairly distant lengths... like maybe once or twice a year I'll pick it up. Still, once there, that week is annihilated. Terraria is the best Minecraft-ish build & survive type indie game I've played. I love the ease and yet complexity to building, and crafting, and then there's all the adventuring and finding your way to better stuff to fight and craft. The only thing is that I've always been bothered by some of the steep difficulty at certain points of the game, and how I still have to build a dedicate arena and stockpile just to stand a chance on the "first boss", but past that point that game is a lot of fun. It's obviously doing something right to have me keep coming back. The PC version that is, I don't see how on earth people get used to the console controls. This game just isn't built for a controller, despite it's SNES-ish type looks.

Crimsonland

A surprisingly old, but obscure game. I nearly didn't include it, because it's been so long since I played it and I only technically bought it for the first time last year. However, long time ago I used to play this game's demo to ridiculous lengths. It was one of those freeware client things full of trial games, and I loved this one. I played it till the end, then it's survival again and again, and then went back and replayed the campaign a slight bit more. Now I've bought it, and while I can't say I play it every day, or for a while each session, I keep coming back to it casually quite often. It's such a simple but effective top-down shooter, giving you random sets of perks, power ups, and a variety of weapons, and then you just literally paint the ground red with the death of enemies. It takes up like 200mb at most, and so there's just no reason to take it off, it's a great casual game to play on the Vita or PS4.

Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender

Another obscure one, and one I wouldn't have expected. It looked like dumb fun, and I got it for a cheap price, so it was a fun light arcadey game to play. I got surprisingly far in it's campaign, especially on easy mode, and I really loved the art style of it. It's a basic Defender style game, and you might think I'm just complimenting it's style because cats, however it's not just cats. It's the fact that "missing" people on the scoreboard are put on milk cartons, it's the way the waves animate, the "mew" coming through your PS4 controller when a cat is abducted, and then the music that is so good I had to buy one of the themes. All the little things add up to make the presentation something clever, and just really enjoyable. On top of that though, is a fun arcadey game I wound up buying twice, and still occasionally play. It's especially at home on the vita.

Hotline Miami

And now we're back on things everyone has heard of, and with good reason. Hotline Miami is an amazing top-down shooter that turns combat into a big tactical puzzle game despite layered thick with arcadey elements, and psychotic imagery. It's worth going back to for the same reason it's just so much fun, you really don't know what you're going to get out of each run. I just enjoy picking a random level, picking a mask, maybe trying something with a new perk, and then running in and failing until I find a good route and path to take. It's just fun to keep coming back to, especially on the vita.... actually, the PS4 controls are just a wreck, so only on the vita. Meanwhile it's sequel was a little disappointing, but oh well.

Serious Sam (general franchise)

I was playing this over and over again before I knew what indie even was. Serious Sam never felt indie, and we probably didn't even have that term around for games at the time, but it was still a lot of fun. However while I keep coming back to it, there's no single one game I keep coming back to, and very little rhyme or reason for choosing any particular one. There's so many different versions, and they all nail the core idea: run into giant arenas and shoot down massive waves of enemies with ridiculous weapons while Serious Sam mocks them or other FPS games. As an FPS fan, this is certainly one good indie I never quite walk away from.

Hoard

Back to obscure "who the heck is that!?" land! Well for starters, you'd be certainly right to say that about the dev team who made this one game, disappeared into 72live, and you can't find a damn thing on what that company is on google unless you search up their defunct Big Sandwich Games title first. However before they met that horrible fate into further obscurity, we got Hoard, one of the best dragon games ever.... on a list of 3, in between Spyro and Lair, so it ain't much. Still, this game is a lot of fun, and as a dragon fanatic I especially love it. It's an isometric point driven experience that sort of simulate old dragon treasure tales, and brings them to life. You play as a dragon in an evolving medieval world, and you wreak havoc and collect plunder, upgrading alongside the world and it's damages. There's a shocking amount of depth and yet simplicity in the system. Castles upgrade over time, knights get sent out to rescue princesses, towns go up with each building type representing a different strength or problem that can occur, and then random stuff like giants can come in and throw a wrench in the system, but on top of that maps will have you compete with other dragons and even fighting for cities to honor and send sacrifices to you. It's really awesome for an unheard of game, and one of my favorites on the PS3. Shame it never got the proper support, and the dev is basically nothing now, but it's a fun game I keep coming back to regardless,

Dust: An Elysian Tail

Dust is a game that isn't quite as famous enough to be the icon of indie awesomeness, but it's very mention will bring out a ton of fans nodding vigorously about how excellent it is. I've even heard some name it among the best games to ever come out. I have to say it's quite a phenomenon. Made mostly by one guy, voice acted off of a ton of small time youtuber audience worth also finding and enjoying, and yet it's this really incredible adventure game that mixes up all sorts of cool genres and mechanics. Part metroid, part hack & slash, part platformer, and part anime mixed with Don Bluth animation, this is an amazing journey that is just all around perfect as a game. It's not perfect on any specific one ground, but it comes together feeling that way. It's music is great enough, it's game length is just right, it's story is just gripping enough with a good balance of drama, humor, and adventure, and it's gameplay is just awesome enough. It all comes together to be fantastic! I don't find myself loading it up and playing it often because it's a single adventure, but when I do, I'm reminded why it's never deleted or thought less of. It's an incredible game I come back to on occasions for just comfort in how awesome a passion project of one indie dev can be. Heck, it's a fantastic reminder of how great all mediums really are! Animation, music, gameplay, story writing, just activating the game is a feel-good activity. So yeah, Dust concludes my list on awesome indie games I know I'll keep coming back to.

Now Playing: Earth Defense Force 4.1 (uh, or just EDF again)

Yup here we are, a new year, and I seem to be funnily enough starting my gaming off the same way: EDF. This time with a new copy, except it's not really. 4.1 is essentially just the PS4 remastering of the older PS3 game of EDF2025. Same basic plot ideas, a whole lot of the same levels, but that ever so slight glimmer of polish and trickling of extra features added on top of things that just pop out in surprise as new. Some levels and balances are changed up, but it still all comes back to the same job in a lot of the same places: You shoot giant bugs with an absurdly overwhelming amount of ammunition in b-grade glory.

So far I've gotten up to about 35 levels in out of the... whatever large load there is. You'd be amazed at how long they keep this stuff going. As normal, I've stayed true to playing as a standard soldier most of the way. The others tend to have something that always bugs me. I did just recently try playing as the fencer though, and might try to struggle through that one. Either way, I'm reminded this game just needs a freakin' sprint button really badly. Giant fields of destructible buildings and enemies isn't so fun at a fixed jogging pace... plus this was 2016, I'm not asking you go all COD on people, but you can pick up a couple basic modern functions that just make sense. Oh yeah, and the jump and roll button is mashed up into one for some reason. Huh.

Alien dragons!

The game in large part started out the same way, but be it because I just stayed on it longer, or the later levels change, I'm starting to see some new twists. Unfortunately they did revamp one of my favorites. I loved the PS3 level where you fought exclusively the little fighter drone ships, and they cluttered up so much of a mess that when you shot one, it bounced off into another, or then plowed straight into a building, and it became just a giant space alien pin-ball of destruction that lagged the game to hell in back. Yet it was just a sheer joy to witness, and I had so much fun just essentially spinning the wheel, and seeing which buildings would collapse next. In this newer version, the closest level is one where they're all coming out the mother ship in this vacant park area. You'd actually have to walk away from the battlefield to get towards the cluttered buildings, so your basically just stuck in the most boring assortment of ship shooting for the entire level. Even worse, there's a later level involving a newer red ship, and you shoot like 6-8 of them the entire level. Not only anti-climatic, but they're just dumb enemies, never used again so far and take a ton to take down a single one (yet they bounce around like rubber balls if so much as 3 bullets hit them). Similarly there was also a godzilla enemy who just poked his head in, and disappears for the next 10 levels. Weird guys.

If I were to make one final complaint, it's that the loot feels off in this one. I remember all the other games giving me a slow trickle of new and fresh interesting weapons in. Here, I was almost immediately compelled to start hitting the harder difficulties for anything worth a dent. Not only that, but it was like 10 or more levels in until I got an assault rifle that was better than the default. The basic assault rifle for the basic guy took over an hour to find a single upgrade in a game where half the fun is punching aliens with lots of different weapons. Very similar for my rocket launcher secondary. Meanwhile I've got like 20 different shotguns and grenade types, as if that does me any good when most of the levels have distant clusters of insects best killed BEFORE they're right in your face. Something didn't balance out right here. The weapons I'm currently using came from where I got lucky on playing one of the hardest modes. I'd love to play and get some more from that difficulty, but with such bullshit droprates and everything turning up duplicate by now, I'm never progressing to the point where I've got a real chance thanks to underwhelming gunfire, except for in like 4 levels. The basic ants become super-lethal bullet sponged, and my explosives all go just as lethal on my own team, so I'm screwed in multiple angles with poor firepower that I can't upgrade because they won't give me the proper firepower on lower difficulties to play the higher difficulties. So I'm left slowly grinding armor up instead (past 500hp, and still can't beat the first tunnel level on harder), and... you've got to do this for each and every class. Fuck.

♫"The EDF Deploys!"♪

Enough whining though, because I'm still obviously playing this game because it's still fun. Hell I bought it twice considering the differences are fairly shallow. It's still fun to blast insects, and for every complaint I can fuss about, there's a lot of moments where I just enjoy singling out the best level to go and replay to use a reckless super grenade launcher that shoots in parings of 3. Oh and speaking of which, the effects on this game pack an extra punch. I think they re-recorded the sound, NPC reaction, and scope of every explosion, because it just feels so epic every time a good one goes off. So many times I just see huge bombs or blasts drop, and as my soldier flinches you see these massive ants come out of the plumes of fire and smoke with just the perfect flicker of apocalyptic glow, and you just think to yourself: "Let's see that again," with a rocket launcher in hand. Oh and the tunnel levels revel in this new lighting, being actually dark this time, and you can't help but spam a rocket launcher just to help light the way... while also lighting up the bugs. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to that distant promise of fighting alien dragons, and whatever else lies ahead. So... yeah, this game is still something worth playing through, and that's why I'm currently playing it. Time to go back and exterminate some bugs.

So, how does 2017 look for gaming so far?

So it's definitely a new year for gaming, and with it comes a new wave of releases, treasures, hidden gems, and yes even troubles and controversy which are already occurring. As Gravity Rush 2 reviews are coming out, it's clear we're already seeing a bit of it all. Personally, I think what I'm looking at is essentially 2016 part 2. What I mean by that, is not necessarily that it'll be the same type of year, just we're getting a lot of great promises that were left from such a year, or games that still held a lot of discussion will be revealed. Games like Gravity Rush 2 & Yooka-Laylee I saw in and out the headlines a lot, and they'll be coming up. People were hyped on Horizon, but we all kind of knew that would be put off to 2017. Then games like Overwatch will continue on, as they increase support, and *gasp* actually put in the effort to add a server browser like a reasonable online game should! I'm even keeping my fingers crossed for continuous Doom Snapmap and bot updates. So... I'm kind of expecting just that continuous feeling of 2016, with maybe just slightly less of an impact, and more of a quieter fun time. I mean nobody is actually going to be treating Gravity Rush 2 and Yooka-Laylee like Overwatch as we go on, but yet those are the kind of games that could easily keep a quiet few hundred gamers wearing the biggest smiles they'll have all year (myself included if YL turns out to be the next big dream come true for collect-a-thon 3D platforming).

On the darker side of things, we've got Crytek in deep trouble aside from some real weird news on the Turkish government giving them some serious cash, Scalebound is scrapped, and as of today I heard a real stupid decision of Sony to play musical chairs with their European devs, and Guerrilla Cambridge lost and got shut down (okay it was really a "review process", but you can't tell the difference in how stupid and random this move was). With their closing also comes the likely demise of PSVR. Sony is following up its tradition of shutting away support for their extra devices, and closing the one team that makes good use of them. This by far is the sadest news for me in starting off the year, as I was looking at that team with great optimism. Perhaps one day they'll make a new Midevil? Perhaps they'll work with Guerrilla to create amazing new things for Killzone? Perhaps they become a 2nd Killzone division, and continues the awesome Mercenary sub-series? Perhaps they'll make a new RIGS that doesn't require forced VR nonsense? Nope, they'll die before they do anything beyond getting stuck with the lowest selling possibilities of Vita to VR exclusives back-to-back. Thanks Sony.

Uh... ever closer to "NO!"

The biggest news may actually be coming tomorrow, with the Nintendo Switch event. Who knows what that holds, aside from the many rumors. I'm curious about it, but I'll personally wait. I think I've charged in enough with Nintendo, only to find myself thinking it hasn't gone to the best use, and realizing I can never find good values with their games as I mentioned in an article or so back. I say hold back, let the die-hards go first, and see what comes about with their tech and 3rd party support, and then if you're still somewhat interested in you may find nice bundles or better deals that entice you. I'm also not too sure about a system launching early in the year. I think it's great timing to just go "BAM! Here's the info, and it's coming out 3 months from now! How awesome is that!?", however I fear the real sales will go in on holidays, but yet the stigma that it didn't hit jackpot at launch will sit around, and then we'll be left in the Vita stage of no games or gamers because of... well, each other. Then on top of that, the holiday sales will be competing with the Scorpio, and to be totally honest... right now that sounds like a better idea to me than the Switch (of course, I'm not an xbox guy right now, so they're both new consoles to me).

Anyway, ending this on a positive note, there's a lot to be happy with and look forward to in the year. No one game that is going to make massive news right here and now, but we're looking at some real good possibilities. I'm hoping for a year in which the quiet awesome single player games succeed, and keep me coming back. Things like Horizon, Yooka-Laylee, and Gravity Rush 2. Oh and then there's the console ports of that W40K game, and Shadow Warrior 2. I'm already getting hyped, looking at GR2 and feeling down that it's actually going to be out on the 20th, as if it's just bad I can't have it right now. Sure people will complain and moan about quiet games, thinking "there's no games this year! I want to see the news instead of play them, boo-hoo!" type of nonsense, but I'm used to ignoring those idiots every summer. So here's to hoping for a wonderful 2017.

Scalebound: The latest in gaming conspiracies.

Psst! Did you hear...

When I heard Scalebound was cancelled, I was in disbelief. It popped up in my youtube feed by one of the channels I honestly don't pay so much attention to. I go running around looking on the net for further news, and... it's true. Now I stayed in ignorance of this project, because in current circumstances, this was never a game I was able to get. I look for names on PS4, Wii U, and whatever occult rituals bring out a PS Vita game. and then a couple low-spec-able indie PC titles. Xbox one, is a dream. Scalebound was in that dream though. I saw it as an enticing deal; Get the Xbone, get that awesome dragon game, that big build-a-game game, Retro Replay, and Sunset Overdrive, maybe Halo and Gears some day. Sounds like a real good fun time. Whoops, no more dragon game for you, because of course not! People that decide cool basic concepts every kid and fantasy nerd dreams of playing, is just too.... not-us. We've got to keep it human, or zombies, because we're too boring to take on dragons, werewolves, or raptors anymore. So... guess it just wasn't meant to be, and I'm stuck trying to convince people Lair wasn't shit.

However despite my great disbelief, I never thought it was anything too shocking beyond just "we did the math, it ain't looking good. Sorry guys!" Everybody else did find it too hard to accept though, and I feel alien in this space. A bunch of different disconnected ideas, ranging from "The xbox isn't good enough" to "They treated them awful! Bad blood, bad blood!". People like Angry Joe have reaction videos over their over-enthusiastic disbelief, watching gameplay and calling it a finished project just because some 8-12 minute tightly controlled piece was ready for show. Get a grip guys. We've seen devs come out against Microsoft before. It's happened, and it doesn't quite look like this. They have issues with their regulations, or simply straight up get told that their game doesn't meet business interests. It's cold, it's bad, and MS should be ashamed of having killed such things like a real B&K game from Rare, but still most great games still endure. In one of the worst recent case scenarios, they practically forced Blizzard to make Diablo 3 run higher-res than it could. That... that is your boogie-man people, they go "PATCH IT 1080P"! How do we get from that to dumping money on a project for years, just to cancel it because the... CEO took a vacation or whatever. That's kinda silly. We're just hearing things for the first time on cancellation, and the dev is already denying claims from these rumors about stressed health, and Microsoft's fairly honest and awesome Phil Spence (who was not in charge around the time of those past devs hating MS's practices) has issued an apology on this subject suggesting he loved the game too.

And who wouldn't love this!?

The only thing odd, is that MS is pulling down videos from their own youtube, something that... is actually exactly what I'd expect of certain people who are paranoid on making sure they don't go out of their way to advertise people on something they can't promise. Meanwhile, time and time again, what we get when people go batshit crazy is DMCA take-downs, and fights to silence and erase the product. This is just company management. Unnecessary, but still the very same behavior to come from people I've seen before. Small youtubers will strip out entire videos of things they regret, or experimented with, just because they don't want that to be any first impression video someone gets of them. They don't want it 'representing' their channel. Yet people think Scalebound is only being "erased" because of some eerie company secret, and evil deed? With Scalebound, you can show it, you can talk about it, Platinum can talk about it, Phil Spence is over tweeting about it, they just feel bad when they continue to let it be advertised. They aren't erasing anything about this game's existence! It's still on the net without a fight. Stop making up a reason to be extra upset! The game being cancelled is reason enough to be dissatisfied, what's with this sudden competition to raise the stakes higher? Move on with your life. Not everything is a Battlefront 3, or a Prey 2 situation, sometimes games just don't make it in a business sense, or there's so many problems with the game itself that they'd rather not discuss. ...but nope, gotta keep that anti-corporate logic going so hard, you got to make up your own villainous deeds.

Switch price: It's not the hardware you need to worry about

They find other places to make the money

I'm starting to come up with a quick way to summarize the Nintendo price experience, especially the more PC enthusiasts push their rhetoric of cheap gaming, great sales, and better performance to try and hide the thousand or so most put down on the good hardware. Their hardware is costly, but for the most part their software is cheap (but not always, the physical media has it's moments and advantages still). Meanwhile Nintendo is consistently the opposite. They mark their systems cheaper, often by $100 or so from their closest competition. Out of a generation that put their systems out at $400, Nintendo's latest rumor of the switch is coming out with the idea that Sony had set their systems at for temporary holiday sales: $250! That's nice. However, here's the huge difference: I can walk out with that new 400: system with two high-quality games at the additional cost of $40 of games I desire. To get the same likely quality out of Nintendo, even using their current Wii U system for fairness of avoiding new releases, I would be most likely paying up to $100, or even $120 eating through most of that savings. ...and the extra kick is then I'd probably have less value in those two games, because while I could have gotten Doom & Witcher 3 on the PS4 for those cheaper prices, I'd be paying Nintendo more for likely rail shooters or side-scroller type games. Maybe I'd get Splatoon or Hyrule warriors at best (omitting the savings I'd get from just buying a normal Warriors or Empires game). The sad thing is, while I can continue those savings on PS4 with patience, that same price likely continues across most of the Nintendo brand. The only time my patience has ever paid off, was with the games Zelda windwaker HD (made over a fucking decade ago originally, with the HD being the very start of this bullshit $50 remaster trend), and Bayonetta 2.

Basically, what I'm highlighting is Nintendo's software pricing issue. You need games to continue to play your game console on, and Nintendo has plenty of quality games, it's just they're expensive. Gaming can already be an expensive hobby as it is, but as should be with any market, the consumer can be patient or smart and get out cheaper. Not so well with Nintendo though. It's almost like a devious trick. Market kid friendly experiences, cheaper entry prices, and then once it's in your hands you have to push hard on your cash for the slightest new thing. It's really no-wonder as a kid I used to always get the latest Nintendo handhelds for christmas, only to then turn around and be denied so many of the interesting games. They all get held up and stuck on $40-$50 price ranges, while more quality experiences could drop to even as low as $5 (rare, but possible) on other platforms. I had maybe 10 DS games out of my many years of owning the console. Nearly every game that caught my eye was either out of reach, a present, or... well, that one Pokemon game I bought once I sold my half-broken Ipod for it (and yes the buyer was aware of its issues, I wasn't a jerk about it). Hardly a single game was actually affordable as a kid, and even now that I buy most of my games I sure as hell don't waste much effort looking in the Wii U section when the games on the PS4 fluctuate and offer more enticing experiences for less. I'm not dirt poor, but I sure want my money to last the best it can. I only jump on the high price for games that absolutely deserve it, and must be had, like Smash Bros or Mario Kart. Those games I could replay for ages, love a while, and deeply appreciate. Then wooly world... yeah, you're giving me a freakin' sidescroller for the same price Doom releases for. No thanks, I'll go kill demons in the best FPS ever that I've been entertained all year by with all it's depth and features, than a one-way 2D game. While Playstation has LBP3 that you could freakin' build Yoshi in for $20 and less on temporary sales, Nintendo stubbornly keeps it at ransom for over a year at around $50! (at least as of posting, that link is a live store page so it could be whatever soon). Thanks Nintendo, continuing to sell the same kind of gameplay for $50+ over the years, and refusing to ever let it's price drop until it's irrelevant.

Fun, but NOT $50 FUN!

Oh, and I know what many die-hard Nintendo fans want to say. It'll come up along the lines in several different forms. Let's go over the likely two counter-arguments that don't involve blatant fanboyism or intentional misunderstandings of my arguments...

1. Nintendo is the full experience, that doesn't ask you for much more! You pay it all up there, and get it right on the disc while others are still making you pay through pieces. Response: That stopped when they started using under-stocked statues to unlock on-disc DLC that so much as hid actual tools and levels from the very game it released with. However even pretending you've got a point, I do as well when bringing up the fact not all games elsewhere release in poor shape. Plenty of games are amazing right as they are, and get even more amazing over time with some free updates and content patches. I very rarely buy DLC, never buy microtransactions, and I tend to still have a lot of fun in most of the games I play without it.
2. Their quality and demand show this is right, and so they keep their games up high with the steady and long lasting demand. Response: Right, and we're pretending they're the only ones? No, the two games I named earlier (Witcher 3 & Doom) are selling high and still making bargain deals with their userbase just as an added spice to their sales. They are smart and understanding in that one person buying $60 in rare occasions deep after launch isn't the same great value as five people buying it for a brief $20 sale. The only other publisher this stingy is Activision, and even they take their best seller COD and cut the price off by $20 every release now sometime around launch. Oh, and $50 Starfox Zero would like a word with you about those awesome sales, and it's high reputation (sarcasm intended). Heck, they don't even have the hardware sales this round to last but so long! Nintendo just does this out of habbit and because they feel they can. The 2nd hand market sadly does little with this, even if there's definitely copies floating around. (contrary to popular belief that pretends nobody sells big N's games back.) This isn't an isolated incident based on some magic sauce of their games, it's just a rare sad effect of the market not working as normal, and Nintendo is one of those names that manages to get away with it.

Some quality games, way easier to acquire.

So what else do you want me to say? It's all right there. It's in my Wii U library, and all those that came before it, and contrasts horribly when compared to my PS4 library where I have more games than space and time to play them all. The only defensive move I can say, is that once a blue moon I will have to suck it up and say "I still want this game, and we all know Nintendo are too stingy to drop their price, so I'll bite it and buy it." However out of every single damn instance of that (New Super Mario World 3D + Star Fox Zero) they have lost way more sales from me. Hyrule Warriors, New Mario Bros Wii U, Splatoon, DKC Tropical freeze, and Pikimin 3. Oh and you might be reading some of those and thinking of the tacky red-framed "Nintendo selects" reprint that drops the price, but they waited for over a freakin' year to the point where I was just uninterested! ...people don't want to sit there and wait for you to decide to reprint your freakin' games 3 years post-launch, they want you to actually mark them down gradually so you can actually see a game you want on sale one lucky pay check day, be taken back surprise, and just buy it. Not when you have to be reminded the game exists, and then just continue ignoring it because you realize a ton of other cool stuff is coming up, and you've already lived without just fine!

Oh but wait, it extends beyond the Wii U of course! Bowser's inside story, Kirby's epic yarn, Twilight Princess (Which they're reselling again for $50, thanks Nintendo), Xenoblade Chronicles, etc. I could go on and on about how many Nintendo games I have completely avoided because they did not drop the price within a reasonable time. Not one of those games saw a penny for me, so I hope that two-time purchase was worth it! Heck I never knew Twilight Princess even had a Nintendo Selects re-release, it just took that long that I didn't care or even see it once it happened, and that was a game all the way back to gamecube... much like Windwaker, the first HD re-release alongside Last of Us to choose pricing itself as a new release. Yeah, thanks Nintendo! I... wonder how many times I've uttered that sarcastically in this article. By contrast, I bought Mario Maker without hesitation when it dropped to around $45 bundled with a Mario anniversary amiibo on amazon. That was a cool deal to me, and I struck that offer and still don't regret it (like I do StarFox Zero. Fun game, just not worth what I put in.)

So guys, before we go cheering in about the price, before we go gallivanting how amazing Nintendo is at under-cutting their competition, and before we go assuring ourselves its such a bargain, remember you're buying a game console... which needs games. Then remember who hoards those games up in a pile, clinging onto their $50-60 price tag regardless of what actual content and depth is on them (anything from a rail-shooter or sidescroller, to a complex multiplayer brawler, it's all the same apparently. And if it's not, just add a toy!), and holds them there flight or failure for potentially years. Remember who forced their launch games to stay at $60 until they started slowly running out of copies, wait a few extra months, and then restock them with an ugly red print with hopes you're still interested. Then remember all they're competing against, and how much you'd save just getting your light-hearted fun playing Owl Boy when it releases on sale from so much as just releasing on steam! I'm keeping my fingers crossed Nintendo change that with the Switch, but they haven't given me much hope in that regard. Nintendo is not a good deal, and not a good bargain, it's where you're paying for your console still by the very trickle of each individual game. Remember that before you cheer the Switch and it's rumors under $300 price point... but who are we kidding, it could easily still be that $300+ for the bundle that comes with the game. And that game will be $50-60 on it's own for the next year or three, because... well, have you been paying attention?

Thanks Nintendo!