So who's gonna capitalize on the experienced gamer market?

[Original_Name]

(Experienced meaning gamers who were active during and before the PlayStation era.)

I would've said Nintendo, as they have the most popular gaming IPs in the world, but they're too preoccupied with the casual gaming market. That's kinda what Nintendo does now; cater to this new market. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, it just doesn't mean much fun for the people who grew up with Nintendo.

Sony and Microsoft... well, Sony never had much to do with the nostalgia gamers now feel for the PlayStation, that was almost exclusively the efforts of third-parties like SquareSoft. Microsoft came so far after the earlier structures of gaming that they never really resonated with the more experienced gamers; except that their machine happened to get the best post-Dreamcast Sega releases. Sony and Microsoft aren't gonna capitalize on this market because they never knew how to in the first place. Those consoles kind of exist just to be platforms for third parties to try and reach out for large demographics on.

The closest thing these companies are doing are offering a bunch of old games the general experienced gamer has already played. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to play Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star IV, or even Super Mario 64 on the Wii, but I already own those on their respective platforms. Besides the releases of Super Mario Galaxy, Metal Gear Solid 4, Okami, and the odd stuff like Odin Sphere (i.e., about 4% of major releases), there isn't much that both appeals to experienced gamers, and attempts to improve the artistic medium of videogames based on previous efforts to present videogames as just that: art. About the only developers I can think of who appeal to experienced gamers and actually continue to please are Capcom and Konami. (Sorry, Sega.)

I mean, I would say that Sega's the right company for the job, but everyone knows how that poor company is run now. Someone needs to come in and cater to ALL these gamers who've been left without a console to invest in. People dissatisfied with the glut of first person shooters and sub-par RPGs won't find very much justification for their $400 purchases on the PS3 or XBox 360, sans a few exceptions. The Wii will bore most experienced gamers to tears after they've bought about four games for it. Why is it that the only bone experienced gamers are thrown is ports of games they've already played? Based on how much the gaming industry's changed in the last decade, I'd say that there's a pretty large demographic that feels as though gaming has outgrown them, or, more accurately, gaming has become a past-time for different sorts of people, but not necessarily themselves anymore.

There needs to be a company which builds upon the development virtues of years past: originality, an attempt to resonate with its audience, and, above all, challenge. I firmly believe that the reason the video game industry stayed as generally innovative as it did for so long was primarily because of Sega's software, which appealed to gamers for its innovativeness and quirkiness; the industry remained fairly innovative for a couple years after the Dreamcast's demise, but after that it became rehash city, sans the seldom first-party Gamecube release.

Anyway, who's gonna capitalize on this market? It doesn't look like Sony, Microsoft, or horrifyingly enough, Nintendo care much to, so who's gonna do it? Sega? Konami? Capcom? It seems to me that this demographic needs it's own dedicated platform, or at least a general push from the industry to cater to this demographic on the existing hardware. Thoughts?

[SpaceBooger]

As long as people keep buying and pirating the tons of unoriginal FPS and GTA clones the industry will keep churning them out.
I mention piracy along with purchasing, because someone who pirates the game wants to play the game so the publishers think they need to make more of those games with better copyright protection...

I think that until the current industry takes a hit nothing will change.

[thejamessea]

Personally I see the companies that are doing this now are some that you've mentioned and some that you didn't.

Sega, Konami, and Capcom are definitely putting out products that are geared to the gamer of long experience. Some examples are Valkyria Chronicles, House of the Dead Overkill, Outrun Arcade, and upcoming DS RPG's from Sega (7th Dragon, Shining Force Feather). From Capcom I see Bionic Commando, Street Fighter 4, and a lot of others. Konami has RE5 and of course, Castlevania is as strong as ever.

Now for some that weren't mentioned already. Atlus : This company knows who its fans are and isn't afraid to give them what they want regardless of sales figures and the almighty dollar.

Another off the top of my head is SNK. They continuously pump out the same franchises, I know, but they're still pretty good.

Frankly, I think Sega, Konami, and Capcom have the most exciting lineup for the first half of 2009 and Sega in particular ended 2008 extremely strong.

[Original_Name]

Personally, though, it just wasn't enough to sway me to buy a new system, or even get my 360 repaired. With the exception of Valkyria Chronicles, Super Mario Galaxy and Metal Gear Solid 4, none of them seemed worth paying the $60 for either. Oh, and Sega's been looking great in the handheld market lately, but I was thinking more in terms of the major consoles, because the more powerful consoles are where the true potential for artistic advancement of the medium lies, in my opinion. But yeah, you're right about Atlus; they're great. Shouldn't have forgotten those guys.

[ott0bot]

Personally I see the companies that are doing this now are some that you've mentioned and some that you didn't.

Sega, Konami, and Capcom are definitely putting out products that are geared to the gamer of long experience. Some examples are Valkyria Chronicles, House of the Dead Overkill, Outrun Arcade, and upcoming DS RPG's from Sega (7th Dragon, Shining Force Feather). From Capcom I see Bionic Commando, Street Fighter 4, and a lot of others. Konami has RE5 and of course, Castlevania is as strong as ever.

Now for some that weren't mentioned already. Atlus : This company knows who its fans are and isn't afraid to give them what they want regardless of sales figures and the almighty dollar.

Another off the top of my head is SNK. They continuously pump out the same franchises, I know, but they're still pretty good.

Frankly, I think Sega, Konami, and Capcom have the most exciting lineup for the first half of 2009 and Sega in particular ended 2008 extremely strong.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Konami has been esepecailly kind to it's Castlevania fans with a slew of great 2d games for gba and ds. Sega has been doing some great stuff. I'm really liking the gba titles so much my Micro has been getting more milage than any other system lately.

Unfortunately since Working Designs shut down, no one else has completely filled there shoes. Atlus is doing a decent job, but I think there are kinda 50/50. They are appealing to old school gamers, yes, but modern day anime fanboys just as much. There is something i find a bit immature and off-putting about some of their titles.

Clover was a definate force in this market until they bit the dust.

I think Namco/Bandai has done a few nice titles for old school rpg fans. I found Tales of Abyss to be one of the best and most fun rpgs since I don't know how long.

Nis has had a few decent old school titles as well.

[Mozgus]

I hope Konami and Capcom never change their ways.

[thejamessea]

Yeah if Sega, Konami, and Capcom ever stop doing what they're doing I may quit videogames.

How about Platinum Games? We haven't actually played anything from them yet, but they're made up of a ton o fformer Capcom guys, right? And Okami, Killer 7, and No More Heroes creators?

Mad World, Bayonetta, and their DS game look somewhat interesting for different reasons.

[MrPopo]

Unfortunately since Working Designs shut down, no one else has completely filled there shoes. Atlus is doing a decent job, but I think there are kinda 50/50. They are appealing to old school gamers, yes, but modern day anime fanboys just as much. There is something i find a bit immature and off-putting about some of their titles.

I do agree that some of their titles don't appeal to me, but I still feel Atlus is doing a fantastic job of bringing over games we wouldn't get otherwise. Sure, some of the games are cutsy, but I attribute that to people being more willing to play games like that these days, as compared to when Working Designs was in its heyday.

Plus, they're giving is Dark Tower, which has classic mode reminiscent of the oldest of old school dugeon crawlers. You gotta give them points for that.

[elvis]

(Experienced meaning gamers who were active during and before the PlayStation era.)

I would've said Nintendo, as they have the most popular gaming IPs in the world, but they're too preoccupied with the casual gaming market. That's kinda what Nintendo does now; cater to this new market.


*snip*

Anyway, who's gonna capitalize on this market? It doesn't look like Sony, Microsoft, or horrifyingly enough, Nintendo care much to, so who's gonna do it? Sega? Konami? Capcom? It seems to me that this demographic needs it's own dedicated platform, or at least a general push from the industry to cater to this demographic on the existing hardware. Thoughts?

The question needs to be asked: how much money can the "experienced gamer" market deliver? The casual market is big dollars. And at the end of the day these companies are in it for money, not love.

Here's a post I made on the Shoryuken forums in the same vein:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.ph ... stcount=15

As a 30 year old gamer (who started gaming some 25 years ago), I fall into your "experienced gamer" category above. But I recognise that where I was once the majority demographic, I'm now the minority. As I said in my SRK thread, I don't like it. But I've got kids to feed and a mortgage to pay, so I completely understand it.

There'll always be fringe companies and indi developers to satisfy my gaming wants. But I understand that it'll only be a few games a year, and not dozens like it used to be. Capcom, SNK/P, Arc System Works, Konami, Treasure, Cave, and plenty of others all spit stuff out from time to time that I'll buy. But the 50,000 copies of some 2D side scroller doesn't make shareholders happy compared to the millions of copies of some generic 3D franchise. Sad but true.

[otaku]

elvis that last paragraph sums up my fave companies. We're a great market because we're willing to adopt hardware early (many of us anyway) and to preorder and or pay big bucks for games and tend to be loyal the problem is there just isnt enough of us and we're harder to please