Do Quarter Munchers actually exist?

[Erik_Twice]

A couple days ago I came across an interesting thread in the shmups.com forum that asked this very questions and I thought to ask you guys what you think of it.

What is a quarter muncher? Good question, I think. Most of the time, perfectly fair games like Robotron 2084, Gradius or Strider are derided with this label, mostly by people who still think Ghosts'n Goblins is the hardest game of all time and that mashing the B button should give you a 1CC in a game by Capcom.

To me a quarter muncher is a game designed to promote an unnatural patron turnover through an unfair and artistically uninteresting level of difficulty.

I wouldn't consider unintentionally poorly designed games (Gradius III) to be quarter munchers. I don't think short games (DDR, OutRun) aren't quarter munchers either, just expensive.

So, which games do you consider to be quarter munchers? Will I have to defend Gauntlet?


Link to shmups thread: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47665

The examples of how games became unfairly hard for western releases is specially interesting. I don't think the western arcade market ever cared much about giving his patrons a good experience, focusing way too hard on multiplayer and turnover.

[dsheinem]

A couple days ago I came across an interesting thread in the shmups.com forum that asked this very questions and I thought to ask you guys what you think of it.

What is a quarter muncher? Good question, I think. Most of the time, perfectly fair games like Robotron 2084, Gradius or Strider are derided with this label, mostly by people who still think Ghosts'n Goblins is the hardest game of all time and that mashing the B button should give you a 1CC in a game by Capcom.

To me a quarter muncher is a game designed to promote an unnatural patron turnover through an unfair and artistically uninteresting level of difficulty.

I wouldn't consider unintentionally poorly designed games (Gradius III) to be quarter munchers. I don't think short games (DDR, OutRun) aren't quarter munchers either, just expensive.

So, which games do you consider to be quarter munchers? Will I have to defend Gauntlet?


Link to shmups thread: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47665

The examples of how games became unfairly hard for western releases is specially interesting. I don't think the western arcade market ever cared much about giving his patrons a good experience, focusing way too hard on multiplayer and turnover.

I'd say the VAST majority of arcade games are quarter munchers, in that they are designed to facilitate the average player pumping in quarters to prolong the experience. Many are also designed to be relatively short experiences so as to increase revenue.

I think the question of "fairness" is a different one. Even in "fair" games that can be 1cc'd, that kind of performance usually comes only after lots of practicing (and thus quarter-munching). Some games are unfair (near impossible or impossible to 1cc even for high-level players in the genre), but all arcade games are designed to make as much money as possible...

[Gamerforlife]

A lot of classic arcade games can only be 1cced by people using exploits, glitches, etc. To me, those are quarter munchers because there is no legit way to 1cc them. For example, the sewer level exploit in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where if you stand at just the right spot in the middle of the screen, the enemies can't attack you

Also, consider that arcade machines have settings, and arcade owners can tweak them to make things harder, which I imagine many of them did. It's amazing when you pull up an emulator and see how many options there were for cheapening up many arcade games

It's fascinating to see how different a lot of beat 'em ups on consoles were versus their arcade counterparts. I've played many console beat 'em ups all the way through to the end on one life, but the number of arcade beat 'em ups I've done that with are few

There was just a different mindset between designing such games for consoles and for arcades. The SNES version of Turtles in Time is not even remotely as cheap and rigged as the arcade version was, because it didn't need to be. Konami already got their 50-60 dollars out of you. You weren't going to be pumping quarters into your Super Nintendo.

[isiolia]

There was just a different mindset between designing such games for consoles and for arcades. The SNES version of Turtles in Time is not even remotely as cheap and rigged as the arcade version was, because it didn't need to be. Konami already got their 50-60 dollars out of you. You weren't going to be pumping quarters into your Super Nintendo.

Yet, arguably, limited lives/continues serve a similar purpose for home console games. Turning what would be a 45 minute credit-feed into something that might take many hours of practice to beat. Obviously, not everything is like that, but it's a lot less likely an arcade game won't give you the chance to keep paying and playing.

[Erik_Twice]

Even in "fair" games that can be 1cc'd, that kind of performance usually comes only after lots of practicing (and thus quarter-munching).

But this is true of any game of its era, not just arcades. You won't beat Castlevania without paying 240 quarters and lots of practise.

Is Castlevania a "60 dollar muncher"?


I also don't think it's fair to think the real game only comes after practise. The game is that practise. Learning how to beat it is the actual game.

[Hatta]

Sinistar

[fastbilly1]

Metamoqester

Its a coop boss fighting game. Ack and I had to quarter feed from the third level on. It took us something like 100 credits to beat the game, it was simply impossible. The third level boss has multiple attacks that are impossible to dodge and atleast two one shot attacks.

[noiseredux]

[Ack]

Metamoqester

Its a coop boss fighting game. Ack and I had to quarter feed from the third level on. It took us something like 100 credits to beat the game, it was simply impossible. The third level boss has multiple attacks that are impossible to dodge and atleast two one shot attacks.

The fourth boss, the tank one, was even worse. The robot Frankenstein boss after it felt easier. Thank goodness there are only six bosses. I didn't think my thumbs could have dealt with another one.

[Erik_Twice]

Metamoqester

There's a 1CC run of the game on Youtube (!) and it's obvious the player just hitsuns the bosses because otherwise he can't win. What the hell man?