This game looks amazing; I need it in my life.
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USGamer: Gaming's Never-Ending Adolescence (about Omega Labyrinth and sex)
- Thread starter BY2K
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This game looks amazing; I need it in my life.
partyphone
Banned
this reaction is weird to me. it looks like a bad game and bad porn.
is this like a sonic fan type of thing?
You know that feeling you get when you're playing that Star Trek game from bamco? It's kind of like that.
KirbYuuYuu
Member
They made a Star Trek game?
Interesting...
I think the most I looked into for Omega Labyrinth was its logo, died laughing and then moved on with my life. Oh well. I guess I see a bit in regards to skeeve on top since it did stop me from watching a show in the past (still haven't bothered)
NinjamicWZ
Banned
Yeah, they actually are, that's why it'd be nice if they often didn't seem so churned out and generic in other aspects, at least at a glance.
Yeah, I imagine this would give me the same feeling if I were to play it. Y'know?
KirbYuuYuu
Member
I don't know, a Bamco Star Trek seems unusual because it's not a combination I would think of really.
And I'm having a hard time with other DRPGs.... although it's mainly because I can't get over aspects that feel really low polished.
MHWilliams
Member
Well it's less that the other content got up and left, and more than the consumer for the niche content is more consistent than the average consumer. They have the money and time to purchase and consume this content. Consuming this content is how this type of consumer defines themselves to a degree that's not true of other types of content.
Let's put it this way. Say you have ten people who will buy stuff. 2 of them enjoy turtles a great deal, 2 of them like turtles, and the rest have various other interests. The 2 that love turtles really love turtles; when you put out a new turtle book or action figure, they'll be there on day one to buy it. They may even buy multiple copies for the purposes of collection. The second group likes turtles, but not to that degree. If you put out turtle stuff every month, they'll buy it every other month or every few months. The rest have no real interest in turtles - maybe they enjoy jaguars or parrots - but they're busy with their day-to-day lives, families, or other hobbies, so they only buy something once or twice a year. (You see this in games with people who play say, Destiny, Call of Duty, or Madden, and that's the only game they get per year.)
As the article points out, for creators, it's easier to focus on the first group, because you're certain that they'll always be there. Creation is expensive, risky, and time-consuming, so why not aim for the people who you know will always buy stuff? At the very least, even if you make some thing about jaguars and parrots, you make sure to throw a turtle or two in there to capture the first group. When most creators do that, then what you have is a market that doesn't accurately reflect the taste of the overall userbase. You're selling to a small percentage of the market because it's easier, but there's more out there.
You see something similar in North American comic books. Creators are finding out there's people out there who will support comics that aren't about superheroes, but the big publishers know superhero fans will be there week-to-week and month-to-month. So they evolve within the constraints of superheroes, instead of actually aiming for these other consumers who also have money, but may not be as fervent as your bread-and-butter.
In some cases, they may be equally fervent, but have lacked content that catered to them. See the Western boom of young adult literature and manga or the sharp increase in MOBA titles for examples of this. That audience was always there, but the major publishers didn't know or care about them until it was proven there was money to made. This is why I frequently caution people who rely on big business producing what the market wants. Businesses minimize risk, so they make the safe bet until they see some newcomer making money. And there's no safer bet than affluent fans who make consistent purchases.
To return to my metaphor, part of the issue here is some people like parrots. There's not a ton of parrot content, but the parrot content that gets made from parrot central (in this case Japan) throws in a lot of turtles. Not necessarily because they creatively love turtles, but because turtles are financially safe. They may actually prefer to go farther and do tortoise stuff, but you can't sell that due to market restrictions. Alternatively, they don't care about turtles at all, but outside forces apply pressure to make sure the consistent turtle demo is taken care of. So turtles bleed into everything.
Parish is arguing that they should really just go an make tortoise stuff because that's what they really want to do, or they should skip turtle stuff altogether if it doesn't fit. There's room for turtle stuff, but it doesn't have to be everywhere.
Astral/H3X
Member
Can someone please explain to me what the pedophile's attraction to a game where the primary headline is that fighting makes women's breasts expand and grow larger?
Last I checked, that's the opposite of what a pedophile likes.
Last I checked, that's the opposite of what a pedophile likes.
MHWilliams
Member
Not really. It's Jeremy's editorial. Pete would've just written a counter editorial. Which is pretty much what he did, albeit on his personal blog. It's worth a read if you're a fan. He does a post every day.
Ignoring the semantics of whether being attracted to 15-17 year olds makes one a pedophile, we are still left with the fact that these pervy games that heavily sexualize younger girls are turning a lot of long time fans away from the JRPGs. It doesn't really matter if the girls are supposed to be 14, 16, or 1500 years old. It's creepy, and most adults don't want breast rubbing mechanics and phallic, cream-filled pastry money shots in their games.
There's always been some pandering in JRPG genre. Look at those bromides in the Lunar games. That was nearly 20 years ago. However things have gotten noticeably worse in the past 5-10 years among localized JRPGs. It wasn't that long ago that I could buy an Atlus game or an XSeed game without worrying about skeevy minigames or leveling systems between bouts of killing monsters in dungeons.
thesolidshark
Member
In reading everything in this thread, I've found a few lengthy posts I agree with, but this one is quite possibly the best because it discusses everything I thought this thread would turn into since page 1.
I find myself agreeing more with those that say niche games like this maybe aren't the most accurate representation of what's prevalent, even if it adds to a growing trend. His article and twitter feel off-putting to where I don't think a conversation from this is useful because it turns into sides fighting, sort of like what we have now.
Like several have suggested, I could really go for more articles that ask why a certain type of game isn't being made (enough), praising the ones that do and asking for more, and/while not kicking dirt on what else is out there that you have a problem with. I can tolerate that last point a bit, but it feels like a misdirected effort the more I see it lately.
KirbYuuYuu
Member
Good news, most of them don't buy it anyway.
And it's not like budgets increased to make certain projects unfeasible or simply the well dried up in terms of potential buyers for those games... which it did outside of the heavy hitters that were already established. A game like Lunar would have trouble existing solely due to skepticism on if there's a market to begin with.
Astral/H3X
Member
I didn't say anything about breast rubbing mechanics or panty shots or cream filled pastries. I haven't really paid attention to this game much, but everything I've seen about Omega Labyrinth shows a bunch of 17 or so year olds with growing tits. And it's cool if you don't want that -- awesome. I don't particularly care for it much outside of a rare giggle, but I also don't particularly like gore and violence. And that's cool too.
What DOESN'T seem cool, is that on this very page, merely for suggesting an interest in a game about growing breasts, a couple of users were banned. Presumably, for being assumed pedophiles. The first page also has a few baffling bans. If this was criminal girls, or some other game of THAT level, then I'd see it. That is a little... pedo. They weren't posts of "OMG I can't wait for the 1000 year old dragon!" They weren't posts of anything other than "Growing boobs? Cool!"
I'm half afraid to post anything in any game that shows cleavage because I'll be banned. God forbid I post anything in a DoA game, now that a single character in it is designed for that oh so unignorable demographic in Japan is in it.
And don't get me wrong; I'm not the target demographic for a game like Criminal Girls. I play waaaaaay more Nintendo than anything else. But occassionally I do enjoy a bit of a fansservice game. And to my knowledge, that's supposed to be okay on GAF. Obviously I can't post pictures of breasts and all that for the sake of being SFW, but this thread (and a few others) are making me think there's some kind of witch hunt going for anyone who would rather see panties than blood and guts in their guilty pleasure games.
And as MHWilliams points out, most of the people who are interested in these games aren't even interested in the "1000 year old dragons". They are like escort missions. An annoying thing that devs keep throwing in there because dear god there's no way not to it seems. I don't like Nowi. I wish she wasn't in FE Awakening, or at least massively changed design wise. Myrrh? Fine. Fa? Okay. Nowi? Fuck it whatever just skip that dragon and get Tiki. And I'm sure there's a lot of people who get games in this general demographic that have similar opinions about these games.
I just wish there was a clear line instead of people just being called out as pedophiles when they haven't even said anything to indicate that.
The majority of western gamers never bought JRPGs. Even during the PS1/PS2 golden age, pretty much all of these games outside of Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Nintendo titles were being outsold by wrestling games and shitty licensed titles that few people remember today. I am not talking about those adults/buyers who had zero interest to begin with. I am talking about the sort of person who bought Xenogears, Grandia 2 or Dark Cloud in previous generations.
The market for JRPGs has definitely contracted. However, i think the increased pandering is going to do more damage in the long run, even if it provides a built in audience at present.
I agree with this. I own FE Awakening and a few of the PS3 Atelier games, and enjoy them despite the odd questionable character or cutscene that I wish wasn't present. I am sure that there are a number of people playing these games that just like dungeon crawlers or strategy RPGs. However, at some point, the pandering starts to turn people off. We are even seeing more of it in stuff from Square Enix and Nintendo (not to the level of some of GAF's banned Vita titles, but definitely more pandering than we would have seen from either developer during their PS2/Gamecube days).
cosmicblizzard
Banned
KirbYuuYuu
Member
Like with anime? Which... did the same thing and caters to roughly 10k people at best as a core audience?
It contracted last gen for the most part, for various reasons even. We're just left with the aftermath of such. Just slightly better off in sales than anime due to pricing and amount of content. Only real way to fix it is to buy content that is above what is displayed here, and that's if we're capable of putting our money where our mouth is
aka why I'm being denied fucking Dragon Quest on 3DS because no one fucking bought it on the DS.
I still buy JRPGs. I just feel like I am getting increasingly restricted to Falcom games, Atlus' SMT titles, and some of the stuff that Square Enix and Nintendo put out.
That was a pretty awesome post by Pete. I always liked his stuff at your site. Shame he had to leave. His perspective isn't one you often see on gaming sites.
Anyways, Jeremy could've held back on some of his remarks on Twitter. The original editorial could've been cleaned up a bit more too. I kinda get what he's trying to say but the point is muddled amid all the built up angst he has towards all those games.
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