Tasting Gaming: Day Three

                Last time on Tasting Gaming, we talked a little about the negative points of larger developers (and publishers,) being in direct competition with younger companies and younger IPs, but there’s a lot of good that could come from this. With the popularity of the kickstarted platformer projects (Yooka Laylee, Mighty No. 9 and BloodStained: Ritual of the Night,) the industry is starting to understand these may not be games for everybody, they may not appeal to casuals and may not create the “whale” customers that they desire but a large portion of the market desires these games and wants to see them do well. (A “whale” is a marketing term that describes a consumer who spends a metric shit-ton of money on micro-transactions and DLC.)

One hopeful thought that keeps floating around in my mind, banging around my skull, waiting, yearning to be let out, is that if these kickstarted projects do well and are relatively commercially successful then the “Triple A” publishers and developers will begin to take the platforming genre seriously and invest the time, money, effort and marketing into making them relevant again. If the demand becomes apparent, if the moneys there then a product or service will be made by someone, and you have to make sure you’re that someone, look at the void left by the popularity of adventure games that TellTale Games continues to cash in on over and over just by placing relevant skins over the same engine, its remarkable. My vision of the future is Nintendo seeing the current success of games like Axiom Verge cashing in on the void left by the lack of traditional Metroid games and going “okay, we have to take this IP seriously once again.” Look at the barrage of retro games flooding Steam in the wake Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight.

                It’s not at all that I don’t want to see these new fresh IPs do well, they may possibly differentiate themselves enough to coexist alongside their predecessors, it’s just the idea of these kickstarted projects bringing back childhood classic like Crash Bandicoot or Castlevania excites me so much. I’m just as much ready to see them thrive on their own and dominate the market at the cost of Big Business’s ignorance and dependence on sample groups, it’s just in a world dominated by money it’d be dumb of these companies to not take this seriously or at least give other companies the opportunity to fill the crater left by the meteor that is ignored gaming mascots and genres.

                 I’d love to hear your guys thoughts maybe leave a comment below or send your emails to: Taplaysanexus@gmail.com or Tweeter at me @Playanexus yo.