Close to home -
July 21, 2001 - Nich Maragos
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot.
Have you ever seen the center of the ocean?
Don't say we didn't warn you.
I saw Otaku no Video for the first time tonight, and I'm feeling a little bit too spooked about the similarity of my lifestyle for much commentary tonight. It's all very funny when Kubo hems and haws and admits to his girlfriend that no, he's not getting paid for any of the things he's doing--until I thought to myself "Wait a minute ... I work for the GIA."
| Credit where credit is due |
| Nich,
1) Mitsuda's name most definitely appeared in the credits of the Japanese
version of Chrono Trigger PS; if Square USA left it out, then they are even
bigger dolts than FFV's translation made them look like.
2) ICO is going to get less attention than and sell less than Final Fantasy X
because Final Fantasy X has a skillion dollar marketing budget behind it and
ICO does not. I love these easy topics.
-Chris Kohler
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It's pretty much irrelevant whether they're in the Japanese version of Chrono Trigger PS. What's more important is, are they in the credits of American Chrono Trigger US? I suspect that they're not (although I can't prove it, since I don't have my SNES with me here) given that the rest of the translation was ripped straight from the previous American release. In other words, it's probably not a mistake on Square EA's part, and more likely dates back to '95. If anyone can confirm or deny this I'd be interested to know.
As for your second point, the longer I run this column the less I understand marketing. Yes, FFX has a lot of marketing behind it ... but who reads marketing? Where does it appear? Who is it aimed at? More often than not, the same people who already know FFX exists and have been eagerly awaiting it ever since the announcement at Square's Millennium Conference last year. The one thing I want to know, ironically, is the thing no one reading this website can tell me. Where do the casual users make their purchasing decisions? The GIA has a few hundred thousand readers; let's say each and every one of them bought a copy of Final Fantasy IX. Where did the other million and a half buyers come from?
| Which came first: the good game or the hype? |
| Well,
In all honesty, I think the "gems" that are so differenty get less notice
because they are different. We all preach about innovation and everything,
but to quote an old axiom, don't fix it if it ain't broken. People praise
VS, VP, and CC as hallmarks of the industry, changing a lot of what we know
about gaming, but how well did they sell in comparison to the lasted swords
and sorcery FF, or the latest PC shooter from Quake?
I think Sony is trying to stick with what they know what works and what
sells and pushing that...playing it safe. Why spend a ton of money pushing
a game that is not recognized by the masses when they can throw their cash
behind MGS2 or FFX? Those gameswill do well because they are known so well,
and the more they push them the better their chances.
Of course, by not letting the "gems" be known they risk the industry
stagnating, but according to a lot of the 01d $k001 31337$ thats a good
thing...
-Efrate, wondering if deep down we really want change?
|
The thing is, Sony doesn't need to push MGS2 or FFX. Konami's and Square's PR departments, respectively, are capable of that all by themselves. Sony's proven that they can sell a PS2 game to a wide audience with Dark Cloud (9th best selling game in the month of May) and Gran Turismo 3 (no current figures available, but the new "mandatory purchase with every PS2" policy can't be hurting it). So why not ICO? Understand that I'm not asking that question in the accusatory sense, I'm just curious.
After all, no game starts out well-known and anticipated. Metal Gear hadn't been seen in the US for eight years when Metal Gear Solid became a smash hit, leading to today's hotly anticipated MGS2. Could the same thing happen to ICO? Why or why not? This marketing thing ... I don't get it.
| GIA: 1, World: Several trillion |
| Nich,
Well, I don't really have anything on-topic to say, just thought I'd let
you guys know you're the only place I've heard anything about Gitaroo-Man,
and I'm looking forward to it more than FFX or Xenosaga. Not as much as Rez,
mind you...
-The Neocount of Merentha, too sleepy to think of anything to write here.
|
Good to hear, in a way. Even if we're not as influential as we'd like to be (and no outlet of the gaming press is, really) it's nice to have a small victory here and there.
| If only ... |
| Chin,
Well, Square has obviously put a big fat ass-mark right in the gaming
industry with Final Fantasy and the like. This is why ICO isn't getting the
attention it may or may not deserve. Square's ass is right in the way! (I
love Square, though)
If ICO is a good game though, then people will buy it, wether it's made by
Square or not. Am I right? Or am I fat? ...! Err..I mean, or am I right?
On Square, as long as they keep making their games involved and keep the
stories up to par, im happy. We need more stuff like Xenogears, though. That
game is probably the most artistic and involved thing, in general, that I
have ever had the honor of laying my eyes on.
If ICO was created well is involved, ill be sure to buy it.
-Numaro
P.S. Im going to bomb Namco HQ if they mess up the Xeno title.
|
You're wrong. The industry is littered with good games that haven't sold well; Gitaroo-Man sold somewhere around 3000 copies in Japan outpaced by all the latest mahjongg and horse racing sims. Jet Grind Radio, one of the freshest games of last year, sold so poorly that major retail chains across the country are practically paying people to take the game home. If it was as simple as the best games selling the best, this column would dry up from lack of contention and debate. As you can see, it's still thriving, so good luck to ICO.
| Prior record |
| Nich,
I think FFX is recieving more attention than Ico because the Final
Fantasy series has a huge fanbase, while the only people that eagerly await
Ico are those few that have had the opportunity to play the demo. Also
signifigant is the fact that Square and even Sony are pushing FFX harder
than Sony is pushing Ico. I suspect Sony has decided that Ico is not
destined for mainstream (Gran Turismo style) success, and thus are not going
to spend a lot of money promoting it, figuring that the playable demo and
the positive coverage it will get from the gaming media will stir up
enthusiasm among the hardcore. I'm just glad Sony decided to bring Ico to
the States.
I think Ico along with GT3, Twisted Metal Black, and the surprisingly
competent translation of Dark Cloud, indicate that Sony is determined to
once against become the great software producer it was early in the life of
the Playstation (i.e. Warhawk, Tenchu, Destruction Derby 2, Wipeout, Colony
Wars, Gameday 96-98 and Ape Escape) and not the developer it has been in the
past year (i.e. Gameday PS2, Fantavision and Legend of Dragoon). If only
3DO could likewise resolve to stop producing crap...
-Mark
|
This is probably closer to the truth than any wild claim that Square can possibly outstrip the marketing muscle of the Sony Corporation, for heaven's sakes. People know what to expect from Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior; games like Gitaroo-Man and ICO are asking users to take a chance on the unknown. And it's hard to blame them. Confession time: I haven't played ICO. Even after Zak and Andrew wouldn't shut up about it at the E3 hotel, I mentally put it in the "oh, that's nice" file and continued to ignore it for the remainder of the show in favor of ... I don't even remember what, is the sad part. I'm working to find a Jampack and correct that oversight, but there I was, someone whose job was to look for new and interesting games at the largest game show in America, and I wasn't doing it.
As H.I. McDonough once noted, "Sometimes it's a hard world for small things."
| You forgot to tell me why I should care |
| Well, I've been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now, and I figure
it's about time I write something about it.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't like Final Fantasy games.
Ok - that's a pretty general and bold statement, so I'll start from, um, the
start. I don't consider myself a "new-school" gamer - I've been RPG-ing
since the first Dragon Warrior on the NES (which I absolutely adored), so
that, I guess, is pretty "old-school." I sort of missed the whole middle
part, though. You know, the so-called golden age of RPG's and whatnot. Never
had a Super Nintendo, so I missed out on FF4, 6 and all that. I do have a
Playstation now, though, and pretty much all the games I have for it are
RPG's. Thanks to the re-releases of Square's SNES classics, I've been able
to see what I've missed, and, frankly, I'm not impressed. And it's not just
the 16-bit Final Fantasys I don't like: the PSX ones don't excite me all
that much, either.
I still love other RPG's, though. The Chrono series are probably my
favorite, as I can find very little to bitch about when it comes to both of
the games. I also love Xenogears, Secret of Mana on the SNES (or was it
Legend? I get them confused) and am in the middle of Lunar:SSS, which I'm
also really enjoying. And I bought the Dragon Warrior 3 GBC re-release the
day it came out, and it's absolutely brilliant. I'm hideously excited for
the release of DW7 and most of my summer revolves around finishing up this
stack of games I've yet to complete. So don't write me off as an RPG playa
hata, as that's about as far from the truth as you can get.
But no matter how much I try with the FF games, I can't for the life of me
figure out what the appeal is. I'm chalking a lot of it up to the fact that
for a lot of people, FF4 and 6 were the first glimpse at "modern" RPG's, and
have a certain love for them in that respect: rose-colored specs and all
that. Even with that in mind, though, I can go back and play other games of
the era and love them to little pieces. I just pretty much find all the FF
games to be pretty bland. FF6 I quit in the middle of, because I found it so
boring. So the world's been destroyed and Celes is eternally stuck on that
barren island. Blasphemy, I'm sure.
Actually, now that I think about it, they aren't all completely bad. The
first disc of FF7 I enjoyed but the rest of it fell apart, and the bad
certainly outweighed the good in the whole of the game. And the first one
was pretty nice, but really, at that early in the evolution of the RPG, the
engine was really the only thing separating it from other RPG's of the time,
which include the following: Dragon Warrior.
Anyway, just throwing that out there. I'm pretty damned geeky when it comes
to my RPG's and - if I have to say it - I may be a little too far on the
"hardcore" end of the spectrum, but I just don't like the big centerpiece of
the genre that everyone else does. Maybe it's from bad translation. Maybe
it's shoddy, undeveloped, or convoluted storylines. Maybe it's the fact that
I think Uematsu is extremely overrated and prefer Mitsuda by a whole heck of
a lot. I could even be missing the Final Fantasy gene. Either way, I just
don't like the personality the games have.
Oh, and here's a half-assed way to try and tie this in to the topic you gave
us. Final Fantasy is hugely popular, and will continue to be, as long as
there's an aspect of familiarity in them. Like what's-his-or-her-face said
in an earlier letter, they all have chocobos, Cid, and all the other threads
that run though them. Games like ICO, though, tread on new terrain, and
people aren't really as daring as they'd like to think. My prediction is
that FFX will, of course, be the best-selling PS2 game (at least until FFXI
comes out) and ICO will more than likely go largely unnoticed and
underappreciated (assuming, of course, it deserves the praise it's been
getting) due to the fact that it's something unfamiliar. Oh, yeah, that's
another reason I don't really like the FF games. To me, it's pretty much the
same game with prettier graphics and too much attention put on the little
tweaks Square puts in the baroque ATB system. Nostalgia is wonderful, but
living in the past isn't.
All right. I could go on, but I figure that long-winded rant will get enough
Final Fantasy fanatics riled up and out to get me for quite some time. Sorry
if this topic has been discussed to death, but at least it's not another
"New School vs. Old School" debate. More of an "I Don't Like Your School,
Old or New" one. Feel free to rip my opinion to shreds and tell me what
exactly it is I don't see in the games, and why I'm totally wrong.
-Your favorite pessimist and mine, Matt.
|
How nice for you. Are you asking me to tell you your opinion is wrong? It's not. You've played the games since the first, you've given it the old college try, you came away unsatisfied. It happens. I'm not sure how to argue "I don't like something." Play the games you like, ignore the ones you don't, I always say.
| Background check |
| Hey Nich,
I have to agree with Rafael about the amount of FF-related stuff lately.
You have to think if these people actually play anything *other* than Final
Fantasy. I'd like to see one letters column without a single reference to
Final Fantasy...no, scratch that. Not one reference to *any* Square game
whatsoever (or the FF Movie). I could be more extreme and say that there
should at least one column without a single reference to RPGs, period. It'd
be nice to see what the regulars play other than RPG's eh? I think that'd
be a tough task for the regular readers, don't you think? Heck, make my
challenge a topic if you like!
-Mike M.
|
I agree, and I try to keep Square from dominating my columns to an unhealthy extent. That's why I've done columns on marketing, entrenched-ism, names of both characters and games, bad games, and Phantasy Star Online v.2. In fact, I've only done one column on FF really, when I tackled the movie. So I won't take up your challenge, but I will continue my streak.
Closing Comments:
Chris is a great guy and an excellent columnist, but there's one thing I have that he doesn't. Since he doesn't hang around us very much and tends to write his columns with minimal staff input, he fills a role similar to that of site ombudsman--he is in the site without being of the site, and he's made a virtue out of it by occasionally offering his own unbiased opinion on some of our questionable judgement calls.
Well, not me. I'm deep in the thick of the upcoming coverage grind, and thus in a position to answer questions you might have regarding such. So tomorrow I want to talk about the GIA's area of coverage. Is it everything you're looking for? Send in your guesses on just what our coverage boundaries really are, and what you think they ought to be. And I will respond to them, bias on my sleeve.
-Nich Maragos, wondering if he looks as bad as Tanaka
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