Seems pretty neat I guess, but not for me… personally prefer to support actual voice actors making a living, putting passion into their work - not some random C suite or shareholder using AI to cut costs
A shift is definitely happening, but idk if counting booths at PAX and GDC is representative.
PAX’ audience are primarily comic and board game nerds, they’re historically light on video game booths in their expo hall, usually prioritizing indie booths when they can. GDC’s audience is game developers not players, so the expo is typically a bunch of hardware and backend service companies.
PAX’ audience are primarily comic and board game nerds, they’re historically light on video game booths in their expo hall
That is entirely untrue. PAX has a specific tabletop convention (PAX Unplugged), but the main cons are very heavily video game focused. The expo hall have an indie game section, but the vast majority of the expo hall is major companies (Nintendo often has the largest booth). I have been to PAX West nearly every (I missed the first year and last year), and board games are there, but never the focus
I’m not saying they have no presence, I’m just saying PAX has not historically been a priority for AAA studios compared to things like E3 and Gamescom. On the whole, PAX is like 75% comics, tabletop/board game, and general nerd stuff, and less than 25% game studio presence. Which makes sense because Penny Arcade is a comic and they’ve always had an association with that crowd. Video games just tend to have a lot of overlap with that crowd, so it’s been worth it for studios to have a presence, some years more than others, some years more indie than AAA (ex Indie Megabooth).
Yes, I understand you think it is 75% board/tabletop/comics and, at least at PAX west, that is untrue. Nintendo literally did a mini event inside PAX two years. Larian has had a huge presence since BG3 was announced. There are esports events the whole time. Most of the panels are video game related. It may be that you don’t do the AAA stuff, but there has historically been a huge presence
Yes, I’ve attended everything you mention. I understand you think that is a large presence, but it amounted to less than 25% of the show. Larian and Nintendo were the exception, not the rule, they made up the bulk of the AAA presence.
Ive been going to pax West since 2011 and AAA absolutely had a huge presence there. It was the bulk of the show. Tabletop had a tiny section of the floor
Poor guy. I mean he’s ridiculously lucky to be as famous as he is and to have been compensated fairly for the rest of his Sonic/SEGA music but it sucks that one of his most famous works has effectively been stolen by a corporation’s sense of entitlement.
The previous section hints at something pretty important, but maybe non-obvious: I assert that MetroidVania is not a genre, it’s a framework - a way of structuring games and most specifically the worlds they take place in.
And
This realization that ‘MetroidVania’ is not a genre helps explain why a game like Batman: Arkham Asylum can be thought of as a MetroidVania where its sequels wouldn’t be, even though almost all aspects of the gameplay are very similar.
Really not convinced that you can’t call something a genre because it wouldn’t describe different games in a series.
I’d argue the Wario Land series has mostly changed genres between 1 and 2. First one is a straight platformer that’s basically Super Mario Bros with different abilities, following games are exploration puzzle game things that have a platforming element, but in which platforming is not the main point IMO.
Resident Evil really forgot it was survival horror for a while.
Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom are almost nothing like the classic Zelda formula. Free-form puzzle solving, free-er movement, almost zero dungeon structures, consumable weapons…
Those are significant, because when it happens it’s very likely some people would be more invested in either the old or new games, which incidentally explains why it doesn’t happen that much in established series.
I know I was initially very disappointed with new Wario, because all I wanted back then was more Mario-style platforming and the intentionally frustrating design of Wario Land 2-3-4 wasn’t for me.
Your example about BoTW is really good. I never played the earlier Zelda games and had near-zero interest in them. Then a friend let me borrow their BoTW cart and I absolutely fell in love with it. Still no interest in playing the earlier ones though.
I happen to like both, but they’re very different. Like a lot of fans of the rest of the series, while playing BotW I missed the classic dungeon experience. A whole divine beast and a dozen shrines stitched together would be maybe like one dungeon in the main series, and it’d have a new item, it would rely on it a lot with clever riddles and it’d have a unique boss, not just another flavour of Ganon.
Of course, a classic Zelda game is also a lot more linear in structure, with a world you can only explore bit by bit, and in a set order (mostly, there is a couple of exceptions).
The worse take i have read in a while, you can say the same about anything, fps, tps, rpg and even visual novels or action adventure, they are more frameworks than genres by their definition, even racing or sports games.
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