Where is gaming's Kingdom Come or Flex Mentallo?

[Zrak]

We are still having trouble telling a truly interactive story. I don't think we have even had our Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns yet, not really.
Heck, we have a hard enough time with the "cutscene+'interactive' sequence+cutscene" model. Even more story based games like Assassins Creed often still fail on so many levels as stories.

Metal Gear. C'mon. Genre subversions, postmodern narrative flourishes, and a mix of apocalyptic themes and socio-political commentary?

As for having our Dark Knight Returns, I'm sure it's Gears of War or something else parodied in Manly Guys Doing Manly Things.

[Tebryn]

Writing a comic book is much cheaper than creating a video game. The days of a single small game written by just a few visionaries changing the face of the whole industry are long gone. To change it, two things need to happen:

LIMBO, Bastion, Braid, World of Goo, Minecraft, Angry Birds and a slew of other Indie Games made by small teams would like very much to speak to you. The face of gaming is changing. It's a big market and a slow market to change however. All of those? They're triple A titles. Minecraft alone has sold over eight million copies.

[warty goblin]

The difference is the amount of work and money necessary to make a game. 25 years ago a single programmer could create a world best-seller. These days? An indie game, yes, but a Triple A title requires millions of dollars and a team of dozens.

It's more like hundreds of people anymore.

And I'd rather see dozens of Mario clones or Final Fantasy 7 clones than Call of Duty clones. The former could at least have some merit and idea on their own, while most modern FPSes are almost indistinguishable from each other, with no sense of fun or invention.

I'm down with not liking them (I don't like them much), but there's plenty of actually fairly substantial differences in mechanics and approach. There's also a reasonable amount of innovation and invention going on. Near-total destruction physics in Battlefield 3 (which is a seriously impressive accomplishment that does nothing to save the campaign from being unimaginable crap) is one more technical example. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 changed the campaign structure for something less scripted, and actually apparently bases mission outcomes on player performance and substantially altered the perk and reward structures in multiplayer.

It's actually arguable that the intensely competitive market forces more innovation in the modern shooter space than in most other AAA genres. There's some derivative crap to be sure - I'm struggling to come up with a justification for why Medal of Honor: Warfighter exists - but that's true of just about every genre out there.

And if shooting dudes in the face with assault rifles is your thing, there's lots of fun to be had. If it isn't, there's exactly none. Which makes them no different from, say, platformers. I don't find jumping on stuff fun, platformers nearly universally bore me.

[Tengu_temp]

LIMBO, Bastion, Braid, World of Goo, Minecraft, Angry Birds and a slew of other Indie Games made by small teams would like very much to speak to you. The face of gaming is changing. It's a big market and a slow market to change however. All of those? They're triple A titles. Minecraft alone has sold over eight million copies.

You can't call something an indie game and a Triple A game at once because those terms have opposite meanings. And you overestimate the popularity of these games. They made money and a name for themselves, yes, but the only ones that sold as much as Triple A titles are Minecraft and Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a casual phone game not aimed at the gamer market, and works under different rules - Bejeweled would be another example. Minecraft is a rare example of an indie game making it really big, and I wish to see more of that happening. But so far, it's an exception, not the rule.

[Das Platyvark]

The problem with story in games, usually, is that people often don't realize that they're not a movie. You can certainly try and write it like one, but the point where things start to really become interesting, in a way unique to the medium, is when it starts to open up. Hence Minecraft. For games like that, or to go back a bit earlier, say, Morrowind, (or really any TES game) it's reached the point where you are a blank enough person that the character becomes something new entirely. In games of a more cinematic layout, it's often difficult to connect to the characters, because if you play through once or twice, they do the same thing every time. Minecraft avoids this by letting you be the only sentient creature, really. I've got a lot more emotional weight out of that game than I have many others, simply because I fill in all the gaps. Similarly, recently playing through Morrowind, I bought myself a slave, before going through a sudden moral crisis when I realized that this person was as much a human being as anyone else in the game world. If a game can pull that off without ever forcing you into it (it's not part of anything you must do, it's just there) then I call it successful.

tl;dr: A game is an artistic success when it's vague enough to let you fill in your own moral concepts and character.

[Kitten Champion]

I would agree that AAA titles are becoming increasingly derivative. This is true of most artistic mediums, and there are always combo breakers waiting there in the wings for me to enjoy. It's just with video games, the feeling is more intimate. Unlike movies where things like setting, characters, and dialogue can change King Lear into Ran, a WW2 FPS doesn't feel loads different from a modern or science fictional gunner. Aim, click, run, repeat. Some people crave that feeling and want nothing more, but I can't understand the need to dole out $60 two to three times a year to maintain it.

I've been criticized for fetishistizing classic games, but I genuinely feel like it was less endemic to the game design process to rigidly follow certain formula 20 years ago than it is today. They were a part of, or were just coming off, the arcade era which had near limitless flexibility in its inception. Arcade games are still fun, owing nothing to their graphical composition. Because, as I've said, gaming is about feeling -- moreso than anything else.

[Tiki Snakes]

Personally, I find the term Indie game a rather meaningless construct. What is the difference between a one person games company, say, that creates an arty side scrolling platformer and an 8 man team creating an arty side scrolling platformer

Certainly, the latter puts paid to the idea that Minecraft is the sole exception.

The developers announced that as of November 2011, they had sold over 1 million copies of the games across the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Microsoft Windows platforms.[33]

Games companies like Double-Fine, (Psychonauts and Brutal Legend) have also embraced the smaller, "indie" style games market, releasing Xbox-Arcade hits like Costume Quest, Stacking and Iron Brigade.

[Tebryn]

You can't call something an indie game and a Triple A game at once because those terms have opposite meanings. And you overestimate the popularity of these games. They made money and a name for themselves, yes, but the only ones that sold as much as Triple A titles are Minecraft and Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a casual phone game not aimed at the gamer market, and works under different rules - Bejeweled would be another example. Minecraft is a rare example of an indie game making it really big, and I wish to see more of that happening. But so far, it's an exception, not the rule.

They do? See, here I thought Indie Game just meant Independent Game, as in Independent Developer game. Indie Game doesn't mean "not mainstream" or anything. Or the games I listed -wouldn't- be Indie games, now would they? You can't be not mainstream when you've sold over eight million copies. That's utter nonsense. That's a term people ascribe to it sure but it isn't what the term was intended to mean. It means the game wasn't made by a major company.

They can still get triple A status regardless of who makes them anyway. LIMBO has made over 7 million dollars in sales, the 11th highest selling X-Box Live Arcade game to date. That's a pretty good amount of money from a non-mainstream game company. Bastion has sold more than half a million copies. What does it take to be a triple A game then? If not sales then praise? All but Angry Birds has been praised over and over for their development. Bastion was awarded the Outstanding Innovation in Gaming award by Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. The list goes on.

[Terraoblivion]

So, uh, Touhou is the most mainstream Japanese gaming franchise out there? I mean it's easily the most successful over there with at least two dedicated cons with hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and something like a third of both winter and summer Comiket dedicated to it...

Also, Tebryn, you really need to get a sense of scale. 7 million is loose change compared to the sums moved by the AAA gaming industry, just like it would be in the movie industry. If a game only earns that little it's either a successful indie game or one of the most massive flops ever. The gaming industry just isn't operating with that kind of sums all that much anymore.

And Tiki Snakes, both Another World and Limbo are indie games, hell Limbo is probably the most iconic of all indie games out there. So I'm not really sure what your point in comparing the two is.

[Zrak]

The problem with story in games, usually, is that people often don't realize that they're not a movie. You can certainly try and write it like one, but the point where things start to really become interesting, in a way unique to the medium, is when it starts to open up. Hence Minecraft. For games like that, or to go back a bit earlier, say, Morrowind, (or really any TES game) it's reached the point where you are a blank enough person that the character becomes something new entirely. In games of a more cinematic layout, it's often difficult to connect to the characters, because if you play through once or twice, they do the same thing every time.

If that is the case, then why do people re-watch films and manage to connect to the characters as much as, if not more than, the first time? I would also contest that interactivity is hardly unique to the medium, and can inhibit storytelling as much or more than it can help it.

tl;dr: A game is an artistic success when it's vague enough to let you fill in your own moral concepts and character.

I think there's a degree to which this is true, and situations where it works, but I really just don't see it holding water as an axiom. Especially given the Minecraft example; is Pong a triumph of video-game storytelling because one can "fill in all the gaps"?

[Tiki Snakes]

Back when Another World was made, that was pretty much the only type of games development there was. If you transported a games company from back in the day into the modern industry, it would be written off by some in this thread as just an Indie games company too.

[Tebryn]

Also, Tebryn, you really need to get a sense of scale. 7 million is loose change compared to the sums moved by the AAA gaming industry, just like it would be in the movie industry. If a game only earns that little it's either a successful indie game or one of the most massive flops ever. The gaming industry just isn't operating with that kind of sums all that much anymore.

I have a sense of scale. I didn't say "Hey, 7 mil is good for a triple A game". I said it's good for an Indie Game. Which it is. Quite so in fact. Most games created by non-mainstream companies don't breach that kind of revenue. Give credit where credit is due? And is a Triple A game only valued by how much it makes? LIMBO, Bastion, and Braid have all received masses of awards in the areas of Game Innovation. Minecraft earned Notch a BAFTA. How does that make them not Triple A games? They're viewed as hallmarks of new age gaming. They're popular by merit that they're good. Not because they had commercials and big companies using their name to sell them. Maybe it's time we change how we rate games, instead of decry that the Triple A titles are just carbon copies. Do they deserve the title just because they make crap loads of money?

[Terraoblivion]

Back when Another World was made, that was pretty much the only type of games development there was. If you transported a games company from back in the day into the modern industry, it would be written off by some in this thread as just an Indie games company too.

Because the industry has changed, kinda like how if you transported a film studio from the mid-20s to the modern world, they'd never make it as anything but an indie studio. Is the concept of things changing over time really that strange? I seem to recall that we don't write books in ways that makes them easy to recite anymore either and music seems to have changed quite a bit over the centuries. And of course, mainstream is a relative term describing what is normal, common and accepted and isn't a fixed quality, what is mainstream now might be niche in ten years and what is common now might have been avantgarde in the past.

And Tebryn, the point is that the games operate on a massive smaller scale than AAA titles. There's less money involved, smaller audience, more limited amounts of content, they're fundamentally different. I'm not saying worse, I'm saying different. Just like how a Lars von Trier movie is different from Hollywood. And here's the important thing you seem to not realize, AAA is a defined term relating to how a game is produced. It doesn't mean "really big game" or "really successful game" or whatever, it means high budget game made in the traditional system of studios and publishers with the aim of high returns. AAA games are made and judged fundamentally different from indie games with different parameters of success and that's why they're different.

I'd also like to point out that half a million sales is amazing among indie games, while it is only barely above the threshold of failure for a AAA game. Games like Halo, CoD, Final Fantasy or whatever moves far, far more copies than that, even on a tepid release. So, no, we're not in the middle of some huge revolution, we're just experiencing viable ways of releasing games outside the studio system making them capable of reaching a niche audience. You know, kinda like how it goes with movies.

[Tebryn]

And here's the important thing you seem to not realize, AAA is a defined term relating to how a game is produced. It doesn't mean "really big game" or "really successful game" or whatever, it means high budget game made in the traditional system of studios and publishers with the aim of high returns. AAA games are made and judged fundamentally different from indie games with different parameters of success and that's why they're different.

Well then sod them? The problem isn't just with the gaming industry then but the people who judge and support it. If you know that big titled games are bloated, carbon copied messes don't support them. The way you show you disfavor is not put money into the system. Support smaller developers who are trying to make the games they want to make and not what a bunch of entitled fans feel like they should have. Drown out the people who don't want the games to change from what they were ten years ago with your money and your support. Why should games have different parameters of success? A good game is a good game. A bad game is a bad game, doesn't matter how much money was spent.

And the OP of the thread shows the problem here. Where's the Kingdom Come of gaming? The Gaming Dark Ages? With games such as Braid, Bastion, LIMBO out on the market? My only reply is what Dark Ages? This is the best time for gaming I've ever seen and I've been playing video games since 1987. It wasn't even ten years ago a game like LIMBO could do as well as it's done without the help of a mainstream designer. The notion that we're somehow in a slump for games is only because the people looking for games are looking at these "Triple A" games. That is what is lamentable.

[Terraoblivion]

And we've seen how well that has worked with movies. I mean, the movie going audience has been so willing to listen and that's why summer blockbusters have been abandoned.

Besides, being successful isn't inherently a mark of poor quality, just like having a large budget isn't. By the same token, being small or obscure isn't a sign of quality either.

[Tiki Snakes]

Well, the proposition was that they don't make games like the used to. But they do, almost exactly like they used to. They just call them Indie games now, and somehow that doesn't count.

Some random figures for comparison and context;

Pac Man sold 7 Million copies on the Atari 2600. (It was the best selling home video game in it's day).
Morrowind on the Xbox sold 1.36 million copies (presumably much more total)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Star Fox both sold 4 million
Metroid Prime on the Gamecube sold 2 million copies.
Heavy Rain (playstation3 exclusive I believe), sold 1.7 million.
And at the high end of the scale, Super Mario Brothers 3

In 2008, Guinness World Records listed the game as the best-selling video game to be sold separately from a system, and reported worldwide sales of over 18 million copies.[

This is the context for the success of games like Minecraft and Limbo.

The Xbox 360 version of Minecraft became profitable within the first 24 hours of the game's release when the game broke the Xbox Live sales records with 400,000 players online.[80] Within a week of being on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Minecraft sold upwards of one million copies.[81] It was announced in July 2012 that Minecraft has sold over three million copies since the game debuted on Xbox LIVE Arcade in May 2012. This brings the total projected sales for Minecraft to over seven million for all platforms in its lifetime.[82]

[Terraoblivion]

And as we've established, Minecraft is an extreme outlier in terms of commercial success among indie games. Limbo is an outlier too, but not as much.

Also, I'm not sure the content of these games can really, accurately be said to be identical to that of older games even though there are similarities. Few games from, say, the early 90s did the kind of work with lightning, music and atmosphere that has become the hallmark of indie gaming, just like few did the sort of indirect narrative that is common for indie games.

And about your list...The only truly insanely popular games on it are SMB3 and Pacman, the rest are generally successful games with unspectacular sales.

[Tebryn]

And we've seen how well that has worked with movies. I mean, the movie going audience has been so willing to listen and that's why summer blockbusters have been abandoned.

The movie industry isn't the gaming industry. It's got a wider and larger audience. What works for one may not work for the other.

Besides, being successful isn't inherently a mark of poor quality, just like having a large budget isn't. By the same token, being small or obscure isn't a sign of quality either.

I never said it was on either account. I said that judging games by how much money was spent is ridiculous and we as a niche market should begin to re-evaluate how we rate and support things.

[Tiki Snakes]

Sure, it's not an exhaustive list and it's more about the low end of the scale of best sellers than the high end of the list of best sellers, but most of those are top twentyish or so for their respective consoles.

The simple fact of the matter is that the Indie game industry is going from strength to strength. Limbo and Minecraft aren't inexplicable exceptions to the way of things, they're just ahead of the curve.

And if what you crave are games that remind you of the way the industry used to be, then that's where you should be looking, because that's exactly what "Indie Games" are.

[Terraoblivion]

I think you're underestimating the gaming market. By a lot. Even if you arbitrarily don't include Facebook games and casual games. Pretty much all male teens and twenty-somethings play at least some traditional video games, predominantly shooters and sports games. Where do you think that all those annual sales of Madden and Fifa comes from? Eight million hardcore gamers trading up every single year? Gaming is mainstream culture, especially but far from exclusively, for men, and that's while staying within games that seem aimed at traditional gamers.

[Tiki Snakes]

I'm not under-estimating anything. Neither am I entirely sure what your point even is at this point, but if you fancy, here's the Wiki page in question on the best selling videogames.

Edit in response to the below - Ah, that makes more sense. Carry on.

[Terraoblivion]

That was to Tebryn who seems to think gaming is niche. Your post came up while I was writing.

Edit: I will say that your calling SMB3 the best selling non-bundled game is wrong.

Here's a short list of games with higher sales from what you provided:
Mario Kart Wii (32.44 million)[88][90]
Wii Sports Resort (30.14 million)[88]
Wii Play (28.02 million)[91]
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (26.26 million)[88]
Wii Fit (22.67 million)[91][92]
Wii Fit Plus (20.48 million)[88]

Pokémon Red and Green/Blue
Pokémon Gold and Silver

New Super Mario Bros. (29.09 million)[88]
Nintendogs All versions (23.64 million)[97]
Mario Kart DS (22.57 million)[88]
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (18.96 million)[97]

And that's just from three Nintendo consoles.

[Tebryn]

I don't think we are. I think you're putting words in our mouths and making assumptions about what we know.

The point is, at least for me, that I don't care. I don't care how popular a game is. I do my research, watch Lets Plays, follow development cycles and the like with games I like or think I may like. I support games that are in my vein of interest and that is how I interact with. But the topic isn't about market shares or things like that. The topic is about games defining pieces. I'm just saying, they're out there. You just have to look past what the main market is giving you. Much like anything else.

That was to Tebryn who seems to think gaming is niche. Your post came up while I was writing.

Gaming is niche. It's a bigger niche than before but it's still a niche. The population that doesn't play video games is larger than the population that does. It is primarily targeted to a particular type of person (young adult males) and generally is for entertainment purposes. That's what is called Niche Marketing. Gaming being part of the main stream doesn't mean it's not a somewhat narrowly focused market designed for a particular consumer base.

[Terraoblivion]

And I'm telling you that those things are a niche part of the market so you should stop acting like they're sweeping over it and changing it. Gaming exists in a world of blockbusters just like movies and nothing seems to suggest an imminent change in that status quo. Yes, other games exist too, but that doesn't change what is dominant and shapes the general gaming landscape. Do I like those blockbusters? The answer is almost always no, but I don't pretend they don't matter.

Also, by your definition of niche some very odd things happen. Gaming is more popular than reading, for example, so would you argue that books are a niche market with niche dynamics? And even if you did, you'd notice the same trend towards bestsellers dominating the book market. It's how mass markets work, whether movies, books, music, gaming, tv shows or anything else.

Looking at the marketing too, you'll notice that mainstream Hollywood movies are targeted exactly the same way. Who do you think summer blockbusters are for? Your grandmother?

[Tiki Snakes]

That was to Tebryn who seems to think gaming is niche. Your post came up while I was writing.

Edit: I will say that your calling SMB3 the best selling non-bundled game is wrong.

Here's a short list of games with higher sales from what you provided:
Mario Kart Wii (32.44 million)[88][90]
Wii Sports Resort (30.14 million)[88]
Wii Play (28.02 million)[91]
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (26.26 million)[88]
Wii Fit (22.67 million)[91][92]
Wii Fit Plus (20.48 million)[88]

Pokémon Red and Green/Blue
Pokémon Gold and Silver

New Super Mario Bros. (29.09 million)[88]
Nintendogs All versions (23.64 million)[97]
Mario Kart DS (22.57 million)[88]
Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! (18.96 million)[97]

And that's just from three Nintendo consoles.

I trust the guiness book of records people to do their homework. Those games all came bundled with a console at some point, even if they were available seperately also. This is not the case with SMB3. At least, as of 2008.

[Terraoblivion]

I'll give you Mario Kart DS and a lot of the Wii once were bundled with peripherals...that only that game used.

The others...weren't, at least not for a significant part of their time in the market as wikipedia put it. As for trusting the Guinness Book of World Records, it can be rather spotty and oddly selective in what it chooses to bring and how it defines a records. And some of them, such as the Pokemon titles I cannot find any record of ever having been bundled.

[Tebryn]

And I'm telling you that those things are a niche part of the market so you should stop acting like they're sweeping over it and changing it. Gaming exists in a world of blockbusters just like movies and nothing seems to suggest an imminent change in that status quo. Yes, other games exist too, but that doesn't change what is dominant and shapes the general gaming landscape. Do I like those blockbusters? The answer is almost always no, but I don't pretend they don't matter.

Also, by your definition of niche some very odd things happen. Gaming is more popular than reading, for example, so would you argue that books are a niche market with niche dynamics? And even if you did, you'd notice the same trend towards bestsellers dominating the book market. It's how mass markets work, whether movies, books, music, gaming, tv shows or anything else.

Looking at the marketing too, you'll notice that mainstream Hollywood movies are targeted exactly the same way. Who do you think summer blockbusters are for? Your grandmother?

Once again, so what? The market changes based on sales. If people start throwing their money at one particular thing, the rest of the market moves to be more like that to cash in. That was my point. I understand how the culture is, but it doesn't matter to -me- specifically. I don't buy by what the market wants me to buy by. I buy what I want and show my preferences that way. I understand I'm one man and that having the entire culture step in line isn't going to happen but that doesn't make the advice for other -individuals- any less sound. Buy games you want to see more. Convince others to do the same. The market will follow. That's how it works. At the moment, cover shooters are the norm. They weren't a few years ago. And a in another few years they won't be again. Such is how things go. That's called a Market Trend.

As for the niche thing...so what? It's not -just- about popularity which is something you seem to be hung up on. I for one don't think Gaming has grown more popular than reading but hey, I don't have the numbers. Neither do you though it seems so until you present them I'm not very swayed by that. The movie industry is niche too. So what? Niche isn't a dirty word. Gaming, Movies, Fiction Literature are all Niche Markets. They're primarily for entertainment aimed at, as you've said, a certain demographic. We all get that. Or I thought we all did. When Halo 5 is marketed towards house wives I'll stand corrected. Until then however, no matter how much you kick and scream and say that games are somehow not a counter culture or a niche market I'll just continue to look over every over sexed mommy figure and hard as nails space marine power fantasy and chuckle.

Once again however, none of this matters. The OP has asked where are defining bits of gaming now adays in the bleak grim dark expanse of cover shooters. The answer is, go look for them. They're out there.

[Zevox]

The problem with story in games, usually, is that people often don't realize that they're not a movie. You can certainly try and write it like one, but the point where things start to really become interesting, in a way unique to the medium, is when it starts to open up. Hence Minecraft. For games like that, or to go back a bit earlier, say, Morrowind, (or really any TES game) it's reached the point where you are a blank enough person that the character becomes something new entirely. In games of a more cinematic layout, it's often difficult to connect to the characters, because if you play through once or twice, they do the same thing every time.

I could not disagree more - I feel that by trying to be "interactive" in that way is just a waste of games' time, trying to be something that they can't. Those blank-slate characters are a substantial hindrance to their stories - they aren't truly characters at all, just empty vessels that the player is expected to pretend are characters. They cannot undergo development other than in the player's head, they cannot truly drive a story or have an arc written around them. In order to even have them, the writers need to concoct a very generic story, with a monstrous threat that cannot be ignored no matter how much of a self-centered ******* the player imagines their character to be. Otherwise players complain that their character would just ignore the story as presented (see Dragon Age 2, for an example of just that happening).

Ultimately, this sort of thing just weakens the story, attempting to take control of it from the writer and give it to the player, when that's impossible. Games, like movies and books, must have their stories entirely pre-written - they cannot be made up on the fly in reaction to what the player does. They can be multiple choice, like Choose Your Own Adventure books, but nothing more. And including choices just for the sake of having them merely takes away focus from the story, detracting from any meaningful character development or themes by making their fulfillment optional. There is some merit in limited choices which all feed into the themes of the story - I would say principally in the form of variant endings - but such a thing can only be in moderation. The more choices you present, the more likely that they're not furthering the story's themes and characters, but detracting from them.

So personally, I'd say that games are very much so right to style their stories after those of movies. After all, as Zrak said, that style certainly doesn't hinder people from connecting with the main characters in those, and video games have a lot more in common with them than with the genre that best exemplifies a story shaped by the player, tabletop RPGs. Quite the contrary, many people will re-watch movies they like multiple times, and find themselves only enjoying them more in subsequent viewings, as they catch details they missed previously. That is of course entirely dependent on the storytelling being good, but that's true no matter how you try and work the story.

Zevox

[Terraoblivion]

Are you even reading what I'm writing? I know what you're trying to say and I'm pointing out that it hasn't worked in movies, books or for that matter music, so what exactly is it that makes you think that gaming is special and unique? That's what the entire point of bringing up movies has been.

As for being niche, I like terms to mean something. Like how niche means that something isn't part of mainstream culture and if you have to argue that video games and movies aren't then what is part of mainstream culture? Breathing? Or does that not count due to fish extracting oxygen in a different way and anaerobic bacteria not needing it at all? Angry Birds has been downloaded a billion times. Almost 80 million Wiis have been sold. 1.53 billion PS2 games have been sold. These are massive numbers, especially taking in account how large parts of the world cannot afford consoles.

[Tebryn]

Are you even reading what I'm writing? I know what you're trying to say and I'm pointing out that it hasn't worked in movies, books or for that matter music, so what exactly is it that makes you think that gaming is special and unique? That's what the entire point of bringing up movies has been.

Are you? I said that I don't expect it to. I know what point you're trying to make, I just don't know why you keep making it when we agree. My point is that it doesn't change it working on an individual level for people playing the games they want or games they think are good. Which ya know, again, is the point of the thread. I know it works because I do it all the time. I don't buy games I know I won't enjoy and regardless of being a drop in the ocean, it still reflects my buying power.

As for being niche, I like terms to mean something. Like how niche means that something isn't part of mainstream culture and if you have to argue that video games and movies aren't then what is part of mainstream culture? Breathing?

Ya, me too. Funny thing about words though is that they have more than one meaning. Another meaning of niche? A distinct segment of a market. Which gaming is. Weird thing is, I haven't found a definition of Niche being a synonym for Counter Culture though I do know that it can be used that way. I also never said that video games weren't part of the main stream. There you go putting words in my mouth again. It's getting pretty full of things you want me to say though aren't.

Here's a helpful definition of the word though.

niche   [nich] Show IPA noun, adjective, verb, niched, nich·ing.
noun
1.
an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular in plan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object.
2.
a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing: to find one's niche in the business world.
3.
a distinct segment of a market.
4.
Ecology . the position or function of an organism in a community of plants and animals.

Hey now, look at that. Or how about here? It's even got the word Niche in it.

Or does that not count due to fish extracting oxygen in a different way and anaerobic bacteria not needing it at all?

Hey man, breathing for mammalian species is so twenty years ago. I pass air out of my tear ducts. It's a pretty new thing, you've probably never heard of it.

Angry Birds has been downloaded a billion times. Almost 80 million Wiis have been sold. 1.53 billion PS2 games have been sold. These are massive numbers, especially taking in account how large parts of the world cannot afford consoles.

Sure, so what? I haven't ever said that gaming isn't popular. What are you arguing with exactly?