Topic: The future of fan games

[TheouAegis]

And if coding is such an art form, how come games sucked so bad until an artist named Miyamoto came along? Huh?
Coding is just that, coding.. nothing more. And don't try and tell me otherwise, i'm 31 years old, i been around long enough to know better.

Coding was restricted to college campuses initially. The only people with access to computers capable of playing decent video games were professors and students using school funds to buy the computers and dink around with them.

Games before Miyamoto sucked? First off, Miyamoto was just a designer who didn't work with code; Nintendo gave him a staff of coders to make his games. And really now, that statement alone spits in the face of years of video gaming greats. I'll overlook Pong and its numerous clones throughout the 70s. (Don't think it's a good game? explain all the clones up through the 90s.) 1976 featured the arcade release of Steve Jobs' Breakout game, which is considered one of the great classics with the popular clone Arkanoid. In 1978, Taito released Space Invaders, unarguably one of the most popular games ever made still played by people to this very day. 1979 had Galaxian, which was successfully followed up with Galaga, both of which are considered two of Namco's greatest games. That same year Asteroids came out and Microsoft released the first of its popular Flight Simulator series. Namco exceeded expectations in 1980 with Pac-Man, which was their highest grossing commercial video game. Also, the original Rogue came out that same year, and you'll be hard-pressed to convince any serious gamer that Rogue sucked so bad -- 30 years of roguelikes say otherwise. Missile Command (which spawned popular games like Worms and Gunbound) and Battlezone (which was responsible for first-person tank simulators) came out for Atari and were even picked up by the US Army; Centipede also came out for the Atari. Tank Batallion, later known as Battle City, was released as well. By the time Miyamoto made Donkey Kong in 1981, the video gaming world also got Ms. Pac-Man, Frogger, Galaga (the sequel to Galaxian), Ultima (one of the longest running game franchises after Flight Simulator), Wizardry (one of the most popular RPG franchises in Japan), Silas Warner created the original Castle Wolfenstein (if you don't recognize that name, you have no place arguing about video games). The next year had Q-bert, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Xevious, Zaxxon, Joust, and Robotron (father of Smash TV, my dad had the cabinet). 1983 had Dragon's Lair (illustrated by world-renowned animator Don Bluth), Gyruss, Mappy, and Mario made his big break away from gorilla in Mario Bros., which was nowhere near as widely received as Donkey Kong. 1984 was another big year for video games (prior to Super Mario Bros.), with the releases of King's Quest, Tetris, Tower of Druaga, 1942, Balloon Fight, Gauntlet, and Paperboy. By the time Super Mario Bros. came on the scene in 1985, we also had Ghosts'n'Goblins, Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?, and Oregon Trail.

Is Miyamoto creative and innovative? Very much so. Was he the best thing to happen to video games since Spacewar!? Hardly -- he's just one name in a long list of developers that will be forgotten within the next ten years.

[Corpsecrank]

Hey hes 31 and knows everything man don't waste your time. 31 is laughable how old does he think the rest of us here are? Not only that but saying coding is just coding and don't tell him otherwise? Ok well if he doesn't want to admit that he knows nothing about coding or he wouldn't have said something so blatantly wrong in the first place then let him be.

Anyone who has coded games knows that what he says is hilariously ignorant and untrue but please let him continue on the path of ignorance if that is what he wishes.

I already had a discussion once about a particular subject and found out that people like this will never accept facts or proof and will instead insist they are correct regardless. Just wash your hands of it and move on bro it ain't worth the time.

[uzo]

Is Miyamoto creative and innovative? Very much so. Was he the best thing to happen to video games since Spacewar!? Hardly -- he's just one name in a long list of developers that will be forgotten within the next ten years.

Are you on fucking crack? Serious question.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Miyamoto is remembered after 20+ years after his first game.
Are you going to remember the creator of Call of Duty?  No.
Are people still talking about Miyamoto?  Yes, yes they are.
I do not think he will be forgotten in the next 10 years any less than I think that they'll forget about Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, etc.  By now he's an icon in the gaming industry.

[Corpsecrank]

HAHA yeah he will be remembered not for the code and not for the art either though. It was the experience as a whole that he delivered through the gaming medium that makes him what he is. It was the overall experiences people had in the end not just a particular piece of said experience such as the graphics or how the controls worked or how polished the games were even.

What made zelda so popular? What made mario so popular or how about metroid which was so popular it forever changed the castlevania series for better or worse depending on who you ask.

But I still think for someone to completely disregard the importance of code which is what all games are born of like it or not is kind of foolish yeah.

This topic has gotten pretty far out on a limb at this point. It was about a concept that makes our lives easier and why/how it does so.