Why don't enough people like Metroid?

[Emperor Ing]

We've sure been getting some dynamite posters lately.

Seriously, I miss the days where "video game" wasn't "blow shit up and kill your friends" (though in doses it's quite fun), I want the days where a video game meant "single player campaign and beautiful storytelling and immersive gameplay that you could get lost in for hours on end." I long for the return of nice, colorful, beautifully designed worlds, as opposed to black, grey, and muzzle flash.

The world's first videogame:



Object of the game:

Blow up and kill your friend in a dynamic game environment.

I mean, that sort of appeal has been with the medium since its inception. Over fifty years ago.

What's sad is that games like MW3 that the masses love so much have slowly gone from having a decent color palette with moderately diverse color schemes to various shades of grey, green, and yellow. Yet these games sell billions. Halo and Battlefield, at least, have most of the colors available to video games at this point in time and beautiful set pieces. This does not excuse them from less than satisfactory single-player campaigns. Metroid has all the mentioned positive attributes, plus an engaging single player component.

Yeah, but what sells in this age of gaming? These last two generations have seen game companies live and die by their ability to produce some sort of online gaming multiplayer component. It's what has allowed Valve to give away Team Fortress 2 for free.

I have no doubt that the online multiplayer bubble will one day crash (and heck, the traditional gaming market as we've been living in these past 12 or so years might collapse with it) - at the very least the industry is on a monstrously unstable and non-self-sufficing path. The game costs are only getting higher, and niche products like Metroid's brand of gaming is not seen as a safe bet by big-time publishers, even if said publisher is Nintendo. Other M must have been an enormously expensive undertaking, and seeing how the market reacted (which is more of a case of pissing off the niche that Metroid appealed to most, and that filtering outward), it's understandable that the Big N is wary.

Again, why do you think FPSes, and New Super Mario Bros. games sell so well? Because consumers want safe products, and tried-and-true franchises. And instead of seeing why certain games are successful, devs only copy what works and that's why there is an overglut of those types of games (how many retro-pixel 2D indie platformers have been released these last few years?).

[Death Recon]

I hate this industry sometimes.

[R7038 XX]

yeah, sometimes i do too.

[okey]

Maybe Samus is just too weird looking?

It's been 25 years and you still get people who think she's a robot at first.

[Thunderchin]

Maybe Samus is just too weird looking?

It's been 25 years and you still get people who think she's a robot at first.

Why doesn't Master Chief get that reaction? Or why didn't he back when his first game came out in 2001? Why didn't this also happen to every other armored protagonist?

[Toxsyl]

She looks like a man Sgt. Twinkletoes.

The confusion of Samus being a robot or something bugs a ton of people who watch me play, and my friends complain on how they can't read a map

[okey]

Why doesn't Master Chief get that reaction? Or why didn't he back when his first game came out in 2001? Why didn't this also happen to every other armored protagonist?

I don't know. Maybe it's because it looks like a person could fit inside Master Chief's armor?

Samus' giant shoulders and dislocated arms could be a turn-off to people on some level. Like an uncanny valley thing.

Maybe she needs someone to pull an Adi Granov on her.

[Mayan Mystery]

What's sad is that games like MW3 that the masses love so much have slowly gone from having a decent color palette with moderately diverse color schemes to various shades of grey, green, and yellow. Yet these games sell billions. Halo and Battlefield, at least, have most of the colors available to video games at this point in time and beautiful set pieces. This does not excuse them from less than satisfactory single-player campaigns. Metroid has all the mentioned positive attributes, plus an engaging single player component.

Yeah, but what sells in this age of gaming? These last two generations have seen game companies live and die by their ability to produce some sort of online gaming multiplayer component. It's what has allowed Valve to give away Team Fortress 2 for free.

I have no doubt that the online multiplayer bubble will one day crash (and heck, the traditional gaming market as we've been living in these past 12 or so years might collapse with it) - at the very least the industry is on a monstrously unstable and non-self-sufficing path. The game costs are only getting higher, and niche products like Metroid's brand of gaming is not seen as a safe bet by big-time publishers, even if said publisher is Nintendo. Other M must have been an enormously expensive undertaking, and seeing how the market reacted (which is more of a case of pissing off the niche that Metroid appealed to most, and that filtering outward), it's understandable that the Big N is wary.

Again, why do you think FPSes, and New Super Mario Bros. games sell so well? Because consumers want safe products, and tried-and-true franchises. And instead of seeing why certain games are successful, devs only copy what works and that's why there is an overglut of those types of games (how many retro-pixel 2D indie platformers have been released these last few years?).

If this online gaming bubble is going to collapse however, does this mean that gamers are going to be turned toward games like Metroid again, are they going to turn to something else, or are they going to scatter? We can't know for sure. And my two biggest questions at the moment are this, should Metroid make a better online console multiplayer, and if so, how long will it be before this bubble collapses and all the online multiplayer games loose sales?

Next, I don't think that it's the fact that Nintendo doesn't make very many hardcore games. Other M sold amazingly well on its first day on the market. Sales only started to go downhill after people began to see all of its flaws. People DO like metroid games. I mainly think the problem Metroid has is based on it's style of gameplay. If you try to make it like so many other games and make it too linear, the fanbase gets pissed, and you don't sell many games. Or if you make it too nonlinear (by nonlinear I mean something like the Skyrim type of nonlinear) The fanbase gets pissed and you don't sell many games. However, if you DO get it right in this day and age, the fanbase will be happy, but since the fanbase has always been relatively small like everyone has been saying and the rest of the hardcore gaming community wants extremes so they ignore the game.

The best way to get hardcore gamers hooked on the series is to introduce them to a game that's most similar to what they're used to, and then slowly introduce them to the more esoteric or oddball games, but still good titles such as Super Metroid, Prime 3, Fusion, And Prime 2. Which game is the best for starting with? In my opinion, Prime. It's as close as your going to get to a first person shooter in the metroid universe, it's extremely nonlinear, and it's not highly story driven like Other M, Fusion, Or Prime 3.

As for the beginners, Fusion definitely. Its story is interesting, it's easy to play, and it's on a handheld which is most accessible. And it is true that many hardcore gamers STILL don't know of Metroid's existence. One of my best friends is such a person. I think starting people on Metroid's unique style of exploration is the best way to get them started on the game series.

[Chozo Guardian]

Why don't enough people like Metroid?

Because they wouldn't know a good game if Yoshio Sakamoto hit them in the face with it. That's the Metroid Curse in a nutshell.

[Chozo Guardian]

Why don't enough people like Metroid?

Because they wouldn't know a good game if Yoshio Sakamoto hit them in the face with it. That's the Metroid Curse in a nutshell.

[Press Start, Go Left]

Perhaps it's my imagination, but the Metroid fanbase seems to be older than the average game series fanbase. Maybe it's a case of younger gamers, who make up most of the gaming market, just not being attracted towards Metroid. Kids generally are either interested in bright, colourful, cartoony games; or games full of blood, gore, graphic violence, realistic guns, profanity... depends on the kid. Metroid of course falls into neither of those categories, hence why the older and more cultured gamer is more interested in it since it takes a bit more than bright colours or 'mature' content to catch their eye.

[Chozo Guardian]

Sorry I somehow accidentally double-posted, but something seems to have happened to the "delete post" button.

[okey]

Completely missing out on the big 2d renaissance couldn't have helped.

[okey]

Isn't it really weird how you never hear people who aren't fans talk about why they don't like Metriod? Not here, obviously, but other places.

There's no shortage of people who complain about NSMB's art and music, or that Zelda is the same thing over and over again, or that character design in Gears of War is bad, or how the execution requirement in Street Fighter is too strict, etc.

You even get this with games that are kinda niche. Look at Bayonetta. There are plenty of people saying how they want to like it, but the presentation is a turn off.

With Metroid though? You think you'd see lots of "I want to like it but I keep getting lost" but nope. Straight up apathy.

I guess you can say Other M, but 1)that's one specific game that's very different from the rest of the series and 2)most of that hate came from people who were already Metroid fans.

[Zevroid]

I do see people talk about why they don't like Metroid, but in general 90% of the time the reasons aren't really reasons so much as...as...Darn it, I keep forgetting. Ignorant? Well, that's some of them. But what's the rest?