Why don't enough people like Metroid?

[kronoridley]

I think the main problem is the marketing. I mean Prime 1 had the best marketing for any Metroid game, so naturally, it sold more than any other Metroid game. I believe if nintendo hired the bungie marketing employees, and gave the the game a good release date, then the next Metroid game would sell excellently.

[Chris]

I never understood why they just didn't use the live action/gameplay mix trailer as an advert in UK, it would have generated a lot of interest, especially amongst teenage boys with an active imagination.

[metroidhunter183]

I never understood why they just didn't use the live action/gameplay mix trailer as an advert in UK, it would have generated a lot of interest, especially amongst teenage boys with an active imagination.

Or Teenage Girls

Anyway that would be a good idea, having a gameplay trailer might catch some attention about Metroid.

[Zeta101]

How many people vote Metroid go Multi-platform?.....

I will admit, it would be nice but I HIGHLY doubt nintendo would ever do that, getting some good feelings about that DoA 3ds fighting game though. Lol, maybe Team Ninja will have the power to pull the series out of nintendo?

A man can dream, a man can dream.....

[Thunderchin]

Why don't enough people like Metroid?

Ah, a good question. To the unwitting, it is terra incognita.

Well, all the gamers I know have three major complaints. (They have never even PLAYED Metroid, but whatever. It's all I have to go on.)

1.) Metroid is a Nintendo game, and is therefore limited to Nintendo consoles. Hardcore gamers, where I live, think Nintendo's consoles are for the less hardcore gamers. Therefore, it isn't a hardcore game, and must be a wuss title.

2.) Metroid isn't rooted in mindlessly blowing shit up. While yes, there is shooting, explosions, and VERY immersive combat, it has puzzles in it. People have complained about the very presence of puzzles in video games with shooting in them. They think the puzzles mean the shooting was just tacked on and holds no real significance, and thus Metroid is a puzzle game. "If I wanted a puzzle game, I'd do the crossword in the paper. Video games are for mindless destruction."

3.) Samus is a girl, and is thus less able to fight than a hardened man. They think the woman is less physically fit, and is less likely to keep emotion in check during combat. (Sadly, Other M reinforced this.)

I counterargue as follows:

1.) Nintendo is perfectly hardcore. Plenty of hardcore games (and some damn good ones at that) are released for Wii all the time. How else do you account for Dead Space: Extraction? MadWorld? Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles? In fact, when Nintendo first went into the gaming hardware business, games were "go hard or go home." All who even dared play were hardcore. And so that was their fledgling audience. By releasing the occasional M-rated game (and some T-rated games that toe the line), Nintendo shows that they haven't forgotten their roots in hardcore gaming, they have just experimented with a broader market (with mixed results.)

2.) Anybody who says this probably got an F in Neanderthal kindergarten. Seriously, puzzles and shooting are equal partners in a much broader adventure. That's what Metroid is all about. By saying that just because puzzles have slightly higher significance than shooting does makes it a puzzle game is not only a fallacy of reason, but a non sequitur argument and an ignorance to the true composition of the game, which is all about the adventure.

3.) An invalid argument. This is nothing but pure slander on Our Girl. If this isn't the epitome of ad hominem, I don't know what is. Ipso facto, I must say, "What difference does gender make? Yes, the sexes are different, but that hasn't stopped Samus before. She's a bounty huntress who just happens to be a very sexy lady, not the other way around." (Apologies, but I quote that from this board. I can't place the name of the original speaker, though.)

I also said that the majority haven't even TOUCHED Metroid. They have formed prejudices about it based off Internet reviews and what I have said about it in conversation.

I wish I could force habeas corpus on opinion. That way, I could get them to play the damn game before they form an opinion. In the case of having the body, they shall actually try the damn game before they make up their minds.

Also, I have preached Metroid and all its awesomeness to casual and non-gamers, to much success. That proves that the games are widespread accepted. The "hardcore" elite are all vastly outvoted. They need to stop being so bigoted and try it out.

Also, to back me up is my recruitment plan, written in another forum:

All my successes were by a command of respect. I do this by being friendly, until they grow warm to me. Then, I mention Metroid casually, and they ask what it is. Then I recommend it after a little spiel about Samus, Space Pirates, and Metroids. Granted, there are other gamers that have played Metroid in the room where I go (I have spread the memes far and wide), and they join in too, but my method usually works. They usually play either Prime or Super, and either complain that it's the worst ripoff of (insert game here) they have ever played, complain that they aren't "Gamers", or (and this is what I get about half the time) they play it and love it.

This approach takes several weeks, so I keep several of these going simultaneously. Hopefully, I can get either Super or Prime or Other M, even, to the forefront of all videogame discussion in my school. They take it home to their parents, who remember when they played it on the Nes or Snes, play it again, they tell their friends/coworkers, and soon Metroid literally festers in society. This also goes back to the complaints that Metroid hasn't any good marketing. Well, good word of mouth and some plugs for Metroid here and there on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and Metroid is boosted up there in society. This results in a snowball effect where increased sales make them ramp up their marketing and start bringing new people into the series. This increases sales even further...

Original post (I edited grammatical errors when quoting): http://www.metroid-database.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3530&start=15

POST SCRIPTUM: I learned most of my logical terminology in Latin; ergo, I say them in Latin.

[Chris]

I remember having a conversation a while back with a a follow ET:QW player about how I thought Metroid Prime was the best game of the last gen, he replied with something along the lines with, 'yeah I tried that but at the start there was this countdown thing and I couldn't find the way out and died which was bad game design so I gave up' I really face palmed at this.

[LesserChozo]

Wait, is that the problem? Metroid isn't easy enough?

[Thunderchin]

Wait, is that the problem? Metroid isn't easy enough?

Here is the Argument and then Counterargument 2 of my earlier post. This should really say wonders about the ease of gameplay.

==ARGUMENT==
Metroid isn't rooted in mindlessly blowing shit up. While yes, there is shooting, explosions, and VERY immersive combat, it has puzzles in it. People have complained about the very presence of puzzles in video games with shooting in them. They think the puzzles mean the shooting was just tacked on and holds no real significance, and thus Metroid is a puzzle game. "If I wanted a puzzle game, I'd do the crossword in the paper. Video games are for mindless destruction."

==COUNTERARGUMENT==
Anybody who says this probably got an F in Neanderthal kindergarten. Seriously, puzzles and shooting are equal partners in a much broader adventure. That's what Metroid is all about. By saying that just because puzzles have slightly higher significance than shooting does makes it a puzzle game is not only a fallacy of reason, but a non sequitur argument and an ignorance to the true composition of the game, which is all about the adventure.

Case in point: It's not the games are too hard, it's the gamers that are too stupid. Sadly, most of today's games encourage it.

[crazyal02]

Of course, then there's the fact they don't understand a lot about Metroid.

This infuriates me:



At least make it obvious Samus's name isn't Metroid.

[KingBroly]

I have a theory that Sakamoto might make Samus' Bounty Hunter name Metroid at some point. I wonder what the reaction would be.

[DM-92]

It's just nobody knows about it. I spoke to a guy the other day, and he is quite a big games fan. He spoke about Final Fantasy and Zelda and new stuff as well. He had never even heard about Metroid ever!

[Animerican_Redeemed]

Oh, Broly... you and your theories (although I hope you really don't have some convoluted theory in the woodworks somewhere... and thus by "a theory" you actually mean "an idea" or a "hunch," which aren't aren't as fully developed as theories).

Although I will say this... depending how far the possible consequences of Fusion go (still have't played it, so still don't 100% know or want to know just yet), "Metroid" could possibly work as a code-name for Samus (though I very much doubt she would call herself that; it could be a name bestowed by her foes). And so that way, the metroid creature itself wouldn't have to be shoehorned in game after game.

Anway, to pay homage to the actua main topic... maybe it's that, to paraphrase someone else on the board, it's "like Alien but with crayola crayons"? All other popular series that you see nowadays that involve shooting in space and killing alien life forms are rated M. If it is to "appeal" to more people, would it have to be coated with a veneer of "greater maturity" and thus feature more "mature" and mass-market-appeal elements that could excite kids just as much as the next Halo or Call of Duty? Like more blood, detailed gore, devoted online multiplayer, and coarse language? Not to say that I wouldn't mind Metroid being slightly more visceral, but... it kinda feels like having a combination of most of the above really, well.... would really go against what Nintendo's been, nor would it "feel" like past Metroids as much. I dunno...

[DM-92]

Hmmm.... Maybe her codename to her foes could be 'The Metroid Hunter' or 'The Metroid Killer' or something like that...

[doc O. Mire]

Perhaps the metroid games are falling into the same predictable patterns. Perhaps they should turn the metroid formula on its head with the next game (you know, like super mario galaxy and kirby's epic yarn did... not that I want a game where samus is made out of yarn and has lost all of her abilities for a reason even more nonsensical than normal)
Still have to wonder about post metroid fusion plotline. Maybe Samus' metroid dna will really start to affect her, making her a kind of space-warrior-energy-vampire-thing... wierd, but plausible. I'd also like to see a retur to 2-d for samus, as other m seemed much less accessable than the other metroids

[Zeroº]

Perhaps the metroid games are falling into the same predictable patterns. Perhaps they should turn the metroid formula on its head with the next game (you know, like super mario galaxy and kirby's epic yarn did... not that I want a game where samus is made out of yarn and has lost all of her abilities for a reason even more nonsensical than normal)

You mean like the game outlined in the Metroid 1.5 document that's been floating around lately? Because that idea had real potential, even if it did sound a little fan game-ish.