One of Swords Podcast 029: Let’s Wallow Together

I found the idea of younger people adapting to the board really telling. As the average age of the gamer population goes up, I think you’ll see the beginnings of generational split in the audience as the younger audience grows up seeing out and embracing new experiences (not always, of course, but they have different expectations about games) and the older audiences falling into a more conservative mindset about what games are and can be (and I think we’re seeing this already with the codification of control schemes [which is both good and bad] and the sameyness of franchises and the big genres [FPS, 3rd person shooter, character action game, etc]). Not everyone will do this, of course, but the audience is vast and some of them are invested in games as they are/were in a certain era and aren’t going to want to move along.

This is probably a good thing, as it’d just diversify the audiences as more and more tastes are catered to. Instead of games being for all gamers, there can be more games for subsets of gamers. Gamers who want motion get X, gamers who want hardcore sims get Y, gamers who want arcade experiences get Z, gamers who want big multiplayer experiences get A. The games don’t have to serve the entire market anymore. We’re well beyond that point, assuming the people who make them have realistic expectations of what the market is going to be.

I have to admit, I have no interest in Shred, but I never had an interest in Tony Hawk to begin with. I play some Skate from time to time, and like that more technical approach, but those games aren’t for me. I hope they make a better game (by all accounts) than Ride was, because even if games aren’t ‘for me’, you always hope the games are good.

Is that Nolan North in the Laser Blast commercial? Funny.

I am not sure who it is but it’s not Nolan North, to my knowledge. The guy in the Laser Blast commercial did a TON of VO work in the 80s, many cartoons and commercials. I would love to find his name and give him proper credit.

He’s probably got a racetrack set up in his office.

The entire exchange about K-Mart was the stuff of legend. “Blue Light special on coffins.” I was sweating from laughing so hard. I thought maybe someone would compare a K-Mart to one of the supermarkets in Fallout 3…but that would just be mean.

I know what Hugh means about Kmart. The one near my house is creepy as hell but I am all for giving them a second chance if they keep the game deals coming.