An "Irrational" Divide - Game news at Chat Place

Monday, 07 October 2024

An "Irrational" Divide

Added: 21.02.2014 20:38 | 15 views | 0 comments

Gaming, specifically home console gaming as we know it, has entered a new, somewhat strange era. Video gaming roughly started around the creation of Pong in 1972 and its home counterpart in 1975; after the crash in the market, it was thanks to two Italian plumbers in 1985 that brought video gaming back to life. If we pick up around that point, then video gaming as we, the gamers, know it has been around for nearly thirty years. Thirty years holds significance, as there are now two clear generations of gamers; in fact, many parents today are the first generation of home gamer, in their late 20s and 30s, some even older still.

As the generation gap opens and expands, naturally different viewpoints will espouse on the same topic. Ask teenagers and their parents the same question, and one of them will undoubtedly see this hypothesis in action. House, trance, EDM, and trip-hop pound in the head of Millennial, while their parents wistfully long from everything from The B-52s to Ace of Base, and their grandparents remember cheering up "Sleepy Jean" with The Monkees. The Generation Gap is nothing new, but itÄ‚ËĂ˘â€šÂ¬Ă˘â€žËs new in the world of gaming

When the announcement of Irrational GamesÄ‚ËĂ˘â€šÂ¬Ă˘â€žË shuttering came about yesterday, many gamers were stunned, and as well they should have been. I donÄ‚ËĂ˘â€šÂ¬Ă˘â€žËt think anyone saw that coming, without even the slightest of hint from Ken Levine, the studio, or Take-Two Interactive. IÄ‚ËĂ˘â€šÂ¬Ă˘â€žËm sure he debated the decision for some time, but to the rest of us, it appeared as if he woke up on February 18, 2014 and said, "Time for a change!"

In his open letter published on the Irrational Games Blog, Levine stated that "in time we will announce a new endeavor with a new goal: To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable." Sadly, that meant laying off all but about fifteen of the staff involved in Irrational Games. But while the announcement was surprising, I was even more surprised by some of the responses to the announcement, and surprised to find that they seemed to fall along lines not defined by color, gender, or sexuality, but by generation.

It seems almost bizarre to talk about "older gamers," but responses to the end of the studio that made monumental smash hits such as System Shock 2, Freedom Force, and the highly-acclaimed BioShock and BioShock Infinite (BioShock 2, it should be noted, was developed by sister studio 2K Marin) not only bemoaned sorrow for the staffers now looking for new work, but for the state of gaming today.