I'm getting old boys. While I was at Disney the past few days I had several observations that made me sad. That made me feel like I'm going to miss what's about to come next.

1. For the last three years I've brought my 3DS and I've always managed to get a few streetpass meetings. This year, none. I didn't see any kids playing a 3DS for that matter. Just lots and lots of tablets and phones.

2. While at Disney we I spent some time in a couple different arcades across the properties. All of the new games, are basically giant mobile games and most of them used vertical screens with the same dimensions of an iPhone. They had a big Doodlejump game, a big Temple Run game, and a big Fruit Ninja game. They even had a new Pac-Man, but it was on a vertical layout screen.

3. Amazon was giving away $220 in apps on their digital app store. Most were uninteresting, but Terraria was available and I'd wanted that for a while so I grabbed it. After installing it, I couldn't figure out how to play it. The game didn't have a clearly marked controller set up. My son asked if he could given it a try, and within 30 seconds he was playing the game. I was reminded of Christmas 1987 when I got my NES. My dad hooked it up, but he wasn't able to figure out how to work the controller when I invited him to play Super Mario Bros with me.

And just like that I turned into my father. I'm now the old guy who can't figure out a controller. Damn...

Okay, I guess I'm not a video game dinosaur yet, because I was able to figure out how to play Terraria within 30 seconds. It basically uses NES-styled controls via a virtual joystick and button.

EDIT: So it's a side scrolling Minecraft-ish game. Interesting.

Don't ever buy a GTA game on a tablet.  I could never get used to touch screen controls for that.  Year Walk is good, but short.

So cOLD in here.

Ravenprose said:

Okay, I guess I'm not a video game dinosaur yet, because I was able to figure out how to play Terraria within 30 seconds. It basically uses NES-styled controls via a virtual joystick and button.

EDIT: So it's a side scrolling Minecraft-ish game. Interesting.

Yeah after the boy showed me it clicked. Since I didn't see a virtual joystick, I just assumed it just had a set of touch controls more like Minecraft (touch the brick to destroy it). Damn invisible joysticks making me feel dumb.

Yep. One of the No Mans Sky team has been making good points about this lately:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/no-mans-sky-why-minecraft-generation-will-reject-call-of-duty

“The kids who grew up with Minecraft will really struggle to relate to something like Assassin’s Creed,” argues Murray. “They won’t want to be that guy. When they say ‘I love games’ they don’t mean the same things that we do when we say it. The Minecraft generation has a totally different expectation. I’ve found myself intersecting with them - I’ve found myself playing those games, playing Day Z for hours and being reinvigorated. This is the kind of game we want to make.”

“Games are obsessed with having no breathing space - they never let the player walk around and enjoy something,” he says. “With Call of Duty, it feels like they sit there with a stopwatch and if an explosion hasn’t gone off every 30 seconds, someone is fired.

“I’m numb to it. I mean, games are amazing now, they’re beautiful. But you sit and watch something that looks glorious, and hundreds of people have worked on it, and you find yourself yawning.

“Then you play something much more simple, like Amnesia, and you have so many more emotions - just because there are lulls, there is sometimes nothing, so when something does happen, it surprises you. That’s what real life is like. Anything you see enough of, just becomes normal. Games are terrible for that.”

But Murray has a theory. Since Minecraft was first released in 2011, it has engendered a new era of game design – and gamer – that is more about player experience and creativity than it is about a drip-fed narrative. Right now, the players who are in to open-ended games like Minecraft, Terraria and Day Z represent a niche – but soon they will be the mainstream.

Minecraft represents a niche? Uh...

aspro said:

^As taken as a part of the broad range of games on offer, absolutely.

He was not talking about niche as being something that is narrowly exposed.

I believe that it's already progressed further than that. The media is just slow to notice things.

SupremeAC said:

I'm no developer, but I made that exact same point back in april.


Http://www.thevgpress.com/#!/blogs/will-games-change-not-as-the-medium-matures-but-a-next-generation-of-developers-rises_2677.html

Probably because you're not the media, man.