/vr/ - Retro Games

3D platformers.

nintendo thread

Nintendo was a control-freak monopolizing vulture which set back
evolution of video games in North America for a decade.
I'm from Europe, and there was no "video game crash" there. That was a
purely North American phenomenon. Ask yourself why is that? As a matter
of fact, the mid to late eighties were a golden age of computer gaming
in Europe with the first indie scene in the form of "bedroom-coders"
appearing and blooming... while North America was firmly under
Nintendo's heel. One nation, under Nintendo...
Nintendo was and is evil. They practically invented the walled garden
concept which totally blocked anyone without 100s of 1000s of dollars
from making games... and those had to be made strictly to what Nintendo
declared games should be.

As I kid I visited the US back in the late eighties and I was shocked by total domination of vapid console games, all made for kiddies. While in Europe we had the likes of Atari ST and Amiga especially, where you could have a bunch of school friends creating the next hit game, you in the US had total censorship, all games made by big companies, all playing safe, all kiddie-proof, no blood, no adult themes, no real horror, not even religious symbols ffs... Just kiddie stuff. Platformers with dumb animals and cartoon characters. Awful. Like Brave New World, or Logan's Run. Totally dystopian.

I mean, there was still a nascent PC scene in the US, and C64 was going relatively strong, but in the US this was not mainstream like in Europe and Japan to a lesser extent. In Europe it was considered normal that if you are a gamer, you are also at least a somewhat active agent.. in a way, you had to be a at least a little bit of a "hacker" to be a "gamer" - just look at the fantastic demo scene in those times which produced an incredible generation of programmers. In the US...? No, gamers are consumers. You consume that which Nintendo gives you to consume. Just push the play button and ask no questions. Just horrible.