Editorial

Fade Away

January 31, 1999

The most vocal gaming fans on the Internet, based upon the letters to the video game web sites and newsgroups, tend to be the most bitter ones. I get the feeling that these people have "no life" so they have plenty of time to complain about the most insignificant mistakes made by video game companies. I like to think that these are a minority, and that they write so much because they are the most passionate. For these people, and for the rest of us who have to put up with them, I have some advice.

Remember that the most important goal for the video game industry, as with any other, is to stay profitable. So if some aspect of their business is not giving them any profits, perhaps it's better if they cut their looses and move on to another one that will hopefully give them more money in the future. So if that means "killing" a video game system prematurely, like Sega did with the Master System and the Saturn, it will be better for them in the long run. This is especially true with consoles, since new hardware is introduced every five years or so.

This was hard even for me to understand. Right now it's easy for me to think about all the great games that Sega didn't bring to the Saturn because it killed it, like Gunblade N.Y., the last two parts of Shining Force III, and many others. However, as the years go by, hopefully all these bad memories will fade away, and you will only remember the games that you could play. For example, Sega didn't bring Alien Soldier, a supposedly great Genesis game, to the U.S. I bet most people forgot about this by now. The same thing will happen five years from now with the Saturn.

If you are a gamer and spend a long time playing video games, hopefully five years from now the games that you will remember were the games you did play and enjoyed. For me it will be games like Daytona, Astal, the Panzer Dragoon series, Dragon Force, and Nights. Maybe you will Remember Waverace 64 and Zelda, or you will remember Tekken 3 and CastleVania: Symphony of the Night. It doesn't matter, as long as you have good memories.

Also, remember, if companies like Sega, Sony, Nintendo, Square, Electronic Arts, Capcom, and Namco remain profitable, it means that in the future they will release more video games that you will enjoy. And if they go out of business, they won't make any more games . So remember to spend less time complaining and more time playing. I have enough trouble finding the time to play the games that I can buy.

signature