My Brother, The Dragonslayer
When I was 7 years old, going to the arcade was my favorite thing to do by far. This was due in no small part to my brother’s absolute command of the hottest game at the time, Dragon’s Lair. (For those of you young enough to think Steve Jobs created it for the iPhone, consider yourself informed.) Marc had both a photographic memory and a subscription to Electronic Games Magazine, which featured at one point a complete walkthrough of Dragon’s Lair. This let him draw huge crowds as he finished the game on a single credit (an unheard-of two tokens). I wholeheartedly recommend the experience of having your older brother be completely awesome when you are 7. It sticks with you.
Encyclopedia Brown And The Case Of Who The F#*K Programmed Galaxian
Though I was younger then, I was still the kind of person who wanted to know who made the things I loved. It was more difficult before the Internet, and I usually had to settle for knowing I enjoyed Filmation and Rankin-Bass cartoons. I did know a few, though. Lorenzo Music was my VO hero, voicing both Garfield and Peter Venkman on The Real Ghostbusters. At least, until Bill Murray complained his character sounded too much like Garfield, and then 20 years later, went on to voice an extremely sub-par Garfield himself. (I am still mad at Bill Murray for this. A lot.) And it would not be until college that I would find out that the guy who voiced Lion-O was from my hometown, the incident that I believe gave me my superpowers.
Finding out about who made the videogames you played back then was pretty difficult too. In those days, the developers of console games were usually uncredited. They hated this. A lot. Sometimes they’d stick their initials or a hidden message in a game, which they’d call an Easter Egg. In fact, this whole “no credits for you” business pissed off some developers working for Atari bad enough that they jumped ship and formed Activision. Back then the company was not a gatling gun filled with sequels – it used to stand for developer recognition, great games, a game achievement system far better than what we have today, and asexual rainbows meant to display both cohesive branding and awesome power. It wasn’t until the NES came along that console gamers ever got to see the credits roll, and even then I’m afraid all I can remember is Yuukichan’s Papa from the Mega Man 2 credits. PC gaming had a few little cults of personality pop up here and there, as did the C64, but more or less you either didn’t know or care who the people were who made your games. And credits on arcade games? Practically unheard of. I don’t doubt they exist, but I’m still having trouble finding any.
Games With Frickin’ Laser Beams
Now – take this environment, and drop in Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. Rick ran a company called Cinematronics, who made arcade games. They’d had a few hits in the late 70’s from their newfangled vector graphics games, but by 1982, they were filing for bankruptcy. Rick has an idea for an automated choose-your-own-adventure game that nobody wants, and eventually realizes if this was a cartoon, it would completely rock. So he calls up Don Bluth, a former Disney animator with his own animation studio, and they make Dragon’s Lair. And, as my 7 year old self will tell you, Rick Dyer was right. It rocked. Nothing else had graphics like this. Sure, tons of other games at the times had good graphics. Some iconic characters came out of this time period. But there’s just no freakin’ way that poor Q*Bert, even a year later, could compete with a fully animated action-packed ass-kicking cartoon where a dude dies like 200 different ways. Unsurprisingly, this game blew everyone’s damned minds.
The graphics weren’t the only thing that was different. Its creators wanted everybody to know who they were. I remember Don Bluth and Rick Dyer popping up all over the place doing interviews, and every time they always talked about how they’ve revolutionized arcade games or how Atari was playing catch-up now. For a couple of years, they had us all convinced, too. But – as much as it pains me to say this – Dragon’s Lair couldn’t last because the game’s beautiful appearance was a gimmick. It played an animation, and the game tracked when and where you were to move in that scene. If you didn’t, it played an appropriate death animation. They had built in tricks to fool you into a greater sense of randomness and interactivity, like flipping the screen. Space Ace even let you take a few different paths, but ultimately you’d be still be locked into the “what is the appropriate sequence and timing” gimmick. (I would further like to go on record right now and say this is my favorite gimmick of all time.)
Was it innovative? Sure. Did it revolutionize gaming? I think it sure tried, but the only “watch the video” game anybody ever plays these days is Scene It?. (Okay, and maybe Dragon’s Lair and its ilk on DVD.) But did its creators get their names out there and get everybody to give a crap? The game was on That’s Incredible!. I’d say that counts.
The Saddest Story Ever That Isn’t About Children Or Animals
Most nerds know what a Commodore 64 is. That same company later released a line of computers called the Amiga. Those of you who know what an Amiga is are probably already crying. Why? Do you remember home videogaming back in 1985? The best graphics out there were on the NES and on the PC, with 16 colors. At launch, the Amiga could push out 4096 colors at a (mostly) comparable resolution. When VGA came out a couple years later, the Amiga smiled and busted out 16.7 million colors. I remember gettin these capabilities on our PC, too. In the Nineties. It had pre-emptive multitasking years before the Mac or PC did it, and it could do it in 250K of RAM. It was great at video editing, and they even rendered a lot of the early episodes of Babylon 5 on Amigas. The hardware was absolutely revolutionary for its time (and internally named after Aikido techniques, which is doubly bad-assed). Oh, did I mention you could get daughterboards for the damned thing so you could run DOS and Windows apps?
Unfortunately, the Amiga was more expensive than its competition, it was poorly marketed, and Commodore was too busy self-destructing to save it. Excuse me now, while I take a moment to pour this entire bottle of Mountain Dew out on the curb to remember the Amiga, the best computer ever that died too young. You’re in a better place now, my digital homey.
Was the Amiga innovative? Don’t make me slap you. Did you read the last two paragraphs? But did anybody give a crap? Only those who knew it, which were far too few to save it. I wholeheartedly believe that it was a revolutionary computer. But despite its otherworldly awesomeness, it sadly failed to revolutionize computing.
We Arrive At The Point….. er, Pad……
Ever since Steve Jobs came back to Apple and set it on a wild, touch-sensitive, candy-colored thrill ride into Berserker Gadget-Lust Valley, there has always been one thing clear to me about the company. They are not – nor have they ever been – good at actually innovating anything. They are great at making it seem like they did, but they are not. I’ll never forget when they released the AirPort card and base station in 1999, and everyone I knew was freaking out because oh my God I can use my laptop on the couch now thank God for Apple. Which was funny, because I’d seen wireless Ethernet around for several years. It’s not as if Apple lies about it, they just don’t happen to mention it existed before. Much like the new iPad. I played with a TabletPC back in 2001. It wasn’t as nice as the iPad, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was nine years ago.
It might sound like I’m starting up a good old-fashioned Apple-bashing troll right now. I’m not. Because I believe Apple has a purpose, and that purpose was never to innovate. I don’t think Apple even makes anything better. A lot of their user interface choices drive me nuts. (Where’s the iPod’s damned power button, and how do you find it if you’ve never used one before?!!) What Apple does do is get everybody to give a crap about something. Before the iPhone, we had phones with touchscreens. And everybody would look at them, declare that it would be “nice to have one, I guess, what would I do with all the stuff it does”, and then walk away. Now, I’m pretty sure they stone all incoming college freshmen who do not have an iPhone (which is why I am scared to admit I own a Motorola Droid, to keep my family safe). I’m relatively sure we wouldn’t even have Android phones if we didn’t need an iPhone killer. I think the iPad is an underpowered, locked down iPod Jumbo that isn’t worth the price. Apple is going to try really hard to make sure other people disagree. My money is on this being a stepping stone to everybody wanting something similar. Then it gets copied by competitors (well, re-copied), gets a lot more flavors and a lot cheaper, and finally your 90 year old grandmother gets one and it has all these supercool features and she doesn’t even remotely care, just bring up the pictures of the great-grandkids. And if that happens, by Apple’s divine intervention or through some other means, my gadget-lust will be sated. (Until the 10 minute cooldown runs out.)
So what do you need to start a revolution? In my opinion, marketing. Just in the last few decades we have seen VHS beat Betamax, the Atari ST topple the Amiga (sniff), Blu-Ray beat HD-DVD, Sega leaving the console hardware business entirely, the Wii utterly destroy its competition in sales, and a lot of other seemingly “inferior” products become the de facto standard. It may not matter if what you have is technically the best, fastest, or prettiest. And it may not even matter if you beat all your competitors.
Just make sure somebody gives a crap. Then make sure it’s worth giving a crap about. And if you’re really ambitious, you can shoot for a nice, long crap.
jonathan says
Thank you. This is probably the best post I’ve read on Critical Hits in a long long time . And, as for comment hooks… I’ll bite:
Although – I disagree with the “Apple has a purpose, and that purpose was never to innovate.” There’s a major backlash to Apple these days becuase of their success in the last few years. The iPad is innovative – because all the previous tablets have been pitched as basically laptops that you can dither around with your fingers. And, while it may be just a jumbo iPod touch – the hardware specs, size, and capabilities blow the existing iPod touch out of the water. And for $500, it’s priced right. I mean… look at the KindleDX – it’s the same price and pales in comparison.
The game changer will come because companies will be pressed to compete with Apple – or they will loose market share. Let’s say for a moment that Apple doesn’t innovate themselves; they do _drive_ innovation though whic is still a good thing (regardless of the methods). A year from now, and certainly two, the way we play games is going to be very different as a result, regardless if you’re using an iPad or a hanDROID – it won’t matter.
.-= jonathan´s last blog ..The Cons of the New "D&D Encounters" from Wizards of the Coast =-.
ChattyDM says
Hey I want my money back, I was promised some Colbert!
Great post, as always Vanir.
@jonathan: Always the diplomat huh? Regarding your point though, I think the game defining turf war will come down with, again, apps. Since the Apple IIe, it has mostly been about the Software and the availability of it.
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Chatty’s Tales of the Arabian Nights =-.
Buccaneers Guild says
I was talking to someone the other day about an app I had on my PC. He kept talking about my iPhone. It wasn’t for at least five minutes that I realised he’d never heard the word “app” used for anything but an iPhone and hence his confusion.
I guess now in some people’s minds Apple brought us the whole idea of an “app”.
*shudder*
The power of good marketing.
.-= Buccaneers Guild´s last blog ..Magical Minds #2 – Earrings of the Sidhe =-.
Tonester says
Great post! I think the whole marketing thing is appropriate. Nerds have always known what the cool gadgets were. The fact that Apple has learned to create gadgets that are appealing to the casual crowd is all the difference. Sure, their stuff doesn’t innovate much and their blatant proprietary decisions are motivated by nothing but money. But hey – soccer moms don’t know that do they? And they certainly don’t care.
ChattyDM says
The one true beef I really have with Apple is how they rape us on Memory. I’ll pay 99 cents songs (and the occasional 1,09 one) and I’ll pay 1,99$ for a TV episode (with a, sigh, grey market iStore card I had to smuggle from the US) but I really resent being charged 100$ Canadian for each extra 8 GB of memories. It’s near criminal (or it should be).
Of course, we can’t use SD cards either.
So not only they create the digital equivalent of Crack cocaine, they control 100% of the world’s supply of all its derivatives.
On and you are SO Apple-trolling 🙂
.-= ChattyDM´s last blog ..Chatty’s Tales of the Arabian Nights =-.
Andy says
Being a major open-source guy (with therefore little love for Apple), I definitely agree that Apple is more than anything a marketing juggernaut. Not only do they make stuff that looks pretty and is accessible to the average Joe, they package it all up in one very simple manner. History shows that when you package up things into easy-to-use chunks, people consume it much easier, and then come back for more. It also, of course, makes it easy to control from their standpoint…
.-= Andy´s last blog ..A Modest Proposal, Part II =-.
Mark says
Hah! You’re missing the point!
Apple used to bring cutting-edge innovation to the market before anyone else. That was back in the 90’s while Jobs was gone. Apple brought us the first digital camera, the QuickTake, and the first PDA, the Newton–with a touchscreen with natural handwriting recognition that has yet to be recreated–by anyone. Go ahead and look it up.
Do you know what happened to these revolutionary new products when they came out? They bombed. Just like the Amiga did. They were too expensive and not ready for prime time. Releasing innovation first brought Apple to the brink of bankruptcy.
Starting with the iMac, Apple has taken existing technology and packaged it in a different or unusual way, and has done immensely well. It’s just a superior business strategy.
This iPad flap reminds me of when the iPod first came out. Before the release, there were all these rumors flying around the net about it. It would be wireless! A new PDA! The successor to the Newton! Then it comes out and folks are all disappointed because… well, it’s just a MP3 player. That MP3 player went on to completely dominate and largely create the digital music market. And quibble all you want about the off button, but the clickwheel is awesome. I have over 5,000 songs on my iPod, and it’s ridiculous how fast I can browse my library on that thing.
Same with the iPad. Folks were somehow expecting Teh Utimat3 Ubertablet and… well, it’s just a bigger iPod Touch.
Well, of course it is! What did you expect? And an iPod Touch with a bigger screen at a high-but-not-unreasonable price point is a nifty gadget! It’s a color ebook. I’d like one just to be able to comfortably read Dragon magazine on the couch. A portable digital sketchbook! I wonder what sorts of uses it could have around the game table. It doesn’t have the capabilities of the Microsoft Surface, but it’ll actually be out and available in a few months, unlike Surface. It’s not big enough to be a true game table, but maybe you could set one down as a portion of a map for a special encounter, for some sort of special effect. Say, a tidal wave on a beach, or some custom animation or magic effect.
In short, I think the iPad will be awesome, particularly when they release later versions at cheaper price points with more features.