WE HAVE A PROBLEM. And that as a Pinoy gaming community, we tend to stick heavily only to what's accessible and popular, which causes us to become unoriginal. There, I said it.
As a gamer for almost my entire life now, gaming as a hobby has always been sort of a walled garden - that only the privileged few can access because of the expensive hardware that's needed. But thanks to the popularity and ease of access of computer shops and mobile phones, gaming has become a lot more accessible. Barriers to entry to this particular hobby has been shattered, thanks to pisonet where PCs are coin-op, and unli / dedicated data for gaming on the go on mobile. While I don't consider that a bad thing, it introduced another beast, which is an unfair favor towards free to play games and MOBA. Year after year, there will always be a competition for MOBA, then there's now a surge of tournaments designed for free to play, albeit, mobile games.
Let's not discount though how it introduced elite players like Staz (Hearthstone), Mineski and TNC (DOTA) to the world stage, but there lies my question - what if we expanded our repertoire beyond free to play, beyond MOBA, don't we deserve a spot on the top tier Call of Duty tournaments, all the more now that it adopted Battle Royale? How about Rocket League? Never heard of it? Thought so.
But oh Steeps, how about the fighting game scene? Isn't that something worth mentioning? Well if you mention SFV and Tekken 7, yeah, but there are a lot of fighting games that don't get the same amount of love, and therefore, barely / hardly any support from the community.
It all comes down to access. This is exactly the same problem as to why football will never ever get the same kind of popularity here in the Philippines vs. the all so popular basketball. Name a town in the Philippines without any basketball court. Now name any town in the Philippines without Pisonet and mobile data coverage? - Well the latter can be subject to further discussion, but see where I'm getting at? Football, and mainstream gaming in general still has an access problem - they are a lot more expensive to get into, and like football which requires field space, mainstream gaming requires dedicated hardware - expensive dedicated gaming hardware.
Thus, ACCESS DEFINES WHO RULES THE POPULARITY CONTEST. An average game is 60 USD, which is roughly 3,000 PHP here in the Philippines. The average monthly family income as of 2015 (latest data, pls pardon our government) in the Philippines is P 267,000 according to psa.gov.ph, or roughly 22,000 per month. Let's say this average household wants to play a new game every month, do you think they'll want to cram in groceries, clothing, utilities, etc. to just 19,000? It's a luxury already for an average family. Depending on what you buy and where you are, 3,000 PHP can even fill a shopping cart, or not, thanks TRAIN law and inflation. Now compare that to something you can just go to your nearest pisonet or download from the app store for free. Obvious winner. We're not even talking yet of the gaming hardware needed. A PS4 Pro costs about 24,000 - that's already above the average monthly income. Top it off with broadband costs, PS+ Subscription - you get the idea. A phone? A cheap sub 5,000 smartphone can probably run ROS or PUBG mobile no sweat (name the cheapest phone that can run these games on the comment section, I'd love to find out!)
Though I really thank the brave souls of the exhibitors who showed up with their latest top of the line toys. They care about the minority of mainstream gamers and early adopters, but I digress.
Now with the public's gaze on the popular, do you now see where the money and the industry will go? Thought so.
Which now brings me to why I used Project Xandata as cover image of this rant. I don't mean to offend or discredit Secret 6, - heck I had a lot of fun playing Project Xandata earlier and winning against random strangers, but gameplay wise it's basically Destiny, with all that super, melee skill and grenade, just stripped down to its core multiplayer game, with a simplified weapon selection - well that's based on my playthrough earlier. I'd love to play this again when it's finally launched because it is a heck of a lot of fun to play, but to get to my point, local developers are now pushed to taking formulas that work, strip it down to bare essentials, sacrifice the depth and complexity of the original game, and integrate a few new ideas, and you have a sort of derivative - not a rip off, but a derivative. Again it's not my intention to discredit them - all I'm saying is that as a consequence of access and popularity, local devs are now pushed to adapt to what works to appeal to gamers, to at least be able to compete. At least we do it better than China, where they completely just reskin games and pass it off as their own. I do feel that Project Xandata is created with a lot of heart - it's just that I'd love to see it succeed on its own merits. (If by any chance, folks at Secret6 you're reading this, I really don't mean to offend, sorry about that - oh and can you put controller support please? That would be awesome. And I'd love to hear your story too on how this game was made. I have a lot of other comments too that may improve the game - let me know!)
OH AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE PIRACY BIT. I'll talk about that in another rant.
Ok so I'm running out of words and I'm a bit sleepy already. I'd love to catch ESGS Day 2 again earliest as possible to avoid the long lines - hello Saturday! To sum up my thoughts, basically:
ACCESS -> POPULARITY -> INDUSTRY FOLLOWS. If mainstream gaming could just be a little more accessible, more and more games can be enjoyed by the public, and hopefully we can introduce more gaming stars to the world stage. But right now, it's a pipe dream as average income can barely sustain this kind of hobby. Sucks to be a 3rd World Country eh?
So let me know your thoughts on this! Comment below and let's have a healthy discussion!
No comments:
Post a Comment