| Computer games were, at one time, unified. We didn’t even have the term “casual game” in 1993, let alone the idea that a first-person shooter (then an unnamed genre) could be considered a “hardcore title.” There were people who played computer games, and people who didn’t. People who got way into golf or Harpoon or hearts or text adventures — those were the “hardcore” players, in that they played their chosen field obsessively.
When Myst and the CD-ROM finally broached the mass market, this ecosystem was disrupted. Myst had, Robyn Miller makes clear, been designed to appeal to non-gamers. It sold to them. Enthusiast magazines like Computer Gaming World couldn’t set the taste for the industry anymore: there were millions buying games who didn’t read these magazines. An entirely new breed of player. In this situation, what could be more natural than concocting an us-and-them formula? In a very real way, it was already true.
The great narrative of Myst is that the “hardcore” game press and playerbase lambasted it when it launched. Disowned it. A slideshow, they called it. Abstruse, idiotic puzzles; pretty graphics and not much depth. “Critics and hardcore game players universally panned it as a slide-show that had little actual gameplay interaction”, claimed PC Gamer’s Michael Wolf in 2001.That same year, a columnist for Maximum PC recalled Myst as a “tedious code-breaking and switch-throwing mess”, and saw its then-new remake realMYST as “a pointed reminder of why the press dumped on the original so heavily when it came out.” | Michezo ya kompyuta ilikuwa, wakati mmoja, imeunganishwa. Hata hatukuwa na msamiati “mchezo wa kawaida” mwaka wa 1993, potelea mbali dhana ya mfyatuaji wa kwanza (wakati huo aina ambayo haikuwa na jina) kufikiriwa kuwa “toleo sugu”. Palikuwepo na watu waliocheza michezo ya kompyuya, na wale hawakucheza. Kuna watu waliojitoma sana kwenye gofu au bunduki za manati au ziara za matini – hao ndio waliokuwa wachezaji “sugu”, yaani walicheza chaguo la nyanja zao kwa njia ya kupagawa.
Wakati Myst na CD-ROM hatimaye ilizuka kwenye soko la halaiki, mfumo ikolojia huu ulivurugwa. Robyn Miller anaweka bayana kwamba, Myst ilikuwa imeundwa iwavutie wasiocheza michezo. Ikauza kwao. Majarida ya wakereketwa kama vile Computer Gaming World hayakuweza kuendelea kuweka ladha ya tasnia: palikuwepo na mamilioni waliokuwa wakinunua michezo ambao hawakusoma majarida haya. Kizazi kipya kabisa cha mchezaji. Katika hali hii, ni kipi cha kawaida kingezidi kuchanganyisha formula ya sisi-na-wao? Kwa njia ya halisi kabisa, tayari ilikuwa ukweli.
Simulizi kuu kuhusu Myst ni kwamba wanahabari na vikosi vya mchezo huo “sugu” waliikosoa vikali wakati ilizinduliwa. Wakaikataa. Wakaiita kionyesha slaidi. Mgumu, mafumbo ya kipumbavu; yenye grafu tu na kina kidogo. “Wakosoaji na wachezaji sugu ulimwenguni waliipuuza kama kionyesha slaidi ambacho hakikuwa na mwingiliano uletwao na mchezo”, akadai mwana- PC Gamer Michael Wolf mwaka wa 2001. Mwaka uo huo, mwandishi wa Maximum PC akaita tena Myst “uchafu wa kuchosha wa kuvunja-misimbo na kurusha-swichi”, na kuona muundo wake mpya realMYST kama “kumbukumbu kali ya sababu iliyowafanya wanahabari kutupilia mbali sana ule wa asili wakati ilitoka.” |
0
Winner 
Discuss this entry