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It's story-time, fellow babies! Today's story is about a girl I know, named Ms. True Chosen (I know, it's a terrible name, her parents were really thoughtless), and this guy named Suikoden. True and Suikoden have had a long-term relationship for quite some time now. True and I have known each other a long time, but we don't see each other as much as when I was a kid. The first time I met Suikoden was shortly after True started hanging out with him, sometime in 1996 (wow, has it really been almost a decade?). My first impressions of him were of a colorful, inquisitive fellow who enjoyed drama and music.
He was at his best in large groups, and always seemed to be the center of attention. True was captivated by his charms, and I thought she was onto a good thing. My impressions were reinforced when I saw them together a few years later (around 1999, I think). Suikoden had just graduated, and all of his charms had blossomed into full fruition. He not only enjoyed being the center of attention, he positively sparkled when he was surrounded by his constellations of friends. With their help, he succeeded brilliantly at his all of chosen endeavors. I had never seen True so happy, and it seemed like things would only get better in the future.
Now that I've foreshadowed it, you can probably guess what happens next: things changed for the worse. I next encountered them in 2002, and I could tell immediately that something had changed between them. The pressures of Suikoden's job had impacted his personality, and, depending on his mood, he could shift from rogue to free spirit to ascetic in the blink of an eye. While his personality had become more complex and three-dimensional, it somehow had also become more muted, less colorful. His interest in music had dwindled, and drama was no longer a guiding passion in his life.
He still had his large circle of friends, but now they seemed to be merely a means to an end, where before they were everything to him. As if to compensate, he had bought a fancy new ride. Ultimately, he had become so disconnected from his original self that True felt neglected, wondering whether what she originally had seen in Suikoden had ever really been there. But she couldn't quite bring herself to leave him, either out of a feeling of misplaced loyalty, or because she hoped that they could somehow rediscover the lost magic that they once had. But it's not clear whether or not that will happen. I met them earlier this year, briefly, and it seemed like their relationship was even more strained than before, and that Suikoden and True had drifted even further apart...
Well, it should be clear that the preceding little story is really just a thinly disguised allegory, where "Ms. True Chosen" is an anagram "the consumers." It's occurred to me many times that many gamers develop attitudes toward game series that mimic, in many ways, some of the dynamics of a personal relationship (hence, the motivation for the preceding allegory). When the series is good, we develop a warm attachment. When the magic starts to fade, we can lash out against the series, or cling to it blindly. Heck, I've done both simultaneously. But is it always correct to assume that the game developers are solely to blame? Are we, the consumers, partially at fault here? After all is said and done, we want game sequels that thrill and amuse, but some (if not all) players want those sequels to be thrilling in the same way that the preceding games were: in other words, they want conservative experimentation, which is a contradiction in terms.
Likewise, some (if not all) players want innovation for innovation's sake. They are quick to call a game sequel "cliched" or "derivative" if it incorporates too many elements from the previous games in the series. Naturally, there are also many gamers who fall between these two extremes, but the net result is that we have two, paradoxical forces at work, and the game developers who want to continue a game series somehow to make sense of the prevailing mood and produce a sequel that will satisfy somebody. It's no wonder it's hard to keep the magic alive in a series, since any action the developer takes is bound to alienate somebody. In the end, it's a horse race in which the game developer bets on which group of player/consumers will dominate the market, and the balance of power is always shifting as players "vote with their dollars."
And there you have it folks: gamers find themselves in a shifting relationship with the games that they love/hate, and game developers find themselves in a shifting relationship with the gamers whose dominant mood shifts from one extreme to another. There's a circularity here that captures the human experience, and this is one of the many reasons that I love/hate being an RPGamer...
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