What do you think is gaming's quintessential perfect storm?

The Chrono Trigger "Dream Team" - the creator of Final Fantasy, the creator of Dragon Quest, and the creator of Dragon Ball all teamed up along with a number of other exceptionally talented individuals and made something very special.

Maybe it's because I've been rereading Game Over, but for me it will be the orginal NES' launch in North America. It requires RadarScope to be a failure, for the video game bubble to burst, Atari to freak the hell out over Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision - causing them to turn down the rights to license the Famicom in America.

It took so many failures in so many companies to make the NES possible.

DS and Wii - Were basically doing the job smart devices are doing today, several years before they became commonplace, leading to the most lucrative generation for a platform holder to date.

Runner-up would be the PS1 - Took advantage of Yamauchi's terrible third-party policies and Sega's incompetence to establish a commanding lead in the industry.

Honorable mention is the PS4 - Took advantage of two of the biggest PR/marketing blunders in gaming history (Wii U and pre-180 Xbone) to establish a commanding lead... while simply keeping the status quo.

Xbox Live

ShadowFox said:

where its predecessor revolutionized the industry with use of disks

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what? But there were plenty of consoles with discs prior to the Playstation...

Everyone was talking about how PUBG was the future of gaming and then Fortnite came out of nowhere and completely buried it in barely any time at all

I would say that the best recent ones in recent memory are the Switch and the BR craze, especially Fortnite.
Of all time though? Probably the NES or the PS2.

Quintessential? I couldn't quite say.

For horror games, I want to say Silent Hill 1 & 2 though. The story of how those two games came to be are extraordinary tales that wouldn't of happened if so many things didn't fall into place. Silent Hill 1 & 2 essentially only came into existence due to a lot of talented people being tied to failed projects, being given a last shot by the company (Konami) who wanted a horror game because of Resident Evil's success and wanted it to appeal to Western audiences, and then all of these occurrences and bumps and commitments from the team through development happening to make the first Silent Hill game occur. There's so many layers to this story, from the now famous story of Takayoshi Sato, the man who did the character designs and CG cutscenes for SH1 & SH2, who famously for SH1 was going to be downplayed for his efforts on SH1 from other Konami animators who just wanted their name attached to the project and didn't actually work on it, so Takayoshi Sato came to Konami with demands, they said for his demands to be filled he'd have to do ALL of the CG cutscenes with absolutely no help obviously trying to bark him down, but the mad man did it by living in Konami's offices for over a year and using multiple computers at Konami to render out the cutscenes and work on them when everyone else was home. That's just one story though of many, when you begin to dig into how SH1 & SH2 came into being, it was in many ways due to so many things falling into place. Most of the team weren't really experienced in horror, which due to their under-exposure brought a new interesting kind of horror, in part due to the director (the now famous Keiichiro Toyama, who also directed and created the Siren and Gravity Rush series), who wasn't big on horror but really liked alien stories and David Lynch, how Akira Yamoaka got involved to do the sound design of SH, and just everything. It also released timely to get the attention it deserved, after the releases of RE1-RE3 when horror retention was high, but people wanted something other than just a RE clone, allowing SH to benefit (plus having a demo tied-in with MGS1 due to the timing of both of their releases to help broaden its exposure).

Silent Hill 1's development and demands on the team were frankly stupid power-play from Konami, but in spite of or maybe because of this, Silent Hill came out of it and turned into a masterpiece. And SH2 followed suite in Konami then trying to overtake the project after the success of the original but the team having to make plays to retain their creative freedom and wanting to make something without strong corporate intervention that was trying to meddle there. It's quite a story of how several people were slammed together due to unfair circumstances and made the most of it to make something original and left a mark on the genre, and I'd say even the industry.

Sega's Model 2 & Model 3 hardware were made possible through trying to make some money back on incredibly expensive military tech. The hardware designers had been working on super high tech simulators for decades, and had continued on the trajectory of being a decade ahead of literally everyone else. That won't ever happen again. That tech rightfully blew gamers away.

The original Doom - you had a staff of people that were really mashed together along with an industry that was just right at that time to inspire greatness in a lot of ways. From Mario & Zelda inspiring design, to the hotshot rockstar era of gaming just starting - took a lot of conditions that will never happen again. Small developers can't make the most cutting edge engine and graphics while revolutionizing gameplay all at once with a short development cycle. Took the world by storm, again rightfully. We'll never have anything like Doom again.

For me Oculus is one too, you have John Carmack taking it on as a passion project. Mobile display tech making it possible to push boundaries in latency. And of course heaps of money investment. The tech has only recently become possible. I do think all this stuff could come together in an even better way, though. FB pushed for a product, and lots of decisions have been mismanaged. Not a perfect storm, but close.

werezompire said:

The Chrono Trigger "Dream Team" - the creator of Final Fantasy, the creator of Dragon Quest, and the creator of Dragon Ball all teamed up along with a number of other exceptionally talented individuals and made something very special.

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yep I was thinking of this one too

The 2 biggest that come to my mind are Fortnite BR and Online Play getting moved to behind the PS+ paywall.

Fortnite BR got huge on the back of PUBG being huge but not on many platforms, and people on those platforms wanted to play it so they just played the next closest thing which was also made free, which was a great move by epic. Had Fornite BR been a regular priced game it wouldn't have sold half of what PUBG has.

Online Play getting moved to PS+ got hidden by all the internet circlejerk of "MS is anticonsumer and Sony are #4thegamers".

TehPotentialz said:

The 2 biggest that come to my mind are Fortnite BR and Online Play getting moved to behind the PS+ paywall.

Fortnite BR got huge on the back of PUBG being huge but not on many platforms, and people on those platforms wanted to play it so they just played the next closest thing which was also made free, which was a great move by epic. Had Fornite BR been a regular priced game it wouldn't have sold half of what PUBG has.

Online Play getting moved to PS+ got hidden by all the internet circlejerk of "MS is anticonsumer and Sony are #4thegamers".

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Do you get Netflix for free? Of course Sony were going to charge for it in the end, especially when people were chucking money at MS for Live, it's a no brainer.

You get added benefits and subscription games with the cost aswell, which is cheap anyway.

Malcolm9 said:

Do you get Netflix for free? Of course Sony were going to charge for it in the end, especially when people were chucking money at MS for Live, it's a no brainer.

You get added benefits and subscription games with the cost aswell, which is cheap anyway.

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I know that, I'm just saying it was the perfect storm because they got to remove free online, which was one of their big selling points last generation, and copped virtually no criticism or backlash because they intentionally diverted all the anger at MS. It was the perfect storm for them to get away with it.

You already got the subscription games with PS+. Literally all they did was take free online play and put it behind the paywall.

ShadowFox said:

This could either be a game being released at the right time, certain developers meeting, a game being of a certain quality that changed everything, a console being released, a service being introduced, etc. It's what YOU consider the number one perfect storm that stands out in a medium full of them.

For me, it HAS to be the launch of the Playstation 2. It was being released in the new millennium right on the heels of one of the strongest periods of economic prosperity for the West thanks to the tech revolution, where its predecessor revolutionized the industry with use of disks, where it was immediately the cheapest DVD player on the market, along with dozens upon dozens of "mid-tier" developers popping up overnight practically. THEN on top of outclassing the Dreamcast in almost every way (online functionality is a bit debatable), the MS and Nintendo didn't release their consoles until a year later, while SEGA went third party, and on top of THAT, you have 2001 being a barrage of revolutionary exclusives in a variety of genres. It was complete and total madness.

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"Perfect Storm" and "PS2" have long been two things I've associated with one another, OP. Good to know I'm not alone in thinking that. Everything just seemed to work in Sony's favour to a ridiculous degree.

Silent Hills looked like it was going to be a perfect storm with Hideo kojima and Guillermo del Toro at the helm and with Junji Ito collaborating I really think it could have been a great horror game, to bad it will never happen.

Nintendo 64.

Whatever people might say about the PS2 being the better platform in terms of games, because it is, if it weren't for Nintendo launching into the 3D business we would probably have an entirely different market now.

I can never forget we got Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and GoldenEye out of this. It opened up an entirely new world.

+1 for PS2.

A powerful console which was also a decent DVD player for the price with a great software lineup going up against an early entrant who had alienated their fanbase with bad decisions for two gens (MegaDrive add-ons, ditching Saturn support too early) and two competitors that came late and made some questionable choices (limited storage on GC discs and no DVD player, Xbox required a $50 remote add-on to play DVDs). The Swiss cheese all lined up.

Sorry for not answering the "quintessential" part of the topic, because I wouldn't argue this game is quintessential to play, but I would argue that the way Fallout 4 was revealed and released changed the way people viewed marketing for all AAA games. I still remember that presentation winning me over, and I still very much enjoyed the game.

Squaresoft jumping ship to the Playstation

werezompire said:

The Chrono Trigger "Dream Team" - the creator of Final Fantasy, the creator of Dragon Quest, and the creator of Dragon Ball all teamed up along with a number of other exceptionally talented individuals and made something very special.

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This was my answer as well.

I doubt I'll ever enjoy an RPG more than Chrono Trigger.

Minecraft's transcendant success as a pop culture phenpmenom I think is heavily intertwined with the simultaneous rise of game streaming and youtube personalities. The latter quickly became a dominant form of media for the new generation of internet-savy children, Minecraft also resonating very well with young children, and the game's trademark lack of tutorials/hand holding also further enabling the Minecraft video community. All of these feeding heavily into eachother to create a transmedia behemoth with basically no money spent by Mojang on marketing.

For everyone saying the PS2, you could probably narrow that down to MGS2 in all honesty.

ShadowFox said:

Sony literally got away with charging for online.

I'll never NEVER understand how they pulled that off. People bitched for MAYBE a day or two, but otherwise they accepted it like no big deal

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Xbox Live was never free.

Chromie said:

Xbox Live was never free.

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No, but PSN was.
Then everyone got on board the PS4 hype train and basically shrugged their shoulders at the news you know have to pay for online.

ShadowFox said:

Sony literally got away with charging for online.

I'll never NEVER understand how they pulled that off. People bitched for MAYBE a day or two, but otherwise they accepted it like no big deal

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They didn't just get away with it. They got fucking cheered when they slipped the announcement in there.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

Jimnymebob said:

No, but PSN was.
Then everyone got on board the PS4 hype train and basically shrugged their shoulders at the news you know have to pay for online.

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No other option for online.

Same thing is happening with Nintendo. I'm still waiting to hear about their damn service and how it will work. I'd never pay to play online since I don't care and have a good PC but since they're going to make their old games connected with their service, I am curious.

Viceratops said:

Sorry for not answering the "quintessential" part of the topic, because I wouldn't argue this game is quintessential to play, but I would argue that the way Fallout 4 was revealed and released changed the way people viewed marketing for all AAA games. I still remember that presentation winning me over, and I still very much enjoyed the game.

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Is this even a perfect storm situation though? What mistakes was this capitalizing on, if any at all?

On topic, the PS2 and the NES are probably the best answers to the question. Both consoles took advantage of a marketplace where everybody else misfired or or came too little too late.

PS2 with the DVD format of course.

Also FF7, the best FF created with all the Square legends.

lazygecko said:

Minecraft's transcendant success as a pop culture phenpmenom I think is heavily intertwined with the simultaneous rise of game streaming and youtube personalities. The latter quickly became a dominant form of media for the new generation of internet-savy children, Minecraft also resonating very well with young children, and the game's trademark lack of tutorials/hand holding also further enabling the Minecraft video community. All of these feeding heavily into eachother to create a transmedia behemoth with basically no money spent by Mojang on marketing.

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Came here to say this. An indie game made (initially) by one man (fuck him though) that became a worldwide phenomenon, a symbol of gaming, and acquired by Microsoft.

I think you could argue Fortnite BR is right now becoming (or has become) one of the biggest "perfect storms" - just the sheer amount of attention it is getting.

The success of the Genesis in North America is another big one. Sonic was planned as Sega's special mascot years earlier and was finally ready a few months before the SNES launch backed by excellent marketing and critical reception. NEC royally botching everything to do with marketing the TurboGrafx was good for Sega. And Nintendo's extreme market share at the time made it underestimate the competition. At least with the PS2, the Playstation brand was already huge at the time. Prior to the Genesis, Sega's console market share in NA was very small.

LightEntite said:

Squaresoft jumping ship to the Playstation

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This. It was the gamechanger.

This isn't necessarily anything huge in terms of consoles, but I will say it was huge in the sense of what it meant to the series. The idea of how you have Smash 4 being a game that not only introduced so many 3rd party characters, but also the fact that Cloud Strife (a character that if anything would be more tied with Sony than Nintendo) was made a playable character. In a series where the only "requirement" (if there ever was one) was to be a Nintendo character or have been on a Nintendo system, this was huge. It also gives people the thought that just about any video game character could be playable in Smash (to which I'm still crossing my fingers for Banjo).

To me, it is World of Warcraft. Basically everything lined up in its favor for it to become such a massive hit that will likely never be seen on that scale again. It came out at just the right time to take advantage of DSL/Cable internet connections which were relatively new, had a strong IP attached to it that allowed it to quickly eclipse existing MMOs, had the budget and expertise to a creative a truly immersive world on a scale not previously seen, and had social elements in place that allowed you to make meaningful connections to other players. Adding to this is that previous online games were largely competitive shooters like Counter Strike or Quake, it reached into a blue ocean of a more casual fanbase looking for something easier to get into. And WoW was as complex or as simple as you wanted it to be. Now with better online console gaming, MOBAs, battle royales, and more competition, there will likely never be another MMO that will be quite like WoW was until a dramatic shift in technology happens.

ShadowFox said:

Well, I think Fortnite being free is the factor here. Change that, and the game's success barely becomes a blip on the radar.

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Oh absolutely, but I think that's part of the perfect storm of it.

To me its Donkey Kong Country.

Right at the end of the SNES's life when competitors like Sega, Atari, and 3DO released more powerful consoles, Nintendo and Rare were able to basically trick a generation of children into thinking that pre-rendered 3D graphics were somewhat equivelent to the "real" 3D graphics that could be found on more powerful systems. It ended up being the second most popular SNES game, and was the game that pushed the SNES past the Genesis in lifetime sales plus also it basically killed the 32x.

It had all the right buzzwords of the day swirling around it (SGI, 3D graphics) its marketing was on point with its 32 meg or bit something (they would continue to market its 32meg size as a direct way to confuse consumers who keep hearing about 32 bit machines from competitors), and it's success completely saved Nintendo's ass when the N64 was delayed.

This sort of success simply couldn't happen in an internet era when websites could have cut through the smoke and mirrors Nintendo was using, and it came out right before the internet took off. Also the technique of overusing pre-rendered graphics was basically the competitive edge that the PS1 had over the N64 (thanks to CD storage space for those graphics), and so its interesting that Nintendo took a bite from that apple first.

Runner up to me is the success of Pac Man. Right as arcades were taking off Pac Man gave the entire arcade industry a recognizable character that was probably the first "blue ocean" game when we consider how attractive it was to more casual arcade gamers and women gamers.

Genesis, sonic and Segas marketing department

Halo 2 & Xbox Live happening happening close to each other.

If you ever needed a game to prove a service's worth Halo 2 was it.

I Wanna Be The Guy said:

They didn't just get away with it. They got fucking cheered when they slipped the announcement in there.

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.

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Is there a video of this? I watched that part of the E3 conference and didn't hear any cheering.

ShadowFox said:

I'll never NEVER understand how they pulled that off. People bitched for MAYBE a day or two, but otherwise they accepted it like no big deal

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You have to look at the value proposition of what Sony was offering vs MS at the time. Even with paid online their offer was a lot more palatable than the DRM shit show that MS had on the table.

Not the PS2 launch, but the Fall/Winter 2001 period.



It was a storm of genre defining games basically all one after the other, and a moment in gaming that hasn't really been replicated again.

A runner up would be the release of the Nintendo 64. The hype for that console was insane. I remember playing Super Mario 64 in stores (Toys R Us being the first time) and being blown away, as well as playing Pilotwings 64 with my stepdad.

You guys keep saying Sony "got away" with charging for online. What actually happened was that, after a decade of Microsoft actually getting away with charging money for what was previously free for PC gamers, Sony announced that they would also be charging a fee for their online service, but would accompany it with better servers and other value-added elements. Consumers decided this was a fair value proposition and went along with it. Nobody got tricked or duped. If the PS4 had launched alongside some sort of catastrophic PSN failure or massive online issues, I'm sure consumers would have reacted very negatively. Instead, Sony upheld their end of the bargain and people accepted the value proposition.

Halo 2 and Xbox Live changed console gaming forever. Online multiplayer and matchmaking. What else do I need to really say.

You can even argue this helped create esports, which then lead to the rise in games being streamed live, online.

There are more obvious ones that will get mentioned so I'll go for a little less recognised one. Nintendo saving the 3DS and hurting the Vita at the same time. 3DS came stumbling out of the gate with a ridiculous price point and sparse software support. It was sturggling to sell anywhere near DS monthly numbers and the Sony's Vita was looking like a killer handheld (which I think it ended up being). But in the autumn that the Vita was dropping, Nintendo slashes the price of 3DS and releases Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. It totally pulled the 3DS out of its slump and it carried that momentum into the following years. At the same time it made it seem more attractive than the Vita whihc was starting to looking very expensive with the memory card prices.

These days people tend to forget that the 3DS struggled so much at first, but it was a great holiday period that really got it going to where it is today.