What I find funny are all the ways in which many, many “gamers” seem to regress as they age. They get taller, their limbs grow out, beards pop up on their chins and necks… And yet, too often, the sum total of what you’re left with is something that has managed to…not mature as a human being, but de-mature.

Can anyone here raise their hand and say they remember a time when they were kids, playing their SNES, N64, PSX, what have you, and complaining about “gaming droughts”? I don’t mean just being bored or wishing you had something new to play, but actually getting MAD at a given company and criticizing them for a perceived “drought”. I’d never, ever seen this before the Wii U; you may be able to anecdotally cite times where you and your friends complained about a lack of games from so-and-so, or even read a post/comment somewhere that invoked the term “drought”. But it did not, at all, exist or virally circulate as a concept the way it does today. Even in spite of facts like the Wii U already having a larger library than the N64.

It seems to me that as both gamers and the gaming media come of age, they find it difficult to reconcile their interest in and history with video games, with how they live and communicate as adults. Regarding the latter (media), all the gender politicking and SJWBS we’ve seen crop up in recent years has been happening for the same reason that SOME of us have, in our inanity, been bitching about “droughts”; they are confused, trying — and failing — to become more “deep”. Out of either dissatisfaction or an inability to indeed talk the straight-up, meat-and-potatoes of gaming, they desperately grasp for something to convince both themselves and others that they are the coolest, savviest, most sophisticated GAMERSUPERNERDOTAKUGEEKCHICTRANSWOMANFEMINISTRETROFAN out there.

And that’s the thing — it’s considered savvy to complain about “gaming droughts”. On the rare occasion when the word “drought” ISN’T being trotted out as a
ridiculous, one-sided assassination of the Wii U — a system that
actually manages to be competitive in terms of the raw number of big
deal games despite the fact it’s practically one publisher versus the
entirety of everyone else in the industry — it’s supposed to prove how hardcore we are and what a deep love and understanding of games we must have. But it actually proves the exact opposite. We are dumber than a five year-old who sees a poster for a Pixar movie or whatever in the theater, lights up, then breaks down crying because it’s not coming out till the summer. Make sure you read that right, too — not AS dumb. Literally dumber, because at least with the kid, he has to see the poster to tip those dominoes. With too many gamers, this sort of gross entitlement that transcends all notions of immaturity has been, at this point, built in. We don’t need the poster to set us off, because we’re always ready to blow.

As adults, we are at a point in our lives when we are supposed to have more interests and obligations than ever, from work, to starting our own families to however many billions or trillions of hours of film, television, music, video, literature, and yes, video games we have right at our fingertips… The irony that “gaming droughts” just NOW become a thing the community is all colicky about is really something else. Thing is, if you tell me, “But I don’t have a family! Video games are my only hobby and like my whole life!”, I still can’t take that seriously. If video games are really the end-all-be-all of your existence, then you would A.) have a broad enough palate for them to have a backlog you’d probably never finish, and B.) understand the work and necessities behind game development. I’ll tell you this… If being a “gamer” means sitting in a highchair, spitting and crying all over my bib for Mommy Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony to bring me my applesauce, then I’m no damn gamer.

Now to segue from calling out the hysterical fuckwits out there, to addressing the people who are more than mental man-children, like Francis, making more reasonable criticisms such as Nintendo needs to make sure they have a constant stream of games… Look, I’m not saying someone can’t be FRUSTRATED that x game isn’t out at y time, or that something they were looking forward to got delayed. Frustration is fine, go ahead and express it and how you wish it could be different. But when people criticize a dev/publisher for delays, game offerings, and “droughts”, you have to understand that 95% of the time, it flies in the face of the reality of the situation. A reality that applies to EVERYONE, not just Nintendo.

So speaking of, let’s look to an example concerning PlayStation. A year or two ago, I’m watching a video from some guy, talking about the woes of the Vita. One of the things he’s saying is what a huge mistake it is that Sony/Naughty Dog didn’t work on a Vita Uncharted game themselves, that they instead got the “B-team” (although at this point, I prefer Bend to ND) to make Golden Abyss. Now, let’s think about his for a second: why was this a “mistake”? Sure, you can say that IDEALLY, it’d be great if Naughty Dog had found a way to produce a typical Uncharted for Vita, and hey, another one too! Two full-fledged Uncharted games for Vita, from the original creators, at the same time we get Uncharted 3, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4.

Except… We live in reality, don’t we? There’s a difference between what you SHOULD do, and what is IDEAL. There’s a limit to what Naughty Dog can humanly accomplish, to how much they can work on and manage effectively. They have to have priorities pursuant to reality; if they had worked on a Vita Uncharted title, then that would obviously have implications for their work on Uncharted 3 and TLoU. There was no team of people at Naughty Dog sitting around that coulda/woulda/shoulda made a Vita Uncharted; everyone was working on projects already in production. SO, if they live in reality (which they do, y’know), they have to make a call on whether it makes more sense to work on Golden Abyss for Vita and let Uncharted 3, TLoU and every game after that suffer or be delayed for it, or whether it makes more sense to continue their work on the latter two and entrust the former to a capable sister studio. They made a reasonable decision, to the best of their ability.

With Nintendo then, we all know that everyone at EAD isn’t going into work everyday, spending their hours trying to see how much gum they can stick to the bottoms of their chairs, right? Right (I hope I’m right). Everyone there is working their hardest and doing their best. So what kind of things might we hear from overzealous fans then? “Hire more people! Create new studios! Invest in this or that!” Okay. We all know hiring is a selective process, right? All companies look for certain people, with certain qualifications and sensibilities, that they believe will fit in and ultimately do good work. Some companies are more stringent in how selective they are… Most of us understand Nintendo’s standards are as high as anyone’s. Then, however talented those new hires start off, there’s the matter of effectively guiding, mentoring and managing them, something EVERY new face who’s come up developing Super Mario Galaxy, 3D World, Splatoon, Zelda, what have you, has been clear about making sure people understand is very important. There is only so much existing senior staff, only so many people like Miyamoto, Tezuka, Takeda, Tanabe, Aonuma, etc. to actually bring everything together, and nurture the ability to bring everything together in the younger generations.

But hey, it doesn’t stop there. What about space constraints? Do they have facilities large enough to accommodate nonstop expansion? If they hire a lot more people, don’t they have to deal with how that effects the workplace or possibly building extensions? Don’t they have to think about whether they not only have the raw numbers, but the right MIXES of people and positions to actually make whole new games? If they create new subsidiaries, don’t they have to worry about installing staff at every level and stretching their executives/producers even thinner among all of them? Don’t they have to consider whether they have the resources to localize all these new RPGs/shooters/etc. theoretically being made now, and possibly make all the considerations I just listed ALL OVER AGAIN for everywhere else in the world? Don’t they have to consider whether all of this makes sense to invest in, over other areas, initiatives, deals and projects in the works? Isn’t it true that I’m NOT EVEN PUTTING A DENT IN THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG?

If you think this is a damn long post now, I can’t even imagine the lengths to which it would stretch if I could actually think of and understand all the obstacles and considerations facing a multi-billion dollar multinational consumer electronics and software company. But I’m definitely hitting on at least a few of the realities that way, way too many people gloss right over when they make naive, shortsighted critiques like, “They need to hire more people! They need to open new studios to port third-party games and pump out RPGs!” What we need is for the community to at least TRY and be mindful of reality when they open their mouths or set to typing. Games take men. Games take man hours. Games take talents, skill-sets, insights, budgeting, management and so, so much more, to be realized. This is true for EVERYONE: Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Even when a game’s mediocre, like The Order, it doesn’t mean that its production isn’t a massively trying and elaborate undertaking. None of them wake up in the morning to find the Game Stork has delivered them a happy bundle of completed levels, models, textures, gameplay, etc.

Even when we’re talking about games being “held back”, like with Devil’s Third… I mean, in Nintendo’s case, we’ve actually seen them space out titles, just like you’re asking, Francis — they delayed Tropical Freeze a few months, remember? Instead of dropping 3D World, Pokemon, multiple Zelda games AND Donkey Kong on people all at once, they spaced things out. They did. And was that move praised? No. It was met with backlash — negativity was the consensus, not positivity. You can even go on YouTube and find at least one mental child who completely and utterly shit his pants over this move… I’m talking diaper-sagging, dribbling down the leg, kicking diarrhea into the camera lens caliber pants-shitting here. We’re going through it RIGHT NOW, with Nintendo’s E3 2015, the reaction, and the NX. Iwata said it himself; the stuff shown off was based on development realities, which are changing with the imminent NX. They are trying to restructure things to make sure they have those titles, heavy-hitters and flow for NX. Does the community recognize that? No. They went into a full-scale meltdown precipitating endless in-fighting and bickering, that continues even now. How fucking pointless….

We, as players, CAN criticize the games we play. We can criticize their narrative, their mechanics, their characters, their music, their look and feel. We can criticize companies for promising one thing and delivering another, for taking advantage of people, for tumbling down, down, down in their legacies (*cough*Capcom*cough*Konami*cough*). That goes for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and everyone else. But trying to criticize how they do everything they do, as a business, and how they work on what and when it’s released? It has to be asked if we’re really qualified to make those criticisms. We almost never are.

Like I said, you can hope and wish for anything you want. Get disappointed, get frustrated with whatever. But stop short before you actually presume to instruct an operation way beyond your understanding on when or how they have to release a product. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then it’s not really criticism, because it doesn’t in reality address anything. Then it just becomes nonsense, and it’s not even worth getting upset over; go do something else. Second guess their products and motivations if you want, but please try and accept that Shuhei Yoshida, Phil Spencer and yes, Satoru Iwata, have tried their best to keep their operations up, running, sustainable, with the games inbound. Okay?

Okay.