The Adolescent Fear of Colour
To quote Gabe from Penny-Arcade:
I think I've had enough of the "kids games", "adult games" thing. It completely misses the point. Are they afraid that playing a game with colors in it will make them a dork? Well, that boat already sailed. You play videogames? Welcome to Dorksville. You want to know how cool your videogames are? Ask your fucking girlfriend how cool. And if you don't have a girlfriend? That's part of the test.
Source: Penny-Arcade
And it's true. Ever had a conversation with your girlfriend after playing a great game of, say perhaps, FIFA 2003? No doubt you're still excited about your amazing victory and as a male (not trying to leave you out ladies, but the story just plays out better like this), you feel inclined to tell the very next person about it. In great detail. No matter whether they care or not. Let me just say from personal experience that you will indeed sound like a dork. You could've made the most incredible come-back in video game sports history, but she still isn't going to care. At the most, you'll get a polite response that quickly changes the topic. Video games just aren't cool for an eighteen year old. I learned to deal with it and I advise you to do the same.
The age old (in terms of the gaming industry) debate of "mature" and "kiddy" has spanned a couple of console generations. It's mostly the difference between "cool" and "uncool" that qualifies the two titles respectively. I can remember back in my younger days being a huge Mario fan (still am, of course) and being badgered by the Sonic loving kids. Now, I had nothing against Sonic or the Sega Genesis. A couple of friends of mine had Master Systems and Genesis' and we played them a lot. Fun times were had by all. Unfortunately, kids are cruel. You'd be surprised how many times you could be called a "doody-head" for sporting a very snazzy Super Mario Bros. t-shirt.
But hey, that was only the school yard. Nowadays we're dealing with a much broader problem. The internet. A haven for completely mindless drivel at times, the internet has spawned countless arguements between people who act like they know everything, but who in actuality, have no idea what they're talking about. I've seen it first hand too. Remember, I'm an administrator at our forums and while I consider ours to be incredibly intelligent, we still see our share of idiocy. What truly amazes me amidst all that idiocy is how insecure gamers are about what games they play. In my opinion, if you feel the need to raise your own ego in the eyes of your peers because you don't want to seem "immature", you've got priority problems. Your choice of game should not be dependent on what other gamers might think of you if you play it just because it looks a little fruity.
So, does Nintendo have a "kiddy" image? If so, can it be changed? Well, if it looks like an orange, smells like a orange, tastes like a orange and acts like an orange, it's probably not an apple. Most likely, it is indeed an orange. There's a chance it could be a variety of orange that tries to be a little bit different (such as a mandarin perhaps), but at it's core, it's still an orange. Now that you're sufficiently hungry, think about what really qualifies the "kiddy" image. It's not simply gameplay that does it, nor does it have anything to do with inferior hardware. Nintendo's never had a serious problem with gameplay or inferior hardware and these points are therefore rarely looked at while discussing the image in question. There's really only one thing that defines it. The colour. The general perception is that if you play anything that might resemble something that a child might be interested in, it makes you immature. This, oddly enough, is a fairly immature view in itself, but it ultimately resulted in the "kiddy" image.
This doesn't mean that change is necessarily a good thing. While Nintendo might be trying to broaden it's horizons and reach out to the "mature" gamer, it's not their core audience. Hence, it's probably a bad business decision to go head-on into territory that not only are they not familiar with, but has also been claimed by competing consoles. Yes, I'd love to see more games like GTA 3 and Halo on the GCN. The more variety and selection, the better. Unfortunately, it has to be a natural business progression. I don't think the image should be changed, but if Nintendo really wanted to, they probably could. Unfortunately, it would be ridicuously costly and therefore not in the best interests of the company.
As I was saying earlier, it's been a fairly common thing for Xbox and PS2 owners to make fun of GCN owners for being "kiddy". But what's really scaring me though, it's not just the Xbox and PS2 owners taking stabs at the Nintendo "kiddy" image; GCN owners out there do it in droves. Most of them claim that Nintendo isn't being forceful enough in it's push for 3rd party developer support. Is it really that big of a deal? Do we really need to have a game loaded with blood, gore and sex to dissolve our insecurity? If that's what you enjoy, then fine, go ahead and play it, but it isn't going to help your social status in any way in the real world.
Personally, I don't see what the big deal with Nintendo being "kiddy" is anyway. I bought Nintendo's latest console for that very reason. I love their quirky games that allow me to escape from reality for an hour or two a day (your mileage may vary). So what if they're labelled as "kiddy"? I'm eighteen and I'm playing video games, that doesn't exactly file me under the "cool" column. So why should I care either way? And if I don't care, should you? Those Xbox and PS2 owners aren't any "cooler" in the realm of the real world. Once they escape the gaming community, none of it matters. They're adolescents and they're playing games. Colour or not, welcome to Dorksville. Brenden Petracek