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Why do weird, simple video games take off and become popular?

 
 
Reply Sat 23 Oct, 2021 01:47 pm
Hi. I'm curious about this.

In the '80s for example you had weird, simple video games like:

Pac-Man, Q*bert, Pitfall, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Tetris, BurgerTime, Dig-Dug, Centipede, Mario Bros. (the original game from 1983), and Arkanoid.

A number of these games inspired spinoffs, sequels, remakes and/or reboots.

Pac-Man was the first video game to spark a marketing and merch craze and it was heavily merchandised. Q*bert and Donkey Kong soon followed.

In the '90s for example you had weird, simple games like:

Dr. Mario, Bomberman, Wario's Woods, Yoshi's Cookie, Kirby's Dream Land, and the Mario Kart series.

More recently you have the Angry Birds series, which was popular enough to spawn merch and two feature-length animated movies and an online cartoon series.

Why do weird, simple games take off and become popular? What is it about these games that makes some of them addictive?

Please help. Thank you.
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Real Music
 
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Reply Sat 23 Oct, 2021 07:33 pm
Arcade Game: Asteroids (1979 Atari)


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izzythepush
 
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Reply Sun 24 Oct, 2021 03:18 am
@JGoldman10,
Instead of just asking questions why not say what you think then you can have an actual conversation instead of such a one way street.

Clearly I'm no expert but I can say what I think. The first game to become a TV programme was Pacman, so what made that different?

Previous games had some threat, aliens, asteroids space invaders, but nothing with any character. Any films inspired by asteroids focused on the people dealing with the menace not the asteroids themselves.

It's the same with Space Invaders or any of the other alien games, they may have looked a bit different, but they were just the nameless bug eyed monsters from 1950s B movies.

Pacman was different, he had a personality, a big smile and a huge appetite and you asked questions about the whys and hows.

There's no back story to asteroids you're in an asteroid field, or space invaders, there's a invasion. The situations are straightforward.

Not so with Pacman, why is he in a castle, why are there ghosts, why does he need to eat all the time?

Unlike asteroids or space invaders you're asking how this event came about, what the back story is.

That is just my opinion, whatdo you think?
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