Is this us?
 

-I had surfed my way to a D&D site and came across this post by a TSR editor in the 80s. There are some very relevent questions that we should be asking ourselves as sports sim fans.

Link: KNIGHTS & KNAVES ALEHOUSE :: View topic - What's up with the Zeb Cook hatred?

"The thesis was that game genres evolve and eventually die in a very predictable pattern, in fairly well-defined stages. The first stage is the creation of the genre. One game breaks the mold and creates the genre. A very exciting time follows, as copycat games are rushed out and then better-designed, legitimate contenders are created. The excitement generated by the new genre causes wild variation in the parameters (setting, game mechanics, goals, etc.) among games bursting into the genre. Fans of the genre are generally open-minded, accepting of and interested in multiple variants.

The second stage is thinning the herd. The copycat games die out. One game, usually the one that created the genre, becomes clearly dominant. But there are several viable, strong contenders all vying for second place. The parameters of the genre become more codified. Games that don't fit within certain acceptable parameters face rejection from fans, who've narrowed their focus on the game or games they'll play within the genre.

The third stage is ossification and stagnation. A few very well-established games dominate the field. The genre-creating game may still be dominant or it may have fallen by the wayside, failed to keep its audience. Game parameters become very hard and fast and fans are unaccepting of new games that do not adhere to a strict set of parameters, or of existing games that reinvent themselves and drift outside the established genre parameters. Most fans play only one game in the genre.

The fourth stage is effectively commercial death. The narrowing of genre parameters and the intolerance of fans to change drives away any newcomers to the genre. An increasingly small, increasingly vocal minority dictates what they will and will not accept. At some point, it becomes unfeasible for companies to publish products in this genre, to such a small and highly critical audience. The genre might live on, in fan-created products, but commercial interest in it is gone.

When I read that, a few years ago, I found it very interesting. A lot of it is common sense, but it was fascinating to have the evolutionary stages laid out (and the author did a much better job than my poorly remembered version here). I could see its relevance to computer/video game genres, but I never associated it with paper game genres. Until I got onto this message board.

It seems that quite a few people here fixated on the 1e rules and essentially "stopped evolving," if I can use that phrase without offending too many people. The genre-driving company, TSR, moved on, evolving AD&D in an effort to gain the greatest possible audience, which is what a company has to do to continue growing. I think a lot of the folks here became essentially a very vocal minority who refused to be satisfied.

IIRC, there's something of a business maxim that a small minority, maybe 5%, of a company's customers will never be satisfied, no matter what the company does. The maxim holds that it's in the company's interest to let those customers go as it will cost the company far more (in time, resources, money) to try to placate them than they are worth to the company. You'll lose a lot more customers you could have more easily satisfied if you try to satisfy the very hard or impossible to satisfy folks.

Essentially, a lot of you folks became those customers that for TSR it was better to let go than try to satisfy. I hope I'm not insulting anyone by saying this. There's nothing wrong with being those customers. You have a right to your opinions and you certainly have a right to want to play games you like. But I think a lot of people here don't understand why TSR left them behind and you feel betrayed and bitter. Or at least that's the vibe I'm getting.

And I frankly don't understand. You folks are fully capable of creating your own adventures (and I know a number of you do). You can let TSR go its own way and you go yours, as you've got your own adventures to play. I do understand a sense of bitterness toward TSR, but I really don't get why people feel such disdain for the designers and editor/writers who continued to work on AD&D material. It wasn't the direction that you wanted the game to go, but it's unjustified to somehow translate that into the designers/editors were incompetent or evil or greedy or backstabbing bastards, as they're actually none of those things."

This was a lot longer than your other thread, so I'm assuming you wanted to keep this one. :)

This is the decoy thread!! DELETE IT! DELETE IT!

would i receive more or less scorn if i tried to blame the software?

To answer the actual question:

I think that sports sims and D&D don't entirely match up b/c of the existence of fantasy sports, what-if sports, Madden, sports gambling, etc.

It is harder to pigeon-hole sports sims b/c there are lots of different ways to play pretend with sports which will always be influencing each other and fighting against/complementing each other.

Amidst all the parroty threads, this one isn't half bad at all.

We're definitely somewhere in the fourth stage I believe, although the thesis as outlined does overlook some of the things that happened along the way with regard to applying it to sports text sims (which I believe is what you were pondering). Vaporware, massively bugged products, a much more interactive relationship between publisher & consumer (not always to the benefit of either party) than when the theory was developed/the essay was written.

But while it's interesting as theory or even in a detached fashion, I ultimately find myself not understanding what the original author didn't quite get.

He went to some length to say he wasn't criticizing that "five percent" which was fine but his defense of them (TSR at the time) rang very hollow to me. Specifically the assertion that "it's unjustified to somehow translate that into the designers/editors were incompetent or evil or greedy or backstabbing bastards, as they're actually none of those things."

How is that any more supportable beyond opinion than the belief that they were one or more of the negative traits? At that point it boils down a writer saying "my opinion is better than yours". Which, in reverse, is fine too but it isn't any more definitive than what he seemed (despite his protestations) to be criticizing.

Ultimately the notion that it was a fairly predictable pattern seems to be supported by most of what was written & if that's the case then there's really nothing at work here moreso than human nature. And I'm not sure that's something that anyone is going to change, fine to make observations about it I suppose but it doesn't strike me as something that should come as an epiphany to anyone paying attention either.

For me it's unbalancing to stop and consider whether or not I should be fully critical of the games I love. What we give as feedback may in fact be a sirine call. Not saying I buy it, but it sure would explain some things, like the frustration of the PureSim developer.

I don't know if this is true. I think the dying of D&D releated paper games, was much more because of advances in technology, rather than anything else.

If this is applicable to video game genres, then how come genre's like FPS, or RTS haven't died out yet?

My problem is that I'm one of those 5% myself (haven't ever tried D&D, but I understand the sentiment). And if I'm going to create games I want to play, then I will always choose new features or refining features for that 5%. And they, in turn, will never quite be happy, because they have their own ideas of what needs to come first or how a certain feature should work.

Then, of course, there's the decline in PC gaming.

I will, therefore, someday be left holding a cardboard placard on the side of an exit ramp: "will program for food."

No worries Jim, I will always buy you some Yankee food for FOF 2026.

I think my problem is that features that I think might or will make the game better/more in-depth/realistic don't always translate into being more fun.

For example, the 3-minor league team system that were in OOTP for a long time seemed unrealistic, but once they added the full array of minor league teams (w/ the different levels of A-ball and rookie leagues), it wasn't really that fun to manage six or seven rosters of 25-players.

To a lesser extent, for me, is the interviewing process in FOF2007. Seems like a cool idea and I'm glad it was implemented, but it always ends up being a momentum stopper for me when I play. It just takes too long to choose and interview and I almost always end up stopping my session, just prior to my favorite part of the season (draft).

Both of those features seemed awesome in theory, but seem laborsome during the actual gameplay.

The pattern outlined in the opening post seems to define music better than it does games.

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