On December 31th, 1999, kids across the western world knew three facts deep down within their hearts: 1. 3D Platforming games were totally madnuts. (I am assured this is '90s slang for for the word "cool") 2. The best 3D platforming games were made by Nintendo (Super Mario 64) and Rare (Banjo-Kazooie, DK64). 3. All the computers in the world were about to malfunction and send the world into a nuclear holocaust in the next few hours. Fortunately the world didn't end in the new millennium. But with the evolution of graphics, technology and play-styles, the worlds of the 3D platformers would. Up until this point the home console game market had been ruled by Japanese companies. Nintendo, Sony and the now struggling Sega. But in 2001, America and Microsoft finally stomped their foot in their game industry with the apple-pie-guzzling, base-ball-bat swinging Xbox. Backed by a lot of money Microsoft had already gained off the computer game, the Xbox was able to attracted quite a lot of developers relatively quickly. Even buying up Sega franchises and making deals with everyone to secure exclusives. At launch they tried to follow the status quo of gaming, adhering a series of hit and miss mascot powered 3D platformers (Blinx the Cat, VooDoo Vince, Vexx) but it was their flagship game Halo and their pseudo-mascot Masterchief that appealed to the now adult gamers of the '80s. Thus the 6th direction of video games began taking a different direction. Shooters, Racers, Sport Simulations, Sandbox games, anything that could try and mimic "real life" quickly became the genres where the money was at. Now we had more polygons, gameplay revolving around humans made gaming more accessible to wider audiences, rather then Saturday morning anthropomorphic protagonists. Then in 2002, a day of great tragedy came for fans of the 3D Platformer. In order to add to their own collectathon, Microsoft paid a good deal of jiggies in order to acquire Rare as an exclusive developer for their company. There was much confusion at this time for both fans and devs, about exactly what this deal meant. Even after the acquisition, one of the Microsoft executives walked through the Rare studios and eyed a poster of Donkey Kong, believing they now owned him and not understanding which IPs they controlled. There was much jubilation when a Banjo-Threeie trailer announced the continuation of the 3D platformer on Microsoft Platforms but this joy turned to bitter tears when the game finally came out as Banjo: Nuts and Bolts, sacrificing the traditional 3D platforming/world exploration gameplay for clunky customisable car building challenges. This marked the end of foreseeable end of 3D Platformers, as Rare shifted their development at Microsoft to other projects such as Viva Pinata 2, Avatars and eventually kinect sports. The rest of the industry at this stage had also moved on. Shooters, Action games and Western RPGs had largely become the staple of the industry. Even Mario Galaxy, whilst still a 3D platformer revealed a shift from open world collectathon style to a much linear more 2D focused level design. However 3D platformers were down but not out. This year in 2015, a team of original developers from Rare opened a new company called Playtonic and launched a kickstarter, sourcing fans and support for a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. Crowd-Sourcing websites like Kickstarter have now proven that game developers can break free from the reigns of publisher control and politics, sourcing fanbases and niche interest groups for any genre and variety of games. Banjo-Kazooie's new cousin, Yooka-Laylee due to release on all PC and home console platforms, managed to raise £2,090,104 from 73,206 backers. I myself am one of these backers and I will happily admit that, not because I now have financial investment in the project, but because of the joy that in the modern gaming world, no genre or style of gameplay is ever truly forgotten. The creativity and passion is so rich, that even when corporate shifts and projected expectation alter the direction of development, we now live in a world were people can break free from the system and create games they want to play. Many other 3D Platforming games (such as Hat in Time) are now being developed and kickstarted thanks to passionate fans. In conclusion my seven year old self that woke up not in a post-apocalyptic wasteland on January 1st, 2000, would be extremely happy right now, that the video game industry is also not currently in one. References: 1.http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/06/microsoft_execs_thought_they_owned_donkey_kong_after_acquiring_rare 2.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival 3.http://www.playtonicgames.com/ 4.http://au.ign.com/articles/2002/09/24/microsoft-buys-rare
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AuthorBen Spanos is currently playing Undertale, Uncharted: Among Thieves and Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes. Archives
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