Click here for the full Paper Arcade line up.
fun
Videogaming. It’s all a bit grown-up and serious now. Remember Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Amie and his tub-thumping self-aggrandisement at E3? Statements along the lines of ‘I’ve ripped the hearts out of small children and swapped them for big charts showing my toy sales achievements across America – I will now march an army of Nintendo DSeses and GamerCubes into the homes of every last man woman and child in the continental United States, mwhahahaaahahahaaa’ (not actual quote).
Jesus Reg. chill-out fella – maybe spark-up your ‘cube and have yourself some Puyo Pop Fever? It’s a game – y’know, one of those things you make and sell? Yeah, game. Fun? Remember? Do I want to play golf and discuss this with you while we stroll the links? Umm, no – but I’ll toast your arse on Virtua Tennis 2 if you’d like (no you wouldn’t, you’re hopeless – Ely). It’s a game on the Dream… oh forget it. Go play with some PowerPoint charts over a power breakfast or something.
Where is the fun? Where is the love? This is an industry predicated on enjoyment – you can’t bottle that, or map it out on an excel spreadsheet – it has to be in the heart and soul of what you do. The suits are taking over and I don’t like it, not from a woolly anti-capitalist perspective but actually quite the opposite – we are not going to bring new customers into our world if they can’t see that there is something fun in it for them. Nowhere is the problem more acute than in the shops that service us gamers. I ask again: where is the fun? Where is the magic? Videogame shops are shit, the chains are run by accountants not gamers and it shows – they are living only for the ‘now’. So what if we fuck the market by failing to evolve our offer, we’re earning profit bonuses aren’t we?
And in the finest segue I’ve ever been a part of, in this week’s issue Shewrog emerges with a cracking debut piece on the greatest shop zombies of them all – GAME. Then our second debutante Teamonkey has a think about where some of the long-lost fun might just come from.
As good as their debuts are, the biggest and warmest welcome is reserved for a returning Rodent – Mamemeister hits the spot with his comeback article on those really strange reluctant friendships we gamers sometimes find ourselves thrown into. It’s lovely stuff.
Elsewhere PaulEMoz gets all punchy and we throw-you a nice little bonus in the shape of a stupid-but-special accessory for your Paper Arcade collection. funner
Mmm, selling like hotcakes laced with Original Videogaming Spirit…
 You're ugly, you smell but you're my gamer buddy. MAMEMEISTER
 SHEWROG stands up to the videogame store zombies.
Play friendly now - what wireless will really mean. TEAMONKEY
 Fight Night 2004 - lets get ready to, umm, rumble? PAULEMOZ
 PAPER ARCADE - The Change Booth by KOWORLD
"I am liking this, yeah - we could really dominate Baltimore
with this baby. Go me. Go me. Go Reggie Fils-Amie."
With David Goosens quitting Nintendo, the question of a suitable replacement emerges. Personally, still on the theme of the uber-suits, I’d put Swiss Toni in charge: ‘Selling videogames is very much like making love to a beautiful woman’ he’d say, ‘you’ve got to woo your customers, caress them with preview kisses, flatter them with review bungs and then spunk right into the their stupid mouths.
Next Week… Why a man called Bruno Marcos deserves some of your money… Yes, we know we did that last week, and the week before. But this time we really really promise. Although...
RODENT,
July 9th 2004
selected previous issues :
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