Computer games were, at one time, unified. We didn’t even have the term “casual game” in 1993, let alone the idea that a first-person shooter (then an unnamed genre) could be considered a “hardcore title.” There were people who played computer games, and people who didn’t. People who got way into golf or Harpoon or hearts or text adventures — those were the “hardcore” players, in that they played their chosen field obsessively.
When Myst and the CD-ROM finally broached the mass market, this ecosystem was disrupted. Myst had, Robyn Miller makes clear, been designed to appeal to non-gamers. It sold to them. Enthusiast magazines like Computer Gaming World couldn’t set the taste for the industry anymore: there were millions buying games who didn’t read these magazines. An entirely new breed of player. In this situation, what could be more natural than concocting an us-and-them formula? In a very real way, it was already true.
The great narrative of Myst is that the “hardcore” game press and playerbase lambasted it when it launched. Disowned it. A slideshow, they called it. Abstruse, idiotic puzzles; pretty graphics and not much depth. “Critics and hardcore game players universally panned it as a slide-show that had little actual gameplay interaction”, claimed PC Gamer’s Michael Wolf in 2001.That same year, a columnist for Maximum PC recalled Myst as a “tedious code-breaking and switch-throwing mess”, and saw its then-new remake realMYST as “a pointed reminder of why the press dumped on the original so heavily when it came out.” | Kompjuterske igrice su nekada bile objedinjene. Godine 1993. nije čak ni postojao izraz ,,kežual igrica", a kamoli zamisao da bi se pucnjava u prvom licu (žanr koji tada nije čak ni imao svoj naziv) mogla smatrati ,,hardkor igricom". Postojali su ljudi koji su igrali kompjuterske igrice i ljudi koji nisu. Ljudi koji su igrali golf, Harpun (eng. Harpoon), Dame (eng. Hearts) ili tekstualne avanture — ti ljudi su se smatrali ,,hardkor igračima" jer su opsesivno igrali igrice iz njihovog izabranog domena. Kada su igrica Myst i CD-ROM napokon stigli na masovno tržište, takav ekosistem se poremetio. Myst je, prema objašnjenju Robina Milera (eng. Robyn Miller), dizajniran da se svidi negejmerima. Prodavan je negejmerima. Entuzijastični magazini poput magazina Computer Gaming World više nisu mogli određivati u kom pravcu će se kretati sklonosti gejming industrije: milioni ljudi su kupovali igrice, a nisu čitali ove magazine. Nastala je sasvim nova vrsta igrača. U ovoj situaciji, šta bi bilo prirodnije od toga da se smućka formula po principu mi i oni? Na veoma realističan način, to se već desilo. Metanarativ Myst-a je u tome što su ga štampa za ,,hardkor" igrice i baza igrača žestoko iskritikovali kada je izašao na tržište. Nisu ga priznavali. Nazivali su ga prezentacijom. Nejasne, idiotske puzle; lepa grafika i nikakva dubina. ,,Kritičari i igrači hardkor igrica širom sveta prozvali su ovu igricu prezentacijom sa jako malo interakcija u samoj igrici", izjavio je PC Gamer-ov Majkl Volf (eng. Michael Wolf) 2001. godine. Te iste godine, kolumnista Maximum PC-a izjavio je da je Myst ,,dosadan haos koji se sastoji iz razbijanja kodova i lupanja po džojstiku", a da je njegov tadašnji rimejk realMYST ,,jasan podsetnik zbog čega se štampa tako žestoko obrušila na original kada je izašao." |