Chicken Soup for Newbs: Retro Reboot

The first thing that popped into my mind when I heard the word ‘preservation’ was the fate of my NES. I remember it all too vividly. The Nintendo 64 was the hot new console, and I had been begging my parents for one for the past year or so. All of my friends had one of the fancy new game machines, and whenever I visited their houses it was all I wanted to play (with them or without them!), and torture to go home and leave it behind.

When I finally got one of my own, I was obsessed. I tore through Ocarina of Time, marathoned Diddy Kong Racing and drowned myself in Super Smash Brothers. I played my Ninetndo 64 exclusively for a few months until someone mentioned something that triggered a memory of one of my favorite NES games – I think it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I don’t remember for certain. Give me a break; I was about ten years old.

What I do remember is what my Mom answered when I asked her where she had put my NES: “Oh, I threw it away. I thought you didn’t need it anymore now that you have your new one.”

A practically mint condition, perfectly-functioning NES. The memory still haunts me to this day.

But personal trauma aside, I think that preservation is an interesting topic in relation to games. I could talk about some of the more obvious points such as the whole bizarre-yet-awesome video game museum phenomenon that seems to be popping up, how the move towards digital is affecting our need and ability to preserve, or even how the aforementioned Nintendo 64 is now considered a vintage console. But I’ll try not to make you feel too old reading the Student Perspective column.

What I really wanted to write about is why I think preservation is valuable – more specifically, how I think that looking to the past can help us to determine the wants and needs of the future. Everyone these days talks about the future of games and where we’re going next and of course these innovative thinkers are a vital part of the games industry. But just as important as these visionaries are the more grounded folk who can look to the past and really hone in on what it has to tell us.

In one of my graduate classes at Carnegie Mellon, a professor said something very simple yet very insightful about innovation; first seek out a need and then create an appropriate response to it, don’t just create something in a vacuum and then try to find a need for it to fill. It sounds obvious, right? Well, it is – so obvious, unfortunately, that it’s easy to forget on daily basis. It’s easy to get wrapped up in cool ideas like the ability to play a game with 3D graphics, or a super complex new achievement system. But if these features are all ‘vision’ with no eye towards what history has to tell us about what gamers actually want from a gaming experience, there is a chance it could end up missing its mark.

The same thing goes for sequels, and for rebooting IP. It’s plain to see that the industry is becoming more and more sequel-driven, partially due to rising development costs and the risk associated with developing a brand new IP. But there’s no reason that this is a bad thing as long as it’s done right. One of the best sequel ‘rules of thumb’ that I’ve heard is the following ‘recipe’: 1/3 old, 1/3 improved and 1/3 new. This one resonated with me because it really forces a developer to be responsive – to go back and honestly ask:“What was the best part of my game that is worth keeping? What were some of the biggest complaints that I can try to fix this time around, or do to create an even better overall experience?”

The ideal approach, I think, is to use clues that the past has left for us in order to inform and inspire innovation. To clarify, I’m not arguing that metrics and sales data and other such hard evidence should rule the creative process. I’m arguing that reflecting on the successes and failures of the past can lead to some fascinating insights, the variety of which I believe has the potential to inspire some of the most perceptive, original and creative ideas imaginable.

Reflecting on the past won’t bring back my NES, unfortunately. But it’s still valuable.

Lisa Ohanian is a graduate student in the final year of her Master of Entertainment Industry Management program at Carnegie Mellon University. A lifelong gamer with an impressive pedigree (her grandfather introduced her to some of her favorite games), she now aspires to enter the industry in a production or business development capacity, and has interned at some fantastic places such as Blizzard Entertainment, Schell Games and TriplePoint PR.