This Old Game Magazine Explains Why Most Games Fail Today

So, this is computer gaming world. I'll talk to a little bit. I want to do a little history report for y'all. First line here is horror seems to be the in genre this year. Okay, this one's interesting. Not because of this. Let's just cover that. Well, let's just put it on there. No good for the thumbnail. The personal computer users are financially better off than those who only play video games. Stupid [music] console heathens. Hey, hey, it's Chris from the '90s. I'm coming to you from the '90s. This is a special '90s episode. Uh, this shirt, uh, is a recreation of my dad's shirt that he used to wear in the '90s when we'd go on vacation. This was my dad's like California shirt and then I looked it up and I found he this color, this thing, and then I found it on eBay or something. Somebody reprinted. The printing is terrible. I watched it like two times and already faded. But anyway, uh, we're doing a '9s presentation today. I'm going to be looking at this. This is Computer Gaming World. I'll talk to you a little bit. I want to do a little history report for y'all. Sorry about the coloring because it's green so

it messes my green screen. But look at this. We're going to be looking at the June 1993 number episode wish issue number sorry this is really hard to do. Number 107 June 1993. So it's 90s. It's the '9s. Uh let me explain why I'm doing this. Why am I going back to the 90s? Um okay. So this is my most popular graph I think I've ever made. I made it in 2002 and I wrote a blog post about what genres are popular on Steam. You know, hey, these are popular genres on Steam. Uh the blue bars are how many games are in that genre are released since 1999. So the higher the bar, the more there are. And then I also graphed the median revenue of those genres of all the games that released since 1999. Median revenue. So the red line is how much they make and the blue line is how many there are. And what I found and what I reported was like look these puzzle platformers,

you know, puzzle uh match three type of games very a lot of them. There's a lot of them and they don't make much money. That's the gist. Okay. And then there's these other genres uh that are like deck builders, forex, city builders. There aren't actually that many that are made. Okay. And they make a lot of money on Steam. Higher revenue. Okay. Now the it's like 30,000. So it's not like this is I mean it's median seems very chancy but the median revenue of these are very high. So my basic thesis and what I was trying to argue on the blog was like indies please focus on this genres over here on this side of the chart and please stop making these please just please. Um and I said that and and basically then I wrote this other blog post. I'll link them I'll link both of these blog posts down below in the comments. Another genre basically what it summed up was like don't focus on the specific genre cuz people are like should I make the 4X game or the city builder? I was

like don't focus on that. There's each genre doesn't matter as much but the type of game that does well on Steam is what I call crafty build strategy simulation-y and horror. But basically they're these sandbox games. Okay, they're games where there isn't real there's there's a little bit of story and theme, but in general it's sandboxes that you're playing in and there's no like linear narrative with puzzles that you go through. And that's that's what I'm arguing like that is what Steam player base wants. And so what what always happens anytime I write something where I'm going TO CHASE TRENDS. THAT'S that's chasing trends. You're chasing trends. Gaming trends. Oh, Reddit's always like that. And I'm like, chill out. Um, my argument here and what I'm here for you today is I want to teach you all that you're not chasing trends if you make crafty building strategy simulation games. What I'm trying to teach you all is that actually PC gaming has never

changed. It's actually always been crafty strategy simulationy game. And when I made this chart, whoops, uh, this chart here, I wasn't saying, hey, here, these are the trends to jump on. I'm saying this is the culture of Steam. This is the bedrock. I know I said since 19 2019, but that was just because then people are like, well, that was before Steam Greenlight. Blah blah blah blah blah. This is the culture. This is a This is like saying Americans like hamburgers, okay? Like we have always liked hamburgers since the envision in invention of hamburgers and we will always like hamburgers. And so this is the equivalent of the chart saying these Americans really love hamburgers and it's not a trend. So if you come to America and I'm going to say hey go eat some hamburgers. Not because that's the cool hot trend of food. I'm saying that's our culture is hamburgers. So go get the culture. And what I'm saying with this chart is here is qual quantitative not qualitative quantitative data about the culture

of steam and PC gaming in large okay at the larger level because steam is basically PC gaming okay and what this is quantitative okay but I'm also going to do qualitative to teach you this okay so both of these are going to teach you all you are not chasing trends if you make a forex X game. It's because it's always been this way and it probably always will be. So, we're going to go on a tour of a cultural artifact. This is just one data point. Don't yell at me like this is not statistically significant. This is the statistic. This is the statistically significant stuff. This is the qualitative data. Okay? You need both in your research. Okay? So, we're going to do this. I would love to do more. If you guys like this, if this is fun for you to go through this magazine, tell me. And I'll do more of these. I'll do other years. And if you have some magazines you're willing to get rid of, this one cost me $11 plus shipping. I think this ended up cost me $15 for this

thing I got off eBay. Um, send them my way. Just message me, DM me, and say, "Hey, Chris, I got a back issue. Um, I'll show you. Let me let me show you the timeline here. Let me let me show you what I mean by this. Um, if you have some issues, you're willing to just give to me. I'll pay for shipping and stuff. Um, because it's kind of expensive to look at this, we'll do it. I'll do it. But anyway, so here's the timeline. Here's the timeline. Now, the reason I picked this is from the this issue is right here. Here's the star. That's where we are. That's this issue right here that I'm going to look at in a second. It's from June 1993. And I just want to give you a timeline so you understand the gaming culture at the time that we're looking at. Okay. So, um, it is June 1993. And I just picked June 1993 at random. I just went to eBay and I said, "Give me the cheapest." I specifically wanted Computer Gaming World, not like I I I wanted because I'll show you in a second. There's like some rankings and stuff and we can we can get some quantitative data a little bit out of that. Um, but the reason I wanted to look at that, I just I just sorted I really wanted Computer Gaming

World and so I just sorted eBay for the cheapest one of decent quality and I wanted to go from the '9s kind of the the '9s period and this one was the cheapest one, June 1993. There's nothing special about that date, that issue. That's why I picked that. But when I did the kind of surrounding research to say like what was going on at that time um it's actually very key moment. Okay, so June 1993 is before Mist or Doom came out. And I think both of these games really kind of changed PC gaming. I don't think it changes very often, but both of these games came out in '93 and really changed the industry and PC gaming. Okay. Uh on this chart, the top side of this timeline is PC gaming. The bottom side is console gaming. And this is my general thesis and what I'm trying to teach all of you is PC gaming is different than console gaming. And I think part of the people who always write the I'm chasing trends. I hate chasing trends. I don't want to make a

strategy game. I don't I think they're actually console gamers and they grew up with console games. And now I'm telling them, no, no, no. You're on Steam. You are in the realm of PC. And this is causing them some mental turmoil which manifests itself as people saying, "Well, I don't want to chase trends." It's not a trend. It's been this way since the '9s, even before. Anyway anyway, sorry. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Um, so here's here we here's where we are. Um, in the years prior, '91 and '92, we got the 486 and the Sound Blaster Pro, which if not a PC gamer, those were critical, crucial, crucial, crucial things to get really nice graphics, nice sounds. Before Sound Blaster, it was like one bit audio was likeoop boop. Then you got the Sound Blaster. Sound Blaster Pro was 16 bit. There was a Sound Blaster, which was 8 bit, I believe. And we didn't get that. And then all the way uh we don't get 3D gaming until 9695. 95 was when the

PlayStation 3 came out. And also 96 was when um uh the Nintendo 64 came out and Voodoo I couldn't find the box art for the first Voodoo card, but uh Voodoo the Voodoo card which allowed PC 3D really came out in 96. Uh look at I love the Voodoo box art. I just love it. It's so cool. Anyway, we've got Wolfenstein. So we have Proto 3D by the time this issue comes out and we'll see some Wolfenstein in there. But I think this was actually 93 was a very crucial time between the two of these. Um, we'll also talk about it there. This is the Desert Shield first Iraq war from the US. Um, and I only put this in here so you know the context of how far we were. That was 1991. That was about 2 years thereabouts prior to this issue. We'll see some uh some classic um World War or some some classic uh '9s geopolitic games, that sort of thing. So, I just give this context so you know

where we are geopolitically. Uh but 93 again, we've got this Super Nintendo's out in 1990. We've got Zelda and u Mario Kart and Star Fox. Um, just a month later, we got Street Street Fighter 2's that come out on um the Nintendo consoles. Um, but we also have Super Metroid, not yet. So, Metroid's coming later. Um, just to give you that context of what's going on in the console games versus PC world, and they're very different. I'm just trying to teach you all this stuff. They're going to be very different. Okay. Okay. Um, so again, uh, I'm just giving you this context so you know when we're going in here. And really again with my thesis here is when I say crafty buildy strategy simulation-y games and horror are popular on Steam. I'm not saying you're chasing trends. I am trying to teach you the culture because here's and I see this as a cultural exchange. I

find that most developers like to make games, especially platformers and cool, cute ones, came from console and they just don't have the legacy of PC. I actually when I was a kid growing up, I actually had both. I was a PC gamer and I was a console gamer. So, I can see this cultural tension between the two. Um, and what I'm trying to teach you all in this video, if you came from the console market and you're saying, "Chris is telling me to chase trends. I hate chasing trends. I'm not going to I want to teach you, you're not chasing trends. You are transitioning to a new culture. And this culture, you have to bring it. You have to understand the cultural trends. And you are trying to sell. I don't know. I I can't say any specific thing. I'll just get in trouble. But you're like, you're you're trying to bring a food culture to a different culture that just doesn't like that trend. Okay. The PC gaming is very sandboxy, crafty, building. And when you bring these cute

platformers over here, we're like PC gamers like really and it's not chasing trends. You're not chasing trends. You're actually entering a new culture. Okay. So, I hope you learned that. We're going to we're going to do this. So, uh, welcome to the '9s. Welcome to PC World. If you're a console gamer, comment below and say, "I'm from P. I'm I'm a console gamer." Hey, PC people, welcome to Let me enter your culture because Steam is PC. You could make a game on Switch, but they don't sell well because Switch is locked down. So, if you're trying to sell a game on Steam, understand this culture, and I'm going to teach you the culture of PC gaming. So, let's go to my magic window. We're going to do All right. Now, welcome to the uh magazine mode. This is magazine vision. Um I'm no longer in green screen mode, which means you can read this awful green font. Um I you're not going to see me. I'm just going to be using my little handy little pointer here. This is a little device

that helps bring the magic of '90s PC gaming magazines up into my being. I use this to channel my energies and to focus my energies upon this magazine that you will also experience. Um, as you can see, this is the June 1993 number 107. I've included these little blue tabs uh so that I don't forget to mention things as I see them. But let's proceed into the depths of 1993 PC magazines uh understanding the gaming culture of 1990. And you realize that we're not chasing trends. I'm just trying to teach you the culture. Um it cost $4. And um the cover story is for this game called Hellcab, which is very hard to read, but it's called Hellcab. It's a game nobody remembers anymore. It's a point-and-click adventure full motion video game. uh xx66. Anyway, let's proceed here. Now, let's see here. First up, we got couple good

ads. First ad is Wolfenstein. As I mentioned, Wolfenstein came out the year prior. I think this is the expansion pack 3D gameplay graphic adventure. Very crucial. Um ID Software. Um one of my heroes, John Romero, um made it wizardry. Um, you know, I always mention gritty grim dark. It's literally called the dark savant. Gritty um dungeon crawling style game. Again, this you're going to see the culture of Steam in these pages even though Valve did not exist. I didn't put this on the timeline. Valve did not exist. Maybe they were starting. I think Gabe may have still worked for Microsoft in 1993. But anyway, table of contents. Um, one thing I'm not going to focus on. Well, this is interesting. We have here a platformer, a puzzle platformer. And you're going to be like, Cruz, you said puzzle platformers don't work on Steam or PC games. They really don't. Um, for

some reason, I think this is just like indies. This looks like one of those indie games I would give a 10, like sub 10 reviews, I would when I'm playing review guesser. Uh, but anyway, so this game called Creepers. Um, this game is just I mean it's an ad. This is an ad. But when we look at the editorial content, the stuff that they review and what they write about, nobody mentions platformers. So, this is the equivalent of when you go to Reddit sometimes, you'll see like ads for um platformers and stuff and these genres that just don't work on Steam. And then I always click on those ads and go over to Steam and they have like one review and I'm like, you you've got the wrong product market fit and you're hoping that ads are going to fix this. And they're like, I tried ads but it just didn't sell. Nobody remembers this game. Um, and it's not mentioned anywhere. Like platformers, there's not a single article about platformers. I'm just going to spoil that right now. Platformers just are not a PC invention. I'll talk I'll talk more about that as to why. So, we'll just continue on.

Again, I'm not going to read through all this stuff. We'll be looking at uh we got a little ad for Prince of Persia. Look at these box arts. This is so I love this about PC gaming. They used to have these crazy nonconforming box art and it was really hard in retail. You also see a little bit of [snorts] FMV breaking through broaderbound Baghdad. See, this is what I'm talking about. It was 90s. We're all about the Middle East. I'm telling you, for good and bad. So, bad day in Baghdad. Definitely calling back the '9s uh American intervention in the uh Kuwait invas or the invasion of Kuwait. Okay, so this cover story game. I'm not going to go into it. It's not important, but you can see it's an FMV game. Little spicy here. Spicy. Um, who has got these FMV games? Uh, but it's point-and-click adventure. Um, but, uh, again, I don't know what this game's all about. It's it's just basically you travel through time and you solve things. Little I wonder if they were consciously making a reference to Wolfenstein here with this this little FMV view. This actually was

probably like a video, but nowadays we can render stuff that looks very similar to this. But again, look at how gritty grim dark this is. This is Steam right here. Gritty grim dark. even though it's a point andclick adventure. And I'll talk about point andclick adventures in a little bit. Um, so again, another ad, but look at this. This would work today as a capsule. Like this is Steam right there. This like grim dark wizard. Look at this wizard ass split beard wizard with lightning coming out. This is so steam dungeon crawler UI stuff. Even though it's an ad, I know it's not real data. We got a nice classy ad. This is a classy ad from EA Sports. Michael Jordan without uh with his Bulls insignia photoshopped out, I guess, cuz they didn't have the rights to do this. But look at how you won't see this kind of classy graphic design. You're going to see some nasty ass '90s graphic design. This is a very classy looking ad from EA Sports. But we'll we'll continue on here. All right, so this is my first little thing here. Um, look at this game. It's um it's a simulation golf

game. You actually, it actually says simulator right here. Steam has always been about or I'm going to I'm going to mix these up all the time. PC gaming has always been about simulation games and all this kind of stuff. Um, so that's that's what it's a typical golf game, but they call it simulating golf. It's not like action golf, it's simulating golf. All right, we got another ad here. But the interesting thing about this parallel game port, what this is is this is an adapter that you'd buy so that you could use a joystick on your uh laptop. They had little laptops back then uh that were lowowered or they and you can mention it in the copy here. Um you if you read it in the copy, it says and your PC. Here's the deal and I looked this up and we I think we'll get to in a little bit. PC gaming has never been about the controller because it's just so hard. Most PC gaming, even today on Steam, is mostly through keyboard and mouse. And this is also, I think, why platformers don't work is because people

just don't have a a game pad ready. Most games don't. And I'll show you stats. I'll show you in a second. I've got a little sticky just for it. But you used to have to buy upgrades just to be able to use a controller. Okay? And and at this time it was a flight stick and it was mostly it was like a a classic um flight stick for airplane simulating. That's what it was for. I'm just trying to teach you the culture. Ste PC gaming has never been about controller support. Um another great ad. I just pointed this ad out. What is this? Lands of Lore. I'm not even sure what type of game this is. A great ad. Virgin Games from Westwood Studios. Uh but what I find interesting is this is such the Steam aesthetic. Look at this aesthetic. You got this goblin guy, sword, shield, your gauntlets. This art, if you spliced this up in um Photoshop, you could look at this guy. Look at this guy. This dwarfing guy. This would work on Steam as a capsule right now today. This is

just look at this box art here. This is just the most steam ass Steam game. Again, the culture of Steam is this. I'm trying to tell you guys, dark gritty. You're not chasing trends by making a dark, gritty um D&D style dungeon crawler. This has always been since the '9s. Um okay. Uh again, culture. This is a uh ad. Look at this. The very best in strategic starship combat. Not a lot of people try and make um like uh spaceship games that are basically like asteroids. Um, Steam. I know this is I said don't trust ads because it's just people trying to jump the visibility, but I'm here to tell you this is a good ad. Um, this is the right type of game for Steam, right type of game for PCs. Look at this. Look at this UI. Zoom in. I'm going to try and zoom in here. I hope the resolution is good enough. Look at this UI. It is. This screen is like 75% UI buttons and stuff. Look at this menus. Crafty up the wazu.

They didn't have the term crafty building, but strategy game, spaceship game. We got spaceship ass the wazu here. This is actually two different games, right? No, it's the same game. This the same game. Not great ad copy if I can't quite determine that. But um this is Steam. This is Steam spaceship games. Cosmier. I write about that. It's building, crafting a spaceship, and then going on a strategy uh adventure like this. This Hooded Horse today could publish this. I mean, they'd have to kind of clean up the I mean, not clean up, this is a great UI, just kind of modernize it so that the graphic design is a little bit more modern, but again, I could totally see Hooded Horse publishing this game right here. Okay. Um, interesting thing here. All right, there's well, not quite a strategy game, I should say a management game. This is a sports management. You know, dog racing is totally greyhound racing is totally uh uh just ostracized nowadays. Uh but uh not not good. And it was bad. It was really bad for the for the little

doggies. Um, but look at this management crafty buildy strategy simulation. And this is not this is not an ad. This is actually a review by this guy right here. Pter wrote this, but it's an editorial piece about look at this game. This game is just a spreadsheet. This has always been the Steam culture. Um, here we go. Look at this thing. I I pulled this out again. I know this is an ad. I said don't trust it. Crafty strategy space game. Here's your spaceship ass. One, two, three. After burners. really cool. Got some lasers and explosions. But look at this copy. I'm just going to read this copy to you. It says, "State-of-the-art uh from which Oh, okay. State-of-the-art workstation from which advanced software tools enable you to design new craft, research new technologies, build new installations and craft. Oh, set up and craft like spacecraft. Set up highly sophisticated missions and watch the progress of the strategic interplanetary conflict. What do they

literally say? Crafty. Wait, here's craft. No, here's new craft and new installations in craft. Crafty and I'm using craft as in spacecraft. Um, but it is buildy strategy game. Crafty buildy strategy simulation gains like this is steam. Okay, this is what I'm saying here. like this. Like, look at this game. Look at this. You could I bet you could make a capsule out of this and it would still work today. Let's carry on. Uh, just quick reminder here that YouTube sucks. Um, do not subscribe to my channel. Instead, go to how tomarketingame.comfree and you get a free book when you do that. That's this is I don't want you to subscribe to YouTube. YouTube sucks. It does. It wastes your time and it sucks your um your ability to to concentrate. Okay? Instead, go to the how tomarketame.comfree and get a free book. The mailing list is what I want you to subscribe. Do not subscribe to this channel. Okay, just a reminder. Um, again, we got another ad

for Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein just made ID Software Apogee publisher for John Romero and John Corormax game. They are working on Doom. It's going to release in just a few months. This is just ominous how it's coming. I actually bought this the shareware version. So, you could call this. You used to have to call. There was no Steam. You had to call and they had to run a 1-800 number. I bought this and by the time I was halfway through the campaign for Wolfenstein 3D, the full thing, Doom came out and I didn't play any more Wolfenstein. Doom was such an important thing. Um, we've got classic baseball. It's a baseball simulation game. on there. Again, war in the Gulf, like I was saying, uh it's very I I only called out the American um war in the Gulf with Kuwait and Iraq because so much of the strategy games. Look at all this. Here's a strategy game set in the Gulf. Uh just just what it is. Look at this UI right here. Strategy games, war simulation, crafty, strategy games ripped from the

headlines. Um, but again, baseball manager. You know there how there's that game. Uh, it's called like a football manager, which is soccer. It's the same thing. Look at the look at this UI. This is classic Ste. Again, these are management games. Yes, Nintendo and stuff had baseball games just that look like this. But they also Steam or PC gaming went a step further and and really went into the more uh strategic side of things. Um, over here we've got another ad for a Micropose game. I think this is just a point andclick adventure, I think. Or is it Dungeon Caller? This is not quite horror, but we will see some stuff. There is PC does have this horror component. Um, I know it's Phantom, probably Phantom of the Opera, but there really is kind of this undercurrent of horror that we'll we'll see more and more. Uh, more strategy golf simulators. Um, we've got strategy, um, wargaming, uh, battleships right

here. Again, Micropose has basically a, uh, a, uh, an add every other page. But look at this strategy war games. World's most colossal battleships through the great battles of World War II. Crafty, strategy, simulationy. We have this amazingly bad art right here. I think this ad shows up twice. We'll see this. But more golf when I remember this is not golden. It's not golden tea. What was it? Links. I think it was called links 386. I don't think this is links 386. A different game, right? Uh pro staff. Um there was another game called Links and there was like a video game. I saw this at a friend's house. I went over to a friend's house and he was playing Links 386, I think it was what it was called, and it had a digitized photo video of a guy golfing and it blew my mind. I literally thought these were the best graphics I had ever ever seen. And it was like a video of the guy golfing golf swing and it was it was amazing. Okay, another micropose ad. The reason I I bring this up is this is F-15

strike. It's a flight simulator crafty strategy simulationy again. So real you think you're back in Baghdad again. [laughter] Um PC gaming was just really into this. Like you don't see this in console like this ripped from the headlines sort of like strategy of war current events. That's because most PC players are adults and kids don't care about the Middle East. Okay, it's just throughout. That's why I brought up the Baghdad thing was um because it is um look at this this game. The biggest screenshot here is about the UI. They're basically saying look at how complex our UI is. It's it makes you feel like you're really in the cockpit, right? UI has always sold PC games. And there's a trend with some um indies that are like, I want no UI. The UI is you just in embedded in the system. I don't want to break immersion. Well, that is not that doesn't fly in PC. And um PC, they want the UI. In PC, they're like, "Oh,

look at how complex this game. This is this screenshot is saying this game is complex." That's why I also say on your Steam page, "Show UI because it shows how complex your game is." They are bragging about how real this game is. And I I brought up Star Fox in the timeline. Star Fox came out just before this magazine came out. Star Fox is they removed the UI. I don't even think there's UI on Star Fox. Maybe it shows you how many missiles you have. But on the PC side, it is not saying, "Oh, there's no UI. It's so immersive." They're saying, "We are making you real. You are going to have a real complex UI." Again, I'm trying to show you PC is just built different. They're built different from um built different from consoles. Let me take this little tab off. Continuing on here. Play hard, play safe, save big. I think that's a safe sex joke. I don't know. It was the '9s. This is just um mail order. A lot of you're going to see sales for games is mail order. This was this is the steam of the day. You would you'd buy them mail order. We'll see a lot

more of those. Okay. Um blitzed out of their mind. So again, even even the sports games, it's more about the strategy of drawing the paths. Um, this is CGW, Computer Gaming World. Um, they had a bookstore where you could buy strategy guides. Notice which and so yes, it's an ad for this magazine. But look at the strategy guides that they're bragging about. Let's look at them. What kind of games are they advertising their strategy guides for? Strategy games. All of these are war strategy games. Air combat. This is a simulation game. Uh a tycoon game management citybuilder type of thing. Sim City, Sim Earth, simulation-y strategy games. This is just Steam. This is this is Steam basically. All these genres and they're still valid. People choose trends. Sim City builders are still big on Steam. Building trains, trains, complicated train systems still popular on Steam. Um flight sims. Civilization 4X games. You

are not chasing trends if you build crafty build strategy simulation games. That's just the culture of of PC gaming. It's not like they're like, "Oh, the hottest new platformer. You need the strategy guy for the hottest platform." No. All strategy simulation games. Um more just This is actually pretty interactive. This is more action-packed than you normally see on a on a PC game. Look at this. Look at it. Beautiful. A lot of golf. That's it. Links. That's the game I was talking about that I saw that blew my mind when I saw at a friend's house. It was Links. But I think it was a little bit later edition. um where it was like called links 386 but beautiful like this would be like oh white kiki beach oh a beautiful really fit steam um again strategy aim this dark gritty burned out city this is steam this is just again I keep saying it but they really are into that um I'm going to kind of breeze through these but um see look at this what do they brag about when they're this is an article this is an editorial piece what do they brag about how complicated the UI is even their sports stuff. Dynamics.

Um, play the best and we'll send you $8. Pretty good deal. Okay. Um, oh wait, let me see. Why did I flag this one? Why did I flag this real quick? Maybe I was just saying. Oh, excellence in sports simulation. So, everything it was not like I feel like consoles because I went through consoles too. I had console games. Consoles were always like so action-packed. you are, it's going to be so fun. You're still playing. Whereas on the PC side, sports are all about how simulated they are, like how complex and simulating things, not so much the arcade feel, which I feel like consoles are all about the fun, the arcade and stuff. All right. Um, this is what I was talking about with consoles. Okay. So, um, I wrote this, I did this research here. Um, again, this is from an article I'll link below in the video below, but um, I pulled this up. There was an article about how 15% of Steam sessions

are on controller. 15 is nothing. On consoles it's 100%. Everybody uses controllers. Even today only 15% of games played on Steam use a controller. That is even I was shocked by this number because PC has always been about the keyboard and mouse because you would have to buy these complicated um devices. But even this guy, like he's got his keyboard here and he's using this complicated device. It was always like for Thrustmaster, it was always for these like complicated peripherals that you would hook up. Most PC gaming though, even back then, and even today, is mostly on keyboard and mouse. It be it was because you always had to buy these extra adapters and things and all this blah blah blah. PC gaming just doesn't use controllers. And that's why part of the reason I think um um uh that uh platformers don't work on Steam as much is because only 15% of players are

using the controllers. Uh like you when you want to play Silkong, those PC gamers are digging deep to find their controllers probably buried under some paper and stuff. I think I just uh actually the reason I think I brought this up is it's just a it's funny thing about asy art in hockey and I was just saying like graphics aren't as important to the PC base. Even in 1993, this was weird to have a text based sports game, but it's all just um basically spreadsheets. Spreadsheets. Got another ad for a flight simulator. Look, they're advertising how complex their UI is. Uh really good. This again, this capsule art, this ad cover would work today. Totally work today. Look at that. It's just painted. But yeah, this would totally sell today in a capsule. Um so here here I mentioned this a little bit. We'll talk about distribution um or mail order. Used to a lot of people would just get games. You would just call this phone number and then you would just send them money and then they would just mail you a box. That was a big distribution aspect. And you'll see a lot of these like um these

mail order cataloges here. Um again, this one an ad per this capsule would work today. Absolutely no. You wouldn't even have to edit it. You would just I would do a capsule like this. Cut this and then I do another capsule right here. I mean, this is longer because this is box art. this g this type of game look strategy simulation a little TNA here um but strategy RPG deep deep deep dynamics but again this capsule art would work today there's no trends we're not chasing trends this is just PC market mature grim dark gritty look at this guy jumping this is almost looks like an open world survival craft game nowadays this this ads work the same really Cool, cool stuff. Even this complex text, you can I I know I always use white text, but this kind of text symbolizes deep strategy game like RPG type of thing. This is the sports issues. There's a lot of sports stuff. Um uh Quest. Oh, this is There's so many

ads about Oh my god, for 57 cents an hour, you can play online Sierra Network and stuff like that. Um here's a bit of a puzzle game. More puzzle side point-and-click adventure. Um, this is a column by somebody called Scorpion Mail. Uh, I'm not gonna read it. There's nothing too interesting here. Back here, I love this. This is an ad for a dude's games that he's selling. This is a dude. This is a one dude making some games and selling them on. He bought an ad on this magazine. One dude. I know because he lists his address down here in St. Louis, Missouri. And I actually looked him up there. That's his house right here. [laughter] Look at that. I looked it up. There's there's a dude and he just he just lists his house right there. That's that's his thing. He's not there. He's not there anymore. I'm not doxing this specific guy, Mr. SDJ. Um I actually called his number. I love this. To buy his games, you would just call his home number. And he says right here

under underneath, "Evenings only." Like of what time zone? Just evenings only. So you would just call this guy and say, "I'd like your game." and his games, no screenshots, and they cost $25 each. So, if you want this big three strategy game or this grand army, which is like um like a French army simulator game, computer war games, you just buy it from a guy by calling him in Phil Fish and John Blow did not invent indie games. This guy's been rocking indie games since 1993. this guy. I I tried I did call this number just to find out. It's It's a disconnected number. I hope the guy's okay. I wanted to ask him like, "Are you still making those games?" Uh but yep, look at this. This is how you used to have to do. You have to give out your phone number and people would call you before Steam. People like, "Oh, what does Steam give you?" You don't have to worry about being called by people in the evenings. Okay,

folks. All right. This is real. Remember, subscribe to my YouTube. Don't subscribe to my YouTube. Subscribe to my mailing list at how toarketame.comfree. Um, here's just an ad uh for some flight sims. Again, simulation games. Transportation. Simulation transportation. Still hot. Still very popular. Look at this. They made all their games in the shape of an airplane. I don't I don't know why, but they just did. Um, here's another Chips and Bits Inc.. This is a mail order video game thing. What I always like to see what games they they point out. Look at this. Here's your hardware, your sound blaster, and your speakers and your joystick that you'd have to buy advertising uh Star Wars in a strategy game. Um, more articles. Oh, this one's interesting. This back here, they just hire I looked this guy up. He's he was like a fiction author kind of like stuff. Wrote this kind of like flowing description of his time playing alone in the dark. It has no it's not even a review. It's just like what his he was

feeling. If you followed I remember the new games journalism thing that was everybody was so hot and bothered about like in the early 2005 time period. They were inventing new games. This guy was basically doing new games journalism. New games journalism was like you didn't review the game. You just talked about your feelings. This is 1993 like 11 12 years before the term new games journalism came out. And this guy was doing new games journalism. I just I just think it's so funny that everybody thinks they invented sex but everybody's been doing it forever. Uh, so yeah, this guy's just an author writing about his feelings when he was playing Alone in the Dark. It's not even a review of the game. I mean, there are a couple parts where he's like, "That was confusing and stuff." Uh, but, uh, that's what it was. Like, it goes on and on. Just this dude. Um, look at this. I love this ad here. Uh, this is this guy's so into the simulation. You could buy gear so you could turn your office chair into a flight, you know, like flight cockpit. It's pretty sweet. Uh, this is PC gaming. This is PC gaming right here. kids had the power gloves. Real men

converted their chair into like a flight suit and you'd wear the helmet and stuff. Really cool stuff. Um, but anyway, there's that. Okay, I love this. Okay, this is an editorial by Scorpions View. I guess this guy writing about Alone in the Dark. So, this is the actual formal review of Alone in the Dark, which came out. And I love this intro and I'm just going to read it for you right here. I'm gonna first line here is horror seems to be the in genre this year. Horror seems to be the in genre this year. Everybody is always like, man, horror seems really popular this year. Steam is just I always talk about horror is so popular on Steam. People like what? When did that come from? forever PC gaming have been in horror into horror and they're just like man what's the deal with horror I'm telling you folks stuff doesn't change and I think this guy's like what's the deal with horror all of a sudden everybody every year everybody's like what's the deal with horror for some reason horror always

gets such a bad rep nobody talks about it but it's secretly like one of the most important genres on PC gaming so nothing changes folks oh here's that game Links 386 I was talking about I watched some kid play this guy I didn't actually get to play it I just watched it broke my brain how cool looking that game was at the time now it looks like garbage. But um oh, one other thing uh in his review. We'll see in the future papers. Let's see. I think it's coming up. I think we keep coming. Yeah. More stuff. He actually complains about how bad this game looks. He's like, "Some of the monsters looked really janky." And I was like, "Yeah, that is true." And he was complaining about how hard it was to know what was a missionritical artifact versus not. Like they this game is janky, but even back in the day, people were like, "This game's kind of janky." Uh but it still sold very well. Um, so more chips and bits, uh, mail order catalog. Um, this is not a horror, but look at this. This would totally work as like a horror capsule. Maybe not. Maybe they you'd have to put a little bit more makeup on this guy, but I still see horror games use that font and stuff like that. So, horror games. I mean, even though this is kind of like a

turnbased XCOM style strategy, more chips and bits. It's still still horror adjacent. Um, again, look at this. 1990s indie games. the War Gamers Computer Company. Just some dude. I looked it up. This is actually This guy's a little bit more sophisticated. Has a PO box. Um, and you'd have to call this number and use your Mastercard. I just did a uh CPI calculation of inflation. $79 in 1993 is um $181 today. Gaming was so much more expensive back then. We don't we forget how good we have it. and you would just phone up, you would see one black and white ad. I mean, I don't know if this actually worked, but you would see a black and white ad. This isn't even color, one screenshot of like Europe, and you would just call this phone number right here, and you would just give your credit card to

them, and you would pay $181. And it's like, take any board board war game and play it on your PC. That's it. and you play by mail or a modem. People are always like, "Oh man, I'm thinking of bringing board games to PC." They've been doing since 1993 and charging $181 for it. I called this phone number. I just called it just a minute ago and this number is still active and it's still HPS gaming and the guy like you can call it rings a bunch of times and then it's the voicemail service and they're like, "If you want to order one of our games, just leave a message with your credit card and you can we'll just ship it to you." I don't know if this is like existing in some bunker somewhere or if somebody's actually still checking these messages. I left a message to this guy and just said, "Hey, do you still exist? Call me back. I'm Chris. I like PC games. I just want to talk to you about Point of Attack or Aid Comp. We'll find out." But Santa Clara, California, that's that's where they are. PO Box. I'm I'm curious.

I am very interested. I'll let you know. I'll do a video if this guy calls me back. Still exists. Try it. Call this number. Let's see. Is it Can you see it? It's right here. Call that number. I'll leave a comment down below with the number. Um, okay. Might magic still, you know, everybody loves Might and Magic. There's still Hooded Horses, I think, just published a Might uh a Might Magic game, I think. Uh, I mean, it's a little too blue, a little too high saturated colors. Uh, but this capsule would basically work on Steam, but look at how nasty, gritty, grim dark this is. uh Star Wars thing. Anytime they wanted to show that something was FMV, they'd put the little film sprockets on there. Kind of a what do they call them? Um affordance, what what do they call that thing? Uh what's that design term when it's something that's old and it doesn't work anymore because on a computer just like a the phone icon. Um on a computer you don't have film sprockets, not physical film, but they still put those sprockets

on there. Just always just I just thought that was a cute detail. See flicks. This was a um you used to if you wanted to look up what who was in a movie, you would have to buy a piece of software. I mean now you just look it up or you install like letter box or something, but if you wanted to look up data about movies, you would have to buy software. Folks, you do not understand how good we have it now. Look at this. If you just if you just wanted to see like, oh man, uh what movies did Martin Scorsesei direct? You would have to pay how much does this cost? Does it say here? probably like $70 in 1993. Anyway, um again, more of this internet pre- internet. I don't think they actually say internet. It was just like a network servicey MPG multiplayer games network. Um a lot of ads. That was that was the popular thing at the time. Multiplayer games, but here's all the games you could support. Most of these, look at these. RPG, spaceship strategy, topdown strategy, market garden, war strategy, empire

builder, 4x crafty build strategy, simulation. Folks, I'm not making this stuff up. It's just always been that way. It's not chasing trends. Um, some weird FMVish point-and-click adventure that looks really boring. Um, just a reminder, don't like or subscribe. I do not care if you do that. I do not want you to. I want you to join the mailing list at how toarketame.com/free. Please do not subscribe to my YouTube channel. Unsubscribe if you are a member of this. If you did, subscribe to that. Here's another um indie game developer. Um, it's this is an article on the world of sharewware. I'm going to probably do a deeper dive on this and they're talking about all the cool games that you could play. This is essentially those articles that you would see on like Kotaku. There's like the top 20

indie games this month and it's just a it's a roundup of cool shareware indie games. Again, Phil Fish did not invent indie games. We've been doing this forever. Look, it's a wheel of fortune. It's basic Wheel of Fortune, but some indie dev just cloned this. He chased the trend of of Wheel of Fortune, which was real popular. And here it is. This guy is just the guy's name and his address. You just printed in a magazine right here. And you just send $10. Like, if you wanted World of Luck, you would just mail $10 to Dan Pureri. And there's his address right there. [laughter] Just This is what it used to be, folks. This what it is. more. These are more indie games. Just just a thing of this. Now, this is really cool. I'm going to write a whole article, a blog post on this. Here is this section about secrets of sharewware success. And

this is the editorial. I put a star here because this is very important that I really want you to to I'm going to really focus on this. This is an article from the magazine, the editors of this magazine saying, "Please, if you want us to review your games, these are some tips. This is how we will review your games." Okay, this is the exact same stuff that Wanderbots writes about when he's like, "If you want me to play your game on stream, please do these things because you guys are idiots and you keep sending me the worst junk." So, I am going to read a little bit about what is in this tips for sharewware. Okay. [laughter] First up, first tip, don't send us office software. We are only reviewing games. Again, it's like know who you're sending your games to. Basic tip. They're like, we only review MS DOSs games. I love this. You should send us your software on new in all caps floppy discs. and they're

like, "Please do not just like scroll on your gross already used floppy disc, the name of your game." Like, people [laughter] just like overwrite their old 3 and 1/4 in floppy and just like scratch out was on there and send it. They're like, "Please give us something presentable. Give us a nice new floppy disc to show that you're serious." I can't believe they have to write that, but it is the same issues. It's like, "Please make it look good, folks. Don't put crappy screenshots out. [laughter] And they're like, "Please, I like this next tip. Please write out a nice letter about your submission. Don't just send us something. Tell us what is so cool about your game." This is like, "Tell us your USP right here. Unique selling proposition." And they're just like, "Send it to us. Just send send us a couple copies." This is the essential Steam keys and stuff like that. I just love have to have to write this stuff out because people just send the worst garbage. It was the same back then. It's the same now. People want people to

cover their games and they do nothing for themselves. They're It's just like, "Guys, you have to look presentable. Make your good screenshots. Share the good stuff. Don't send them crappy screenshots on like your cigarette covered, you know, like floppy disc." Okay. Uh, here's another review of a strategy game. Like a war game strategy game. Here's another mail order catalog. Look at all these. Just like a list. Too many games. Too many games. Look at that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight columns of games. I should count up. How many are these? I didn't do this. Now, this is Steam right here. Look at how many games. Too many games. You'll never find any. I don't know why I'm doing a Donald Trump impression, [laughter] but look at this. But this is what people complain about on Steam. There's too many games. You'll never find anything. Here it is. Look at this. It's always been a problem, folks. It's Discovery has always been a problem. Okay. It always has. All right. Everybody wants the video game Dream.

All right. All right. I just This really isn't anything about Steam. This is just my uh personal thing about Cactus. It always comes up. Look at this cactus. That's a sarro cactus. They're based out of Austin, Texas. Right in here. Austin, Texas. Do I have to I'm going to link to the song. There are no saros in Texas. It's just not something that we grow. Come on, folks. Even it's it's one thing as somebody who doesn't live in Austin thinks that saros grow in Texas. Saros do not grow in Texas. I'm ashamed of you for actually living in Austin, Texas, and naming yourself after the sarro. This just makes me so mad. Saros only grow in the Sonoran Desert, which is in Arizona, Phoenix, and Tucson is where the sarro grows. I'm just telling everybody if you're making a video game and you put a sarro, your game better be set in Phoenix or Tucson or in between. Saros do not grow in Texas. Here's an ad for Sound Blaster. You still have to pay money just to hear sound effects. Okay,

just remember that. Okay, this is an interesting one. This is a sign of the Times. Okay, look at this. This is an article about customer support editorial article by Mr. Evan Brooks and it's an analyst of people respond. They asked the readers. They said, "Which is your worst company? Who do you hate the most for support?" Who came out in the worst? EA. Look at this support. People complain about support. 17 people complained about how bad EA support is. EA has always sucked. People, you'll see sometimes the stuff on Reddit, this like nostalgia bait where they're like, "Oh, back in the 90s all you had to do was buy a game and load it up and it worked." No. No. No, no, no, no. Games have always been buggy and they've always sucked. They have always sucked and EA has kind of always sucked. Who is the other one? Bethesda. Bethesda. [laughter] Bethesda has always been janky. They're the second, right? Worst after that. So, it was wait. Oh, it was EA, Micropose,

and then Bethesda. Bethesda has always sucked. They've always had the worst support. Wait, let's see. So, Bethesda got seven bad, one good support for Bethesda. So yeah, there was never a time when um games were um like not buggy and stuff. It's just we can fix them now so we fix them faster and so it looks like we're better at it or something or like we're worse because we fix it. Whereas back in you just your game just didn't work. Like you would have to employ people to do tech support. Now you just you just post an FAQ. Like you used to have to if you want to make a game, you used to have to fund tech support just to answer phone calls. Now you just have a website that has like some tips or some YouTuber will will record how to fix your game and you just download a patch and your game auto patches. I'm telling you, do not have rose tinted glasses. Games have always kind of sucked. U here's um another mail order catalog from another distribution mail order CDROM headquarters. Okay, this one's interesting. Not because of

this. Let's just cover that. Well, well, let's just put it on there. It look good for the thumbnail. Uh, this is historic because this Cobra mission, I looked it up, not actually played it. This is the first hentai game on the West PC. First hentai game. People always like, "Oh, there's so much porn on Steam." PC is for adults. It has always been a little bit nutty, a little bit dirty. Uh, but u, and this is anime. I like how they called it Japan animation. This is before the term anime showed up. Um, but some of this sleazy copy here, but uh uh let me NSFW has always been a thing on PC. It's it's one of the benefits of PC. This is no censorship, right? Okay. Now, this is interesting. This is an article that basically covers this is a card sheet, so I got to hold this one down. Um, this is a a article.

It's basically covering like a GDC lecture. They didn't uh they did have GDC, but this was not this some guy broke down the distribution right here. Lessons from the video game industry. And back then um they um they broke down they called them computer games and video games. See, video games are consoles and PC games were called computer games. And they actually broke them down. This is the culture stuff I'm telling you all about. See, look at this. They did a breakdown. Look, computer games, which are PC games, Steam, and video games. Look at they made so much more money. Look, they said, uh, what is that? 450 million computer games make every year, whereas um um console games make so much more, like five billion, I think that is, cuz it's in millions, and that's 5,000 million. So, um, this is basically an article I would write. I would not use 3D popup pie charts. That's what they did back then. And this text is so tiny. They're

breaking down distribution. And it's interesting. Uh this is kind of a legacy thing. I'm going to write a blog and I'll just sample this so you can read it a little bit better. So the number one way that people would buy games for a PC was software chains. And this is specific and I looked this up. I had talked to chat GBT about this. These are the different stores. Software chains and then distribution. When they break this out, this is what chatb again I don't know if this is true. This is just what ChatGBT said. So software chains were like electronic boutique, Babages. Um I used to buy my games from something called Egghhead software. These are specialty stores that only sold software and that was the primary marketplace for for games on PC. And then the green is what they called distribution. And I was like what's the difference between software chains and distribution? Distribution is like I don't know back in the day I think it was not it was like Circuit City maybe. Maybe Circuit City was around then but or Toys R Us. They were like everybody else. Still retailers, like physical stores you go into, but they were non PC software stores. And uh according to Chappie

Gibb, I don't know how true that is. Um they said that um they always considered software stores the hardcore people. And they always like to track that because they'd like to see like the types of games like the real hardcore war game stuff would sell well in these software stores but maybe not sell as well in the like Toys R Us or you know more commonplace like electronic stores. And so that's why they'd always break out the data because they they would see different types of games sell in these different stores just like today in Steam. Product the four Ps product price place. This is place different games sell in different places. Whereas if you look Oh, and then the mail order, you'll see mail order. That's what these uh those things I keep pointing out like I don't have them back there. I'll point them out again. Um those mail orders, that was a major way that they would sell, but I mean it was still like these little fractions, but um it's just interesting to break it out. And then versus uh console games, which is a lot different. They didn't sell as much in those other places. So uh kind of cool also to check uh how many games like

Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis. See, they broke it out into here just I'm going to write a whole article about this this kind of stuff, but it's just interesting to see. And the other thing that's in here, the guy from Babages, he'd say u right here um in trends and distributions uh said that the idea of shelf space wars is a myth. This is basically arguing about steam coverage. Like why isn't steam covering me? Listen, if there wasn't steam, you would have to fight with badges. some dude in that worked in retail and said like, "What? I only have limited shelf space." It's always been a problem, folks. Always has been. This is the money quote. This is why I really wanted to bring this up. I don't know if I can get this on the video, but I'll again, I'm going to write a blog post that captures all this, but I love this quote. It says, um, they did some market research on who buys video games versus who buys PC games. Remember, if you hear the word video games, that means console. And I

love this thing. It says right here, the personal computer users are financially better off and have a more advanced uh more education than the average population in general. And those who are than those who only play video games, stupid console heathens. This is that PC master race stuff right there. Like that is such a quote of PC master race. like this could totally I'm actually going to copy this and I'm going to post this in PC master race and see how well it does. This is the same arguments that PC master race people basically we are smarter, we have more money. We are better than those idiots who play console games. I'm telling you folks, there is a culture behind Steam and PC gaming. Okay, here's this thing I've been fighting with this this card here. Okay, so this is, you know, these are typical mailers you would sign up. This is how you subscribe to the magazine. But the reason I bought Computer Gaming World CGW and we'll see it at the end.

It's always at the back. But what they do is they have this thing. It's called the poll. And see all these numbers here. If you go to the back of this card, this is the same other side of the card. They list all the games that are kind of released and were in the magazine. Okay. All these games were in the magazine. Get it? Right. Okay. Makes sense, right? Get this out of the way. Um, what you would do is, and it says basically here, right here, and here it explains the rules. You, if you played any of these games, what they want you to do is write the score. So, if you played game number 49 on the other side, they want you to write, "Oh, I give that game an A." And then you would mail this card in, and then we'll look at it. In the next issue, they print the scores, the combined scores from everybody previously from the previous month. And so, you get some market research about what type of games PC game players are playing. And I want to check this. So, we we'll go there in the end. But this is where the data is coming from. So, when we're going to look at this chart,

which is awful. It's written in the worst font in the worst color, but there's some interesting stuff there. So, this is where you get the real data of PC gamers and the types of games that real PC gamers are playing. Okay? It's just interesting data point. Okay, this is I'm just going to cover this because this is just just basic old school misogyny. I mean, it's gross. Anyway, the the important thing is not this. This is actually an interesting article, not because of the uh just casual misogyny here. Um, again, I'll just kind of cover this up. This is the interesting part. So, memory management and system configuration for MSTOS. This whole article, I'll flip it. I do I do like how they have the floppy discs right here. But anyway, so um what this is about is how to configure your autoexc.bat and uh for MS DOS. I've actually I'm old enough that I've actually configured an M uh autoexc.bat and what was the other one called? I always forget the other one. I've done that and I've borked my computer a little bit by doing this, but

basically you used to have to do these configuration files. you'd load it so that when your computer booted up and then you'd restart it, your your computer boot up and it wouldn't load all the stuff all this other stuff into memory so that you could free it up into games. So you'd like just direct boot into a game. That's what this is. But the important thing here is that PC gamers have always been tinkerers. They love to modify, change, tune. They love getting in I mean this goes on and on. Like this is like three pages, four pages of how to tune your PC to play your games better. And this is the culture of PC gaming, which is like I don't care. It's complicated. And I will I'm higher education and I make more money than those stupid console players. [snorts] And so I see this today. You'll often see like when a streamer plays the game, the first thing they do is they go into the settings and they start messing around with the settings or they'll like change the in file sometimes of games to change like the or they'll do mods to

change like the render distance or like FOV. Steam players and PC players love to tinker and this is true back then, it is true now. This is why settings matter so much and you need to be able to customize. People always get trapped up and I think it's those uh poor console people who come into the PC ecosystem and they don't understand the culture and they're like, "Do I really have to allow remapping of my keyboard?" Oh, you better bet your buttons because Steam and PC players love to customize everything. And you need to allow every single button on your mouse, your keyboard, everything to be remapped, configured, and changed. The more configuration you can do, the happier PC players are. This is the culture of steam right here. All of this. Okay. This is uh Viking software. This is again those mail order things that we saw in distribution. It's a slimmer portion, but these are full. You would just you would just call this number here and just read your credit card to somebody and they would send you a game

like 3 months later. Um games about casinos. Bellatro. Do you hear me? I like the idea of this. You just like throw your poker chips on your computer uh keyboard here. But um yeah, casino games. I know it's like, "Oh man, what's this trend with casino rogue likes?" Okay, rogue likes, yes, they existed, but they weren't most people on PC didn't play rogue likes. I mean, I know traditionally rogue was invented on a main frame and all that, but PC players have always loved casino games and it was just it's a recent renov revelation to add a rogike aspect of it. Uh this dog ad is a very famous ad for National Apoons. This is a National Ampoon game. Again, very classy. Keep it classy PC gaming. Um, let's see here. Fifth wave. Uh, we'll get to this too. Um, okay. Fifth wave. Just [clears throat] the classic thing about comics about The Office Place was how much people hated their computers. Um, computers used to be so hard to use. Like 90% of comics

about The Office Place was how frustrating computers are. And now we don't have this humor as much. Usability has improved on these things. I know people complain like, "Oh man, computers are so stupid." Not literally, you would just want to destroy your computer because you would lose all your data and stuff. They used to be so much harder to use. We should appreciate Don't have rosetinted glasses about how awesome stuff used to be. Like half the jokes were like, "I hate my computer." This one's interesting. This is an article about this guy who built a cockpit cockpit like in a spare bedroom and he could PC game. Look at how hardcore this guy is. This guy built he took like two PCs. I'll just keep it. I'll zoom in here. He he com he he brought together two PCs so that he could game on them in his cockpit. And there's an article about how he built a phone in here. And when his wife is calling him for dinner, she calls him on the phone because he's like closes the canopy here and he's like totally enclosed in his gaming. And it's like,

this guy is hardcore. This is PC gaming right here, folks. This is PC gaming. I love it. I love this weirdo. I hope I hope they're still married. I really do. I hope we got to track him down. I I'll post his article, but I'm serious. This guy built his own gaming cockpit. I love it. Okay, I'm just trying to get you to understand what we're dealing with here on Steam. It is a hardcore audience. You cannot fool this guy and say, "Oh, we're not actually a flight sim." This guy knows his flight sims. He freaking built a PC spaceship so that he could play his games. Um, Flashback, an ad for Flashback, a rare platformer that's on there. I think Flashback originally came out on there. Um, some of their just random stuff, just random. I mean, you could just put a computer chip on the top of your ad and stuff. Okay, this is an interesting one. Uh, this is that Terminator game. This

is early from Bethesda, one of the first openw world kind of games ever. And it was this Terminator game. Nobody really bought it because it was really janky because it's Bethesda. Um, but this really was like the proto Skyrim, proto, you know, um, Elder Scrolls really. Like this tech was where they innovated it. And this is the thing, folks. This is the way it's always been is your first couple games suck and nobody buys them and then people go back after you've refined like this game is janky as all get out. Eventually people realize and when you have a hit game like Skyrim or um Elder Scrollsum Oblivion, people go back and like, "Oh, they were innovating with this." Luckily, Bethesda didn't release this Terminator game and it sold poorly. And then they were like, "Well, I'm going to close Bethesda." You just have to release a lot of janky games and refine across it. Okay, this is just the

way it is. Um, but again, openw world janky games are PC's contributions to gaming. Okay, this is what it is. And this is the proto version of it. This is a very important game in the history of Bethesda. Um, I've never played it, but I've I've read about it a little bit. Uh, and this is when I say open world survivalcraft is a popular thing. OWSC survivalcraft. This game is a proto open world survivalcraft. So, even though open world survivalcraft didn't exist, it's a new genre. You might be chasing trends. This has been the lifeblood of Steam and PC gaming forever. And this is a cool capsule. This would totally sell on Steam if it's just this capsule right there. So, very important to know your history. Uh, very, very crucial. Even though it seems like stuff's changing, it doesn't. It's the same. Okay, here's the uh Let me just uh finish up the review here of this game. And I told you it was janky. It didn't make sense. Basically, Bethesda is inventing a new genre. And it says here,

um, hey, most people like to win this their game that we just call it winning the game here. Um, and, uh, unfortunately along about 1,000th destroyed target, Terminator lost this reviewer. This guy's like mad. He's like, "This game is junk. I I don't like this game." And basically, he says like, "I don't know. Maybe if this bodacious uh technician offered to take the dining and stuff like that, he's like, I don't know. I don't know what to do with this game. There's basically this is him saying this game sucks. And it did. This game sucked. But it was it was very important in the evolution of the genre. It's very important to know. And that's what's going to happen. Like before Slay the Spire, there was I think it was called Dream Deck or something like that. It's this very janky game, but that's the proto rogike deck builder. And then it took a game later to improve

on the formula to make slay the spire. The first ver you do not want to invent a new genre. I know indies want to invent new genres. Like, oh, I'm my game is unrecognizable. You cannot you cannot recognize my genre. It's it's outside the current tradition of gaming. I'm inventing a new genre. If you do, you are going to get people saying, "This game's junk." So, expect to fail your first few times you release if you're gonna try and release a new genre. But my advice, don't make your own genre. Copy other genres and improve upon them. That's how it works. That's how this works, folks. This is it hasn't changed. Okay? Don't you do not uh want to invent a new genre. Here's a just about a company profile of a company. I looked this lady up. I looked these all these people up. This lady uh teaches marketing now. She's a marketing I looked her up because she's a marketing person. Uh like what is she doing now? She teaches like marketing and she's like director of important tank companies and stuff. Good for her. Way to get out of gaming industry. Um I

think she teaches like Harvard or something or something fancy. She's fancy. Um I like how they just show the most boring office building. Like here it is. Uh this is what game developers are still. Look at how boring these people are. They're so brown. They are just so like no color. [laughter] They like brought them out of the office. They all look cold. They're wearing their heavy jackets and like let's take a picture of you. [laughter] Love it. I love how just unprofessional this stuff is. Look, let's gather around a conference room and just take your picture. Just there. So, here here's another online mail order. Um, pay play by mail. That's how they used to multiplayer game. Let's see. What did I highlighted something here? What did I highlight here? Um, this is an article about board and wargaming about how they are transitioning war games to be more instead of board games. So, he used to lay out these huge maps and stuff and it's now transitioned to be on the computer. Uh, the reason I did this is at there's one part in this article says, "In the meantime, I'll be heading up to the computer game developers

conference that is GDC. There I'll meet with the likes of Sidmer, Mark Baldwin, Danny Buentes. Really? I only know Sidmer in this list. But anyway, this is GDC. He's he's talking about GDC. Back then it was called Computer Game Developers Conference. And this guy was saying, "Hey, I'm going to GDC." Isn't that wild, man? What a what a what a historic legacy we have here. Okay. Um, this, by the way, is an article about how you can find other people to game with over the internet. BBS's like, you couldn't just go to a lobby in your game and boot it up and play it. you have to like put a ad magazine and like post on all this stuff and you had to read articles about how to do it. Anyway, okay. Caesar uh I think Steam Caesar there's still versions of this later versions of this game selling well on Steam. This is a 4X strategy game still sells well. All this game could totally work today. All this stuff, all these maps, this capsule would still

work today. No stuff's not changing. If you make a strategy game, you are not chasing trends. You are participating in the culture of PC gaming. Um, I don't know. Wargaming without compromise. Look at how gritty people just love strategy war games on PC. Um, I just pulled this one cuz look at the screenshot here. It's just, look at this. Uh, we've just got like the worst looking UI, but look, it's a spaceship game with the gnarliest looking UI. Look at this UI. This is PC. Like, if you look at Hearts of Iron 4 or whatever, it looks just like this. Essentially, PC gaming has always been about these nasty UIs that are just so full of information. That's why I always tell people, show your UI to show how complex your game is, cuz that's what it is. This is interesting right here. This is an ad by Michael Winterbower, who was a essentially a capsule artist. And look

at this. When you need the finest in computer game illustration, call Michael Winterbower. This is how the guy would like get clients. Look at that. That That is awesome. Some lady riding a shark rocket, man. And this is the classic Wing Commander. This was on the cover of the Super Nintendo version. I played the Super Nintendo version of this. Uh but yeah, this guy's just he's a capsule artist. Isn't that crazy? Stuff doesn't change, folks. It really it it just makes it brings a warm smile to my heart when I saw this ad. This is This is a capsule artist saying, "Hey, who wants to hire me, man? It's so crazy." Where is he? He's in Pasadena. Uh here's Wargaming just a fire. Look at a battleship just firing. You're just like, "Yeah, man. Look at this UI. Look at that. Look at this UI. That is so classic." Again, um this is interesting because this is um Blizzard Entertainments. Do they even list Blizzard on here? I mean, it was published by Interplay, but it was made by Blizzard. It's a puzzle platformer

made by Blizzard. It actually sold. Okay. I I played this on the Super Nintendo. Um, but the minor success of this allowed Blizzard to start making Warcraft and all their other games in their lineage. So the first game, just like classic indie does, puzzle platformers are first and then even if they do okay, they transition to make strategy simulation-y like Warcraft and Warcraft 2 and World of Warcraft and all that and then they do the real money. And uh Blizzard has not made a platformer since. Uh I think they kind of did. Remember the uh what was that game called? Ghost, I think it was where you played as a ghost from uh Starcraft and it was going to be like a third person stealth platformer thing and it got cancelled. I was actually disappointed when they canceled that. Uh but I don't think Blizzard has released a platformer or 2D

or 3D since Lost Vikings. So, everybody makes a platformer their first game and then if they survive, they start making strategy games. Just nothing changes. This is a crazy looking top down strategy game by Ubisoft. But look at those graphics. They they don't make games that look like this anymore. It looks so wild. It looks like I don't know, man. I I don't know how to describe it. Mega Mania. Look at this graphic. That is just wild graphics. They look more Amigga to me. For some reason, Omega games always kind of look like that. More stuff like that. Okay, here's why I bought this magazine right here. And I am just going to I might just swap in a screenshot. See how it's sideways? I'm going to have to do this zooming in here. Now, this is remember I told you earlier about that card that you would mail in and you put a grade on there. And then what they would do is take all the responses from people and tabulate those reviews and rank the games based on how they scored, right?

Well, here's the results of the previous month. Okay? So, you kind of get the snapshot. Now, I'm going to kind of summarize here. First, they broke them into categories first and then they gave the well top 10. I think this is interesting just to look at the genres that were popular at the time. The these are the rankings that they have and I'm just going to go through them. Top adventure games is number one. I'm trying to figure out I don't know how they did this. It's not alphabetical. They just put adventure games on top. Adventure games were so big at this time and that's why I put Doom and Mist on on my timeline. Here's my theory is people always have theories about old school PC gamers have the theory of why point-and-click adventure games went away. My theory is point-and-click adventure games were AAA. That's what adventure games like you're people are like, "Oh, Chris, see this did change. This is a trend that changed." Yes. Um if you make a point andclick adventure game, you're not going to do well. I mean, it's very very very hard to do point. There are a couple studios that can do them. Um,

my theory is people used to play point andclick adventure. I love I played King's Quest 6. Um, people played these because they were the best looking games at the time. Adventure games were AAA games. Basically, they were the most beautiful. This game had full audio. Uh, they were the best audio, best graphics, most interactive, like you could click on anything. Everything was interactive. It was the most beautiful interactive game. That's why people liked them. Not because of the puzzles or the dialogue. It was just it was the best looking thing when Doom came out and Mist even though Mist is a point andclick adventure game and Doom and then third person kind of games like I don't know like the general third person games those became the most beautiful most interactive most beautiful things. And I think that's it's not that I love the old man Murray article about, you know,

adventure basically adventure games killed themselves because their puzzles were so dumb. I think it was actually if you want I played adventure games and I didn't like them for the puzzles and the tricks and stuff. I played them because they were the most beautiful thing out there. And I think that's what it was. And when Doom became more beautiful than adventure games and more interactive and more just amazing looking, people like, I'm just going to play Doom. I don't want to play this adventure game. This game, these games have puzzles that are dumb, but you get more graphics out of firstperson games. And I think that's why I think that's why adventure games died. So, adventure games being the biggest games on PC is more the [clears throat] fact that they're no longer the most beautiful there. I mean, there's still a little bit of a population on Steam that will buy and play adventure games. The Beholder series is one of them uh that indies make. And those games by Waji, Widgety, that guy, that guy makes adventure games that still do. Okay, but it's still these games have been there. But now, here's where we get into my crafty stuff. Role playing games are big. I don't recommend indie games make indie devs make role playing games. Role

playing games are still one of the top genres on Steam. They still are. It's just I don't recommend indies make them because they're so hard to make. They're so expensive. You have to make so much content. I don't think indies can make games up to the quality. It's very hard, very risky. I mean, yes, I know Disco Allesium is one of the most indie games and it's a role playing games and it's sold amazingly well, but there remember the Fallout after that game released and like people are suing each other. I don't even know the drama. They are so hard to make. Even if you make one, your studio is probably going to collapse upon itself because they're just so hard to make. That's why I say indies don't make RPGs. Even though they sell very well, they're just so hard and expensive to make. Even John Romero when I was interviewing, he was like, "Oh yeah, when we were at uh making Wolfenstein stuff, we knew we would never make an RPG because he worked I think he may have even worked on an Ultima." He worked on some some RPG. He he was contracted out to work on it and he was

like, "I knew I couldn't make a role playing game for our independent studio called ID Software." So he does he was smart enough not to make a role playing game. I don't think indie should make role playing games even though they sell very well and they're still popular on Steam. Simulation strategy war games. They used to break out strategy and war games. I don't now they're just one thing but uh look at that strategy simulationy strategy games. I'm not making this stuff up folks. You're not chasing trends by making simulationy strategy games. [laughter] Uh, war games are just strategy games in my book. Action games, this is uh risky. I I I don't think indie should make action games even though they are okay on Steam. Like they do. Okay. Let's look at what what they classify as an action game. See that? Wolfenstein back before Wolfenstein and really Doom. Doom was when they used to call them Doom clones.

After Doom came out, then everything was a Doom clone. And then when HalfLife came out, everything became a FPS. Basically action games became FPS. FPS is very popular genre on Steam. Um indies can make them, but role playing g they're kind of like role playing games, a little bit better, but with boomer shooters and stuff. You can kind of get away if you've got a really cool art style with making an FPS. They're slightly easier to make than a role playing game to make a FPS game. They do sell well on Steam. First person shooters do. It's just they're like basically AAA. You have to have AAA budgets, AAA experience to be able to do a viable first-person shooter. Now, there are some exceptions like I said. Um, but basically what I see is action games turned into first person shooter games. You also see that Terminator game, they class that I talked about, that game that invented open world survival craft. They consider that top action. So really, these action games are still viable. It's just it's first-person shooter, open world,

survival craft. The the the ancestors came out of action games. Okay. And then we got sports games. And sports games do well on Steam. Um specifically racing. Um and so, uh racing games do well on Steam. Um some sports games, but it gets a little tangled because of um IP rights and like getting the official names because a lot of sports fans want to play as the players. And so at an indie scale that doesn't work very well. But for the most part, this list of the top genres and I I consider this top genres like actual good data because this came from the reader submitted surveys of what their favorite are and the editorial board knows their audience. And so what I see is adventure games kind of no longer viable on Steam. I'm just going to be honest. Okay. Role playing is viable just not at any scale. So these are still very popular on Steam. simulation-y strategy games, I've gone on enough about how popular those are. Action games like FPS still popular.

Open world survivalcraft still popular. It's just these are very hard to make at indie scale. And then sports games are popular. Like really folks, you're not chasing trends when you make these games. These are still very viable on Steam. It's just how good you are at making games that determines your genre. So when we say chasing trends, I am not saying you're chasing trends. You're just indoctrinating yourself into the actual culture of Steam. Okay. Now, you won't see rogue likes on here because that didn't evolve out of a genre. It was like this weird dungeon crawler. They probably put rogue under rogue or role playing game now at this time. But again, some of these genres have remerged and recombined. There was no tower defense. Tower defense didn't exist at the time, but it was strategy games. So, it just it's it's all right here, folks. And then here's the ranking, the the straight up ranking. Um, one thing with action games, you don't see any platformers in here, I'm pretty sure. I mean, Lemmings, you could maybe say puzzle platformer, but that's

still Lemmings is more of a kind of sandbox strategy game, I would even argue. So, you really don't see like remember that game that I showed at the front, what was it called? Like Creeper. Let's go Creeper. You don't see creeper in here. You just don't see platformers in here. people never played platformers. And when I say like, "Hey, stop making platformers." I think a lot of people that say, "Oh, but platformers are so popular," they're talking about video games. They're talking about console games. Platformers are popular on console games, but Steam is not console games. Steam is PC computer gaming. Okay? And that's a very important lesson that we all have to learn. I've gone on enough. Um, so here's this. Now, this is interesting. I'm going to kind of finish on this note. The patch file. Uh, you'll I remember there's a meme and maybe I'll even try and find it. It's hard to find. Um, they're like, "Oh man,

back in the 90s there were no bugs. You just loaded up and you didn't have to worry about it." Oh, you did have to. This is called patch file and this is a a page that they would list list of all games that have been patches and you could either log in to a bulletin board service like Prodigy and download patches and then update your game. Okay. And uh I love this quote at the top. Let me let me zoom in here. Computer game programs have grown to massive and number of possible configurations has become so huge that uh uh glitches seem to be breeding as exponential rate at an exponential rate. They're basically saying games are so buggy now. Uh it's always been that way folks. If people are complaining like oh game development nowadays is so buggy. Guess what? It's always been that way. Um and there's this one quote. Hey, we're going to have to find an interim solution to fix bugs. Um because uh just for a little while, this will

just be a temporary problem because once the standardized platform configuration is agreed upon, we're going to have bugs. Uh, this guy was really optimistic and if there was an article earlier where there was a quote from Will Wright of Sim City fame and Will Wright basically said like, "Oh yeah, um, once we I'm going to make this software that's kind of modular and once we standardize PC gaming so that there's like a standard platform, that was a big movement back in the day. Um, it'll be much easier to code for and we won't have bugs." And this guy actually is implying like, oh, once we get this magical modular software design, we're not going to have bugs anymore. So, we got to do this buggy patching thing um until we get modular software design. And it's like, dude, there's always going to be bugs. There's always have been. There always will be. And that just never changes. So, software has always been buggy. It's not because devs are lazy now, and they used to not be lazy. We've always had bugs. And it was harder to patch your game because there

was no internet. And then we've got one final ad which is for a simulation flight sim game. Simulation-y strategy is on the back. We got another simulation-y strategy game. Is that Saddam Hussein? Who knows? I think it might be. But anyway, um yeah, that's it. PC gaming's not changed very much. Steam is PC gaming. You're not chasing trends making strategy games. I just want to make that clear. And everything that you think was awesome in the past actually sucked. And you know what else sucks? YouTube. Um, here's the thing is, uh, you've watched way too much of this video. This video went on way too long. What I want you to do is get back to gamedev. And so, the next video that I want you to watch is called one hour of game development. And that one hour of game development is a chill out zone because YouTube tries to hack hijack your brain and recommend some other video that you're going to find is more appealing. No, chill out. Block that stuff out. Watch this video. It's called 1 hour gamedev. I want you to do one hour of gamedev. I want you to get

your game done. There's nothing more that you can learn. You just have to put your butt in your chair, your fingers on the keyboard, and develop your game. Okay? And I want you to do that for the next hour. So, watch that video. It blocks out everything else. And make a game, preferably a crafty ability, strategy, simulation, a game, or this so-called horror genre that seems to be the trend nowadays. All right, that's enough. I' I think I've made my point. Have a great day and enjoy your one hour of game development.