Poll on People’s Interest in Story driven IP’s on the DS

Is there any interest in story driven IP’s on the DS? Obviously, from a business standpoint it might not be clever to ask such a question on a site like this. It’s questionable you will get a poll that represents the average DS owner here, most likely the poll will reflect what the so called “core” gamer wants. At the same time, story driven games obviously aren’t really played short bursts at a time, but more often than not for longer play sessions, so story driven games are probably mostly for “core” gamers.

At the same time, let us say a developer was to make a fantasy themed side-scroller game with a large emphasize on story, maybe something in the lines of Harry Potter. Obviously, it would be easy to substitute “core” gamer with kids aged or teenagers for that matter, or adults for that matter, who are just interested in seeing how this game plays. The emphasize on core and casual is of course not that great, which a lot of people have pointed out, hardcore gamers buy MS and Sony, core gamers buy any console, casual gamers buy Wii. Nevertheless, it is a bit silly to distinguish the buyers of the consoles from one another in terms of what kind of “gamer” they are. I mean there are tons of factors and in the end, there are none. Age/income; whether or not you are a tech savvy person who really just has to have a blue-ray player, etc. etc. In one way it feels like the terms core and casual gamer is used to describe what kind of gamer you are after you’ve passed early childhood; and most people aren’t gamers at that point. Of course there is a generational difference here as well, so every new generation more people tend to continue being gamers at some level after a certain age as well. In addition, those people who say that games like GTA 4 are made for grown-ups and that it is a great game because there is an intricate story interwoven to the game. I am not sold on that.

The blueprint for a GTA game is a sandbox game in big city where the player can run amok and shoot at anything that moves. So apply a strong story to that blueprint and you get this odd setup. I’ve heard that there’s this thing where the character you play as gets emotional as you progress through the game and (I might be wrong on this) starts to question all the killing he is taking part in. Even though that is good, it is a bit strange.

The “either or” scenario, either you erase some of the gameplay mechanics that makes it possible to kill mindlessly and then apply this emotional arch to the story or you don’t do it at all, you can’t really have both those “options” in the game at once. Maybe not so much a moral dilemma as it is an awkward setup. I mean, obviously it makes sense and is a good thing that you apply the emotional arch to the story where the avatar begins to question his actions, but it is just a bit strange to apply this to a game that is a sandbox-killing spree.

Anyways, I am not a person to judge so maybe it is great. Moreover, I have not played it so maybe there are some mechanics that makes it impossible to shot at whatever you aim at. Anyways, to get back to what this article was supposed to be about. How many people are interested in having more story driven IP’s on the DS? Moreover, what a person like me is slightly interested in is like these action adventure games, like games of old but with a stronger narrative structure. I have some ideas on this, but I just wanted to see if there really was any interest at all.

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