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Why Were Arena Shooters Popular?
🕑 Added 2023-05-06 01:00:01 +0000 UTCTom Clanc- Sorry, Ubisoft's Xdefiant released a closed beta recently, picking up from where the last test left off, only without the contentious branding nor the contentious elements of Activision's Call of Duty.
It's reception has been… surprisingly positive.
It was even making some rounds on social media after a couple big accounts were pitching the game as a real rival for COD; fast-paced clips of sliding and jumping to outmaneuver opponents were used to platform its potential.
Those same clips led to many copying a line being pasted across Twitter when Modern Warafare 2 launched.
"The kids want Quake and don't even know it."
The frustration is understandable…
Believe me.
Thing is, I find not only have online Arena Shooters been forgotten, the context they were released under is doubly so.
Today, Fortnite players can join their friends on an Xbox Series X via their mobile phone. They can chat with said friends alongside potentially… hundreds of people on Discord. Regardless of which platform being used, all of those people have access to thousands of games, many of which don't require even an entry fee, an entry fee Discord and Crossplay don't have either.
This could not be more opposite to years when Quake II was at the forefront. To start…
This is more my current workstation in 1997 dollars, let alone adjusting for inflation, and these weren't multi-grand price-tags for Gold Button Monster Rigs you'd find in streamers house, but bog standard manufactures like Gateway and Dell.
Don't worry though… we haven't gotten to the internet yet.
Infamously, Joe Rogan - yes that Joe Rogan - used to be addicted to Quake, binging it for hours and hours during the time Fear Factor was on-air. Demanding zero lag from his internet provider for consistency, he ordered a T1 Internet Line charging up to $10,000 USD a month.
iRacing, eat your heart out.
Yes, these computers and internet connections weren't owned by the average consumer, but that's the thing, the average PC consumer was bought by a Dad to send Emails.
To have a proper gaming PC back then, you needed to know about internal specifications, specifications that weren't read up about on an Amazon page, but hardware magazines.
You needed to be able to hook up an internet connection in the first place, then download a dedicated message apps to communicate with friends, apply the correct patches to whichever game you were playing, and this is all assuming the game even actually has a proper server browser built in, which many at the time didn't.
Most games required you to enter IP Addresses' independently, sometimes not even in the game's menus but its console commands.
If you were willing to go through all of this goddamn effort just to play a video-game…
You were likely okay with getting your ass beat for the first 5-10 hours of playing it.
That doesn't exist anymore.
Nowadays you can buy plug and play PCs with Wifi AC's that sometimes already have game-clients installed, ready to downloaded Counter Strike, League of Legends, Apex Legends, etc.
People will often point to the difficulty of games like Counter Strike, but it's a point that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Difficulty isn't something people are inherently against in games, if that's all it was, I don't think games would've gotten much of a start at all. What people are against is feeling useless.
In Counter Strike, you can score a headshot by getting lucky with your AK spray. League of Legends grant abilities which can drain half of an enemy's health bar. Apex Legends, you can win by being a third party in each fight.
None of those things exist in Arena Shooters.
There's no randomization of weapons, no downtime between fights, no overpowering abilities to save your skin, and a time to kill that takes a couple seconds at best. You can't even win via powerups, as often in Quake, the best are deliberately placed in locations which require mastery of the movement mechanics to reach.
The only possibility a Quake game could have of bringing in new players, is if its base were the size of Counter Strike, League of Legends, or Apex Legends, allowing enough new players to fight amongst each other and have fun… and even if that were to happen, then it has to hold onto it in this market of vast competition, constant updates, and seasonal support.
Games far more approachable than Quake, have fallen under the weight of these tasks.
*Cough*
I adore Quake and all of its derivatives, and it's not nostalgia, as I didn't grow up with Arena Shooters. I was a kid who wasn't even allowed to play T-Rated games back when Quake III was dominating the broadband waves.
The formula is just really, really fun.
It's unlike almost any other game out there, nothing else has its intoxicating rush of complexity and flow. Nothing else is this balance of movement, speed, projectiles, aiming, timing, and resource management. However, I don't believe Quake's formula is one that accounts for the modern gaming market, one without the barrier to entry and commitment required before even launching the game. Not to mention, that after learning all of these unique mechanics, maps, and playstyles…
You're playing Deathmatch.
Or Capture the Flag.
Or Duels.
And you're not playing them to grind for new weapons, unique skins, humble brag badges, or materials.
It's not exactly the sexiest pitch in gaming.
I don't know what the solution is, but I think enough attempts have been made to show it's not simply making Quake's formula 5-10% less punishing, or pushing insta-kill modes like Diabotical.
I think it's either addressing accessibility head-on, such as Counter Strike 2 having a crosshair which follows your weapon's recoil pattern, or, the much more drastic option…
Make an all new formula.
