Article - The Prison of Unpopularity (A Fav of Mine)

First  off, I want to clarify that, the issues and concerns that I  will  express in this article do not apply to my fellow shmuppers and  members  of the community. The shmup community has been very supportive  of my  content and has certainly demonstrated they are not all about   popularity and getting attention, but about passion for the games and   genre. It makes sense because there is no such thing as easy popularity   in shmups, people like that are weeded out within a very short amount  of  time. Members of the shmup community are not evaluated by their  social  media presence or YouTube subscribers, but by their  contributions to the  genre (whether that be gameplay, content, or being  a homie and  interacting with other people). So, more than likely, if  you are reading  this article, these concerns do not apply to you. The  primary concern  of this article applies to the general gaming audience  outside the  community, an audience that is inclined to be indifferent  towards shmup  content in the first place. It may seem like I’m just  being greedy, but  I’ll explain why shmups having a larger presence in  general is important  and how difficult achieving this actually is,  given the way things  work.

The  main thing I want to accomplish with this article is to highlight  some  specific barriers I have been running into and to explain why  shmups  are so hard to bring to the masses, even if you really go out of  your  way to try. When I talk about widening the genre’s presence to the   general gaming media, I don’t mean in an unrealistic sense where shmups   are the next big thing and everyone comes running with plaster faces.   The type of growth I’m talking about is small scale, just enough to   where the community can represent itself with some sense of credibility   and a viable audience. For example, with the M2 ports, I have certainly   gone out of my way as much as possible to help push these games to as   many people as possible, partly because the genre is so niche and  partly  because the marketing for ShotTriggers is pretty much  nonexistent.  However, as things stand right now, no matter how hard the  community  pushes these games, we do not show up on the radar. Despite  being  designed for wider appeal and making the genre more accessible to   non-shmuppers, the vast majority of the target audience will never get   an opportunity to play the M2 ports because they don’t even know they   exist.

Likewise, we have the  indie shmup scene with releases like Blue  Revolver. Blue Revolver is  one of the best shmups in the past few years  (there have been a ton of  really great games released lately) and a game  that definitely deserves  more attention outside the community. Pretty  soon an additional DLC  for Blue Revolver, Double Action, will be  released (which sounds like  it’ll practically be a whole new game) and I  want to see this game get  coverage. Yes, I will cover it and the shmup  community will promote it,  but we are so small it’s not going to make a  dent compared to when  other niche communities have pushed their games  (think Guilty Gear Xrd  and how the community put that game, and then the  entire anime fighter  genre, on the map). If you think I’m exaggerating  on how niche and  ignored the shmup genre is, just look up the M2 ports  on metacritic …  wait you can’t because they don’t exist. The only one I  could find was a  user score for Battle Garegga Rev 2016 – user, not  critic.

Yes,  I am aware of some of the articles that are written about shmups  by  publications like Forbes and Eurogamer, but these articles are few  and  far between and probably don’t hit the non-shmupper hard enough to   really bring them in. Let me explain, because I do think the articles   are great and I am happy they exist. However, a lesson I have learned is   that, if you really want to bring people in to a niche or hardcore   genre, like shmups or fighting games, you need to hit the audience over   and over with content and reasons to play these games. That’s why   fighting games have been able to catch on since Street Fighter 4,   because the FGC is really good at making content that appeals to the   general crowd and is persistent with its messaging. Look at a channel   like Core-A-Gaming, that dude is bringing the hardcore concepts of the   genre to the masses with an impressive catalog of videos. With shmups,   one or two articles a year is not going to be enough. To appreciate and   really connect with this genre, you need to be immersed in it. Playing   shmups is like learning a language; a one off lesson is a nice starting   point, but there needs to be follow up and conversation.

This  is where the community comes in. This is where shmup content  creators,  such as yours truly, can step in and provide entertainment,   discussion, information, and so on. However, for that to happen there   needs to be an opportunity, and this is where everything comes to a   screeching halt.

The  world of YouTube and gaming media is not the egalitarian model of  the  shmup community. How much passion you have, how much time you have   spent studying and playing, who you have interacted with and learned   from mean nothing. Credibility within the shmup community does not   translate to outside sources, unlike how credibility within other gaming   communities (again, FGC is a good example) can translate to   opportunities in general gaming media. The reasons for this are   straightforward. The first is because most members of the gaming media   have no connection or interest in shmups in the first place, so they   feel no pull or admiration for shmup players, community members, or   developers. The second reason is that the shmup community cannot deliver   a bunch of views and subscribers like other gaming communities can.

Essentially,  general gaming media is a caste system, where people are  separated  into different classes based on their views and followers  (for the most  part). Maybe this is a necessity of the industry, I have  no idea, but  whether it’s necessary or not that doesn’t change the fact  that it  makes it extremely challenging, if not impossible, for a  homegrown  shmup content creator to engage in wider communication about  the genre.  Returning to my earlier points, this is because the shmup  community is  not large enough to prop up its members with social  collateral  (Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers and all that stuff).

I’m  going to be concrete with an example, because I want the picture  of  what I am talking about to be clear. As my fellow shmup players are   probably already aware, very soon there are going to be a good number of   exciting shmup releases, we’re in some kind of shmup wave right now   (which is awesome). I’ve already mentioned Double Action, but there is   also the upcoming M2 Esp.Ra.De. port (which I couldn’t be more excited   about) and a brand new Strikers game, 2020 (which will be interesting to   talk about, even if it isn’t good), then there’s the Rolling Gunner   Switch port, and so much more. So yeah, there’s a reason to talk about   shmups among the general audience this year.

However,  my fear is that, as usual, these releases will be mostly  ignored or  covered by people who may appreciate the genre on some level,  but are  not passionate fans or members of the community. Soap box  moment, but I  feel if you aren’t talking about these games with passion  or  enthusiasm, if you don’t take shmups as a genre as seriously as   platformers or RPGs, you are leaving too much on the table and not   helping the genre grow. If I read a review of Esp.Ra.De. that mentions   something about shmups being a “simple genre” and the usual talk that   makes shmups sound like novelty games played by ancient magicians, I am   going to face palm right then and there. If these reviewers don’t   mention the milking problem in the scoring system and whether or not the   arrange mode addresses this problem, that’s an incomplete review in my   book.

So where am I going with  this? Well, in anticipation of all this  content coming out, it’s become  a goal of mine to elevate the  conversation about these games within  the general gaming press. However,  since I’m a low caste untouchable by  the metrics of the general gaming  world (again, social collateral),  I’m ignored. I have reached and will  continue to reach out to different  outlets about some sort of  cooperation (free work from me, by the  way), but will likely hear  nothing. So instead, what will likely happen  is that these releases will  come out. I’ll do everything I can to  cover them for the community, my  content will remain as niche as ever,  and the rest of the world can read  about how Esp.Ra.De. was never  released outside arcades, so it’s a cool  interesting novelty you can  buy … if you feel like it. Never mind the  significance of the arrange  mode, the importance of the practice tools  M2 has been consistently  delivering, why M2 ports are the gold standard  and why shmups are a  legit genre worth playing, other than being a neat  history lesson.

So  yeah, I wrote this article because I am bitter and I am tired of   watching opportunity after opportunity get squandered. Ketsui Deathtiny   could have been a thing, but it’s not. I doubt it will even be   localized. Why would it? No one talked about it and I doubt many people   bought it. (I talked about Deathtiny, by the way, I made an entire   podcast episode about it with the guy who wrecked the Japanese players   on PSN). Real talk, these M2 ports are not going to last forever and   judging by the lack of promotion or localization outside Japan, I’m not   feeling very optimistic. Having just watched the My Life in Gaming   interview with them, I get the sense that they are racing against the   clock to get as many ports finished before M2 pulls the plug. All I want   to do is talk about shmups with people and really show them why this   genre is badass and worth investing in … but I can’t because I am nobody   and my opinion is not worth anyone’s time.

Cheers (while drinking straight from the bottle),

–Mark MSX

Ketsui Deathtiny Episode (with Iconoclast):

https://youtu.be/IGuIBMY3AzQ