How We Got Here - Game Design Theory - page 79

Birth of the Fantasy Simulator (Third Generation, 1983-1995)
In 1983, just as the flames of the second generation had completely died
out after the fallout in North America, a new spark was being ignited.
That spark was Nintendo's world famous NES console. Soon the (now)
barren landscape of the North American games industry would all belong
to a new player: Nintendo. When the NES hit US shores it was almost
like the industry had never crashed in the first place, and a new genera-
tion that would make even the second generation pale in comparison
began. The industry picked up right where it had left off and exploded
into new levels of success due to games that seemed to not only fulfill the
promise of SpaceWar! , but possibly even exceed it. Of course, there were
tons of hit games that were based on those of the previous generation
and that were pure games, such as Tetris , Gradius , and hit sports games
such as Nintendo's Ice Hockey . These kinds of games were still around,
but something curious began to happen with this generation.
Although there were other 8-bit systems before it, as well as home
computers that could perform similar technological feats, the NES intro-
duced a massive audience to the idea that these new things—these digi-
tal applications that we've been calling games—could take a whole new
direction. Games like The Legend of Zelda , Metroid , Dragon Quest , and
Final Fantasy spoke to the potential for this kind of software to become
a fantasy simulator . Dungeons & Dragons and computer RPGs, of course,
were already ahead of the game in this respect. But those systems had a
barrier of entry that was not acceptable to most people who weren't com-
puter hobbyists or serious gaming types: the number of rules a player
had to learn was simply too much for a young child or a parent who only
had an hour or two each night to play games. Games like The Legend of
Zelda or Dragon Quest , on the other hand, invited players from all walks
of life to explore an exciting fantasy world. At least, that was the promise.
I was there, and I can attest to the level of excitement surrounding
these games. I now wonder, though: was the excitement about the games
themselves, or the promises that they made? Dragon Quest may repre-
sent the first time that players were asked to grind. And boy, did they
ever. I myself can recall spending long nights “fighting� weak monster
after weak monster to eventually get enough gold to buy that next sword.
By the time the NES went out of production in the mid-1990s, the
modern video-game industry was fully formed. The kinds of games we
played, the things we looked for in games, and the promises of games
were all well established. While there were many brilliant innovations
in this time period, I argue that we made a huge mistake at this point in
history that we're still paying for today. That mistake was to not draw a