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I think I hate leaf switch sticks.....
DaveMMR:
--- Quote from: RandyT on February 03, 2012, 05:34:43 pm ---
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on February 03, 2012, 04:23:02 pm ---It wasn't THAT special, Randy. They just installed them at 45 degree angles. They were still just regular Atari trackballs.
--- End quote ---
Well it was special to the point that, AFAIK, it was the only game in history to have used a trackball in that way, and it was done so to enhance that particular game. While the trackball itself wasn't that special, the extra effort in the code and what seems to be a an ultimate decision to take this mounting approach after finding that it improved the experience, shows that there was much more going on than to just "throw a trackball in there and call it a day". And that's kind of the point being discussed.
--- Quote ---I don't 100% agree that all games are made without input from the designers and programmers, but I do believe from a money standpoint, there were certainly games who's controls were simplified for cost concerns and not typically for the "ultimate game experience".
--- End quote ---
There are obviously going to exceptions to any rule. However, the controls were (are) where the "rubber meets the road" in the arcade industry. For a company to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in the programming, hardware design, artwork, cabinet design, production, marketing, etc.. and then make the game play poorly (or at least not as well as it could), to save $40 per unit, which is passed on to the operator, makes absolutely no sense. It's not only counter-intuitive, but it makes poor economic sense. A great example is a game like Arkanoid, considered a classic by most. They could have used a pot based control, as did every one of it's predecessors of the same genre, but they chose to go with not only an optical control, but one which had a very specific feel. It you want to assert that such decisions were arbitrary, and that the success of the game was accidental, I don't have anything specific to refute that. I can only state that it was terribly unlikely to have taken that path, based on so many other similar examples.
--- End quote ---
It's special inasmuch as their placement is concerned, but I'm talking about bottom line here. They didn't have to manufacture unique trackballs. It didn't cost them anything to simple rotate the bolt holes. And since we're discussing hardware, what's done in the software is not a concern for the purposes of why I used that as an example.
And I'm not ALL saying decisions were arbitrary. They could have stuck a simple flight stick on Star Wars or Paperboy. But where I backed Donbaca up was when he said:
--- Quote ---They weren't selling to gamers, they were selling to Ops, so things like a good looking cab and having it easy to maintain were probably higher up on their priority list.
--- End quote ---
I'm definitely no arcade historian. But I do know three points:
1) It's easy to call a joystick being used for a particular game "perfect" because that's what you were forced to use and had grown used to it. It's not like gamers were carrying alternate joysticks with them to the arcades in the 80's. You cut your teeth on a particular control for a particular game and that's the one that feels right.
2) Atari had little to no respect for their programmers/game designers back in the day. I find it hard to swallow the "cogs" (as Atari called their designers) were straight-up dictating these decisions. And I'm sure other companies (Williams, etc.) weren't taking direct orders from their designers either. Suggestions probably - but anything that made no financial sense would probably have been quickly discarded. But one of the reasons you see special controls and unique set-ups, I would imagine, was to stand out in a crowd of hundreds of cabs.
3) I'm cynical. I just don't believe there was any "use the best control we can and spare no expense!" attitude.
I'm not saying they just used the cheapest parts available. Arcade parts were usually high quality. But of course they had to be. A broken machine makes no money. I'm also not saying they just threw whatever was around into a game's cabinet. But I just can't envision there was expensive market research done to see if "stick A" nets slightly higher scores that "stick B".
But hey, listen, this is all speculation.
opt2not:
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on February 03, 2012, 06:02:12 pm ---But hey, listen, this is all speculation.
--- End quote ---
There seems to be a lot of that going on in this thread.
The more I read here, the more it makes me sad to think that the roots of video gaming development happened on the same broken team collaborations, marketing and business decisions that deal with today's gaming industry.
As a game dev myself, I can't accept that. No, I won't accept it. I want to believe that the developers of our gaming roots knew what they were doing, made their choices based off fundamental game-play experiences, not how much money it saved them for hardware.
I will not accept that they just threw stuff together and hoped it worked out as a success. That's the mentality that happens with today's gaming, and for those of us who enjoy making games, we need to think that the forefathers of the industry made choices for the purity of a fun gaming experience, and innovated the user's interaction to support that experience.
You guys are breaking my heart. :'(
RandyT:
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on February 03, 2012, 06:02:12 pm ---It's special inasmuch as their placement is concerned, but I'm talking about bottom line here. They didn't have to manufacture unique trackballs. It didn't cost them anything to simple rotate the bolt holes. And since we're discussing hardware, what's done in the software is not a concern for the purposes of why I used that as an example.
--- End quote ---
It is not the cost of the trackball, or even the guts of it, which is important. It is the fact that thought, effort and obviously play testing were performed to come to the conclusion to use it the way they did. To assert otherwise is to say that they accidentally mounted it wrong and then compensated for it in software. Is this what you are saying? :)
DaveMMR:
--- Quote from: RandyT on February 03, 2012, 07:18:23 pm ---
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on February 03, 2012, 06:02:12 pm ---It's special inasmuch as their placement is concerned, but I'm talking about bottom line here. They didn't have to manufacture unique trackballs. It didn't cost them anything to simple rotate the bolt holes. And since we're discussing hardware, what's done in the software is not a concern for the purposes of why I used that as an example.
--- End quote ---
It is not the cost of the trackball, or even the guts of it, which is important. It is the fact that thought, effort and obviously play testing were performed to come to the conclusion to use it the way they did. To assert otherwise is to say that they accidentally mounted it wrong and then compensated for it in software. Is this what you are saying? :)
--- End quote ---
Hehe - "We put the trackballs in wrong on all the machines. Change the code!"
Obviously I do not think that. And maybe we're on two different pages. Rereading your original post, you are arguing that, during the creation of an arcade title, no one department "lives in a bubble". And I agree with that statement. There simply has to be some synchronicity between all involved. But at the end of the day, the bottom line rules and I think that affects what goes into a cabinet, not always "optimal game play". While I don't deny games get play tested all the time (typically in-house), I can't fathom they're putting in the platinum control or manufacturing something unique when it's doing fine with the regular standby. From a business perspective, it does not seem feasible.
But you take one look at Marble Madness and you have to wonder: Did they really painstakingly try out all trackball orientations and options and decided which one was best? Or was it just something that seemed obvious considering the levels are isometric? You're basically travelling in diagonals - I can't see why coding the game and mounting the control to favor those directions is considered a stroke of brilliance. And based on some of the sources I viewed, the trackballs weren't exactly designed to stand up to the constant abuse players put them through. If any game called for specialty hardware, it was Marble Madness. But what's cheaper and easier for ops to maintain? Plain 'ole non-motorized, non-optimized trackballs - mounted diagonally. ;)
RandyT:
--- Quote from: DaveMMR on February 03, 2012, 08:37:28 pm ---But you take one look at Marble Madness and you have to wonder: Did they really painstakingly try out all trackball orientations and options and decided which one was best? Or was it just something that seemed obvious considering the levels are isometric? You're basically travelling in diagonals - I can't see why coding the game and mounting the control to favor those directions is considered a stroke of brilliance. And based on some of the sources I viewed, the trackballs weren't exactly designed to stand up to the constant abuse players put them through. If any game called for specialty hardware, it was Marble Madness. But what's cheaper and easier for ops to maintain? Plain 'ole non-motorized, non-optimized trackballs - mounted diagonally. ;)
--- End quote ---
If you understand the mechanical workings of trackballs, knowing that some directions work far better than others (namely those where the ball is traveling toward a roller) and also consider that the primary directions in Marble Madness are down-left and down right, and that the trackball was installed so as to have the rollers in precisely those places so as to have the optimal performance from the controller in the directions most used in the game, then it's clear that it was well thought out as to provide the best control for the user.
Honestly, I don't believe that the existence of these practices is even being called into question. This type of thing is so standard in any product design that singling out the early arcade industry as having NOT done these rudimentary and standard practices is like labeling them as utterly incompetent. There are examples of the care and expense taken, nearly everywhere you look on those machines, to make sure those experiences would be such to keep you dumping more quarters in those slots. Poorly performing controls do not achieve that end, and you can bet that they understood it quite well. What operators did after the fact to make their own lives easier (player be damned) is another story.
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