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Source text in English

Translation by YenC (X) (#32594)

Computer games were, at one time, unified. We didn’t even have the term “casual game” in 1993, let alone the idea that a first-person shooter (then an unnamed genre) could be considered a “hardcore title.” There were people who played computer games, and people who didn’t. People who got way into golf or Harpoon or hearts or text adventures — those were the “hardcore” players, in that they played their chosen field obsessively.

When Myst and the CD-ROM finally broached the mass market, this ecosystem was disrupted. Myst had, Robyn Miller makes clear, been designed to appeal to non-gamers. It sold to them. Enthusiast magazines like Computer Gaming World couldn’t set the taste for the industry anymore: there were millions buying games who didn’t read these magazines. An entirely new breed of player. In this situation, what could be more natural than concocting an us-and-them formula? In a very real way, it was already true.

The great narrative of Myst is that the “hardcore” game press and playerbase lambasted it when it launched. Disowned it. A slideshow, they called it. Abstruse, idiotic puzzles; pretty graphics and not much depth. “Critics and hardcore game players universally panned it as a slide-show that had little actual gameplay interaction”, claimed PC Gamer’s Michael Wolf in 2001.That same year, a columnist for Maximum PC recalled Myst as a “tedious code-breaking and switch-throwing mess”, and saw its then-new remake realMYST as “a pointed reminder of why the press dumped on the original so heavily when it came out.”
Dati, ang mga laro sa computer ay nakaliga. Kahit ang taguring “kaswal na laro” ay hindi pa kilala noong 1993. Maging ang hindi pa napapangalanang genre o istilo ng laro noon na “first-person shooter” (kung saan ang nakikita lang ay ang baril o sandata), ay maituturing na brutal. May mga taong naglaro ng computer games, mayroon din na hindi. Iyong mga natutok sa golf o Harpoon o hearts o mga laro ng pakikipagsapalaran – sila iyong mga panatiko o “hardcore” na manlalaro.

Nagambala ang kontekstong ito nang napasok ng CD-ROM at ng Myst ang merkado, Sa paglilinaw ni Robyn Miller, ang Myst ay idinisenyo na maakit ang mga hindi pa manlalaro. Nabenta ito sa kanila. Hindi na maitakda ng mga babasahing tulad ng Computer Gaming World ang pagkikilingan para sa industriya: milyon na ang bumibili ng mga laro na hindi naman mambabasa ng mga magasing ito. Isang baguhan. Sa ganitong sitwasyon, wala nang mas natural pang gawin kung hindi tahakin ang diskarteng, “sila o tayo”, na noo'y nangyayari na.

Ang matinding kuwento ng Myst ay na kinutya ito ng mga hardcore na manlalaro at manunulat nang ilunsad ito. Itinatwa nila ito. Itinuring nila itong pang-display lang. Mahirap intindihin, pang-uto lang; magara lang tingnan (ang graphics) pero mababaw. “Nagsanib puwersa ang mga manunuri at mga panatikong manlalaro sa pagkutya dito bilang pasikat lang: halos walang tunay na interaksyon na laro,” pagbatikos ni Michael Wolf ng PC Gamers noong 2001. Sa kaparehang taon, isang mamahayag nang Maximum PC ang tumuya sa Myst na isang “nakakapagod intindihin at magulo ang pagmanipula,” at itinuring ang noon ay binagong realMYST na “isang tahasang paalala kung bakit matinding ibinasura ng mamamahayag ang orihinal nito ng inilabas.”


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