Top five: videogame rivalries
With my friend (whose blog can be found here) I am currently planning an upcoming series of articles entitled ‘thedogbarks vs. toomanywires’ in which we debate various topics related to videogames. In anticipation of that I decided to revisit some of the industry’s greatest rivalries. Whilst there were always clear-cut lines of loyalty when it came to consoles, franchises have also produced some bitter rivalries. In this article, five of the most interesting rivalries are examined both in their prime, and where they stand now.
Mario vs. Sonic
Then: The most bitter rivalry of all time. You were either Sega or Nintendo; you had to choose. Friends were alienated, families torn apart, governments overthrown… well maybe not the last one but it was pretty big. The most iconic mascots from the respective consoles embodied and defined the kind of person you were. Your allegiance shaped your group of friends. Videogame magazines were full of fan art in which Mario was decapitating Sonic, or Sonic was gunning down Mario. It wasn’t just a rivalry; it was a war.
Now: First of all, the shockingly bitter hatred between the two factions seems fairly tame by modern comparisons. Whereas in the early 90s, images of mascots murdering each other might have been provocative, kids nowadays know far worse insults. Need proof? Go to any message board on the internet and create a thread called ‘Sony is better than Microsoft’ or vice versa. You might learn a few new words.
Sonic games haven’t been good for over ten years now so it’s clear who won the war, and mascot platformers are seen as rather passé. Instead the two old enemies have put aside their differences to appear in the same game on several occasions such as Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and Smash Bros. Brawl.
Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat
Then: Street Fighter II Turbo and Mortal Kombat II were released in the same time frame and both are arguably the best of their respective franchises. Game reviewers also found it difficult to decide which was better and as they were in the same genre they were bound to be compared directly. The anime style was so different to the motion captured look; the purity of Street Fighter clashed with the visceral nature of Mortal Kombat II’s Fatalities; and the traditional Japanese Capcom was up against the brash American Midway. So similar in many ways yet so different in many others.
Now: Street Fighter IV was released this year to massive critical acclaim and commercial success. After a series of flops with some poor decisions, the Mortal Kombat license has been somewhat devalued. The last game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC, performed decently but lost the extreme violence which epitomized the franchise in order to gain a wider audience. Midway is out of business and Mortal Kombat is looking for a new home.
Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band
Then: Speaking of similarities, you can’t get much more similar than Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In fact Rock Band was made by the creators of Guitar Hero after they broke off to make their own project. But no matter which game you prefer you are essentially getting the same thing, the only difference being slight tweaks in the interface and downloadable content. As a result the two games struggled violently against each other in a bid to become more dominant. Although they have almost identical peripherals, they made their own instruments incompatible with the other’s software. The result? The consumer was the real loser in this petty struggle, forcing them to accumulate a virtual orchestra of plastic devices in order to play both.
Now: The peripheral incompatibility has been rectified but the intensity of the struggle has only increased. As the main difference between the two is the music you can play, both have tried to sign exclusivity contracts with bands in order to prevent their songs appearing on the other’s game. This has lead to a number of band games such as Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica and The Beatles Rock Band. This in turn has lead to an over-saturation of the band game genre and antipathy from consumers. Both companies are trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs before the other one, so expect this rivalry to run and run… itself into the ground.
FIFA vs. Winning 11 (PES)
Then: Of course FIFA always had the official license, and hence all of the player names, teams and stadiums were accurate. Winning 11 had to do with very similar, but legally different, players, names and stadiums. The two games played so differently that you couldn’t like both of them; either you liked the slower, simulation style of football that Fifa provided, or you preferred the fast-paced arcadey action that was Winning 11’s forte. FIFA fans were baffled as to why Winning 11 fans would be stupid enough to choose to play an unauthentic experience, and Winning 11 fans saw FIFA fans as pathetic licensee whores, willing to choose presentation over game play.
Now: Both series are still going strong and still have their dedicated fan base. The playing field has leveled somewhat now with Winning 11 gaining real players and FIFA having stolen much of Winning 11’s control scheme and pace. As a result the experiences have become a lot more similar and playing one doesn’t exclude you from playing the other. Essentially the momentum shifts every year; one game becomes more complacent and the other becomes more ambitious. Currently FIFA has the upper hand in both sales and presentation but next year’s Winning 11 is shaping up nicely. Expect whatever good features that were present in their rival’s game to appear in the other this year.
Call of Duty vs. Modern Warfare
Then: This may be a little confusing as they are in fact the same franchise, but there are two different teams working on that franchise. Infinity Ward created the critically acclaimed and successful World War II first person shooter Call of Duty and then followed it up with the equally impressive Call of Duty 2. Then, publisher Activision, who was keen to turn the series into an annual franchise, handed the reins of developing Call of Duty 3 over to Treyarch in order to give Infinity Ward a full two years to work on their next installment of Call of Duty. Call of Duty 3 wasn’t as well received as its predecessors, leading Infinity Ward to feel bitter that the reputation of a franchise they had created was being tarnished by others.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of the biggest video game success stories of all time with a current Metacritic ranking of 94% and having sold around 13 million copies worldwide. The next year Treyarch released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to a pretty positive reception, but it was clearly inferior to Modern Warfare.
Now: Did you manage to keep up? Well obviously the fact that the Call of Duty franchise is lumped together as a whole by the public led to frustration, and this frustration spilled out on the blog of Infinity Ward community manager Rob Bowling, angered by comparisons made by a senior producer of Call of Duty: World at War, between their game and Treyarch’s.
“WTF are you talking about?! “in previous Call of Dutys blah blah blah”. First of all, you didn’t work on “previous Call of Dutys”, so don’t talk as if you’re down with how / why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely fucking wrong.”
Just one of a number of choice quotes I could have picked. The next Infinity Ward game will be known as Modern Warfare 2, ditching the Call of Duty moniker. Try as they might, for now they can’t seem to kick Treyarch off their coat-tails.
Mario vs. Sonic
Then: The most bitter rivalry of all time. You were either Sega or Nintendo; you had to choose. Friends were alienated, families torn apart, governments overthrown… well maybe not the last one but it was pretty big. The most iconic mascots from the respective consoles embodied and defined the kind of person you were. Your allegiance shaped your group of friends. Videogame magazines were full of fan art in which Mario was decapitating Sonic, or Sonic was gunning down Mario. It wasn’t just a rivalry; it was a war.
Now: First of all, the shockingly bitter hatred between the two factions seems fairly tame by modern comparisons. Whereas in the early 90s, images of mascots murdering each other might have been provocative, kids nowadays know far worse insults. Need proof? Go to any message board on the internet and create a thread called ‘Sony is better than Microsoft’ or vice versa. You might learn a few new words.
Sonic games haven’t been good for over ten years now so it’s clear who won the war, and mascot platformers are seen as rather passé. Instead the two old enemies have put aside their differences to appear in the same game on several occasions such as Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and Smash Bros. Brawl.
Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat
Then: Street Fighter II Turbo and Mortal Kombat II were released in the same time frame and both are arguably the best of their respective franchises. Game reviewers also found it difficult to decide which was better and as they were in the same genre they were bound to be compared directly. The anime style was so different to the motion captured look; the purity of Street Fighter clashed with the visceral nature of Mortal Kombat II’s Fatalities; and the traditional Japanese Capcom was up against the brash American Midway. So similar in many ways yet so different in many others.
Now: Street Fighter IV was released this year to massive critical acclaim and commercial success. After a series of flops with some poor decisions, the Mortal Kombat license has been somewhat devalued. The last game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC, performed decently but lost the extreme violence which epitomized the franchise in order to gain a wider audience. Midway is out of business and Mortal Kombat is looking for a new home.
Guitar Hero vs. Rock Band
Then: Speaking of similarities, you can’t get much more similar than Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In fact Rock Band was made by the creators of Guitar Hero after they broke off to make their own project. But no matter which game you prefer you are essentially getting the same thing, the only difference being slight tweaks in the interface and downloadable content. As a result the two games struggled violently against each other in a bid to become more dominant. Although they have almost identical peripherals, they made their own instruments incompatible with the other’s software. The result? The consumer was the real loser in this petty struggle, forcing them to accumulate a virtual orchestra of plastic devices in order to play both.
Now: The peripheral incompatibility has been rectified but the intensity of the struggle has only increased. As the main difference between the two is the music you can play, both have tried to sign exclusivity contracts with bands in order to prevent their songs appearing on the other’s game. This has lead to a number of band games such as Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica and The Beatles Rock Band. This in turn has lead to an over-saturation of the band game genre and antipathy from consumers. Both companies are trying to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs before the other one, so expect this rivalry to run and run… itself into the ground.
FIFA vs. Winning 11 (PES)
Then: Of course FIFA always had the official license, and hence all of the player names, teams and stadiums were accurate. Winning 11 had to do with very similar, but legally different, players, names and stadiums. The two games played so differently that you couldn’t like both of them; either you liked the slower, simulation style of football that Fifa provided, or you preferred the fast-paced arcadey action that was Winning 11’s forte. FIFA fans were baffled as to why Winning 11 fans would be stupid enough to choose to play an unauthentic experience, and Winning 11 fans saw FIFA fans as pathetic licensee whores, willing to choose presentation over game play.
Now: Both series are still going strong and still have their dedicated fan base. The playing field has leveled somewhat now with Winning 11 gaining real players and FIFA having stolen much of Winning 11’s control scheme and pace. As a result the experiences have become a lot more similar and playing one doesn’t exclude you from playing the other. Essentially the momentum shifts every year; one game becomes more complacent and the other becomes more ambitious. Currently FIFA has the upper hand in both sales and presentation but next year’s Winning 11 is shaping up nicely. Expect whatever good features that were present in their rival’s game to appear in the other this year.
Call of Duty vs. Modern Warfare
Then: This may be a little confusing as they are in fact the same franchise, but there are two different teams working on that franchise. Infinity Ward created the critically acclaimed and successful World War II first person shooter Call of Duty and then followed it up with the equally impressive Call of Duty 2. Then, publisher Activision, who was keen to turn the series into an annual franchise, handed the reins of developing Call of Duty 3 over to Treyarch in order to give Infinity Ward a full two years to work on their next installment of Call of Duty. Call of Duty 3 wasn’t as well received as its predecessors, leading Infinity Ward to feel bitter that the reputation of a franchise they had created was being tarnished by others.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was one of the biggest video game success stories of all time with a current Metacritic ranking of 94% and having sold around 13 million copies worldwide. The next year Treyarch released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare to a pretty positive reception, but it was clearly inferior to Modern Warfare.
Now: Did you manage to keep up? Well obviously the fact that the Call of Duty franchise is lumped together as a whole by the public led to frustration, and this frustration spilled out on the blog of Infinity Ward community manager Rob Bowling, angered by comparisons made by a senior producer of Call of Duty: World at War, between their game and Treyarch’s.
“WTF are you talking about?! “in previous Call of Dutys blah blah blah”. First of all, you didn’t work on “previous Call of Dutys”, so don’t talk as if you’re down with how / why things were designed the way they were. Second, you’re completely fucking wrong.”
Just one of a number of choice quotes I could have picked. The next Infinity Ward game will be known as Modern Warfare 2, ditching the Call of Duty moniker. Try as they might, for now they can’t seem to kick Treyarch off their coat-tails.
