Do you feel like modern development times has impacted how young people feel about video game series?
This is an interesting conversation prompted by a post on X sent by Noriba, author of the manga Takamiya Walking, He gives an anecdote, in which modern youth he questions overwhelmingly have a preference for Pokemon over Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, which were the dominant RPG franchises of his youth. In fact, many of them have never played a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest title. With the dramatic impact these two series have had on game developers (as well as mangaka like Noriba), this comes as quite the shift.
An article by Carlos Zotomayor on Automaton Media then tracks the conversation, and while many different arguments for the change in popularity are offered, there is one idea that stuck out to me. That is, the idea that modern day development times lead to children struggling to form attachments to series that release relatively few titles due to lengthy development times.
Let’s take an example, and look at a series from my childhood, Namco’s Tales of series. I first tuned into the series with 2003’s Tales of Symphonia, which I played at 10 years old. I fell in love with the series, and have continued to play every new entry since.
Between the age of 10 and 18, I played Tales of the Abyss, Legendia, Vesperia, Hearts, Graces, and Xillia. A Japanese kid would have additionally gotten to enjoy Tales of Rebirth and Innocence. I got to enjoy 6 games in a span of 8 years, and if I was in Japan, I could have enjoyed 8.
Let us compare this to the aforementioned Dragon Quest. A kid born in the 80s would have a similar relationship with the series as I do to Tales of, as 6 mainline titles were released in a 10-year span from 1986-1996. Things slow right down after that though, and from 1996 to the modern day, there have only been 5 mainline Dragon Quest titles released. This means the ten year span between 1968 to 1996 saw one more game compared to the 20-year span between 1997 and 2017. Whew.
It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that kids nowadays aren’t falling in love with franchises like Dragon Quest at nearly the same rate. It makes sense for a mangaka who grew up in the heyday of Dragon Quest to feel attachment to the series as they got to experience new content every few years. But a kid who celebrated their 10th birthday in 2008 (prime game-playing age) would have only experienced the release of a whopping two Dragon Quest games by their 18th birthday.
Long development time has led to some truly spectacular games, and I’m sure the near decade between Dragon Quest XI and the upcoming Dragon Quest XII will have been well-spent. But the fact is, a decade is the length of a teenagehood. It is no wonder that kids these days aren’t drawing attachment to Dragon Quest, when they can go from 10 to 20 years old without even experiencing a new release.
What do you think? Is lengthy development time truly the cause of youth struggling to grow attachment to these beloved franchises? Is that why a series like Pokemon, with quick turnaround between games, is able to maintain relevance? Or is it something else? Let us know in the comments below!
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