Points

[D-Man]

I've been traveling a lot, lately, and I've downloaded tons of MAME, SNes, NES, and other Roms on my PC to keep me company during my long plane rides. Some of the games I've decided to replay have been classics such as Popeye, Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and the original Punch Out!. It cracks me up whenever I defeat a boss or pass a certain level and my points begin to skyrocket because, let's face it, I could give two shits about them. Most of your probably agree that in modern gaming, it's more important to "beat" a game than gain a "high score."

Naturally, I thought it would make a great thread topic.

So, I ask all of you, let's discuss video games points. Here are a few questions that I'd specifically like to ask:

When did video gamers stop caring about points and when was the turning point (no pun intended) when new games ceased to include a points system?

Have you achieved any point totals for videos games from the past that stick out in your mind and you're proud of?

What was your favorite video game that used a points system and why was it your favorite?

 

[Poop Master Flex]

The truth is even a lot of modern games have some sort of point system in one way or another but like you said they don't matter anymore and haven't since the videogame crash of '82.

I think the real turn when players stopped caring was 1 game, Super Mario Bros. That was the first real game where it was so much more than getting points, the objective wasn't to collect points, it was to finish the game and rescue Princess Toadstool. It gave players a different and fun objective then what was offered before. Sure there were games like pitfall, but Mario was the first game to break the mold. After that the objective of the games changed, it was about completion of the game (which offered different levels and challenges) instead of essentially playing the same level over and over, increasing your score until you died or until the game ran out of memory (which happened in rare cases). Basically the hardware got better, things got more advanced and you could successfully play a solid game in the comfort of your own home that wasn't the same repetitiveness that classic games offered beforehand.

Before that the objective for most games was to get a high score. Games like Pac Man, Frogger and Donkey Kong were pretty much the same level over and over with a few twists and turns in and because of that they came up with the point system so gamers would keep coming back. If you were playing a game of pac man and played the same level over and over without any reward you wouldn't play it for long, so instead they implemented a points system and made the same level more difficult each time to hook the gamers.


For myself my favorite classic game which implemented the points system was Tetris. I still consider this one of the greatest games of all time and to this day I love playing it. I still try to get high scores in Tetris and see if I can beat my previous line count. Because I've played tetris so much my most proud scores came from that game. On Nintendo Tetris I believe my best line count was 271 (23 lines below the world record for Nintendo) and my best score was about 800,000. To this day I still have my Tetris cartridge and NES and to this day I still pop it in and see if I can max out the score and actually beat the world record.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Older games and newer games are very different. Points mattered more back in the day because the older gaming consoles were not capable of as much as today's are. Legendary titles like Pac-Man or Space Invaders relied heavily on points and endless gameplay for the sole purpose of earning the high score. That style was addicting, and even today people keep coming back for more. Today there is much more emphasis on exporation, completion of side quests, and unlocking all of the unlockable extras within the games.

I'd say that when games went 3D was right around the time when points began to mean next to nothing. People did not care about the points anymore, it was all about exploring the new worlds from that point onward. Graphics became the driving point as opposed to gameplay and games have suffered some due to that, but several amazing titles have been released, thus the industry is alive and well. Points systems are still in place in some games, but they really don't matter anymore.

A high score for me that really stuck out was in Tetris on the original Game Boy version when I finally scored 100,000+ points. I had been playing day in and day out to finally get above the 100,000 point mark, and then got in an epic round where I got my all time high score of 125,026 points. Before that I would usually lose in the 50,000 to 88,000 range. Tetris was so simple and so addicting, it remains to this day my favorite video game with a point score system because it's always loads of fun, no matter what circumstances I play under, and it never gets old. I still play every now and then when I am bored or stressed out.