1st July 2018 - Run and Jump Games

Today's Topic - 1st July 2018

Submitted by @Julian

There aren't many jump and run games coming out these days, why is that so? What do you think about jump and runs in general and do you still play them?

Some examples include (Mario Odyssey, A Hat in Time, Sonic, Shovel Knight, Mega Man)(edited)
Superuser - Last Sunday at 8:11 PM
I know this is breaking the format, but by jump and run are you referring to platformers?
Julian - Last Sunday at 8:13 PM
yes
Superuser - Last Sunday at 8:19 PM
I think there is presently a drought in the market. There simply isn't a lot of demand for them. To see why we have to go into history.

Circa 2007, 2D platformer games were all but dead. There was hardly any money going into them. At that point, a lot of independent developers caused a revolution thanks to their newfound ability to distribute games digitally. These developers had a little bit of industry experience (to support themselves), and as such were in their late 20s and didn't have established careers yet. This means they grew up in the heyday of platformers, the late 1980s and early 1990s.

This led to a lot of creative ideas put towards the genre, and many new subgenres like the 'roguelite' platformer were established.

Over time this generation has grown up and moved onto other things after they built homages to their nostalgia. After a few failed efforts by the likes of Ubisoft with Rayman Origins, it seemed platformers were not ready to receive AAA funding again, though Kickstarter definitely provided the genre some respite.

This lack of market demand, coupled with the fact the developers most affected by platformers, means indie development has shifted from its niche focus on platformers to a wide variety of genres, and big developers are likewise not supporting the platformer market. I think it's a question of money as much as it is generational. I fully expect we'll see a return of the early 3D/polygonal style of the PlayStation 1 in a few years, just like we saw a return and eventual re-decline of the 8-bit platformer in the past decade.
Space Tacos - Last Sunday at 8:22 PM
1. There are just as many platformers, if not more, coming out nowadays, if you count the indie scene.
2. Less of them are made by these big studios, because the core design of platformers is rather simple and in the age of this sophisticated hardware and a very competitive market one needs a great hook to support the game. (see pretty much every modern Mario game, indies with strong narratives and unusual gameplay ideas, like Braid and Unravel; also why Sonic's been in decline.)
3. The demand for platformers is still there, which is clearly shown by the Kickstarter successes of A Hat in Time and Shovel Knight. Thankfully, big publishers are starting to realize this: see new Mega Man games and remasters, Sonic Mania, EA and Microsoft giving support to indie projects.
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Silen - Last Sunday at 8:22 PM
There are way more options on what games you can make now, so it's not a huge surprise that strict platformer games fell out of favour, but I think you're a little bit misled by saying that there aren't many games. There aren't many games that are strictly platformers, but they have made their way into other genres (take games like celeste, meat boy, terraria, starbound, hollow knight, etc.). There used to be a lot of similar games in the past so developers started innovating new ideas or mixing up genres to make their games unique, just like any other genre out there. Take roguelikes - you've had games like FTL or Spelunky popularize it, but now there's bullethell games like isaac or gungeon, puzzle games like into the breach or rpg games that incorporate roguelike mechanics. Same way that Fortnite stole the spotlight as a ''PUBG'' clone, by innovating a tiny bit of casual building freedom into it.
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July 2, 2018
Holo - Last Monday at 1:07 AM
What would you be referring to with this? Two out of the five examples you listen are 3d and the others except sonic are 2D, by which I mean sonic has become a mix of 2d and 3d.
In my personal opinion games like that have been coming in different forms like cuphead, where it is not clearly a platformer but has a mix of elements from that genre.
July 4, 2018
Thinking Emoji Mushrooms - Yesterday at 11:59 AM
As above stated, 2 of the listed examples are 3D collect-a-thon games, which to genre-savvy gamers like myself are a far cry from A-to-B platformers. There are also significantly more linear A-to-B platformers than collect-a-thons, with the latter only recently seeing a boom in interest.

I think metroidvanias currently dominate the platforming genre right now though, I couldn't rightly say why but if I had to guess, it's because the niche traditional stage-based platformers used to fill has been taken up by mobile gaming and endless runners, and metroidvanias on the whole feel like they have more meat to them than the brief distraction the more score-based linear platformers do.

Even so, the genre is massive among indie circles and doesn't show any signs of dying anytime soon so if you're willing to look in places other than steam for your video games, you can likely find new ones to play in under 5 seconds of browsing itch.io