Special interview with a veteran gamer

Today we have something interesting in the blog. I have interviewed a person who has a very strong connection with videogames. His name is Carlos Salmón, 46, he is from Cantabria. Here you have the full interview:

Ángel: Hello, Carlos. Welcome to GeloxGaming.

Carlos: Hello, Ángel. It’s a pleasure.

Ángel: Let’s start with the questions. Tell us a little bit about you. What do you do for a living?

Carlos: Well, there isn’t too much to say… I am a cook, I like my job and… that’s it. Hahahaha.

Ángel: Hahaha, fine, that’s good. What is your relationship with videogames?

Carlos: Since I was a child, since the 80s, when I started with the first games, in the arcades. I guess I was fascinated with the colours, Pac-Man, Ghosts n’ Goblins, where you had to rescue a princess as a knight. I spent a lot of money, I didn’t stop asking my mother to lend me money for playing. And apart from the games, I also liked the “community” there was in the arcades. We were like a group. When someone could pass a lot of levels with just one coin, it was like amazing for all of us, we used to look at that person and see him like our “little hero”. And sometimes you became one. I remember that me and a partner reached the level 78 of 100 in Bubble Bobble, a game about little dragons and bubbles, and we had a lot of people behind us, looking at us for seeing how far we could go, and we were able to complete the game, with just one game. The truth is that it was something satisfactory.

Ángel: What was your first console?

Carlos: I think it was the PlayStation One. Well, I had like a “false Game Boy”, you know, with two games or something like that, like that game of the snake and the apple, with rudimentary graphics, and I was always jealous about the people who had the Super Nintendo and that type of consoles. I used to play Street Fighter, and while I was spending coins in the arcades, other boys were playing it at home. But our family wasn’t in a perfect economic situation and when I had my first job and I could save some money I bought the PlayStation One jointly with my sister. It was so curious for me discovering that many of the games I used to play in the arcades were also in the PlayStation One. I didn’t have to spend more coins in playing each game anymore.

Ángel: Do you think there is something in videogames that has been disappearing during the pass of the years?

Carlos: It really caught my attention that in an Assassin’s Creed game, I don’t remember exactly which one, there was a chapter that wasn’t included in the game. And then, it was sold as an extra content. I didn’t understand why they hadn’t, just, included it in the game. It was obviously to make more money. And that kind of avarice of the companies of course increased over the years, and now, sometimes, games are broken when they are released. Companies don’t want to wait for releasing them, they don't want to polish it and release it with as few errors as possible. With the technology we have nowadays, now they can fix any bug just by launching a patch, a free update. I don’t know, when I was younger when you bought a videogame, that was what you had. You had to unlock everything by playing the game. But you could unlock anything, it was in the final game. You didn’t feel cheated. Now you may have to pay a lot for having everything in a game. Payment after payment. And with that the game results to be incredibly expensive. So that is something that I think it has disappeared. Unlocking things in the game instead of having to pay for all the content.

Ángel: If you had to give a rough estimate, how many videogames do you think you have played in your whole life?

Carlos: I am 46 years old… I have been playing since I was 8 or 9… I don’t know. Two thousand? In my whole life I think I have played between a thousand and five hundred and two thousand games. Well, I know that… I like to play for the trophies, the achievements, and I know that I have played at least two hundred and twenty one games, hahaha, because that’s the number of platinum trophies I have, but I am sure I’ve played much more. I think two thousand but I am not sure of the number, exactly. I have never thought about it.

Ángel: What are your favourite videogames?

Carlos: Uhh… I like freedom in videogames. I remember the first one I played with that freedom, it was kind of “I can do what I have always wanted to do”, and it was GTA III, where you had a city to explore entirely. About the graphics… I don’t usually think a lot about the graphics but about the gameplay, and seeing that I had a city where I entered in a car and I could listen to music, and being able to change the radio station… I don’t know, it was something that I had never seen before. Yeah, I think it was with GTA III how I was hooked on open world games. I could go wherever I wanted, if the game allowed me to do it. I really like that sensation of being able to go wherever you want, the open world games, I think they are also called sandbox. I also like adventure videogames, more or less linear, like Uncharted, Prince of Persia… Assassin’s Creed, well, Assassin’s Creed is an open world too. Sometimes I also play karting games. I think RPGs aren’t for me.

Ángel: What videogames have disappointed you the most?

Carlos: Well, “disappointed me”… I don’t punish a videogame because I don’t like it or… I don’t usually punish a videogame. Nowadays you enter in the social media and you see that people crush a videogame which has just been announced with a single trailer. There is an absurd hate to the gamer community who says they don’t like a game and then they are hated by other people. I am not that kind of person, because I know there is a job behind, and I don’t usually criticize the other’s job in that sense. I try anything and if I don’t like it… But disappointment… I can’t remember of one concrete game which has… Well. I have one. I really liked the Batman Arkham series, by Rocksteady Studios, and they recently released a game. And this is what I have said before. It was a game as a service, where you pay to have everything in the game. They released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. I didn’t buy it on the release, so it wasn’t a big outlay, I spent 20 euros. I tried it, I just completed the story, but I didn’t play anymore. You had to pay for a lot of things and the story wasn’t really good, actually. With that game I was disappointed, because I was expecting much more of a studio which made me play its games for too many hours, isolating myself to get into their stories, to feel immersed, and they did it. With three games that are really good, the Batman Arkham series. And after that experience seeing what it was this game…

Ángel: Do you prefer playing alone or with friends or other players?

Carlos: Having a free mode, adventures… I prefer to isolate myself, you know. So I think I prefer playing alone. But I also had good times playing with other people. I remember Resident Evil 5, which was criticized by many people, but for me was one of the best experiences, because I played it with a friend who was in Tudela. We laughed a lot, it was so funny to play that game in cooperative. I’ve had good experiences in multiplayer but of course I prefer playing alone.

Ángel: Specifically, what do you like the most about videogames?

Carlos: Learn about other cultures. The good part of Assassin’s Creed is that it’s made a really good story job. Being in other “worlds”, like in Egypt, the Vikings in Britain… I guess that’s it, explore other worlds, becoming another person, living other lives.

Ángel: Do you think that the narrative quality of videogames can be compared to the one of great cinema releases?

Carlos: Yes, of course. Definitely. There are so deep stories in videogames. Above all, indie studies take the risk with it. I started recently a game about a man who works on the radio and must solve a murder… Yeah, narratively they can be compared. In fact, a film has around 200 pages of script, and videogames like Red Dead Redemption 2 have thousands and thousands of dialogue pages. The job behind a videogame… can be compared to a great cinema release? In that level of narrative, of depth… You usually know more a videogame character than a film one, it also depends on the movie, but you have more time to develop that connection you have with the character you control. And economically, definitely. I think GTA V raised 1 billion of dollars in just three days. That is a complete nonsense. Economically videogames are more successful than films. I think GAME, in all its story, had generated around 2.8 billion euros, but GTA V in just a weekend raised 1 billion of dollars, and over the years it has been generating more and more, while a film it’s just watched once in the cinema. Obviously it can be sold in streaming platforms, and if it is successful it will continue generating income. But that is the same with videogames.

Ángel: Of the videogames already announced that are yet to be released, which one are you most looking forward to?

Carlos: I think all the community is waiting for GTA VI. But… Well, I played with a friend a videogame called It Takes Two, a game that you must play in cooperative with other person, and it is very entertaining, in fact it won the Game of the Year Award three years ago, and its developers have created a new videogame [Split Fiction], and it will be released on March 6th, I think. And that game from that company, It Takes Two, left me so satisfied that I will probably buy this new game, maybe on the release. I don’t usually buy games on their release, because as I said before, sometimes they are broken at the beginning, with many bugs and that kind of things. So yeah, that are the two videogames I look forward to the most, GTA VI and this new game.

Ángel: Have you ever felt so hooked by the story of a videogame that after finished it you had a sensation of “emptiness”, or satisfaction, or something like that?

Carlos: So many times. So many times. That thing of “Wow… And now what? What do I do now?”. Jokes apart, we all have a life and we must separate it from that, but there are videogames that hooks you so much. In fact, The Last of Us narratively, the first game and the second one, which is very, very adult… That thing of “videogames are for children” is already very outdated. That was said maybe 15 years ago, but nowadays there are some plots, moral dilemmas, and above all in The Last of Us, I think it is the game which have left me thinking “oh, I don’t want this to happen but it is happening because the game is forcing me to do it”. So yeah, there have been games that left me… I don’t know with a sensation of “emptiness”. Well, wanting more, of course, but with those moral dilemmas, overthinking about them, and then search for someone who had played that game to talk about it with him. It’s like a great film, you know? Of course there have been games like that. The Last of Us, the second more than the first, I think. In the first one the story is more… “topical”, it is something already seen before, in books, films… But the second part I think is the most advanced that I have seen narratively, despite a lot of criticizes you could hear over the internet. It is an incredible videogame and leaves you thinking a lot.

Ángel: To what extent do you think video games will evolve in terms of development and quality?

Carlos: Virtual reality is being used more and more. I think there will be a point where videogames will be photorealistic. I mean, they will be… just like what we see. I think in 15 years maximum. Obviously this will be possible with a high budget. You just have to look at the mods you can use on PC games. Sometimes you don’t know if it is real or if it is a videogame. So yeah, the photorealism I think is what we will have in some years. Now it looks like science fiction, but 25 years ago you didn’t expect for graphics like the ones we have now in God of War or even GTA V, The Last of Us, too, with those facial animations. I didn’t expect it, of course. Well, when I was playing Ghosts n’ Goblins, when I was playing those arcade games, I didn’t imagine the evolution we would see. And that was in just 25 years, more or less. So imagine what we will have in the next 25 years. And now people really want to see the best graphics. I just hope the script is not “forgotten”. But in terms of quality there will be a point where it won’t exist limits.

Ángel: And the final question: if you had the enough resources, if you could create your own videogame, with your own studio, what kind of videogame would be?

Carlos: Well… Hahaha. I would be a bit “copycat”. I would do like a GTA but in Cantabria. Hahahaha. You could go to the beach, you could go to the mountains, huh? To Potes. You could go eat some good blood sausages over there, in Ramales. You need some lemons for a recipe? You go to Ramales, then you go to Somo, to the beaches of Somo, Loredo… Something like that, I would do. An open world but where I live. I think Cantabria has everything, isn’t it? It has mountains. It would be an adventure game. And then I put an atmosphere of zombies… Well, considering I have my own resources… A criminal atmosphere, with some zombies… A rainy weather… Yeah, something like that. I choose Cantabria as the location, then you can choose between different stories… Well, it is something very ambitious, but imagination exists for something, right?

Ángel: Yes, of course. All right, Carlos. That’s all. Thank you so much.

Carlos: Thank you too.

Did you like this interview? I hope so, it's always interesting to know more about the evolution of videogames and the point of view of someone who has seen it. Wait for more content like this on our blog at GeloxGaming!