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26 translation contest: "Game on" » English to Swahili » Entry by Okuta Ochieng


Source text in English

Translation by Okuta Ochieng (#32230)

Computer games were, at one time, unified. We didn’t even have the term “casual game” in 1993, let alone the idea that a first-person shooter (then an unnamed genre) could be considered a “hardcore title.” There were people who played computer games, and people who didn’t. People who got way into golf or Harpoon or hearts or text adventures — those were the “hardcore” players, in that they played their chosen field obsessively.

When Myst and the CD-ROM finally broached the mass market, this ecosystem was disrupted. Myst had, Robyn Miller makes clear, been designed to appeal to non-gamers. It sold to them. Enthusiast magazines like Computer Gaming World couldn’t set the taste for the industry anymore: there were millions buying games who didn’t read these magazines. An entirely new breed of player. In this situation, what could be more natural than concocting an us-and-them formula? In a very real way, it was already true.

The great narrative of Myst is that the “hardcore” game press and playerbase lambasted it when it launched. Disowned it. A slideshow, they called it. Abstruse, idiotic puzzles; pretty graphics and not much depth. “Critics and hardcore game players universally panned it as a slide-show that had little actual gameplay interaction”, claimed PC Gamer’s Michael Wolf in 2001.That same year, a columnist for Maximum PC recalled Myst as a “tedious code-breaking and switch-throwing mess”, and saw its then-new remake realMYST as “a pointed reminder of why the press dumped on the original so heavily when it came out.”
Michezo ya tarakilishi, wakati mmoja, ilikuwa imeunganishwa. Hayukuwa hata na msamiati “michezo ya kawaida” katika mwaka wa 1993, achia mbali wazo kuwa mtu wa kwanza kulenga (wakati huo ikiwa aina isiyo na jina) angeweza kuzingatiwa kwa “taji la ugumu”. Kuna watu ambao walicheza michezo ya tarakilishi, na wale ambao hawakuicheza. Watu waliojiingiza katika mchezo wa gofu au mchezo wa chusa au karata au michezo ya maneno – hawa ndio walikuwa wachezaji “kamili”, kwa kuwa walicheza katika nyanja zao kwa kujituma kupindukia.
Hatimaye Myst na CD-ROM zilipoingia kwenye soko wazi, mfumo wa michezo ya tarakilishi ulivurugika. Myst, Robyn Miller anaweka wazi, ilikuwa imeundwa kuwavutia wasio wachezaji. Iliwapendeza. Majarida ya shauku kama vile Computer Gaming World haikuweza tena kuweka viwango vya vipimo vya sekta hii: kulikuwa na mamilioni waliokuwa wakinunua michezo ambao hawakusoma majarida haya. Walikuwa kizazi kipya kabisa cha wachezaji. Katika hali hii, nini kingekuwa cha asili zaidi kuliko kuunda fomula ya sisi-na-wao? Kwa uhalisia, jambo hili lilikuwa kweli tayari.
Simulizi kuu la Myst ni kuwa vyombo “kamili” vya habari na msingi wa wachezaji waliishutumu ilipozinduliwa. Waliikana. Waliirejelea kama kitu kisichokuwa na athari yoyote. Haikueleweka kwani ilijaa mafumbo ya ujinga; ilisheheni picha nzuri lakini haikuwa na mengi ya kina. “Wakosoaji na wachezaji “kamili” kwa pamoja waliikejeli kuwa ilikosa mashiko wala haikuwa na maingiliano halisi ya uchezaji”, alidai Michael Wolf wa PC Gamer mwakani 2001. Mwaka huo huo, mwandishi wa safu wa Maximum PC alirejelea Myst kama “fujo ya kuchosha ya kuvunja nambari na kubadili swichi”, na aliona realMYST, mfano wake mpya wakati huo, kama “ukumbusho elekezi kuhusu sababu ya vyombo vya habari kukemea vikali toleo asili lilipozinduliwa.”


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