Thursday, March 25, 2010

Games by the Dozen

There are more than enough games to play. When I was in elementary school, it seemed like everybody played Super Mario Bros. Everybody played Castlevania. Everybody played Metroid.

Now...things are different.

There is no one game that everybody plays. We have options. A LOT of options. Every video game fan has a list of a thousand dollars worth of games that they wish they could play, but can't. And it's only partially because of the thousand dollars. We just can't play that many games in one lifetime.

These days, if I discover a friend has played the same game as me, it's a surprise.

I quit Allods almost as soon as I started. Not because I wasn't having a great time--I just got busy. After 2 weeks go by and you realize you haven't played a game, you wonder why you should bother going back at all. This happens to me a lot lately.

It's not really a bad thing. We have options. Personally, my opinion is...with so many games out there, and so little time...that means we don't have to spend any of our precious time playing anything but the most fantastic games at the lowest possible price. It's a great age to be a gamer. And it will only get better.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Though that does make it a bit tougher to make a living *making* games. ;)

Anton said...

But somehow, there are still people writing books. Games will keep coming, fear not!

Anonymous said...

Back then, though, every game was different. If you wanted to scratch the platformer itch, it was Mario, or .. Mario.

Now, yes, we have a gazillion choices, but how many of them are so very similar when measured by the yardstick of yesteryear? You couldn't be bothered to go back to Allods, not because you didn't want to play a DikuMUD MMORPG, but because there are so many other similar games, why pick that specific one?

I'm exactly the same, in that I started to play and enjoy Allods, then I stopped playing when I re-formatted my computer, and never bothered re-installing it. It was more inconvenience than it was worth when I could scratch the same itch with a game already on my hard drive.

mbp said...

@Tesh ... surely it is good for the games industry if people are playing lots of different games. Back when everyone spend 3 year playing WoW and nothing else only Blizzard made any money. Now some of that dosh is being spread around.

Anton said...

@ Bri
My "itches" have been social gaming, personal art projects, and taking care of my family. My Neverwinter Nights players pulled me back heavily into DM'ing my campaign (mostly weekends), but I also play Rock Band with my 2-year-old son (He actually just dances while the videos play, but it works!)

Anonymous said...

Oh, I definitely think it's better for devs and players overall, it's just that saturated markets (on both sides of the fence) means you have to step up and provide quality service or products to make a living at it.

That's not even a bad thing, either, just something that has changed, and slackers can't hold their own as easily as they might with a more captive market.

Gone are the days when you could get a job in games because you knew somebody and a few C++ scripts. Now, it's a more demanding place. Again, that's not bad, but making games is *work*, not some glamorous festival. Just sayin' ;)