Sometime in the last two or three months something has occurred to me that has been gnawing at me for the last year or two. It’s all ways in the back of my mind and I usually discount it to me being lazy or bad at video games in general. But as we enter the very beginnings of 2013 and potentially a new console cycle(it’s about DAMN TIME!). I’ve begun to see things that weren’t there before; or perhaps were there but I didn’t notice before. There are FAR TOO MANY GAMES OUT THERE!
A lot of people jokingly complain about going broke during the last Steam Sale or having an incredible backlog of games. Me being one of those people. I’ve sitting here now with the soundtrack to Hotline Miami playing in my headphones. Which I wouldn’t even own if it wasn’t for it being $4 on a Steam Sale. Why? Not because it’s a bad game! I’m not even suggesting that. It’s because I have FAR TOO MANY GAMES to play to even deem it an idea to buy more. At this point if I played all the console and PC games I have to their completion I would probably be down at least around 150-250 hours. This sounds like a lot, but I’m not even counting old games that I bought on Steam because they were in a pack and cost me practically nothing. I’m not even counting the 9 THQ Games that I got from the Humble Bundle because I could pay a $1 a game. No, I’m talking the games that I have that I purchased with the intent of sitting down and playing the moment after I bought them.
Don’t forget, I don’t get paid to play games and review them. So any time I spend playing games is my “free” time and therefore sometimes can be at a premium. I’ve spent quite a lot of time over the past two months being sick during my “free” time; mainly from working or trying to work too many hours and not getting enough sleep. And what do I do then? I come home and buy a whole bunch of games that I will probably never complete or even start in some cases. Why? Because at the time of purchase I fully wholly believe that I will not only play these games but at the price I’m buying them for; it’s ludicrous to not buy them. But you see, I’m buying them on sale. But I know people who are buying all of these games at FULL PRICE! Why? Because they too believe that they will play these games to completion. Most of the time they even believe that pre-ordering and buying said games is the only way to ensure that they get to play them; any time around the time they want to play them. Which basically means, before everyone has “moved on…” I heard a game journalist spout this little gem the other night and I all most lost my shit.
“Moved on?” What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is that the same concept as not seeing the big movie during the premiere weekend or not watching the “hot” television show live? Oh god, it is… Isn’t it? There are actually people who look at a game’s launch week or month the same way people look at the premiere weekend or premiere night of a television show. Really? A movie costs around $10 and television shows probably cost around $1 each if you don’t watch many and you pay for cable or satellite and this is comparable to a $60 game? You guys MUST be joking….
Sadly they are not… There are lots of people who feel like not getting the game the during the first week of launch is a bad thing. I, in fact, used to be one of those people. Around 10 or so years ago when I was playing XBOX and PS2 like a freakin fiend. I would play a game a week. Except for some old standbys that were multiplayer. Like Halo, Mech Assault, etc… Back then I was getting around 1 game a month for free from my work (XBOX Evolved. the website, not the UK magazine that came later). But that was no where near enough for me. Was writing around 2-3 reviews a month to fill a one review quota. The art team on the website was starting to secretly hate me I think because they had to keep making custom mastheads for all of my latest and greatest feature reviews. I can’t say my reviews were good but they were the best on the website and my editor was all ways thrilled so what did I care. I was spending probably around triple what I made and trading games in for a quarter of their value to good ol Gamestop.
I don’t know when I woke up; probably around 2-3 weeks after the website went dark and I was no longer writing reviews. I was sitting playing something; rushing through to the end and I came to this realization,
“What the hell is the rush?”
I couldn’t answer. From then on I bought much fewer games and only purchased the titles that the people who got paid to write reviews said were really good. I never pre-ordered a game unless it had awesome special perks for doing so; then only grudgingly. But my philosophy about pre-ordering could fill another article so, I won’t go into that.
This kind of revelation is something that comes from either not having any money to support your habit anymore or simply realizing for yourself at some point. I often find friends who rush through titles get much less out of them and often are much harder on games in general.
“If it doesn’t strike me in the first ten minutes. It’s shit!”
No truer game critic words have ever been spoken by someone who is paying $60 a pop for their games and not getting them from the publishers for free. It’s very sad and as someone who knows this I try to give you the consumer(last two months not withstanding) a kind of best/worst of game reviews. So that if there is something out there that you absolutely MUST play or MUST NOT play. I try and cover it. But this seems to be beginning to veer slightly from my original statement. But you’ll see it really doesn’t….
This year was an amazing and strange year for games. Things that we thought we understood have been proven in some cases to be completely wrong. Which is a cryptic way of saying that this was the year of the Indie Game. Games that were in the past thought to be too small or too low budget to compete have been proved to be excellent experiences worthy of our time. Games like:
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton)
Trials Evolution (RedLynx)
There are so many more than the ones above. But each of the above games showed that they could compete in ways that made mainstream AAA publisher stand up and take notice. Which is wonderful for the industry. As are programs like Humble Bundle. Where a bunch of small games get bunched together for a modest starting price and then the audience pays whatever they want. Some money goes to Charity, some to the developers, and usually a very small amount to the Humble Bundle folks. This works like a Steam Sale. It’s great for customers and developers alike because even if the developers don’t make a lot of money during the sale. The word of mouth on their games all ways spikes drastically. With everyone from gaming press to other publishers and developers to even just the average gamer who might tell a few friends on Twitter or Facebook. So this is great stuff.
All of this stuff is great and there has never been a time in our “hobby.” God I hate it when people call it that… To get a load of good games for a low price(as long as your doing it on the PC."). And even if your not playing PC games, there are tons of games on XBLA and PSN. Especially with the Playstation Plus Program; you can get games for free or at a steep discount. The problem with all of this is that we ACTUALLY have to have time to play them.
I did get Halo 4 and Black Ops 2 during their respective launch weeks (congrats! 343 and Treyarch, you convinced me to pay full price for your games, good job guys. Don’t expect it to happen every year, k…) I had Halo 4 first, and I had to read 3 books and watch a movie before I started the campaign as to know what was going(glad I did, thanks to the folks on Twitter that suggested that). So I just began playing multiplayer. Which took me right into the Black Ops 2 launch. Which I normally don’t play the campaign for COD games, as when I have; I haven’t like it. I will probably play this one, eventually. Anyway, so I began playing multiplayer for BLOPS 2. Only to realize a week or two later(I was sick for about a week during this period). That I could now play the Halo 4 campaign. Which I have started and it’s quite amazing(awesome graphics, incredible voice acting, etc..). But in that time I’ve also prestiged in BLOPS 2 and I’m around level 25+ and screwing around is fun enough that I might want to prestige again.
But since, I bought games during the big holiday sales and picking up Hitman Absolution, Dishonored, Need for Speed Most Wanted, and a copy of Mass Effect 3(for $5) to finish off the DLC that I’ve missed since launch. Along with that, I have copies of Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed and Far Cry 3 to review. Also, I was able to pick up a few games during the latest Steam Sale. Oh, did I mention I haven’t finished Borderlands 2 yet? Yes, my original intent before any of these other games came out was to finish Borderlands 2. But that seems like a distant memory now.
No matter what you might think of any of the games I just mentioned. You can’t argue that they are some of the best games of the year. So it’s not like I’m wasting my time on bad games. But come on, how is a normal person who has a life(watches a little TV, reads books, has a job, and occasionally watches videos on the internet). Supposed to keep up with all this? If every publisher just published one or two games a year. They would be consumed and finished by everyone(as long as they were good games). But at some point. Perhaps during the PS2/XBOX/Gamecube era. Everyone both in the industry and consumers of the industry decided that there had to be tons of games coming out. Well, now with indie games, AAA titles, and IOS/Android we have that and I think it is terrible for everyone. Especially the industry… Even among friends or other people who play lots of games. I’m rarely playing the same thing my friends are and if I am I’m usually either much farther in it or not even close to where they are in it. Why, because I either wanted to play something else right after it or I was playing something else and I’m late to begin playing it.
All of this is actually very crazy considering once December is over. There is going to be a virtual avalanche of games that got out of BLOPS 2 and Halo 4s way. They will start coming in January and build to a crescendo by March. In fact, unless a lot of games are delayed; this will be the biggest release list ever for March, in HISTORY. Does anyone actually think that all those games are going to get the kind of numbers they deserve? Of course not, why would they? We have all been spending money like mad people just to keep up with the games that have been coming out since the end of August. Let alone have lots of it let over for March. After Christmas and before Tax Refunds. Probably not the best place to put your big AAA, we need this to sell a few million copies game. But this is all a symptom of having so much product on the shelf by an ever dwindling number of publishers and developers.
There probably plenty of you out there railing against what I’m saying. Instead demanding that there aren’t ENOUGH games coming out every year; not too many. Well, if only there was some way that I could prove you wrong…. There is, the game industry has been on a steady decline since 2010 when we had our little economic crash here in the US and in Europe. Games have been selling fewer copes, developers are being closed down and there are fewer and fewer new IPs from AAA developers because it is just too risky. Most are hoping for a new console cycle to reset all their problems. But this is not an issue of innovation, excitement, or even descent games. Games have never been better and we are probably looking at time of maximum innovation. But there are only so many dollars to go around. If the hardcore can’t support every game the way it should be supported, then who will? No one…
This has been a very long article to simply state that there are WAY too many games coming out every year and that most people either never play or never finish most of them. Developers and Publishers should get together and create fewer bigger projects and make sure they are wonderful. Because the other thing that really kills is a game that could have been awesome if it just had a little more time to get better polished, play tested, etc… No one cares if you hit your ship deadline if your game is a pile of buggy crap.
Some people may believe that my stance here will squash innovation and make every game a COD or Halo clone. No, because with so few games they won’t sell either. By changing the parameters of your whole market, you lose all the garbage and only the best is left. And, I’m sorry to say that this happening slowly and naturally anyway as the market responds to middling games. This involves studio closures and massive layoffs. At least my way, every gets to keep their job and we get some REALLY good games.
In closing, I would love to say that this article is simply an apology from a part time game journalist who’s website probably won’t have much of a Game of the Year feature this year. But its far worse than that. I truly believe that unless publishers put the reigns on how many games they make a year. We very well may see a drastic and catastrophic decline in the industry. In this case, all games would be free to play or subscription MMOs. That way developers and publishers would get a constant drip of funding. But the quality of these games would surely suffer for it and games that are single player narrative type experiences would disappear completely unless they had funding through Kickstarter or some other investor base. If nothing else, look at the number of game journalists this year, who’s job it is to keep up with games that are scrambling to play a whole pile of titles just to not sound uninformed during Game of the Year discussions. If they can’t keep up, what hope do any of the rest of us have?
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