Day 29: Gamer Fatigue

I have a backlog of games piling up on my Amazon list for 'once I have the money and time'. The money part is tricky right now. The time part isn't much of a problem. However, a third variable has introduced itself: will. The situation plays out like this: Game X looks and sounds very good. I save up money to purchase X. I devote a free day or period to play X but I no longer want to play X. Why is this?

For one thing, there's so many god damn games coming out each year that choosing which titles to pick becomes an annual Sophie's Choice. With $60 price tags you really don't want to make a bad choice. The game has to look specifically interesting to you but it also can't be too experimental as it runs the risk of being an unsatisfying cult hit that maybe spawns a much better sequel down the line. For example, this year, do I pick the Legend of Zelda, a title developed over 5 years for a dying console? Do I pick Rage, the next evolution in the FPS genre from the fathers of the FPS genre? Do I pick Skyrim, the RPG that promises never to end? Do I pick Battlefield 3 or MW3, reliably popular shooters that promise competition for years to come? Do I pick Batman, the expanded sequel to THE best crafted superhero game of all time? Do I go old-school and pick a heart warming 2D platformer like Kirby, Rayman or Sonic for Saturday morning pajama memories and couch co-op? Do I choose the latest Assassin's Creed title, a series that's positioned itself to be the next Legend of Zelda that, despite annual installments, keeps getting bigger and better?

Ya know what? Maybe I'm too tired for any of them, let alone all of them. Just running through the list in my head makes me want to take a nap and the other half of the list is waiting for the beginning of next year.

My backlog of titles from the last couple of years looks less exciting with each day. Part of it is the incitement of new titles on the horizon and their sheer numbers. Another big blow to my excitement is realizing how many of these titles have sequels that have come out or are coming soon. It'd be like if someone recommends a book to you but before you can start reading it in earnest they recommend 2 or 3 more books in the series to accompany it. Before you've even started on one chapter you have a veritable gauntlet of content to muscle through. Anything presented before me as a chore or task requiring significant time and energy devoted to it isn't going to be very fun. It's enough to say, 'ya know what? I played an hour of this game and I didn't like it so I'm going to save myself 100s of hours of time and just avoid this series altogether.' That's all well and good for story driven games but what about others? It's even worse. If there's a cool game you want to try and essentially a new version of it comes out soon after then what's the point of even playing the old version anymore? It's now an obsolete relic that you missed the boat on the first time. Now there's no benefit to going back and trudging through the game when a newer, shinier, more polished version is just around the corner. And if around the next corner is a sequel to that one too...

Remember when we were kids and we couldn't play all the games we wanted? We'd get maybe a few games every year and that'd be it. We'd have our meager collections to play over and over again. Also we'd get to share with our buddies and play two meager collections over and over again. Nowadays, if you have the benefit of disposable income and a fair amount of time to devote, there's a new, high quality game out at least every month and every week during the fall and winter months. The joys of settling in with a title and building a long relationship with it are gone. No one has the time or will to go back because the games aren't as replayable as they used to be. And why bother when there's a better game coming out next month anyway? There's no relationship building with games nowadays. Games have joined prime time TV and blockbuster movies as water cooler talk and little else. Everyone plays a game to talk about it with their friends and understand the internet jokes. But once the game ends then it goes back on the shelf never to be seen or talked about again. I'm not sure what's caused this issue, I have my theories, but that's a problem worthy of its own post.

Of the games I own there's still several I've yet to finish or even play in earnest. Some of them are just terrible games I got for a song. Some are brutally difficult. And others are just not exciting at this juncture due to the level of time and energy needed to get the most out of experiences nowadays. I played Fallout: New Vegas, twice, and I loved every minute (when it wasn't crashing). However, it took me months of playing almost every day. I knew it would take a very long time and I knew it would demand a strangle hold on my life for the duration. That's fine every now and then but I can't do that shit every month even if it's just for a few days at a time.

As a result I've consistently found myself going back and sinking into older games that have plenty of life worth squeezing out. Games either I haven't fully digested (Torchlight), I haven't mastered (CSS), I haven't finished exploring (Borderlands), or I'm not willing to let go of yet (L4D, TF2). All the best games ever made (such as some of the ones I mentioned) get better the longer you play rather than grow tedious, repetitive and boring. Besides, with all the political bullshit with games going on nowadays like DLC, GOTY editions, online passes, DRM, it's sorta refreshing to just say 'fuck it' and ignore half the market for awhile and just focus on loving the games you have rather than splitting your attention 100 different ways. Every year, make your 3-5 picks and stick to em. If one of them sucks then don't dwell on it. Above all else, wait for the GOTY edition unless it's a multiplayer/community based game. If the game is good then it'll be just as good a year later and if it's not then you'll have forgotten about it and saved yourself the money, the time and most importantly the energy.