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Gamers: Let's Slow Things Down

Posted by Bob Mackey

There's been a certain problem with gaming that's only gotten worse over time: it's what I like to call Late to the Party Syndrome. It happens whenever people on the Internet venture to talk about a game more than two weeks after its release date; daring to excuse their transgression, they proclaim themselves "late to the party" and sheepishly try to revive a lost conversation.

Of course, the problem isn't these "latecomers." We, as gamers, are becoming--or may have already become--a culture that absorbs new products as fast as possible in order to move onto the newest and next biggest thing. There's something to be said about the only acceptable window of conversation for a game being the two week period around its release, and when said game becomes retro rougly a decade later.

This is why I'm thankful for podcasts like 1UPFM, which has a "Backlog" section that features editors' thoughts on playing games from as far back as the mythical age of 2005. And, to be completely fair, the consume-and-forget lifestyle doesn't exist in the world of video games alone. I remember back when the last Harry Potter book came out, everyone on the Internet practically had a race to see who could finish it first. Whatever happened to savoring something you enjoy, and taking time out to reflect instead of binge?

Oh, and now that Stephanie Meyer's god-awful Twilight books are the Next Big Thing, several articles about them have basically stated, "Potter who?" ARGH.

Between schooling, writing, teaching, and blogging, I have very little free time as it is, so I may sound like a hypocrite in asking people to be less effective with their spare time. I, too, could joylessly rush through as many games as I could in my gaming time--but that doesn't sound very fun to me. Last night, I finished Fable 2, a game that took me roughly a month to get through. The main quest probably could have been finished in about a week, but I wanted to get as much out of the game as I could. Yes, I did miss out on the nine million other games that were released in that month-long time span, but you know what? They're not going anywhere.

Places like GameStop may be encouraging this sort of "Get rid of your games ASAP" behavior, but that doesn't mean you have to buy into it. I know I pimp the place out enough (and receive nothing from my pimpings), but get a GameFly subscription, stop hoarding, and quit viewing your games as ticking time bombs steadily decreasing in value. And most importantly, slow the hell down. Don't become an automaton speedrunning through Corporate Blockbuster Version A-13 motivated by peer pressure alone.

Related Links:

Square-Enix's Prez Sez: "Japan needs to be #1 in gaming again, homeslices."
Video Games Are Haute Couture
Going Back in There: My Very First Hour With Pokemon, part 1

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Posted Nov 13 2008, 01:00 PM

Filed under: fable 2, gaming culture, bob mackey, gamestop, gaming habits

Comments

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

My games right now: Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, the latter of which I fought viciously to get used not that long ago.

And I never sell off my old games. After selling off Strider, Contra, and DuckTales as a kid, I learned my lesson (granted, one or two of those were my dad's, but still).

But yeah, I hate the seeming urgency that seems to be behind playing games these days. On the other hand, it seems like there's a lot more to play these days, too. Still, I could never bring myself to get rid of any of it... not even the bad stuff.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

November 13, 2008 2:29 PM

Demaar said:

This is why achievements both bring me joy and rage. On one hand, they can greatly enhance the amount of play you can get out of a game without just playing it for the sake of playing. On the other, if they're too God damned easy or too God damned hard then they'll bring me no replay value at all. Of course, this only counts on 360. It DOES help to explain why I've been lingering on games for that console though.

DLC helps as well. I've been playing Rock Band more than I've been doing any other gaming of any sort.

Anyway, yeah, even though I do like to get through stuff quickly, it's mostly because I want to see where the game is going, not because I'm in a mad rush to get it out of the way and move onto the next big thing. People that do that need to reassess their time/money ratio.

November 13, 2008 3:25 PM

Luke said:

I've got to agree. Every new game still has to fight for time against Team Fortress 2, and probably will for years to come. I bought Mega Man 9 the day it came out and I've still only beaten one boss.

This insane race to use up (and then spoil the fuck out of) games as fast as possible is just another way of turning games into work. As if EVE and WoW's Level 70 weren't enough.

November 13, 2008 7:06 PM

Josh said:

I'm totally on board with this. This is just a general problem with all media, though, probably thanks to internet culture. I raced to finish Harry Potter, but not to "win" or anything, just because I knew that the internet would be awash with spoilers the next week. I can't read a lot of scifi blogs because they assume I've seen everything more than about six weeks old, and I'll have every show I'm watching on backlogged DVDs spoiled. Oh well...just writing this makes me feel like a cranky old man.

November 14, 2008 2:08 PM

Amber Ahlborn said:

Agreed indeed. Actually, I tend to do both; binge and savor. When I first play a game I have a habit of burning through it pretty fast (though lack of free time is putting the kibosh on this habit). But once I've played a game, I play it again eventually. I've never understood the attitude that once you've experienced something you sell it off and move on to the next thing as fast as possible. But then, I reread books too.

November 17, 2008 9:51 AM

Jeff Deck said:

Yeah, I appreciate this post (and am reading it five days after the fact, which perhaps fits in with this theme), as someone who is eternally behind the crest of the gaming wave, due to both money (everything eventually gets cheaper, so why not wait a bit) and time (not having). It feels like I am trying to find material for some fabulously ancient piece of technology whenever I go into a Gamestop to grub for used GBA games. Final Fantasy VI Advance only came out last year and already it has vanished from the face of the earth.

November 18, 2008 11:51 AM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

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Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

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