Too many games, curse or blessing?

[Althea N Hell]

We're being saturated with grade-A game releases recently: Dark Souls, Arkham City, Saints Row the Third and of course Skyrim.

The fact that these games are all being released in close proximity to one another is no coincidence, these companies are each making a concerted play for YOUR money! But what is a gamer to do, how does one negotiate between his wants and desires for all of these titles and his economic bottom line?

Do you emphatically welcome all this gaming manna from heaven raining down upon us in one brilliant and beautiful bevy of binary beguilement? Or is it TOO much at once? Too much to choose from, too much to shell out 60 bucks a pop for, too much to squeeze into what little time you set aside for gaming each day?

And how do you go about choosing which games will end up on your shelf when the choices are all so appealing? Is it simply a matter of game length? Replayability? Loyalty to a certain developer? Metacritic rankings?

What's your poison?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I welcome it. My wallet curses it.

As for what I choose to get, I don't pay attention to reviews unless it's a game I haven't made up my mind about yet. Going back to September, I got Gears 3, ICO collection, Dark Souls, Batman Arkham City, and my latest is Battlefield 3.
Come next Tuesday--when I thought I'd finally be able to catch my breath because there was finally a week break between games, but nooooo--I'm getting Lord of the Ring, War in the North, then Modern Warfare 3, then Skyrim. Assuming the following games make it out before the end of the year, I'm also getting Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Ninja Gaiden 3. The last one on my list is Mass Effect 3.
So yeah, good for me, horrible for my poor wallet. NOTE: This doesn't include all the books and manga that keep coming out, which makes it even worse.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Buy the best-looking one now, Steam sale the rest later.

If it's a console exclusive, but it used later.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Thankfully the only one I am interested in is Skyrim, so I am safe. Of course, I am no stranger to pissing away money on video games so no biggie.

 

[TehCookie]

$60 for a game keeps me away from most of them, my problem is $5-10 games. I can spend $10 on a game that will last me just as long (if not longer) than a $60 one. Problem is I'll then buy 6 of those games instead and have more games than I have time to play. At least they keep me occupied while I wait for the price of the new one to drop.

 

[PeePantz]

I personally love it. While I'll be busy with a few of them, this will give time for the others to drop down in price.

 

[Delsana]

I like lots of games, but I like them to be of quality and the style I like.

I'm not going to agree that Saints Row is AAA.

 

[Althea N Hell]

I'm not going to agree that Saints Row is AAA.

Yeah I didn't feel right grouping that in with the other titles, but it's still definitely a game worthy of a purchase rather than a rental, one you know you'll get plenty of playtime and entertainment from.

 

[Delsana]

I'm not going to agree that Saints Row is AAA.

Yeah I didn't feel right grouping that in with the other titles, but it's still definitely a game worthy of a purchase rather than a rental, one you know you'll get plenty of playtime and entertainment from.

None of the Saint's Rows have been particularly intelligent in their design and their campaign gets repetitive quickly.

 

[Zhukov]

Drink deep while the water flows so you'll not go thirsty when the draught arrives.

(Christ, that sounded corny.)

Besides, it's not like the games disappear once the release gate has passed. What's stopping us from just picking them up later when the price has dropped and the Steam sale is doing its thing?

 

[Treblaine]

We're being saturated with grade-A game releases recently: Dark Souls, Arkham City, Saints Row the Third and of course Skyrim.

The fact that these games are all being released in close proximity to one another is no coincidence, these companies are each making a concerted play for YOUR money! But what is a gamer to do, how does one negotiate between his wants and desires for all of these titles and his economic bottom line?

Do you emphatically welcome all this gaming manna from heaven raining down upon us in one brilliant and beautiful bevy of binary beguilement? Or is it TOO much at once? Too much to choose from, too much to shell out 60 bucks a pop for, too much to squeeze into what little time you set aside for gaming each day?

And how do you go about choosing which games will end up on your shelf when the choices are all so appealing? Is it simply a matter of game length? Replayability? Loyalty to a certain developer? Metacritic rankings?

What's your poison?

I start the year with a LONG list of hopefuls.

But by the end of the year the list is much shorter as it turns out so many of them are so bad they are not worth either my time or money, or they just get delayed 6 months (or even 18 months) so they are on next years list:

Games I had such high hopes for but then dropped HARD:
-Bodycount
-Bulletstorm
-Alive: madness returns
-Dead Island
-Hunted: Demon's Forge
-Homefront
-Brink
-Dungeon siege 3


Games delayed:
-Inversion
-MGS HD collection (for europe)
-Mass Effect 3
-DOTA 2
-Max Payne 3

In the end I had about as many hopefuls as I did last year; about 26 full-price games on PC, 13 full price console games and again about 26 value-titles like PSN/XBLA games or any sub-$30 game on Steam.

What are those games? well:

For PC:

-Dead Space 2
-Serious Sam 3
-Portal 2
-Ass Creed Revelations
-Ass Creed brotherhood
-Batman: Arkham City
-BF3
-MW3
-Crysis 2
-DX:HR
-Dirt 3
-DoWII Retribution
-Dragon Age 2
-DNF
-Skyrim
-FEAR 3
-Fable 3
-Hard Reset
-LA NOIRE
-Rage
-Red Faction: Armadingdong
-Red orchestra 2
-Saints Row the Third
-Shogun 2
-WH40K: Space Marines!
-Witcher 2

For console:
-Gears 3
-Halo Anniversary
-Dark Souls
-Team Ico Colelction??? (might reconsider this one)
-R&C All 4 One
-Killzone 3
-Infamous 2
-Motrostorm Apocalypse
-Resistance 3
-LBP2
-UNCHARTED 3 DRAKE'S DECEPTION!
-Zelda Skyward Sword (my Christmas present hopefully)
-Kirby: Return to dreamland.


(Why this base 13, 26 for games? For luck? No, because there are 52 weeks in a year, that's 26 fortnights in a year, I figure 2 weeks per game is enough. Half as many console games as in practice they are about 2x as expensive factoring Steam Sales)

(How do I afford these? By giving up a phone contract and being a cheap bastard on pas-as-you-go. Seriously, $40 per month can fuck right off.)

 

[JesterRaiin]

What's your poison?

It's not that we need to play them all.
I like when there's a choice, however i'd rather welcome a few unique and refined products than multitude of similar games.
...and most of them with unacceptable flaws. :|

 

[Cowabungaa]

A curse, a definite curse.

Why? I've been in the situation where I had basically unlimited time and unlimited money to play all the games I wished for. And I did. And it became dull really really fast.

The thing is, at least in my case, when so much time is spend on one thing, the experience gets diluted. It just becomes too much, it looses it's shine, it's fun, I didn't appreciate the medium that was the videogame any longer.

So I'm glad my time is a lot more constrained these days, and that I have to pick my games more carefully. Makes playing them so much sweeter. Hence why I pushed at least three prominent titles from these months, AC: Revelations, Saints Row The Third and Uncharted 3, to December and January.

 

[Palademon]

I have so many games I haven't completed, but lack the enthusiasm to return to, and I keep starting new ones.

Current games I haven't finished: ALL FOUR OF MY PSP GAMES (FF Dissidia duodecim, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, Persona 3 Portable, and God Eater Burst), Xenoblade Chronicles, Bayonetta, Bionic Commando, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, No More Heroes 2, , Other M, The Metroid Prime Trilogy, Ocarina of Time 3D, Arkham City (done story), Dead Rising 2, Lego star wars: The complete Saga, Deus Ex HR, BioShock, El Shaddai, Ico, and yesterday I had the nerve to start Fallout 3.

I KEEP WANTING TO START, BUT I CAN'T FINISH.

 

[Redd the Sock]

On a personal level, I know it's a double edged sword. I love the endless options and enjoy the quantity of a hobby that once was rather sparse. On the other hand my backlogery has been hovering around the 90s unbeaten for a while, and beating a PSP God of War or Arkham city doesn't quite balance Skyrim. I'd rather too much than too little though. I may need the backlog if things shift too far to MMOs and social games.

From a business perspective however it's worrying. If they need to sell games new, lack of time to play all the released games will almost certainly lead to a lot of people buying used to same money and a lot non AAA titles going unsold. I might be crazy enough to buy the 5 games I want this month without question, but others not so much.

 

[dickywebster]

It depends, if you have the time, chances are you dont have the money for them, but if you have the money, you dont have the time.
Personally id say its a curse, especially as i need to find a bigger hard drive for my ps3 now and ive still got 3 games i cant play cause of space issues.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Whom do we need to punch to stop publishers overloading Q4 with quality? Execs? Or fellow gamers? Both, maybe?

Regardless, I think it's an idiotic curse. I don't have the time or the money to set aside for so many decent titles in so short a time. Which means I simply end up prioritising and forgetting about the less fortunate games. In the long run, they're just losing my cash.

I'm fairly sure the games industry is run by lunatics.

 

[Spygon]

Blessing i know that they will keep me going until at least march as the game industry calms down again.

 

[krazykidd]

Easy , i don't buy them all at once, i buy them one after the other, plus my birthday is the 6th of december and xmas is the 25th , so since most games come out during the holiday , and everyone knows i'm a video gamer i get bombarded with video games . Plus nOt every game interests me , i prefer rpgs so , i get every rpg first then all the rests. My main concern is game play time , so Dark souls and Skyrim take priority.

 

[Nieroshai]

Its sucks not to get all the release-day content, but I plan on getting a lot of them at some point or another. My release-date buys will be Skyrim and Skyward Sword. Already got Batman.