Video game fatigue should not be a concept, let alone a reality. Among my library of games are titles considered classics, all time greats and modern tours de force yet I feel no great compulsion to play any of them. Maybe working in video game retail dealt a great blow to the joy of gaming for me, or is this something more endemic to the culture of games in general?
Not wanting to play through older games that I've already completed, that's understandable, yes? But lacking the interest to dedicate time to a release from the past couple years, one that's critically acclaimed, and a product that I plopped down hard earned cash on? That's absurd. The list of games I've left partially explored has become staggering.
The reason I find myself in this inexplicable miasma may be the overload inherent with my job, but I know many others in the same situation who don't work gaming retail. Before I started working under my current employ I considered myself a huge video game buff. I kept up with news in the industry every day, bought multiple games a year, and grew up with those interests. Turns out that pre-retail self of mine is what a fan should be.
Get people to buy as many games as possible, get them to sell them back to you, repeat. That's the retail view of a “core gamer.” Of course there's a segment of customers who don't want to sell games back, I myself am included in that group. But the first part of the message remains true - Get people to buy as many games as possible, who cares if they actually play them.
Flashback, 2011 - Skyrim, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword launch within a month of each other at the tail end of the year. I buy all 3, day one. Skyrim consumed me for untold hours, SWTOR presented a grand level of Star Wars narrative that I was fiending for and Zelda had a vast, water colored world that I was all too pleased to jump into. These three games were essentially all I would need for the coming year.
In comparison, in these early days of 2016 I find myself inundated with games. Three months into the year, over a half dozen games purchased (with plenty more for free from PSN/XBL). My pre order list spans the entire year and over a dozen games. For the first half of the year, multiple games a month. Stretching outward, games that have no solid release date, the mere ephemeral notion of their pending release somehow deserving five dollars. This should not be.
No wonder I don't want to play anything. it's like being at a Thanksgiving dinner and loading the entire damned feast on your plate. The joy, the wonder, the mystery of video games are wholly ruined in this situation. You know every single release, have the hype-train ringing in your ears and are expected to be excited about some game you normally may just say “that sounds cool” and pass on.
But, of course, it's an industry. Industries make products to be bought, whole sale, and moved on to the - hopefully - uninformed consumer. Some of us are fully and passionately engaged with the art and skill behind the crafting of this most interesting medium, but it’s a business. Every developer and publisher, no matter how seemingly altruistic, wants you to pre order and buy the deluxe edition of this new game you know nothing about, along with the season pass, the collector’s edition strategy guide and a hat and wallet to go along with it.
Not avoiding condemnation, I’ll admit that for some franchises I wear those badges of fandom on my flesh every day. What’s concerning is the level of throw away culture that’s creeping into the gaming industry. Before you count yourself above it, look hard at your gaming related purchases over the past couple years and try to really justify everything you’ve bought. I see countless people every week all too ready to commit time, money and energy to something that they won't care about in a month or so.
Consume less, enjoy more. Let's swear this oath for the year in games. Buy a few games that you know you can invest a lot in. Not in some “Huge Open World offering Hundreds of Hours of Gameplay” farce, but in genuine enjoyment of the craft actively laid out before you.
It doesn't matter if it's a dense single player campaign that you play multiple times over, a fighting game that you want to absolutely master or an MMO that you genuinely feel in awe of, try to find games that you personally connect with and then really dig deep into them. As much as we respect games as an art form and love gaming, let's keep our glasses on and not be blind to the industry that exploits the passion we have for our medium of choice.
