Japanese Tired of Video Games? GREAT Discussion...

I still play too much and buy too much games, but it's admittedly not as satisfying as it was like a year ago. Even with multiplayer games with friends, now we're more likely to do other things than all huddle in front of a console.

Maybe it isn't growing up so much as its saturation, like when you eat too much of your favorite food and get so sick of it you can't bring yourself to eat again.

I played a lot of videogames in high school and completely ignored them in college, then after went right back into them big time. I might be taking another big break soon to regain my appetite.

The worst part is, as I have/make less time for games, I have more money to buy them and am our and about more so I find more deals.

Ugh.

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Originally posted by Gongos
i woudl sacrifice new zeldas, marios, metroids, starfoxes etc to start seeing miyamoto and others start reminding us why we got into this in the first place.

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Viewtiful Joe seems like the closest we would get to something like that, but unfortunately the game will sell like ass and developers will never speak of it again. I am, of course, assuming that it will play well and be worthy of being called the next Mario, as I think we all are, but that still won't make it sell.

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Originally posted by mattvanstone
Games get boring as you get older, least they have for me.

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Agreed. I really don't play that much. When I do, I fire up my Strikers cab for a few mins.

For stupid reasons I keep buying games, and never playing them.
Sometimes I'll play them for about five or ten minutes go "wow, this game rocks" then I'll stick it back on the shelf, and never touch it again.

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Originally posted by Master
The worst part is, as I have/make less time for games, I have more money to buy them and am our and about more so I find more deals.

Ugh.

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Bingo.

So don't you ever ask yourself why you keep buying games?

I play video games a lot. And I enjoy it because they are video games. Do I know if I will still like them in 5 years? Nope. Do I care, nope. I just play them because they are fun and I don't over think it. Some of you are making this into some big deal. Sure games arn't the same as they once were. I think that has something to a little with them being so popular here in the U.S. now, a lot of us played them when we were young and they were not so popular. But what are you going to, I still find that great games come out every year and I buy them. I buy lots of old stuff and relive some memories and build some new ones. This will all change of course when the craze of play-acting like Action heroes hits the U.S.

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Originally posted by Gongos
i noticed my decreased playime seems to correlate with spending too much time on a certain message board:sweat:

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I think we're all guilty of that. ;)

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Originally posted by Superstition

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Originally posted by Melf
and will soon be a dad

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Congratulations. I have a kid on the way too.

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Let's have a party, I'm going to be a dad also!

My interest in games is still big but I am more jaded and less patient playing them than when I was a little kid who looked at the screen in wonder. Games have lost a bit of mystery to them and some are just not as self rewarding as they once were. I now favour playing games with friends whenever I can, (timesplitters, halo, most fighters for example) over a long drawn out single player game.

The problem is that games have gotten too long and drawn out. These days they need to have 50 levels rather than 10 really good levels for people to feel like they are getting alot.(maybe this is a result of the different mediums? In the old days of carts things were small and in reasonable bite-sized chunks making them accessible to play and quickly get into. These days games are much longer and bigger in scope, taking up more time and taking longer to get into, so the gamer has to make a bigger commitment per game. Plus the fact that the market is flooded with more games overall. There is only so many hours in the day and apetites are only so big. Publishers don't listen to gamer needs though, and would rather all release the same things as each other for the quick $, potentially killing any further interest in games.)

The costs of making games has gone up, (prices are still high) developers are forced to make thier game the most special and epic and valuable thing out there to just to stand out on the shelves so they can ensure they make a profit. (slaves to market trends rather than creativity and experimental ideas) Risks are not taken as much, and people have grown to expect a "more of the same game I've been playing for ten years, so I'll hold off on a purchase" type attitude to things. When someone mentions the next yearly update to an ea game or a sequel to such and such franchise, the news goes over my head, unless it's of something really special. (halo, dues ex)

Games were once mysterious and you could experiment and play around with them in wonder of what things you could do in them. Like a little kid with a lego set who could stimulate thier minds and utilise thier own creativity, the game offered not only a challenge but unique experiences and rewards for your time. Alot has changed and people KNOW now what they want and choose not to stray from thier habits and usual likes, so now they are at a point where they are tired of games, (while habitually ignoring origial games over thier fave genres) thinking that games aren't unlimited in stimulation anymore. Finding out things for yourself in a game was an acheivment because it felt like you were the only one who could do it. Just trying to get past that hard level was a challenge you relished just to see more of what lies ahead. These days faqs are freely available and that creative thought process or sense of mystery of a game is no longer a drawing factor, especially since developers design thier games so that you are garuanteed to see everything in the game rather than forced to work hard for it to see it.

The business-like aproach of the game industry has pretty much overfed this group and gamers have less time to spend. The interest is still there for me, but the demand has lessened a little as a result of being jaded and tired of seeing the same games all the time followed up so quickly from one another. If great AAA titles appeared once in every 4 years and were an event in themselves upon thier release and so long as the idea is still kept fresh and is executed brilliantly, I think gamers would retain thier interests and keep focused on what fun games can really be. The only reason I feel tired is because of the sheer amount of releases and tendancies of games to feel samey. But developers love to just ride on a successful game and release a sequel using a similar engine which destroys the "specialness" of each game experience (and who are we to stop them? It's money) so it's hard for the core gamer to feel excited anymore.

For me games have become less about the player feelings, and more about the designers wanting to control the experience. It's taken out the joy or mystery that made them so fun to us as little kids who were free to explore our limited virtual environent. You knew the boundaries, were allowed to bend and break them, challenges were decided by you and it never felt like it was work.
But now you've established what you like in a game, the publishers use that info to guage what should really sell in an overecrowded market (the industry has just gotten too serious) and now we all feel tired playing games since we've all expected to see what we're going to see. I haven't really been that surprised about any of the latest games releases since they all try to follow the successful formula to avoid risks but forget to include something that wakes us up from what we've all come to expect to see in a game.

Alot of this might be because of the focus of developers has been on upping graphics, or focusing too much on a gimmick, or only releasing sequels to well known mascots, or ...many other habits of developers. But it's the feelings of the player that is lost, and developers forget to focus on trying to surprise us and make us rethink what we think games can be. The last time I was eager and excited was with regards to halo when all the ai and diaglogue and teammates were in shootout with covenants and how interesting and fresh it was to have those events happen around me not as a cause of me for once. Things that aren't tightly scripted by designers are what bring in the sense of life in the game. Don't hold the players hands desperately trying to show us all that you've created, instead let us just explore the game freely and let the surprises and dynamic behaviour of the game draw our attention so we can feel what is happening naturally. A good example is the sense of freedom in morrowind vs a typical final fatansy game. One is about the player, the other is about the designer. (The designer gives you the imaginary world and sets up the situations for you rather than allows the game to exist seperate of the player so the player is allowed to feel they are in the world with choices affecting situations later on)

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Originally posted by OmniGear
I find that now that I can readily obtain games, pretty much whenever I want, gaming isn't as "special" as it was when I was a kid. It would be a joyous day indeed when my parents would buy me a system or a game, and I'd just play it to death. I remember spending the whole winter of '96 with Mario 64, getting all 120 stars and all the secrets and stuff, and since that was the only game I had I treasured it alot more and didn't take it for granted. Same thing happened with Ocarina of Time.

But now, I see a game that I want and most of the time I buy it. Like I said, it just takes away that "special" feeling that a game gives you. Don't get me wrong though. I still love games today, and thoroughly enjoy most of the ones that I sit down with. It's just different, and I don't think anything can really change that.

I made a thread about all this gaming when you're younger and gaming when you're older stuff awhile back that expressed my thoughts on the matter pretty well.

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That sums it up pretty well. Everytime I see someone say "Games nowadays suck. They don't make them like they used to" it pisses me off. Games maybe different, but they aren't worse. It's just that shit seems alot cooler when you're 10 years old. I never hear anyone under 14 bitch about how games aren't innovative anymore.