I Hate How Much Dissatisfaction Is Pushed In The Gaming Industry

The idea that what I just purchased is already obsolete kind of irks me, in the gaming industry at least.  Very few games get the privilege of being talked about frequently for some time (e.g. Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2) and of course those games earn the privilege because they’re great games.  I don’t like knowing that playing games long after their initial release date usually means no one online is talking about it, much less making a post about it and getting many people to talk about it.  Now that it’s out and the public can have it, makes it not quite as interesting as something that hasn’t been released yet.

This happens to most games (that aren’t hugely popular) usually about a month after they’ve been released.  Forums stop chit chatting, news posts slow down to almost nothing unless there’s new content or issues with the game.  Any people you do find still talking about it, unless it’s a problem, there’s not very many willing to chat about it.

This of course only applies to what is called, as coined by Topher Cantler from Retroforce GO!, Retro-Limbo; games that are too old to be new but too old to be retro.  Currently, these Retro-Limbo (R.L.) games fall between the latter years of PS1 - the Xbox, PS2, Gamecube era, with Dreamcast being excluded (because of the game types that were home to the system).  It even seems like early 360, Wii, PS3 games are included in this R.L. category.  There exist an incredible amount of games during these years that are just not talked about anymore, at least online.

What generates this frustration for me is that the gaming industry constantly pushes the “next big thing” always saying it’s better than this or better than the last one.  It makes you feel like if you don’t pick up now you’re “missing out” on something.  Nothing else compares to this game.  Of course these expectations are virtually never real, but everyone falls for it anyway, me included.  So us gamers rush to get all the new games, afraid we’ll miss something.  Then we end up with too many games at one time, with no time to play them all and some games either sit on the shelf for a long time or we get frustrated and stop playing at all for awhile.

Before you can play all the games the industry says you should, holy cow here come more and they’re better than everything you just purchased.  The cycle of never being satisfied starts.  When you’re not satisfied with something it makes it really hard to enjoy the item in question, and the gaming industry wants to make sure you’re never too satisfied so we keep biting the worm on the hook.

I know that this is how it goes with any product-demand situation, but if gamers love gaming in general so much, why are R.L. games just forgotten?  There are many retro minded websites and podcasts out there but the R.L. games are avoided as a subject and sometimes as a rule.

I love playing video games.  Not just new ones, but all of them.  I’m sure there are others out there who share in my frustration, and I hope they can overcome the pressure of the gaming industry.

The idea that what I just purchased is already obsolete kind of irks me, in the gaming industry at least.  Very few games get the privilege of being talked about frequently for some time (e.g. Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2) and of course those games earn the privilege because they’re great games.  I don’t like knowing that playing games long after their initial release date usually means no one online is talking about it, much less making a post about it and getting many people to talk about it.  Now that it’s out and the public can have it, makes it not quite as interesting as something that hasn’t been released yet.

This happens to most games (that aren’t hugely popular) usually about a month after they’ve been released.  Forums stop chit chatting, news posts slow down to almost nothing unless there’s new content or issues with the game.  Any people you do find still talking about it, unless it’s a problem, there’s not very many willing to chat about it.

This of course only applies to what is called, as coined by Topher Cantler from Retroforce GO!, Retro-Limbo; games that are too old to be new but too old to be retro.  Currently, these Retro-Limbo (R.L.) games fall between the latter years of PS1 - the Xbox, PS2, Gamecube era, with Dreamcast being excluded (because of the game types that were home to the system).  It even seems like early 360, Wii, PS3 games are included in this R.L. category.  There exist an incredible amount of games during these years that are just not talked about anymore, at least online.

What generates this frustration for me is that the gaming industry constantly pushes the “next big thing” always saying it’s better than this or better than the last one.  It makes you feel like if you don’t pick up now you’re “missing out” on something.  Nothing else compares to this game.  Of course these expectations are virtually never real, but everyone falls for it anyway, me included.  So us gamers rush to get all the new games, afraid we’ll miss something.  Then we end up with too many games at one time, with no time to play them all and some games either sit on the shelf for a long time or we get frustrated and stop playing at all for awhile.

Before you can play all the games the industry says you should, holy cow here come more and they’re better than everything you just purchased.  The cycle of never being satisfied starts.  When you’re not satisfied with something it makes it really hard to enjoy the item in question, and the gaming industry wants to make sure you’re never too satisfied so we keep biting the worm on the hook.

I know that this is how it goes with any product-demand situation, but if gamers love gaming in general so much, why are R.L. games just forgotten?  There are many retro minded websites and podcasts out there but the R.L. games are avoided as a subject and sometimes as a rule.

I love playing video games.  Not just new ones, but all of them.  I’m sure there are others out there who share in my frustration, and I hope they can overcome the pressure of the gaming industry.

I tend to buy new games to put on my shelf and leave until I decide to play them, so really nothing is new to me.

No idea why I do that.

I'm actually a little depressed at the thought of the hundreds of pounds I could have saved.

Well that's not really true.
Where as general forums and the press will go forward, if you go into individual forums you'll get quite a bit of discussion about them.

@SmugDarkLoser:
That is a good point.  I'm just speaking from my experiences with forums.  The forums I used to use, the individual boards were not very active, hence the part about only a user or two receiving a few replies but no more.

It's more about the mindset of "everything you've been waiting for last year is totally not as awesome as this thing you gotta wait another year for".  It's hard to not let that infect you if you read the news articles and previews too much.  The less I read about games I don't have, the more time I play the ones I do and I enjoy them more. 

The industry must hype the next big thing in order to move forward. If this wasn't the case, we'd still be marveling at and discussing Pong.

^ well I think his point is that we're not even discussing the games we're playing to an extent.

I personally don't feel I do that though.  Now don't get me wrong, I do talk about future games, but right now I'm writing something about my adventure playing through Infinite Undiscovery, I  do post on those forums over at xbox.com as well, and  I have made guides for the games (not walkthroughs but stuff like item creation guides, etc.)

I find that the best forums that are active are the jrpg boards over at xbox.com.  They're pretty much the same set of people throughout although the Final Fantasy 13 board does introduce a lot of people to these.
A board there will stay alive for a good amount of time but after a while, take Blue dragon's board for example, you'll really want to post what you want and then come back the next day.

Really good community over there.
The playstation boards are okay, but you'll probably have more luck posting on the xbox boards about the PS game if you want real discussion.  They're more like a gaming site's forums.

"

What generates this frustration for me is that the gaming industry constantly pushes the “next big thing”

"

I agree, and it's a damn shame.

Now, with PC gaming, you'll find old games still being played quite often, so long as they're pretty good. But to talk about them? The community is so fractured among different boards that it's difficult to actually maintain discussions as much. So the online part isn't so bad....but the discussion is rather difficult.

But I do understand your feeling of being pressured to get the "next big thing," being peddled by companies and websites. I really do love games and talking about them, but I don't want to be ushered from game to game just to keep pace with the discussion. While I have a modest backlog of games I need to play (the Yakuza series being the one I'm most excited for), I still would like to go revisit some classics. But it just seems like the moment you go back to play through one of your favorites from before (or a game you missed) or maybe a game you're just a few weeks behind on, and the conversation has moved on, leaving you with nobody to share experiences with.

The best advice I can give is tag your favorite game boards and help keep them alive for the next guy. Hopefully if there are enough people willing to monitor just a few of their favorites, people who come late to the party will still be able to enjoy a great game and discuss it. It won't stop everyone hyping the next game, but it's the best we can do. *goes off to tag a few of his favorite games' boards*

But I do understand your feeling of being pressured to get the "next big thing," being peddled by companies and websites. I really do love games and talking about them, but I don't want to be ushered from game to game just to keep pace with the discussion. While I have a modest backlog of games I need to play (the Yakuza series being the one I'm most excited for), I still would like to go revisit some classics. But it just seems like the moment you go back to play through one of your favorites from before (or a game you missed) or maybe a game you're just a few weeks behind on, and the conversation has moved on, leaving you with nobody to share experiences with.

There are so many older games that I keep coming back to time and time again, that you guys would laugh at me if I told you.  But mordecaix7's original post doesn't take the opposite side of that stance: That hyping up new games sometimes backfires. Look at how Spore's DRM caused a huge uproar, or how Too Human left many people disappointed.  That door swings both ways, and sometimes "latest" doesn't always mean "greatest"