I hate playing four games at once . . .

Okay so similar to 2007, there are a boatload of games during Q4 of 2008. And it just so happens that between October 14 and 28, four of those games were ones that I wanted to play. Now given that I am a student with a part-time job, I'm already short on free time to begin with and having four big games released within two of each other just makes things harder. The result? Well Dead Space ended up sitting unopened on my desk for nearly two weeks while I went from playing Saints Row 2 to Fable 2 to Far Cry 2. Then when I finally started Dead Space, Fallout 3 was about to come out. Right now I'm at a point where I'm essentially playing four games at once (thank God I'm pretty much done with Fable 2): half-way through Dead Space, just starting Fallout 3, finishing up the side missions in Saints Row 2, and about a quarter of the way through Far Cry 2. Of course things don't get much better in the coming weeks with Gears 2 dropping on the 7th and COD W@W not following far behind. Not to mention I'll be picking up Red Alert 3 on the 30th. I think by the middle of November I may be playing about 7 games at once.

My point? Well as pretty much everyone has been saying, game publishers should know by now that releasing their games during the year rather then all at once near the end of the year can be a good thing. Yes there are guys like me who are willing to play 4 games at once, but a lot of people when faced with the same dilemma will probably just buy one or two games, not all four. Now yes, statistics tell us that games coming out closer to the holiday season tends to sell better, but as common sense tells us that if the game is big enough or good enough, it will sell regardless of when it is released. Games like Fallout 3, Fable 2, Gears 2, etc. will sell well whether they are released in June or December. At least this way, we won't have to deal with multiple AAA titles releasing on the same day or within a few days of each other.

On a side note, yes Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns, but unlike what some others have said, I feel that, so far, Oblivion is the better game. Though ultimately time will tell . . .

Okay so similar to 2007, there are a boatload of games during Q4 of 2008. And it just so happens that between October 14 and 28, four of those games were ones that I wanted to play. Now given that I am a student with a part-time job, I'm already short on free time to begin with and having four big games released within two of each other just makes things harder. The result? Well Dead Space ended up sitting unopened on my desk for nearly two weeks while I went from playing Saints Row 2 to Fable 2 to Far Cry 2. Then when I finally started Dead Space, Fallout 3 was about to come out. Right now I'm at a point where I'm essentially playing four games at once (thank God I'm pretty much done with Fable 2): half-way through Dead Space, just starting Fallout 3, finishing up the side missions in Saints Row 2, and about a quarter of the way through Far Cry 2. Of course things don't get much better in the coming weeks with Gears 2 dropping on the 7th and COD W@W not following far behind. Not to mention I'll be picking up Red Alert 3 on the 30th. I think by the middle of November I may be playing about 7 games at once.

My point? Well as pretty much everyone has been saying, game publishers should know by now that releasing their games during the year rather then all at once near the end of the year can be a good thing. Yes there are guys like me who are willing to play 4 games at once, but a lot of people when faced with the same dilemma will probably just buy one or two games, not all four. Now yes, statistics tell us that games coming out closer to the holiday season tends to sell better, but as common sense tells us that if the game is big enough or good enough, it will sell regardless of when it is released. Games like Fallout 3, Fable 2, Gears 2, etc. will sell well whether they are released in June or December. At least this way, we won't have to deal with multiple AAA titles releasing on the same day or within a few days of each other.

On a side note, yes Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns, but unlike what some others have said, I feel that, so far, Oblivion is the better game. Though ultimately time will tell . . .

I remember when I was playing two games at once, Okami and F.E.A.R.

A fun\hard thing to do was decide (WHICH DO I PLAY...). Since they were both games I was enjoying a lot when I was playing them.

I usually do that, but this year I've been good. I got fable II on Friday and that's all I'm playing for now. When I finish that I'll get another new game. I've been considering getting the new midnight club game since driving games are a more casual experience for me, where I can just jump in, play a couple of races and then jump out again, but I know it'll end up digging into my fable 2 time. I'm sticking to one game at a time... I have self control... honest... I can do this... *Runs to the game store and buys Midnight club, Saints row 2, Far Cry 2, Dead space*. No, I can do this!!!!!!!

Hell I've probably bought 10 games already over the summer, many of them used & released 1-2 years ago. I'll play one for 3 weeks or longer before I get to the next one.  I don't like to switch between the games, you lose the gory details that the game is trying to present to you when you do not concentrate on it solely.  It's like reading a book for pleasure. Most people don't read more than one book at a time as you get more out of it when its sequential, rather than trying to multi-task different storylines.  In fact, they're already pointing out the fallacy of human multitasking ( http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html ).

For instance, let's say you're reading or playing a game where you're going up to a door in a creepy part of town. This should be the exciting part of the story/game, but then you find it's time to break away to play something else. By the time you get back to the game where you waited to look behind the door, you find you don't really care what's behind the door. The contents behind the door have become boring or predictable or the excitement is gone.

Usually what will happen is that when you dabble through 4-5 games, the one game that appeals to you the most, will be the one you play. All the others will get attention after you're done with the current favorite game.  Which could take weeks & then you have 3-4 'old' games that aren't as interesting now as they were when you bought them. They got stale.  Or those 'old' games have got cheaper. You paid $60 for them, but now the market dictates they're only worth $40, so you feel you bought them too soon...With 3-4 games, that's another game you could've bought if you got them for the $40 price range.

In some cases you can burn yourself out by playing too many games. You might feel you have to take a break. So it could be a few months or maybe half a year before you get back to the other games while you took a break.  Those are the consequences of having too much of a good thing.

What I do is buy a few games, usually used & after-market that have been out for awhile, & then will play them sequentially, when I get the time.  It might be a long time before I get to them, but when the time is available, I don't have to wait a week to order the game, I can just pop it off the shelf & get started.

In sum, buying 4 brand new A/AA/AAA games at once will lead to a waste of the enjoyment of the majority of those games, a waste of money as the price drops over time, & increase gamer burn-out risk.