http://www.gamespy.com/articles/106/1067470p1.html
Dear Videogame Industry,
Hey, it's Mike Drucker again. Last time I wrote you, I was six years old and my house was robbed and I asked if you could send me free copies of all the NES games I lost. You never wrote back. It's okay; I emulate them now.
This time I've got a different favor to ask. You see, I've been playing videogames for my entire life. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting in front of my television for hours experiencing stories so vast that even Nintendo missed some of the sex stuff.
But recently, I've noticed a growing problem in my favorite hobby. I own three consoles, two handhelds, an iPhone, and a PC.
But, unlike anytime in the past, every current platform has multiple amazing titles worth playing to completion.
And you're releasing too goddamn many of them.
There are too many good games being released every week for me to keep up. Every day, Kotaku GameSpy releases videos of a new game that I'm going to have to buy because it builds on a foundation of nostalgia that only videogame developers know how to exploit.
I know, I know: "You don't have to buy every game that comes out," you're saying after taking the cigar out of your mouth.
Stop it.
Of course I'm not going to buy every shovelware horse-mating simulator and mini-game collection. But that's not because I'm a good person, that's because I hate shovelware. If all videogames were released by shovelware developers, I'd save so much money! That's like saying if all the porn was made by my grandma, I'd be capable of sustaining real relationships. It's not and I can't.
Every Tuesday, a dozen new role-playing epics and cinematic shooters and thousand-year-spanning strategy games are released. All of them are billed as the most important experience of my life by every videogame site I read. All of them are covered in the New York Times as a cultural event. All of them feature mind-blowing graphics and genre-bending gameplay with celebrity voice-acting and Pulitzer-worthy writing.
And here's what's really crazy: It's all true.
Videogame Industry, you're literally releasing too many good games. When I was a kid, not only were there less games, but there were less good games. Boogerman was one of the 10 best games of 1994. Boogerman. You know, the game with the superhero who shoots boogers? Top 10. With a bullet.
To look at it from another angle, a Legend Of Zelda game was probably the 10th-best game last year. If you told me that 15 years ago I would've drank, because weeping is so much less subtle.
Let me ask a question: has anyone actually beaten Dragon Age: Origins? I can't really tell. Every time I try to bring it up with another gamer, they start talking about Mass Effect 2, and when I bring up that I still didn't finish Mass Effect 1, they start talking about Heavy Rain. And then I have to Google Heavy Rain, because I thought it was the game about the guy with writer's block, but it turns out that game is Alan Wake.
You're releasing too many great games and I can't keep up.
"But movie studios release tons of movies every year and people never complain," you say.
Yeah, but "Avatar" wasn't thirty hours long and "Precious" didn't come in a $90 Special Edition where you get exclusive DLC featuring Mo'Nique beating Precious with Kratos' chain blades.
Stop making videogames for a year.
That's all I ask.
Stop making videogames for a year.
Is it that difficult? All I ever hear from videogame developers is how hard they work. Wouldn't it be nice to take a mandatory year-long vacation? Sleep in, play with the kids, I don't care.
Hell, I'm sure you guys have games that you haven't finished. You're working 18-hour days, six days a week; There's no way you've finished Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.
Stop making videogames for a year so I can breathe for a minute and beat Odin Sphere. Or Okami. Jesus, I've always really wanted to get into X-Com: UFO Defense. And Super Paper Mario is still half-done. God, there are so many. I was just proud that I finished Fallout 3 last year, which is not the year it was released.
Continue for your complimentary "Games Mike Hasn't Completed Yet Because There Are Too Many New Games" wall scroll!
Obviously, I won't finish all these games during your hiatus. I won't finish half. But at least I can finally understand what people mean when they talk about Tidus' dad actually being God. And other gamers will know why "Would you kindly" sends tingles up fans' spines and why the cake is a lie.
Do you understand me? Gamers can finally stop pretending to understand videogame memes and start enjoying them! Imagine how many fans of your franchises you'll create when people actually understand why Solid Snake is an old man in the future, but also an old man in the 1960s, but then not an old man in 1999.
I don't even know. I haven't finished the eight games released since 2007. My best guess is exercise.
"Why don't you just not buy any new games for a year instead of asking us to halt an entire industry?"
Good question, me.
First of all, I physically can't. I could stay at home all day, but then there's always Steam. I could sleep at work, but then there's the iTunes app store. I could just wander the streets, but then there's GameStop. It's literally impossible for me to exist in a world where the beckoning of new games doesn't haunt my every moment
And even if I could take an entire year off of buying games, there's just going to be an entire year's worth waiting for me when I start again. Bioshock 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Halo: Reach, Metal Gear: Something Something; there'll be too much to catch up on and I'll be right where I started.
"What about our profits?"
Seriously? Your profits? You charge me $60 a pop and then complain when I buy games used? Sorry that I'm not sympathetic to the economic problems of an industry that allowed Ensemble Studios to close. I don't know -- use all your pervy boob physics to make machinima porn. Don't act like you don't already do it.
I know you've got children to feed. You work in videogames and you can still have sex, lah dee dah. Show off. You want to use the programming skills you've developed over the years to sustain a comfortable lifestyle? Make some medical equipment. That's what BioWare did before it drained me of 80 bucks every month. No reason you couldn't create software for a heart pump for a year. It should offset the guilt you feel when my generation dies en masse at age 50.
Here's how much money I predict I'd save if I couldn't buy new games for a year:
And I need that house because it'd be nice to have the space to store all the videogames I'm going to buy in 2011.
Stop releasing new games.
Please.
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Wow, that's a very good article. And I totally agree!
