- or -
A Question of Retro Games,
Game Play
Rotation Lists,
& Modem Gamers
 |
| Well unless Angry Birds happens to be
in his Game Play Rotation List that is! |
The Most Dangerous Gamer (Comic)
by Nicole Wakelin on December 10, 2012
PREFACE
There has never been a better time to recover from lazy gamer syndrome or its counterpart - no-time-to-play-itus - than today. Now. Bear with me, all will become clear. But first we begin the lesson...
The Importance of Context
Contexts is wicked important. So are ideas like “logic” or
“expression” or even “thought” and “emotion” just to name
a few. One position on these matters can be found in the school of
Epistemology -- which is the philosophical science and discipline
under which we study and define how we know what we know - and the best
was to both communicate and illustrate those points.
At its most basic of definitions “Epistemology” is defined as the study of the nature and
scope of knowledge, as well as its justified belief and related
systems that extend from there. Epistemology
analyzes the nature
of knowledge -- and how it relates to similar notions such as truth,
belief and justification -- and then defines those words and terms
and their meaning in useful ways, so that we can thus carry on
dialogue together.
The discipline also addresses our means
of production of knowledge, and skepticism about different claims
therein. I find this immensely appropriate and even poetic when I
consider the alternate worlds that I have most recently existed in,
and in particular that of the Japan and its northern-most island,
Hokkaido, in the world of Hitman (2016), and the world that exists
within the construct of the game “Thief” which was for all
practical intentions, created in the late 1990s and refined in 2014
but depicts an industrial-age society on some alien world.
Sure, those are fictional worlds - or
are they? I can tell you that at times they felt very real to me -
and in particular the moral codes that appear to have usurped that of
the courts and Common Law in them.
And the Darwinian approach to moral
justification - something akin to Python Law rather than Common Law -
when it comes to the significance of and importance for “getting
even” or revenge - two themes that play significant roles in both
of those manufactured worlds.
Despite the fact that humanity - let
alone an individual citizen from one of the many different tribes
that human call “nation-states” under which the species has been
divided -- often and under conditions of grave danger seek that sort
of satisfaction. I'm just saying.
To have meaningful exchanges about
these - and other - topics we all need to agree on the basic
foundation points like the actual meaning of phrases like “Retro
Games,” or “Game Play Rotation List(s)” and even “Modern
Gamer(s),” and what about “Preface?” That being so, for the
record as I write this I am working from the following foundation
points:
Retro Games = Any game that is
older than the current season - but can be a very old game too.
Game Play Rotation List(s) = Any
game title you play regularly but especially one you have yet to
complete to your satisfaction.
Modern Gamer(s) = Me. You. Any
gamer currently gaming even if they began their gaming career in the
1970s. As long as they are still gaming and doing it on modern
hardware, they are a Modern Gamer.
Preface = The bits that come
before the meat of the story.
See? That wasn't so difficult, now was
it?
The Meat Part
Moore's law is an observation made by
Gordon Moore back in the day that the number of transistors in a
dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. His
observation turned out to be spot-on accurate, which is why they
named it after him. It probably didn't hurt that Gordon Moore was
also a co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and a little tech
company called Intel.
The paper that Moore wrote and
published in 1965 described the doubling - every year - in the number
of components per integrated circuit, and projected that the rate of
growth would continue for at least another decade - which turned out
to be a very conservative time estimate, hindsight being 20/20 and
all.
Borrowing from his experience I would
like to introduce to you:
Boots-Faubert's Law
So yeah, this is the paper I am writing
and publishing (well, article not so much as paper but still) that
history will draw upon to phrase what will become known as
Boots-Faubert's Law of Game Play Rotation - a simple law in gaming
that dictates that the typical Game Play Rotation List for a gamer
will double in size every 12 months as more games are added to the
list thanks to two basic principles:
(1) The wizards at game studios
continue to pump out games at a staggering rate, many of which are
classified as “must-play” titles; and
(2) The average gamer will not have
sufficient time in any given year to spend on completing these games,
which will cause a backlog of incomplete games (and games they never
got a chance to start playing in the first place) due to the lack of
sufficient time to play them all.
The reasoning for this has to do with
how big the video game industry has grown, and the fact that it
continues to grow, with new studios appearing practically every day.
2014
A good example of this trend and its
effect can be found in the year 2014. Bear in mind that a decade ago
the typical gaming season - which runs from September through May -
generally produced around six AAA titles in the “must-play”
category, and so was certainly within reach of the typical gamer.
Which was why we didn't really have Game Play Rotation Lists of the
sort we have now back then.
Fast forward to 2014 however, and the
situation has changed. Peruse this sampling of just the primary
“must-play” titles for that year:
- 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil
- Alien: Isolation
- Assassin's Creed Rogue
- Assassin's Creed Unity
- Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
- Bound by Flame
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- CastleStorm: Definitive Edition
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
- Chariot
- Child of Light
- Dark Souls II
- Defense Grid 2
- Destiny
- Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z
- EA Sports UFC
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- Elite: Dangerous
- Escape Dead Island
- The Evil Within
- Fable Anniversary
- Far Cry
- Fez
- FIFA 15
- Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
- Forza Horizon 2
- Goat Simulator
- Grand Theft Auto Online
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship
Edition
- Halo: The Master Chief Collection
- Halo: Spartan Assault
- Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
- How to Survive
- Infamous: First Light
- Infamous: Second Son
- The Last of Us: Left Behind
- LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
- LEGO: The Hobbit
- The LEGO Movie Videogame
- Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
- LittleBigPlanet 3
- Madden NFL 15
- Mario Kart 8
- Mario Golf: World Tour
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
- Metro Redux
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
- Minecraft for X1 / PS4
- MLB 14: The Show
- NASCAR '14
- NBA 2K15
- Need for Speed Rivals: Complete Edition
- Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
- Pinball FX 2
- Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
- Pokémon Battle Trozei
- Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
- Risen 3: Titan Lords
- The Sims 4
- Skylanders: Trap Team
- Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
- Sniper Elite III
- South Park: The Stick of Truth
- Sunset Overdrive
- Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
- Terraria
- Thief
- Titanfall
- Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
- Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
- Tropico 5
- Valiant Hearts: The Great War
- The Walking Dead
- Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate
- Watch_Dogs
- The Wolf Among Us
- Wolfenstein: The New Order
- World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition
- World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
- Worms Battlegrounds
- WWE 2K15
While not every gamer is going to like
every genre - so there will be some selective removals depending on
personal choice, the list above contains 85 games! And it does not
help matters that some of those titles don't really include official
endings - particularly the MMOs.
Sure I could have summarized that list
- but then it would not have contained the gut-punching impact that
the full list contains. And if you think that is a lot of games to
be released in one year, consider the fact that that list only
presents the AAA games - there are three times that number of lesser
and niche titles released in 2014 as well.
This is why the average gamer's Game
Play Rotation List is going to continue to grow with each passing
season.
Another Problem
If you think that the paractical limits
that usually apply - like only being able to afford X number of games
in any given year - is helpful, consider this new problem: Microsoft
has started GIVING games away for FREE to members of Xbox LIVE Gold.
Consider it - today when I checked the
list of free Gold games - under the Game With Gold Program - I found
the following titles:
Ryse: Son of Rome
Evolve Ultimate Edition
Darksiders
So there you have three more titles I
want to play. I WANT to play mind you. But I guarantee you that I
won't have the time to fully play them to my satisfaction, so as sure
as Bob's Your Uncle those three titles will end up being added to my
Game Play Rotation List.
What's the Solution, Kenneth?
I don't know about you lot, but the
idea of my GPRL simply ballooning forever bothers me. There are
loads of entertainment withering there just waiting for me to play!
Fortunately I have a solution. I say
we set aside Sunday afternoon through early evening for ME time.
Game Time. We dedicate ourselves to removing titles from our GPRLs
by really digging into a game every Sunday. Set Sunday aside for
gaming! Free the Games! YEAH!
