Retro Games, Rotation, and the Gamer

- 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:

1. 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil
2. Alien: Isolation
3. Assassin's Creed Rogue
4. Assassin's Creed Unity
5. Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
6. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
7. Bound by Flame
8. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
9. CastleStorm: Definitive Edition
10. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
11. Chariot
12. Child of Light
13. Dark Souls II
14. Defense Grid 2
15. Destiny
16. Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition
17. Dragon Age: Inquisition
18. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z
19. EA Sports UFC
20. The Elder Scrolls Online
21. Elite: Dangerous
22. Escape Dead Island
23. The Evil Within
24. Fable Anniversary
25. Far Cry
26. Fez
27. FIFA 15
28. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
29. Forza Horizon 2
30. Goat Simulator
31. Grand Theft Auto Online
32. Grand Theft Auto V
33. Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
34. Halo: The Master Chief Collection
35. Halo: Spartan Assault
36. Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
37. How to Survive
38. Infamous: First Light
39. Infamous: Second Son
40. The Last of Us: Left Behind
41. LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
42. LEGO: The Hobbit
43. The LEGO Movie Videogame
44. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
45. LittleBigPlanet 3
46. Madden NFL 15
47. Mario Kart 8
48. Mario Golf: World Tour
49. Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
50. Metro Redux
51. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
52. Minecraft for X1 / PS4
53. MLB 14: The Show
54. NASCAR '14
55. NBA 2K15
56. Need for Speed Rivals: Complete Edition
57. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
58. Pinball FX 2
59. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
60. Pokémon Battle Trozei
61. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
62. Risen 3: Titan Lords
63. The Sims 4
64. Skylanders: Trap Team
65. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition
66. Sniper Elite III
67. South Park: The Stick of Truth
68. Sunset Overdrive
69. Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
70. Terraria
71. Thief
72. Titanfall
73. Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
74. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
75. Tropico 5
76. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
77. The Walking Dead
78. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate
79. Watch_Dogs
80. The Wolf Among Us
81. Wolfenstein: The New Order
82. World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition
83. World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
84. Worms Battlegrounds
85. 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!

. . . Xbox LIVE Arcade Gamer Points, Skateboards, and the end of the Summer Doldrums

It came a little earlier this year than it has in past years, but as far as I know, nobody who is not clinically insane has complained...  I am talking about the Summer Doldrums of course -- that dry period of roughly two-and-a-half-months during which no new games are released.  I did not actually grow up calling it the Summer Doldrums - having lived in Australia for all of the formative years of my life the "Summer Doldrums" arrived in the middle of the Winter -- and we had our own name for it - the Winter Freeze.

Whether you call it the Summer Doldrums or the Winter Freeze, what it is in simple terms is a drought of no games, which forces gamers to either replay their old games or mine through the games of previous years for titles that they never had the chance to play and so are new to them even though they are old to the rest of the planet.  Personally that was how I always preferred to do it since there were, often enough, some really great games that I did not get to play.

-- The Summer Doldrums 2012 --

 This year was different.  The same period over the course of the past few years was filled with non-gaming activities, so it was not like I was actually bored, but still...  The Summer was filled with taking the kids to the beach, slowly rolling through antique shops and tag sales looking for bargains, and then there was the week we spent as Boy Scout Camp, with my Son as the Scout and my wife and I sharing the week as adult supervision.  I would not want my son to know this, but I suspect that the adults actually had more fun than the kids in many respects, as Summer Camp was a chance for us to -- for the most part -- get away from literally everything.

No Summer Camp this year -- my son needed to make up a class that he had too many tardy marks in, so it was Summer School for him and that meant no Summer Camp.  Sigh.  There is also the point that I had to work since we did not take off the week of Summer Camp for holiday but that is besides the point...  The games that I chose to fill in for the lack of new titles were as follows and in no particular order:

• Gears of War (The original)
• G.R.A.W. (A disappointment but more on that in a bit)
• Assassin's Creed (Revisiting the original)
• Mafia II (Revisting)
• Dead Island (Revisiting)
• Madagascar 3 (Shock!  A new game release!)
• Toy Soldiers: Cold War (Revisited)
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Dawnguard (Work Game - I wrote the guide)
• Doom (Revisited)
• Minecraft for Xbox 360 (Revisited)
• Modern Warfare 3 (New to Me!)
• Scrap Metal (Revisited)
• Battlefield 3 (New to Me!)
• Need for Speed: Shift 2 Unleashed (New to Me!)
• Age of Booty (Revisited)
• Call of Duty Classic (Revisited)
• Crackdown 2 (Revisited)
• Hasbro Family Game Night: Sorry (New to Me!)
• Kung Fu Strike (New LIVE Arcade Title - for work)
• Puzzle Quest (Revisited)
• Wolfenstein 3D (New to Me!)
• Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII (New - for Work)
• Jane's Advanced Strike Fighter (New to Me!)
• Risen 2: Dark Waters (New release for work)
• Zuma (LIVE Arcade Revisited)
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (New LIVE Arcade Title for work)
• Final Fantasy XI (MMO, Revisited, it turns out you CAN go home again)

You may have noticed that I ended up playing a LOT of different games...  Well, the ones that are marked Revisited I actually owned already so that is not such a big deal...  There are a handful of new titles for work, but hey, that is for work, it does not count...

Tom Clancy's GRAW was a major disappointment and even more so because I was really looking forward to playing it -- but it turns out that after the second mission it is so badly bugged that it is not playable -- hence the disappointment.  I think if it had not been bugged I might have spent a few weeks on that game alone -- as I like that series and genre.

Crackdown 2 was a good revisit -- and a great game though you have to pace yourself and not get too much time in at any one session because it is a tense sort of play...  The Achievements for it are really brutal too -- I have owned my copy for something like two years, and I have only unlocked 12 of the 70 Achievements!

-- The End of the Doldrums --

Yesterday was my birthday and no fewer than five new games were released -- the two most notable being Sleeping Dogs and Darksiders II, both of which will factor as important games in the first half of the new gaming season I am convinced.  A glance at the release calendar shows that from here on out things only get better, so yeah, the Doldrums ended early this year, and that is reason to be happy!

I am going to go be happy now...  If you are a gamer on Cape Cod and a regular reader of the paper's game review section and blog, NOW is the time to start emailing your review requests -- so you know, go do that?






 

. . . The Gaming Season

In addition to being the periodical of recreational reading preferred by people whose interests include investing, finances, and business, Forbes Magazine fills a number of niche interests, from defining just what it means to be wealthy and who is, by those standards, wealthy...

It should not be much of a surprise that the subject of video games and gaming -- as well as gamers -- has slowly ninja'd its way into the magazine as, after all, the world of games and gaming easily fits into that special interest publication thanks to it applying among several subject headings -- from investment (a lot of game studios and some of the major game publishers are publicly- held companies) to recreation.

A lot of wealthy people (and people who would like to be wealthy) happen to be gamers -- I am not going to make hay on the notion that following the stock market and the process of investing in and speculating on stocks is often referred to by the participants as "playing the game" -- or the connection between competitiveness among gamers and that typically encountered in the world of investing and brokerages. Acknowledging it here should be sufficient to bring it to our attention.

In the Tech Section on the web-version of Forbes Magazine yesterday there is an article whose title is "Nike Says Video Games Like 2K Sports' NBA 2K12 Helps Sell Basketball Shoes" by games journo and contributing writer John Gaudiosi that, within the body, mentions the past performance in sales for the game and its expected sales, which have been severely impacted by the player strike in the NBA presently underway.

This is interesting largely because it demonstrates the relationship between what most people think of as regular seasons with the unique and completely unconnected Game Season, and specifically how the fiscal side of it relates to real-world events.

In the world of video games when a games journo references the 'season' they are not talking about the four divisions of the year (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) marked by particular weather patterns and daylight hours, or even the Financial Seasons that are typically defined as Financial Winters -- a period in which money is in low supply, Financial Springs -- a period in which there is money but its flow is reduced, Financial Summers -- a period in which the flow of money is increased, or Financial Falls -- a period during which cash flow and investments in a company tends to be increased.

The Gaming Season is defined as a standard 12-month period -- independent of the calendar year -- within which there are three distinct sub-seasons: The Holiday Season, Prime Season, and Summer Doldrums. Based upon their names you should be able to deduce with some accuracy the thematic score for this trio of sub-seasons, but to fully appreciate them it really is necessary to dedicate some effort in understanding -- and appreciating -- their unique natures.

Breaking Down the Sub-Seasons of Gaming

The first thing you should accept is that the gaming season violate the calendar, which we can loosely define as a typical year which runs from January through December, contains 52 weeks and any number of holidays, and is a logical way to define time, dates, and within it, seasons. The Gaming Season does not begin in January, it begins in September, with all of the events that take place prior to the magic date of September 1st being part of the previous Game Season.

We are presently in the 2011/2012 Game Season -- that is how we identify them by the way, using the two regular years in which they take place in order to indicate the package that we call the Game Season and that contains the aforementioned trio of sub-seasons.

The Gaming Sub-Seasons consist of:

• The Holiday Gaming Season
• The Prime Gaming Season
• The Summer Doldrums
  

The Holiday Gaming Season
September 01 thru December 24

As the name implies the first sub-season in gaming also comprises the first four months of the New Gaming Year, and is neatly divided into a pair of ranges, with the first half consisting mostly of games being released partly as a celebration of the end of the traditional final sub-season of the previous gaming year, and partly as a result of time -- more on that n a bit.

The second half of the Holiday Season is just what it sounds like: the period of time in which games that are being intentionally positioned for Christmas sales are released, and promoted.

A question of Time is what largely determined the designation of September as the kick-off point for the New Gaming Year. Several events occur in September of each year, starting with the wholly unofficial but still easily identified rebirth of the working year, the resumption of the education season (which incidentally shares a lot of common characteristics with the gaming seasons) and the cessation of the many elective activities that largely occupy the typical person's weekend leisure activities.

As the physical season winds down and Fall approaches, there is a perception that gamers have more time to play games, and that more than anything else is behind the designation of September as the star for the New Gaming Year.

Games that actually completed the development process in the first Quarter of the previous year have sat on the figurative shelves waiting for the new gaming year to begin so that they could make their way into the traditional starting point and, with luck and judgement of their merits, hopefully find there way into gamer hands, be the subject of much buzz, and claw their way through the cadre that makes up the short list for the competition for the title of Game of the Year.

Around mid-October the pre-release PR process begins for the games that have been held back for release with an eye on the Christmas shopping season emerge from their warm and safe cocoons, and the emphasis in presentation is largely geared towards appealing to the people who buy presents each Christmas (parents, grand parents, that sort of consumer) whose interest is largely limited towards comprehension of the potential value of a game as a gift -- and that translate roughly to convincing them that Junior or Sissy will really like this game!

Throughout this first sub-season there are sprinkled a handful of AAA titles that are cross-marketed to obtain the attention of the Xmas crowd (who we just discussed) and the gamers themselves, who naturally use a completely different criteria for judging the advisability of purchasing a game and, subsequently, receive a very different focus and pitch from the PR's.

That presents the basic picture for the first Sub-Season of the New Gaming Year and Season.

The Prime Gaming Season
January 01 thru May 31

This is the core of the gaming year -- and it is during this period that the major titles are released, as well as the games that the studios expect you to spend most of the Summer playing. Naturally the games that are targeted for release during the Prime Sub-Season tend to consist of the more complex and deeper (think large) games, and those that have a bigger-than-average online side to them.

The entire focus of PR efforts during this period is directed at gamers, not parents or grand parents, so there is a much more enthusiastic approach to the process.

These five months tend to be the period in which the major share of profits are obtained for the game studios and publishers, and it is during this period that most of the gamer poling takes place that will translate into DLC expansions in the next Game Year.

The Summer Doldrums
June 01 thru August 31

That unfortunate period in each year in which, typically, annual personal holidays take place and during which the majority of gamers have less time and pay less attention to gaming because there are a lot of other things that they do.

The less that is said about these three months the better.

Most gamers spend the Summer Doldrums catching up on the games that they own that they never finished for whatever reason.

---

Interrupt Driven

Web definitions:

Used to describe someone who moves through the a workday responding to a series of interruptions rather than the work goals originally set...

---

So welcome to the New Gaming Year!

As we progress into the hot-phase of the Holiday Sub-Season, you will be happy to learn that the 2011/2012 Gaming Year is shaping up to be a good one!

Here is what you can enjoy now, and what you have to look forward to for the 2011 Holiday Sub-Season:

• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marines (6 Sept) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Dead Island (9 Sept) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• NHL 12 (13 Sept) PS3 / Xbox 360
• Resident Evil 4 HD (20 Sept) PS3 / Xbox 360
• F1 (23 Sept) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• FIFA 12 (27 Sept) PC / PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Xbox 360 / Wii
• Resident Evil Code: Veronica X HD (27 Sept) PS3 / Xbox 360
• NBA 2K12 (04 Oct) PC / PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Xbox 360 / Wii
• RAGE (04 Oct) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Dead Rising 2: Off the Record (11 Oct) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• PES 2012 (14 Oct) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Spider Man: Edge of Time (14 Sept) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• X-Men Destiny (14 Sept) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• The Sims 3: Pets (18 Oct) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Batman: Arkham City (Oct 20) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Battlefield 3 (Oct) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• NCIS (Oct 31) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Puss in Boots (01 Nov) PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii
• Call of Duty: MW3 (08 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (11 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Assassins Creed: Revelations (15 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• Saints Row: The Third (15 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5 - 7 (18 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360 / Wii
• Need for Speed: The Run (18 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• WWE '12 (22 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360
• The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (25 Nov) PC /PS3 / Xbox 360

There are more of course, but the above is the highlight of the AAA titles that are set to rock your New Gaming Year.