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!

. . . GamrCred

Last week I received a press release noting the beta for a new service I had not heard of before called GamrCred that was, in simple terms, an aggregation site for gamer reputation.

What it does is it gathers together three distinct areas of gamer life and quantifies it into a color-coded belt system of rank.  Those three areas are:

Play: The hours and achievements you earn from the games you play on networks such as Xbox LIVE, Playstation Network and Steam are measured and given a rank from Newbie to Boss, the more you play the higher you go.

Say: The engagement you receive on social media and your favorite game communities about the games you play.

Respect: The amount of GamrCred Respect you earn from your friends on all your platforms and communities.

Sounds pretty cool, right?  The service is in closed beta at the moment, and as the email invited me to request a beta code I went ahead and did so, but was shocked to discover upon redeeming it that the company that runs the service actually expected me (and everyone else who wanted to sign up) to hand over my user credentials for all of the gaming services I am active upon!  Xbox LIVE, PSN, Steam...  Not only was there no way I was going to do that, I actually felt the need to write about it to them, in preparation for writing about it professionally because it was such a glaringly obvious security issue...

So I did write to them, and was amazed at their reply, which was to tell me that they had been discussing the issue today (it seems I was not the first member of the games press to call that into question) and that they had made the decision to remove that requirement -- which may sound like little more than lip service if you are jaded (like me) but then they put their words into action, and within an hour of the email exchange the requirement to provide security creds for the gaming services had indeed been removed!

I am not completely finished in evaluating the services offered -- and I am a little stunned that I only rated a Blue Belt on the service (and here I thought I was a serious gamer LOL) -- but I can say that so far I am impressed by their integrity and concern for the community that they are in the process of building, and I plan to recommend it to my mates and especially the mates I game with.

If you are a gamer you should check it out -- point your browser at https://www.gamrcred.com and after you sign up be sure to add me to your list of followed if not friends!

Not only do you get your prowess evaluated but they offer a number of visual badges for you to use to show off that status on the web, on chat boards, and I suppose even in email if you wanted to...  Here is the collection of badges that they currently offer:

Profile Badge

Large Standard Badge

Small Standard Badge

Large Vertical Banner

Small Vertical Banner

Large Banner

Small Banner

In addition to the above badges (the bottom pair allow you to insert your own custom message into the banner, which means you can not only show off your "Belt" color/level, but you can also express yourself adding anything from a mood statement to your personal philosophy...  I suspect that for most gamers that custom message spot will be used to show their gamer motto -- which for me is a simple but highly appropriate message that communicates my own personal philosophy on gaming, which is Pizza First, Then War!

Seriously though, as odd as this feels to be saying, after contemplating what the GamrCred service offers and its value to the gaming community in general, I cannot escape the gut feeling that it is really about time someone came up with something like this!

I am no stranger to the concept of gamer cred, reputation, and status -- in fact I have written about it in many forms as part of my duties as a writer, games journo, and columnist...  Check out the following pieces, articles, and observations to see what I mean:

• Gamer Score 101 - Gaming Update (28 Dec 10)
• Ringing Your Bell -- Taking Credit for Your Gaming Prowess - Gaming Update (5 Aug 11)
• The Impact of Achievements and Trophies - Gaming Update (26 Dec 11)
• Evaluating Your Mad Gamer Skills - Gaming Update (24 Jan 12)
• Xbox LIVE Achievements and Gamerscores -- Game On @ Cape Cod Times (13 Mar 12)

That is just a brief selection of the pieces I have written about or relating to Achievements, Gamerscore, Trophies, and gamer reputation or creds, which I maintain is one of the most tended to elements of the identity of most gamers...  Considering that the score, count, reputation, and every other element or aspect to this is really only important to you and the handful of people you know on each of the gaming services you would not think it would be so important to most gamers, and yet it is!

I plan on keeping an eye on the GamrCred service and I will be writing about it as well, because I suspect it is going to carve out its own niche and end up being one of the most popular gamer rep services and sites in existence...  That and the unique approach that they have taken suggests to me that they have a very firm handle upon and, perhaps more important, a full understanding of the many different elements that go into establishing -- and defining -- a gamer's reputation.