When I were a lad and this was nowt but fields, a visit to the nearest shop that sold computer games was a rare and treasured occurrence. Partly this was because my parents had an unerring ability to live in some of the dullest places imaginable, but also because in those pre-internet days, there was always this sense of the unknown when venturing into the hallowed halls of former high street stalwarts such as Virgin Megastore or John Menzies (Scottish equivalent to WHSmiths).
The continual deluge of content we can immerse ourselves in nowadays from official forums to fan blogs couldn’t even be conceived of in those days, where most info about new games came from a monthly magazine and where going all out on your marketing was taking out a two page spread for your advertisement. This meant that there was always an element of surprise and wonder when going games shopping – you’d never quite know what was going to be there, whether you’d encounter a sequel to a cherished favourite you’d never realised existed, or find a new gem to while away the hours.
Fast forward to today : the release schedule is known months in advance, carefully selected tidbits to whet the appetite are doled out according to a carefully plotted marketing strategy to ensure excitement is maximised just before launch and we’ve been saturated in enough trailers and frame by frame analysis to glean the smallest insight. But all of this means that before I wander into the nearest game store or even supermarket, I have a pretty good idea of what will be there and whether I want to buy it – the element of surprise has gone.
Some of this is undoubtedly nostalgia, and my growing cynicism as I get older, but I think we’ve lost something somehow, that joy and wonder and excitement of a new game, any new game. We’re so saturated with content that the pleasure of discovery has been taken from us. Perhaps its inevitable with the increasing budgets for the top titles – to stand any chance of recouping their costs they have to get the message out far and wide, but this has led to an increasing cynicism amongst gamers and we’ve lost our innocence somewhere. Maybe the change is so stark to me because it has happened in my lifetime – gaming is an industry that has grown up with its adherents.
I don’t have a fix for this, but when I think back to the simple joy I felt when I bought a new game, the sheer excitement of taking it home, carefully opening it and the first play and compare it to the guilt I feel when looking at the list of games sitting unplayed in my Steam library – something has been lost and not for the better.
