Overly Positive

Ah, Darwin. So stoic, is he not? Perhaps he could have used more games in his time. Still, there’s  a reason for his appearance in one of today’s posts.

Syncaine from Hardcore Casual went through a recent purge lately, as it seems to be the trend on a couple blogs, and did a full re-install of his computer. During this practice he came upon the notion that because of the distinct lack of games that made a re-appearance, and the lack of interest in future titles, that “2009 is looking like a sad year for gaming”.

C’mon now, Syncaine, turn that frown upside down! Actually, I think that it’s been a great year for gaming, and it all comes down to the “c” word (no, not “Crap”, you silly cynics). That word is “choice”.

In the face of saturation in a particular segment of the game market, I’ve always supported it and loved it because of a Darwinistic sense of gamer natural selection. Products that have the same bugs as others, but which don’t have the quality nor the outlook to survive will fade into the background, while truly innovative and interesting titles will succeed.  Developers who can adapt to an increasingly fickle generation of gamers will thrive, while others who cannot, will not. And that sense of adaptation, leading to more titles that try to branch out into different things rather than the same tired old formulae, will have to happen faster out of pure necessity.

The advantage is with the customer here, folks. Because there are so many choices, and because there are so many things we could choose to play, we can afford to be more discerning and selective with our products. I used to buy most things that were on the gaming market that were “cool” and “popular”. Part of this may have been my personal preferences, but part of it was that there simply wasn’t very much besides the big, major games out there.  We don’t have to worry about adapting or dealing with a game that we don’t find fun. We can simply try out any of the other alternatives out there, and have more flexibility to  look at something that might not get as much attention, like a Darkfall, or a Wolfenstein.  Or maybe you want to renew an old love, like a Guild Wars, an EQ2, or an EVE. Variety is the spice of life, and it has some way of seasoning things in the gaming industry as well.

So when I look at an empty hard drive with a few games on it like Syncaine’s, I don’t see despair over the decrease in quality of games. I see the ability for someone to have the flexibility to make the choice not to have as many. I see a selective gamer, one that knows what they want and installs what they want. The choices, even in 2009, are many, and I think we should be fortunate we can have the ability to apply a little biut of natural selection to the games we choose to play.

By the way, my hard drive?

• WAR
• Aion
• Champions Online
• Dragonica
• Guild Wars
• KOTOR II
• UT 2004
• Left 4 Dead