There is a HUGE problem with today's video gamer, and the games.....

[Manga4life]

Remember back in the day when you would play a game over and over and you knew every trick in the book, every nook and cranny, and every in and out of that specific title? Remember when you would bond with your games and spend hours upon hours playing them to the point to where you believed you were the best player of that specific game in the world? Well, guess what....you did and it happened. That's why you're here! You're here because the games of yesterday excited you so much that you collect them and still play them today, but the problem is that in 20 years you'll still remember those classic games but today's games you won't remember nearly as much....if at all. Today's gamer usually plays a game once and then trades it in or sells it to buy a new game, It's a mentality that I like to call "one and done" and they're trying to constantly move onto the next big thing instead of savoring what's in front of them with the games that they have. I have a friend who buys a game, plays it for a week and then goes out and buys two more before finishing the game he was originally playing. Now, he starts playing the new games two at a time while ignoring the game he's currently playing and then he decides that he'll just trade in the first game toward a new game and now he's got three games he's not playing, rinse and repeat. A lot of gamers are like that these days, I read the "What are you playing" threads on almost every forum I'm a part of and it's something new every week for most people and I find it sad. 25 years after The Legend of Zelda was released people can still remember where all the hidden walls are, or where to burn a tree, or the configuration for getting to the cemetery, or how to do this or that, but in 25 years nobody is even going to remember this generation or games or the last because the games themselves weren't that memorable and most people adopted this "one and done" method of gaming.

What do you guys think?

[ProjectCamaro]

I know for me one of the reasons I would play games over and over is we didn't have the money to go out and keep buying new games. Kids now are use to continually getting new games so why would they go back to reply them over and over when a new one falls in their lap?

I think the other issue is most games today that make it big are this COD clones where the games themselves don't promote exploration and instead force you to take the exact same route every time and they don't install the natural short cuts and tricks that games use to.

[Cornelius]

A couple observations.

When I was a kid it was maybe acknowledged that too much time in front of the TV probably wasn't the greatest for growing brains, but it was allowed anyway. Now, at least in the parenting circles I'm in, screen time is tightly controlled and regulated. It'd take years to find everything in Zelda at 30 minutes a day.

For adult gamers, like myself, I don't have time for the commitment of NES Zelda (without guides). Also, story is so much more important to me now, when it was mostly about 'gameplay' (whatever that means) in the NES heyday. When I finish a game now, I've seen the story and that's pretty much it for me.

Games are cheaper now, and more 'acceptable', so gamers and parents purchase more of them. Back then, getting a new game was something that happened 2 or 3 times a year.

[Polygon]

I don't think that's true of all newer gamers or all new games, but I do think it's problem to a degree since a lot of games these days seem to lack substance. There are a lot that it's all about the graphics which, as we know, does not equate to fun. I'm not saying all newer games are like this, but a lot of them are. It also a different generation that is getting bombarded from every angle with entertainment options and I think it's made them have ADD to some degree to where they get bored of thing quickly since they have so much pining for their attention.

[Bojay1997]

I know for me one of the reasons I would play games over and over is we didn't have the money to go out and keep buying new games. Kids now are use to continually getting new games so why would they go back to reply them over and over when a new one falls in their lap?

I think the other issue is most games today that make it big are this COD clones where the games themselves don't promote exploration and instead force you to take the exact same route every time and they don't install the natural short cuts and tricks that games use to.

I agree strongly with the first statement. Of course, once places like Blockbuster and other video stores started renting games, it made it much easier to continually play new console games. I don't think games used to be better or that gamers were better back in the 8 bit days. I just think we had less options that we do now and less disposable income. I remember moments from plenty of recent games and there are "classics" released all the time that stay with me just as much as the older games do.

[wiggyx]

Remember back in the day when you would play a game over and over and you knew every trick in the book, every nook and cranny, and every in and out of that specific title? Remember when you would bond with your games and spend hours upon hours playing them to the point to where you believed you were the best player of that specific game in the world?

Games were a lot "smaller" back then. I totally recall bombing EVERY stone wall in Zelda. But that sort of thing would take an insane amount of time in any modern Zelda.

...The problem is that in 20 years you'll still remember those classic games but today's games you won't remember nearly as much....if at all.

Why? There are plenty of modern games that I have just as much love for. Shadow of the Colossus, Journey, The Katamari Series, Portal 1 & 2, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Super Mario 64, any number of the zillions of PS1 JRPGs, etc. There are TONS of amazing modern games out there that I truly believe will stand the test of time.

Today's gamer usually plays a game once and then trades it in or sells it to buy a new game, It's a mentality that I like to call "one and done" and they're trying to constantly move onto the next big thing instead of savoring what's in front of them with the games that they have. I have a friend who buys a game, plays it for a week and then goes out and buys two more before finishing the game he was originally playing.

This was totally a thing back in the 90's in my area. LOTS of kids were always trading up for the next big thing. It's often the only way to get new games as a kid since money isn't exactly something that comes easy for most.

A lot of gamers are like that these days, I read the "What are you playing" threads on almost every forum I'm a part of and it's something new every week for most people and I find it sad.

I think this is typical of the adult gamer. We (for the most part) have more money to spend, thus our collections can grow considerably quicker, and as such we end up playing more than one game at a time. Plus, sometimes I'm in the mood to drive race cars, sometimes blast dudes with a big gun, and sometimes just wander around a serene landscape. I like having options to fit my mood, energy level, and amount of time I have to play.

25 years after The Legend of Zelda was released people can still remember where all the hidden walls are, or where to burn a tree, or the configuration for getting to the cemetery, or how to do this or that, but in 25 years nobody is even going to remember this generation or games or the last because the games themselves weren't that memorable and most people adopted this "one and done" method of gaming.

What do you guys think?

Another thing to remember is that there weren't the glut of game releases that there are today and we didn't have 3 or 4 or 5+ consoles to pick games for like we do today, not to mention a huge back catalog of games from earlier generation consoles that we have all come to know and love. There was the NES and the Master System, which wasn't exactly leading the pack in terms of dumping a huge number of A+ titles on a monthly basis. In fact, neither really was. The great games were few and far between the crap. The mid-80's were a rebuilding time for VGs. The market was very cautious and retailers were just warming up to the idea of selling VGs again after the big crash.


Honestly, I really like the current state of gaming. Lots of indie developers doing really cool new stuff, the online community which has really opened my eyes to games and genres that I may never have tried, not to mention some great games that I never knew existed, powerful consoles that can do things that would have made me cry as a child, and so on. My only hope is that the next generation of consoles manage to be relevant. The leaps and bounds that we've seen when jumping from one generation to the next in processing power, graphics, AI, and so forth aren't going to exist with the next jump. And even if the processing power is there, it's up to developers to make the most of that power, which is a huge burden and will likely add even more cost to the development process (and thus higher prices for us, along with all that DLC and whatnot that can make a $60 game turn into a $100+ game really quickly). I don't know if gamers will really want to spend another $XXX dollars on a new machine when it doesn't seem to offer much over what's already hooked up to their TVs. I know I'm not all that amped about the next gen and the "me too" features that they seem to be adding to entice us. I can't imagine that a lot of those features couldn't be added to current consoles without having to purchase a whole new console (i.e. Sony touch pad controller).

Anyway, got side-tracked there. Sorry about that.

[Tanooki]

I think you have a point on the one and done mentality with many games these days, but it's not just the games it's how game companies and the related media have coached people into being fools of the makers. It has been ground in that you need all the new stuff, that you want this and that, and price just hides in the background. You get hyped to hell with trade-in value and then specials on that giving more (which is still shit money compared to online sales choices.) If you compound being on a paycheck vs daddy's allowance you've got this problem of too much shit and too little time to play it. As a kid, you could get maybe a game every couple months or so, just a few a year if that so you had plenty of time and will to keep hitting the game over and over, and as a kid other than annoying class time you had far less distraction.

That's my problem now. I get a game, but I never finish most of them because I get distracted. It's either another game, or life (kid, wife, job, other bs that gets in the way.) Also those old games, most didn't bother with batteries and could be done in 10min or an hour or so depending what it was. Games short of some wario ware junk or touch phone title don't go so fast so there's far less reward for your effort and time into it with these new 3D bloated huge games. Hell some of them you'll spend more time on load screens than you would in an old NES game killing most of it.

I've got 2 grades of annoying backlog right now I can't seem to curb. I have a file I call the unfinished-modern-and-retro.txt I keep. I've got 5 3DS games on it with really no excuse on 4 of not being done (Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion, and New SMB2.) Then the Wii(U) has Mass Effect 3 which I parked due to no time with the kid and Metroid Prime Trilogy. PS3 has Zone of the Enders HD (#2, finished 1), and I grabbed another copy of Little Big Planet 1 I haven't messed with yet to try and pick up where I left off a couple years ago. If I get into the old stuff 4 Wii games, 6 GC(4RPGS), 4 GBA (All RPGS), 8 SNES (2RPGS), and 4 NES(3RPGS) I have yet to finish or start in some cases. I note the RPGs since they're time holes.

If I didn't have an 18 month old, with my wifes work schedule I could pound this shit out by the end of the year if not sooner. And that old list isn't honest exactly either as I just got back Contra Force and Duck Tales 2 in the last week and I need to play those.

[fairyland]

Gaming is a lot like the movie industry really. You get one or two top names a month, several minor releases, a lot of filler crap just to make a buck and underground releases for niche fans. Where the most money is made is to keep up the popularity factor with people who are not real gamers. Those people have to have something fresh to talk about with their friends and to be cool for yet another week. Who cares about Iron Man this week? People currently talking about Star Trek and are looking forward to Man of Steel. Games are a lot like this for a good deal of people these days.

Real gamers are a bit different. To me, it makes little sense for a gamer to keep a new game for very long. Many hardcore gamers end up beating a game in a couple days, even maxing out the achievements shortly after. They know that they can buy it a year from now for next to nothing if it is worth keeping or hold out for a game of the year edition. Thanks to places like Gamestop, the cycle of buying new, trading it back in within a week costs and getting a new game with your credit ends up to the same cost as renting that game for a week from Blockbuster. Back in the 80s & 90s, I always rented the newest games and I felt that was extremely smart of me to do. Most of them I beat in a couple days anyway and only a few were actually epic enough for me want to own. And even then I'd wait until I find a copy cheap to own. I don't think that cheap ass gamers like myself are that much different today as back then.

So it's really different types of players being catered to. Your buddy sounds like a fad gamer and not rather serious about the hobby. I think that type of person is probably one of the largest groups out there. You are more of a true gamer. I'm just a cheap ass gamer. Different types to make the world go round, you know?

[otaku]

growing up my parents bought me my first console the n64 a big ticket item (not as big as our bikes which combined with our swimming pool kept us outside more than in) anyway games were expensive we got maybe a few a year (birthdays and christmas) which was fine we had other things to do and it took time to finish these and they had replay value also later on we had friends with playstations and dreamcasts we could borrow or go play at their place

That said I can buy and play my own now when I find the time and money

[Manga4life]

I remember back in late 1993 when Mortal Kombat came out my entire Junior Highschool was consumed by the game and everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, was talking about it. Then when it finally hit everyone went out and got it either with money they had saved or asked their parents for it or they got it for Christmas, either way it seemed like the entire school was playing it. Now, the SAME thing can be said about a game like COD: Modern Warfare 3 when it came out, there was a mass hysteria about the game and everyone I work with was buzzing over it and ended up getting it when it came out. Well, here is the difference......

About 2-3 weeks after Modern Warfare 3 came out the talk died down at work and things were back to normal. Even my friends son who is in 8th grade told me that the buzz at school has died down and nobody really cared anymore but they were all excited about some new game that was coming out in a weeks time. Well, back when Mortal Kombat was out in 1993 my entire school and every person I knew was still playing it well into 1994, some even into 1995, and the magazines and gaming community was still enthralled by the game some 6-8 months after it's initial buzz. The game that stole that thunder was probably NBA Jam at the time, and there is another example of a game that remained popular for months on end with no die down in sight. Back in the day people cared more about their games than they do now, I remember when Super Mario 3 hit shelves and the entire world was going bonkers over it for almost a year before anyone just didn't care anymore, schools and work places were all talking about Mario 3 and retail outlets kept displays up for what seemed like forever. Nowadays 2 weeks after a big title is out the displays get crushed and the posters are taken down in favor of promotional crap for some other new game. It's sad to me.

Ah well, I'll quit my bitching, just move along quietly and stay off my lawn.

[sloan]

When I finish a game now, I've seen the story and that's pretty much it for me.
.

I have a brother who will never buy movies on DVD because he can only watch them once. He has absolutely no desire to see any movie he has ever seen a 2nd time. This reminds me of that.

..and I think it's made them have ADD to some degree to where they get bored of thing quickly since they have so much pining for their attention.

Yes. Bombardment of so many demands for time and adult ADD are definitive factors in limiting the scope to which modern games are played. I wonder how many actually play a game to completion these days?

[dbm11085]

OP is so dead on. I remember minute details about games I played 20 years ago, but can't remember specific levels of a newer game I played a few months ago. I guess it's a good thing that the classics never die.

[Manga4life]

OP is so dead on. I remember minute details about games I played 20 years ago, but can't remember specific levels of a newer game I played a few months ago. I guess it's a good thing that the classics never die.

Why thank you, sir!

I just wish people spent more time with their games and bonded with them to create memories, these days people are just so quick to finish a game so they can play another. Retro games seem to just be more fun to play anyhow, I see these current generations games and see lot's of glitz and glam to hide the fun they forgot to add in.

[bigbacon]

I also agree with OP.

I can go back to alot of games from sale Pre 2000 and remember ever little detail but I honestly can't do that on newer games. Like ever 2 years from now, I'm not going to reemeber anything about a game like Skyrim but I can load up FF2 or Link to the past and I know I will remember everything.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Remember back in the day when you would play a game over and over and you knew every trick in the book, every nook and cranny, and every in and out of that specific title? Remember when you would bond with your games and spend hours upon hours playing them to the point to where you believed you were the best player of that specific game in the world?

Oh I've never really thought I was the best player in the world at anything. Also, there are plenty of modern games that I've played over and over - few that come to mind - Portal, Fallout 3, Tales of Symphonia, Crackdown, Trauma Team, Earth Defense Force 2017, and so many more. Modern games can be just like the super retro ones too.

...The problem is that in 20 years you'll still remember those classic games but today's games you won't remember nearly as much....if at all.

Really? Do you honestly believe that? You're telling me games like Metroid Prime, Mario Sunshine, Bioshock, Skyrim, or many other of the best modern games will not be remembered in 20 years time? I guess Retro Gamer should stop running their "future classics" section because according to you, there is no such thing.

Today's gamer usually plays a game once and then trades it in or sells it to buy a new game, It's a mentality that I like to call "one and done" and they're trying to constantly move onto the next big thing instead of savoring what's in front of them with the games that they have. I have a friend who buys a game, plays it for a week and then goes out and buys two more before finishing the game he was originally playing.

First, this isn't a new thing. People have been doing this since at least the early 90s. Secondly, I'm not one of those people. I don't see my collection as disposable. The only games I ever sell are ones that I didn't like - Demon Souls comes to mind. I bought it, didn't like it and sold it. Not because its a modern game and hurr therefore means I must get rid of it, but because I didn't like it. There are of course people who will buy games play them once and get rid of them and in fact entire services like gamefly designed around that concept, but to me it's a foreign concept. I think most of us would agree.

A lot of gamers are like that these days, I read the "What are you playing" threads on almost every forum I'm a part of and it's something new every week for most people and I find it sad.

It depends. RPGs will last dozens of hours and some huge free roam RPGs like Skyrim last hundreds of hours. Look at the genre or type of game that people are playing and then you can estimate how long they're playing for. If someone has Ni no Kuni on their now playing list for only a week, that means something very different than someone having a FPS game on their list or something else fast and easy to play. And also, just because I'm not currently playing something doesn't mean I never will again - I play games that suit my mood. I'll stop playing if I want to play something else regardless if I'm "finished" or not. I mean c'mon, you're really nitpicking here.

25 years after The Legend of Zelda was released people can still remember where all the hidden walls are, or where to burn a tree, or the configuration for getting to the cemetery, or how to do this or that, but in 25 years nobody is even going to remember this generation or games or the last because the games themselves weren't that memorable and most people adopted this "one and done" method of gaming.

What do you guys think?

What do I think? I think you're being a closed minded "old man" who refuses to take off the nostalgia goggles and see modern gaming for all their potential.

I agree with you that retro and retro styled games have a ton of appeal and a place in gaming history, but there are many modern triumphs that couldn't possibly exist in retro format. Just look at games like Metroid Prime or how about Heavy Rain?! It is absolutely asinine to assume that nobody will remember that in 20 years.

Modern games have their own unique problems (DRM, loadtimes, DLC, often lack originality, etc) but to condemn them entirely is to be missing out on something great.

[Manga4life]

Satoshi,

I'm not being nostalgic at all. I owned a 360 and about a dozen games for it, I had a Gamecube and a first gen Xbox too and almost none of the "big games" that have come out for these systems have touched me or showed me the fun that games for the NES, SNES, Genesis, or even the 3DO and Jaguar have. There, I said it. Maybe it's my taste, I don't know, but I HATE the current day gamer and the way they treat the medium. You're an exception, most of us here probably are, but I'm telling you this: In 25 years nobody will give two shits about Mario Sunshine or Mario Galaxy or even the Modern Warfare games, but yet there will still be people talking about Super Mario 3 and Zelda: A Link to the Past. But yeah, think what you want and I'll think what I want, but I would be willing to put cold hard cash on that statement. Seriously, almost everyone who plays the big hits of today won't care about them in 10 years, the average gamer doesn't even care about games they played during the Xbox and PS2 era for crying out loud, so why would they care about this generation? They wont. Those who post on the web are the exception, but even at that I've talked to hundreds of "gamers" over the years and so many have adopted the "one and done" mentality that my point is proven and nothing anyone can say will change that. The business runs this way now, they promote it, and today's gamers are missing out because of it.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I do understand the points you're making, but I think you're overgeneralizing things too much. The games industry is several fold larger than what it used to be, and the power of today's consoles is exponentially beyond what they were for kids who grew in the mid 80s or early 90s. It might be that people like you and me will still be talking about the 8-bit glory days, but I'm not so sure about everyone else.

Do you think that people don't remember games of the GC/PS2/Xbox days? What about.....Metroid Prime, Halo, Grand Theft Auto III, Zelda Wind Waker, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Jet Set Radio Future, Soul Calibur II, Psychonauts, Persona 4, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil 4, Indigo Prophecy, Beyond Good & Evil and so on? Either you didn't play any of these games and therefore don't remember them on due to lack of first hand experience, or you simply had a terrible memory. I think most if not all the games I just specifically mentioned will be remembered in 20 years.


Let me make something vividly clear: I'm not a champion of modern gaming at all. In fact, I'm highly critical of a lot of things modern games pull and don't personally care for a great majority of new titles on store shelves today. Part of the reason I focus as much time on retro games as I do is simply because new games cost too much. The reality is that most games aren't worth $60, and if you wait they'll be half that if not less used within a few months.

I LOVE my NES and GameBoy Color more than any other consoles. Those games are eternal. YES. That's true. But at the same time, how many PS3 games do I think will also be eternally remembered? Quite a few. Skyrim, Fallout 3, Heavy Rain, BioShock, Ni no Kuni, Jouney, Mass Effect Trilogy Uncharted and so on.

I'm not totally against what you're saying, but I think you're being too jaded.

[Akito01]

I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to be that guy; Dark Souls. That game, man, THAT GAME. Not since the original MegaMan games on NES have I continued to come back to the same game, to improve my play time, my skills, to experiment with different weapons and tackle bosses in different orders. A game like Dark Souls proves to me that gaming can still be everything I loved about the hobby back in the 8 and 16 bit eras.

[Gamevet]

Satoshi,

I'm not being nostalgic at all. I owned a 360 and about a dozen games for it, I had a Gamecube and a first gen Xbox too and almost none of the "big games" that have come out for these systems have touched me or showed me the fun that games for the NES, SNES, Genesis, or even the 3DO and Jaguar have. There, I said it. Maybe it's my taste, I don't know, but I HATE the current day gamer and the way they treat the medium. You're an exception, most of us here probably are, but I'm telling you this: In 25 years nobody will give two shits about Mario Sunshine or Mario Galaxy or even the Modern Warfare games, but yet there will still be people talking about Super Mario 3 and Zelda: A Link to the Past. But yeah, think what you want and I'll think what I want, but I would be willing to put cold hard cash on that statement. Seriously, almost everyone who plays the big hits of today won't care about them in 10 years, the average gamer doesn't even care about games they played during the Xbox and PS2 era for crying out loud, so why would they care about this generation? They wont. Those who post on the web are the exception, but even at that I've talked to hundreds of "gamers" over the years and so many have adopted the "one and done" mentality that my point is proven and nothing anyone can say will change that. The business runs this way now, they promote it, and today's gamers are missing out because of it.

There are people that still talk about Doom, because of its influence on them as gamers.

I grew up with the videogame industry, from the beginning, yet everytime I see a greatest games of all-time list, it's always a bunch of NES games populating the list, because most of the people making those lists started out with that console. I was playing C-64 games in the mid to late 80s', so the influence of the NES wasn't as great for me, as it would be for a child that first played videogames on the NES. If I was to create a greatest games of all-time list, it would be flooded with 2600 and C-64 games, because those are the games, along with the golden age of arcades, that sparked my interest in the hobby. My list would not include NES games like Zelda, Mega-man or Dragon Warrior, because I was already in my early 20s when I finally bought the console.

15-20 years from now you're going to see some guy making an all-time greatest videogames list, and you may very well see Uncharted or Call of Duty on it, because those are the games that he/she grew up with.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to be that guy; Dark Souls. That game, man, THAT GAME. Not since the original MegaMan games on NES have I continued to come back to the same game, to improve my play time, my skills, to experiment with different weapons and tackle bosses in different orders. A game like Dark Souls proves to me that gaming can still be everything I loved about the hobby back in the 8 and 16 bit eras.

Games like that are also highly polarizing. As mentioned above, Dark Souls is one of only a handful of modern games that I've bought at full price only to sell later for half price because I absolutely hated it and getting half my money back was better than keeping the game.

[QUOTE=Gamevet;1966314 everytime I see a greatest games of all-time list, it's always a bunch of NES games populating the list, because most of the people making those lists started out with that console. ...years from now you're going to see some guy making an all-time greatest videogames list, and you may very well see Uncharted or Call of Duty on it, because those are the games that he/she grew up with.[/QUOTE]

This is an excellent point, but I don't think it's entirely objectively correct because of personal bias. I do think Uncharted at least belongs on a top 100 games of all time list not because it's fairly new and ooo flashy or whatever, but from what it brings to gaming and how important that was. At the same time, Adventure and Pitfall also belong on such a list, and so does Pong.

For me, any top 100 games list is about three aspects: historical importance, the quality of the game itself (gameplay, visuals, audio, controls, story, all that such) and how the game stands the test of time.