Slow times allow for thoughts beyond gaming, but not far
These articles will come from time to time as there, frankly, becomes less and less to write about. The blog section, which I had thought to reserve for my own personal reflections on life, on the world around us, or on the general going-on around the world, will still serve those purposes but maybe in a different way. I think that they may just end up becoming updates on what’s going on with the website in general and why, as I begin this experiment, it seems to be the wrong time to begin a videogame review website and why this home for my thoughts may need to evolve into something more.
In the spring comes a strange time in the gaming world that I’ve come to call the “yearly video-game recession”. It seems to be a time when developers decide that video games, on a whole, should not be released unless they’re minor releases or you don’t really care if they do well or not. Some companies break this tradition and even this year we see it happening with releases like Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4, F.E.A.R 2, Halo Wars, and Ghostbusters: The Game as well as a few RPG’s that may or may not get released on time (I’m looking at you Star Ocean: a new hope!) though some of the games that are being released in the Spring were originally meant for a fall release and have just been pushed back into the spring because of unforeseen circumstances.
As a gamer and as a general lover of entertainment I’ve never been surprised that games are purposefully held and worked on to have fall release schedules. The holidays mean that people are spending money and undoubtedly buying video games as presents for others as well as themselves. It is a season that screams “buy things!” as those with salaries get holiday bonuses and the poor college kid has a long enough break to hold a seasonal job and make some extra scratch to afford that Collector’s edition. Stores also know this plan and have more sales during the holidays than any other time of the year (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Day after Christmas sales, New Year’s Sales, etc. . .). It is the last chance for retailers and corporations to make the final few dollars to meet those income predictions and they push the envelope in order to do so.
This also means that spring has the perpetual “Christmas syndrome” going for it. Fall and winter are gone and you have a ton of new things to play around with but in the back of your mind you know that rationing that entertainment is necessary because fall and winter won’t be back for an entire 12 months. This means that for people who are not in the gaming industry but who work around the industry, such as reviewers and video game retail stores, experience a major slow down and must attempt to keep content and keep people interested. They may have run out of delicious cheese but they’re hoping and praying that the tiny pieces of sub-par cheese that they have (let’s say like a Kraft American slice instead of usually feeding them Gouda) will be enough keep the mice interested long enough to stay around and wait for the Good stuff to return.
This is where the horrors of review sites (and many other websites) come in: Top (Insert #, insert topic) lists. Though some become entertaining they are, to this writer at least, the lowest form of opinion that there is because it is usually completely and utterly nothing more than that: someone’s opinion on a topic. This brings about a massive chain reaction of people arguing that “No way!! Knights of the Old Republic is not on a “Best 10 RPG’s of all time” list? Blasphemy Zomgs!!!1.” This is called a clash of opinion and when you have at least half of the clash being performed by someone who can hide behind an anonymous username and given the freedom to say anything and everything they want it usually ends up making people, well, idiotic (especially if the person was already an idiot to begin with). None of these lists can truly be backed with any type of fact (with the exception of maybe a “Top 10 most popular or least popular (insert item here)” list, since sales numbers and percentages could possibly be used as fact).
So as you read this one may be wondering “Okay, so where is he going with this”? This article is at most an apology for the coming days within the review website world and a promise that, unless provoked, this website will NEVER have top 10 lists. Yes there may be points when a list is given of let’s say “Under-rated games of (insert year here)” or “RPG’s that you’ve never played but probably should” but these are not, in my opinion, the same types of lists. These lists are instead mini-reviews of games that I could never take the time to fully review because of time constraints or because this website just wasn’t up when these games were out. The times will become slow and in order to keep readers interested, I’ve just got to throw a little bit of Kraft your way, because I’m all out of bacon-smoked Gouda.
Now I think it’s time to go make a grilled-cheese sandwich, don’t you?
