Over the past couple of months, I’ve been dabbling in the very, very low end of PC gaming again, preparing for the coming Console Apocalypse when every AAA game requires constant connection to your credit card, demands that you make friends, and somehow “services” you in exchange for forbidding you to buy a used game. I’m stockpiling classic games and notable indies for the End Times, which are scheduled to hit sometime around Holiday 2013. Maybe it’s a kind of doomsday prepping, but in my estimation it’s more a prepping to tell the corporate carpetbaggers and their blessed shareholders that have shanghaied the video games business where they can shove their DRM, DLC, and every FU with which they’ve assaulted their customers over the past several years.
It all began when my mother decided to leave the Land of Laptops behind and go all iPad, so I inherited a hideously burgundy 2011-ish HP. Between the occasional decent console game- which are becoming fewer and further between- I’ve caught up on most of the good indie titles by this point. Hotline Miami, FTL, Amnesia, Legend of Grimrock, Din’s Curse and so forth have seen some good, old fashioned keyboard-and-mouse time so I feel at least kind of hip and with it, even if the appeal of Minecraft still escapes me. I tried Starcraft II, but I don’t regard an average of 12 FPS to be quite in the playable range. Hard Reset may as well have been a slideshow of sequential photographs.
After finishing Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance- a masterpiece in totality- I dabbled with the new Star Wars pinball tables but other than that, I realized that the consoles had absolutely nothing I was interested in playing right now. Over the past couple of years, I’ve pretty much played everything out there, and the well seems to have run dry. Tomb Raider was sitting in the Gamefly queue, and I’m still undecided whether I want to bother with Bioshock Infinite, a game that is now being touted in ads as winning “80 awards” even though there’s not even likely 80 people that have played the game enough to give it an award of any kind.
Rather than chase whatever redundant, shiny new bullshit is out (looking at you, God of War: Ascension), I thought I’d hit the backcatalog and play something old for a chance. So I hit up GOG- Crom bless ‘em- and downloaded Heroes of Might & Magic III. One of the greatest video games ever made.
Playing just a couple of turns of HOMMIII reminded me of how much we as gamers have lost over the past decade and some change. There is so much heart, craft, and humility in the game. It feels, especially today, handmade and almost wholesome. Like your mom’s banana bread or a favorite blanket. It’s 100% industry bullshit free, about as far away removed from the ongoing national nightmare of the soon-to-be-forgotten SimCity launch as a game could possibly be. It doesn’t try to be a movie- it tries to be a board game. And by jingo, it succeeds. The brilliant combination of depth, complexity, and approachability brought me in and that whole “one more turn” brand of Stendahl Syndrome kept me playing through quite a few scenarios.
Sure, there are plenty of modern games that are made with heart, craft and humility. I certainly do not intend to suggest that there aren’t people working in this industry to make games like that against the constant, repeated battering of it in the name of those almighty shareholders. But to get back to a game I haven’t played in ten years and to feel the gulf of negative, downward trends between then and now was really quite shocking.
HOMMIII made me remember how much I used to unconditionally love video games. It didn’t have a multimillion dollar budget with allotments for viral advertising and a giant, loud E3 booth. We didn’t worry about what horrid business practice EA was up to that week. It never felt like there was a man in a suit in a board room somewhere throwing out words like “monetization” and trying to sort out what could be pulled out from a design to be sold later, piecemeal. There were YEARS between sequels, and you’d play one game all summer and never even really want another because there was so much content in the best games that you’d miss it all if you moved on to the next hot thing shoved in your face. We weren’t treated like criminasl for buying- buying- a game, and if there was copy protection you had to look in an actual printed manual that was presented as part of the entire product design complete with illustrations and artwork to type in a word or a code. And you didn’t have to preorder to get it.
Games like HOMMIII were made by people that actually cared about the product and the people that bought them. They were closer to us. They wanted to share, not take. And when they shared something great with us, they were rewarded with profit. They weren’t these fucking hustlers that are, as we speak, trying to figure out how to make us pay more for less and to do so more often.
Even the journalism was different. It wasn’t a bunch of 20 year olds trying to make a name for themselves, accepting payola like free trips to studio offices to watch a preview. It was people that wanted to write about games because they loved them. Not because it was a career path.
I’m thankful that now, more than ever, old games are more accessible and easy to buy thanks to digital distribution. I picked up Rome: Total war for two dollars the other day. Two dollars. And there’s more game there in terms of content, depth, and overall value in the last $300 worth of AAA blockbusters I’ve bought. So what if it’s old. I saw today that over a million people bought SimCity and also bought into the lies that both EA and Maxis have told about the game and its online functions. But why the hell would you spend $60- not including some $30 worth of DLC, from what I understand- when SimCity 4, SimCity 2000, or even something like Caesar III are 100% stable, endlessly replayable games?
The good news, as we stand at the brink of the end of the Console Era, is that we can get back to the things that made video games so great in the 1980s and 1990s. It starts with saying “no” and not giving your money to those companies that want to foster what is essentially an abusive relationship with their customers. Don’t buy the new $60 blockbuster that comes out Tuesday. Play an old favorite, dig up that old Mechcommander 2 disc or download System Shock 2 from GOG. Buy the blockbuster when it’s used and $20, a month from now.
We’re in danger of losing all of the things that made games great right now because kids today are being indoctrinated into microtransactions, “freemium” marketing schemes, and day one DLC. They think this is normal. A kid that never played HOMMIII would probably be shocked to find that you got ALL of the races and maps in the box and there were hefty expansions that added a lot to the game. You were never nickel and dimed, either on a PC or a console.
Let’s not lose sight of how things used to be, how games like HOMMIII were once the bomb drops and the industry acknowledges that it’s crashing. Let’s welcome the end as a reset button. Come Armageddon, come.
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Hear Hear – I feel exactly the same. But as long as the people who are immature continue to line up at the trough, it ain’t gonna happen.
What you wrote applies to the comic book industry as well, with the special foil covers and 5 different #1 covers for the super special death issue that will change comics forever! that began to happen in the late 80s/early 90s- at the expense of good, solid storytelling and characterization. But guess what – people still line up every week to be abused by Marvel/DC – because they refuse to vote with their wallets, and they continue to buy, the big 2 continue to treat the readers shabbily. Most recent, of course, being Spiderman.
But I digress…
I think you are also romanticizing things a bit – I remember playing games that were released before they were ready, that required patching on day one, or that were broken. And not being able to get refunds. The specific games I’m thinking of are lost to time (but for Battlecruiser 3000 or whatever it was). Or spending hours trying to fiddle with IRQ settings on the soundcard, or something like that, to get a game to work. It wasn’t all wine and roses, is all I am saying.
As to the end of an era – well, Wii sales are encouraging in that regard, in that they are reported to be horrible. But comics managed to survive, albeit at reduced sales numbers.
Apologies if this is all over the place, I don’t have time to organize it better.
You have a kindred soul here.
Of course I’m romanticizing it- it was the romantic period of video games!
You know, it did suck to buy a game and you’d never be sure that you’d actually be able to play it…fiddling with IRQs, DMAs, VESA drivers and all that. Or you’d have to go out and blow $200 on a new video card because yours wouldn’t run whatever it is. But by the same token, that kind of roughness was sort of what made PC games back then a hobby. I’m not saying I want all that back…but I’d rather be prevented from playing a game by a couple of hardware settings than a corporate policy intended to treat me like a criminal.
You are dead on about the comic book comparison- what you’re getting at there is this whole speculation thing that was going on in the 1990s, especially with all of these characters and books getting optioned for movies, collectors dumping money on variant foil covers, all the endless merchandise…and that attracted investors, shareholders, and other money-oriented types and look where that got the comics medium…in the peak of Rob Liefeld’s prime, I might remind us all.
But yes, just like with comics…the carpetbaggers showed up, speculated the shit out of the industry, and it tanked.
The general public is sleepwalking further and further into a monetized, micro-transaction publishers wet dream and has been getting away with it.
Pre-ordering games, its the norm. Buying an extra costume or big head mode, why not.. its only 20p. Always online DRM… sure, you got to protect these precious “products” from the nasty thieving public.
Blimey.. how did that happen? Its not as if those gamers which take to forums have been silent.
Oh.. I know. The mass media couldn’t get a shit. Its all very well us dedicated types doing our best nostradamus impressions (generally to great accuracy) if the people who *really* need to know, don’t.
If the film industry removed the real ending of Driving Miss Daisy behind an extra payment of £2.99 for a downloadable ending, the media would be all over it. Especially if you do buy it and it doesn’t fucking work.
Its JUST computer games. Only nerds and the socially inept buy those so it’s not news worthy (what’s that.. *spits drink* computer games make HOW much fucking money!)
The BBC news helpfully reported EA are having server troubles (which was very naughty I can tell you) and are now giving away free games. That’s nice. Didn’t really go into much detail. Didn’t really tell you why it was wholly corrupt. Didn’t explain the game itself barely used the online requirements, the worry when the servers are finally shut down, the fact the vision of the game was clearly compromised by dollar-bills CHI-CHINGING in the eyes. The lies, the lies, the lies.
A lack of knowledge is only good for one group of people.
Oh.. the super secret ending to driving Mrs Daisy. Its exactly the same but Freeman has a bigger flashier car.
Screaming truth into the wind, with no one listening. It seems we are modern day Cassandra’s, though with slightly less mortally important messages.
They’re not sleepwalking. They’re being _trained_. They’re being indoctrinated into this mindset that preorders, microtransactions, IAP, DLC, DRM, etc. are all the new normal. And the entire business model is founded on the ignorance of the customer and the artifical creation of “need”. In other words, it works because people are stupid and won’t say no.
How did it happen? It started when people thought it would be funny to buy the horse armor. Or when they told Valve that it was OK to sell hats in TF2. And when nobody turned away from Diablo III’s RMAH. When everybody bought every map pack for any of the AAA shooters. WHen people preordered a game to get an EXCLUSIVE shotgun or a poster. WHen people used their credit cards to buy scrip to buy in-game perks. When people bought into the scam instead of just saying no to it.
Taking to the forums is NOT enough. It takes us getting organized across like-minded sites, writers, and common gamers and stating a position and standing by it. And that position- not a feeble petition or a petulant rant- is saying no, and not giving these people your money. They DO NOT have your best interest in mind, they do not care how big a fan you are.
But it is true, that at the end this is al not really very important in the grand scheme of things. BUt if you love this stuff, it sucks. Especially because people won’t listen, they want the soma of the new game on launch day.
Suckers.
Barnes, I gotta say that you hint at several important points. the first is that old games often provide better entertainment value. It’s no surprise that for gamers of a certain age (i.e. most of us on NHS, of which I’m on the younger side at 28) will appreciate a Baldur’s Gate more than a The Old Republic MMO. There is often times where newer games in a genre follow too much rote formula, put the rails too tight, or focus more on shinies than quality. Older games can provide an outlet for that (though ignore the fact that we only remember the gems, and much of what was released was crap like today).
There is also the indie thing. It’s why I don’t care about the death of AAA, indies provide plenty of options and alternatives in almost every genre. Sure production values are lower, but I’d rather have interesting quality than polished bullshit.
The last is strategy. That’s my big love. Total War games and Paradox grand strategy are my bread and butter. Honestly if all other games ceased to exist, but I got a steady stream of mid budget strategy titles I’d be plenty happy. I’ve sunk over 175 hours into Medieval 2 alone, let alone the other Total War games. Paradox is much the same.
So I’ve got what I want. AAA can go jump off this cliff of their own making. I won’t miss it. I already don’t tolerate their crap, and missing the occasional Tomb Raider or Arkham Asylum is a small cost to me. Sure I like those titles a lot, but not enough that the rest of the bullshit is worth it for me.
It’s true, there were plenty of crap games in the olden days, let’s not be dishonest about it…but it really was a different kind of crappy. I mean, I still remember Ultrabots fondly (that box!) but AAA shit like Homefront? Not so much.
Digging through a pile of old RTS games, it struck me how much you were expected to LEARN to play these games and that naturally lead to a lot more content and depth.
I would miss really great games like Arkham Asylum (and Tomb Raider is pretty good too)- but by and large, I think I’m with you. I’d take an era that is producing games like Homeworld, Kohan, Rome: Total War, HOMM3, and so forth over those.
Preach it, brother Barnes! Amen. I find myself firing up GOG-installed games more than anything on Steam these days.
And on the subject of that last bit…”missing the occasional Tomb Raider or Arkham Asylum is a small cost to me”…I wouldn’t be surprised if the good ones make their way to a GOG-like service in a few years. So you won’t miss ‘em, just delay ‘em.
I was thinking about that last night, if I were to ditch the consoles completely would I miss those…but I think you’re absolutely right, within five years we’ll see everything again.
For a price.
The thing is you generally don’t have to miss the few great games that are being put out on consoles..you just have to stay away from them when they are new. Arkham City is a good example. I picked up the Game of the Year Edition just a few months ago on sale for like $25. It had all the downloadable content included and I got it for a fraction of what it would have cost if I bought everything when it was new and shiny. You just gotta delay gratification and wait…the games almost always come down in price and often get repackaged with previous bonus content.
My dilemma will come when the new consoles hit. I’m not sure I’m going to pony up the big bucks to own one of the new machines when the great games are so few and far between.
But for now I’m enjoying many of the golden “oldies” like Arkham City and Skyrim. So what if I waited a couple years. Does that make the games any less good?
Patience is a gamer’s best friend. No doubt.
Indeed. The last time I bought a game at full price was Mass Effect 2.
The last time I bought a game at release was Batman: Arkham City.
The last time I preordered a game was Shogun 2 (and that was because that got me ALL the other Total War games, which I didn’t have any of before).
And the thing is each of those is an isolated incident, where I’d have to go several years back to find another example. To get my money early, or at full price, you have to offer me something really amazing, or be one game every other year that I must have.
It seems to me that so many people who play blockbuster games really don’t even like them. Not just the DRM and microtransactions, but the games themselves. They feel like their hand’s being held, or the main path is too linear, or that control is taken out of their hands too often. And I have to wonder – why are you even playing these games? It’s one thing if you enjoy them, but I hear people online *so often* who want more out of their games, but only stick with big name titles. It doesn’t make any sense. If you want deeper movies, you watch something besides Michael Bay. Play something that just looks interesting to you, or maybe something you can’t even imagine playing. It’s hard for reviewers to justify giving a better score to a game that’s less technically competent, but for gamers it should be at least somewhat obvious what kind of experience they’re craving, whether or not it’s the new 10/10 hit. There are so many great games out there; we’re in a golden period for so many genres. If you like blockbusters then stick with them, but if you’re feeling the malaise – for god’s sake, branch out.
(Written with “general” you, not “Michael Barnes” you)