coolie
Active member
I was doing my daily read of Kotaku and Joystiq, and was wading through yet another flame war when I came to a conclusion:
The Internet has killed video games.
Ever since gaming started to receive 24/7 coverage, the amount of fanboyism has climbed to dramatic levels, far worse than the old "Super Nintendo is better than Genesis, vice versa" arguments of the school lunchrooms. The amount of melodramatic, doom sayer articles has increased 100 fold.
Case in point:
Stories on a Wii "software drought." Last time I checked, Wii was brand new. How many triple A titles can ANY system have in LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS of being on the market? I was forced to wait five months for Paper Mario? So what. I haven't even beaten Zelda yet. Or any Virtual Console games. PlayStation 2, even in its heyday, NEVER had one triple A title a month. You were lucky to get maybe three-five of those a YEAR. I remember the first year of PS2's life being pretty devoid of great games, but it still survived.
Speaking of PlayStation, how about the PS3 negativity? While I'm not a mega fan of Sony, the bad PS3 press is way over the top. It's gotten so bad, I can barely read the news anymore. Every story finds a way to attack the PlayStation 3, even if it's a story about another console. I get it. PS3 is too expensive. I get it. PS3 isn't so hot right now. Guess what? It's four months old. The Jaguar was on the market for a year without getting as much negative publicity, and that system was a dog.
I think the problem is the schedule of the Internet, i.e. there isn't one. News comes all day, every day. Never ceasing.
Guess what. There isn't enough gaming news to last a week, let alone a day. Back when you were younger, reading the magazines, did you really feel deprived because you were only getting news once a month? You were probably fine with it. You might even remember thinner issues from February to August, because there wasn't as much going on during that time frame. Now imagine stretching that news over the course of 24/7/365.
You can't, can you?
I hate to be the old man here, but fuck the gaming press. Things WERE better when I was younger. I could enjoy games more, before people would whine about utter nonsense. People are given the greatest games on earth, Gears of War, Halo, Twilight Princess, God of War, Guitar Hero, etc, and it's NEVER ENOUGH.
Do these people even like games? People call the GameCube a failure, yet when I look at my shelf, I see some of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Same with ALL of my systems. When did gaming become less about enjoying a good GAME, and more about who has the bigger dick?
It all just fucking sucks, and I'm sick to death of it. It doesn't matter if Xbox360, PS3, or Wii wins. It really really doesn't. The press seems to care, because it keeps the traffic coming to their sites. They try to divide gamers up at every turn. They try to create news where there isn't any. They build up and destroy anything they can, for the sake of the "news".
Well. Fuck. That.
Here's my answer to the whole thing: I turn to my reply when asked the age-old question; Which was better? Genesis or SNES?
Yes.
Be a videogamer to enjoy good games. Fuck the rest.
<P ID="signature"><a target="_blank" href=http://www.lp.org>
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The Internet has killed video games.
Ever since gaming started to receive 24/7 coverage, the amount of fanboyism has climbed to dramatic levels, far worse than the old "Super Nintendo is better than Genesis, vice versa" arguments of the school lunchrooms. The amount of melodramatic, doom sayer articles has increased 100 fold.
Case in point:
Stories on a Wii "software drought." Last time I checked, Wii was brand new. How many triple A titles can ANY system have in LESS THAN FOUR MONTHS of being on the market? I was forced to wait five months for Paper Mario? So what. I haven't even beaten Zelda yet. Or any Virtual Console games. PlayStation 2, even in its heyday, NEVER had one triple A title a month. You were lucky to get maybe three-five of those a YEAR. I remember the first year of PS2's life being pretty devoid of great games, but it still survived.
Speaking of PlayStation, how about the PS3 negativity? While I'm not a mega fan of Sony, the bad PS3 press is way over the top. It's gotten so bad, I can barely read the news anymore. Every story finds a way to attack the PlayStation 3, even if it's a story about another console. I get it. PS3 is too expensive. I get it. PS3 isn't so hot right now. Guess what? It's four months old. The Jaguar was on the market for a year without getting as much negative publicity, and that system was a dog.
I think the problem is the schedule of the Internet, i.e. there isn't one. News comes all day, every day. Never ceasing.
Guess what. There isn't enough gaming news to last a week, let alone a day. Back when you were younger, reading the magazines, did you really feel deprived because you were only getting news once a month? You were probably fine with it. You might even remember thinner issues from February to August, because there wasn't as much going on during that time frame. Now imagine stretching that news over the course of 24/7/365.
You can't, can you?
I hate to be the old man here, but fuck the gaming press. Things WERE better when I was younger. I could enjoy games more, before people would whine about utter nonsense. People are given the greatest games on earth, Gears of War, Halo, Twilight Princess, God of War, Guitar Hero, etc, and it's NEVER ENOUGH.
Do these people even like games? People call the GameCube a failure, yet when I look at my shelf, I see some of the greatest games I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Same with ALL of my systems. When did gaming become less about enjoying a good GAME, and more about who has the bigger dick?
It all just fucking sucks, and I'm sick to death of it. It doesn't matter if Xbox360, PS3, or Wii wins. It really really doesn't. The press seems to care, because it keeps the traffic coming to their sites. They try to divide gamers up at every turn. They try to create news where there isn't any. They build up and destroy anything they can, for the sake of the "news".
Well. Fuck. That.
Here's my answer to the whole thing: I turn to my reply when asked the age-old question; Which was better? Genesis or SNES?
Yes.
Be a videogamer to enjoy good games. Fuck the rest.
<P ID="signature"><a target="_blank" href=http://www.lp.org>