Trixsy said:
So they say "WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH ALL THIS ENTHUSIASM?!" and you say "stop it >(" ? Not only is that not answering the OP, it's almost pointless ranting.
OP, emphasis mine:
"How do you guys cool down for games like Skyrim,Battlefront 3,Halo 4..."
I don't allow myself to get excited for trip-A titles because it assumes a
lot, predominantly that the title in question will actually be good, and because games to me (like the vast majority of gamers) are a personal hobby and not a lifestyle and therefore are not worth the obsession prior to release. When the game comes out, and proves itself worthy of excitement (which very few trip-A titles that are aggressively marketed are),
then I'll get excited because I have a quality product before me that is a joy to play and to own and aren't taking part in what breaks down to the gaming equivalent of Schrodinger's cat, with the publisher's advertising and PR department surreptitiously telling me to ignore the cat may be dead.
It's called "
perspective", something of which a great many in the gaming community could stand to have an iota. If that's not viable advice in your opinion...oh well.
What's wrong with getting excited about a game, no matter how far away it is?
I'm been excited for the last guardian for ages and it still has quite awhile before it comes out. So I shouldn't get excited because it feeds the industry? Whut?
No, it feeds the worst aspects of the gaming industry and community.
For instance, the universally-loathed "Kotick" phenomenon, in which developers and publishers make a trip-A title that will sell itself on name recognition and hype alone, yet the game itself upon release obviously lacks innovation, solid design, quality assurance, or anything that could be construed to be substantive advancement of the medium. It's a Big Damn Dumb Overhyped Game, and because those titles draw in the megabucks
even prior to their release thanks to the "preorder" phenomenon and continue to draw in megabucks thanks to DLC, more Big Damn Dumb Overhyped Games get made.
Perhaps, for example, if more people had not preordered Modern Warfare 2 or ran out to buy it on faith, and took a step back to realize "hey, this is basically a re-release of CoD4 (which was in its own right a
damn good game and real merit to the franchise), why don't I just
not buy it and stick to what I already own?", Activision may have gotten a clue and treated IW right from the beginning and pushed for Black Ops to be better than it was and for MW3 to look good. Or at least make a new engine or something.
...and speaking of which, Modern Warfare 3. By all released footage and claims of the developing team, yet another Big Damn Dumb Overhyped Game that thus far adds nothing to the medium and has no innovation. It already has a cult following and massive hatedom,
only because its name is Modern Warfare 3. I'd lay money there's already a seven-figure profit thanks to preorders alone, taken
completely on faith by the community that since it's Modern Warfare 3, Infinity Ward and Activision can do no wrong (/eyeroll).
There's already a brewing rivalry between it and Battlefield 3, and the only released footage of the latter is
pre-alpha (read, bullshot). The only reason for any of this is because of...I'll be gracious...gamers with more heart than foresight. Anyhow, enough about generic "realistic" modern military shooters. Let's talk about melodramatic, guilty pleasure, Japanese "stealth action" games.
I already own MGS1, VR Missions, Twin Snakes, MGS2 (which was IMO the absolute high-water mark of the franchise), Substance, MGS3, and Subsistence (the $300 market value collector's edition, booyah). I love the MGS franchise, and I only skipped out on MGS4 because I wasn't going to buy a PS3 for it, and because something about it stunk; I'm glad I made that decision. I personally can't get excited for an "HD" remake of the first three games on the 360, because I already own those titles and their initial remakes, and quite frankly I haven't seen anything that constitutes incentive to buy it for the 360 as well (and I doubt there will be).
Hell, let's look at
Skyrim for God's sake. Bethesda, a company with a
well known reputation for shitty quality assurance, knows they have a mega-seller on their hands and they probably at this point just went beta let alone have a release candidate. From that assumption, they could go gold today, release in July, and turn a hell of a profit despite that. What's the incentive to put the product through full QA, let alone
any QA in light of that? Oblivion was released with a plethora of showstopper bugs, and the community punished Bethesda for that obvious QA failure by...
making it a best-seller and sales record-breaker.
I'll probably end up buying Skyrim...sooner or later, I may even wait for the GOTY edition. I can tell you the one thing I will
not do knowing Bethesda, its reputation and history, is buy the game within three months of release. I have faith Bethesda will make a quality title of it, but I'm not paying $65 to participate in an open beta.
