I’m a gamer. I define that as “a guy who plays games for fun”. Some might define it as “I play video games for a living”, or “video games are my hobby” or “I simulate wars with little action figures and dice” or “my life is meaningless without video games” or even “I spend all my welfare check on slot machines”. It’s a very fluid term. For me, games are something I play in my few bits of free time, just one option among many ways to spend my time. There are a lot of different reasons to play, though.
Sometimes I want to be intellectually challenged. This is when I’ll play a Professor Layton game, Brain Age, Portal, Cogs or Safecracker… something in that vein. I enjoy a mental workout and the joy that comes with figuring something out.
Sometimes I merely want to be entertained. This is when I’ll play LEGO Batman with my kids, Arkham Asylum/City, Audiosurf, Rock of Ages, A World of Keflings, or World of Goo (or maybe an Uncharted if I had a PS3).
Sometimes I just want to mindlessly plow through bad guys and collect loot. This is when I’ll play Torchlight, a DIKU MMO, Kingdom Hearts or even a JRPG like Chrono Trigger or a Final Fantasy. (The bulk of which really does tend to be “grinding” and killing tons of baddies for cash and experience.)
Sometimes I want to explore and take screenshots. I love WoW for this, but Allods Online, LOTRO, RIFT, Portal 2 and many others are great, too. (This is one big problem I have with console gaming; I can’t take screenshots. Yes, it’s possible, I just don’t have the tech.)
Sometimes I want to smash digital stuff. This is when I’ll play Burnout Revenge or Boom Blox, TMNT 2: Turtles in Time or Super Dodgeball… or maybe fire up a fighting game like Soul Calibur, Super Smash Brothers or Marvel vs. Capcom 2, or even River City Ransom as a weird sort of hybrid game.
Sometimes I want grand adventure, and only a journey to Hyrule can scratch the itch.
Sometimes I want a great story with simple game elements, so I’ll dig into something quirky like Ghost Trick (a fantastic little game with a very well-wrought story) or a Phoenix Wright game, or fire up an old Sierra or LucasArts adventure game (currently playing through The Dig, then the Indiana Jones games).
Sometimes I really want to get creative and tinker, so The Incredible Machine or Minecraft are the best.
Sometimes I want a good card game, so I’ll play Magic the Gathering, the WoW TCG, Rook, Rage, SET, the Monopoly card game or even UNO.
Sometimes a board game is best, so I’ll play Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Chess, Mancala, or my new favorite, Blokus.
…and with all of these, there are at least dozens of other games that easily come to mind, but I’m trying to keep it somewhat concise.
There is some overlap, to be sure. The Portal games are both mentally interesting and entertaining. JRPGs sometimes have great stories too. RockSteady’s Batman games are great for exploration, story and fun brawler combat. Blokus is great for flexing puzzle thinking and having fun with my kids.
Still, even with this wide variety, sometimes I just want to play something I’ve played before, that I know I’m good at. This is the “fuzzy slippers gaming” from the title. It’s like that old dog-eared worn out copy of I, Jedi that I read every few years because it’s one of my favorite books. Sometimes, I just want a familiar game to go play for a while, maybe because it’s about revisiting old, cherished memories that are tied to the game. Maybe it’s because I won’t have to think too much. Maybe it’s because I want to share the game with my kids. There’s something valuable about a game that is worth playing again and again.
So, that Star Wars invocation isn’t an accident. What of Star Wars: The Old Republic and the familiarity that it’s perhaps trying to invoke? As Brian Green and others have noted, it’s largely “more of the same”, and can fill that niche of “familiar” for a lot of players. I think there’s value in that, to be sure. Not enough for me to pay anything more than $10 for an always-online game, and certainly not enough for me to pay a subscription for. Also, there’s a distinction between gameplay and the game itself. I’d happily accept a new Miles Edgeworth or Phoenix Wright game because of how they play; that scratches the “familiar” itch while still providing a new story to enjoy. Ditto for a new Professor Layton. Still… I’d get them on sale, simply because if I just wanted the nostalgia, I’d play the older game I already own for free.
Of course, sometimes there are other motivations. I’d buy an English release of Seiken Densetsu 3 because I loved Secret of Mana and want to tell Square that SD3 is a worthy successor. I’d buy a new Chrono game because they dropped the ball by stopping with Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger is incredible. (It was the first game I wanted to make a direct sequel to, and even wrote up some design documents for it.) Sometimes I do want to tell companies that their trendlines are good and to keep up the good work, though with a side order of “keep this trend, but keep experimenting around the edges”. That can be a hard message to send sometimes.
All in all, though, I value innovation and new experiences. That’s why I play a lot of different games instead of welding myself to a monogamous MMO. (Even beside the annoyance I have with the subscription model.) There’s value in familiarity, but if I have to keep paying for it, well… that’s usually something I’m not interested in doing. Tangentially, this is a great article on Frozen Synapse and their business model; my favorite “single pay” model.
Ultimately, I have other games to scratch that itch for familiar gaming, so I’m not going to buy into a new game that does the same old things but asks a premium for it.
This is also why I strongly resist games that require me to be online to play. I don’t trust that they will always be available, or that I’ll always have a usable internet connection. If the idea is to make me want to go back to play the game, I need to be able to do that on a whim. Similarly, this is why portable games are so great; the low overhead of the DS version of Chrono Trigger means I’ll play it more than my old SNES version or PS1 version, and I played those a lot. The easier it is to just get in and play, the better, if you’re trying to get me to put your game in that “familiarity” slot. Otherwise, I’m going elsewhere.
As for why this is important when I’m not a continuing stream of obvious revenue via a sub, well, I do occasionally buy DLC, and I do talk about and cheerlead for games that I love. I strongly recommend Chrono Trigger, Minecraft, Frozen Synapse, X-Com, Professor Layton, Recettear, Ghost Trick, World of Goo, Cogs and a whole bunch of other great games. Other people have purchased games I’ve recommended. I’ve purchased games other people recommend. If I didn’t have that positive experience with the games, then that free advertising goes away. Maybe it’s hard to quantify that, but there’s value there, and trying to mine it with RealID shenanigans or subs will make it evaporate instantly.
The last thing I want when I go for familiar gaming, my mental Fuzzy Slippers of Comfort +5, is to be hit up for money or a need to login to a server.
Tesh,
I love the old Lucasarts games. I remember both you mentioned, as well as the original Sam & Max (one of my favorite environmental artifacts is the store sign in the original that read “Guns, Liquor, Baby Needs”).
I have these old nostalgia trips, too. Were you a fan of Microprose? I think they did X-Com (pretty darn sure, in fact), but my favorite 4x games – Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2 (1 was good, 3 was terrible) were from that dev, as well as one of my earliest RPGs. My very first was Darkside of Xeen, but my second, and the one that stuck more with me, was Legacy: Realm of Terror. You’re probably familiar with most (if not all) of those, but if not, I’d recommend you scratch any nostalgia itch with some of those.
As for online play, well, I don’t mind too much. I think I’m moving to prefer small co-ops over MMO style, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing overall or whether it’s just fatigue on my part. Sure, I love to sit down and play a single player game on my schedule, but the chance to experience new environments, new mechanics, new worlds with another person adds a social dimension to the game that I feel can’t really be matched. I’ve played through more than one mediocre game only because I was with someone and we could laugh and enjoy it.
I’m not fuzzy slippers yet. I have some fuzzy slippers games, sure (like the ones mentioned above – or any early final fantasy, or Ogre Battle), but at this point I’m still in my hiking boots, I think, sallying forth with a group of merry people to see what’s out there.
Nice metaphor, great post.
Stubborn
Ohhhh, yes. Master of Orion 1&2 (let us forget 3), Master of Magic, X-Com and TFTD… these are the fabric that makes up my youth (I sort of avoided listing them because I’ve listed them as favorites before… but maybe that was a mistake here). I wanted to work for MicroProse. Between those and Ogre Battle and FFT, I spent many, many happy hours. When I wasn’t playing Descent, Chrono Trigger or any of the other Squaresoft classics, that is. Even Super Mario RPG (the Squaresoft one) was a blast.
And then there’s Privateer and Wing Commander, MechWarrior and MechCommander, 7th Guest and Myst. Yeah, there are a TON of really great older games.
I hear you on exploring new environments. MMOs do tend to have great big worlds to explore (though games like FUEL and Skyrim are no slouch either), and I hear that siren call loud and clear. I think that’s part of the activation energy; I don’t mind online so much if I’m having a ton of fun hiking around, but inevitably, level gating and grind kill my exploration.
Thanks!
you know, I honestly don’t see TOR as my fuzzy slippers game. sure there’s enough familiarity in it for me not to feel lost and confused, but there are more then enough differences to give me this new, epic feeling. new stories, different characters to get attached to, ties to the old, but not so much that I feel like I’m playing same old (although beta weekend did inspire me to fire up KOTOR again.)
I didn’t feel like it was WoW with lightsabers. I felt like it was a bioware game with Lightsabers and more colorful Mass Effect if you will,but different still that they both scratch a different itch.
would I prefer free to play model for TOR? absolutely. but to me, at least its still worth it to pay monthly for access to the game for access to playing with people I like, exploring the environments that interest us. and there’s.. something about that game that even WoW didn’t have for me that just speaks to me. more then guild wars or any other MMO I tried so far.
Perhaps I should note that I have every intention of trying SWTOR out someday, and I’m looking forward to it. I just see it as Yet Another DIKU MMO, and I can get that for free in a few places.
Still… it’s good to hear that it’s not completely derivative, and that there’s fun to be had. I’ll get there someday. :)
River City Random, aka “Street Gangs” (in Australia) was an AWESOME game, and one of the only games I bought on Nintendo Wii’s virtual store. LOVED IT!!!
I’m not a huge fan of Steam, and after buying a couple of games (Rage, and Black Ops, to name two) which took almost a day each to install. Seriously. They both took almost 24 hours to install even though I had the DVD, because during installation I was forced to log into Steam (or the Installer would cancel on me) and then it started to download something, patches, I don’t know. I let the installer run (download shit) overnight and it still was not done the next morning.
Now maybe I did something wrong, but after that experience I’m even less enamored with Steam than I was before.
“..mindlessly plow through bad guys and collect loot”
I cannot BELIEVE you mentioned CT and FF for this!!! =O
Chrono Trigger changed my life as a gamer, no kidding. everything I played after that was influenced by my altered view, compared, scrutinized. it also introduced me to Mitsuda’s work and all the wonderful soundtrack out there.
That said, reading your article I realize that I am not nearly as diverse a gamer as I am a reader or movie watcher. What you describe fits my habits there perfectly, but not so much my game choices. I will have to ponder this some more, methinks. :)
Syl, don’t get me wrong, I *love* CT and most FF games, it’s just that there tends to be large swaths of each of them where you have to grind XP to progress. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, if you enjoy it, and sometimes I do. That said, CC was paced really well and you could do fine with *no* grinding. It’s still unique among JRPGs I’ve played in that regard. (And in contrast, FFXII has me stuck in an area where I’m level 27 but should be level 40 or so… grind time!)
I had much the same response as you to CT… and I still look for Mitsuda’s music when I can. His “Brink of Time” CD is weird, but his “Sailing to the World” is almost as good as the Chrono music.
Cap’n, River City Ransom is on the Wii? I must investigate. It really is a great game.
I had trouble getting Dirt to install via Steam, and I still can’t get some games to work with my new dual monitor setup. I’m not sure whether to blame Steam for that or just the game. Still, I treat it somewhat warily. It’s a sale outlet, and I have some good games from there (Portal 2 for $10, sure!), but if I really want a game without worrying much about it, I’ll get it on disc.
Great post Tesh. It was awesome reading about your gaming style and experience. I’m not going to go into a giant list right now, but I have a diverse game selection for a variety of reasons like you do. Your list was very similar to some of the games I play. I’ve realized that I go out in search of new experiences, which are the games that really get me pumped up but at the same time I love a trip down memory lane too.
I was glad you mentioned the Chrono games. You talked about Chrono Trigger, but Chrono Cross is actually one of my all time favorite JRPGs and I still think it has the best soundtrack of any game ever.
The tone you took on subscriptions models is in line with my thinking too. I just can’t justify it any more. I’ll play an online game if it’s free to play and I’ll most likely drop some cash in the in-game store, but I’m never paying a monthly sub again. Hopefully some day SWTOR will go f2p and I’ll get a chance to check it out.
Anyway, solid post. Keep up the good work!
Ah, the Wing Commander series. Loved it. Your new list reminded me also of Star Control II, which was the largest, best exploratory game I played before MMOs, and of course if you mention a puzzler like 7th Guest (and it’s sequel, 11th hour), how about the old Nintendo games like Shadowgate, De Ja Vu, and Uninvited? Great games, good old times. 7th Saga, too. Ah, memory lane.
Mmm… Star Control 2. That game still doesn’t have an equal or a proper sequel. My only mild beef with it is the time limit, so I never did explore as much as I wanted to. It did make the story more urgent, though, and I think it was probably a good game design choice. …but now I’m ashamed that I didn’t list it. It’s one of my old favorites, right up there with the MicroProse games. …it’s likely I’ve forgotten more games I played and liked than I’ve listed here.
Oddly, I never did play 11th Hour. I think it just got *too* far into horror, so it didn’t appeal to me. Even the story in 7th Guest didn’t do much for me; I was all for the puzzles and exploring the spooky setting. I never did play those NES games, either, to my chagrin. I did love R.C. Pro Am, Blaster Master, Tetris, Legend of Zelda and SMB3 though. I didn’t do much with RPGs until the SNES and FF2 (which I later learned was 4). Then I was hooked.
Void, I’m on record in type that I’d buy SWTOR at full price (not sale, like I usually do) if it were sold like Guild Wars; buy once and play forever. As it is, I’ll just sit back and see what happens. Of course, I’d have preferred KOTOR 3-8 anyway. ;)
SWTOR will more than likely be the last sub based game I’m around for at launch. All in all I’m paying $80 (DD edition), and 15 a month after that. That is a serious investment, and if the beta hadn’t hooked me so hard I wouldn’t really be contemplating it. These days, most sub based games I won’t try until I can get the client for practically free. There’s just too many high quality FtPs out there to justify an up front $50-60 box fee.
Secret of Mana was absolutely awesome. I have played the English translation of SoM 2 via emulater, and if Squeenix ever released an official version I’d buy it in a heart beat. The “sequel” to SoM that came out on the playstation was a huge disappointment. Some really neat ideas buried underneath serious glaring design flaws. The gameboy mana games (both the black and white original and the color revamp with two characters to choose from) were actually much batter than the playstation game, imo.
On the FF games, I actually play them mainly for the story elements and the character building. Now that I think of it, the character building is quite grindy…but for some reason I don’t think of it that way. Doing all the crazy stuff to get a gold chokobo (FFVII) or get everyone’s secret uber weapons (FFX) feels more like a series of mini games to me than a grind.
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