Like many American youths of the 90’s, I enjoyed my fair share of video games. I was ardently in the PlayStation camp of The Great Console Wars of the 2000’s. This continued up until my college days. One fateful day in 2012, my laptop died while I was doing my taxes (the worst possible time for that!). I had a relative that lived across town that made me an attractive offer; he’d trade me his barely-used laptop in exchange for my PS3. Being a broke college student at the time, I readily accepted that deal. Little did I know at the time, this would be the beginning of the end of what was, at that point, a lifelong hobby. Since I no longer owned a modern console, I fell behind on the advances of the gaming world. I received a gift of a new console in early 2019 for Christmas but by then the damage to my gaming passion had already been done. Thus, the 2010’s were The Lost Decade.
Here’s the thing though, I didn’t miss a whole lot. In 2013, nearly all of the top 25 best-selling games were either reboots or sequels of existing intellectual property. This trend was hardly contained to 2013 either, as 2021 and 2022 showed similar trends. This is understandable to a certain point; gaming companies have a fiduciary duty to their investors to make the best financial move available to them. Often times, the most prudent financial move is re-booting an existing intellectual property or making a prequel/sequel, as it has a much higher chance of selling well. However, there is something to be said about the lack of creative risk-taking in our modern gaming landscape. It’s okay to move fast and break things, even if some ideas don’t work out.
I’m not the only one who has a negative view of the modern gaming landscape either. E3, the industry’s largest trade show, has been cancelled yet again. “But Dan, you can’t hold it against them for cancelling the event in the last few years.; there was a raging pandemic!”, while you are correct (for once), my pitchfork-wielding cherub, the pandemic is only part of the story. The pandemic wasn’t cited as a reason for the 2023’s edition of the show’s cancellation (as an aside, it’s officially time to stop using that excuse). Key gaming companies lacked any playable demos and the event failed garner sufficient interest from the public to warrant hosting the extravaganza. It also isn’t hard to see why Sony and Microsoft didn’t have anything to demonstrate either, the aforementioned Great Console Wars are a bygone-era. The stark reality is that neither of them reign supreme anymore; the throne belongs to the PC now. Consoles have had to adapt; they are now glorified Netflix-machines that happen to play the occasional video game.
Scaling away from the macro and back to the micro; recently I received a shelving unit for my living room (a hand-me-down from a relative). I proceeded to stock it full of books, old CD’s, DVD’s and of course, my classic video game collection (I’ve held onto my old PlayStation 1 console/games from the 90’s). During the process of loading up my new shelving, I had re-discovered old titles in my collection that I had forgotten about. I decided to indulge and set up my PS1 to my TV (which felt odd, connecting a 1994 console to a 2015 TV). I popped in a lesser-known SquareEnix game that I once enjoyed, fired up the console and started playing. However, this time was different; I couldn’t fall back in love with the game, like, not even a little bit. Nothing about the experience enticed me to explore further. Holding the PS1 controller in my hands felt like I was holding child’s toy, and then it dawned on me; it literally was a child’s toy. Ultimately, I vetoed retro gaming in my free time in favor of writing and working out, though most people just call me a try-hard.
While there is nothing wrong with the occasional Trip Down Memory Lane, nostalgia is generally unproductive, as it encourages people to live in the past. Humans tend to remember the positive parts more than the negative ones, and gaming is no exception. The gaming industry was not perfect in the 90’s either, far from it. Games back then were artificially padded with nonsensical sub-quests and back-tracking (looking at you, Mr. Kojima) just as they are today. We also choose not to remember the need to re-surface discs or obnoxiously long load times either. The great author and podcaster Ryan Holiday is quite fond of quoting the stoic philosopher Heraclitus, “No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man”. The gaming industry has changed immensely through the decades, and so has my perception along the way (I know I’m not alone on this). Older gameplay mechanics, graphics, and hardware will inevitably pale in comparison to modern methods; this skews the perspective we’ll bring to the table during re-plays. Also, people’s worldview and values change with time as well; that is both okay and normal; There is nothing wrong with leaving an old hobby in the past, doubly so if it no longer serves you.
To be clear, this is not an attack on who gamers are as people, nor am I saying that nobody should play video games. I ended my book with a message that bears repeating; these people need our embrace and not our condemnation. Personally, I feel that the term gamer carries way too much of a negative stigma, as images of this guy come to mind. I also don’t believe in the ridiculous notion of violent video games causes violence (hint: they don’t). If these slanted pundits (eww…pundits) actually went to science class, they’d understand the difference between a correlation and a causation. Furthermore, few of these pundits choose to discuss some of the mild benefits of the activity because it runs counter to their views. These conversations rarely have the level of tact required to say moderation is key. Condescendingly calling consoles and gaming PC rigs reality-escaping devices is also unhelpful, since that is the same dogma used to stigmatize drugs. That misguided term isn’t used to stigmatize music, films, or sports, though we just as easily could.
I won’t judge you for picking up a controller, just don’t judge me for putting down mine…
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