What happened to the simple days of our youth, when we had no idea that a new game was coming out until we saw an advertisement on TV or accidentally stumbled across the actual title on store shelves? In the age of information overload (which I’ve written about here before), such an occurrence is less and less likely to happen.
It’s funny thinking back to my anticipation level for titles over the years as I’ve grown up. It started with magazine subscriptions and previews and eventually worked its way up to disc-based demos, kiosks and ultimately the Internet. Nowadays, it’s getting much more difficult to ignore all of the media associated with the games we’re dying to play. No matter where you look, there’s some kind of data bombardment, beckoning you to pre-order from this or that store, trying to get you to buy the ultra mega editions and watch every last 10 second non-game footage teaser trailer.
What happened to simplicity? That’s what Kotaku writer Kirk Hamilton (or Eddy’s boyfriend, as Nick refers to him) asks in a hilarious piece which looks at buying a book versus buying a video game. In it, he lampoons pre-order bonuses, betas, previews and everything else under the sun.
It’s great stuff, and really makes one wonder about just how far we’ve come. Although you could also wonder just how much gaming sites contribute to all this madness. Just a thought. What do you guys think about all this? Do you think video game purchasing has become needlessly complex? Go!
Source – Kotaku