There are too many damn games coming out this month.
It is a constant avalanche of quality gaming that is taxing the budget of even the most financially solvent players.
Take, for example, the forthcoming "Mirror's Edge" ($59.99). This game sells itself just through the short demo that was released on Xbox Live and PSN. The game is beautiful, and, what's more, it's fun to play. It is essentially a first-person shooter that is built around jumping puzzles. This should not be any fun at all in a sane universe, but this is not a sane universe, because "Mirror's Edge" rocks. Though the most shocking thing about "Mirror's Edge" is that it's published by Electronic Arts - a company long known for its ability to take great gaming concepts and ruin them by releasing games before they're ready.
"Gears of War 2" comes out this month, too. It's the sequel to the first real hit on the Xbox 360, and it takes the original game's fun-but-depressing storytelling to a new high - or low, as the case may be. Never before in video game history has a series had ads that evoked an emotional response in the viewer. And right there, that's another $59.99. So far, that's $119.98.
"Wrath of the Lich King," the latest "World of Warcraft" expansion, is hitting the streets on Nov. 18 for a relatively cheap $39.99. Of course, the new expansion should keep people playing for at least another year, so with one game alone, the total for this year has already hit a startlingly high total of $339.85.
"Rock Band 2: Special Edition," which includes a set of instruments for the game, came out toward the end of last month for $189.99 and brings our running total up to a mind-blowing $529.84.
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That's the total for roughly one month of gaming, from Oct. 19 to Nov. 18. That's more than most people in University Heights spend on monthly rent. That doesn't include "Fallout 3," "Fable 2" or any of a large number of games coming out this month.
Back in the golden days of the Super Nintendo, it used to be that a "must-have" game would come out once a quarter or once a month. Today, the issue for the average gamer isn't finding a good game to buy; it's choosing which good game to buy.
Is that a bad thing? The video game publishers would tell you, 'No - the more the merrier.' The developers, on the other hand, might have a different perspective. The likelihood of a sequel being developed is tied to the sales of the original game. With so many games out there worth playing, it's hard for any one game to grab a significant amount of sales. While the overall industry won't suffer, the individual developing houses might. Despite the change in the quality of the industry, it would be foolish to assume that the practices of business will change as well. With lower sales of individual games comes the increased likelihood of development houses being broken up and the dream teams that created the current crop of amazing games being scattered to the winds.
It might be better for the long-term health of the industry, and the immediate health of gamers' wallets, if the big publishing houses started spreading their releases out a little bit. If they did that, most people could afford more games over the course of the year, and I wouldn't have to complain about the lack of anything good being released in April of next year.
I'm not going to hold my breath, though.
