A Long Cold Winter

This past week temperatures in the Twin Cities soared to well above seventy degrees Fahrenheit, which I believe translates to something like nine-hundred degrees for those of you on the Celsius system. For March in Minnesota these kinds of temperatures lead some to light an extra candle at their tasteful shrine to Al Gore, but mostly it just encourages us to wear shorts, roll down the car windows and skip work. What it does not do is give me cause to play video games.

So why the hell are all the good games being released when the weather is nice?

There are months, in this flat, prairie land when humans of any meaningful sense do not venture long out their front doors. Those months are January and February and they are cold in the way I imagine sunbathing in the Oort cloud might be cold. The best decision one can make is to bask in the heat of one's own home and simulate a type of active hibernation, feet warmly wrapped in a really good pair of socks, and pass the hours with mindless entertainment. Thankfully television broadcasters have the good sense to recognize that these are the days when people watch television, and transmit new programming.

For this kindness, the portion of my brain that craves constant entertainment is deeply indebted.

But, when I settle myself before my computer or Xbox 360 in these dreary months I am met largely with a stack of familiar, overplayed or uninspiring games. There is no 60-day stretch of the calendar year when I am more primed, more enthusiastic for absorbing myself into a new game, so why then must publishers offer great heaping piles of nothing to a time of year aching to be spent marinating my brain in the digital brine of an all consuming game.

I understand on a logical level that blowing their collective wads on the retail feeding frenzy of December makes sense of at least a dozen important revenue pie charts and cash-flow graphs, but I'm also keenly aware that the offerings of December are usually rushed to completion and broadly targeted games that are designed less to be played and loved than to make for great seasonal marketing. Which is to say, that if you open the game on December 25th, you'll have probably forgotten all about it by New Years Eve. I draw a line of distinction between the kinds of games released for "gamers" and those made for everyone else, and the Christmas season brings a lot more of the latter.

There is elitism in that sentiment. I realize that, and I don't mean to entirely disparage games made for wide audiences. More people playing video games means more games get made. My problem is that those titles, the ones developed for large audiences and that seem to be released for the holidays, rarely prove to be the ones into which a gamer can invest themselves over months or even years. It is the endless game that I need in January and February, like an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (released in April), a Civilization IV (released in July) or a Diablo 2 (released in June).

Historically, January and February are lean times for the gaming industry, and I suppose there are some who have the wherewithal to save a nice stack of games from November – a historically good month for releases – for the darkest part of the winter. I am, in this inevitable simile, the lazy grasshopper to their industrious, goody-two-shoes, goddamned knowitall ant, starving the winter darkness in impotent rage as they sit fat in their frozen hill, smugly satisfied to have stored gaming goodness for the cold.

I suppose I could have simply played more World of Warcraft, and truth be told that's exactly what I did. I abandoned another wheelbarrow full of time to that insatiable sinkhole in the landscape of my life, and that's fine enough I guess. It just would have been nice to have found a new Sisyphean task. It's not that nothing was released in these wayward months, but games like Lost Planet, Vanguard, Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, hell even Crackdown, these are just filler titles of temporary relevance while nothing better is around, and they marked some of the biggest releases of late winter.

But, of course, now that the weather turns bright, the leaves begin to peek from winter slumber, so does the gaming industry rise drowsy and hungry from its own hibernation unleashing God of War 2 and Command and Conquer 3 the same damn week that temperatures creep out of jacket territory. I realize that the traditional stereotype of the hardcore gamer is that of a pasty-faced retail jockey living in his – gender most certainly specific – parents basement on a diet of Bawls and Cheetos, but I think the truth may be something at least slightly different in some cases. For example, I have a wife, a kid, a mortgage, a financial advisor, a 401-k and a fuel-efficient Japanese sedan, which means that occasionally during the warmer months I venture forth in the verdant unknown of this sunny world.

So, while those who fit the stereotype will be enjoying Mass Effect, Lord of the Rings Online, Too Human, Quake Wars, Bioshock and Hellgate: London while our middle-age yellow star burns bright and warm, I'll probably be thinking a lot less about video games and a lot more about afternoons in the park and evenings on the porch with the barbecue. It's an easy choice when I think about it.

Comments

Move to somewhere with warm winters and cold-ass summers

The reason for this is that developers also want to enjoy their summers, so they work hard and stay indoors for the winter to release in summer so they can sit on their asses in the shade with a nice drink while laughing at us, gamers sweating behind their pc!

clap clap clap.

Bravo good sir. You echo my feelings most eloquently.

I keep telling my wife to hang on tight, because it's going to be an expensive spring.

Like the grasshopper, you need to learn how to conserve your gaming goodness for winter.

Also, I really liked "abandoned another wheelbarrow full of time to that insatiable sinkhole in the landscape of my life," keep up the good work.

I have nothing to add but agreement. January and Feburary are primo times to game.

Elysium wrote:

I'll probably be thinking a lot less about video games and a lot more about afternoons in the park ...

I'm confused. Why are you going to the park? Do you LARP or something?

OH LAWD, you just reminded me I live in texas. I have it backwards blistering heat and 70 degree winters.

Ely, I hear Argentina is "nice" this time of year.

And I don't conserve my games until January and February, I just don't have time to rip through them on Dec 26. This is probably because I was back at work then.

What means "Jacket weather?"

I'm right there with Wick.

I do hate how there are vast featureless expanses of time when only the most infinitesimal dregs of gaming goodness are meted out to content-starved gamers, only to have a landslide of titles bury us in a mountain of debt two or three months out of the year. It's either that, or we have to skip a game or two on release day.

Perish the thought.

I always tell myself I'll pick something up during those times, but the titles slip my mind or they're absent from shelves by then.

Just remember that every time the game industry fails to supply it's consumers with games it is their loss. Make yourself believe that. Plan ahead for winter, not by stocking up on games, but by stocking up on alternatives. Get a few seasons of a show you've always wanted to watch or a series of books you've been meaning to read. I'm sure you do that to some extent already but we should never feel deprived from any kind of commercial industry. Deprivation is a sign of a lacking in something needed. You can deprive someone of love or food or oxygen. You shouldn't be able to deprive someone of product.

I'm starting to think that the moniker of "Gamer" is beginning to become a crutch. We are hobbyists and entertainment enthusiasts that specialize in gaming and if we start to act like that, we'll have much more strength as a group and more satisfaction as individuals.

What I'm trying to say is that when the game publishers give you a nice "f*ck you" when you really want new games, you just go ahead and feel free to give that "f*ck you" right back to them whenever you have better things to do. And, don't ever feel like you are using "game time" for other things. If something feels like it's a better way to spend your afternoon, it is.

Am I the only one that feels like this is a gaming glut that hasn't let up since September? I get what you're saying. I'm accustomed to the stretch between December and, well, November where nothing comes out, but this year it just hasn't happened for me. I've been playing nonstop and it kind of worries me, as if maybe I'm drawing good game releases from the future and when it's over with I'll have to suffer two straight years without a good, new title.

Eh, if you consider this to be a 'long cold winter,' then it must be a nuclear winter for me since I haven't had much fun playing games for a couple years now.

Naravorgaara wrote:

Eh, if you consider this to be a 'long cold winter,' then it must be a nuclear winter for me since I haven't had much fun playing games for a couple years now.

No wonder you spend so much time in game forums.

Certis wrote:

No wonder you spend so much time in game forums.

I don't spend much time in game forums.

Naravorgaara wrote:
Certis wrote:

No wonder you spend so much time in game forums.

I don't spend much time in game forums.

Right.

We eat our young here.

McChuck wrote:
Elysium wrote:

I'll probably be thinking a lot less about video games and a lot more about afternoons in the park ...

I'm confused. Why are you going to the park? Do you LARP or something?

That's who that was! Dude, shave the back, you're not really a dwarf.

Vrikk wrote:

We eat our young here.

Can I have yours, I finished mine.

Only wussies stay in during winter

They're in the freezer, Koning. Keeps 'em fresh longer.

Of course, after 2 days of jacket free (pants free optional) weather, the Twin Cities has again been plunged into "40 and rain" non stop.

Bah, I miss our mini summer. Hopefully it will return soon. My back can't handle any more snow.

I kind of think that the sweet spot for enjoying our hobby involves only playing for an hour or two a day. I only get to play for about half an hour a day and couldn't be happier with my options out there, probably in large part because there are so many good games that I haven't had time for. I recently finished Bully, and am currently playing Dead Rising and Shadow of the Colossus. Those are all older games, but they're new to me. For my limited time, I feel like there has never been a better time to be a gamer.

However, I can see how, if you play games more, or are more interested in new games, the lean season could hurt.

I don't have a "lean season" so much, because there's always so much I missed the first time through I can find something to do. Especially with the limitations on time I have.

What chaps my arse is the slippage. I had several things lined up for this month that unceremoniously slid out to fall without so much as a by-your-leave.

40 and rain? Try single-digit with wind chill.

That one monday was perfect though.