Dyack: Industry making more games than consumers can handle

Too many good games IS a problem if no one can afford to buy them all :P

dude it's so true.

I wanted Red faction and Prototype and had to choose. If I had a ps3 the choice would have been harder again.

This sort of overkill I'm sure is a major contributor to piracy. People just cant (or in my case wont) spend so much money on games. I will choose a title and maybe pick up the others I missed

Too many games isn't a problem, play the few you want now, and buy the rest at a lower price later on. It's simple and cheap.

*looks at backlog of videogames he hasn't played*

yep, overwhelmed!

I keep a stack of the games that im playing on my Xbox, and that stack has certainly gotten way too big. Been pondering canceling my gamefly lately too, since I own like 4 games that I havent beaten but want to.

Sad thing is that its all I can do to keep myself from going and buying more games.

I just buy any games I couldn't afford at the time about a year later, when they're down to £5-10.

This is the same problem that any mature medium has though. There are too many good movies, good tv shows, good musicians and good books for me to possibly keep up with. I would say this is just another sign that gaming is growing into out of its adolescence as a medium.

Yeah but movies take 2 hours to watch. You can watch a few in a day, but when games take 10+ hours to complete, do you have time to play through multiple ones in a day? If you have a job, you do not.

I just maintain a list of the games I want. Once a title reaches $30 or less I get it. There can't be too many good games.

The only problem with that is when the game goes on sale, there is a sequel that has already been released, and your playing multi-player with two guys while there are thousands of others playing the new game.

If it's multiplayer I get them alongside the friends I plan on playing with, regardless if it's day one or 2 years from day one.

Nah, too human just sucks

I bought too human, and then wish i hadn't.

Ohhhhh no you didint!

I bought it, and now I can't even give it away.

tell me about it, i just got Bioshock o.O

I've gotten just about all the big games when they were released and have only played some a few hours each. Especially the big games that come out so close together or at the same time. Some of us may want to buy them but not going to buy them so close together then end up waiting for when they get heavily discounted. Then the game companies start pissing and moaning when the used sales are overshadowing the new sales.

I know, I recently reverted back to my Super Nintendo just to get some perspective and get away from it all.

split screen is dead...just look at RE5 and COD waw...the split screen ob both of them sucks =(

Left 4 Dead called, told me you failed with that comment

Left 4 Dead fails at split screen, too, so good comment.

Halo 3 is the only one that's done it right.

Fail?? Considering I can switch between horizontal and vertical with Left 4 dead I'd love to know how that is fail? Halo does 4 people in custom games, whoopdeedo

Halo does 4-player coop for the campaign, and for all online modes (if you have 4 gold accounts you can do ranked). There is no better splitscreen game out there (in terms of capability). This doesn't mean that other games (Left 4 Dead) aren't awesome too, though. I definitely agree that splitscreen is one of my favorite features.

Left 4 Dead fails at splitscreen because IT'S A GAME GOD-DAMNED DESIGNED FOR 4 PLAYERS AND ONLY LETS YOU PLAY SPLITSCREEN WITH 2.

Sorry, but that still bugs me.

Last time I checked 4 player splitscreen was for customs only. 4 player coop campaign possible but only 2 player per Xbox/TV. Correct me if I'm wrong

4 player splitscreen is allowed in all social games (1 Gold and 3 guests), and allowed in ranked (non-lone wolves) if you have 4 separate accounts.

I think you mean not have any "NEW" games to play. Back in the day, we used to replay video games. Even games that encourage multiple play throughs with achievements never get touched for that second go around. There is NOTHING wrong with going back and replaying good games.

I get what Dyack is saying, and I completely agree. I haven't purchased a single new game in 2009, and I still have about 16 unplayed game from previous years that I've picked up (I just played through Oblivion for the first time... that's what, 3 years old now?). Not to mention finding time to squeeze in playing old games I love like Shadows of the Colossus, Bioshock, or any of the Final Fantasy titles. Games just really lose the "buy me!" connection now since there's no time to go back for a second play through. I think this is why Gamestop, Goozex, and Gamefly are so profitable. No one has a reason to keep games any more.

Who's 'we'? Back in the day, *I* didn't used to replay video games. (Come to that, back in the day, I rarely used to finish them once.)

Of course with titles like King's Quest you couldn't really replay them, at least not without a very long delay so you forgot all the puzzle answers. But even arcadey games, such as they were, I didn't replay if I completed them.

I think Resident Evil 4 is the first and only game I've significantly replayed (i.e. I played it to completion three times; once on GC, twice on Wii).

As for the original topic of this post... um I only own a Wii... so no I'm not feeling overwhelmed with games. Don't get me wrong, that's fine, I have lots of other things to do than play games. (And I haven't finished The Conduit yet, actually.) Wouldn't mind a few more quality games though - there's quite a lot coming out for the remainder of the year, which is good.

Damn sam,

Everything in your post sounds like me and my experiences.

Back in the day, I hardly finished a game I played. Must have been my kid ADD or something.

Nowadays I only play Wii, yet have other things going on to keep me occupied instead. Not too worried bout lack of games or too many games.

And YES, RE4 was the first game I beat, then played again and beat, over and over. Except it was more like 3 times on GC and 4 times on Wii lol

I get what you mean when you talk about replaying games back in the day. It used to be months in between new games for me. It was a special occassion getting a new game. Now it seems like I'm buying a new game every other week. Games simply were not pumped out at the rate they are now.

I used to play games a LOT more than once - Mario Bros. 3 (any Mario game, for that matter), Star Fox, Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Bionic Commando, Megaman, etc. Now I'll pbuy a new game, play it, beat it (if I didn't just stop in the middle), and move on. Very few titles have gotten me to go back through them again. Mass Effect is one that comes to mind.

I may be talking even way back before your time then Sam...

Back in SNES days when you got games like Earthworm Jim, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger (which has multiple endings, meaning it was meant to be played over and over), Super Punch-Out, Castlevania, Mega Man, Zombies Ate my Neighbors, Final Fight, Contra, Gradius, Sunset Riders, Out of This World, Final Fantasy 4... You replayed this games. They weren't a one-shot then never touch again.

Maybe I'm old, but I miss having to know the order to kill the mavericks, where all Mega's power ups were, the extra E containers, etc. Games used to be a lot more intimate.

Sounds like someone had a lot more games than I did growing up. That means you either had more money than I did, or very giving parents.

Me, I didn't get a Super Nintendo until well after Final Fantasy III came out, and that was purchased at a yard sale for $55. My Nintendo collection was constantly in flux, given the fact that I had to constantly and consistently trade away some of the less-played games for something new at the local pawn shop.

So yeah, I replayed through games a BUNCH. I can't count the number of times I've played through the Mega Man games. Or the Dragon Warriors or Final Fantasy. When you have a limited selection, you either replay them, or you don't play at all.

That being said, there ARE too many games, and I actually have the money for them now. Unfortunately, there's one other problem... I don't have the time anymore. Funny how that works, when you get a job. My backlog has stacked up tremendously, and shows no signs of going down. Doesn't help that I seem to have overcompensated for my lack of games in my childhood and now own 1000+ legit games (on top of the more... dubious acquisitions).

So, Too Human may have sucked, but that doesn't make Dyack wrong on this. How many games do we have that slip through the cracks, not because they're necessarily bad, but just because they don't get noticed? Beyond Good & Evil is probably one of the better examples of this.

I didn't know people like you actually existed, as far as never owning a Playstation console

I'm one too. I've played them all though.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you, I've got actual NES, SNES, and PS1 games waiting to be played, nevermind my backlog of PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube.