The Disposable Game
With my purchase of the Xbox 360 in November, I have been introduced to the concept of the disposable game. A Disposable Game is one that after you play through the campaign, it has little replay-ability for you for one reason or another.
Call of Duty 2 is a gorgeous title. Rich environments, brilliant AI, and unparalleled realism surround the gamer in the life of soldiers in World War 2. I played through the Russian campaign of this game and promptly put it away, selling it on half.com this past weekend. The game certainly met my expectations of what a next-generation game should be, but I didn’t attach to it. I had no desire to play any of the levels a second time (or even finish the other campaigns for that matter).
I am rapidly starting to feel the same way about Dead or Alive 4. Great game. Easily the best graphics I have seen on the 360 to date, bar none. However, the difficulty of the game astounds me. I was relieved just to be done with the “Story Mode” just so I wouldn’t have to fight “the green bitch” again, as she’s now being referred to on the forums at 2old2play.com. I find one on one or two on two multiplayer games to be quite boring unless you know the other person very well so that doesn’t hold my interest either.
All of this is leading up to a fairly serious problem to the game publishers who now increasingly have to contend with their games being sold 2, 3 or even 4 times for the same disc because gamers play it, quickly get bored with it, and sell it or otherwise dispose of it.
Games like Halo 2 have lasting appeal because large communities of people get together online to play them (In my opinion, 2old2play.com owes their very existence to this phenomenon). Mech Assault was another title where people played the game in multiplayer for months (or even years) after its release because the simple, fun, addictive team play allowed people to form relationships. In my opinion, Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic flourished in part because there was so much interesting content written into the single player campaign that gamers would play the game 2 or 3 times through at 12-18 hours per campaign. That is a lot of game play time.
But these games are the exception rather than the rule. The gaming industry is killing itself with these disposable games, but it really hurts all of us in the long run as fewer great titles in the marketplace ultimately helps companies like EA who are seemingly addicted to “sequel-mania”.
Call of Duty 2 is a gorgeous title. Rich environments, brilliant AI, and unparalleled realism surround the gamer in the life of soldiers in World War 2. I played through the Russian campaign of this game and promptly put it away, selling it on half.com this past weekend. The game certainly met my expectations of what a next-generation game should be, but I didn’t attach to it. I had no desire to play any of the levels a second time (or even finish the other campaigns for that matter).
I am rapidly starting to feel the same way about Dead or Alive 4. Great game. Easily the best graphics I have seen on the 360 to date, bar none. However, the difficulty of the game astounds me. I was relieved just to be done with the “Story Mode” just so I wouldn’t have to fight “the green bitch” again, as she’s now being referred to on the forums at 2old2play.com. I find one on one or two on two multiplayer games to be quite boring unless you know the other person very well so that doesn’t hold my interest either.
All of this is leading up to a fairly serious problem to the game publishers who now increasingly have to contend with their games being sold 2, 3 or even 4 times for the same disc because gamers play it, quickly get bored with it, and sell it or otherwise dispose of it.
Games like Halo 2 have lasting appeal because large communities of people get together online to play them (In my opinion, 2old2play.com owes their very existence to this phenomenon). Mech Assault was another title where people played the game in multiplayer for months (or even years) after its release because the simple, fun, addictive team play allowed people to form relationships. In my opinion, Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic flourished in part because there was so much interesting content written into the single player campaign that gamers would play the game 2 or 3 times through at 12-18 hours per campaign. That is a lot of game play time.
But these games are the exception rather than the rule. The gaming industry is killing itself with these disposable games, but it really hurts all of us in the long run as fewer great titles in the marketplace ultimately helps companies like EA who are seemingly addicted to “sequel-mania”.
posted by Jason at
5:07 PM
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