Gaming Owning a flash card = Not appreciating any games

[DarkKnigh_t]

The problem is when you buy a game ( it could be just me but) in your mind you know you paid for it, rarely someone buys a game and decides that it sucks(unless you have a ton of money and you buy it cause you like the cover art) and by knowing that you in a way play it more and try to finish it and complete the game. When you download it at the first sight of the game sucking you just stop playing. I know for example games that at first were like wow so amazing and then after a few hours your like meh stupid game and stop playing it, perfect example for me saints row 4, MOST of the gta games get like that after your about half way through.

 

[Chocolina]

Its based on the person.

Some of us here actually really enjoyed Pinky Street Kira Kira Pop Princess and didn't pay.

Also if you appreciate a game more because you paid money, that still doesn't make the game better.
In fact I hate Paper Mario Sticker Star even more because I spent $44 on it.

 

[CraddaPoosta]

The problem is when you buy a game ( it could be just me but) in your mind you know you paid for it, rarely someone buys a game and decides that it sucks(unless you have a ton of money and you buy it cause you like the cover art) and by knowing that you in a way play it more and try to finish it and complete the game. When you download it at the first sight of the game sucking you just stop playing. I know for example games that at first were like wow so amazing and then after a few hours your like meh stupid game and stop playing it, perfect example for me saints row 4, MOST of the gta games get like that after your about half way through.

It will likely be a solid two years before I play GTA V again. I played it NON-STOP for a week when it came out, and I got it on launch day. By the time GTA Online was actually working, I was already over it.

I have put at least 400-500 hours into Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution, between NDS and PS3. I could play that game any day, any time. I've probably got over 1,000 hours clocked on the Vita and PS3 versions of Mortal Kombat. Likewise, I will never tire of that game.

So, I wonder how much of it is just gamer ennui, how much of it is oversaturation of C-titles, and how much of it is just my tastes in gaming not matching up with what the scene has been forcing on us lately.

I do NOT like indie games, FPS games or most sports games, but according to Microsoft, that's all I should care about. Also according to the games offered on PS+.

I really hate how the mobile phone gaming market has motivated the Big Three to force the scene of indie games, in particular. They only do that because it's so much more profitable for them to give an indie dev peanuts, rather than paying top dollar for Capcom or Squeenix to crank out another AAA title.

At this rate, we might be headed for another crash like in 1984. I know we'll never get to that point ever again, but, I can't say that a thousand indie games a year, as opposed to a dozen AAA titles, is really giving us gamers the best possible experience.

 

[Red_Savarin]

Hell man already pass that phase and not because of pirated games i actually buy an online game sequel, i loved the first(guild wars), then after a week in the game i couldn't log in anymore just how much the game bores me to death and i payed 54 euros for it...
You have to think that some games you outgrow and another ones you grow to like it, before i couldn't even look at fallout or witcher, now i absolutely love them.
One other thing if you like to play a lot try to mix it up one rpg, then fps, platformer, rts, adventure, novel. You will get less bored.

 

[DarkKnigh_t]

For me personally I get a game and for the first few hours I love it and then something happens i see something stupid and i stop playing the game like for example starcraft 2 i love that game but to play online vs other people i need to first play and lose for the next 100 hours to get better at it, its just competition in that game its ridiculous. Next need for speed(all of them except need for speed 3 hot pursuit for the ps1) i start the game wow nice cars, a couple of races later same old crap i delete the game. Ok this might be just me maybe i outgrown those games. FPS games i love them when they make sense, call of duty i mean i can't believe those stupid gun sounds i mean common you can't make the guns sound a bit more realistic, they ear so much money and i bet they use the same audio samples all these years. I will never forget call of duty 2 the best call of duty of them all amazing game, these black ops, moderwarfare crap games are just horrible THE HUD LOOKS THE SAME IN EVERY GAME its essentially the same game just repackaged. On the other hand i love battlefield but again thats taste.
See i love indie games, not all ofc most of them I don't like at all but when i see something great like teraria or starbound or don't starve I'm like okay interesting game, not expensive, I love it.
I have to say the smartest company out today is valve. Look what they have, steam, their own games ( that everyone knows and has played ), their own console now, they have a enormous library of games, they support indie developers, they have games on discounts all the time and you can pick up really great games for no money at all. And thats where we end up. Games cost alot of money to make today so they put up prices high, people don't have money and pirate, games never get discounted (Nintendo I'm looking at you). I think that if nintendo dropped some prices and had more discounts people would buy more games. I mean mario 3d land for 40 pounds still today? please this is just ridiculous.

 

[grossaffe]

I think it comes down to supply more than anything. If you have a bunch of other games, you might be looking ahead of what you're currently playing to what you want to play next. Usually price creates a scarcity in your library, which results in a higher value given to the games, but that scarcity could also come from a console just not having very many games that you have not played and are looking forward to.

 

[Foxi4]

the issue sounds like you're growing up and the games made now a days, except for a select few, dont play like you enjoyed. Different gaming generations bring different types of games. They cater to the young teenagers more than older folks. I love rpg's, I love grinding, final fantasy 7 & 9 are classics I paid for multiple times, same game not remakes. But kids nowadays hate those types of games. They want something they can pick up, kill things, and make fun of each others moms with. Times have changed. Your just getting old and you hate change! XP

That's another thing, yeah. As gamers "grow up", they either manage to rekindle their inner child and approach new games with the curiosity and wonderment of a child... or they don't and revert into old grumps who only complain how games were better back in their days. They weren't, at least not in all respects - times moved on and brought progress, and this progress was for the most part good. Openness to new ideas is required for fully enjoying media - without that, you only feed off of nostalgia value.

 

[CraddaPoosta]

Well, it isn't that I don't love new games. I am always the first out of anyone I know to adopt the latest new console or bit of technology. I thoroughly enjoy most of the current generation games that I have either purchased or acquired, just as much as the ones I loved as a kid. The version of Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection on PSP is by far my favorite version of that game, and now it's even out on Android and iOS.

In my case, it's really just having too many games in my backlog, and a sense of almost being overwhelmed, because almost none of my games are pick-up-and-play casual games. Any of them requires dedicating at least two hours to, to really get any satisfaction out of. That can be daunting when you know you have to drag your ass out of bed and go to work in the morning.

Hell, I could be playing a game that I paid for, right now, and here I am on GBATemp.

 

[Pedeadstrian]

Like people have said, it differs from person to person. For me, however, buying a game doesn't make me enjoy it more. I may play it more because I have pretty strong loss aversion and suffer from the sunk costs fallacy all the time. If I play a game I got for "free" and it sucks, I just chuck it and play a different one. If I play a game I paid for and it sucks, I may still end up playing it because it'd be a waste of money if I didn't.

Whether or not I bought a game (or movie, or anime) has zero effect on my enjoyment of it. For example: Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. That was one of the best games I've ever played in a long time. It was also the very first game I played using my Gateway. While sometimes it may appear that the games I purchased are more fun, it's only because I only pay for games I know that I'll love. I had a great time playing my retail copy of SMTIV, but I would have enjoyed it just the same (if not more since I would have saved money) if I pirated it.

 

[PityOnU]

I should have known that history would repeat itself. I cut my teeth as far as modding/hacking when I got my first Flash2Advance cart for the original, non-backlit GBA. By the time that handheld was officially dead in the water, I had hundreds of games on my hard drive, but had only ever played a handful of them.

Same thing when I got my first PSP. By the time that system hit the end of its life cycle, I had hundreds of games, but played less than 40% of them.

Then, again when I got my first DS, but that was even worse. With smaller games than the PSP, and MUCH MUCH MUCH more shovelware, I wound up maybe playing a quarter of the games I acquired.

Now that I have a Gateway 3DS, here we go again.

I've probably spent twice the amount of time fiddling with my ROMs, copying new ones to my card, then replacing it with a different game ten minutes later when I get bored with it, than I have actually PLAYING any games on my 3DS with my new flash card.

The newest Zelda and Phoenix Wright games are the only ones that really managed to capture and keep my attention. Even though I now have pretty much the entire library of games that I could buy at GameStop, I usually can't be arsed to even bother playing most of them.

I wonder how common this phenomenon is. Is anyone else here essentially a ROM hoarder, but not really that much of a hardcore gamer?

A possibility that is never considered, for whatever reason, is that you like tinkering with things (hacks, homebrew, mods, etc.) more than you like playing games.

I'm the same way. It's hard for me to justify spending hours playing video games where I could be much more productive doing things in the real world. I never have that nagging feeling when I'm tinkering with stuff, for whatever reason.

 

[slingblade1170]

Hacking the Wii back in 08 almost ruined the whole experience. I also used a flashcart with my DS lite and never played any game I downloaded except Custom Robo. As a collector, I hope the Wii U never gets hacked (for pirating games anyways) and I wish the 3DS never had gateway which I never plan on buying one.

 

[Clydefrosch]

if you pay for something, you want to avoid that terrible feeling of having wasted money. so you force yourself to spend more time with a game than you'd actually want, try to look for the good hidden behind the bad etc. you dont want to feel dissonance
its not that you dont appreciate what you got for free, but you're actually more honest with your evaluation of it because theres less noise clouding the whole thing. (theres still noise though, once you start the game, if you stop, you'll have wasted all the time to that point, as well as emotional investment if it matters etc) and the result of that is often, that games these days aren't that spectacular. you've played most of them in some way or form already. every other rpg is just a story with the same repetitive battles spacing it out.
jump and runs are also just that, changed up slightly by a different set of power ups or special controls.
fact is, the more games you play, the less reason you have to actually feel a blast with a new one, as long as its not actually seriously striking a nerve for you.

but that doesnt seem to be your problem, tc. your problem seems to be more like, that you just download every game you hear good about and then have too much to chose from to ever start anything. you're like a kid in school thats pushing off all of his work because it seems like too much work. only that you dont feel more and more pressure due to set time limits to finish your work.
obviously, thats a problem you wouldnt have if you only got like one game every other month. but its also solveable. stop downloading every fucking game ever.
download two games a month and put only those on your carts and see where that brings you. no take backsies.if you got a bad game, thats your problem, play it or learn how to cook for that month.

personally, when I got my first flashcart, i also got lots of games at once and i played all of them in an hour or so, trying one out every other minute.
and then i just started playing them one by one. and until today, theres only a handful of games i started that i didnt finish. and i do believe i played everything that was worth to be played

 

[CraddaPoosta]

A possibility that is never considered, for whatever reason, is that you like tinkering with things (hacks, homebrew, mods, etc.) more than you like playing games..

VERY much this. I absolutely love tinkering with anything gaming-related. Just getting it to work is usually enough for me. That thrill of discovery and defeating the hardware. That is probably 50% of why I am into the modding/hacking/homebrew scene, forget the games, themselves.

 

[Ulieq]

Once you get it for free, you discover how crappy the product really is. You only appreciate it if you actually spent money on it.

 

[FAST6191]

That's another thing, yeah. As gamers "grow up", they either manage to rekindle their inner child and approach new games with the curiosity and wonderment of a child... or they don't and revert into old grumps who only complain how games were better back in their days. They weren't, at least not in all respects - times moved on and brought progress, and this progress was for the most part good. Openness to new ideas is required for fully enjoying media - without that, you only feed off of nostalgia value.

There is a third way, a way that combines the two. It is become a (possibly pseudo) intellectual snob/critic/nerd. In games it comes with the bonus of it being the lesser taken route compared to a lot of other fields (everybody's a critic, except when it comes to games it seems*).

That said technology has moved on orders of magnitude in games where it has not advanced as much elsewhere so I have precious little sympathy for nostalgia.


*but but but let's play, youtube, forum reviews et al, excuse me as I laugh myself to near unconsciousness.

 

[ryuga93]

I think it is down to how much you really love the game.even if there is no pirating for the console,you will buy it and enjoy it to the max because the passion you have to the game,not because of the what so called hard earn money,because you won't have bought it in the first place if you don't like the game.so it goes the same for "free" games.Take me as an example,I love kingdom hearts and have played all the series up to kh3d,but the only game i actually own is this kh3d (I actually bought a 3ds just for this game, will do the same once it's out for ps4),but yet I still playing those "free" titles on other console over many times and still enjoying

 

[Ericthegreat]

I should have known that history would repeat itself. I cut my teeth as far as modding/hacking when I got my first Flash2Advance cart for the original, non-backlit GBA. By the time that handheld was officially dead in the water, I had hundreds of games on my hard drive, but had only ever played a handful of them.

Same thing when I got my first PSP. By the time that system hit the end of its life cycle, I had hundreds of games, but played less than 40% of them.

Then, again when I got my first DS, but that was even worse. With smaller games than the PSP, and MUCH MUCH MUCH more shovelware, I wound up maybe playing a quarter of the games I acquired.

Now that I have a Gateway 3DS, here we go again.

I've probably spent twice the amount of time fiddling with my ROMs, copying new ones to my card, then replacing it with a different game ten minutes later when I get bored with it, than I have actually PLAYING any games on my 3DS with my new flash card.

The newest Zelda and Phoenix Wright games are the only ones that really managed to capture and keep my attention. Even though I now have pretty much the entire library of games that I could buy at GameStop, I usually can't be arsed to even bother playing most of them.

I wonder how common this phenomenon is. Is anyone else here essentially a ROM hoarder, but not really that much of a hardcore gamer?

I do the same thing, but you also learn that you don't have to play a shit game, just cause you payed for it. The great games are still great.

 

[anhminh]

I realize I wasn't finish any game after I bought GW.
Just before I finish the game, somehow I get distract by other game and get bore of the game I currently play.

 

[Steena]

Many people think that having games for free devalues them, but you should look at it the other way: making an investment for a game (or anything) overvalues it.

Which is how our society works, that's not an inherent issue, but for the sake of measuring quality, should the fact that you paid money for it be a factor? You're probably no reviewer, so it doesn't have to be your job, but you still judge the quality of games as someone who plays games, since you invest time in it. If you quit playing a free game that you otherwise wouldn't have if you paid money, that means that, to you, the game wasn't good enough to be worthy of an entire playthrough.

People also need to accept more the fact that games shouldn't necessarily cater to them 100%. It's okay if a game gets boring for you mid-way. It's okay if you find that its mechanics are already played out after 20 minutes and it doesn't have anything interesting to offer to you. You don't have an obligation to finish it, you are only there because it's fun/interesting/compelling. You shouldn't force your way through the completion of a game that you do not enjoy, free or otherwise.

To me personally, the problem with almost every modern game is the terrible pacing, and super long, forced tutorials. Getting to the meat of the game takes long, and it's oftentimes broke into several segments interrupted by pointless scripts/dialogues/QTEs/whatever.

 

[dragonmaster]

i would have agreed that owning a flashcard may ruin game experience but it is not always the truth,i ve bought some games on release day and i played them rarely cause there was a huge difference between the demo and real game play ,i do play games from my flashcard to the end if i find them worthy to play and if they come to a normal price i even buy them ,saying normal price for me is 20euro well spent in my game library .as of the other reason of owning a flashcard is the ability to play games from other regions , i mean i waited for a localisation of terrys wonderland cause i liked the monster collection theme and later on i played the japan copy of the game for hours and even and if i didnt knew japanese i enjoyed the game ,for me flashcards are not evil as i have some money to spend but the games need to earn their worth so i can add them to my collection,i am an average gamer of the era of atari untill now ,in the few past years i ve collected enough games and spare enough due to flashcards i am glad that they do exist....