My gaming career may be coming to an end.

     

     Yeah, this was a thing.

        I've been a gamer since I was four years old. The first time I ever played a video game was at my grandmother's house. My two cousins, Darrell and Jovan, lived with her and Jovan's mother had bought him an NES. My brother Jason and I spent hours playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Super Mario brothers whenever we went to visit. I'm not sure if it was the magic of controlling something on a T.V. screen or just that I idolized my two cousins and wanted to emulate them in any way I could but, after enough whining and begging, my father soon presented me with a Nintendo of my own one Christmas morning. Castlevaina, Air Fortress, Bayou Billy and Ghostbusters were the first games I ever owned. All around the neighborhood my friends also received new games for their respective holidays and soon we all came together to compare which games were best. This trend would continue from 1989 until November 22, 2005: the release date of the Xbox 360. That was the day that console gaming changed forever.

        Gamer profiles, Gamerscore and Achievements were all great ideas. Having tangible feedback and proof of a particular achievement won over gamers like me who had purchased Performance brand memory cards due to multiple units stored in each card (I can't even find my N64 memory unit and I'm more than a little upset about that) who were ecstatic to finally be rid of them. Often we had to keep the data of a particular game, taking up valuable and scare space on our memory cards, to prove to our friends that we had reached a certain level or beaten a certain game. To this day my older brother still doesn't believe I found the Knights of the Round Materia in Final Fantasy VII. Having separate profiles solved an age old problem of other people erasing your game saves to make room for theirs or worse having them play your data and making an irreversible error. Now multiple gamers in one household ( I lived with four other gamers, including my mom) could share one console and not worry about game crossing as long as there is enough space on the hard drive. Gamerscore allowed you to compare you gaming progress to other gamers in your circle, not to mention all over the world. Gamers were sharing and comparing feats more than ever before. The model was so successful that Sony followed suit and engineered the PSP interface for the PS3 adding the gamer score and trophy elements. Graphics and sound had improved beyond imagining and the advantage that PC gamers held over console gamers slowly began to dissipate.

Ah the "Xbone"

        Until May 2013: The Xbox ONE reveal.

        The Microsoft Xbox One was a guaranteed buy for me until I watched the reveal and heard the aftermath. 24-hour DRM, television and movie centric applications, mandatory game installation, constant Kinect 2 and the main point of issue-paying a fee for used games. I couldn't believe it so I researched the information and had my heart broken as I found the rumors were indeed true. Microsoft had, in one fell swoop, eviscerated everything I loved about my favorite hobby. Gamers who had been faithful the Xbox brand were outraged and demanded the entire structure be changed, some even going so far as abandon their pre-orders in favor of the much more gamer-focused PlayStation 4. In response Microsoft changed it's policies to pacify it's angry consumers. Many gamers then breathed a sigh of relief, went back to their local GameStop and re-preordered the Xbox One.

        But some, like me, did not.

        Microsoft gave me a glimpse at what gaming is going to be in the corporate future. Privatized entertainment nodes that do everything from being a cable box to a Skype replacement. I was going to buy an Xbox One to play video games. Video. Games. If I want to watch television I will turn off my Xbox and watch cable like everyone else. I am among the minority that doesn't even like football so the NFL/Xbox partnership is lost on me and I will never feel comfortable with my Kinect always watching me. My wife and I do things in our living room we don't want Microsoft watching. The 24-hour DRM just feels like a form of control. I took serious offense when I heard about this feature. It's like Microsoft was saying " Have fun but only when we say so. Don't check in with us every day and that nice black console you paid $600 for becomes a useless brick." Imagine having to send an email to Ford every time you started your car or having to call Pepsi every time you opened a soda! Even worse, if you log onto your profile on someone else's console you can only play for one hour! These days that's barely enough to cover the training missions. That's just the consoles, the games themselves are even worse.

 Am I the only one who would love an Elder Scrolls with the character development and equipment options of Morrowind with the combat and graphics of Skyrim?

        I must reach into the internet archives and regurgitate an argument that I've heard often, but never wanted to be a part of : Core gamers are being forgotten. I straddled the fence in this argument although I really began to see it's significance with Fable 2, The Elder Scrolls V : Skyrim, Mass Effect 2 & 3, Resident Evil 6, Saints Row the Third and, the ultimate frat-boy middle finger to those of us who grew up in the era of Doom and Wolfenstein, Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 3 and now Ghosts. Dumbed down to appeal to anyone with a pulse, these games, while having their good points, left a sour taste in core gamers mouths. Think about eating cold pizza, it's as gross as it is delicious but if it were in it's intended form (hot and fresh) it would be perfect. Note that every title named above is a sequel or future entry. The parent titles still hold a place in my heart as some of the best games I've ever played but then companies try to go for mass appeal and end up burning the very people who made their product such a hot seller in the first place. Major key elements are removed and replaced with Idiot Systems (Resident Evils' run-and-gun gameplay, Mass Effects' focus on gunplay and downplay of the RPG elements, Skyrim's "perk" system, etc) to make the game accessible to everyone. Here's what developers aren't getting; not everyone wants to play video games! There is no entertainment medium with such an overwhelming blanket effect of satisfaction that no one can resist it. I understand marketing to as many customers as possible but, the casual gamers will do exactly what you don't want them to and buy your game used at a reduced price because gaming isn't a hobby for them. It's just a passing fancy before they go back to their X-Factor, Candy Crush and vampire movie fixations. You can not entice someone into playing your game just because of the pretty graphics and how easy it is to pick up and play if they aren't truly interested in the media, especially not at the expense of the people who do want your game but don't want either of the aforementioned factors to be where all the effort was placed.

 How game publishers think we see them.

 How we actually see them.

        I know that gaming is a business and that businesses are after profit but I fail to see how ignoring and alienating your prime demographic is good business. In the last year I've seen more gamers leave console gaming and turn to PC gaming, dissatisfied with the way they have been pushed to the wayside for casual gamers who couldn't care less about the time, talent and resources that went into the process, then the 5 years prior. Catering to the casual gamer will not turn them into a core gamer (and if it does they will become as jaded with current gen gaming as many of us are now) but it will earn you profit until the next new fad comes along and they abandon your console in favor of the new, shiny Galaxy S12 or whatever new tech will be available.

        I am a core gamer and have been for well over twenty years. I've played every home console from Atari 2600 to PlayStation 3. I would go to the local grocery store and slam a quarter on the Street Fighter 2 machine challenging the winner of the current bout. I have waited in line at a Midnight release and walked 3 miles home afterward as my hometown shuts down the transit system after 11:00 pm. I have been a dedicated gamer, but this will be my last generation of gaming. I refuse to purchase an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4 knowing whats coming further down the line. It's all downhill for gaming from here and I am getting of this ride before it crashes.