In the September 2004 issue of PSM, the staff there brought up an important topic concerning declining innovation among videogames. They blame the problem on so-called number crunchers, and they’re right to do so.
Number crunchers, then, are businessmen in suits and ties who look at data and eventually decide what gamers play. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about me. They care about making money. They look at percents and numbers and assume that they know what games you want. And that’s why there are few monumental titles out there. That’s why there are so many games that suck so much they function better as drink coasters and frisbees.
Once a huge game like Grand Theft Auto 3 arrives, the number crunchers swarm in like sharks. Their reasoning is that since the game did so well, you want more games just like it. Well, sorry boys, but we don’t. The reason why GTA 3 did so well was because it had revolutionary ideas, new perspectives, and innovation. It was something fresh and exciting that we actually wanted to play. But alas, any influential game will spawn many look-alikes. People get confused, thinking the fakes are as good as GTA 3, and spend their hard-earned fifty dollars on a crap piece of plastic. The number crunchers win, the people lose. The number crunchers laugh evilly and twirl their mustaches.
Even though there aren’t any other games like a particular title, one of these great games could go by unnoticed. Why? Well, we can partly attribute that to poorly set release dates. You remember the holiday rush of games in 2003, right? We saw countless games become doomed to anonymity because they were drowned in a sea of other games waiting to be purchased. Not that these were all bad ones. The problem was that there were just too many good games, and some simply received more praise than others. Take Prince of Persia, for instance. A great game, no doubt, but very few people were buying it.
Another reason why some games aren’t noticed is because some titles receive more hype than others. Ever heard of a game called Gitaroo Man? Probably not. It was very good, especially to music fans, but its sales were dismal. And now there’s no sequel to it because the crowds were enticed elsewhere. Innovative games die when there isn’t a budget to fund their follow-ups.
But we have hope. There are still people and developers who care about us gamers, who actually consider whether we will enjoy their games or not. We have people like Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima, for example, who have created such wonders like Mario and Metal Gear.
And we still have our wits and intuition. Wait, what? Yes, you heard me, we have brains. But what’s the use of having our senses if we don’t use them? How do we fight the number crunchers?
Well, for one, don’t buy bad games. Check out reviews at GamersMark from our staff. Check out reviews from any reputable source. I don’t care. Rent average games if you insist on playing them. Do anything you want, but please, please, please, don’t be one of the suckers who fall for the games that the number crunchers put out. Don’t give them your money for nothing.
I wrote this editorial because I’m tired of going to Toys R Us and finding games that are at full price but aren’t interesting. I want something that I can put my money into and know that I’m going to get something good out of it. And most importantly, I want the number crunchers to open their eyes and stop thinking we’re a bunch of monkey idiots who have money to waste.
Finally, to all of those who still care about us gamers, my sincere gratitude goes out to you.
We don’t want something that’s just like Grand Theft Auto. We don’t want tons of Halo look-alikes. We just want new games that are original and well thought-out. That’s why we play videogames.
