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Convenience. That is the motto of the future. From food, to shopping, and all manner of different services, everything nowadays seems to be 'get customer what they want fast'. Fast food is the norm, and shopping on the internet is fast catching up. But how about the situation in gaming?
So fair enough, you could class arcades as fast gaming. Pop a quid into the machine, and you get a couple of minutes' frantic blasting, racing or *snigger* dancing. Arcades are actually from where gaming originated, in all todays shapes and forms, so its hardly surpising that coin-ops are still in fashion and fun to use. But anyway, what I'm talking about, is convenience gaming.
With all this talk of multi-mega online broadband gaming download nonsense, I can't help but wonder which direction my gaming is heading. I have already gone through a number of like/dislike phases, starting with Spyro the Dragon and ending with GTA3 and Final Fantasy, but what really annoys me about gaming today isn't genres, peripherals, even the games themselves. What annoys me, is that games are so ridiculously expensive.
Example.
My (was) mate bought Excitebike 64 from an unnamed shop (to protect the non-innocent). He played it, dislike it and the next day, went back to the shop to get a refund, or at least, a different game. But no, he was shunned immediately, and the theiving rascal behind the counter, who had served him the previous day, offered him £14 for the game. £14!!! I'm surprised how much a game loses value after one night. But anyway, what I am trying to get at, is a try-before-you-buy kind of system.
Sure, demo discs are great, but I found that playing through a five minute demo of Maximo was not sufficient enough for me to decide whether to buy the game or not. What there should be, is a much more widely available and used rental system. The only shop that I know which remotely gives gamers a good deal, is Blockbuster, since they actually get games for rental when they are released. I wouldn't mind shelling out a fiver for a game for a few nights, long enough for me to decide whether its good enough to buy. Sure, I may decide against it, but at least I am given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buying a duffer.
This kind of 'fast-gaming', if you like, should, and could, be utilised in a very good way. I would never buy Metal Gear Solid 2; it isn't my kind of game. But I would rent it, sure. If game shops offered some kind of rental system, even for a tenner, it would be a much nicer offer than having to buy the whole game. I know that there are lots of copyright issues, and the fact that videos are much more cheaper than games makes matters different in the rental market. Its just that, I hate it when shops grab your cash and leave you with an hour long t**d. Not nice, I can tell you.
So if everything in the modern world is convenience, I see no reason why our gaming can't be like it too. PC gaming has undergone the change; you can download chunky demos from the internet, which laugh in the face of PlayStation demos, and it doesn't require the purchase of a heavily biased and immature PlayStation magazine either. When we DO get our broadband technology, perhaps the whold game-download scheme may be put into action, but until then, I think that you should be allowed to try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing. Just a thought.
So fair enough, you could class arcades as fast gaming. Pop a quid into the machine, and you get a couple of minutes' frantic blasting, racing or *snigger* dancing. Arcades are actually from where gaming originated, in all todays shapes and forms, so its hardly surpising that coin-ops are still in fashion and fun to use. But anyway, what I'm talking about, is convenience gaming.
With all this talk of multi-mega online broadband gaming download nonsense, I can't help but wonder which direction my gaming is heading. I have already gone through a number of like/dislike phases, starting with Spyro the Dragon and ending with GTA3 and Final Fantasy, but what really annoys me about gaming today isn't genres, peripherals, even the games themselves. What annoys me, is that games are so ridiculously expensive.
Example.
My (was) mate bought Excitebike 64 from an unnamed shop (to protect the non-innocent). He played it, dislike it and the next day, went back to the shop to get a refund, or at least, a different game. But no, he was shunned immediately, and the theiving rascal behind the counter, who had served him the previous day, offered him £14 for the game. £14!!! I'm surprised how much a game loses value after one night. But anyway, what I am trying to get at, is a try-before-you-buy kind of system.
Sure, demo discs are great, but I found that playing through a five minute demo of Maximo was not sufficient enough for me to decide whether to buy the game or not. What there should be, is a much more widely available and used rental system. The only shop that I know which remotely gives gamers a good deal, is Blockbuster, since they actually get games for rental when they are released. I wouldn't mind shelling out a fiver for a game for a few nights, long enough for me to decide whether its good enough to buy. Sure, I may decide against it, but at least I am given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buying a duffer.
This kind of 'fast-gaming', if you like, should, and could, be utilised in a very good way. I would never buy Metal Gear Solid 2; it isn't my kind of game. But I would rent it, sure. If game shops offered some kind of rental system, even for a tenner, it would be a much nicer offer than having to buy the whole game. I know that there are lots of copyright issues, and the fact that videos are much more cheaper than games makes matters different in the rental market. Its just that, I hate it when shops grab your cash and leave you with an hour long t**d. Not nice, I can tell you.
So if everything in the modern world is convenience, I see no reason why our gaming can't be like it too. PC gaming has undergone the change; you can download chunky demos from the internet, which laugh in the face of PlayStation demos, and it doesn't require the purchase of a heavily biased and immature PlayStation magazine either. When we DO get our broadband technology, perhaps the whold game-download scheme may be put into action, but until then, I think that you should be allowed to try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing. Just a thought.
SR are good too...
½pint wrote:
> I think that you should be allowed to
> try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing.
> Just a thought.
I think that EB has a fair system with the no fuss 10 day guarantee, if you do end up with a duffer you can just pop along and say "what the hell is this" and get a nice refund.
> I think that you should be allowed to
> try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing.
> Just a thought.
I think that EB has a fair system with the no fuss 10 day guarantee, if you do end up with a duffer you can just pop along and say "what the hell is this" and get a nice refund.
Convenience. That is the motto of the future. From food, to shopping, and all manner of different services, everything nowadays seems to be 'get customer what they want fast'. Fast food is the norm, and shopping on the internet is fast catching up. But how about the situation in gaming?
So fair enough, you could class arcades as fast gaming. Pop a quid into the machine, and you get a couple of minutes' frantic blasting, racing or *snigger* dancing. Arcades are actually from where gaming originated, in all todays shapes and forms, so its hardly surpising that coin-ops are still in fashion and fun to use. But anyway, what I'm talking about, is convenience gaming.
With all this talk of multi-mega online broadband gaming download nonsense, I can't help but wonder which direction my gaming is heading. I have already gone through a number of like/dislike phases, starting with Spyro the Dragon and ending with GTA3 and Final Fantasy, but what really annoys me about gaming today isn't genres, peripherals, even the games themselves. What annoys me, is that games are so ridiculously expensive.
Example.
My (was) mate bought Excitebike 64 from an unnamed shop (to protect the non-innocent). He played it, dislike it and the next day, went back to the shop to get a refund, or at least, a different game. But no, he was shunned immediately, and the theiving rascal behind the counter, who had served him the previous day, offered him £14 for the game. £14!!! I'm surprised how much a game loses value after one night. But anyway, what I am trying to get at, is a try-before-you-buy kind of system.
Sure, demo discs are great, but I found that playing through a five minute demo of Maximo was not sufficient enough for me to decide whether to buy the game or not. What there should be, is a much more widely available and used rental system. The only shop that I know which remotely gives gamers a good deal, is Blockbuster, since they actually get games for rental when they are released. I wouldn't mind shelling out a fiver for a game for a few nights, long enough for me to decide whether its good enough to buy. Sure, I may decide against it, but at least I am given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buying a duffer.
This kind of 'fast-gaming', if you like, should, and could, be utilised in a very good way. I would never buy Metal Gear Solid 2; it isn't my kind of game. But I would rent it, sure. If game shops offered some kind of rental system, even for a tenner, it would be a much nicer offer than having to buy the whole game. I know that there are lots of copyright issues, and the fact that videos are much more cheaper than games makes matters different in the rental market. Its just that, I hate it when shops grab your cash and leave you with an hour long t**d. Not nice, I can tell you.
So if everything in the modern world is convenience, I see no reason why our gaming can't be like it too. PC gaming has undergone the change; you can download chunky demos from the internet, which laugh in the face of PlayStation demos, and it doesn't require the purchase of a heavily biased and immature PlayStation magazine either. When we DO get our broadband technology, perhaps the whold game-download scheme may be put into action, but until then, I think that you should be allowed to try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing. Just a thought.
So fair enough, you could class arcades as fast gaming. Pop a quid into the machine, and you get a couple of minutes' frantic blasting, racing or *snigger* dancing. Arcades are actually from where gaming originated, in all todays shapes and forms, so its hardly surpising that coin-ops are still in fashion and fun to use. But anyway, what I'm talking about, is convenience gaming.
With all this talk of multi-mega online broadband gaming download nonsense, I can't help but wonder which direction my gaming is heading. I have already gone through a number of like/dislike phases, starting with Spyro the Dragon and ending with GTA3 and Final Fantasy, but what really annoys me about gaming today isn't genres, peripherals, even the games themselves. What annoys me, is that games are so ridiculously expensive.
Example.
My (was) mate bought Excitebike 64 from an unnamed shop (to protect the non-innocent). He played it, dislike it and the next day, went back to the shop to get a refund, or at least, a different game. But no, he was shunned immediately, and the theiving rascal behind the counter, who had served him the previous day, offered him £14 for the game. £14!!! I'm surprised how much a game loses value after one night. But anyway, what I am trying to get at, is a try-before-you-buy kind of system.
Sure, demo discs are great, but I found that playing through a five minute demo of Maximo was not sufficient enough for me to decide whether to buy the game or not. What there should be, is a much more widely available and used rental system. The only shop that I know which remotely gives gamers a good deal, is Blockbuster, since they actually get games for rental when they are released. I wouldn't mind shelling out a fiver for a game for a few nights, long enough for me to decide whether its good enough to buy. Sure, I may decide against it, but at least I am given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to buying a duffer.
This kind of 'fast-gaming', if you like, should, and could, be utilised in a very good way. I would never buy Metal Gear Solid 2; it isn't my kind of game. But I would rent it, sure. If game shops offered some kind of rental system, even for a tenner, it would be a much nicer offer than having to buy the whole game. I know that there are lots of copyright issues, and the fact that videos are much more cheaper than games makes matters different in the rental market. Its just that, I hate it when shops grab your cash and leave you with an hour long t**d. Not nice, I can tell you.
So if everything in the modern world is convenience, I see no reason why our gaming can't be like it too. PC gaming has undergone the change; you can download chunky demos from the internet, which laugh in the face of PlayStation demos, and it doesn't require the purchase of a heavily biased and immature PlayStation magazine either. When we DO get our broadband technology, perhaps the whold game-download scheme may be put into action, but until then, I think that you should be allowed to try somethoing before you pay the ridiculous sum of money for the whole thing. Just a thought.