Those of us who came out of the chute in the 1980’s and have gamed ever since have experienced six distinct generations of digital entertainment. From the Atari’s and Colecovisions belching out caterwauling noise to the sophisticated (except the Xbox 360) entertainment machines of today, we have all experienced the joys of “The New Game.” The new Shiny Shiny. The blockbuster, the Triple-A title, the must-have for this holiday season. All of us at some point have experienced this, and we have all experienced this as children, when this would be the one game you got that year for Christmas or a birthday. I have a hard time remembering my childhood, not that it was traumatizing (bar a scalding incident with a kettle) or anything nearly as bad, it was just largely uneventful. What I do remember however are the games.
I come from a neither rich nor poor family. Mum made enough to get us by, and she even saw fit to gift me with my first game console when I was… oh christ I can’t remember. It was an Atari 2600 Jr which was initially released in 1982, at least in America. I was born in 1984 but I can’t have been two, so I must have been four. The point is, at the time , I had two games for the system, Road Runner and Midnight Magic. I loved those games so much, I poured hours and hours into running away from Wile E Coyote, and flipping balls. Eventually I moved onto the NES, Mega Drive, SNES etc. Each time, the console was bought by Mum, and each time, games were limited. But each time, I played each one to death.
Skip to now, I currently have 40 Xbox 360 games not including digital downloads, I have probably completed about half of those. The ratio is definitely worse when discussing the Wii and PS3. I know I am applying my own situation to make a generalization, but when did we become a generation of incompletionists?
I should feel guilty about spending money on another new Shiny Shiny when I have plenty of existing product I either haven’t touched or abandoned shortly after starting. This week alone I plan to buy another game for the Wii. Despite all this, what do I inevitably play after the rare occasion I actually complete a game? Final Fantasy VII or Team Fortress 2.
I have a theory why we do this. Why we buy new games when we have experiences we haven’t… experienced. It’s because we’re making an investment in that experience that we will one day cash in. However I doubt that day will ever come. For there will always be a new Shiny Shiny for us to buy, consume, and put away.
I started this article on June 24. Thanks to my insufferable, possibly ADD-addled brain, I completely forgot I was working on this. During the time away, I’ve just ended up with more product I will probably never complete, a post about one such purchase is forthcoming. For now though, I will just post this in all it’s incomplete glory, because I honestly forgot what my original point was. Oh well.