It's time to ditch the release cycle and select what we play via more interesting constraints.

The book readers have it figured out. I listen to book podcasts and follow a lot of (I hate this word) bookstagrammers, and the turnover of a new year is the best time to do either of those things. This is because they’re all reviewing their reading goals for the year that was and the year to come. Did they finish the number of classics they’d hoped? Did they finish the bibliography of Ballard novels? And will next year be the year they really commit to #JanuaryInJapan, when all over the world people dedicate themselves to reading translated fiction from the country?

I wish we did more of the same in videogames. Our equivalent discourse gets as far as ranking the best games of the year that was, and then immediately moves on to anticipating the next year’s new releases, pre-emptively stuffing our backlogs with games we’ll rue not having had the time to play when the next year draws to a close. Couldn’t we set ourselves some more interesting constraints?

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
    16·
    7 hours ago

    Treating games like books in a book club - where you play through something for the first time alongside a friend who’s also playing through it for the first time, and discuss it as you go, is a lot of fun and often leads to a greater insight into the storyline or mechanics or whatever else than you’d have gotten alone.

    • eleijeep@piefed.socialEnglish
      3·
      3 hours ago

      In that vein is a podcast that I listen to: New Game Plus. They pick one retro (15+ years old) game and play it for a week and then discuss at the end of the week.

      You can find them on their official site, over at YouTube or whichever podcast app you use.

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
      4·
      3 hours ago

      Totally. I wish I had some friends to get that experience more often. Closest I’ve been have been online discourse when playing certain games around launch, like Blue Prince, E33 and Elden Ring.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
        2·
        3 hours ago

        I especially love it with puzzle games like Blue Prince, where it’s less about sharing solutions and more about sharing theories and ideas. “Hey, maybe if we do X…” “Oh, that’s a neat idea - oh, wow, I bet if we used Y there it’d do Z…” type discussions. You get those neat eureka moments of shared inspiration riffing off of each other.