Get quoted in trade mag MCV! Talk about your gaming habits

Hi.

MCV's (world's biggest games trade magazine) running a feature on you lot and more specifically, what you do in and around videogames. Your comments will be published in the magazine due out on Friday of this week.

They would like to know:

How many games do you buy a month?

What would make you buy more games?

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

So get cracking. Should be cool! :-)

Cool, I'll kick off.

How many games do you buy a month?

Two

What would make you buy more games?

Better, earlier conversions. A mor credible, industry that I didn't think was constantly trying to trick my money out of me. More original games with a focus on fresh IP, rather than an endless line of sequels.

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

About twice as many as, say, 2000

Depends on the month, usually fewer than one, sometimes one.


Better games more often! Seriously, what a daft question. If there were more games that I wanted to play, I'd buy more games more often.


About the same for recent years, I bought more frequently for my C64 and Amiga. I would point out, however, this question should read "more or fewer".

1 - I probably get my hands on two newbies a month on average. Depends on the time of year.

2 - Better games and cheaper, obviously. Good NTSC-PAL conversions and substantial replay value are always good things in my book.

3 - I'm definitely buying more than I used to. Probably as a result of the industry growing like it has in the past decade.

Hmm, not sure about this, we spoke to Intent earlier today and they said MCV had gone to press for this Friday. Don't you mean next Friday?

How many games do you buy a month?

1-3

What would make you buy more games?

Better games

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

Less than previous couple of years

Please do feel free to add any other comments you wish. Your general ramblings about what and why you buy stuff will all see print!

Um, next week, right?

How many games do you buy a month?

Um, about half a month! I "rent" most of them from SPOnG's library

What would make you buy more games?

Lower prices and fewer "Me Too!" titles. I'm sick of seeing a parade of Grand Theft Alsos and Churnouts trying to clone a succesful model - and usually failing.

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

More than the last few years, fewer than the 8-bit, 10 quid a game days.

I guess I'm not a very good candidate for this survey :)

That really depends. Some months are fallow, and I won't buy anything. Then other months are rockin the joint off the hook, and I have to hit the credit card hard.


Better games, more originality. I'm not buying another bloody Tiger Beckham's NBF Wrestling Jam Underground game. Or another installment of Gran Turismo. What about some original games, please mr pubelicker.


Lesser. But that's more to do with the fact that I have a job now, and carnt spend all day lying around the Whitehouse in my shorts and playing Dessert Strike.

1-2


I use a George Lucas analogy here. The original Star Wars movies were great because he didn't have access to the biggest and best digital animation; thus he had to rely on an in depth story line and engrossing characters.

What ever happened to playability? what ever happened to an engrossing story? All the effort in games today seems totally focussed on making them technically better than before.

Another World anyone?


yes, to both; after just recently buying a PS2.

How many games do you buy a month?

I used to buy a couple a month, but now it's more like one every few months.
I have a backlog of stuff to play thru anyway.


What would make you buy more games?

um, a job :D


Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

I guess that would be less.

How many games do you buy a month?

Usually one or two depending on games released

What would make you buy more games?

I would buy more if there was a greater choice of games. Innovative, exciting games seem to few and far between these days. Lets see some risk taking and less 'reliable' titles.

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

Defintely buying more games now. I tend to own a few consoles at once now where before i only ever owned one.

How many games do you buy a month?

An average of 2.8 games, but probably chasing 5 or 6 in the good months (November/December)

What would make you buy more games?

Having more money.
Games costing less.
Having more time to play games.
Having fewer interests outside of games.
Proper promotion of weird games - If I had known about Mr Moskeeto when it was released I might have been able to find a copy before it vanished : (

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

More. Loads more. In the SNES days I'd be lucky to get 4 games in a year. And in terms of what you got for your money, it wasn't the best deal. Back then I'd grab a 2d platformer on import for £50 odd -simple, repetitive gamelay that didn't last for very long. Then you look at something like GTA, selling for £30 and offering loads and loads of playtime... by comparison, good titles today are pretty solid value.

So get cracking. Should be cool!

I hope that was cool enough. If not, please take account of this final comment:

"eyyyyyy"

How many games do you buy a month?


I buy few, because I have the honour and privilege of access to SPOnG's huge throbbing games library. But, because publishers don't love us as much as we obviously deserve, we don't actually get massive quantities of free games, and there is fierce competition for better titles. We all bought Burnout III, I resisted Driver, just because it was b******s, but I'll doubtlessly pick up a copy second hand to keep the set complete. I buy every Squenix title.

On average, based on a quick squizz at the cupboard, divided by the number of months since PS2 was released, I seems to be about 1.3125 games per month.

What would make you buy more games?

I know that this isn't the most original reply, but more originality in games would make me buy more. Games today are, quite often, absolute drivel. Walking around E3 this year, I was astounded by how unastounding it was. A sea of mediocrity.

Every game involved walking around a 3D environment, hitting thinks with a swrod/stiuck/spanner and using guns or magic to deliver destruction on other things at a distance. There may or may not have been the occassional puzzle, it's hard to say.

Are you buying more or less games now than you have previously?

I'm buying far fewer. I'm one of those old sods who remember when games were great, and cheap. Now they're not, and not.

I think the runaway growth in the size of the market is masking an underlying trend of indifference. OK, more and more people have consoles, and more casual gamers are being brought on-line... but this is hiding an underlying statistic. Games are getting poorer, and great games more rare.

The game developers are rightly or wrongly aiming at the mass market too much these days. Sports and licensed products are flooding the market and aiming at gamers who buy one or two titles a year rather than gamers who regularly buy every month. Whatthis ends up as is there is a huge swell in sales of these titles at key times of the year and the rest of the months we are left with a ton of mediocre rubbish that no-one will buy except ill informed parents and children.

Put on top of that the monoploy that companies such as GAME have on the market (simply no competition on the high street anymore and dictate that the price of all games should be a standard £39.99) and its a very grim situation indeed. Is it any wonder now i only ever buy software online or import from the US?