Today is the second day of Electronics Entertainment Expo (aka E3) in Los Angeles. Since I don't start my new job for a couple of weeks, I have the chance to watch some of the coverage this year.
Watching the press conferences reminded me that I am not the target audience for the major game companies showing at E3. While I have both a PS3 and a Wii U, I don't play console games. Basically, once the console companies switched from joysticks to the initial versions of today's controllers, I decided to just play PC games. I think the fact that EVE: Valkyre uses an XBox controller is one of the reasons I didn't like the game when I played it at Fanfest in 2014. Kind of hard to like a game when you can't work the controls.
Thinking back to Monday's press conferences, the only excitement I felt occurred when EA announced an expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic and the virtual reality demo for Minecraft. I admit I might pick up Yoshi's Wooly World on the Wii, because the game looks so cute. But for me, the most amusing part of E3 is watching the reactions of all the hard-core gamers and the drama I didn't know existed until I go on YouTube. If the screaming and tears aren't flowing now, just wait a couple of days.
I'll keep watching to see if anything pops up that might get me to pick up either an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4. But my PS3 has sat idle since the closing of Free Realms and I never owned an Xbox. Maybe in a couple of years when Project Morpheus comes online or if VR becomes advanced enough to no longer require the use of a controller I'll buy one. But for now, I think I'll just stick to playing MMORPGs on the PC and stay out of the mainstream gaming culture.
You call them "mainstream gaming culture," but I was playing games on a PC long before consoles were ever invented, unless you count pong. It's just easier to develop for consoles. The hardware is a very known quantity. But I don't see any difference between me and the console players, except I typically have a lot more money I could spend. I just haven't seen the game content to make me want to part with it. Who needs another FPS (though the new Doom looks awesome!) or another MOBA? I guess I'm longing for a revolution in gaming, not an evolution - or in the case of consoles a devolution. Perhaps VR will be the evolution I want, but I don't think so. That might not come until true AI is invented. Would that I should live so long. :)
ReplyDeleteA Reminder Of How Much Of A Hard-Core Mainstream Gamer I Ain't.
ReplyDeleteWe need to disassociate the gamer term from all the crazy that goes around. There is plenty of that right now.