Why won’t I be buying The Sims 3? Because, although I sometimes do act like a dog who returns to his vomit, I have finally come to peace with the fact that I no longer have any interest in playing games that require as much effort as my job. So, sorry, no Sims 3 for me.
This was driven home to me recently when I foolishly started re-playing Animal Crossing after a hiatus of a few months. I enjoyed putting the town back together and “improving” it for a few days. Then, I took a vacation. And when I came back, the prospect of having to do it all over again because I wasn’t playing on the game’s preferred schedule made me angry.
This feeling of spite has been compounded by the fact that I’ve been playing (and buying) tons of iPhone games recently, and then also bought a Windows game for $30.
Here’s the difference between most good iPhone games and the PC game you last bought:
- The iPhone game cost 1/10th the price of the PC game, or less.
- The iPhone game was fun within the first minute of playing it. There was no obligatory hour of drudgery to get to the good part.
- You probably bought the iPhone game when you were in the grocery store. It came to you. To buy the PC game you either went to a store, went home to your desk, or ordered it from Amazon.
This vibe, in other words, was summed up on a forum site by a game developer complaining about PC games that took too long to become interesting: “[Games that take an hour before the fun starts] have to compete with wine, donuts and sex which all provide fun from the very beginning.”
Damn straight.
Those games sound dumbed down.
I recently had another lapse where I thought I’d try PC gaming again, based on rave recommendations for a few things. After suffering through graphical glitches and sputtering, the game that would at least boot up (Trine) somehow sent my machine into a panicky forced shutdown and I couldn’t even get it to turn back on for twenty minutes.
Every now and then these incidents are great — they remind me why I stick to consoles, handhelds, and the rare Popcap game. I’ve gotten much better at renting games, too, and if they’re not fun by the end of the first level I send them right back.