From Boom to Bust, Fantastic to Forgotten

By Joe Fourhman | August 19, 2008

Leigh Alexander, gaming blogger and new hire at Gamasutra, just posted an excellent thought-provoker on her personal weblog, Sexy Videogameland. It’s something I too have often thought about: why exactly do we yearn and yearn for certain games over months – years, even – and then immediately forget about them approximately 24 hours after release day? Here’s excerpts from Leigh’s spot-on timeline:

Here’s how it works — starting at about six months prior to release, the hype machine builds, reaching a fever pitch during the magical week…

Fast forward a month later, and the backlash begins with a strongly worded post from the blog community, perhaps one single acerbic writer who doesn’t get what the fuss is all about…

…[then we get] four months out of the magic date and we’re not even talking about it anymore, except to say, “hey, that was a pretty good game.”

Leigh goes on to point out that this is roughly what happens with every media-based pop culture fad, from music to movies. But isn’t it a bit depressing, particularly since our chosen obsession is tailor-made to deliver experiences far longer than a two-minute song or two-hour movie? Shouldn’t our finest hours deserve more than a quick trip to the trade-in shelf?

Grand Theft Auto IV is her example, a game that can literally be played for days on end. And that’s not even counting the new-gen online modes. But when was the last time anybody talked about it? Comparing stats. Sharing easter eggs. Pointing out any of the hundreds of interesting little secrets and tidbits built into the sprawling land mass of Liberty City.

It’s like GTAIV didn’t even happen.

Just this week I watched a (in-game) cable documentary about the (in-game) history of Liberty City – which subtly explained how our RL American history differs from Rockstar’s fictional America – and I realized that I have never seen anybody talk about this amazing little piece of video work anywhere online. Certainly not on any of the majors, although I concede I could have overlooked it. I can’t even find a YouTube shakycam of the history lesson.

When the super-secret upcoming DLC pack starts getting leaked, everybody will pounce on GTAIV again, but until then, it’s dry as a bone. And even then, it will likely be leveraged as pageview-churning partisan politics to pit 360 owners vs. PS3 owners.

How about Metal Gear Solid 4. Huge title, with huge expectations. Where’s the post-game analysis? By this point, we can’t ALL be afraid of spoiling the story for somebody who just picked it up, can we? No, as a community, we just seem to have completely lost interest.

Or Super Smash Bros Brawl. As one of Nintendo’s traditional Big Four games, and slow-cooked with weblog-style updates from Masahiro Sakurai’s official Smash Bros Dojo, there should still be plenty of user screenshots and custom levels and hidden Nintendo geekery to go around. Has anybody completed that huge-ass trophy wall? Doesn’t matter; we’re right back into complaining about the Wii’s fall release list.

People still play Halo 3, right? Aside from the weekly Here’s Somebody Amusingly Wearing a Master Chief Replica Helmet photo update, there’s not much meaty discussion unless you’re on a niche Halo-specific site.

Heck, go bake a Katamari Damacy cake and watch weblogs light up like Christmas trees. But did anybody care about the 360 exclusive Beautiful Katamari? Nope.

Is our collective attention span so short and so easily diverted by the latest hype stream, that we can’t be bothered to continue talking about the big, beefy, anticipated, loved/hated, million-selling, franchise-defining, console-pushing games that only a few months ago were on every magazine cover and headlining every website?

Or have these games (and others) simply failed to hold our interest? After all, we eagerly devour Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero news, raising their conflict to an either/or proposition worthy of the Presidency. Does Rockstar not issue enough press releases about additions to their nascent GTA online community, the Rockstar Games Social Club? Was Old Snake not Web 2.0 enough?

Think about it, and read Leigh’s essay. She also posted some great NYC photos that show off how closely Liberty City resembles its counterpart.