MOP commenter Tandor Shadewalker recently made me think about what the game industry was like prior to widespread use of the internet. If you’ll allow me to paraphrase, he said that gamemakers made games, we bought them in stores, and on occasion we may have discussed them with close friends or family and even less occasionally written a letter concerning them to a gaming magazine.
In 2015 on the other hand, everybody’s a critic, social media gives a megaphone to people with nothing to say, and games are dissected, analyzed, and fought over before they’ve even made it out of alpha. While I can’t fully divorce myself from this silly and toxic climate and continue to do my job, I have begun to draw a very clear line between games I’m obligated to know about for professional reasons and games I choose to know about for personal pleasure. And I’m finding that the less I know about the latter titles prior to launch, the happier I am.
What about you, MOP readers? How closely do you follow pre-launch MMOs or games from your other favorite genres?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
