936 Deciding What To Play, Part II

This quote, take from a past post:

“Well, I can say how I choose. It’s a deliberate balance of research, experimenting, preference, and open-mindedness. And a bit of careful planning. Later on, I’ll break down each of these and define them.”

So, let’s break these down.

Research:

This depends on how much experience someone may have with games in general, and how steeped they are in the general culture of it. Like film, if you’re a film buff, you’ll already have a good idea of what’s coming out, and what you’re excited about and what you might skip.

For games it’s the same, for me. If I read about something, I’ll often make a mental note of it, but if I’m particularly interested in it, I might go on the Playstation Store or my Nintendo Switch, or Steam, and put it on a “wishlist” somewhere, so that I don’t forget about it. I’ll occasionally go onto these stores to see what’s on sale, or whats coming out soon. A quick YouTube search of “___ gameplay” makes this a quick and easy process of learning about what the game could be like. Unlike film, which is generally represented by “trailers” which can be of varying levels of honesty in correctly representing the actual movie experience… games have a bit more transparency.

In my personal opinion, “research” doesn’t often involve very much reading into the reviews of games. This might be different for others, some people might have a particular resource that they have a lot of trust in, or that it’s more important to them to play things that are highly rated. My taste is obscenely broad, and I can generally find something interesting about most things I play, so my research process tends to focus more on other factors, like uniqueness of experience, exceptional or notable visuals, and of course some gameplay systems that are rewarding and empowering, and FUN.

Preference:

This one is tricky, because everybody has preferences, but sometimes our preferences can get in the way of having new and innovative experiences. I put a good amount of conscious effort into avoiding this personally, but it’s inevitable at some level. If i prefer to not be killing people in games, I won’t gravitate as much toward first-person shooters.

I just try to be aware of what’s grabbing my attention and what isn’t, and to think about why each of those are the case. If I find that I’m completely avoiding a specific genre, I may go out of my way to pick something up in that genre, and reaffirm (or prove false) my particular preferences.

This is specifically from the point of view of someone who is into game development, though. For someone who is purely enthusiast, I would say it’s a bit less important to go dramatically outside of comfort zones on a regular basis.

Open-Mindedness and Experimentation:

The idea of being open-minded is probably tied to “preference” above, pretty closely. If too much focus is put on personal preferences, the ability to be open-minded is lost.

Trying new genres is probably the most important path to growth, for me personally. It leads to experiences that I would have never expected to have, and creates new connections between types of games that inform how I design and think about new ideas.

That said, it’s a completely optional thing for many; there are so many games released on a monthly basis now that nobody will have any trouble sticking with their favorite genres and never deviating.

[ Today I Was Playing: Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition ]

#game-opinion