A Word On “The Kevin Butler Speech” And Anti-Fanboy-ism

Something amazing happened while I was watching videos from E3 this year, I was surprised by something completely unrelated to a game or product release.   Watching the (so-far) marketing genius (until they run it into the ground) persona from Sony, aka Kevin Butler, something rings true from someone that should be selling me on their system.  A speech for everyone to serve under one gaming religion, regardless of their denomination, struck a chord with the crowd.   True, the words may have been pandering, but it got me thinking about the alliances that people have with their systems, where mine have been in the past and where they may be in the future.  

I’ve never bought into the Fanboy concept even when I was younger.   I owned both a Super Nintendo AND a Genesis at the same time.  The world did not collapse into a black hole, and I was a happy gamer as I could finish off a level from Super Mario World and Sonic in the same sitting.   I could play Mortal Kombat with blood, and then go and play Super Castlevania.   I had friends that trashed one system or the other until they were blue in the face, but I only saw that there was beauty in both.

I had a Playstation, but never bought an N64, not due to a preference for either system, but because I was in post-secondary school at the time and there was no room in my life, or more accurately my wallet, for a second console at that point.   I never slagged the N64, it had some great games that I would have loved to get in on at the time, and thankfully have been able to catch up on now.  Flash forward, I own all three major systems and have a great collection of titles for each, and see no reason to slag one over the others.   All three systems have some great exclusive titles, all three have their fair share of crap and more importantly, all three have made their mark on the gaming community.

Competition and having differing goals is the only thing that leads to innovation and the expansion of gaming in general.   This is why there is no way the one console future can be a boon to gaming and also why pledging one’s self to one particular console to the exclusion of all others is nothing but a form of fanaticism.   Excitement, enthusiasm, and being happy with what you have, are all great qualities to have being a gamer.   If you have no option but to have one console and it’s a choice, that’s a different subject, but flaming someone else because of their choice of gaming is nothing short of moronic.

Fanaticism in any form in this world ensures that there will always be some form of conflict.   Where someone takes a strong enough stance to change the strength of what they say from an opinion into a fanatical statement, there will always be someone else with the exact opposite strength of opinion to counteract it.   Where opinions can differ and everyone is entitled to one, it’s when the magnitude of that opinion becomes strong enough to become a point of conflict that it becomes counterproductive.

Long live gaming in all its forms, except those stupid little Facebook games.  They can burn in hell.  :)


Growing Up Gaming

I was really fortunate as I was born right when gaming got it's start.  I can't believe the advances that have come from the "Big Bang" that was Atari.  I've owned a lot of different systems and seem a lot of great, and crap, games come out for every one of them.  In the past 30 years of gaming, there's been incredible innovation, a third coming of "The Everyone Has One" system in the Wii much like the NES and Atari before it, along with the true coming of the "It Does Everything" systems that have the built in ability to stream media, surf the internet, and interact with friends, wherever they may be.  That being said, I've been thinking a lot lately about where gaming is headed and where the time and energy that I have for gaming is going to go.    
Gaming is going to be constantly subjected to the continuous "Bigger and Better" advancements, but my question becomes "Will I?"  Much as an adult often finds himself entrenched in the music of  a particular generation, often where they first found their true identity, do I eventually give up the future and entrench myself in a particular generation of gaming?  When does that line get drawn?  Admittedly, as I start getting towards "mid-life", I often wonder how much interest I'm going to continue to have in the "Bright and Shiny" as opposed to playing games that I've enjoyed before, occasionally picking up a new title, but really not being as vested in the up and coming as I am now.   
I have no where near the time to complete all the games in my collection, and yet I continue to buy more.  Am I just a compulsive buyer of games, destined to continue to grow my library, even though I'll never finish them all, or will I find a place when I say "I'm good." and just stop.  I don't know which to hope for to be honest.  I love gaming on pretty much every system these days and continue to be very happy in supporting the medium, but much like someone who enjoys eating, at some point in time you have to put down the fork.