GAMES! PRECIOUS GAMES! (Short Blog)

Sony recently started their relaunch of “Playstation Plus” by offering a deal completely unheard of this generation; FREE GAMES! For $50 a year, you get 12 free games a month and can keep them as long as your Plus subscription gets renewed. When I found out about the deal, I immediately signed up.

Unbridled love wasn’t what was in store from Sony’s fans, though. If you check any forums on the net, you’ll see people claiming that, “I’d much rather own the games, kthxbye.” I’ve even seen the argument that holding these games hostage for a yearly fee is asinine for Sony to do.

This makes no sense to me. When did games become so precious to people? Let’s put this Plus thing in terms of money, as well. If I were to buy every single game I got free at full retail price, I’d be spending $260. That’s enough to cover 5 years of Playstation Plus. Will I really have any desire to replay “infamous 2” in 5 years?

That aside, I’m getting quite sick of reading posts online about people who are claiming particular games are so worthy of their price points. Every game does not have the right to charge $60, regardless of how one feels about the title. Would you spend $60 for “Vampire Rain?” I sure as hell wouldn’t.

Also, why do you need to own every title for the rest of your life? There are very few games series to emerge in the last decade that I truly care about. Sure, I love Mario, Zelda and Yakuza, but those are but a few games in the grand scheme of things. If I owned every single game I’ve ever played, my house would be littered with boxes and discs.

Maybe it’s the fact that you can’t play them if PSN goes down? Still, dropping the price of one retail game to get 12 is just too good of a deal to pass on, even if I can’t own the titles forever. How could you hold hatred towards something like that?

I just don’t understand why so much love is being thrown around for titles that don’t truly deserve it. Who the hell even knows what “Sideway: New York” even is? For that matter, will anyone remember it once this month’s free games are cycled out?


From an aesthetic viewpoint, I guess I might.

I suppose this line of thinking could be hurtful to the developers who created the titles, but even they might admit that their games shouldn’t be owned for eternity. I don’t spend money on movie tickets and then have the producers lamenting that I didn’t get the DVD/Blu-Ray.

And to that effect, take a look at somebody like Jasper Bryne. When he released “Lone Survivor,” he didn’t give two shits if someone paid or not. He honestly just wanted people to play his game and come away with a great experience. Money was hardly a motivation for his actions (his catalogue of freeware games also expresses that).

Much like a line from “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” gamers are putting games on a pedestal. They are holding them up to some ungodly standard and failing to realize that simply playing a game and having fun is what’s important. Supporting developers will come naturally, regardless of whether you keep the title or not.

Maybe I’ve just become jaded after all the shit I’ve played, but I’ve discovered that caring a bit less about games has helped me enjoy more of them. Even though I’ll never be able to remove the adoration I have for Mario and Zelda, I certainly don’t care about Cole McGrath or Marcus Fenix to keep them in my lives past this generation.


Cry all you want, I just don't care!