When you have plans to post something, and you’re pretty sure it’s interesting, and then in the process of trying to do so you realize you forgot your username, and then in the process of figuring it all out you finally log in, and then have no idea what you’d originally planned to post about.
I hate that.
So it’s not a new thought – I’ve had it before, and posted it before (hell, maybe here – I’m too lazy (no, no, too inspired) to check), but I’m thinking about the costs of games again. So here comes a rambling discourse on stuff.
There are a lot of different ways to pay for your games nowadays. Apparently there are people out there that pay a sum of money, and receive some sort of physical device they keep for ever. It’s odd – I’m going to test this idea out in a month or two when I do that sort of transaction for Borderlands, Dragon Age (CE) and Alpha Protocol. So, say you pay $60 for an RPG type game or a shooter, and get 120 hours of enjoyment out of it. Then you play it again later for 30 hours or so. You’re looking at $.40 per hour of entertainment. If the game is something shorter, you start to get less, but even if it’s a 12 hour game, that’s $5/hr, which is movie price.
Then there’s the ever popular renting of console games. I’m pretty fond of that one. Pretty much I buy RPGs and Rhythm games, and that’s about it. Everything else is a rental. From a cost/hour perspective, that’s probably your best bet (assuming you actually play it once you get it – I’m horrible about renting them and turning them in a week later unplayed). If you get a good game, you’re looking at anywhere from 8 hours to 40 hours for a rental price, which is $5 to $10. So you’re anywhere from $1.25 to $.15 per hour in cost. Pretty good return.
Then you get an MMO. Initial investment is the same as a game, or less. First month, you’re probably playing 2-3 hours a night on average, assuming you enjoy it. Now you’re at $1/hr, which isn’t bad, but isn’t great compared to the other types. But then next month, you’re still enjoying it. Now you’re getting 60 hours for $15 – $.25 per hour. The difference is that if you play less, you can’t make it up – you bought a game, if you play 5 hours now and then 50 hours later, it’s 55 hours. In an mmo, it’s by month. So you lose value if you don’t play it. Shamus (shamusyoung.com and escapistmagazine.com (no relation)) has a bit on this that says it well, and is what prompted me to do this.
And then there’s free to play. More and more, I’m coming to be a fan of free to play (which is really microtransactions). You can play as much as you want, and if you want to spend some money, you can. But you can get by just fine without doing it (in a good f2p at least). DDO is doing it perfectly, imho – f2p with purchases, or just subs – best of both worlds.
But people complain that you can’t really play unless you pay. I call bs on that. If you’re lazy, or you need the shiniest and best, then you can’t (ironic, coming from me). Take my current f2p obsession, Wolf Team. It’s a shooter. You earn gold for doing things, and can buy gold or AP. Gold is used for weapons, and a couple other things, AP are used for stuff that makes you better – stronger wolf, can’t blow yourself up with grenades, etc. If you’re lazy, or not very good, you might need better weapons – having the basic stuff may mean you can’t play. And items have a duration. But really, they give you a sniper rifle. They give you a machine gun. They give you an uzi. The sniper rifle you get takes three shots, or a headshot. The sniper rifle you can buy is basically one hit. So if you pay, it’s easier. If you’re skilled, you’re fine. I’m playing with the basics only on purpose, to get better.
DDO is the same – people whine like crazy, but you don’t have to buy a damn thing. You get a lot of stuff for free, or you can spend $5 or $7 every month or two. And you’re doing a hell of a lot better than an MMO still.
Course, there’s a multiplier effect of some sort – $.50/hour for a game that’s okay is probably worse than $1/hr for a game that kicks ass, but I think there’s a limit – there’s mediocre, and there’s good, and there’s awesome. But paying $1/hr for good and paying $2/hr for awesome come out the same in a lot of people’s minds, I think. It’s hard to argue that an MMO is superior to a single player game in most cases. But a single player game isn’t significantly better. Unless it’s KoTOR, you’re getting enough fun for a good price. And that seems to be the key.
“You know, I really want to write something, like, deep and meaningful about MMOs or video games or something.”
“Yeah? That’s cool. You wanna, like, start looking at stuff to see what you should write about?”
“Nah, that’s a lot of work. I think I’ll write about, um, you know, like, girls. And video games. And why there aren’t any girls that play video games. Cause that’s cool, and also, like, girls would think it was sensitive and stuff.”
“Dude, you know that, like, studies and stuff show that more women play games than ever before, right? That now it’s more an issue of finding out what games girls enjoy, and treating them like, better?”
“Eh, I dunno. I think everyone knows that girls don’t play games. I mean, like, when I’m all ‘Hey, are any of you guys girls?’ no one ever answers me.”
“Okay, so, should we like, go do some research and stuff? I bet there are some studies and things out there….”
“Nah, I’m pretty sure I can figure it out. I know a lot about being a girl. I play one in WoW most of the time.”
I’m pretty sure it’s about 100% like that.
I work hard to prove to people that geeks are just folks with different ideas of fun. I make sure to temper any geekery with the awareness that there are non-geeks around, and include them in conversations. I try not to use words with more than 3 syllables in every day conversation (unless I’m trying to remind people that I am, in fact, fairly competent and bright). I do a fairly good job. Heck, people at my work don’t think I’m the geekiest guy on the floor (that honor is reserved for our resident WoW pimp, who has asked *everyone* on the floor to play).
So it is with great anger that I find things like this:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=56643
Hot Chicks, the RPG. It’s full of computer generated boobs and babes, apparently. And its mere existence makes my life about 7.43% more difficult.
I live in Wisconsin. It’s a bit different out here – they still talk about Star Trek like the only people that watch it are basement dwelling 30 year olds. When they mention video games, they do the hyuk-hyuk laugh. But generally, it’s not bad. Cause they’ve never seen Hot Chicks.
Of course, when I first moved here, I was reminded of something. The guys on this blog (I don’t really know the girl) are, for the most part, cool guys. Socially adjusted to some degree or another, cool with who they are, able to live a normal life. So I’ve kind of forgotten what’s out there in geek land. When I moved to WI, my wife and family didn’t come. So I set out to find like minded folks to kill two months with. I hit meetup.com and found RPG groups, and board gamers. I found a weekly gaming party, and started going. And I found, very quickly, that the board gamers were far more like me, even though I’d rather be playing RPGs. Out here, the geeks are still isolated, and segregated. They talk about the “norms” the “mundanes” or the “straights.” They wear their geekiness as a badge, because it unites them. Most of them work minimum wage jobs in a factory, or a furniture store, or retail.
And it’s weird. Because I don’t consider those “my people” any more. And I wonder if they ever were. And yet, when it came to gaming, I could out geek any of them. I could quote chapter and verse of rules. I taught them how to use AoOs. They had some geeky people, but I had *breadth* on them.
The last time I posted something with that title, it became this blog. So I’m hopeful….
I’ve finally gotten around to read The Dark Tower.
I *so* wish I could do a DMoTR/Darth & Droids version of the book and I’m only on book 3.
I mean, honestly. (Spoilers, I guess) I think it’s a nWoD game.
Roland is completely the powergamer player who has learned that building a huge, complex backstory means your ST will let you get away with a lot more, and maybe even give you free XP. Hell, he’s me. The first several games were just Roland and the ST, because they couldn’t find anyone that was willing to join a “post-apocolyptic western-medieval blend humans nWoD” game. Roland put 5 dots in firearms, maxed out the stats that go to will and initiative, and then took some kind of “survivor” merit. Then he took Dark Secret, Code of Honor, Quest, and any other flaws that basically meant he could be an asshole that only cared about shooting people, but also get more points for it. He took “disease-prone” too, cause his survival would let him outlive it.
Then someone else shows up. He’s the asshole, so he picks flaw “child” cause everyone hates the guy that plays a child. Then he flakes out, and they kill off his character.
Then Eddie’s player joins, and hasn’t played much. Roland convinces the ST to let him run a big backstory game, with Roland “advising” by being in his head. And then he says “Since this guy hasn’t spent much time playing, let’s give him 20 xp to spend after the first game, when he knows what he wants.” Then he helps him pick flaws. Addict is easy – just make a roll once or twice a day. Twisted upbringing just means you don’t care. Criminal past, cause it means you can fight cops too. Then Eddie comes through, and Roland convinces him to dump all *his* xp in to guns too.
Another dude shows up. Roland and Eddie explain how awesome flaws are, so this guy takes the highest points he can find, and goes for “no legs” and “deranged.” He doesn’t really know what schizophrenic is, so he just sort of plays it like an MPD, but with 2 personalities. And he *sucks* at acting. I see the scene – “DUDE, seriously. Have you ever *met* a real black woman? *NO ONE* talks like that.” He tries to spend his XP to buy off the stupid schizo flaw when he comes through, because it’s annoying everyone. But Roland’s player convinces the ST that he should get the stats from both personalities if he continues to keep it up, just at a lower level.
Then the dude that played Jake shows up out of nowhere again, and swears he’ll keep showing up, so they write him back in to the game.
Think about it. Get back to me. ;)
Sadly, the person posting this is not me. This is a quote from one of the guys I play TF2 with. Also someone who is a fsckin’ awesome geek.
“I once knew a family who were abusive to their kids. Calls to the department of social services did nothing. They also ran a bulletin board system that provided pirated software.
Imagine his surprise when somehow someone got access to his board, created an administration account, and provided that account to the FBI and the SPA.
You can’t raise your kids from prison.”
HELL yeah.
I know, it’s not entirely new. But I’m still occasionally surprised to realize how odd it is that I can freely refer to my wife and daughter by multiple names. Specifically, by their online handles.
Names certainly have a power – ancient peoples knew it, and then we forgot it, and now, it’s back with a vengeance. Your name is a portal to who you are, ad the panoply of things that exist about you on them there interwebs. Hell, when I registered myself on this blog, I set myself up reflexively with a nick. Then I noticed everyone else had their names, and got to thinking about it, and became Derek.
My wife and I play Team Fortress 2. A lot. Say, every day. And while we play, we can both easily refer to each other by our nicks without any real issues (okay, I lie a bit. My wife referred to me as Derek last week in a Left4Dead game. I had an instinctual reaction of fear and annoyance. Then I realized we were playing with a sum total of four people, two of whom were us. The other two were people we play games with just about every night. And it was entirely unlikely that, two days later, they would even remember my name. But I still had the reaction.
I know that this is pretty common for “the young people today.” But for me, it’s still an odd little piece of life. At one point, my daughter continued to refer to me as “Cat” for a day or two after every time we played together.
And back in the olden days, it was more pronounced. My online self was like me, but not entirely. I made an effort to stand out, so I adopted verbal tics, personality quirks (I referred to people by odd nicknames. Not things like ‘fuzzy nose’ but just things you wouldn’t normally pick. Michael would be Chae, rather than Mike. Elizabeth might be Zab. William would be Illi. Etc). I would occasionally even go so far as to espouse opinions I wasn’t entirely sure I believed in, or understood, in order to stand out more.
Now? Who the hell cares? I”m good with who I am. I’m a sarcastic geek who is rarely serious (which annoys my wife to no end), and I’ve sort of given up on worrying about what people think about me, because I’m pretty well happy with who I am, and pretty well busy getting on with my life, despite what random ‘net idiots might think.
I like it a lot better now. I’m not as interesting, but it’s a lot less work.
For me, coming out of the basement means something else.
It’s suddenly realizing that I’ve got 3 kids, a wife, and I could reasonably be called a mid-level executive, when 10 years ago, I couldn’t imagine having kids, thought being a manager was the worst thing I could ever do, and knowing that I would eventually find fame and fortune as either a senior *nix admin, a freelance RPG author, or both.
It’s suddenly looking around and realizing that all that stuff I’ve always wished I could afford isn’t the stuff I want any more (although I’m still gonna get one of those museum replica lightsabers when my wife isn’t looking).
It’s finding that, given the choice between going to a game night and staying home to help with the babies, I’m staying home to help with the babies (at least most of the time).
It’s realizing that I’m at the point where I’d rather just pay someone for a computer, instead of building one myself for half the cost, because the time I’d spend figuring out what’s top of the line and putting it together is worth less to me than the money.
It’s seeing my 15 year old daughter play WoW the way I used to (obsessively repeating instances until she has all the loot, running them 15x in a night until the right item drops, picking people randomly and whipping them in to shape), and listening to her wax sarcastic to everyone, wear a Star Wars shirt, and get annoyed about things that I used to rant about.
But it’s also playing MMOs on the couch with my wife, because we can afford new laptops, and that’s how we relax in the evenings.
It’s finding that it’s okay that I don’t have subs to comics any more – I can wait for the TPBs, and read 10 issues in a night, then hand them to my wife.
It’s finding that things I learned being a geek suddenly come back to help me later on.
It’s training myself out of my old habits, and learning that, in fact, you *can* learn to be a leader, even if it seems like a complete waste of time.
It’s realizing that I’ve found a niche in my career where being endlessly fascinated by patterns, details, minutae, and semantics is actually exactly what I need.
It’s waiting for the elevator and thinking “You know, I bet you could gather data for a week on stops and travel, and find the optimal floor for the elevator to wait on by time of day and day of the week, to reduce either the total distance traveled, or the time spent waiting per spot.” Then realizing just how few people there are in the world that think that way, and how that makes you valuable to a very specific group of people.
It’s having days when you have to explain to people, repeatedly, why you can’t average averages, why correlation does not imply causation, why you can’t just change one thing without others being impacted, and why, really, reports that aren’t repeatable and validateable are not, in fact, reports at all, even if they’ve been submitting them for months that way.
It’s learning that, the only reason your company is failing a key metric is because no one has sat down and said “What, exactly, goes in to this? And who, exactly, is part of the process? And why, exactly, do none of those people talk to each other?” then just asking the questions, and fixing the issue.
It’s being in Wal-Mart and deciding that, yeah, you’re gonna pick up 5 sets of the Star Wars characters you don’t have, and not being embarassed at the counter, or feeling like you have to say they’re for a child.
It’s finding that being a little eccentric at work gives you a bit more freedom, as long as it’s backed up by being good at what you do, and a couple subtle reminders that you are far more geeky and scientifically oriented than they could ever imagine.
It’s realizing that, were I to meet the me of 10 years ago, neither of us would really recognize the other, but we could still talk books, movies, games, and comics.
So yeah, I’m out of the basement, and I’m finding that life outside isn’t exactly what I expected. But damn, is it a good life. For all the cliches about not understanding what it’s like to be a dad until you’ve been one, and finding your purpose is to provide for others, and how much your life changes when you’re a husband, a father, a provider, and a quasi-grown up, they’re all really true.