Fear of the New

First of all, there are simply too many games released...

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My sense is that longtime users of this site (and its predecessor) generally aren't that keen on collecting games for the sake of it, or for "following the crowd" and wanting to play all the newest stuff just to say they have. So the "keep playing great games repeatedly" credo will find a lot of purchase here.

When my kids were very young, I was largely absent from gaming forums for a few years and had little to no sense of what was en vogue at any point in time, unless I was able to make a rare foray out with my group. It's almost like I live a couple full years behind wherever the tastemakers and "try all the hot new games" hobbyists are--but that's OK. If you build up a stable of people whose reviews/ratings/comments you grow to trust, you can pretty easily discover after the fact which titles are most likely to be winners for your tastes, and which others might have had a meteoric rise in gaming mindshare but didn't hold up over time. Unless it's a super niche game from a boutique publisher, it's probably obtainable (or will come back in a reprint).

Boy, Joel makes a point. One of the reasons I like posting here is that most opinions come from a position of experience.

I was on Reddit the other day talking about Thunder Alley and its negotiative aspect and the guy on the other end didn't think there was any negotiation in the game at all. Didn't strike me as dumb, just not very experienced with the game. A lot of people have only one or two plays in of most if not all games.

^I always argue playing and exploring games many times is an informal core site value.

Gary Sax wrote: ^I always argue playing and exploring games many times is an informal core site value.

I would agree. I have been pleasantly enriched by the discussions on these forums. And they have led me to a number of sound purchases that I have thoroughly enjoyed.

Even when there is a hot take on a game here, it's much more informative....especially on negative takes. Instead of just hard panning a game that was played once, the contributors and crowd around here tend to skew towards, "it's not my cup of tea" and a delineation of the games mechanisms that hit and miss with them.

I'm glad that people here see it as important that games should be played multiple times to fully enjoy them. It's very refreshing, when in other places everyone seems to talk about the new hotness all the time.

I probably average two games days a month of 5-6 hours each so learning a new game all the time takes away time I'd rather play games I know and I can just sit down. And start right away.

In summers I'm gaming 3-4 times a week as my son is home from college so learning a couple new ones is not at big a deal. But I still like playing games he and I have played a lot before as we have history in that game so as we play game 20 of something, we'll remember a memorable moment from a previous game and talk about it.

Yeah, I'd much rather play one game 25 times than 25 games once. It's a mixture of my personality and liking to save money.

It's really lovely to hear that others enjoy playing the same game multiple times, rather than always focus on the latest hotness.

To me, "fear of the new" is not wanting to waste my time with a new unproven game when I have so many proven awesome games I could play instead.

quozl wrote: To me, "fear of the new" is not wanting to waste my time with a new unproven game when I have so many proven awesome games I could play instead.

Fear of wasting time.